So what is up? Sunday I ate one meal to 6 and another one yesterday. Not only that, but I have had constant thoughts of food. In fact, last night, I obsessed about brownies! I haven’t experienced brownies being such a powerful draw in a long while.
I dug in my heels and refused to succumb to eating the brownie and ice cream (just a tiny bit…) unless I was at a zero. ALL EVENING I looooonged to be at a zero. I was LUSTING big time for that zero so I could have “My preciousssssss….” The zero never came and I actually considered several times having the stupid brownie anyhow just to “End the torment!” I realized that this was what I did over and over again in the past. I minimized the significance of indulging in “Just a tiny brownie and just a dollop of ice cream…” It isn’t even the food that is the issue here. It is my HEART. I didn’t want to harden my heart to the sweet voice of God in exchange for the insistent voice of the stupid brownie! Good grief! How is it that something like that could have so much POWER over me? :-/
I finally went to bed at 10pm (No, I didn’t eat the brownie), but no sooner did my head hit the pillow then hunger hit BIG time! AH! BROWNIE TIME!!!!!
That thought was followed by God stopping me dead in my tracks. My gentle, loving Shepherd laid it on my heart that while I could get up to go eat, that I needed to bypass the brownie. Why? Because brownies are evil? NO! Because brownies are not nutritious? NO! I had to bypass the brownie because I had to be master over IT instead of letting it own me! So, God convicted me that even if I ate (which I was free to do, even if it was 10:15pm by this time), it would be something other than the brownie. Ok, so I did not have a godly little attitude about that. More like “Wow, Lord…that is a total bummer…are you sure?”
I chose to fast that hunger to the Lord and go to sleep instead.
This morning, when I woke up, the first order of business in my quiet time with God was to look at just what has been going on with me! Why the eating to a 6 at Sunday’s lunch and again yesterday at lunch? And why the obsessive thoughts about the brownie? That isn’t freedom! So what is up?
God showed me in the quietness…in the stillness…the brownie has no power over me, but what did is feelings of rejection that I had at church on Sunday. I was deeply wounded and I hadn’t yet recognized that pain or given it a voice. I spent time this morning, sharing with the Lord the pain I felt about what happened on Sunday and then intentionally choosing to forgive the one(s) who I felt wounded by.
You know what? That act rendered a death blow to Brownie Obsession! LOL!
Funny how my emotions, even when they are not at the surface…can play a powerful role in causing food to seem like an answer when I am not hungry!
This is a minute and a half long video clip from a Thin Within DVD made in 2002 that I used in my group on Wednesday night. In it, “Karen” speaks of breaking free from condemnation. I thought it might encourage some of you.(At the time this was recorded, Karen had released 25 pounds.)
If you get an “Oops No Video!” error, use this link to view the video.
Karen, if you are out there, please email me or post a comment or visit the Thin Within forums and let us know how you are doing! Many of us wonder how you are!
My hubby, Bob, is applying the Thin Within principles now, too. He has released about 7 pounds. So today, at our anniversary lunch, we took pictures of our meals – before we ate any of it (when it was served), after we ate (what was left on the plate), and the carry out container with the left overs.
First, my meal–I ate about 5 chips with bean dip while we waited. (Not pictured! LOL!)
Cheese enchildas (2 of them), refried beans, and rice. YUM! The above is what was served to me.
I was at a 5 (physically satisfied, no longer hungry, comfortable) when I finished eating. The above picture shows what was left of my meal after I was done. I tried to eat really slow…putting my fork down, talking between bites, sipping my soda. I had only one diet soda with dinner–a record for me (diet soda is something God is working on my heart to release again to Him…more on that another time).
Here is all the food I got to take home! At least two more meals for me, if not three! It is hard to see, but there are actually one and a half enchiladas in the carryout.
Below is what hubby was served:
Steak fajitas. The tortillas aren’t pictured. Below is what was left when he was done:
As you can see, there is a truckload of food left! He figures he will have at least two meals left to enjoy at home, too. YAY, Bob! Even though he ate so little (he did fill up a bit more on chips and had two diet sodas with dinner), he said once the diet soda hit his stomach, he was at a 7. Whoops! But that feeling dissipated pretty quickly. This is what his carryout looked like:
So there you have it…another testimony to how little food we can survive on!
