Renewing My Mind – Evening Eating Part 2

Renewing My Mind – Evening Eating Part 2

nighttime2

This week we are hitting “Night-Time Eating” head on by creating truth cards that will help us fight the lies we believe that cause us to give in to temptation after dinner with TRUTH.

Today, I want to share with you page two  in my truth card deck!

  • This “habit” (of eating at night) is the single BIGGEST hindrance to my confidence that I am currently at my God-given size.

After I obsessed and went nuts and dropped all the weight I did, it was clear that I had gone too far. So I am not at that LOOOOOW a weight right now. I am good with that. But what I *don’t* know is if I am where I should be. I don’t think the number matters at all. But night-time eating is sort of a bug-a-boo for me. I haven’t conquered it at all. I know that many evenings, I do “desire” eating. If I were to be obedient during this trouble time, I know that I would have confidence that no matter what my size or number or whatever, I am right where God intends for me to be.

  • I need to CHOOSE to surrender my “desire eating” in the evening to God. Will I?

It really boils down to WILL I OBEY GOD? Or my desires?

  • Will I call “foul” to God when he asks me to give evening eating over to him?

Is this one of those areas where I retain *my* (supposed) rights? Or am I truly surrendered…”Not my will, but thine be done?” No food tastes as good as obedience feels!

  • Is giving up food after dinner (when I am not hungry) worth what I get in return?

There truly is no sweeter sensation–no tantalizing taste-bud thrill–than loving God with my choices. The peace that I experience when I submit to his authority is just SO wonderful!

HOW ABOUT YOU?

Are these truths that you can add to your truth card deck? How is it going for you using your truth cards? What truths can you add to these that I have posted?

Renewing My Mind – Evening Eating Part 1

Renewing My Mind – Evening Eating Part 1

untitled

Do you struggle with eating after dinner? I know that many do. We aren’t typically hungry for the few hours that follow dinner time, yet we nevertheless end up eating. I have three truth cards for that as well. It helps me to read these truth cards out loud just before dinner time. It also helps me to read them out loud just after dinnertime, too. If I find I am tempted, I like to launch Barb Raveling’s “I Deserve a Donut” app (she has an I Deserve a Donut book now too for those without iPhones!) and use some of her questions to illuminate what is going on.

In any event, here are THREE truths that I can say out loud that help me to NIP EVENING EATING in the bud!

  • Unless I eat an early dinner (or light dinner, stopping before I reach a “5” on the hunger scale), I simply WILL NOT BE HUNGRY before bed!

Have you experienced this? Where you know that you ate plenty at dinner time, but you know you are planning…actually planning to eat anyhow? Do we want to BE CURED of this overeating and extra weight stuff? Do we really WANT to be obedient to the Lord in eating only what we need for fuel? Then the truth is, unless we eat a very early dinner or an extremely light dinner, it isn’t likely we will be hungry before bed!

  •  I sleep better when I don’t overeat at bed-time or just before.

Have you ever had a food-fest in the evening while watching TV or a movie or playing games with the family? Or perhaps that is your computer or reading time and you just munch most of the evening? Has it affected how soundly you sleep? It does for many of us who struggle with this. When we use food for fuel, we are able to sleep peacefully!

  • When I don’t overeat at night, I wake up hungry for breakfast which is a good thing!

A lot of people assume that they need to eat in the morning when they wake up. Honestly, when I overeat the night before, I am not hungry until 10am or sometimes even 11am! Is this true for you?

How About You?

Do you struggle with night-time eating? Might speaking these truths out loud each morning and again in the evening before you eat after dinner actually help you? What are your strategies for emerging victorious over the temptations to eat in the evening “just because?”

Stay tuned for part 2 of night-time eating Truth Cards!

Goodbye Scale!

Goodbye Scale!

