Hi, everyone! I said I’d try to write another post this week about the lies you might believe in a situation where you’re feeling pressured to overeat. Here it is—I hope it will help those of you who struggle in these situations.
1. I need to please (my mom, my family, my friends, etc.).
Truth: I need to please my Father—and I can't always please Him and others at the same time.
2. If I don’t eat (as much as they expect me to eat), they’ll be mad at me.
Truth: If I do eat, I’ll be mad at me.
3. They’ll ridicule me if I don’t eat.
Truth: I so rarely get the chance to suffer because I'm doing the right thing (usually I'm suffering because of my sin), that I'll take that as an honor if they ridicule me.
4. They’ll think I’m (uppity, self-righteous, judgmental, etc.).
Truth: God knows my heart, but it’s inevitable that others will sometimes misunderstand me and judge me. This is difficult and sad, but I need to press on anyway and do what God’s called me to do. I’ll have to spend some time with God before the get-together so I can love the people there with a pure heart, and not a defensive heart.
5. I’ll end up gaining my weight back and then they’ll ridicule me.
Truth: If I end up gaining my weight back, God will help me through it. He can use all things for His purposes.
6. They think I’m dumb for wanting to change my eating habits.
Truth: It’s okay if they think I’m dumb, but that may not even be the case. It's possible they feel threatened that I'm changing and would feel more comfortable if I didn't.
7. I won’t fit in if I don’t eat as much as they do.
Truth: This might be the price I have to pay for doing the Father’s will, but I'm guessing they'll love me even if they think I'm strange. I need to stop worrying about what they think and focus on loving them regardless of what they think.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
The Dark Side of Camaraderie
When I was a teenager, my sister and I came up with a brilliant diet idea. We would eat whatever we wanted, but every three days we’d give up a whole food category and not eat it for the rest of the diet. We figured we wouldn’t have to monitor how much we eat, because there wouldn’t be much to eat anyway after a few weeks.
Now here’s the really brilliant part of our plan—every time we gave up a new category (that would be every three days), we would go out the night before and eat one last treat from that category.
Now you might be thinking “That doesn’t seem very smart to give up basic food groups,” and you would be right, of course, except for the fact that we weren’t giving up basic food groups.
No, what we were giving up was basic dessert groups: cakes—cookies—pastries—pies . . . (did I mention what a fun diet it was?).
Well, as you might have guessed, it wasn’t a very successful one. If I remember right, we lasted about two weeks—right up until the day we gave up our last food group: ice cream. By that time we could see the diet was going to get boring awfully fast, and we ended it. I’m afraid we didn’t lose much weight (actually I think we gained), but we did have a lot of fun.
There’s a sense of camaraderie that comes with eating together, isn’t there? In fact, I’ve always wondered if that’s not why God designed our bodies to need food—so it would be an opportunity for us to gather together in fellowship around a meal, enjoying the food and each other.
But there’s also a dark side to camaraderie—if what we’re enjoying together isn’t good for us, we might actually be hurting each other, all in the name of fun.
I had a woman write me this week, wondering if I would write a blog about the social pressures of eating. She was worried about attending the family Easter gathering and how she would be able to handle the day without eating too much. Her mom is an emotional eater and many of her family members are also. Listen to what she has to say:
My mom doesn't pressure me to eat but I automatically (auto-pilot) do . . . I’ll hear several family members complain about being fat, but food is their life, so they will go back and forth all afternoon and eat when they are stuffed. It's not overt pressure—it’s subtle, like it’s expected. If you don't eat like that, you are kind of an outcast.
Have you ever experienced this before—the pressure to eat because everyone around you is eating? Sometimes it comes from within—our desire to please or be part of the crowd—but often it comes from the outside. We’ve probably all experienced others saying things like this: “Oh, come on, one cookie won’t hurt—don’t be such a killjoy,” or “You’re no fun anymore—I liked you better the old way.”
These remarks not only hurt, they make it hard to maintain our fragile self-control. After all, we want to eat—we know it would be fun to sit there and eat whatever we want to eat—and even more than that, we want to fit in. It’s hard being the odd man out.