Some would say eating this stuff isn’t “healthy.” For a year and two months I have applied the principles of Thin Within and allowed God to renew my mind about food. I have eaten all the “real” foods you see pictured here in my blog and more. I have eaten them in moderation, however. My cholesterol has been in the healthy range, I am no longer on blood pressure medicine and my blood pressure is normal. (THANK YOU, LORD!!!) I have energy and never feel deprived or struggle with “guilt” about eating something “naughty.” Everything is permissible. Garcia’s mexican food is a “whole body pleaser” for me. In moderation, I can eat and be satisfied and feel great afterwards.
Nothing that *I* could do in myself has caused the weight to come off or my blood pressure to be normal again. He has put in me the desire to have a heart set on him instead of food.
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” (Galatians 5:1). Here is a passage that I think is very powerful. Pray and dare to fathom what God wants to do in your life! He works the wonders! Believe that He can do it!!!
Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
The horse dream ended up in a very real way being a nightmare—God continued to shut down everything to which I looked for satisfaction but Him (including my horses!).
I stopped riding due to challenges the horses faced (the one in the picture wasn’t even 5 yet and came totally lame…surgery was required…he is only 9 now and is retired). Between that and my escalating weight (again), I stopped riding. This was a heartache as well.
God was insistent. Gentle, yes, but insistent. Would I look to Him? Or would I continue to resist His call?
In the fall of 2006, I got involved in an online Christian horse owner’s list. I wanted to fellowship with other believers who loved and were owned by 🙂 horses. I guess the group owner “Googled” my name and found out about my involvement with Thin Within.
The internet is an amazing place. We can be whoever or whatever we want independent of how we look. In real life, had this woman seen me, she might have been very polite and never even mentioned a “Christian diet book” to me given I carried 100 (or so) extra pounds—even if I “helped write” it! But, not having seen me, she didn’t know I didn’t practice what I preached…And innocently asked me about it. She had no idea that this was something from my past—or was it?
She was a tool in God’s hands to flush me out of hiding!
In fact, she asked me to lead the horse group members through an online study of the Thin Within book. Good grief! God was actually pursuing me! Rather than interpret it as indicative of His great love, I felt trapped. 🙁 And a bit annoyed.
Not willing to be Jonah and run the other way, however, I went along with it. After all, no one had to know the truth–that I was almost as big as ever and didn’t give a flying fig about surrendering this to God…right?
I am sure that precious woman didn’t have a clue how God was using her. She may have only known that she and others in the group wanted to lose weight (or, at the very least, make it through the holidays without gaining) and Thin Within was a “Christian diet” (or so they thought—it isn’t at all, but they didn’t know that yet).
It is funny how the Lord works things out.
Early in November 2006, I began to share lessons about Thin Within on the Christian horseman’s list. Getting to know the group, I also shared the video of Daniel and Dodger.
In response to that, I discovered that a young mom of a four year old boy…who had been diagnosed with the same autism spectrum disorder as my Daniel—Asperger’s Syndrome—was also present on the list! When we began to talk about our sons—hers only 4 years of age and mine 14 years old—we shared and talked and shared and talked some more. I had walked this road 10 years ahead of her…and God used her earnest questions to soften my heart some more. There were times when I would come through an email exchange in tears…both at the pain I had touched upon in my own life in order to reach out to her, but also with joy that the years of heartache had an outlet…a positive one.
God showed me again…He spins straw to gold if we allow it.
The question was, would I yet continue to resist that God is God? Could HE use me in some way to encourage another about her child’s autism?
How ironic…I found that, in spite of myself, I did have encouragement to offer her. If nothing else, I could share pitfalls to avoid, blessings to rejoice in…and as I shared with her, I found that God was redeeming many years of pain, years of resentment that He chose to make my son autistic, years of feeling God’s “cold shoulder.” I began to consider that God had much more tenderness toward me, and toward Daniel, than I realized.
As I shared daily in just two short weeks with the online horse group about Thin Within, God continued to melt my heart…this time, combining the awareness of the truth about Thin Within with his gentle nudge to look at all the areas of my life I had yet to surrender or to surrender…again.
Because of what I learned in 2001, I knew forgiveness of others, of myself and, even of God, was an important factor. I knew that, if nothing else, it would help clear the air in my life and lift burdens I was carrying needlessly.
Not so nearly the huge undertaking it had been in 2001, I was able to move forward quickly.
