Freedom from Emotional Eating

Are You Comfortable?

2012-01-16T07:21:00.005-07:00

Do you ever say you’ll do something for God and then have second thoughts when you find out how hard it is?

I’m guessing that’s how Peter felt when he found himself walking on the water in the midst of a raging storm. What have I gotten myself into?

His enthusiasm for Jesus was enough to get him out of the boat, but it wasn’t enough to sustain him once he got an eyeful of the waves.

What strikes me about this passage* is that Peter wouldn’t have been in such a pickle if he hadn’t loved Jesus so much. If he had just stayed in his nice, safe, comfortable boat, he wouldn’t have been in a position to panic.

It was when he loved Jesus enough to get out of the boat that all his troubles started.

I see this at work in my own life. I want life to be easy. I want it to be comfortable. But I also love God, and He keeps asking me to do things that are uncomfortable and difficult.

The worst thing I can do—and it’s often the thing I find myself doing—is to say yes to God, leap out of the boat, and then forget about Him while I look in dismay at all the waves lapping at my feet.

Especially when Jesus is standing there with His hand reaching out to take hold of me.

It’s the worst of both worlds. Not only do I miss out on the comfort of the boat, I also miss out on the comfort of His arms wrapped around me in the midst of the storm.

Not to mention the fact that I can’t walk on water without His help.

Like Peter, I need to be reminded to grab hold of His hand.

Today—thanks to His help in the middle of the night—I’m remembering.

And even though I’m uncomfortable . . . I’m comfortable.

* Matthew 14:23-33

New Year's Resolutions

2011-12-31T16:59:00.002-07:00

Note: This is a re-post from December 31, 2008. I'm actually planning to make some goals this year, some of which will involve this blog and a helpful new weight loss tool. I'll be writing more about that in the next few weeks.

I used to make long lists of New Year’s resolutions. I even had resolution categories—spiritual, physical, recreational, personal, etc. Each year I completed many of those goals . . . most of them were in the recreation category:

1. Camp three times. Check.
2. Take one backpack trip. Check.
3. Ski in to ski hut one night. Check.

I was a raging success in the recreation department.

Unfortunately, the physical category was another story:

1. Lose weight. Afraid not.
2. Start exercising regularly. No go.
3. Eat healthy. Not really.

I racked up year after year of defeat in the physical realm.

Then three years ago I changed my goals. I didn’t write down “lose weight.” I also skipped “start exercising” and “eat healthy.” In fact, if I remember right, that was the year I stopped making long lists of new year’s resolutions.

Instead, I made one goal that year. I bought a journal and determined to go to God on a regular basis for help with my poor eating habits. I planned to eat three meals a day and journal any time I ate outside my boundaries.

I’ll tell you right now I didn’t follow through on my resolution. At least not perfectly. But I did keep at it. I journaled on a regular basis, and God began to shed His light on my compulsive eating habits.

I saved that journal, and I have it in front of me right now. Let me share some of the entries from that year with you.

2/28/06 Weekly reasons for breaking my boundaries:

It was there to eat: 3
I deserve it: 9
Overwhelmed with procrastination: 1 (Obviously, I hadn’t started writing yet.)
Cook’s “right”: 2 (I believe that was cookie dough.)
Mindless eating: 1
Stressed out: 1
Fear/Worry: 1

3/10/06 I’ve missed the last three days of truth journaling, not because I’m perfect, but because I’ve been a total failure!

5/11/06 I am so mistreated and overworked that I deserve a treat. Since I always have to be the bad guy and always have to get people (that would be my kids) to do what they don’t want to do, the least I can do is have a treat.

Truth: Barb, Barb, Barb—you know that treats don’t really fulfill you. How about, “Since I always have to be the bad guy, I’ll go and spend some time with Jesus who loves me enough to die for me!? Which would be better? Sweets or Jesus? There is no contest—turn to Him next time.”

(Note: Do you think I might have been exaggerating my circumstances a bit here?)

7/23/06 I’m feeling defeated today. I’ve been trying to change myself by will power, not with the truth. Plus I’ve been putting perfectionist standards on myself. Condemning myself when I fail. This is a stronghold—it requires spiritual weapons of prayer and carrying my thoughts captive. Getting up and using will power and positive attitude is not going to cut it! I need to go back to journaling when I eat for a non-hunger or non-meal reason.

8/3/06 I deserve a treat for doing so well at the potluck.

Truth: Do I deserve a reward for not eating much? No—people are starving to death in this world. I don’t deserve food just because I wasn’t gluttonous! This should be standard behavior—the norm.

9/2/06 Boundaries are a good thing, not a bad thing. They bring freedom to my life—freedom from discouragement, despair, lethargy, weight gain, unhealthiness, self-incrimination, etc. Does unrestricted eating bring any freedom to my life? I guess it brings the freedom to eat whatever I want—but I know what that freedom leads to: slavery.

9/23/06 For the first time in thirty years, I don’t feel like food has control over me, and I don’t fear it. Yet I walk each day in His grace, knowing that it could control me again and praying that God would give me the strength as I need it.

12/31/08 The victory has been lasting. That doesn’t mean I’m perfect. I still feel like eating for the wrong reasons sometimes, and I still follow through on those feelings and eat too much now and then. The difference is that I now know the solution. It’s not setting a goal to lose weight. It’s not determining that “this year I’ll finally get it together.” No, the solution is filling my mind with the truth—bringing my thoughts captive to God’s Word. Learning to see life as He sees it.

My hope is that a year from now, you and I will be different people—that we’ll be following God a little more closely, living His Word a little more consistently, and loving each other a little more like He loves us.

In order to make that happen, we need to see our lives from God’s perspective. This will happen as we read His Word and apply the truth directly to the areas of our lives that need it. For me right now, it’s procrastination. What is it for you? I encourage you to let His truth change you this year.

Best New Anti-Procrastination Technique of 2011

2011-12-20T08:36:00.001-07:00

Today I want to introduce you to my best new anti-procastination technique of the whole year. It’s called the little green box (although yours may be a different color), and it was conceived by my daughter Jenny.

Here’s how it works:

Get a little box or a jar.
Write all your jobs on little squares of paper.
Fold up the little squares and put them in the box.
Shake up the box, and draw your first job. Complete it.
Go back to the box and draw another job. Complete it.
Keep going until there are no more squares in the box.

Here are a few advantages to the system:

It’s fun. Even if the jobs are crummy, at least you get the thrill of drawing them from the box.
It’s not as overwhelming as a job list. Because you can only see one job at a time, you lose that tendency to look at the whole list and get discouraged.
It’s relatively easy. When I have a big list, I look at a few jobs on that list and automatically dismiss them because they’re too hard. When I see that same job on a little piece of paper, I think Well, it’s just one job. I guess I can do it.
It’s motivating. Because you want to see what the next job is, you’re more inclined to finish your first job.
It’s satisfying. As I see the little slips of paper disappear from my box, I think Wow, maybe I can finish my list after all today. I’ve had much more success in emptying my job box than I've ever had in finishing a physical list.

In my next post, I’ll share a few more ideas about this box system. But for now, it's time to draw another job from the job box!

Do Boundaries Make Your Life Better or Worse?

2011-12-16T10:39:00.003-07:00

Many of us have grown up with the idea that we should be able to do what we want when we want. This philosophy usually works when we’re young because we have parents who pick up the slack.

If we don’t feel like doing our chores, they still feed us. If we don’t feel like studying, they still let us sleep in our beds at night.

Because life is easy, we tend to grow up with the idea that we should be able to do what we want when we want . . . without consequences.

This philosophy might be workable if we were able to live with our parents all our lives, but it doesn’t work real well otherwise. Because what happens is that we grow up and enter a world where actions have consequences.

If we buy whatever we want, we end up in financial trouble. If we flirt with whomever we want, we end with a marriage crisis. And if we eat whatever we want, we end up with a weight problem.

The question we need to ask ourselves is this: do we really want to do whatever we want? Is that really a good life when you think of all the consequences? Or have we been fed a lie?

Question for the day: Do boundaries make your life better or worse?

Growing Pains

2011-12-07T20:15:00.004-07:00

When our son Tim was little, he used to get growing pains. He’d often crawl into bed with us in the middle of the night, and we would massage the kinks out of his legs so he could get back to sleep.

We were his best hope for getting rid of the pain.

Growth is often painful. But while we can’t run from the pain of growing bones, we can run from the pain of a growing relationship with God. All we have to do is say no. I don’t want to grow.

It’s easier than saying yes, but we pay a price. Here are just a few of the things we miss out on:

Intimate times with a Father who loves us.
The security and safety of His arms.
The healing of His Word.
The brilliance of His truth.
The beauty of His grace.
And the exhilaration of His growth.

We say no to growth because it’s too hard.

The Israelites said the same thing. Listen to God’s words in Jeremiah 2:30: In vain I have struck your sons; they accepted no chastening.

God loved us enough to give us free will. He doesn’t force us to shape up. Instead, He waits until we’re willing to have Him work the kinks out of our character.

Sometimes He waits forever.

And if you look at Jeremiah 1 and 2, it’s not easy for Him either.

Note: Check out God's Chisel Remastered by the Skit Guys for a great video on growth.

Three Steps to the Disciplined Life . . . Not!!!

2011-12-01T05:55:00.001-07:00

The other day my husband looked at me and said, “I can’t believe you’ve been so diligent with your writing. I’m amazed at how you’ve persevered with it.”

The reason he’s amazed is because he knows me so well.

We’ve been married for 28 years, and for most of those 28 years, he’s lived with the lazy, inept version of me.

The new, (somewhat) disciplined version is unusual.

I always wanted to be a disciplined person. Each year, I’d read the articles about how to become disciplined in three easy steps, and I’d try to do what they told me to do. But it never worked.

I was just too inept.

And I had the sneaky suspicion that those articles were written by people who were disciplined to begin with.

So what I’d like to do today is write a “Three Steps to the Disciplined Life for the Inept Person” post. Here goes:

Three Steps to the Disciplined Life for the Inept Person

Decide what you want to do.
Renew your mind whenever you don’t feel like doing it.
Repeat as often as necessary until you feel like doing it.

It’s simple, but it works. Here’s why: It’s hard to drum up discipline when you don’t have it to drum up. Our only hope is to go to God for help.

Paul tells us in Romans 12:2 that we’re transformed by the renewing of the mind, not by making a plan and sticking to it. That’s a comforting verse for all of us inept people. Change is possible.

But we need to do it God’s way. Paul says we’re transformed by the renewing of our minds. Not by making a plan. Not by drumming up our non-existent will power. And not by following three easy steps.

We’re changed by the renewing of our minds. God does the changing. We do the renewing of our minds. His truth is what changes us.

As an inept-by-nature person, my only hope for being disciplined is to keep renewing my mind in all the areas of my life where I’m undisciplined (which is about a hundred).

God will transform me, but not in an instant. At least not usually. Usually it takes about one journal’s worth of renewing my mind to see some real victory.

If you’re tired of being undisciplined in some area of your life, I want to encourage you. Go to your local bookstore. Buy a journal, and start renewing your mind.

Ask God to help you see that area of life from His point of view. Then search the Bible for some good Scripture. Write those verses in your journal. Carry your thoughts captive to the truth every day you don’t feel like doing whatever it is you want to do.

Write out your prayers. Truth journal. Do whatever you need to do to see that area of your life from God’s perspective. And then sit back (as you continue to renew your mind) and watch Him transform you.

And when it happens, write and tell me about it.

Avoid Christmas Weight Gain Tip #4: Be Careful with the Christmas Cookies

2011-11-28T17:38:00.003-07:00

It was December 22, 1982, and we were driving down I-90, flinging Christmas cookies out the window at 75 miles an hour.

We had just gotten married and were headed back to Montana with a car full of presents and a box full of Christmas cookies.

600 miles from the wedding, my self-control (and my stomach) had reached its limits. There was only one answer:

Get rid of the cookies.

Now, 29 Christmases later, I no longer have to resort to throwing cookies away, but I still have to be careful. Here are a few things I do to keep myself from gaining five pounds worth of Christmas cookies each Christmas.

1. Wait as long as possible to make the Christmas cookies.

The longer we wait to make cookies, the less likely we are to look at Christmas cookies as just another December food group. If you’re a procrastination eater, wait until you’ve finished all those hard Christmas jobs before you make cookies.

If you have kids and they’re clamoring to make cookies, make one or two early batches, but give them away. Bring them to the older people in the neighborhood who don’t do much baking anymore. They’ll appreciate a little visit and some homemade cookies.

2. Make only the "necessary" cookies.

Another thing we’ve done the last few years is to cut down on the variety of cookies we make. We have about three favorites and we try to stick with those.

3. Don’t eat any cookie dough until all the cookies are in the oven.

I could easily pop five or six cookies’ worth of dough into my mouth while making cookies, but I’d feel too piggy to actually plan to eat that much. So instead of eating as I go, I decide how much dough I want and save it until all the cookies are in the oven. Then I sit down and enjoy my snack.

4. Make special Christmas boundaries for the cookies.

I vary these boundaries depending on the year. It all depends on what else is going on my life and how desperate I am for cookies. The more desperate I am, the tighter I make my boundaries. If I’m really desperate, I don’t have any.

5. Truth journal after every cookie that breaks a boundary.

I hate to say this, but I’ve had four brownies today and every single one of those brownies was outside my boundaries. Remember my last post when I had to renew my mind four times before lunch? I never even felt like breaking my boundaries again after I wrote that post.

Today I haven’t renewed my mind once. Instead, I just kept eating brownies. If I don’t want to wake up tomorrow morning and have a brownie for breakfast, I’ll need to renew my mind before I go to bed tonight.

The sooner, the better.

In fact, I think I better go do that right now because I’m feeling like another brownie.

And if that doesn't work . . . I'll head for the highway with the windows open.

The Lies of Thanksgiving Dinner

2011-11-23T07:26:00.002-07:00

I love Thanksgiving. I love the smells, the tastes, the friends, the family, and the coziness of it all.

What I don’t like is the day after Thanksgiving—that moment when you’re lying in bed, and all of a sudden you remember what you ate the day before, and you think to yourself, “How will I ever make it past Christmas without gaining a ton of weight?”

This year I’m going to try a new tactic—I’m going to start preparing early for Thanksgiving dinner.

Sure, I’ll make the rolls and the pies and the stuffing (with the help of my family), but that’s not all I’m going to do. This year, I’m also going to prepare my mind for Thanksgiving dinner.

I’m going to fill my mind with truth before I start to eat. In fact, I might even start a couple days before, so I’m really ready.

I’ll take a look at the lies I believe that make me want to stuff myself with moist turkey, savory stuffing, creamy mashed potatoes and gravy, warm rolls with butter, pumpkin pies made from scratch, fluffy whipped cream - on second thought, I think I better start right now. It may take me awhile to get ready for Thanksgiving this year.

The Seven Lies of Thanksgiving

1. It’s Thanksgiving—I should eat.
Truth: It’s Thanksgiving - I should be extra careful what I eat, because it will be easy to eat too much.

2. I don’t know when I’ll get this again. I better eat as much as I can now.
Truth: Chances are I’ll get the same thing tomorrow for leftovers, but if everything is gone, I can always make it again.

3. This food is so good that I should have seconds.
Truth: This food is so good that I need to concentrate on thoroughly enjoying each and every bite. In all seriousness, I will enjoy myself more if I eat a healthy amount and savor it, than if I eat an unhealthy amount and not fully appreciate it. (It’s hard to truly appreciate large amounts of food.)

4. It’s Thanksgiving. I should celebrate (by eating whatever I want).
Truth: It’s Thanksgiving—I should celebrate God’s goodness to me by praising Him with every fiber of my being. Eating three pieces of pie is not an expression of praise.

5. I shouldn’t have to follow my boundaries on holidays.
Truth: Boundaries protect me. My life will actually be better if I don’t stuff myself on Thanksgiving.

6. It won't be as much fun if I don't eat whatever I want.
Truth: It will actually be more fun, because I'll be able to totally enjoy what I eat without having to feel so uncomfortable afterward.

7. I can’t help myself—it’s there, and I’m going to eat it.
Truth: If I fill my mind with truth before I sit down to dinner, there’s a good chance I won’t even want to stuff myself.

Note: This a re-post of a blog I wrote three years ago, but the lies and truths haven't changed since then.

P.S. If you want to read a funny article on holiday eating tips, check out this link. Just don't follow its advice!

Holiday Eating Tip #3: Renew your mind every time you eat outside your boundaries, even if it’s just one bite.

2011-11-21T11:36:00.006-07:00

I had ice cream for breakfast this morning.

I wasn’t supposed to—my boundaries say no dessert before supper—but I did it anyway. And I’ve been paying the price ever since.

9 times out of 10 when I have a sweet before breakfast, I break my boundaries later in the day—usually several times.

I haven’t broken them yet, but only because I’ve taken the time to renew my mind every time I even feel like breaking them.

I suppose the bright side is that this is good preparation for the holidays. After all, just think how often we’ll be tempted to break our boundaries during the holidays.

Christmas cookies. Parties. Christmas cookies. Procrastination. Christmas cookies . . . well, you get the picture.

Chances are, we’ll probably break our boundaries at some point. That’s why it’s so important to have the right mindset upon entering the holiday season. Here it is:

God is the one who changes us, not the boundaries. So if we’re tempted to eat, we need to rely on God, not the boundaries.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we should be careless with our boundaries.

In fact, the best policy would be to follow our boundaries perfectly—to not eat even one bite outside the boundaries.

But if we do break down and eat that bite, the second best policy is to renew our minds every time it happens.

And if we really want to be safe, we’ll renew our minds every time we even feel like breaking the boundaries—especially on days where we’ve already broken them.

Today I want to be safe.

I’ve renewed my mind four times already since breakfast, and it’s only 11:03 a.m.

Has it been time consuming?

Not as much as you’d think. Each time it only took me a couple of minutes.

Has it worked?

Yes. I haven’t eaten anything else since breakfast.

I'm glad I took the time to renew my mind.

It's tempting, especially when we're busy to let things slide.

I know I’ll be busy the next six weeks. So will you.

But if we really want to keep from gaining weight over the holidays, the more we renew our minds the better.

Two Days Later: Just wanted to let you know I never did feel like eating outside my boundaries again after I posted the other day. This was one of those 1 in 10 days when I had sweets for breakfast and didn't break my boundaries later. Only because of God and the truth, though. I don't know how many times He's taught me this lesson: if I take the time to renew my mind, He takes the time to change my desires and my actions. The truth really does set me free (John 8:32).

Avoid Christmas Weight Gain Tip #2: Nip Christmas Procrastination Eating in the Bud. Get Ready for Christmas Early.

2011-11-18T08:10:00.010-07:00

As the fragrance of sugar cookies wafts in from the kitchen and the sleigh bells tinkle in the distance, I sit by a merry fire sipping hot cocoa. Snuggled in my hand-knit afghan, I ponder the meaning of this precious season.

Wait a minute—what’s that noise?