Photo courtesy to www.freedigitalphotos.net

Photo courtesy to www.freedigitalphotos.net

Dear Scale, I’m done with you!  I’m finished!  You no longer get to tell me who you think I am or how well I am doing.  You do NOT define me!  You are not my friend anymore. Goodbye!  Sincerely, Christina

This is overdue.  I meant to write this weeks ago.

It’s Sunday night, July 13, 2014.  We had a glorious weekend with BEAUTIFUL weather!  We live in Southeast Alaska.  It rains a lot here.  We get 14-feet of precipitation a year.  Yes, you read that right, 14 FEET!  Our temperatures this weekend were in the upper 70’s.  That is warm for us.  It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!

Last night, I had this idea that I would weigh myself this morning.  About a month ago, I removed the scale from my bathroom and put it in this storage space we have below our house, which is in a room above our cistern.  (Because of all the rain we get, we collect the rain water into our cistern tanks, which is then filtered, and that’s the water we use for drinking and bathing).  The room above the cistern is like an above ground crawl space.  That’s where the scale lived for a few weeks…until last night when I got that [evil] thing out.  Some of you may be wondering if I prayed about this: NOPE!  I was full-throttle on-a-mission and I think the Lord was like, “Okay, have your way.  You shall see…”

Mirror, mirror…who is the most beautiful of all?  Well, let’s just say it’s, “Scale, scale, tell me, am I beautiful?  Have I been good?  Am I too much?  Or not enough?”

I thought, “I’ve been doing really well (I’ve been good).  I’m following my boundaries pretty consistently.  God is changing me and transforming me.  Let’s see the proof in the puddin’!”

I woke up.  I got out of bed.  I went (yeah, you know what I mean, let’s empty everything so no ounce counts against us).  I put my 8-pound weight on the scale just to be sure it’s accurate (oh boy!).  I stepped on the scale.

I gained 2 pounds!  TWO pounds!  GAINED!

Wait!  This can’t be right.

Step off the scale.

Let’s try that 8-pound weight again.

Ready.  Let’s try this again.

Step up.

Still a 2-pound gain.  Sigh.

Now remember, it’s a beautiful day.  But the majority of my day was spent in with this cloud hanging over me, all because of a number.  A number.  Two measly pounds.  I let it define me.  I let it steal my joy.  I let it steal my whole day.  I was grumpy.  I set the mood for my home and my husband was affected, and so was my daughter.  I was in a stinkin’, rotten mood all because of a contraption that spits out a number.

Really?  I’m going to let it have that much leverage?

I’m DONE with it!

I am NOT what I weigh.  I am defined by Jesus Christ.

So hours later, which really should have been right away, I sat down and renewed my mind using the Dumb Scale Eating questions from I Deserve a Donut app (there’s also the book) by Barb Raveling.  That helped, but I still had a bad attitude.  So then a little while later, I renewed my mind with the Discontentment questions from the same app.  One of the questions asks what God wants me to do, and right away He showed me that I needed to apologize to my family for having such a bad attitude.  And so I did, and they forgave me (along with hugs and kisses).

I’ve never walked away from the scale feeling better.  Even if I had a weight loss, I still felt discontentment rising up in me.  It will never be enough.  It’s a tool the enemy has used in my life to make me feel like the scum of the earth.  Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but really, I have allowed it to define me.  I am not my weight.  I am more than a number!

So this is what I’m going to do.  I’m going to ask my husband to hide the scale and I’m going to ask him to not let me have it back–ever!  (Unless the Lord clearly gives me the “ok” to weigh).  Really, I’m so done with it!  We actually have a use for the scale for weighing our luggage when leaving town since Alaska Airlines doesn’t really like a bag to be over 50-pounds (sometimes we are just tired of the rain and we would rather see snow or sun, you know?).  We aren’t light packers, what can I say?  So…he’s going to hide it and I’m going to be done with it.

Will you join me in this?  Will you get rid of or ask a family member to hide the scale?  Or wean yourself off the number-spitting contraption?  Maybe instead of every day, how about once a week?  And then once a month, and then every 3 months?  And then never?  The number isn’t important.  You are important!