So what do we do? How do you handle situations like these? All I can suggest is that you prepare for them beforehand so you have the mind of Christ before you walk into the situation.
Remember that eating is more than just eating for the emotional eater. It’s a spiritual issue. God doesn’t want us to be controlled by anything but Him—and we’re much happier when He’s the one controlling us.
Eating the way God wants us to eat in a situation like this is an act of dying to self—dying to the desire to have others think well of us, dying to the desire to fit in, and dying to the desire to have fun with them and eat as much as we want.
Easter itself reminds us of how we're to live our lives. Listen to Hebrews 12:2: Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Jesus was the ultimate example of dying to self.
The focus of His life was to do the Father’s will, and He wants that to be the focus of our lives as well. Just as Jesus couldn’t do that without dying to self, we can’t either. So often in life we have to make a choice: Should I indulge my desires, or should I do the Father’s will? Should I do what others want me to do (so I don’t get condemned, so I don’t hurt their feelings, so I fit in, etc.), or should I do the Father’s will?
It still takes me by surprise sometimes when God’s Word reminds me that I have to suffer for His sake—because the culture tells me I shouldn’t have to suffer.
When the world is crying out, “What’s wrong with eating?? Have another lemon bar!” (that’s what it was saying to me yesterday), it doesn’t seem necessary to die to self. That’s why we need to spend so much time in the Word—so we remember the truth and have the power to act on it.
If you’re going into a difficult situation this Easter, it would be helpful to spend some time praying and thinking over these things before you go to your gathering. Another way you can prepare is to go over the lies you believe about the food itself.
I wrote a blog about this last November called The Lies of Thanksgiving. You should be able to find it by looking over on the left of this blog at the labels and clicking on the holidays link (one of these days I will learn how to actually put links in this blog, but I’m not there yet!).
It will help you even more if you write down those lies on a piece of paper and write out your own truth before you look at what I wrote—you’ll internalize it much more if you’re the one doing the thinking.
Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful Resurrection Sunday—because He lives, we have the power to be set free from our strongholds. Let’s pray for each other as we navigate another week filled with temptation.
P.S. I’ll try to write another post before Easter about the lies you might believe in a situation where you’re feeling pressured to eat.
Now here’s the really brilliant part of our plan—every time we gave up a new category (that would be every three days), we would go out the night before and eat one last treat from that category.
Now you might be thinking “That doesn’t seem very smart to give up basic food groups,” and you would be right, of course, except for the fact that we weren’t giving up basic food groups.
No, what we were giving up was basic dessert groups: cakes—cookies—pastries—pies . . . (did I mention what a fun diet it was?).
Well, as you might have guessed, it wasn’t a very successful one. If I remember right, we lasted about two weeks—right up until the day we gave up our last food group: ice cream. By that time we could see the diet was going to get boring awfully fast, and we ended it. I’m afraid we didn’t lose much weight (actually I think we gained), but we did have a lot of fun.
There’s a sense of camaraderie that comes with eating together, isn’t there? In fact, I’ve always wondered if that’s not why God designed our bodies to need food—so it would be an opportunity for us to gather together in fellowship around a meal, enjoying the food and each other.
But there’s also a dark side to camaraderie—if what we’re enjoying together isn’t good for us, we might actually be hurting each other, all in the name of fun.
I had a woman write me this week, wondering if I would write a blog about the social pressures of eating. She was worried about attending the family Easter gathering and how she would be able to handle the day without eating too much. Her mom is an emotional eater and many of her family members are also. Listen to what she has to say:
My mom doesn't pressure me to eat but I automatically (auto-pilot) do . . . I’ll hear several family members complain about being fat, but food is their life, so they will go back and forth all afternoon and eat when they are stuffed. It's not overt pressure—it’s subtle, like it’s expected. If you don't eat like that, you are kind of an outcast.
Have you ever experienced this before—the pressure to eat because everyone around you is eating? Sometimes it comes from within—our desire to please or be part of the crowd—but often it comes from the outside. We’ve probably all experienced others saying things like this: “Oh, come on, one cookie won’t hurt—don’t be such a killjoy,” or “You’re no fun anymore—I liked you better the old way.”