It doesn’t sound like sleigh bells.

Is it Santa’s reindeer stomping on my roof?

No.

What is it . . .

Oh . . .

My husband nudges me.

“Time to wake up, Barb,” he says. “Your alarm clock is ringing.”

I don’t know about you, but the Christmas of my dreams is not the Christmas of my reality.

I’m sitting by the fire all right, with the hot chocolate and cookies in hand, but instead of enjoying myself, I’m thinking of all the things I should be doing.

Where’s that idyllic dream of my youth?

I’ll tell you where it is: it’s stuck in procrastination land.

I could be sitting by the fire enjoying life if I were to get on the ball right away like I did that one other time in my life.

Wait a minute—I could be sitting by the fire enjoying life if I were to get on the ball right away like I did that one other time in my life.

Why don’t I do that?

Why don’t we do that?

Here’s my challenge—to myself and to you, if you’d like to join me—let’s get ready for Christmas as soon as possible.

This week.

Today.

Right now.

The sooner we get it done, the sooner we can kick back and enjoy the holidays.

And the sooner we kick back and enjoy the holidays—the more Christmas will look the way we want it to look.

Today’s Christmas weight loss tip: Nip Christmas procrastination eating in the bud. Start getting ready for Christmas today.

P.S. If you need a Christmas to-do list, here is a good one: Ultimate Christmas Countdown Checklist. I'm afraid we were supposed to have started a month ago, but better late than never, right?

Looking at Life from God's Perspective

2011-11-16T07:18:00.009-07:00

The longer I walk with God, the more convinced I am that if I really want to grow in some area of my life, I need to make a commitment to renew my mind every time that issue comes up.

I did that with emotional eating five years ago. Bought a journal at the Christian bookstore and truth journaled every time I felt like eating outside my boundaries. I've done it with other things as well, and I'm currently doing it with writing.

Here's what my journal entry looked like today:

	If life is about . . .	Writing is . . .
My perspective	Fun	Hard and not fun.
God’s perspective	Loving God and others	A way for me to love God and others
My perspective	Abiding in delightful experiences so I can have fun	Un-delightful and not fun
God’s perspective	Abiding in Him so I can grow	An opportunity to abide in Him and grow

For some reason, putting it in a chart form helped me to change my attitude about writing - at least for the next hour or so!

If you're struggling with not wanting to do something today, why don't you give this chart a try? Just replace "writing is . . . " with your own issue and see what happens.

Note: I just found two great blog posts on procrastination if you want to read more on this topic. The Gospel is the Cure for Do-It-My-Way Procrastination and The Gospel is the Cure for Dream Killing Procrastination. (And I hate to admit it, but I found them while I was procrastinating.) Here's another one: How to Sow in Tears.

Avoid Holiday Weight Gain: Tip #1

2011-11-15T07:31:00.004-07:00

The ground is covered with snow, I’m listening to holiday music, and I’m thinking about Christmas. So even though we still have a week to go until Thanksgiving, I thought I’d get started writing some holiday posts.

My subject? Avoiding Holiday Weight Gain. For the next few weeks I’ll be sharing some tips to help us avoid the average 3-5 pound holiday weight gain. Here’s my first tip:

Avoid Holiday Weight Gain Tip #1: Rate your food (but not out loud)

This is something I started doing last summer. It occurred to me that I often eat things like ice cream because in my mind I’m thinking, oh, I love ice cream.

But the truth is, I don’t love every single box of ice cream that comes into the house. Some of it is just so-so, and it’s the so-so I want to eliminate.

So here’s the new rule I made: if it’s not good for me, and it’s less than an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10, I don’t eat it (unless I’m in a situation where it would be more loving to eat it, but that almost never happens).

I was telling my husband about my new policy on our way home from the Dairy Queen where he’d just gotten a medium blizzard.

As an experiment, I asked him to rate each bite of his blizzard because part of my theory is that the taste experience diminishes at some point in the treat-eating process.

Since my husband is an all-or-nothing kind of guy, I was expecting him to eat the whole blizzard and say, It’s still a 10.

But he surprised me.

About halfway through the blizzard, he said, “Okay, I’m at a 3. I think the next time I’ll get a mini-blizzard.”

And he did.

The next time we went to the Dairy Queen he got a mini-blizzard.

Moral of the story: if it works for blizzards, it can work for pumpkin pie and Christmas cookies.

Can you imagine how much less we would eat at Thanksgiving, if we stopped eating once the taste experience dropped to a 7 or an 8?

If you get a chance, give it a try and tell me how it goes.

Leader's Guide for Freedom From Emotional Eating

2011-11-14T08:51:00.002-07:00

The past couple of months I've been working on writing a leader's guide for the Bible study Freedom from Emotional Eating. If you're thinking about leading a group study, please e-mail me, and I can get that leader's guide to you. The guide is free and should be finished in a few weeks.

The Cure for "I -should-be-able-to-eat-what-I-want-when-I-want" Eating

2011-11-10T05:15:00.003-07:00

They’re standing on a mountain, overlooking the kingdoms of the world, and Satan is asking Jesus a question:

"Jesus, do you really want all that (the cross) when you could be having all this (the delights of the world)?"

I can just picture him standing in his Carol Merrill pose, highlighting the delights that could be had if only Jesus were to worship him.

Unfortunately, he asks the same question of us. Right in front of the bakery or the ice cream shop or the kitchen cupboard.

Would you really rather have all that (diets and boundaries) when you could be having all this (the delights of the shelves)?

Good question.

Why would we want boundaries when eating whatever-we-want-whenever-we-want sounds a lot more appealing?

Jesus tells us why in Matthew 4:10: Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’

Jesus knew that if He wanted to do the Father’s will, He had to put God first.

Which meant He had to put everything else second.

If we want to do the Father’s will, we have to do the same.

Jesus asks us: Are you willing to give up everything for me? Are you willing to hold all things with open hands—even food?

He hopes we'll say yes.

Boundaries are a way of saying yes.

Because when we allow boundaries into our lives, we’re essentially saying, Here, Lord, I’m willing to hold food with open hands.

I want you more.

Thought for the day: Are you holding food with open hands?

Scripture for the day: Matthew 4:1-11, Matthew 10:34-39

Breaking Free from Strongholds: Are you expecting too much too soon?

2011-11-09T06:19:00.015-07:00

Imagine this: you’re sitting at your desk sipping a vanilla latte when your boss walks in. He sits down, leans forward, and says, Joni, I have a job for you. I want you to run in a marathon eight weeks from today.

How would you respond?

Would you jump for joy? Laugh? Quit your job? Choke on your coffee?

Your reaction would probably depend on two things: how much you liked to run and how in shape you were.

You wouldn't assume you could run that marathon in eight weeks. It would all depend on your starting position.

The same is true in spiritual marathons. How quickly we're able to cross the finish line is due in large part to our starting position.

Let's take a look at what the starting positions in a spiritual race might look like:

1. Couch potato: This would be the person who loves God but doesn't spend any time with Him other than the occasional prayer and weekly time in church.

2. Casual exerciser: This person has an occasional quiet time or may have a short little devotion each day.

3. Regular Exerciser: This is the Christian who has an intimate relationship with God and enjoys regular times with Him each day.

4. Casual Runner: This person has an intimate walk with God, plus uses God’s Word at least every once in awhile to break bad habits or strongholds. (This could be through truth journaling, Scripture prayers, specific Bible study, etc.)

5. Faithful runner: This Christian has an intimate walk with God and is using God’s Word on a regular basis to break bad habits and strongholds.

6. Marathon runner: This person is living in victory in many areas of her life and continues to bring new areas captive to Him on a regular basis.

Take the First Step Toward Victory

Here’s the problem: if you’re back at the first or second stage in your relationship with God, you’re not going to be able to break free from your compulsive habit in a jiffy.

If you expect to move from #1 to #6 in a few weeks, you'll just get discouraged and want to give up. Instead, just take the first step: start working on your relationship with God.

Incorporate spiritual battle into your quiet times with Him. Get a good Bible study that will make you excited about having your quiet times. Join a group at church. Do the first step in the couch-potato-to-marathon-runner transition.

But don’t expect to cross the finish line of the marathon in eight weeks.

God is full of grace and mercy and strength. He’s not a perfectionist father waiting to yell at you as soon as you mess up. But He's also not the laid back dad saying, "Sure, do whatever you want - as long as you're happy, that's the main thing."

He wants us to keep moving forward.

Because that’s the only way we’ll get where He wants us to go.

Thought for the day: What position are you starting from in your spiritual battle? Where do you want to be a month from now? What can you do today to accomplish your goal?

Scripture for the Day: 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, Philippians 3:13-14

For more help on evaluating your progress see: Are You Tired of the Struggle?

Note: this is a re-write from a blog I wrote a few years ago.

Ever Feel Like Rebelling?

2011-11-07T05:37:00.010-07:00

They claim to have our best interest in mind. We just want you to be happy, they say. . . . and then they give us a little advice.

Wouldn’t you be happier if you had a smaller piece of pie?

Wouldn’t you be happier if you went to the gym?

Wouldn’t you be happier if you lost weight?

Of course we’d be happier.

Long-term, anyway.

But we’re not thinking long-term. We’re thinking, wouldn’t a little ice cream taste good right now?

The ironic thing is that even though we may agree with our advice-givers—that we’d be happier if we lost weight—we start feeling rebellious the minute they bring it up.

Why don’t they just mind their own business, we think. Or we step it up a notch: If they really loved me, they wouldn’t be nagging me about my weight. They must not love me.

We respond to their words of wisdom in different ways, depending on our coping techniques.

Some of us withdraw from the relationship.

Some of us grab the nearest diet and do the people-pleasing routine.

And some of us rebel.

It’s the rebellers I want to talk to. Listen to my thought process and see if it sounds familiar:

No one has a right to tell me how to eat. I should be able to eat what I want, when I want. So quit telling me how to live my life.

Ever thought that?

What I’d like to do is take a rational look at those thoughts. Are they true? Should I be able to eat whatever I want, whenever I want? I’m thinking no.

But before you get mad at me, hear me out, because it has nothing to do with our advice-givers.

When I committed my life to God almost thirty years ago, I essentially said, I’m willing to give up everything to follow You.

I didn’t say “including food”-- and to be honest, I didn't know following God would be so drastic at the time -- but if I think about it, I have to say that food would be included in “everything.”

The truth is that it doesn’t matter what our advice-givers think, but it does matter what God thinks.

And He asks us to give up everything for Him.

Even food, when necessary.

If I look at life this way, I feel less rebellious about the boundaries. They’re no longer a set of rules that cramp my style.

Instead, they’re a way of saying yes to God.

Thought for the Day: Are you giving everything to God, or are you tempted to hold a few things back?

Emotional Hunger vs. Physical Hunger

2011-11-04T10:20:00.004-06:00

I thought this article gave a good description of the difference between emotional hunger and physical hunger. Here's an interesting quote from the article:

"According to an interview with Jakubczak on the University of Maryland web site, 75% of overeating is caused by emotions, so dealing with emotions appropriately is important."

I guess it's a good thing we're working on emotional eating!

Need Help Renewing Your Mind?

2011-11-03T06:47:00.016-06:00

I can do easy things through Him who doesn't need to give me strength because I can do them on my own.

Wait a minute . . . did I quote that right?

No. Let me try again.

I can do fun things though Him who doesn’t need to give me strength because I actually like to do them.

No. That’s not it either.

Wait a minute . . . I have it:

I can do . . . all . . . things through Him who gives me strength.

In a follow-your-passion, life-should-be-easy world, I keep forgetting I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.

Instead, I think that if it’s not easy, I can’t do it.

And if it’s not fun, I shouldn’t do it.

So I tend to avoid things that aren’t in the fun and easy category.

Just like some people avoid things that aren’t productive. And others avoid things that make them uncomfortable.

I have one thing working in my favor, though: Renewing my mind is fun and easy for me. I actually like doing it.

So even though I think writing is hard and boring, I’m willing to sit and renew my mind so God can change my attitude towards writing.

And even though I think eating with control is hard and boring, I’m willing to sit and renew my mind so God can change my attitude about eating.

But what if you’re a person who thinks that renewing your mind is hard and boring?

That’s a problem.

Because if you think renewing your mind is hard and boring—or unproductive and uncomfortable—you won't do it.

The thought will pop into your head, I should really renew my mind, but it will be immediately followed by another thought:

No, that’s too much work.

Or that doesn’t sound very fun.

Or I really should get that project done first. I’ll renew my mind later.

Those thoughts will keep you from renewing your mind, just like my thoughts left to their own devices keep me from writing.

So what’s the solution?

I think the solution is to renew your mind about the renewing of your mind.

Look at it this way. When I see writing from God’s perspective, I actually want to write, even though it’s not fun and easy.

Likewise, if you see the renewing of the mind from God’s perspective, you’ll actually want to renew your mind even if it’s not fun and easy.

If you want help on how to see the renewing of the mind from a biblical perspective, check out this post: How to Make Yourself Truth Journal. The post is on truth journaling but it could also apply to Scripture prayers or quiet times.

I’ve also spent the last year working on another tool that's easier for some people to use than truth journaling. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get that out, but it could be soon if I decide to put it into an e-book or self-publish.

Since I find all parts of the writing/publishing process to be hard and non-fun, I would really appreciate your prayers on figuring out what to do next with this new tool.

I hope you have a good week renewing your mind.

And if you’re tempted to think, Maybe I should clean the house, instead, tell yourself, No, it would be more productive to clean my mind.

(I know, lame ending. Why can’t I resist lame endings?)

Are You Tired of the Struggle?

2011-10-31T08:58:00.007-06:00

I’m just so sick of the struggle. I feel like I’ve been fighting this battle my whole life and I’ll never get over it.

Those are the words of a dear woman in one of my Bible studies last week. She had been renewing her mind for about six months, had already experienced quite a bit of victory, and then slipped back into defeat for a few days.

She was frustrated and discouraged.

Can you relate to her? I remember feeling that way for more than twenty years, on and off, including the early days of renewing my mind about eating.

If this is how you’re feeling today, I want to encourage you. Here are a few questions that help me when I'm going through a tough battle. I'm hoping they'll help you, too:

1) Are you expecting it to be easy?

It’s natural to get caught up in unrealistic expectations for quick and easy success, but those expectations can get you down. Think of it this way: if you’ve been overeating for thirty years, you’ve got thirty years of lies to dig through on your way to recovery.

It’s going to take awhile to dig through all those lies.

If you’re tempted to get discouraged, think of a stock market chart. Even the best stocks out there never go up in a smooth, continuous line. It’s always up, then down, then up again. That’s how your battle with eating will be.

2) How long have you been using spiritual weapons to fight the battle?

The woman in my class had been fighting the battle for thirty years but she’d only been using spiritual weapons for six months. So in a sense, she’d really only been fighting the battle for six months. Remember 2 Corinthians 10:3-5? If it’s a spiritual battle, you need spiritual weapons to fight it. Thirty years of dieting isn’t the same as thirty years of fighting lies with truth.

3) How diligent have you been with your weapons?

Sometimes we think we’re working on a problem when we’re really just obsessing over a problem. Here’s a question I ask myself sometimes just to keep myself honest:

On a scale of 1 to 10, how much effort are you putting into renewing your mind?

I can tell you from experience that I see almost no change when my number is less than a 5, very little change when it’s less than an 8, and lots of change when it’s a 9 or a 10. So what do I do if I really want to change? I make it a 9 or 10.

4) How often are you using your weapons?

The more I work on issues in my own life, the more I realize: if I want to change, I need to renew my mind every time the issue comes up. Even if the issue comes up so often I’m sick to death of renewing my mind about it.

It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it. Not only because I’m breaking free from my obsessions, but also because I’m growing closer to the One who loves me and longs to show me the way to victory.

5) What are your motives?

I’m hesitant to include this last question because I think if we have the wrong motives, God shows us when we renew our minds. But it might be worth thinking about.

Here’s why: If we’re only going to God so He can make us skinny, He might not be inclined to change us. Why? Because if we feel like we have to have skinny, there's a good chance we're making an idol of skinny. And God doesn't want us to have any idols.

He knows that only in Him will we find lasting peace and joy. So He may decide to help us find peace and joy by not giving us skinny until we can handle it.

I hope these questions will encourage you to persevere in the battle even if you’re exhausted. I’m going through a battle of my own right now, not with food, but with some other things God wants me to give up.

Why don’t we press on together?

Are You Full Yet?

2011-10-27T05:56:00.003-06:00

When my kids were little, I planned a trip to Arizona with the newest baby to visit my parents. Thinking my four-year-old might enjoy a trip to see Grandma and Grandpa, I invited him along.

I told him he could come if he wanted, or he could stay home and go to a friend’s house one night for a sleepover and a video.

My little four-year-old agonized over the decision. Which would be more fun: going on a plane to see grandma and grandpa or sleeping at a friends’ house and watching a video?

He finally chose the plane trip, but it was a tough decision.

Not only does this show how video-deprived my kids were, it also shows what a hard time we have making decisions. Especially when we want the best possible option for maximum fun and enjoyment.

The criteria we use for making decisions reveals a lot about what’s important to us. For my son, the key factor was fun. He was following in his mom’s footsteps because that's what I have a tendency to live for.

We're all tempted to live for things other than God, and we can see these temptations at work in the way we make decisions.

Just think about your own life. What do you base your decisions on? The answer to that question may show what you have a tendency to live for.

Here are a few possibilities:

What will be most fun?
What will be easiest?
What will be safest?
What’s fair?
What’s comfortable?
What will help me get the most work accomplished?
What will make people admire me?
What will make people like me?
What will make the least amount of people mad at me?
What is the Father’s will?

The problem with living for things other than God is that we never get enough to satisfy. If we choose the video, we’ll worry that the plane trip would have been more fun. If we choose the plane trip, we’ll wonder about that video.

God talks about this issue in Jeremiah 2:13 when He says this:

For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Fun as a life goal is a broken cistern that can hold no water. No matter how much we pour in, we’ll never get enough to fill us up.

The same holds true for a life focused on comfort, fair, safe, or skinny.

And the same holds true for a life focused on food.

When we live for things other than God, we’ll never get enough to satisfy. The more we pour into our needy bodies, the more we’ll need because the cistern is broken.

The best thing we can do if we really want to be happy is to go to the fountain of living waters.

Because He’s the only One who can truly fill us.

Thought for the day: What are you trying to fill yourself up with? Is it working?

If It Don't Come Easy, You Gotta Let It Go

2011-10-25T09:23:00.009-06:00

It’s been more than twenty years since Tanya Tucker came out with her hit, but the song’s message lives on: If it don’t come easy, you gotta let it go.

She was talking about relationships, but how often are we tempted to apply the same principle to eating?

Bored with my boundaries? Gotta let it go.

Tired of renewing my mind? Gotta let it go.

Frustrated with the whole battle? Gotta let it go.

The song is fun, but I’m not sure it’s scriptural.