Early on, a song came on KLOVE radio that echoed the stirrings in my heart for the first time in a number of years:
You are my desire,
no one else will do….
help me find a way,
bring me back to you…
You’re all I want.
You’re all I ever needed.
You’re all I want. Help me know you are here.
God was making a way in the wilderness…and a way to bring me back to Him. That song was like a healing ointment applied to my heart, softening it. God gently peeled back the callus…and the heart beneath was tender.
Another song ministered to me deeply– “He’s My Son” by Mark Schultz. God used that song to show me that He was, indeed, aware of my heartache and pain. He reminded me that He, too, gave up His Son…only He gave His Son over to sinful man. He was not asking me to do that. He asked me to trust my only son to HIM—to the Lord. To let God be God.
As if to confirm what He was showing me in the stillness of my quiet times with him, another song came on the radio while I was driving through the canyon near our home:
God is God and I am not
I can only see a part
of the picture He’s painting
God is God and I am man
So I’ll never understand it all
For only God is God
God showed me unmistakably that he cares, that he is here, that he is making a way, even when I see no possible way for that to happen. He IS doing a new thing, even when I don’t perceive it.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43:19
He is faithful to complete that which He has begun (Philippians 1:6). I had allowed my vision to be blurred by bitterness and fear. As these blinders came off, I could begin to see the truth. Truth sets me free (John 8:32)—The truth that He loves, He cares, He is involved…He calls to me, to you. He beckons to us to draw near to His love…so great a love. So unfathomable, in fact, that we may miss it.
I challenge you, dear reader…believe Him for the truth. He says the truth is that He IS doing a new thing. Will you choose to believe God? To believe what He says?
Tomorrow, I promise 🙂 the close of this lengthy testimony.
Hi, everyone. Something soooooo interesting to me has occurred to me, so I simply must share.
Prior to being involved with Thin Within, I had a year of involvement with a popular weightloss program and then another one…and lost 110 pounds and with all the compulsive working out I did, including training for marathons and intense strength training, my bodyfat percent got to 14.5% which is pretty low for a lady my age at the time with two kids. I was thrilled, but I was in such intense captivity from eating that way and working out…and any time I didn’t work out, I feared that I would gain. I truly exercised to lose weight. My husband calls those days my “bulimic” period as I would eat and then “purge” by exercising all the more. Some days, even when I wasn’t doing a long training run (which could be 18 miles long or longer, as Ellie and others probably know), I would still workout two times or for 3 or 4 hours! Captivity!
In November a few months ago, I began to try to add intentional exercise back into my life. Mind you, it has been over 10 years now since I have done the marathon thing and the body building (which was really what I was doing, if I can be honest…). Recently, a thought occurred to me…it was like God shone His light on a thought that may have been there since November that I just didn’t identify as NOT being from Christ! It was FEAR that “Oh no! If I don’t have time for my workout, I will gain weight!”
It hit me like a lightening bolt that I had this thought that was totally, 100% a lie!
I was able to say to God, “What IS this? What do I DO with it?”
I have been carving into my life time for exercise now because I am enjoying it so much. I never want to return to compulsively exercising again. I have always loved being active–even when I did all of that 10 years ago, but I distinctly remember that it had begun to be motivated by fear…
Anyhow, God’s Holy Spirit quietly but definitively told me, “Don’t worry, Child. If you don’t have time to exercise, your body will just cue you that you need less food less often.”
Well, DUH! When I exercise, I find 0 much more frequently! When I don’t, the only difference for me in the day really is that I won’t get to zero as fast! So just don’t eat…until…zero! DUH! LOL!
0 to 5 eating works!
Days when I am inactive for other reasons (rain or injury or sickness…) it stands to reason…eat when I am at 0 and my body will get what it needs when it needs it. Stop when no longer hungry and presto…
It makes me think of when I was eating 0 to 5 in the year 2000. I had released weight (as I always do with this approach…why I ever walk away from it is beyond me…) and had a NASTY roller blading accident where I dislocated my ankle and broke my leg. I was laid up BUT GOOD for months…truly. I continued to release weight even though I was inactive. All because God made my body reliable and He continued to tell me when to eat and when to stop and enabled me to Just Do it!
Anyhow, I had to share with you all that I was SO relieved to realize this again in a VERY REAL way….what relief came over me! I don’t *have* to worry that my life has grown dependent on exercise like I allowed it to before. YAY!