These remarks not only hurt, they make it hard to maintain our fragile self-control. After all, we want to eat—we know it would be fun to sit there and eat whatever we want to eat—and even more than that, we want to fit in. It’s hard being the odd man out.
So what do we do? How do you handle situations like these? All I can suggest is that you prepare for them beforehand so you have the mind of Christ before you walk into the situation.
Remember that eating is more than just eating for the emotional eater. It’s a spiritual issue. God doesn’t want us to be controlled by anything but Him—and we’re much happier when He’s the one controlling us.
Eating the way God wants us to eat in a situation like this is an act of dying to self—dying to the desire to have others think well of us, dying to the desire to fit in, and dying to the desire to have fun with them and eat as much as we want.
Easter itself reminds us of how we're to live our lives. Listen to Hebrews 12:2: Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Jesus was the ultimate example of dying to self.
The focus of His life was to do the Father’s will, and He wants that to be the focus of our lives as well. Just as Jesus couldn’t do that without dying to self, we can’t either. So often in life we have to make a choice: Should I indulge my desires, or should I do the Father’s will? Should I do what others want me to do (so I don’t get condemned, so I don’t hurt their feelings, so I fit in, etc.), or should I do the Father’s will?
It still takes me by surprise sometimes when God’s Word reminds me that I have to suffer for His sake—because the culture tells me I shouldn’t have to suffer.
When the world is crying out, “What’s wrong with eating?? Have another lemon bar!” (that’s what it was saying to me yesterday), it doesn’t seem necessary to die to self. That’s why we need to spend so much time in the Word—so we remember the truth and have the power to act on it.
If you’re going into a difficult situation this Easter, it would be helpful to spend some time praying and thinking over these things before you go to your gathering. Another way you can prepare is to go over the lies you believe about the food itself.
I wrote a blog about this last November called The Lies of Thanksgiving. You should be able to find it by looking over on the left of this blog at the labels and clicking on the holidays link (one of these days I will learn how to actually put links in this blog, but I’m not there yet!).
It will help you even more if you write down those lies on a piece of paper and write out your own truth before you look at what I wrote—you’ll internalize it much more if you’re the one doing the thinking.
Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful Resurrection Sunday—because He lives, we have the power to be set free from our strongholds. Let’s pray for each other as we navigate another week filled with temptation.
P.S. I’ll try to write another post before Easter about the lies you might believe in a situation where you’re feeling pressured to eat.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Rules (Part Two): The Lies We Believe About Rules
1. I don’t like rules (and that’s a good reason not to have any).
Truth: If I only did the things in life I liked to do, my house would be so messy I’d hate living in it, my kids would be so spoiled I wouldn’t enjoy spending time with them, and I’d probably be writing this blog from my jail cell (because I really can’t stand doing my income taxes). Often it’s doing what I don’t want to do that that enables me to live the life I do want to live.
2. The rules make me want to eat.
Truth: My self-indulgent nature makes me want to eat. The rules are just a convenient scapegoat.
3. It’s not a big deal if I break the rules (after all, just one bite won’t hurt).
Truth: It actually is a big deal if I break the rules, because 99 times out of a 100, when I break the rules once, I end up breaking them again the same day—and we all know what that can lead to.
4. I can’t believe I broke the rules—I’m such a (failure, loser, etc.).
Truth: If I were capable of following the rules without ever breaking them, I wouldn’t have a problem with emotional eating! Of course I broke the rules—but that doesn’t mean I’m a failure. I’m a child of God who just broke the rules. I need to figure out what made me break the rules and press on.
5. As long as I broke the rules, I might as well eat whatever I want.
Truth: As long as I broke the rules, I might as well use it as an opportunity to bring my thoughts captive to the truth through Scripture prayer or truth journaling so I’ll be less likely to break the rules next time.
6. No one can tell me how much to eat.
Truth: Sad, but true. It’d be a lot easier if my mom were here to control what I eat, but since she isn’t I better set some rules of my own.
7. Rules are too restrictive (and that’s a bad thing).
Truth: Living without rules and indulging the flesh leads to slavery (which is incredibly restrictive). Following the rules will give me the freedom I’ve always longed for.