Think of what Jesus said to His disciples: If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me. *

That doesn’t sound like a Man who would say, If it don’t come easy, you gotta let it go.

We all have days we want to let it go.

Those are the days we need to renew our minds more than ever. Press into God. Let Him replace those song lyrics running through our minds with the truth of His Word.

And always remember: If it don’t come easy, it’s an opportunity to grow. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

To think about: Are boundaries usually easy to follow, or do have to give up something to follow them? Is Christ usually easy to follow, or do you usually have to give up something to follow Him?

*Matthew 16:24

P.S. You may have noticed I'm back to writing my blog. It's not coming easy, but I'm going to try not to let it go!

P.P. S. If you want to watch a good video by Francis Chan on growing through trials, check out this link: The Holy Spirit's Power and Our Effort - Part One.

New Blog

2011-02-25T13:58:00.002-07:00

Hi everyone, I finally have the new blog up and running. You can find it here. Hope to see you all over there! Barb

Not Even One Bite

2011-01-10T20:49:00.002-07:00

(Note: This is a re-post of a blog from January 7, 2009.)

When I first started writing my Bible study, I checked out all the books I could find at the library that contained information on emotional eating. In the process, I discovered a whole new section of books that I hadn’t seen before.

Did you know that in addition to the “diet book” section, there’s also a section of books on eating disorders and compulsive eating? I read some of those books, and they were very enlightening.

One of the common threads that ran through the books was the admonition to stick religiously to an eating plan. To eat even one bite off the plan, the books said, was to put yourself in dangerous territory. It could lead to a binge.

I remember thinking at the time that this was the missing ingredient in my own struggles with food. I had my eating plan already in place at the time—a simple plan of allowing myself three meals and one snack each day.

The problem was that I sometimes had a bite here and a bite there that wasn’t on "the plan." While these bites didn’t add up to many calories, they still weren’t good for me. What they did was weaken my boundaries—the boundaries I had put in place myself to protect me from emotional eating.

Unfortunately, weak boundaries often lead to broken boundaries. What begins as a crack in the dam soon becomes an all-out flood—and I had my share of “floods.”

The books made me see the necessity of following the plan exactly. In other words, not one bite outside the boundaries. Not even a lick of the fingers. Nada. Nothing.

I determined to be more faithful about following the boundaries, and you know what? It made a difference. A big difference. Sticking rigidly to the plan made it easier to actually follow the plan.

Whether your boundaries are hunger or meals, I encourage you to follow them exactly. Don’t eat even one bite outside your boundaries—because even though it's hard to stick to your boundaries, it's a lot harder to stick to them after you break them than before you break them.

Starting Over

2011-01-02T20:45:00.009-07:00

(Note: This is a re-post of a blog from April 27, 2009 with an update at the end. In honor of the first Monday of the New Year when I imagine a good percentage of us are planning to start eating healthy once again! )

Do you ever wonder if you’ll struggle with food for the rest of your life? I know I used to feel like that. Eating seemed to be that one thing in life I would never be able to get a handle on. I didn’t control food—it controlled me.

I know many of you who read this blog feel the same way I used to feel. You wonder if you’ll ever get over it, and you’re tired of the battle. It’s hard to keep pressing on when you fail time after time after time.

Of course, Monday mornings are always hopeful. That’s the traditional day to start the new program, right? We eat all weekend with the idea that we’ll be good “starting Monday.”

But Monday never lasts. By Thursday or Friday (if we last that long), it’s back to the same old story—breaking our boundaries, feeling discouraged, and wanting to give up.

Here’s the interesting thing. Since we have a tendency to handle life’s problems with food, our natural inclination is to handle the problem of trying to stick to our eating boundaries the same way. When it’s hard, we eat! Of course, that breaks the boundaries and leads to the feeling that we’ll never get over the problem.

So what’s the answer? Are we stuck in an endless circle of failure and discouragement? No, a thousand times no! The answer is God. He can set us free from anything. He’s the Creator of the universe. He can move mountains. Of course, He can set us free from emotional eating.

What we need to do is study His Word to find out how He sets people free. What does God use to change behavior? Let’s look at Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. When He prayed this prayer, He knew He wouldn’t be around much longer, and He was praying for the ones He was leaving behind.

In John 17:15 Jesus is telling the Father, “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.” This could also be translated “keep them out of evil.”

He goes on to say how this is accomplished in verse 17, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” The Greek word for “in” that’s used here has an essence of “by means of.” We are sanctified and kept from evil by means of the truth.

In other words, we don’t change our behavior by getting up Monday morning and saying, “This week is going to be different! This week I’m going to stick with my plan!” No, we’re changed by the truth.

Remember, it’s not about the boundaries. It’s not about the plan. It’s about truth—and truth comes from God and His Word.

Food no longer controls me, but it’s not because of any brilliant displays of self-control and determination on my part. It was an incredibly difficult battle to change the way I responded to life. It often felt like I was limping along barely able to make progress.

When I felt that old urge to pull myself up by the bootstraps and “wait ‘til Monday,” I had to tell myself, “No, that’s not the way it works. It’s the truth that will set me free. I need to spend more time with God today. I need to cling to His word. I need to carry my thoughts captive to Him.” And that’s what set me free.

It’s also what keeps me free. When I feel tempted to go back to my old ways, I pull out my trusty lie-truth charts and start filling them out again. As I write the truth, I see my desires change before my eyes.

The Bible is a life-changing, joy-giving book. I’m amazed by its brilliance and transformed by it’s wisdom. This Monday morning, I encourage you to look for the solution to emotional eating in its pages—and not in another program!

1/3/11 Update: Since I wrote this post almost two years ago, I thought you might like an update just to see if the truth really works. I have to tell you, yes, it does! My weight has stayed consistent since this post and actually probably dropped by a few pounds. Food has not regained its control over me.

When I think back to the early days of breaking free from emotional eating, what I remember is an endless battle. I got tired of truth journaling. I wasn't convinced that it would really work. In fact, even when I was writing Freedom from Emotional Eating, I worried about publishing it because I was afraid I would gain my weight back - which of course would be very embarrassing.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: Sometimes you just have to trust God and believe what He says even if you haven't seen it with your own eyes yet. The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 12:2 that we will be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

But that doesn't mean we'll be transformed instantly and easily. Renewing the mind is kind of like training your mind to go down a new path of truth when it's used to going down a path of lies.

It takes a long time to clear out all those old lies. You have to keep going back every time you catch yourself believing them and apply the truth again. But eventually that new path will get just as well used as the old path, and it won't be as much work to walk it anymore.

That's where I'm at with my eating now. I rarely need truth journaling tune-ups anymore for emotional eating. I think I only truth journaled one day this past month - it was right in the middle of probably ten dozen Christmas cookies in the house if I remember right.

I do still slip up on my boundaries occasionally, but not enough to affect my weight or even to feel the need to truth journal about it. That doesn't mean I'm through renewing my mind, though. I have plenty of opportunities in other areas! I'll be writing about some of those things on the new blog.

I better get going because my computer is about to lose power. I hope you all have a good Monday tomorrow. And I hope you develop or continue the habit of renewing your mind this year!

2010-12-23T08:30:00.007-07:00

Hi everyone,

I hope you’re enjoying your friends and family this Christmas – and not eating too many Christmas cookies while you enjoy them! I just wanted to let you know I’ve set up my new blog and should be posting on it beginning mid to late January.

The new blog will be called Transformed by Trials, and the first trial I’ll be writing about will be insecurity. I’m hoping to do some video teaching too if I can figure out the technology to do that.

It's taken longer than I thought to get it going because all of my writing efforts are still being put into the new Bible study I'm writing and teaching. But I think I'll have most of that written by sometime in January, so I'll be able to start working on the blog.

In the meantime I thought I'd re-post some of my old entries from this blog. Hope to see see you soon at the new blog!

2010-10-28T09:49:00.002-06:00

Have I ever mentioned that I'm a procrastinator? I hate to even look at the date of my last blog post. It looks like it was more than five months ago. You may have been wondering, where is Barb these days? Well, Barb is at home, alive and well, but not writing blog posts!

I wasn't planning to take a break. If I had planned it, I would have told everyone. Unfortunately, I just couldn't think of anything to write, and I kept putting it off and putting it off until five months went by without writing anything.

Then last night I was talking with one of my kids about the new Bible study I was writing. We were discussing the coping techniques we use with different trials, and I asked him if he could think of any coping techniques I left out of my new study. He said, "How about ignoring the problem?" Bingo.

That's one of my biggest coping techniques, and it wasn't even in the book! My trial was "what to write for the blog." And instead of dealing with the issue - either thinking of something to write or ending the blog, I just ignored the trial. For five months.

So, now I'm back, and I apologize for my absence with no words of good-bye or explanation. The bigger reason I haven't been writing is that I've been putting all my efforts into writing and teaching a new Bible study on worry, insecurity, and anger. I've taught it to women and teenage girls now, and my next project is to see if it works for college and career age guys and girls.

What I'd like to do is start a more general blog, not just emotional eating, but other issues, as well. I'm not sure when I'll get that up and running but hopefully sometime in the next month. I'll post a blog entry here when I have it ready to go.

I was also thinking it might be helpful to make a favorites label on this blog which would include a set of posts that could help women who are exploring the idea of renewing their minds in the area of food - maybe some basic posts to get them started on it. If anyone has any ideas of posts that would be helpful, would you mind e-mailing me at truthwaypress@gmail.com or just posting a comment here? (At least if there is anyone out there still checking my blog after five months absence!)

I wish I could see all of you in real life and visit with you face-to-face. But of course, I can't. I pray that God is keeping you safe in the comfort of His arms and that you are finding strength in His Word.

Freedom is a process

2010-05-12T09:02:00.002-06:00

It took about seven months of truth journaling for eating before I felt a tenuous freedom. I posted my first freedom entry a couple of months ago. What I've found since I wrote that entry almost four years ago is that freedom is more of an ongoing process than a one time now-I've-accomplished-it-and-I-can-relax sort of event.

Yes, it gets much easier to follow boundaries. Yes, I'm far more controlled than I used to be. Yes, I no longer worry about going back to my old ways. But no, I'm not completely free of the desire to eat for non-hunger reasons.

I still have those old desires at times. In fact, even as I write this I'm sad I've already had breakfast, because I would much rather go have something to eat than go back to my writing which is what I plan to do next.

So even though the desire to eat decreases, it never completely goes away - at least it hasn't for me, not permanently, anyway. What happens is that you develop the habit of going to God for help with the problem. You gain confidence that the truth will set you free, and because you're confident, that's where you go for help when you are tempted to go back to your old ways.

Here are a few more journal entries I made after I was feeling relatively free:

Day 219 - 10/4/06

I feel like food no longer controls me. It seems like I could maintain my weight now without a lot of struggle - yet I don't know yet about losing weight. I seem to be in a "limited control" situation and am cautiously optimistic. Lately, I have felt like I may be able to go back to sweets if I stick to meal times.

Day 241 - 10/26/06

I'm trying to think of my problem areas in eating right now, and I can't think of any. My lingering reasons for overeating are: 1) stress and feeling overwhelmed 2) procrastination 3) The "I deserve it" lie 4) Fear of failure (with overeating).

5/12/10

It's interesting to read old journal entries to see how God continues to work. My only lingering reason for overeating now is procrastination (that and unexpected good things available to eat). Unfortunately, I still haven't developed the habit of going to God first when faced with things I don't want to do. When I do, I'll probably lose a few pounds.

Instant Success?

2010-05-05T13:23:00.003-06:00

Wouldn’t you love to have instant success in the area of emotional eating and weight loss? To lose all of your weight in just a few months without suffering and without ever once breaking your boundaries or feeling like a failure?

That would be so nice, but also so unlikely.

The fact is, we often have to fail over and over again before we get really good at something. And it’s the same with emotional eating. Even now after almost four years of being free from emotional eating, I still have times when I have to go back to the drawing board and start truth journaling again so I don’t go back to my old ways. That doesn’t mean I’m back in bondage whenever that happens. It just means I need to truth journal so I don’t go back into bondage.

My confidence isn’t in my success. My confidence is in God who sets me free and in a Bible that works. The truth sets me free. I just need to go back to it and apply it every time I fail. That’s what I was reminding myself of in this next truth journal entry.

Day 146 – 7/23/06

I’m feeling defeated today. I’ve been trying to change myself by will power again, not with the truth. Plus I’ve been putting perfectionist standards on myself. Condemning myself when I fail.

This is a stronghold – it requires spiritual weapons of prayer and carrying my thought captive. Getting up and using will power and positive attitude is not going to cut it!

I need to go back to journaling when I eat for a non-hunger or non-meal reason. Back to the basics. Plus meditate on Scripture. Remember, I can’t do it by getting up and starting anew. Only the truth will change me.

Appearance and Emotional Eating

2010-04-30T12:31:00.009-06:00

I've often wondered if it's possible to break free from emotional eating if we're still worshiping the idol of appearance. I think it's often that need to look perfect that drives us to eat like crazy when we've been doing well for quite awhile and then all of a sudden start regularly breaking our boundaries.

We fear gaining all that weight back, and the fear drives us to eat because, and here's the problem, life will be terrible if we gain all our weight back. If we think life will be terrible just because we weigh more than we want to weigh, we're giving way too much power to appearance. And if you think about it, way too much power to living up to the expectations of others.

Breaking free from worries about appearance was just as big an issue for me as breaking free from emotional eating. Here are a few of my old journal entries that dealt with this issue.

Day 68 - 5/6/06

I am finally losing a little weight. I actually wonder if God kept my weight up when I was struggling so that I wouldn't give up the struggle too soon just because I was losing weight i.e. He wanted me to keep dealing with the issues, including the issue of failure, before I experienced weight loss.

And He has helped me with failure. If my goal is to be submitted to God in my eating then I shouldn't beat myself up when I fail (because God doesn't). Of course, I'm going to fail. This is an area of struggle for me. I don't have brute self-control.

On the other hand, if my goal is to have the perfect body, I will beat myself up - because major eating will really hurt that goal.

Day 98 - 6/5/10

Food - God - Appearance. Which will I allow to control me? Food is an idol when I say I have to eat certain things to be happy. Appearance is an idol when I say I have to be at a certain weight to be acceptable. And one idol fights against the other.

They're at cross-purposes with one another, a perfect situation to cause discouragement and despair. Food controls and prevents reaching the unattainable body, and Satan is watching and laughing.

Truth: 1) I don't have to have the perfect body. I am okay where I am. There is no standard I need to measure up to. This is the world's standard, not God's. 2) I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

The answer isn't resolve, determination, and starting a diet. The answer is to cling to God. To hold His word in my heart. To meditate on Scripture. And to renew my mind until I see life (including food and my body) the way He sees it.

2010-04-27T11:20:00.003-06:00

Hi everyone, I'm continuing on with some of my truth journal entries from four years ago. I'm afraid I'm not a scheduled enough person to remember to post every Monday and Thursday (the week I had no entries we were camping and hiking in southern Utah), but I'm trying! Here's another entry:

Day 64 - 5/2/06

Things I need to drill into my head:

1. It is the regular application of the truth that will set me free, not adhering rigidly to an eating program. I have never been able to stick to a program long-term anyway, so it's a good thing that's not what sets me free!

2. I'm going for breaking bondage here, not perfect and prompt weight loss. It is much better to go slowly and make permanent change than follow everything perfectly (on a diet) and gain it all back.

3. Breaking boundaries aren't the end of the world. They're an opportunity to apply truth to my life to break the bondage of emotional eating.

4. "It's available" and "Everyone else is having it" are not good reasons to have treats.

5. "I deserve it" is not a good reason to eat. Eating will not meet my needs.

6. Ask myself, "What is my problem, and what will solve it?" The only time food will be the answer is when the problem is hunger!

Group Truth Journaling on Ning

2010-04-22T11:11:00.005-06:00

I'm taking a break from my old journal entries to tell you about an idea I had. I was wondering if anyone would be interested in doing some group truth journaling sessions? I've done some of these with some of my friends lately, and they seem really helpful.

Here's what you do. Let's say someone has a hard situation they're dealing with. They would explain the situation and then we would all write down how we would truth journal about that situation. We'd need to be careful to change the details of the situation or not give too many specifics if it involves another person, but I think that would be pretty easy to do. We could also just make up a situation that we could all relate to and try journaling for it.

The value of doing this is that you can learn from what other people have to say about the situation. They might bring up some thoughts that you were thinking but didn't realize you were thinking. Or they might bring up some new truths that would be helpful.

It also helps in the learning-how-to-truth-journal process. The more real-life examples you see the easier it is to apply to your own life.

Kim has set up a Ning network that I think would be great to use for this. There's an area on there, I think in the forum section, where you can bring up a new topic. So we could try out our situations there and see if anyone wants to try truth journaling the topic or use another renewing of the mind technique to talk about it.

Anyway, I thought I'd throw it out there and see if anyone's interested. The address for the ning network is: www.freedomfromemotionaleating.ning.com.

If you're interested in a topic, just list a topic and I or someone else could come up with an example for the topic that we could truth journal about. Here are some ideas for topics I can think of off the top of my head: insecurity, anger, regret, worry, self-condemnation, living up to expectations of others or ourselves, letting go of expectations for others, discontentment, etc.

I'll give others a chance first to see if they have something they want to truth journal about, and if no one has an idea, I'll try to come up with a situation in the next few days.

Hope everyone is having a great day. We had a big thunder and hail storm yesterday and today the grass is green, and I'm enjoying the daffodils and tulips!

2010-04-19T08:14:00.004-06:00

Day 34 – April 2, 2006

Situation: We had friends for lunch, and my son made this incredible braided cheese bread plus we had brownies for dessert. I ate without thinking and ate too much.

Beliefs: It’s a party! It doesn’t count!

Truth: All things are lawful, but not all things are edifying. I can eat all I want at a party, but is it really good for me? No. Does it really make the party more fun? No. Will I be happy when the party is over? No.

The truth is what will set me free. I see the beginnings of belief change in me, but I know it will take a while to change because it’s such a big stronghold for me.

I haven’t been journaling every time I break this, much less every time I feel like eating when I’m not hungry. So I think, all in all, I’ve had some good progress.

There’s also the aspect of accepting my body where it’s at and not making a god of looks. I don’t have to be perfect, and I don’t have to live up to anyone’s expectations. If people see me with a weight problem, they’ll be seeing the truth – I have a weight problem.

I don’t measure up to the standards of society, but that’s okay. I only need to be trying to live for God’s approval. And although He is perfect, He does not demand perfection in others.

Day 50 – 4/18/06

The truth is starting to sink into me. I’m starting to lose the desire to overeat. But I’ve still not been losing weight other than a pound or two. I think this is the reason: I need to also rely on God for weight loss, not just the overeating.

I’m journaling the big things, and this is enough to maintain my weight but not enough to lose weight. So now I will try to journal each time I go over my point totals.

Belief: I can’t lose weight. I’m following this and not losing.

Truth: I’m not following it perfectly. Try to follow it perfectly for three weeks and then see if I still can’t lose weight.