This is a scripture that was included with the Discontentment questions from I Deserve a Donut.  It really spoke to me:

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being RENEWED day by day. For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Cor. 4:16-18

I don’t want to look at what is seen (the scale).  I want to believe by faith that God is doing a work in me.  Because He is transforming me, from the inside out.  One of the questions asked in the Dumb Scale Eating questions is: Is it more important to lose weight, or to consistently renew your mind so you change the way you think about food?

Well, obviously it’s more important to consistently renew my mind.  Because I have chosen to renew my mind and because God has transformed me (and continues to do so), I have seen some amazing changes take place.  I no longer think about food like I used to.  I used to lust after hunger (being at 0), but now sometimes when I’m hungry, I feel like it’s an inconvenience because I’m working on a project or spending time with my family.  I’m no longer fearful about food (I used to think that sugar and carbs were doing deathly damage to my body).  I eat smaller portions at restaurants (this is a new change).  I don’t like feeling full, which for me is a “6”, where before, I used to numb myself with food.  I no longer immediately think about eating after my kids are in bed (that is a HUGE transformation change–praise God!).  And by following my boundaries, I was able to stay at a very healthy weight during my pregnancy.  So WHY would I let a number make me feel like a failure?  No way!  I’m not doing that anymore!

I don’t know why I gained 2 pounds.  But I’m not going to spend my time focusing on why.  I’m just going to continue doing what I am doing: following my boundaries and most importantly renewing my mind.  Taking the time to renew my mind about this got my attention today.  God exposed the lies and revealed truth.  The lie: you are what you weigh.  The truth: the scale doesn’t define me; Christ defines me.

So would you join me on this quest to say goodbye to the scale?  Let’s do it!

P.S. About 1-1/2 weeks after I weighed myself, I was able to tighten my belt one more notch.  Praise God!  So obviously something is happening.  A new thing is happening!  God is doing work from the inside out!

Rotten Lies & Foundational Truths

Rotten Lies & Foundational Truths

“You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?  That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.  “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” Galatians 5:7-9

Do you ever feel like you are going along on this Thin Within journey at a good pace, and then all of a sudden you get stuck or something gets in your way?  I know this has happened to me plenty of times.  Sometimes we have to stop and allow God to dig up what needs to be dug up so we can continue on once again, or He needs to remove the roadblock.

There have been a lot of things that have stalled me on this journey.  Mostly, it’s been lies I have believed or habits that I’ve had for numerous years.  For me, it’s been the lies that I shouldn’t be eating a certain food group, or that a well-known diet is the only thing that will help me so I better go back to dieting, being fixated on food research, etc.

Currently, we are turning our carport into a garage.  My husband and a friend have been working hard this week getting the prep-work done for the foundation before the concrete is poured.  They were working along at a good pace and they had one last corner to finish, when they realized there was some roots underneath the ground.  After several hours of digging around, what they found ended up being a tree trunk and it’s roots!   They had dug about 4 feet down, and then our neighbor came over with a chain saw and finished the job.  We had no idea there was a tree trunk under the ground!

IMG_4162

What if they would have started at that corner first?  Would they have felt defeated?  I know I may have felt that way.  I would have been imagining roots everywhere!

We can go along at a steady pace in our Thin Within journey, and then BAM, we hit something hard.  And then we have to focus on digging around and working on hacking at something until that thing is removed.  We cannot just leave it there because it will make for a faulty foundation later on.  We can no longer pretend it’s not there.  We have to deal with it.  And we may have to ask a friend for some help.

Just like my husband and his friend, I have had to hack away at things that were giving me a faulty foundation–or that could perhaps do foundational damage later on.  It’s a lot of work to dig and dig, but our muscles get strengthened and we come away a bit stronger than before.  And for days after my muscles will remind me that I worked them out, but later on I won’t even remember.  And the best thing is that later on my foundation won’t sink because I took care of what needed to be taken care of.