Note: My 5/24 entry says that says I lost four pounds since that last entry.

2010-04-07T19:21:00.008-06:00

Day 11 - 3/10/06

I’ve missed journaling the last three days, not because I’ve been perfect, but because I’ve been a total failure! The combined stress of all the time spent getting ready for the speech meet (and a bunch of other responsibilities) pushed me over the edge into a major “I deserve this” attitude.

But – I’m not going to give up and will try not to condemn myself. In order to become good at something you must fail at it first a bunch of times. If I only keep trying, I’ll eventually succeed.

When I journaled for anger, I didn’t condemn myself every time I felt annoyed. Instead, I brought my beliefs to the truth each time, which made the angry feelings go away. Today I still feel like eating.

Beliefs: 1. I’ve already blown it. 2. I’ll never be able to stick to a plan and lose weight.

Truths: 1. True. 2. I’ll never be able to do it if I give up at this point. This is something that will work if I see it through and keep journaling. The truth will set me free. Satan may have had a hand in the last few days since he seeks my defeat and discouragement. But the power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to me to free me from this bondage and deceit. I will press on to freedom and truth.

Note: I also truth journaled my feelings about all my responsibilities in this entry, although I won’t include it here. The important thing to note, though, is that if I hadn’t truth journaled about the speech meet and the other things that were overwhelming me, I still would have been stressed out. It’s really important to truth journal emotions, and that often takes away your desire to eat, even if you don’t truth journal the beliefs about the food.

Day 25

Beliefs: 1. Life is too hard! 2. I'm going crazy! 3. I can't handle this. 4. I am a failure.

Prompted by: stepping on the scale and seeing a 2 pound gain after working out and eating pretty well for a week.

Truths: 1. On the world's "life is hard" scale with 100 being the easy life and 0 being the hard life, I'm at least at an 80. My life is not hard compared to the rest of the world. 2. I will not go crazy. But when I feel crazy, I have a few options open to me: 1) deal with the emotions by journaling and going to the Lord 2) call a friend and complain 3) eat 4) do something fun. The first option will give me more peace and bring me closer to God. Choose it! I'm not the only one who goes crazy. 3. That's right, I can't handle it, but God can. 4. I am weak in many areas, but God sees my heart, and He loves me no matter what.

2010-04-05T04:14:00.012-06:00

2/28/06 – Day One

It’s my belief that a person can not only exercise self-control when it comes to food, but can also come to the point where they no longer have the desire to overeat. In fact, I think it is more effective to control the desire than it is to control the behavior. But how does one control desire? By controlling the beliefs that cause the desire in the first place.

If I believe that food will make me happy, make me feel better, and relieve my stress, then I’ll have the desire to eat even when I’m not hungry. But if I no longer believe those things, I won’t feel like eating for those reasons any longer.

So this is to be a journal of belief change. I will have a plan – three meals a day with no snacks, and I’ll journal whenever I eat a snack.

I know this worked with anger for me in about two months. But it was easy to journal every time I was angry, because I wasn’t angry that much. I used to think this wouldn’t work with food because I’d be journaling all the time. Journaling just for snacks should make it more manageable.

Day Four – 3/3/10

Situation: I was in charge of planning a speech meet and was tempted to eat to avoid planning it.

This speech meet is a trial. It could teach me:

1) To deal with procrastination.
2) To be willing to do what I don’t want to do for others.
3) To give up my time for others.
4) To accept less than perfection.
5) To organize and plan a big event.
6) To do something I don’t know how to do and persevere.

If I escape the trial by turning to an idol (food), I won’t learn from the trial. . . . God has a certain end result or outcome in mind for my trials (1 Corinthians 10:13-14, James 1). But in order to see this outcome, I need to yield fully to Him – not escape to idolatry.

So with this speech meet – God wants to use it for my good, but if I just eat out my frustrations, I'll miss out on all He has to teach me. Do I really want to do that? No.

Note: I should mention that my theory on day one didn't quite prove true for me. Although I've had seasons when it's been easy to stick to my boundaries, it's not always that way. I think I won't get to that point until I carry all the other areas of my life captive to God that make me want to eat. And maybe not even then if I have good food around the house!

What did happen is this: I gained such confidence in the truth changing my desires, that I no longer worry about going back to my old ways. If I feel like my eating is getting out of hand (which almost never happens anymore - maybe a couple times a year), I just start truth journaling for it again, and I get back on track pretty quickly.

New Blog Format

2010-03-31T21:05:00.004-06:00

Yes, it’s true. I’m finally writing another blog post! I’m afraid I’ve had a terrible time thinking up things to write about lately. I kind of feel like I should stick to the emotional eating theme since this blog is supposed to be about emotional eating, but I can’t think of anything new to say about it!

So I was trying to decide what to do—close the blog, change the subject, etc.—when I had another idea. I thought it might be interesting to post some of my old journal entries that I wrote when I was trying to overcome emotional eating myself.

I actually remember buying that journal. I went up to Missoula and picked out a nice journal because I thought to myself, finally, I am going to commit myself to overcoming this problem. So I got a brown journal with a kind of cushy cover and made a commitment to begin journaling through my eating failures.

I have a terrible memory, so it’s been interesting to look at some of those old entries. I didn’t realize I had been planning to write a Bible study about emotional eating so long ago. The first journal entry is dated 2/28/06, and by March 3rd, I’m already talking about writing a Bible study.

Now I remember that my plan was to write the study, and then do the study, hoping that the study would help me get over my own emotional eating problem! Thankfully, God didn’t make me wait that long. Listen to my 9/23/06 entry:

The Lord is very good. It has been almost seven months since I started this journal. My hopes upon buying it were to record the growth in my life in the area of eating. My hopes were that by the end of the journal, I would learn how to control this area of my life. Now, less than seven months later, it seems that God has shown me the path.

I started by thinking my truth journaling was the answer, and that did help some. . . . This summer – probably early summer – I wrote the chapter on idolatry, and I learned about idolatry as I wrote it. And then God convicted me. Over the next month, I watched my behavior and thought, “Food is an idol in my life.”

I didn’t want an idol. I loved God too much to go to another god. So I decided to give up sweets, for life if necessary, to get rid of the idol. What was never worth it to me to lose weight (giving up sweets) was worth it to me for sweet communion with God.

You know, I don’t even remember when I had my last bowl of ice cream, or when I gave it up – I think late July or August. But I was still having problems eating too much – often granola or bread – still compulsive eating at times. Then one day I happened to run across a whole section of books at the Missoula library on food addiction.

I started researching – reading them for my Bible study – and that’s when I found the missing piece. It talked about certain foods and too much food that would set off binge eating. It said, don’t even have a bite of unallowed eating because that will set off uncontrolled eating.

I thought, “I think this is the answer to my problems.” I had long had the idea of no snacking but still allowed the bite, the nibble, the lick of the spoon, etc. And that would make me feel like I broke it which would lead to more eating.

The funny thing is that the food addict books said you should eliminate certain foods, but God had already led me to do that from the idolatry lesson. Eliminating those foods made it easier to stick to not even one bite outside of my plan.

His lovingkindness endures forever. And He continues to lead me and transform me in His time and as I am ready to lay down each area of my life before Him.

I didn’t publish my book until July of 2008, so I spent almost two more years writing it after this journal entry. During that time I came to the point where following the boundaries was easy. I also had a six week or so relapse over one of those Christmases, and some more struggles while I was doing the actual writing of the book. I'll try to include some of those entries as well.

What I'm hoping to accomplish with these entries is to show you that overcoming emotional eating is not a smooth and easy road. There are lots of failures along the way, but those failures will lead to eventual success if you keep sorting them out with God.

At any rate, I thought it might be interesting to share a few of these entries. Most of them will be far shorter than today’s post, so don’t get worried! I’ll try to post every Monday and Thursday. I won’t include whole entries, but will try to choose the parts of the entries that might be helpful.

Some of the entries will include truth journals, and some will just be regular journal entries, as I did a lot of each in this journal. These will be easy posts for me to write, as I won’t have to worry about being a perfectionist! I’ll post the first entry on Monday.

Truth Retreat

2010-02-11T19:37:00.006-07:00

When my kids were little, I used to leave them with my husband every once in awhile and head to a town an hour away from here for a little quiet time. I resisted the urge to shop and do errands and instead headed to the local university library. There I'd go down into the basement, find a nice quiet spot, and spend some time with God.

I usually had some agenda besides my quiet time. Some truth agenda (this was back in the early days of my truth journaling). What I would do is pick an emotion or a subject (rejection for example), and I'd go back into the past writing down significant memories. The list might be ten or twenty items long.

Then I'd truth journal through the list, one memory at a time. I'd write down what I was thinking at the time (it's surprising how much you can remember), and then I'd apply the truth to those old thoughts. If it was a bad memory, I'd picture God with me in the midst of the memory and imagine what He might say to me about that memory.

Sometimes I realized that I hadn't handled those past situations the way God would have wanted me to handle them. When that happened I thought about what I should have done in the situation I was remembering - not in a beat-myself-up sort of way, but in a reflective way. I hadn't really planned on doing that but for some reason it seemed to help the healing process.

I only did this a few times, but I remember them being wonderful times with God. Now my kids are older - only two left at home - and the house isn't as noisy as it used to be. I don't need to leave home to find a quiet place to spend a few hours, so I don't think about going on retreats. But I went on one anyway a few weeks ago, and it was just as delightful as I remembered. This time I brought a friend.

I picked her up around 8:00 in the morning, and we headed for that same university library I used to go to - only this time we went to the fourth floor and found some nice comfy chairs in front of a couple of windows.

My friend started in on her regular quiet time, while I asked God what He wanted me to go over that day. In the past I'd always had a plan, but this time I didn't have anything in mind when I got to the library. So I prayed for a bit, and God seemed to be directing me toward working on my people pleasing tendencies.

I thought back through my past (which takes a lot longer now that I'm nine years older!) and wrote down some memories of times when my people pleasing tendencies caused me to make bad decisions. It was an interesting experience. In the beginning, I was just thinking it would be an interesting thing to look at, but as I went through my list I realized I had a much bigger problem than I had previously realized!

Someone once said that she could feel God pouring out truth through her pen as she truth journaled. I feel the same way, and God was really pouring out the truth that morning. It was a delightful exerience (although the next day when God gave me an opportunity to put what I'd learned into practice, it was far less delightful!).

After a couple of hours at the library, we walked downtown for a bit and had lunch at a Thai restaurant which was fun and yummy. We took another walk by the river and then headed into a coffee shop for another round with the past.

This time it was my friend's turn to get poured on by God as she started her own look at the past. We sat on a cozy leather couch drinking our lattes, writing in our journals, and sharing our hearts with each other when we couldn't see the truth on our own.

Our last stop was the public library. More time in the Word, more journaling, and more talking it over with God. We finally headed for home around 4:00.

It was an amazing day of fellowship, growth, friendship, and truth. I wanted to share it with you just in case any of you might want to try something like this. You could have a subject in mind when you begin the day or just ask God what He wants you to go over once you arrive at your destination. If you decide to try it, let me know how it goes!

Emotions Mind Renewing Challenge

2010-01-27T23:51:00.006-07:00

In my last post I said I would give you a renewing of the mind challenge for the emotions, so I thought I better get that challenge going! Here's the challenge: to choose one emotion or situation and commit to renewing your mind every time you experience that emotion or situation for the next two weeks. Here are some tips to help you get started:

1. Choose an emotion or situation that doesn't occur more than once or twice a day. For example, if you tend to be an easily annoyed person and you want to work on anger, just choose one person to journal about, preferably one that you get mad at often enough to journal about, but not so often that you'll have to spend the whole day journaling about them!

2. Commit to journaling as soon as possible after you experience the emotion, but for sure you before you go to bed that night. If you wait until the next morning two things will happen. First, you'll have a hard time remembering the thoughts that led to your negative emotion, and second, there's a good chance you'll wake up thinking, "Oh, that wasn't such a big deal. I think I'll just forget it." And then you will. Without journaling!

3. Try different ways to renew your mind to see if one works better for you than another.

4. Try to come to a point of peace each time you renew your mind. If you don't, there's a good chance you haven't yet accepted what you need to accept to find peace. Option charts always seem to make it easier for me to accept what I need to accept.

5. Don't expect it to be easy. Think of how many times Jesus had to go back to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane to line up His will with the Father's will. He didn't just say a quick little prayer and then force Himself to go to the cross. He really worked to bring His heart in line with the Father's heart. Yes, our trials are much smaller than His, but shouldn't we give the same diligence to lining up our will with the Father's?

6. Before you begin your challenge, get a notebook ready, preferably one you can tear the pages out of. That way if you write something you don't want anyone to read, you can tear it out, crumple it up, and even hide it underneath a banana peel in the garbage can if it's really bad!

7. Sometimes after I journal, especially in a situation where I'm not feeling loved, I like to listen to praise music and think of how much God loves me. I lie on the couch, close my eyes, and worship God. I often feel very cherished by Him during those times--and it always makes me feel like it was worth giving up whatever I needed to give up for Him.

Well, that's about all the tips I can think of. From my experience it takes about six to eight weeks to really have lasting results, but if you do it for two weeks the peace you enjoy may be enough to motivate you to do it another four weeks!

Working on Your Emotions

2010-01-15T10:54:00.014-07:00

When I first began teaching Freedom from Emotional Eating two or three years ago, I had a couple of women drop out of my Bible study. They didn't want to discourage me, they said, but it was just too painful to work on their emotions to keep going. I can sympathize with those ladies. I know how hard it is to work on some of these things.

Our tendency is to blame our feelings on other people or on situations we have no control over. It's hard to recognize that we also have a certain amount of responsibility when it comes to our emotions. And it's hard to go through all the work we need to go through to find peace and joy in difficult situations.

When you first start working on an emotion, it may take awhile to bring your thoughts captive to Christ. You might need to spend a long time wrestling through a situation with God before you experience peace, and even then, the peace will feel somewhat shaky. But the more you do it, the easier it will get and the more long-lasting and all-encompassing the peace will be.

At some point you'll find that situations which at one time would have annoyed you or sent you into a frenzy of worry no longer affect you that much. You'll begin to see the benefits of renewing your mind, and that in and of itself will make you want to keep going.

If you're not at that point yet, I'd like to encourage you to work on your negative emotions. Here are four benefits I see as a result of regular renewing of your mind in the area of your negative emotions:

1. It will bring you closer to God.

The Bible actually has a lot to say about negative emotions. For example, in Matthew 5:22-28, Jesus implies that both anger and lust are sin. In Romans 1:28-30, envy, greed, and arrogance are included in a list of wrongdoings that also includes murder and hating God. In Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus doesn’t say that worry is a sin, but He does tell us not to do it.

Now here’s the interesting thing. We all know that sin separates us from God, but usually we focus on behavioral sin. What we need to recognize is that sins of the heart can cause distance in our relationship with God just as easily as sins of behavior. If I’m constantly wallowing in an emotion that God has told me I shouldn’t be wallowing in, then that emotion is going to affect my walk with Him, whether it’s labeled sin in the Bible or not.

Renewing my mind on a regular basis has done more for my walk with God than any other discipline. It keeps me feeling close to Him, and it keeps me wanting to spend time with Him, both in the Word and in prayer. What I've found is that when I'm all wrapped up in emotions that don't honor Him, I don't want to be with Him. Renewing my mind not only gets rid of the negative emotions--it also brings me back to God.

2. It will improve your relationships.

Here’s an interesting exercise. Take out a piece of paper and list the three negative emotions you deal with most. Then ask yourself this question: How does this emotion affect my relationship with God and others? We can easily see how an emotion like anger hurts our relationships, but the surprising thing is that seemingly benign emotions like stress and worry also hurt our relationships.

3. It will make your life more peaceful and joyful.

This is kind of an obvious benefit. The problem is that the peace and joy don’t come the minute you start working on the emotion. Instead, life is less peaceful and joyful in the beginning because of the stress working on that emotion brings into your life. Depending on your situation, you may want to think about working through some of those really difficult emotions with a counselor.

4. It will help you lose weight.

Renewing your mind in the area of food will help you lose weight, but renewing your mind in the area of your negative emotions will help you lose even more weight. That’s why five out of eight chapters in Freedom from Emotional Eating deal with the emotions.

Think of it this way—if you tend to eat when you’re worried and all of a sudden you start going to God whenever you’re worried, you’ll eventually learn to trust in Him and you’ll begin to live a life of relative non-worry. It will take a lot of renewing your mind to get to that point, but you will get there if you keep pursuing God each time you’re worried.

Once you get there, you may still eat when you’re worried. But since you won’t worry much anymore, that won’t be a big deal.

One Last Thought

Before I close, I just want to say a word to those of you who either have experienced or are experiencing devastating things in your lives that are causing your negative emotions. I can’t claim to know what you’re feeling, because I haven’t walked in your shoes, but God knows.

Think of all Jesus Christ went through when He lived on earth. He knows how you’re feeling, and He grieves over what happened to you. He doesn’t condemn you for your feelings—but He doesn’t want you to continue on in those feelings either.

Often we don’t find peace until we’re willing to accept the unacceptable. Renewing our minds helps us see life from God's point of view. Through it, God can show us if there's anything we need to accept--and He'll also give us the strength to accept what we need to accept. Renewing our minds in the area of our emotions can be very difficult, but it's worth the peace and joy and intimacy with God that comes with it.

In my next post, I'll give you a renewing of the mind challenge for the emotions.

Renewing of the Mind Challenge

2010-01-04T06:15:00.002-07:00

I’m sitting here by the fire this morning wondering how everyone is doing today. The holiday season is officially over now and the kids are back in school. Many of you are probably thinking, “Good—life will get back to normal today.”

I still have my Christmas tree up—in fact I’m looking at it right now all lit up—and my older boys are still home for Christmas vacation, so life isn’t back to normal yet here, but I like it this way. I love having all the kids home.

Still, it’s time to get back to work today. I’ll be working again on my new Bible study and forcing myself to go back to my writing schedule.

The first Monday of the new year is a good time for beginnings, and today I’d like to present you with a renewing of the mind challenge. What I’d like you to try is five days of truth journaling, Scripture prayers, or one of the other mind renewing practices in Freedom from Emotional Eating.

If you’re having problems sticking to your eating boundaries, you may want to place your efforts toward trying to stick to your boundaries. If you’re already doing that, I would try working on one of your negative emotions.

Here are some pointers for you if you’re going to work on sticking to your boundaries:

1. Print out some lie/truth charts right away or get a notebook handy. Find a pen and put everything in a place where it’s easy to get to when you need to journal. You can find a larger version of the lie/truth chart that’s in the book at www.truthwaypress.com in the sample content area.

2. Make a commitment to journal every time you eat something out of your boundaries, and I mean every time—even if it’s just one lick of the spoon.

3. Make a rule that you have to truth journal before you can eat anything else.

4. Truth journal even if you’re already planning to break your boundaries again the minute you’re done truth journaling.

5. Don’t beat yourself up even if you break your boundaries ten times during the day—but you should have ten truth journal entries to show for your ten boundary breaks. I would also intersperse those truth journal entries with Scripture prayers which you could even write out.

6. Do this for five solid days even if it doesn’t seem to be making a difference.

Here are some pointers for you if you had been sticking to your boundaries faithfully before Christmas but you’ve been doing terrible since:

1. Do all the things I just mentioned in the previous section.

2. In addition, you’ll need to truth journal your feelings of failure and your fear of continuing to fail.

3. Every time you feel like you will never get over this problem, journal those thoughts. This is a necessary part of the process. I don’t think you can break free from emotional eating without going through the fear of failure stage. It usually hits more than once and it’s often accompanied by failure. You’ll need to use the truth to combat all those lies that tell you you’ll never get over this problem!

4. Be willing to accept that your failure has made you gain some of your weight back if that’s what has happened. Weight isn’t everything, but following God is. Ask yourself, how does God see this situation you’re in? How are you seeing the situation? Adjust your thinking so it matches His.

5. Recognize that this is a trial and know that God can use this trial to bring you closer to Him and make you more like Him if you go to Him for help. If you have Freedom from Emotional Eating, go back to the chapter on trials and rework it with your present trial of eating failure in mind. Make a list of all the things God could do in your life if you were to keep going to Him for help with this trial.

6. Steep yourself in the Word. Spend as much time with God as possible. Remember that life is about loving God and loving others. Answer this question in your journal: How can I love God best in this situation of struggling with food? How can I love my neighbors best in this situation? In the overall scheme of life does a five or ten pound Christmas weight gain make that much difference? How would God want me to move on from here?

I’m going to have to give the pointers for working on the emotions in my next post because I need to get to work on writing before I lose my momentum. I’ll be praying for all of you this week.

Perfectionism and Emotional Eating

2009-12-30T12:33:00.008-07:00

Christmas isn’t easy for emotional and obsessive eaters. I don’t know how many Christmases I’ve stuffed myself so full of goodies that by the time New Year’s rolled around, I weighed five or ten pounds more than I weighed at Thanksgiving just five weeks earlier.

I can still remember driving west on I-90 after marrying my husband in North Dakota 27 Christmases ago and throwing cookies out the window as we drove along because it was the only way I could keep myself from eating all of them in one big shot as we headed back to Montana.

Eating too many Christmas cookies isn’t good for our health, our figures, or our morale, but we make a bad situation worse when we take an extra step and condemn ourselves for eating them. My guess is that there are more than a few of you out there who are now beating yourselves up because you didn’t eat perfectly this holiday season!

So I decided to write a post today about perfectionism and emotional eating. I'm hoping you'll read this and stop beating yourself up if that's what you're doing - because perfectionism will hurt your efforts to break free from emotional eating.

Here are just a few of the areas where perfectionism kicks in to slow down our progress in breaking free from emotional eating:

1. Wanting a PERFECT body.

The lie we believe here is that the only thing that’s acceptable is a skinny body. Is this true? Of course not! If life is about loving God and loving others, then it’s loving God and loving others that makes us acceptable, not being skinny. Not to mention the fact that God accepts us “as is.” He doesn’t demand that we shape up before He's willing to love us.

Believing we need to be skinny to be acceptable will actually hurt our weight loss efforts because it leads to self-condemnation when we break our boundaries. “Well, I’ll never be skinny anyway after all that food,” we think, “so I might as well just eat this and this and this.” And then we go all out in the eating department, which of course, is counter-productive to losing weight.

If we instead focus on the truth that life is about loving God and others, it won’t be such a big deal if we break our boundaries. God is far more merciful and gracious than a world who demands physical perfection. He won’t beat us up because we eat too much, but He will want us to have the right attitude about food and our bodies. So He’ll be hoping we come to Him and to His Word so we can see both food and ourselves through His eyes.

2. Trusting in the PERFECT boundaries.

The lie we believe here is that “if we can just find the right set of boundaries it will be easy to control our eating and/or lose weight.” So we try new diets and new boundaries, just waiting for the right one to come along that will make us lose weight and keep it off.

The problem is that unless we radically change the way we think about food, people, and life, we’ll eventually go back to our old ways of handling life’s problems with food, and we’ll gain our weight back—no matter what program we used to lose the weight in the first place.

The boundaries are a good framework for eating, and I believe they’re necessary for the emotional eater, but we’ll never have enough will power to make ourselves stick to our boundaries until we change the way we think about food.

3. Expecting life and people to be PERFECT.

If we expect life and people to be perfect, we’ll eat when they’re not. At least, we will if we’re emotional eaters. Developing a lifestyle of gratefulness, grace, and dependence on God will help us do away with a good share of those negative emotions that make us feel like eating in the first place.

4. Relying on PERFECT foods.

It’s easy to get in the habit of thinking we deserve to eat well, and that if we only eat what our body really wants to eat—the perfect food, in other words—we won’t feel like overeating.

While this might be true for people who have never turned to food for emotional reasons, it’s usually not true for the emotional and obsessive eater, because it’s often not taste and hunger that’s driving us to eat.

5. Condemning ourselves when we don’t follow our boundaries PERFECTLY.

This is a biggie. I might as well eat because . . . I will never get over this because . . . I am such a failure because . . . I will always be overweight because . . . All of these sentences can be answered with the same phrase— because “I broke my boundaries.”

But the truth is that it would be an absolute miracle if we could break free from emotional eating without breaking our boundaries time and time again. And I mean that literally.

God doesn’t normally choose to solve our problems with a one-time magic swipe of His hand. Instead, He allows us to go through trials, leaning on Him for strength, truth, and wisdom because He can teach us more by having us lean on Him than He can by doing everything for us.

Failure paves a good share of the pathway to success. But failure only leads to success when we step from failure toward God. Our normal operating mode is to step from failure to the refrigerator.

I did that for years, but it wasn’t until I was willing to make the sacrifice of taking the time to renew my mind that I began to experience significant change. God used the truth to transform me. My next blog post will be a renewing the mind challenge to you to start the new year off right!

How To Choose Boundaries

2009-12-17T08:44:00.004-07:00

I’ve had a few questions lately about how to choose boundaries, so today I’d like to give some ideas that might help. If any of you want to share how you came up with your own boundaries, that would be great also. Please share your ideas in the comments section. I’ll be giving ideas for three different types of boundaries:

1. A set number of meals or snacks – example: three meals and one snack.

This may be a good boundary for you if . . .

• You like to eat meals with your family. Even if you’re not hungry, you’ll be able to sit down with them and eat a little bit.

• You like structure, order, and routine. This way you can plan out your meals and snacks and know when you can eat.

• You have a hard time telling when you’re hungry and when you’re full. With the meals/snacks boundaries, you’ll look at what’s available to eat before your meal and determine what a healthy amount is. Anything you eat above and beyond that amount would be something you would journal about.

• You tend to rationalize hunger i.e. tell yourself you’re hungry when you’re really not.

• You like to know when you can eat next.

2. Eating when hungry and stopping when full.

This may be a good boundary for you if . . .

• You have a hectic life and don’t have time for scheduled meals.

• You feel like it’s easier to control your eating if you eat only when hungry.

• You’re traveling and feel like nibbling all the time just because you’re on vacation.

• Would tend to use three meals and a snack as an opportunity to eat as much as you wanted at those meals and snacks and wouldn’t have a tendency to do that with hunger only boundaries.

3. Diets

This may be a good boundary for you if . . .

• You're faithfully doing one of the other boundaries and not losing weight even though you want to lose weight (and actually need to lose weight for your health).

Note: If you decide to go on a diet, you should be training yourself to follow one of the other boundaries while on your diet. For example, if you’re going to Weight Watchers and your lifetime boundaries are three meals and one snack a day, you would divide your points for the day between those four eating occasions. For example: 4 points for breakfast, 8 points for lunch, 8 points for supper, 3 points for snack. Then you would truth journal each time you ate more than your allowed points for each eating occasion.

One thing to remember with all the boundaries is that it’s impossible to find a set of boundaries that will be easy to follow if you’re an emotional eater. One set of boundaries may be more suited to your lifestyle and personality than another, but it still won’t keep you from eating when you’re stressed, bored, annoyed, etc.

What boundaries do is provide a structure to keep us from eating emotionally. You might say they keep us from eating whenever we feel like eating, because we feel like eating too often! Boundaries also provide a framework to know when to truth journal.

If you truth journal whenever you break your boundaries, the truth will start working its way into your heart, and there will come a time when you won’t feel like eating outside your boundaries. This doesn’t happen overnight, though. I just counted the number of lie/truth charts I have in a file for blog ideas and there were 17 of them – and I know I didn’t save all my charts!

If you’d like to read more about boundaries, look at the category headings on the left side of this blog and click on the link for boundaries. There are a couple of posts on rules and another one called “Not Even One Bite” that might provide helpful insight, as well.

Seven Beliefs that Lead to Holiday Weight Gain

2009-12-08T22:17:00.005-07:00

Read at:
www.faithandfitness.net/node/278

Christmas

2009-12-01T08:31:00.006-07:00

Christmas isn’t an easy season for emotional eaters. In a month where we’re surrounded by good things to eat, we’re also surrounded by opportunities for negative emotions that make us want to eat.

The funny thing is that we’ve taken a holiday designed to celebrate the birth of Jesus, who came to bring us peace, and turned it into probably the least peaceful time of the year. The stress of all the things on our to-do lists would send us to the refrigerator even if the Christmas cookies didn't!

So what do we do? Resign ourselves to the inevitable Christmas weight gain? Get rid of the Christmas cookies? Or use the season as an opportunity to change our focus and see life, ourselves, our to-do list, and even Christmas through God’s eyes?

This Christmas my goal is to keep my focus on God throughout the Christmas season and to avoid getting caught up in the negative emotions that seem to come with the season. Here are a few of the ideas I had to help me reach that goal.

1. Practice the presence of God as much as possible.
I think I mentioned before that I’ve been reading the book The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, a man who lived in the 1600’s. Here’s an excerpt from his book:

I make it my business only to persevere in His holy presence, wherein I keep myself by a simple attention, and a general fond regard to God, which I may call an actual presence of God; or, to speak better, an habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with God, which often causes me joys and raptures inwardly, and sometimes also outwardly, so great that I am forced to use means to moderate them and prevent their appearance to others.

Brother Lawrence said that developing this habit of always being aware of God’s presence no matter what he was doing did more for his relationship with God than anything he’d ever done before.

I’ve found that it’s a hard habit to develop, but when it works, it’s delightful. It’s like you’re having a side conversation with God while you’re doing other things. Or like He’s right there with you fellowshipping with you while you do those other things. I’ve also found that it makes things you don’t usually enjoy doing almost enjoyable because you’re doing them with the One you love.

2. Deal with the emotions that come up when they come up.
When I find myself craving Christmas cookies, I'll ask myself, Is it the cookies, or is it my emotions? If you have a tendency to eat to procrastinate like I do, you’ll probably find yourself wanting to eat at Christmas. Same with eating for stress. Or relationship problems—often there are more of those at Christmas. What we need to do when we experience those emotion-induced cravings is go to God and work through the emotions.

3. Stick to my eating boundaries faithfully.
This is more important than ever at Christmas. It's helpful to get in the mindset of not even one bite outside of the boundaries - because one bite usually leads to lots of bites!

4. Prepare myself for parties and other tempting eating events by renewing my mind before I go.

I have to tell you that I don't actually do this one because it's not an area of temptation for me anymore, but I thought I'd write about it in case you might like to try it. I think it would have helped me back in the old days.

Here's the idea - before you go to the party, write down a list of things you might tell yourself that would make you want to overeat at the party. Recognize the lies and replace them with truth. You might also make a list of the advantages of eating whatever you want at the party and the disadvantages. This will help you recognize the truth that it really is better not to eat too much.

5. Don’t be a perfectionist or a procrastinator when it comes to holiday jobs.
I probably need to give myself this lecture every day. Perfectionism and procrastination lead to stress. Things don’t have to be perfect. Things don’t have to be done all at once. Pace your holiday jobs throughout the month—if you do one thing a day, it will be more manageable.

Here’s an example. Today, I’m going to buy my Christmas cards and address the envelopes. That’s a job I don’t mind doing—but if I were to tell myself I have to send a bunch of cards today, I probably wouldn’t even get around to buying the cards because the whole process would seem too intimidating. (Yes, I know, I’m a bit on the pathetic side.)

These last three things on the list might seem like they have more to do with practical issues rather than walking with God, but the truth is that every part of our lives affects our relationship with God. When I obsess over food, it affects my relationship with God. When I demand the easy life or the perfect life, it affects my relationship with God. When I get too busy, it affects my relationship with God.

That's why I really want to develop this habit of practicing the presence of God - because I can't focus on Him and demand those other things all at the same time. Living in His presence helps me live for Him. Which is exactly what I want to do this Christmas season.

Keep Your Eyes on the Goal: Part 3

2009-11-19T12:17:00.009-07:00

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Hebrews 12:1

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I need to be reminded that the race I’m running is the one that leads to Jesus Christ. It’s so easy to make decisions based on other things—what will be most fun, what will be easiest, or even what will require the least amount of sacrifice.

We tend to handle our eating decisions the same way. If our main goal in life is to have fun, then it will be hard to control our eating because limiting ourselves isn’t fun. If our main goal in life is to be skinny, then we’ll have to worry about eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia. If our goal in life is to both indulge ourselves and be skinny, then we’ll drive ourselves crazy because those aren’t compatible goals.

What we need to do, with both life and eating, is to run the right race, or should I say the right races, because I think there are two different kinds of races we run in the right race category.

First, we run the race of our relationship with God. Our goal with this race is to keep Him first in our lives. In that race we need boundaries that will keep food from becoming either a controlling force or an idol.

Those boundaries will be different for each person depending on their eating weaknesses. In my own life the boundaries of three meals and one snack a day helped, but there was a season when I also had to give up sweets because I felt they were controlling me. I talked about that in Freedom from Emotional Eating.

The second type of race I see us running is the individual trial race. If you look at Hebrews 11, those saints each had different things God had called them to—and because of the nature of their calling they had different weights they had to throw off.

Take Noah for example. He would have had to throw off the weight of worrying about what people thought of him in order to build the ark. I imagine he would have had to put up with a lot of ridicule. Moses would have had to throw off the temptation to live the fun and easy life in order to do a job he wasn’t crazy about doing—leading the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses had to keep his eyes on his ultimate goal, God, so he could have the purpose and strength to do the unpleasant task before him.

We too have things God wants us to do even though they may not seem very big compared to the Hebrews 11 people. We also have things that get in the way of what God has called us to do. Food may be one of those things.

To look at boundaries this way, we might ask ourselves: what is God calling us to do with our lives, and what boundaries would help us run that race well? This will be different for each one of us, and it will probably change as we walk through life.

It could be that food doesn’t even factor into your individual race. I was surprised to discover that it did factor into mine. One of the races God has called me to run is the race of writing for Him. And when I get to a sticky part of writing and don’t know what to do (which happens a lot), my first impulse is to go get something to eat, preferably something sweet. God, of course, would rather see me turn to Him whenever I have problems writing.

I had to ask myself, “Are sweets a weight in my life?” My answer was yes. So I went back to my old boundaries—even though I don’t need to lose weight, even though food doesn’t control me, and even though food isn’t an idol—I decided to go back to the boundaries I talked about in my Bible study. Sweets only on social occasions, holidays and out of town trips. Fruit based sweets anytime.

And you know what? I’m finally at a point in my life where I didn’t mind giving them up. It wasn’t really a big sacrifice. That’s kind of exciting.

Breaking free from emotional eating is a process, a messy, disorderly process. You start out consumed with food. The first sign of success is usually the ending of binges. The second sign is usually being able to stick to your boundaries. Then comes moderation within the boundaries. And I’m thinking the last stage is when you don’t really care too much about food.

That doesn’t mean you progress through the process in a smooth, orderly, failure-free way. On the contrary, the process is riddled with failure. It’s easy to get discouraged when you see yourself sliding back a step. It will be far less discouraging, though, when you remember the real race you're running. It’s not the race that leads to a number on the scale. It’s the race that leads to God. The number on the scale is just a side benefit.

Keep Your Eyes on the Goal: Part Two

2009-11-10T13:07:00.010-07:00

For the past two weeks, I’ve been thinking about how my last blog post relates to emotional eating. I had no idea it would cause me to
re-think my own eating boundaries, but it has. I’ll tell you more about that in my next post, but for now I’d like to talk about goals.

Here’s my question: Is the goal of being skinny a good enough goal to get you to give up the foods you love to eat, in the quantities you love to eat them? For me the answer to that question has always been no—except for special occasions, like weddings and reunions, or shocking moments, like stepping on the scale and seeing a number that you usually only see when you're pregnant.

In the past, if one of those moments happened to coincide with one of my rare bouts of actually being able to stick to a diet, I would lose weight—for awhile. But usually only until I reached an acceptable number on the scale, at which point I would joyfully give up the diet and revert back to my old ways, and eventually my old weight.

The fact was, I enjoyed recreational eating far too much to give it up
long-term for a skinny body. It was just like my old running career. The prize wasn’t worth the sacrifice.

Then one day I realized I was going after the wrong prize. That it really didn’t matter if I was skinny—but it did matter if food was affecting my relationship with God. That was the day I realized that sweets had become an idol in my life - and even though I loved God with all my heart, I was still turning to food for comfort more often than I was turning to Him. Crazy.

Although my love for God wasn't strong enough to actually get me to make the sacrifice of removing this idol from my life, it was at least strong enough to get me to want to make the sacrifice. For the first time in my life, I was willing to give up sweets--for good if necessary.

I spoke a little bit about that time in my life in Freedom from Emotional Eating, so I won’t go into detail here. Suffice it to say that having the desire to give up the idol wasn't enough to tear down the idol, just as having a desire to win races wouldn't have been enough to win races.

I also needed the right training methods (replacing lies with truth) and a good training schedule (boundaries). When the three of those things came together in my life, food lost its control over me. It’s been several years now of being free from its control, but what I just realized last week is that I’m still not free from its influence.

I’ll explain this more thoroughly in my next post. If you want food for thought between now and then, read Hebrews 11 and make a list of all the weights those old saints had to cast aside in order to run the races (or trials) that were set before them. Then spend a bit of time meditating on Hebrews 12:1-2 and ask God to show you if you have any weights you need to cast aside to run your own race. The answer might surprise you—it sure surprised me.

Keep your eyes on the Goal

2009-10-29T12:39:00.012-06:00

When I was a freshman in college I joined the long distance cross-country track team. Now, I can just imagine what you might be thinking. Wow, Barb, must be really athletic if she was in cross country in college. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I joined the track team because I was a nice person, not an athletic person. Let me backtrack a bit. During the fall of my freshman year I made the mistake of taking a lifesaving course. The reason I say it was a mistake is because the teacher of the lifesaving course was also the coach of the cross country team. And that team only had four members on it. They needed five to compete. (Can you see where this is going?)