When they first found the roots and realized it was a tree trunk, I remembered thinking, “So what!  Just work around it!”  But when my husband explained that it wouldn’t be good to have that tree trunk rot someday and then have the corner of our foundation cracking or sinking because of it.  Oh!  And that’s when the Lord began to pour into me what I am sharing with you today: we don’t want a sinking foundation!

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.  Matthew 7:24-27

I am guessing that you, like me, don’t want your foundation crumbling.  The best foundation to build on (and really the only foundation) should be the Rock of Christ Jesus!  Christ is our Corner Stone!  Everything should be built off of that corner.  If there’s anything else in place of the Rock, then everything is going to come sliding off and crumbling down just like the man who built his house on the sand.  Sand shifts.  The Rock stands forever. The Rock is Truth!  In relating to Thin Within, “sand” could be the lies we have believed, diet mentalities, placing our security in false securities, etc.  That tree trunk represented those things to me.  It’s all the lies that will rot in my mind over time.  So I have had to dig around the root system (the lies) and had to have some friends (accountability) help me as well.  As we dug, we exposed more rotten lies!

We can look at these “tree trunks” and give up, or we can put on our gloves and pick up our shovels and dig!  We can take the time to renew our  mind and allow the Lord to dissolve every lie (sand) and replace with truth (the Rock), or we can leave the trunk there to rot and cause future problems.  And if it’s too much for you to handle on your own, ask a friend (accountability partner) for help.  Sometimes we need twice the strength to help us overcome.

 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2

How about you?

Are you stuck?  Do you need some help digging out the lies?  Do you have an accountability partner?  If not, Heidi has some great information about it here.  Are you willing to renew your  mind so God can replace those lies with truth?  Would you like some help in starting?  I would love to hear from you!

Encouragement

Encouragement

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Hi everyone!

I have so many things on my heart that I want to share with you, but since I have “mom brain”, I’m having a hard time collecting some of those thoughts.  But I want to write something.  Anything!  So I thought I would take some time to encourage you.

No matter how long you’ve been on this journey, God is STILL faithful!  He watches over His word to perform it!  He will NEVER leave us nor forsake us!  Oh…and He LOVES us!

I know some of you are discouraged.  You’ve been trying.  You feel like giving up.  You just don’t know how to make this all work.  And some of you are down right ANGRY because you feel like you are a failure–or possibly because you may feel like God has failed you.  You have spent many tears, crying out to God to just help you release the weight, to help you overcome your food addiction, to make all of this easy.

Can I tell you something?

Lean in closely…I’m about to tell you a tidbit of truth that has literally changed my life…

God wants to transform you!

He wants to help you!  He wants to deliver you!  He wants to help you overcome!

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”  Romans 12:2

We don’t overcome by following our boundaries perfectly.  It’s clinging to God’s Word.  It’s spending time with Him.  That’s how we are transformed.  It’s not our own work.  It’s His work.  Our part is spending time with Him.

I have seen a HUGE change in my life in the area of food and body image because of what God has done and all it took was me taking the time to renew my mind.  What does it look like to renew my mind?  For me, it means reading my truth cards at least once a day.  Usually that takes place in the morning along with reading my Bible.  And then each time I felt like breaking a boundary, I sat down with my journal and ‘I Deserve a Donut’ app (or book) by Barb Raveling.  I would write out the questions and answers.  If I was in a hurry, I would just read the questions and answer them in my head or out loud.  If I was journaling, I would write down a few of the scriptures that really stood out to me.   And I still do this when needed.

I believe each time I took the time to renew my mind that the Lord was transforming me.  And WOW, I’m so amazed at what He has done!  I will share more about that later, but for now I want to encourage you in your own journey.

Don’t give up!

Keep your eyes on Jesus!

Keep renewing your mind!