I had a terrible time saying no in those days, so when the coach asked me to join the team, I thought, “How bad could it be? It’s just a couple of months, and I do kind of like to run (emphasis on the kind of).” So I joined the team.

What I discovered was that when I had to get up at 5 a.m. (thank you, coach) and drive twenty miles out of town to find some hills to run three days a week—and then run for more than twenty minutes at a stretch once I got there—I no longer liked to run. But I felt too guilty to quit the team—because if I left, they wouldn’t have a team.

The races were even worse than the practices. I didn’t have a competitive bone in my body when it came to sports, and I always came in last. I just didn’t care enough about the goal of winning to work that hard at running. Instead my focus was on “Why am I running? This is so not fun. I can’t believe I’m doing this.” And that attitude got me last place every single time.

It occurs to me now that my walk with God is much like those races I used to run. If I keep my focus on what I’m giving up for God (I can’t believe I have to suffer like this), I’ll have a bad attitude—and I won’t do well in the race.

But if I keep my focus on God Himself, the Prize at the end of the race—I’ll do much better. Those hardships along the way won’t seem like such a big deal anymore, because God is worth the sacrifice.

This is true in every step of my Christian walk—whether it’s working on the sin in my life when it would be so much easier not to, doing what God has called me to do when I don’t necessarily enjoy it, or even continuing to press on when I see others dropping out of the race—if I keep my focus on who God is and why I’m doing what I’m doing, I’ll have a better attitude. And I’ll be far more likely to run the race victoriously.

The incredible thing about God is that He runs the race with me. He not only runs alongside me, offering encouraging words and help when I need it, He also stands at the finish line, cheering me on, eager to put His arms around me and shout, “Well done, good and faithful servant!!!”

When He’s my focus, I’m not only willing to suffer for Him—I’m eager to suffer for Him. I just need to keep my eyes on Him.

In my next post, I’ll look at this whole idea in the context of emotional eating.

My life is better when I stick to my boundaries

2009-10-16T06:44:00.003-06:00

Belief: That looks good. I should eat it.
Truth: My life is better when I stick to my boundaries.

Where do I get the idea that life will be better if I do the things that aren’t good for me?

Well, the idea’s been around since the beginning of mankind. Just look at Eve in the garden with Satan. He convinced her pretty easily that life would be better if she did what God had told her not to do.

He was tricky, though. He didn’t say, “Hey, Eve, God told you not to do this because He knew it wouldn’t be good for you—that it would make your life worse in the long run. But why don’t you disobey Him, anyway? After all, isn’t five minutes of fun worth a lifetime of consequences?”

No, he didn’t say that. He wanted Eve to forget about the long-term consequences of disobeying God. And he made her forget by focusing her attention on how fun, how really fun, it would be to eat that fruit.

Don’t we see the same principles at work in our own lives? When we break our boundaries, what are we focusing on? The fact that breaking our boundaries will lead to discouragement, weight gain, hopelessness, health problems, lethargy, laziness, depression, and not being able to wear our cute clothes? Or the fact that breaking our boundaries will be fun and tasty for five minutes?

Obviously, it’s the second. What we need to do is start asking ourselves this question when we're tempted to break our boundaries: Is five minutes of fun worth a lifetime of consequences?

And of course, the answer will be no. Our lives are better when we stick to our boundaries - even when the potential boundary breaker is a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup blizzard. The more often I drill that into my head, the better off I’ll be.

Excuse me, I need to go ask myself a question.

Getting What We Want

2009-10-09T06:07:00.009-06:00

And he came into the house of the Lord and worshiped. 2 Samuel 12:20

I’ve been reading 2 Samuel in my quiet times, and the thing that keeps hitting me is how submissive David is to God. And how human he is. It comforts me to know that God calls him a man after his own heart even though he messes up from time to time.

Take the time with Bathsheba and Uriah. As I was reading that story, I wondered if David was ever really convicted about his sin before Nathan came and talked to him. Do you suppose he was so used to getting what he wanted that he didn’t even recognize it was wrong to take another man’s wife and then have him killed to cover up his sin?

And do you suppose we have the same problem? Are we so used to getting what we want that we don’t even realize it’s wrong to make “getting whatever we want” a goal? I see that with eating. Most of the dieting articles in magazines focus on indulgence.

Take this headline: Eat whatever you want and lose weight! I don’t know about you, but if I ate whatever I wanted, I’d gain a hundred pounds. Surely there must be a glitch somewhere in that program.

Some articles take a different approach. They admit we can’t eat whatever we want, but instead they encourage us to indulge ourselves in other ways. Take a bubble bath. Go shopping. Watch a good movie.

There’s nothing wrong with doing those things, but we need to be careful of our focus. Does God really want us to live a life of indulgence? Look where indulgence got David.

And look where it gets us. In the physical realm it’s a weight gain, but that’s not all. Think of the emotional consequences of focusing our lives on getting what we want. Discontentment, boredom, resentment, depression, unhappiness—you name it. We’ll never get enough of what we want to be happy until we reach the point where what we want is God. That’s when joy kicks in.

David always comes back to that point. Look at verse 20 of 2 Samuel 12: And he came into the house of the Lord and worshiped.

David didn’t worship after he got what he wanted with Bathsheba. He didn’t worship after he got what he wanted with Uriah. No, he worshiped after he got what he didn’t want. He worshiped as soon as he heard the news that his baby died—the baby he had been pleading with God to spare for the previous six days.

Isn’t that mind boggling? David was so submitted to God by that point that he didn’t even hesitate. God didn’t give him what he wanted, but he worshiped Him anyway.

That’s the point I want to reach. Where everything I do is about God. Where I worship Him even when I don’t get what I want. First reaction.

I’ll know I’ve made progress when I no longer feel like I deserve to be indulged.

Two hours later (I guess I haven't made progress yet.)

Yes, I know, I'm commenting on my own blog. Pathetic, isn't it? I just have to tell you what God did this morning.

I was sitting down to write and I didn't feel like writing, so I said, "I know, I'll check my e-mails." The only problem was that I wasn't supposed to check my e-mails because I have a boundary of three times a day, and I'd already done my morning check. The only reason I wanted to check them again was to - you got it - indulge myself.

So I said to myself (after checking my e-mails and then truth journaling about it), "Okay, I'm supposed to go to God for help, not my e-mails." So I went back to the Bible, continuing to read on in 2 Samuel, not really thinking there would be anything that would apply to my situation in 2 Samuel.

And that's when it hit me. In chapter 19, David submits again - this time to Joab, and I realized, I need to submit to God - even if it's just for an hour of writing. That instead of checking my e-mails (which is what I felt like doing), I should be worshiping Him.

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:12

I found that to be true this morning.

How to Handle a Trial

2009-10-03T09:02:00.002-06:00

I don’t know how many times God has convicted me with what He’s given me to write. That happened to me this morning when I was working on a seminar I’m teaching at our church later this month.

In the seminar, I’ll be talking about how we normally handle trials and how that differs from the way God wants us to handle trials. As I was writing it, I was thinking to myself, well, I handle trials pretty well so it will be easy for me to teach this workshop. The more I wrote though, the more I began to see that while I handle some trials well, there’s certainly room for improvement—a lot of room, as a matter of a fact.

Take today, for instance. My trial today is that it’s 8:30 in the morning, and I’m already bored. My kids are asleep, my husband’s off grouse hunting, it’s too early to call a friend, and I’ve already had breakfast and my two cups of coffee for the day. My trial is boredom, and even though it’s a little trial, I still have to figure out how to handle it in a godly way.

According to my advice in the seminar, I should handle the trial by asking myself these two questions: How can I love God best in this trial, and how can I love my neighbor best in this trial?

But I wasn’t following my own advice this morning. Instead, I was asking this question: How can I have the most fun in this trial? (You understand I wasn’t asking the question out loud, but that was the direction my mind was taking. )

I thought of a few ideas of how to have fun, but they seemed like too much work, which showed I was also operating with another concern: What is the easiest way to handle this trial? (Which by the way is why I have a problem with emotional eating -- it's an easy way to add a little excitement to life.)

Now, normally, I would just go on my merry way, trying to find something fun to do. But instead, God used the things I'd written earlier this morning to convict me. I wasn't practicing what I preached.

So I asked myself the two questions I'm planning to tell everyone else to ask: How can I love God best in this situation? The answer? I could have another quiet time. How can I love my neighbor best? Well, since most of my real neighbors are asleep, I could love my internet neighbors and write a blog. So you see, that’s what I decided to do.

I would love to hear some of the wrong questions all of you ask when you’re in a trial. This is the list I’ve come up with so far:

1. What will be most fun?
2. What will be easiest?
3. What will be best for me?
4. What will give me the greatest life?
5. What will make me look the best?

Can you think of any I missed? If you can, please e-mail me or list it in the comments. I’m not giving the workshop until later this month, so I can still add questions to the list at this point.

Meanwhile, I better get going. I have some loving God and loving my neighbor to do. (And I will try to refrain from loving my refrigerator.)

P.S. I just read this blog over again, and want to add one thing. I'm not saying I can't ever have fun in life. I'm just saying I shouldn't live my life for fun - which is what I tend to do. Others focus on accomplishment, the approval of others, etc. My weakness is fun - so that's why I need to be careful about handling my boredom by focusing on fun. There are a lot of things to do around the house today that I consider boring, but really need to get done so I can focus my life on doing the other things God has called me to do. So, I hate to say this, but probably the next thing I should do if I want to love God and others is paperwork:(

Yahoo Group

2009-09-28T07:47:00.007-06:00

Hi Everyone,

A month or two ago I got an e-mail from Elizabeth saying she would like to start a Yahoo group where women who were going through Freedom from Emotional Eating could get together and share their journeys. I thought it was a great idea.

She has it up and running now and the link is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FFEE/?yguid=133756361. Just cut and paste that into your browser and it should direct you to the site. The name of the group is FFEE, so if the link doesn't work just do a search for FFEE at www.yahoo.com/groups. Elizabeth is the moderator, so she can answer any questions you have when you join the group.

I'm really happy she had this idea and was willing to set it up as I am a hopeless non-techie! This should be a great place to get encouragement and help as you go through the Bible study. I'll be checking in from time to time as well, so if you have questions, go ahead and ask them in the forum - we can all help each other.

Hope to see you there!

Barb

I'll just break my boundaries, and then journal about it afterwards.

2009-09-23T13:07:00.002-06:00

It’s been a busy week of canning and writing and school, but I thought I’d take a quick break to write a blog post. I hope you’ve all been doing well at sticking to your boundaries—I’ve actually been doing pretty well myself, so I pulled this one up from my (huge) file of past lie-truth charts.

Beliefs: 1. It would be so relaxing to have a lemon bar and listen to this beautiful music. 2. I was going to have one later, anyway (so it’s okay to have it now instead). 3. I’ll have one now and just journal about it after I eat it.

Truths: 1. True – although breaking my boundaries on a regular basis does not lead to a relaxing lifestyle. Having an eating obsession is stressful! 2. That’s like saying, “I’m going to get married later anyway, so I’ll just have sex now.” (Well, not quite, but I guess I was in a drastic mood the day I wrote this!) The truth is that breaking the boundaries once leads to a lifestyle of breaking the boundaries. My life is much better when I stick to them. 3. True (that’s what I did). Although, it would be much better to stick to the boundaries, it’s far better to plan to break them and journal about it, than to plan to break them and not journal about it.

The surprising truth is that even if you willfully break your boundaries, planning all the while to truth journal about it—and then actually follow through with it and truth journal—it will still be a good experience of replacing the lies you believe with truth. If your focus is on changing the way you think about food, the only real failure is when you break your boundaries and don’t renew your mind afterward.

But of course, it’s even better not to break your boundaries to begin with. (Not to mention the fact that if you did this on a regular basis, you might gain fifty pounds by the time the truth finally kicks in!)

When It Seems Like God is Asking Too Much

2009-09-14T09:42:00.004-06:00

I’d like to tell you about a friend I met over the internet. I’ll call her Amanda. Amanda ordered my Bible study and wrote me after the first chapter, telling me how much she liked it. She felt sure God would use it in her life.

Then she got to the second chapter—the one on trials. Amanda is very familiar with trials. She has some serious health issues and a husband who is not only emotionally distant, but has also chosen not to work for much of their married life. You can imagine how that would make you feel toward your husband, and it was no different for Amanda. She’d been angry with him for more than thirty years.

It was the third lesson of the second chapter that really stumped Amanda—the one where Bill is being a deadbeat and Mary has to choose whether or not she’s going to forgive him. Amanda e-mailed me and told me she was having a difficult time getting past that lesson. I encouraged her to move on—that the fourth lesson in the chapter might help.

Well, Amanda did move on, and God began to do a great work in her heart. Let me let Amanda tell you:

My truth journaling started out angry and defensive, I was trying to justify to God why I should be allowed to hold this grudge and anger. And then I was angry that your Bible study should even suggest that I deal with this!! I cried hot angry tears. I thought there was no way you could understand just how hard my marriage was. After all I was trying to stop emotional eating, what did my emotions have to do with my husband!!

Boy did I find out!! Yes, then the lies started to pour out. And I realized I was not wanting to forgive myself for marrying my husband. You know like - how could I have been so stupid. So I truth journal ALL of those emotions and am starting to see the lies that I had no idea were there!! Then I started feeling lighter, freer. But if I stop truth journaling about this when I think I'm too busy I can feel the heaviness returning. I'm looking so forward to God helping me resolve this. I now believe He will, no matter how my husband treats me, I can cling to Him!

This was only the beginning. God has continued to work in Amanda’s life. She realized she needed to work on the anger before she could really break free from the emotional eating, and so that’s where she focused her efforts. God blessed her work. This is what she wrote to me later:

I realize now that as God allows my husband to follow his own will, God is telling me to come even closer to Him. Maybe it sounds silly, but sometimes those angry lies become security blankets! So letting go of them for me was frightening. The biggest lie I believed was that I deserved to be angry with my husband if he sinned. It is freeing to finally let go!

I can see now that my husband's behavior comes from the lies that he is caught up in. I can feel empathy and sadness for him, instead of anger. And I no longer expect God to fix him for me! :o)

Have you ever been in a situation like Amanda, where you feel like you have a right to hold on to your anger? I know I have, and I’m guessing most of us have. For me, anger was a stumbling block. It got in the way of my relationship with God. When I was finally willing to forgive, that’s when I really started growing close to Him.

It was the truth that made me willing to forgive. As I carried my thoughts captive to Jesus Christ through truth journaling and option charts, God gave me the strength to forgive and submit to Him. I found it to be an incredibly painful experience, but the joy that followed made it worth the pain.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone else is having a difficult time with the second chapter of Freedom from Emotional Eating. I realize the lesson in the third day of that chapter is a hard one—especially being raised in a culture that tells us we have a right to certain things. Let me encourage you today that God is always worth the sacrifices we make for Him.

Sometimes it helps to have someone to talk through your problems with. In another week or two I’ll be telling you about a yahoo group being formed where women who are doing Freedom from Emotional Eating can get together and discuss the things you’re working on. I hope it will be a blessing.

PMS and Emotional Eating

2009-09-08T02:37:00.006-06:00

Have you ever wondered how much skinnier you'd be if you didn't have to have your period every month? There's always that little window of time right before you get your period when you're craving everything in sight. The question is, how do we deal with those times of the month without stuffing our faces?

The answer is simple. We deal with them just like we would the rest of the month - by renewing our minds. The only difference is that we have to renew our minds a lot more often when we have PMS.

Things bug us more, we're more sensitive, and of course there's an actual physical craving going on too. While we can't do much with the physical craving, we can deal with the emotions.

When someone hurts our feelings, rather than going to the refrigerator, we need to take the time to journal. When someone bugs us - same thing - journal rather than heading for the snack cupboard. If we take the time to journal the extra emotions we're experiencing, that will help with the cravings.

Since PMS is kind of a joke these day, it's easy to excuse our actions because of our hormones. We have to be careful not to get swept into that trap. If we're working on bringing the thoughts that cause our negative emotions captive to Christ, we'll have lots of opportunities to do that during that time of the month - not because people are nastier, but because we're more sensitive!

I can think of two lies related to PMS in particular that might cause us to do things we shouldn't do, including eat. Here they are with their accompanying truths:

1. I can't help myself (I have PMS).

Truth: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I need to spend more time with Him and in His Word to get the strength I need to live the way He wants me to live.

2. It's okay for me to yell-eat-be annoyed-obsess-etc. (I have PMS).

Truth: Just because the world says something, doesn't mean it's true. God wants me to be loving, gentle, forgiving, self-controlled, and kind no matter what time of the month it is. I better spend some time renewing my mind, so that I feel these things on the inside - because whatever's on the inside of me is bound to come out, even more so than usual this time of the month.

I already blew it. I might as well eat.

2009-09-04T09:40:00.007-06:00

I already blew it. I might as well eat.

How often have I said those words to myself? Maybe about a million times? When you think of it, though, it's a crazy thing to say. And a surprising thing to say, as well. After all, my mom taught me "two wrongs don't make a right." So why do I think eating is a good response to having already eaten too much?

To be honest, I'm not sure. Part of me wonders if it isn't the perfectionistic black and white side of me punishing the inept, can't-seem-to-get-it-all-together side of me.

At any rate, I'll try to journal it.

Belief: I already blew it.

Truth: At what point have I blown it - when I've eaten one bite outside of my boundaries, 20 bites outside my boundaries, or 100 bites outside my boundaries? Blowing it is a relative term. I can either look at what I've eaten and say, Well, at least I didn't eat more than this. It would be a victory to stop here. or I can look at what I've eaten and say, I can't believe I ate that much. What was I thinking? I'm such a loser! I'll never change. I think it would be far healthier and far more beneficial for me to look at it from the first standpoint.

So here's my truth: Thank God I didn't blow it as badly as I could have blown it. Stopping at this point and not going any further would be an incredible victory.

Belief: I might as well keep eating.

Truth: Since eating is a spiritual issue for me (because it used to be an idol in my life), this is a dangerous thing for me to say. It's like saying, Okay, I've already done what God doesn't want me to do, so I'm just going to plan a day of sin and enjoy it. I'll wait until tomorrow to live for God. When I look at it that way, I feel sick. No, I don't want to keep eating. I want to stop as soon as possible because I want to honor God in everything I do.

Here's my truth: The sooner I start living for God, the better.

That looks good. I think I'll have it.

2009-08-31T09:03:00.001-06:00

I can’t believe summer is over and fair week is here again. Yesterday was entry turn in day, so the house was full of art projects and baked goods ready to go to the fair. Unfortunately, the kitchen is still full of baked goods, and I noticed them right away this morning when I went to get my coffee.

I began the morning with a bite of a chocolate brownie and one and a half sugar cookies. You’ll be proud to know I resisted the chocolate chip cookies. Although, technically, that’s not breaking my boundaries since I could look at the eating occasion as a very unhealthy breakfast, I decided to truth journal anyway because I know from past experience that breakfasts like that always make me eat poorly the rest of the day.

Beliefs: (Upon seeing the cookies) 1. Oh, that would be good. 2. I think I’ll have one (or two). 3. I’ll just call it breakfast.

Truths:

1. Oh, that would taste good, but it wouldn’t actually be good. After all, what is good? Is it something that’s fun and satisfies my desires or is it something that leads me toward God? Cookies and brownies that early in the morning won’t lead me to God – they’ll lead me to a day of craving more cookies and brownies in a house that’s full of cookies and brownies. That’s not good!!!

2. This isn’t a belief. It’s a decision, so you can’t really journal it.

3. I’m only calling it breakfast to justify eating it. In reality, it’s a crummy breakfast – not filling, not healthy, and not a great provider of energy. I’ll have to be really careful today and journal every bite that goes into my mouth outside my boundaries - because I know from past experience that 19 times out of 20, when I begin the day with sweets, I end the day with regrets.

New Blog Format

2009-08-28T10:09:00.003-06:00

Life would be so much easier if I were a true techie. I just posted a blog about a new blog format and then tried to post another blog in that format. Instead, it erased my whole new blog format post and replaced it with the new blog. That is so annoying!!! Plus I can't get my old post back, so I'll just tell you in a nutshell what it said since I need to go out and clean the garage before I lose my momentum!

I've been having a hard time coming up with ideas for posts, so thought I might just try posting some truth journals for awhile and see if that might still be helpful. I've kept all my old lie-truth charts from the past couple years, so I'll pull some posts from those and also post any current truth journals.

If you look at the post right after this one, you'll see what the new format looks like. I'll try to put the belief right in the title, so you can tell at a glance if it's something you struggle with. I'll also try to start posting a couple times a week.

If you have an eating situation you don't know how to journal, e-mail me and I'll show you how I would journal it on the blog. I don't know if this will be helpful, but we can give it a try at least!

Belief: Eating will perk me up since life is so boring.

2009-08-28T09:52:00.003-06:00

I'm sitting at my desk today looking at my to-do list and feeling like I'd rather be doing something fun like eating something really good. This is my belief:

Eating will perk me up since life is so boring.

Truth: Eating will actually make my life more boring, because it will cause me to be dependent on food for the exciting life. Since I can never eat enough to have a consistently exciting life, I'll always be unhappy - make that overweight and unhappy. Only God can fill my soul and give me the excitement I crave. I will be much better off going out to clean the garage than going in to the refrigerator to eat something that won't satisfy me.

The Lies of the Scale

2009-08-17T03:54:00.005-06:00

So often the scale makes us gain weight - not because of the number we see - but because of the the things we believe about the number we see. Just as it's important to bring our thoughts captive to the truth when we eat outside our boundaries, it's also important to bring our thoughts captive to the truth when we weigh more than we think we should weigh.

Here are some of the common lies we believe about the number we see on the scale and the truths that can set us free from an obsession with weight:

1. I look terrible (because the scale says I weigh x pounds).

Truth: Although looks are influenced by weight, they aren’t determined by weight. If you look around you, practically every woman you see is beautiful in some way, no matter what she weighs. Enjoy your femininity – you don’t need to be skinny to look beautiful! (And don’t forget—it’s more important to look good on the inside than the outside!)

2. I need to be a certain weight (to be acceptable).

Truth: I am already acceptable in God’s eyes, regardless of my weight, and I don’t need to live up to the standards of the world.

3. I deserve to lose more after how much I suffered.

Truth: I don’t deserve anything. Whatever God gives me is a gift – a blessing from Him. I need to be more grateful for what He’s already given me.

Note: The thing God’s been teaching me about writing lately is that He will equip me to do what He’s called me to do. This has really helped me not to agonize over my writing. I put in my time and effort, and God is in charge of the results. This is just like eating. It’s our job to follow the boundaries and renew our minds when necessary, but it’s up to God to provide the results. We should be willing to suffer for Him even when we see no tangible reward—just because we love Him.

4. It’s not fair that I lost x pounds when Mary lost y pounds.

Truth: Life isn’t fair – sad, but true. God looks at me with eyes full of love and grace, and He asks me, “Will you rejoice with Mary or will you stomp your feet and demand similar treatment?” I need to love God so much that I’m willing to continue following my boundaries even when I’m not rewarded by the scale. Doing what God wants me to do is a reward in and of itself.

5. It’s taking too long to lose this weight.

Truth: I might be able to lose weight faster if I eat less and exercise more, but even then, you can only lose weight so fast. I must accept the fact that losing weight is a slow and often painful process.

6. These boundaries aren’t working (because I’m not losing weight).

Truth: This may be true. If I've been faithfully following my boundaries for several weeks and not lost weight, I may need to re-evaluate my boundaries. If it's only been a week or two, it's too soon to tell. Also, I need to be honest with myself. It's easy to tell myself I'm following my boundaries when I'm really not.

Note: Don’t be afraid to try a new set of boundaries. Some people thrive on programs like Weight Watchers while others do much better on the “eating only when hungry” approach. The key no matter which approach you’re using is to establish lifelong boundaries and change the way you think by renewing your mind, so that your desires will be changing along with your actions.

7. I gained 3 pounds this weekend (because the scale said so).

Truth: Since it takes 3500 extra calories (beyond the amount required to maintain your weight) to gain a pound, I would have had to eat an additional 10,500 calories last weekend to gain three pounds (that’s in addition to the 2000 or so calories a day I would have needed to maintain my weight). Chances are, I didn’t eat that much and part of that three pounds on the scale is water weight.

8. I’m so fat (since the scale says I gained two pounds), or I’m so skinny (because the scale says I lost two pounds).

Truth: I look the same today as I looked yesterday. Two pounds isn’t going to make or break me. Most people won’t even notice a difference in how I look unless I gain or lose a significant amount.

9. I might as well eat (because according to the scale all this suffering is getting me nowhere).

Truth: All this suffering will bring me closer to God if I allow Him to help me work through the beliefs (I have to be skinny, etc.) that are causing me to be so frustrated with the number I see on the scale. Gaining weight after a faithful week of following my boundaries can be a wonderful, but painful, opportunity for growth as I draw near to Him and ask Him to help me sort through my emotions. It’s so easy to let appearance become an idol in our culture. A high number on the scale can help me work through this issue in my own life once again.

10. I’ll always be fat.

Truth: If I continue to specifically renew my mind every day in the areas of weight and eating, and if I develop the habit of going to God rather than food for help with my emotions, it will eventually show up on the scale. I need to be patient.

Is the scale a stumbling block?

2009-07-29T16:21:00.013-06:00

I really appreciate the blogs I’ve read on the use of the scale. Some women have decided to give them up altogether because of their potential for making them stumble. I applaud that. The closer we come to the point where we see ourselves as God sees us, the better—and God doesn’t see us as a number on the scale. He sees our hearts.

I used to feel insecure because of my weight. In my mind, I could see this lineup of women, and I was standing at the wrong end of the line—the unacceptable end—the overweight end.

I felt self-conscious about my looks, and this made me self-conscious about my relationships. I worried that people wouldn’t like me because I wasn't "good enough." This often kept me from reaching out to others—at least the ones who intimidated me.

Even though I haven’t been heavy for awhile, I still sometimes see myself at the unacceptable end of the line because I don’t measure up to the world’s standards. I’m not sophisticated, I’m not fashionable (except for the rare occasion), and I don’t have a glamorous job. In fact, I don’t have a job at all.

I’m a home school mom, an occupation that carries its own stigma. Everyone has an opinion about home schooling and not all the opinions are good. At least in my own life, it hasn’t been a real self-image booster, even though it's been a delightful way of life.

So how do I get over my insecurity given my handicaps? Do I need to stop homeschooling and get a glamorous life? No, of course not. What I need to do is see myself (and my life) from God’s point of view. My insecurity sometimes interferes with loving others well, so it's an issue God wants me to work on. And I work on it, not by trying to look good in the world's eyes, but by working hard to see myself the way God sees me.

Every time I catch myself feeling insecure, I write down what I'm thinking - or what I think others are thinking about me. Then I compare those thoughts with God's thoughts.

Does He think I'm a loser because my outfit's not the greatest? No. Does He think I'm a failure because I gained a pound? No. Does He think I'm mean because I said something mean to that woman? Well, yes, He thought that was mean. I better apologize.

Sometimes these sessions lead to repentance, asking God to forgive me for my sin. Sometimes they lead to prayer, asking God to make me more like Him. And almost all the time they lead to a new view of myself as I lay down the standard of the world and pick up the standard of God.

God judges people according to their hearts (1 Samuel 16:7, Luke 16:15), and He's not crazy about the world's standards. It bothers Him when looks are valued more than character, when glamour is more important than godliness, and when a model-like figure is more desirable than a Christ-like love.

I think He probably grieves when He watches us judge ourselves by the world's standards, and then condemn ourselves because we don't measure up.

The scale can be a stumbling block, because it encourages us to see ourselves through the world's eyes. If we're going to step on the scale, we must be careful not to believe the lies that crop up when we see a number we don't want to see.

I'll be talking more about those lies in my next post. For now, though, try to see yourself through the eyes of the One who adores you—and if you're tempted to see yourself through the eyes of the world, watch out for the scale.

Alone in the House with Ice Cream and Rhubarb Bars

2009-07-10T17:29:00.010-06:00

The kids are all gone at backpacking camps, and I’m alone in the house with a carton of Blue Bunny cookie dough ice cream and a Tupperware container filled with rhubarb cheesecake bars.

Not only that, I still have an hour and a half of writing to do for the day and a decision to make that I don’t really want to make—both of which make me feel like eating. Not to mention the fact that it’s late afternoon, that magical time of day when the things in the freezer often call out to us.

But I’m not listening. Let me take that back—I was listening, but not anymore. Why am I not listening? Because I decided to truth journal about it (before I actually ate anything, for a change), and I no longer feel like eating.

This is what I wrote:

Beliefs: 1. Some ice cream would be good right now. 2. I deserve it after such a hard day. 3. And since I still have more than an hour of writing to do.

Truths: 1. It would be good for about FIVE MINUTES!!! After that it would make me feel bloated, uncomfortable, crummy when I wake up tomorrow morning, and weigh more than I want to weigh. Is that all worth five minutes of enjoyment? (I actually capitalized the five minutes again in my journal, but I’ll spare you that.) No, the answer is no. 2. Some days will go like this. If possible I need to devote my mornings to writing, so I don’t have any left by afternoon. But when I think of the collective suffering in the world, I’m one of the lucky ones. 3. That hour of writing is an opportunity for me to share in the sufferings of Christ(ouch).

Then I truth journaled about the decision, since that was another thing that was making me want to eat. And you know what? I didn’t feel like eating anymore by the time I was through.

There’s two things I think are really important to keep from giving in to emotional eating.

They are:

1. Start working on your emotions. If you only journal about the food, you'll be in danger of turning to some other bad habit to escape your emotions. If you learn to go to God for your emotions, you'll see things from His point of view and the negative emotions themselves will go away. Journaling about both the writing and the decision today gave me peace about both of those.

2. Make a commitment to journal or pray Scripture before you eat outside your boundaries – even if you’re already planning to eat. Just say to yourself, “That’s okay – I can still have the bowl of ice cream (or whatever), I just need to renew my mind first." More often than not your desires will change, but if they don’t you have nothing to lose. You can go ahead and eat what you were planning to eat.

Why don’t you give this a try and see how it goes? I actually got interrupted while I was writing this so it’s been a couple of hours since I was tempted by the ice cream. And I still haven’t felt like eating anything. I’m not using will power to avoid eating – I just don’t feel like it anymore. Because I’m believing the truth. But I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t taken the time to find it.

My Brilliant New Anti-Procrastination Technique

2009-07-08T15:18:00.009-06:00

I think I’ve found the secret to overcoming procrastination. And yes, I think it’s going to change my life. Would you like to hear what it is? Okay, here goes—are you ready? Picture a drumroll . . . here it is . . .

*************************************************************

Make a list, and . . . (here’s the brilliant part) . . . don’t put anything on the list that you dread doing!

*************************************************************

Now, I can just imagine what you’re thinking . . . That is such a dumb idea. How will you get anything done if you only do the things you want to do? Somehow, that doesn’t seem very brilliant—or responsible, for that matter.

Well, let me put your fears at rest and tell you that I’m not suggesting you stop doing the things you dread doing. What I'm suggesting is this: take the item that you don’t want to do and break it up into small steps—then, and only then, put it on the list—but don’t put the whole job on the list, just put the small step on the list! Now, do you see what a brilliant idea it is?

Let me show you two different lists, so you can see how it works. First, I’ll show you the list I actually wrote yesterday. Then I’ll show you the list I would normally have written.

List #1
Unpack: Computer case, suitcase, red bag, black bag
Put away suitcases
Weed: 20 weeds in carrot patch
Tidy: Living/dining room, kitchen
Do dishes
Look for graduation card for Sterling (I hadn’t come up with my brilliant new plan yet a month ago when I should have sent this card).
Paperwork: Take care of 5 pieces of mail.
Rhubarb: Pick 5 pieces and chop them up for freezer.
3 hours writing

List #2
Unpack
Weed
Tidy house
Send grad card to Sterling
Paperwork
Freeze rhubarb.
3 hours writing

See the difference in the two lists? The second one is shorter, but it’s much more intimidating. Why? Because I know very well that it would take hours and hours to bring the paperwork, gardening, and housework up to my perfectionist standards. In fact, the idea of it would be so overwhelming that I probably wouldn’t even bother trying. Instead, I’d force myself to tidy up and unpack, but that would be about all I’d get done.

The beauty of the first list is that it takes perfectionism out of the equation. When I see that all I have to do is just a little bit, all of a sudden, I don’t mind doing it. And what usually happens is I do much more than is on the list. But the really great thing is this: I complete the list. I don’t get discouraged. And slowly, but surely, I get those dreaded jobs done.

If you struggle with procrastination, why don’t you give this method a try? Make your list, but don’t put anything on the list that you’d likely procrastinate. If it’s something you don’t like doing, just put a small step on the list even if you really have to do the whole job that day.

Here’s an example. Today I had to make rhubarb cheesecake bars for a potluck we’re going to tonight. Instead of putting make rhubarb bars on the list, I put find rhubarb bar recipe and get ingredients out on the list. It may sound simple, but it really works. (My rhubarb bars are sitting in the refrigerator as we speak.)

Now, you may wonder why I didn’t say write one sentence instead of write three hours on the list. That’s because it’s a daily job that I don’t really dread doing. What I do with a job like that is to put six different “30s” on my list. Then each time I write for 30 minutes, I check one of the 30s off. It often takes me until late afternoon to get all of my writing done, but it’s not something I put off and never do like some of the other things on my list (thanks to hours and hours spent truth journaling when I first started writing).

Anyway, I hope this idea helps you as much as it has helped me. I’m still in the early stages of it, but it seems like it will be life changing if I can just remember to keep making a list each day.

Well, I better get going. I still have to pick out a card for Cheryl and address the envelope and write a message on the graduation card for Sterling. I better get busy. After all,who knows? I might just go wild and decide to finish both cards and mail them today!

Emotional Eating and 1 John 2

2009-06-18T20:24:00.009-06:00

Summer’s here, and I’m afraid I haven’t been blogging much. Of course, you always worry about emotional eating bloggers who stop blogging. “Why aren’t they writing?” you think. Have they gone off the wagon? Are they eating like crazy and feeling too guilty to write? Will they ever start writing again?

Well, the answer is no, I’m not eating like crazy. I’m doing something much less fun—I’m writing like crazy on my new Bible study. Of course, crazy for me only means about three hours a day, four days a week. But when you factor in procrastination and interruptions it seems like about 12 hours a day, six days a week.

Anyway, I was studying 1 John 2:15-17 this week and couldn’t help but notice how much it ties in with our emotional eating struggles. Here’s what it says:

Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away and also it’s lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.

It may not seem like it ties in at first glance, but look again. I think we get caught up in all three of the “loves” mentioned in this passage when it comes to our weight and eating issues. Let’s look at them one at a time:

Lust of the flesh: We get caught in this trap when we turn to food to satisfy our emotional needs and when we love the food itself so much we feel like we just have to have it.

Lust of the eyes: This happens when we see all those skinny, beautiful movie stars and think we have to have bodies like they do. (It also happens in restaurants when we see the person at the next table eating a gorgeous piece of cake right in front of us.)

Pride of life: When we feel like we have to lose weight to impress others, gain their approval, or live up to expectations (theirs or ours), we’re flirting with the pride of life.

As I studied the passage further, I realized two more things:

1. You can never get enough of the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, or the boastful pride of life to be satisfied if you’re turning to them to satisfy emotional needs. You’ll always want more.

Lust of the flesh: Think of it. Do you ever have enough ice cream to be satisfied if you’re turning to ice cream to make you happy? Do you ever get enough chips if you’re turning to chips for comfort? Do you ever have enough graham crackers if you’re turning to graham crackers to avoid writing your Bible study? (Oh, wait a minute, that’s the question I’m supposed to be asking myself!)

Lust of the eyes: It’s natural for us to want to look like the skinny people we see out there, but when we feel like we have to look like them, we’re moving into lust of the eyes territory. Losing weight is a lot like eating. If we’re doing it to satisfy our emotional needs (to be happy, to feel confident, etc.), we’ll never lose enough to be happy. We’ll always be thinking, “If only I could lose a few more pounds . . .”

Pride of life: If we feel like we need to lose weight to be acceptable or admired,we'll never reach the point where we're satisfied with our weight. Why? Because in this country, skinnier is better—and we can always do just a little bit “better.” This is the type of thinking that leads to anorexia.

2. There will always be consequences when you turn to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life for happiness.

Lust of the flesh: It’s pretty easy to see the consequences here—if we eat too much we gain weight!

Lust of the eyes: This might lead to an obsession with working out and dieting or a fixation on the scale. Often the biggest consequences are emotional: discontentment, envy, discouragement, depression, and hopelessness.

Pride of life: Not only do you have the emotional consequences of insecurity, but there’s also the tendency to isolate one’s self. If we feel like others will judge and reject us because we’re overweight, we won’t want to reach out to them.

I thought it was eye-opening to see that we'll never be satisfied with food or weight loss if we're placing too much importance on them (which we tend to do). Another thing that struck me was the importance of seeing not just food from God's point of view, but this whole issue from His point of view.

What we need to remember is that life is about loving God and others, not about looking good and doing what we feel like doing. Let’s see how that applies to each of these “loves.”

Lust of the flesh: My purpose in eating shouldn’t be to indulge myself but to glorify God. I need to ask myself, “Am I honoring God by eating this food, or am I indulging the flesh?” If I were struggling with anorexia I would ask, “Am I honoring God by not eating this food, or am I putting my need to be skinny (or whatever the driving force is) above Him?”

Lust of the eyes: The bottom line here is this: LIFE IS NOT ABOUT LOOKING GOOD AND BEING SKINNY! Every time I step on the scale and beat myself up because I gained two pounds, I need to shout those words to myself. Every time I get insecure because of the way I look I need to shout those words to myself. Every time you do your morning beauty routine or work out and skip your time with God, you need to shout those words to yourself! (I left myself out of that one because I rarely do the morning workout or beauty routine anyway – I know I said I did the workout in my Bible study, but I’m afraid that was a short-lived phase of my life!)

Pride of Life: My main purpose for trying to control my eating should be to overcome the stronghold of emotional eating—not fit into a society obsessed with looks. Every time I feel like I’m not good enough, and that I need to make a desperate attempt to lose weight so I can be good enough, I need to tell myself, “God loves me just as I am. I don’t need to lose weight to be acceptable. I just need to keep working on this stronghold."

I guess the bottom line is I need to seek the approval of God and not men in everything I do. Live my life for Him, and glorify Him in everything I do.

Which means I need to stop eating graham crackers just because I can't figure out how to write my Bible study.

P.S. The other thing I've been doing lately is hiking with my husband and kids. The picture at the top of this blog was taken on one of our hikes last week.

Getting Back on Track

2009-06-02T17:41:00.007-06:00

Writing is so hard I deserve another granola bar. Besides, Mischief (my cat) is sitting in my chair (where I would conceivably have another quiet time instead of eating the granola bar), and I’ve wasted the whole day again. The least I can do is have a little treat.

Do you ever feel a little silly when you truth journal? Yes, these are your thoughts, but you know they’re immature before you even write them down? Well, you can probably see I’m speaking from my own experience. I actually wrote that entry while I was eating the granola bar five minutes ago. Pathetic, isn’t it?

Normally, I stick to my boundaries well enough that I don’t take the time to truth journal when I break them, but because I’ve been breaking them for three or four days now, I decided I better go back to truth journaling. The combination of writing a new Bible study along with still dealing with the things in my last post is making me want to eat.

There’s still a part of me that says, “Oh, I’ll just be more careful tomorrow,” or “Maybe I need to change my boundaries.” But the truth of the matter is that what I really need to do is bring my thoughts captive to the truth.

So here goes:

Beliefs: 1. Writing is so hard I deserve another granola bar. 2. Besides, Mischief (my cat) is sitting in my chair (where I would conceivably have another quiet time instead of eating the granola bar), and 3. I’ve wasted the whole day again. 4. The least I can do is have a little treat.

Truths: 1. Writing should be a joyful act of worship—something I give to God, and I’ve lost sight of that. Forgive me, Lord. I need to expect that some days will be easy, and some days will be difficult, and some days I’ll write the whole day with nothing concrete to show for it. I need to accept the fact that writing isn’t an efficient occupation and do it anyway. 2. Mischief would be perfectly happy on my lap, or I could go outside for my quiet time. 3. I haven’t accomplished much, but that wasn’t for lack of trying. I’m imperfect, and life is imperfect. Some days will be like this. 4. The best I can do is see this day from God’s point of view so I can experience peace. I’d rather have the best than the least.

Wow. I had no idea all those things were going on inside of me until I started to truth journal. I thought this was going to be a simple blog about getting back on track after a few days of eating outside the boundaries, and in the name of efficiency I thought I’d write down the truths while I was writing the blog.

Instead, I spent ten or fifteen minutes on my first lie, and another ten minutes on the third lie. God obviously had some things to say to me about my attitude.

Did you notice that God used the thoughts that were at the top of my head making me want to eat to show me what I really needed to work on? As I looked at my thoughts through His eyes, I began to see things differently. His peace began to steal into my heart once again.

Do you see what bringing your thoughts captive to Christ does? It changes the things in you that need to change. It gives you peace. It did both of those for me just now. I often find—no, I take that back—I usually find that truth journaling is a time of intimate fellowship with God.

And you know what? It’s the only type of writing I do that’s always worth it.

Running from God

2009-05-23T09:22:00.013-06:00

I forgot how crummy it feels to run from God. That’s what I was doing earlier this week. It wasn’t anything extreme—no drugs, no alcohol, not even much ice cream—in fact, if you lived with me, you wouldn’t have known I was running. But I was.

What did it look like? Well, on the inside it looked like this—incredible boredom, subdued grief, mild panic, and extreme restlessness. On the outside it looked like a woman complaining and making jokes about how bored she was but not doing anything to get unbored.

Actually, that’s not quite true. I did try a few things. I wandered around the house. I wandered around the yard. I even read a good book and watched the Survivor Finale on the internet. I also called a few friends and told them how bored I was.

What I didn’t do was go to God for the help I needed to cope with life. Instead, I just coasted through the days trying not to think—trying to cover up my emotions with recreational activities. And it didn’t work.

I was miserable. Yes, it was a functioning kind of miserable, but miserable just the same. How much better life is when I go to God for help as soon as I need that help! You know why I didn’t go? Because I didn’t want to think about it.

You see, a lot has happened the last couple weeks. First I gave some talks on emotional eating at the local hospital (a scary experience); then I had to wait three days to go back for further evaluation after a suspicious mammogram (everything turned out okay), and then we had a graduation party for our second son (who will be going to college in the fall) with all the accompanying “life with the kids has been so great—I can’t believe they’re all leaving” emotions.

In the midst of all that my oldest son left for a three month adventure in Europe and the Middle East, traveling alone, and sleeping who knows where (it’s a budget trip).

All those old feelings of being sad about the kids leaving and worrying about their welfare came back to haunt me—but instead of dealing with my emotions—renewing my mind and seeing the situation from God’s point of view, I just tried not to think about it.

Do you ever do this? Life is nagging at you, but you don’t want to deal with it? You’d rather just escape? Well, I can tell you from experience this is a bad idea—you can’t escape!

I love living at peace. I love making God’s priorities, my priorities. I love trusting in His sovereign nature and even submitting to His will. But none of these things happen by chance.

If my focus is on escaping life or even on making life so great I don’t want to escape it, I’m not going to live a peaceful life—because I can’t find peace without God.

I did find peace eventually. The third day of my run, I submitted to God. I prayed with thanksgiving. I truth journaled. I asked myself, “How am I seeing these situations in life? How does God see these same situations?” What I did was get God’s perspective on my life. And when I got His perspective, I also received His peace and joy.

We can’t create the perfect life. We can’t control life. We can’t guarantee our kids will always make wise decisions (or us, either, for that matter). But we can trust in God. We can rely on His goodness. We can recognize His sovereignty. We can go to Him with our concerns.

I’m through running—at least for this week. My goal is to be through running for good, but I’m not naïve enough to think I’ll never stumble again. So much of Christianity is learning how to live for God in each new situation that comes up. It just seems like I've had a lot of new situations lately.

I'm going to keep pressing on, though. I don't want to be a mom who worries. I don't want to be a woman who's afraid to do things that make her uncomfortable. I don't want to be a person who feels like life has to be exciting all the time. What I want to be is a woman who loves God and lives in His presence all the time.

Even when it's hard.

Working on the Emotions

2009-05-11T11:57:00.003-06:00

According to a 7/19/06 ABC news report, about 140,000 people have weight-loss surgery each year, and it's estimated that somewhere between 5 and 30 percent of them pick up new addictive behaviors afterward.

That was three years ago. I can only guess that the numbers have gone up.

This underscores for me the importance of not just working on the lies that make us eat, but also working on the lies that are causing our negative emotions in the first place. If we don’t go to God with those negative emotions, we’ll have to do something else with them—and that something else could very well lead to another addiction.

Let’s look at this issue from the standpoint of just one emotion. Take the emotion of anger—do you ever feel annoyed with your friends or family members? Is there anyone at church or work that really gets on your nerves? How do you respond in these situations?

Here are some possible responses:

1) Eat.
2) Truth journal so you don’t eat.
3) Withdraw—ignore them or get out of the relationship.
4) Try to be nice even though you’re silently resenting them.
5) Get your feelings out by talking to a friend or writing in a journal.
6) Try to change them. Maybe if you say the right thing, they’ll see the light and change.
7) Feel sorry for yourself.
8) Yell at them.
9) Learn to see them through God’s eyes, then accept, forgive, and love.

Of course, we all know the right response—but it’s certainly not the natural response, is it? We would really have to spend some time bringing our thoughts captive to the truth if we wanted to respond with that last option. That option, though, is the only option that will bring peace (unless of course the other person is willing and able to change, which doesn’t usually happen).

Now you might think that the second option is a good option also. I agree—it’s a good option—but if that’s all you do, it can be a dangerous option. Why? Because those negative emotions still need to be released. If you only work on not eating and don’t work on getting rid of the anger, you’ll be in danger of turning to another escape to get rid of those negative emotions.

Women often tell me that Freedom from Emotional Eating is just as much about regular life as it is about eating. That’s because it’s regular life that makes us eat. If we don’t learn how to deal with our problems the way God wants us to, those emotions will still be there in need of an outlet. If we don’t eat, what will we do?

So much of the Christian walk is about dying to our “rights” and being willing to do anything for God. Because we’re so entrenched in the world’s way of thinking, it’s hard for us to do that without first taking the time to carry our thoughts captive to the truth.

I find that when I take the time to line my thoughts up with God’s thoughts, it helps me submit to Him—and submitting to Him always brings peace.

And peace is one of those emotions that doesn’t make me feel like eating.

2009-05-06T06:31:00.002-06:00

Hi everyone, I was having my quiet time this morning and came across this great Bible verse. It's Jeremiah 23:29.

"Is not My word like fire?" declares the Lord, "and like a hammer which shatters a rock?"

God's Word is perfect for breaking down strongholds. I thought this would be another good verse for us to pray through!

The Lies That Precede Special Events

2009-05-05T07:03:00.006-06:00

Whenever I feel like I have to be skinny I gain weight. Something about the dilemma of trying to meet the world’s expectations for my body just makes me want to eat.

Have you ever felt that way? You have a special event you’re planning to go to, and you feel like you just have to lose a few pounds before then? I haven’t truth journaled much for these kinds of things, but I need to, because they honestly always make me gain weight.

Today I want to look at the lies that make me feel like I have to be skinny for certain things. I want to prepare myself for those events ahead of time, so I don’t get swept into the idea that who I am on the outside is more important than who I am on the inside. Care to join me?

The Lies That Precede Special Events

1. I need to lose x pounds before this event.

Truth: This is actually a bad time for me to try to lose weight. It will feed into the idea that I have to be skinny for this event. Knowing my track record, the pressure will probably make me gain weight instead. (Note: This is true for me, but it might not be true for you—I imagine each of us is different in this regard.)

2. I have to be skinny for this event.

Truth: Any time I say, “I have to be” or “I have to have,” I’m in danger of making that “have to” an idol. God wants to be the only “have to” in my life. It’s presumptuous of me to say I have to live up to someone else’s standards (even if that someone else is me). I need to forget Hollywood’s take on life and embrace God’s view of life. If I’m going to work on something before the event, my character might be a better choice! (Something about this truth is making me want to grab some pom-poms and start cheering.)

3. If I’m x number of pounds I’m skinny, but if I’m y number of pounds I’m fat.

Truth: X and Y change throughout life. The number on the scale I now see as “fat” looked skinny to me a year ago. Weight is relative. I need to remember that.

4. If I’m not skinny, people will condemn me.

Truth: I can't change how others see me, but I can change how much I let it affect me. I'll have to be careful to steep myself in the Word before this event, so I see myself through God's eyes and not the eyes of others. Plus I'll need to be careful to love those who condemn me, and not condemn them back.

5. It will be terrible if I’m not skinny.

Truth: It will be life if I’m not skinny. After all, haven’t I been “not skinny” at these events before? It’s not the end of the world if I’m not skinny!

6. It will be embarrassing if I’m not skinny.

Truth: It will be an opportunity to grow if I’m not skinny. If I take my embarrassment and go to God with it and use it as an indicator that I’m not seeing life through His eyes, it can spur me on to greater intimacy with God as I work on lining up my thoughts up with His.

7. I might as well keep eating, since I’ll never be able to lose weight by then (this is said, of course, after the diet has failed a few times).

Truth: If my goal is to break free from the stronghold of emotional eating (and possibly another stronghold of focusing too much on appearance), I might as well use this event as an opportunity to carry my thoughts captive to the truth. This whole experience can draw me closer to God as I work on all these thoughts and emotions that are racing through my mind. I need to remember—the goal isn’t to be skinny. The goal is to learn how to live life the way He wants me to live it.

I don’t know about you, but this is making me want to put on a swimsuit and go to the beach! Breaking free from the need to look good all the time is just as important as breaking free from the need to eat all the time.

Why don’t we make a choice today to view ourselves through the eyes of God and not the eyes of the world?

Does It Ever Get Easy?

2009-04-27T07:52:00.003-06:00

Do you ever wonder if you’ll struggle with food for the rest of your life? I know I used to feel like that. Eating seemed to be that one thing in life I would never be able to get a handle on. I didn’t control food—it controlled me.

I know many of you who read this blog feel the same way I used to feel. You wonder if you’ll ever get over it, and you’re tired of the battle. It’s hard to keep pressing on when you fail time after time after time.

Of course, Monday mornings are always hopeful. That’s the traditional day to start the new program, right? We eat all weekend with the idea that we’ll be good “starting Monday.”

But Monday never lasts. By Thursday or Friday (if we last that long), it’s back to the same old story—breaking our boundaries, feeling discouraged, and wanting to give up.

Here’s the interesting thing. Since we have a tendency to handle life’s problems with food, our natural inclination is to handle the problem of trying to stick to our eating boundaries the same way. When it’s hard, we eat! Of course, that breaks the boundaries and leads to the feeling that we’ll never get over the problem.

So what’s the answer? Are we stuck in an endless circle of failure and discouragement? No, a thousand times no! The answer is God. He can set us free from anything. He’s the Creator of the universe. He can move mountains. Of course, He can set us free from emotional eating.

What we need to do is study His Word to find out how He sets people free. What does God use to change behavior? Let’s look at Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. When He prayed this prayer, He knew He wouldn’t be around much longer, and He was praying for the ones He was leaving behind.

In John 17:15 Jesus is telling the Father, “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.” This could also be translated “keep them out of evil.”

He goes on to say how this is accomplished in verse 17, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” The Greek word for “in” that’s used here has an essence of “by means of.” We are sanctified and kept from evil by means of the truth.

In other words, we don’t change our behavior by getting up Monday morning and saying, “This week is going to be different! This week I’m going to stick with my plan!” No, we’re changed by the truth.

Remember, it’s not about the boundaries. It’s not about the plan. It’s about truth—and truth comes from God and His Word.

Food no longer controls me, but it’s not because of any brilliant displays of self-control and determination on my part. It was an incredibly difficult battle to change the way I responded to life. It often felt like I was limping along barely able to make progress.

When I felt that old urge to pull myself up by the bootstraps and “wait ‘til Monday,” I had to tell myself, “No, that’s not the way it works. It’s the truth that will set me free. I need to spend more time with God today. I need to cling to His word. I need to carry my thoughts captive to Him.” And that’s what set me free.

It’s also what keeps me free. When I feel tempted to go back to my old ways, I pull out my trusty lie-truth charts and start filling them out again. As I write the truth, I see my desires change before my eyes.

The Bible is a life-changing, joy-giving book. I’m amazed by its brilliance and transformed by it’s wisdom. This Monday morning, I encourage you to look for the solution to emotional eating in its pages—and not in another program!

Cinnamon Bread and Chocolate Clusters

2009-04-20T22:40:00.003-06:00

Today I want to walk you through an actual journaling situation. When I first started working on eating with lifelong boundaries, I tried to journal whenever I broke the boundaries—or at least before I went to bed that night.

Now that following the boundaries is more habitual, I don’t journal much even if I do break the boundaries. The thing that makes me pull out my lie-truth chart again is when I’ve broken my boundaries and feel like there’s a good chance I’ll break them again the next day. I would guess this happens maybe once or twice a month. (It used to happen all the time, so I’m making progress!)

Since this happened to me today, I thought I’d show you how journaling works in a real-life situation. First I’ll tell you what I ate today and then show you what I journaled about.

Breakfast: ½ chicken sandwich, 1/3 cup yogurt with berries
Lunch: 1 chicken sandwich, small bowl applesauce
Snack: An incredibly yummy dark chocolate, almond, caramel cluster that came in the mail today from a friend.
Supper: Three pieces cinnamon bread (made by my daughter), small ham and cheese omelet, celery
Snack: strawberry orange smoothie (about 6 oz.)

My boundaries are three meals and one snack so, technically, the only time I broke my boundaries today was with the smoothie. However, I hadn’t planned on eating the chocolate for a snack. I was planning on having a piece of cinnamon bread when it came out of the oven and another for supper - but when I opened the envelope with that yummy chocolate cluster I couldn’t resist, and I ate it right away.

So what did I journal about? The chocolate and the third piece of cinnamon bread. Even though neither one was a technical breaking of the boundaries, both of them were indulgent eating occasions, and I knew I would be facing more temptation tomorrow (lunch with friends and more cinnamon bread in the house). I knew I needed to bring my thoughts captive to Christ tonight if I wanted to glorify Him in my eating tomorrow.

Let me show you how I journaled it:

Chocolate: 1. I have to have this right now because it looks so good.
Truth: I have to go truth journal or pray Scripture or get someone to hide this right now because it looks so good, and it will be better for me not to have it.

Cinnamon bread: 1. I should have one more piece of cinnamon bread. 2. It’s so good it’s worth having one more. 3. It’s okay to have three (it’s just one more piece, after all).

Truth: 1. I should stick to my original plan. When I break my boundaries, I almost always end up eating more than I want to eat. I can never get enough cinnamon bread to satisfy me in this situation. I’ll always want more (unless I eat enough to get sick, of course). Since I’ll always want more, I should stop not when I’ve had enough (because that will never happen), but when it’s a reasonable amount.** 2. It’s never good enough to stuff myself and feel uncomfortable for! 3. Although it’s okay to have three pieces, it’s not wise to have three pieces.

**Note: There are many times when I do feel satisfied with a small amount of a sweet, but not when I’m in an indulgent mood like I was at dinner!

Now here’s the funny thing—I was doing the truth journaling while I was drinking the smoothie, and you know what? As I was writing, I was thinking oh, it’s never good enough to stuff myself; I don’t think I’ll have the rest of this smoothie because I don’t want to feel stuffed. And then I gave the rest of the smoothie to my son (don’t worry, he’s a healthy eater!).

I am now ready to go to bed, and I’m not worrying about breaking my boundaries tomorrow. There’s still cinnamon bread in the house, and I don’t even want a piece. God has used the truth to take away my wrong desires and replace them with holy desires. It was worth truth journaling tonight.

P.S. Did you notice I didn't condemn myself for breaking my boundaries or say things like, "I can never stick to this"? The only reason I didn't say those things to myself, is because I don't actually believe those things anymore. And the only reason I don't believe them anymore is because I truth journaled thoughts like that so many times in the beginning that the truth is ground into my head!