8. All I have to do is follow the rules, and then I can get this weight off and keep it off.
Truth: I’ll never be able to follow the rules in my own strength if this is a stronghold for me, so all I have to do is bring my thoughts captive to the truth about a million times (alright, that’s a lie—it only seems like a million times) until I believe the truth so deeply that I actually don’t feel like breaking the rules anymore.
9. There’s no use following the rules anymore today since I already broke them.
Truth: There’s no use trying to do this in my own strength today, now that I’ve already broken the rules. I know from past experience that the only thing that will stop me now is taking the time to renew my mind. I better carve out some time to truth journal or pray Scripture before I eat anything else.
10. If I can just find the right rule (eating when hungry, having lifelong boundaries, etc.) it will be easy to control my eating.
Truth: If I’m an emotional eater, I’ll never find a rule that makes it easy. If I keep carrying my thoughts captive to the truth, though, one day I'll start believing the truth and on that day, it will start to get easier.
All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Hebrews 12:11
Truth: If I only did the things in life I liked to do, my house would be so messy I’d hate living in it, my kids would be so spoiled I wouldn’t enjoy spending time with them, and I’d probably be writing this blog from my jail cell (because I really can’t stand doing my income taxes). Often it’s doing what I don’t want to do that that enables me to live the life I do want to live.
2. The rules make me want to eat.
Truth: My self-indulgent nature makes me want to eat. The rules are just a convenient scapegoat.
3. It’s not a big deal if I break the rules (after all, just one bite won’t hurt).
Truth: It actually is a big deal if I break the rules, because 99 times out of a 100, when I break the rules once, I end up breaking them again the same day—and we all know what that can lead to.
4. I can’t believe I broke the rules—I’m such a (failure, loser, etc.).
Truth: If I were capable of following the rules without ever breaking them, I wouldn’t have a problem with emotional eating! Of course I broke the rules—but that doesn’t mean I’m a failure. I’m a child of God who just broke the rules. I need to figure out what made me break the rules and press on.
5. As long as I broke the rules, I might as well eat whatever I want.
Truth: As long as I broke the rules, I might as well use it as an opportunity to bring my thoughts captive to the truth through Scripture prayer or truth journaling so I’ll be less likely to break the rules next time.
6. No one can tell me how much to eat.
Truth: Sad, but true. It’d be a lot easier if my mom were here to control what I eat, but since she isn’t I better set some rules of my own.
7. Rules are too restrictive (and that’s a bad thing).
Truth: Living without rules and indulging the flesh leads to slavery (which is incredibly restrictive). Following the rules will give me the freedom I’ve always longed for.
8. All I have to do is follow the rules, and then I can get this weight off and keep it off.
Truth: I’ll never be able to follow the rules in my own strength if this is a stronghold for me, so all I have to do is bring my thoughts captive to the truth about a million times (alright, that’s a lie—it only seems like a million times) until I believe the truth so deeply that I actually don’t feel like breaking the rules anymore.
9. There’s no use following the rules anymore today since I already broke them.
Truth: There’s no use trying to do this in my own strength today, now that I’ve already broken the rules. I know from past experience that the only thing that will stop me now is taking the time to renew my mind. I better carve out some time to truth journal or pray Scripture before I eat anything else.
10. If I can just find the right rule (eating when hungry, having lifelong boundaries, etc.) it will be easy to control my eating.
Truth: If I’m an emotional eater, I’ll never find a rule that makes it easy. If I keep carrying my thoughts captive to the truth, though, one day I'll start believing the truth and on that day, it will start to get easier.
All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Hebrews 12:11
Friday, March 27, 2009
Rules
I’ve been thinking about rules lately and how they apply to emotional eating. The question is, “Do rules help us or hurt us in our struggle with emotional eating? Is it the rules themselves that make us feel like eating too much or is it something else?”
Because we know we’ve been saved by grace, and not by following the rules, I think we have a tendency to think that rules aren't very important. But is that true?
1 Timothy 1:8-9a says this: But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners . . .
At first glance we may look at this verse and think, “Doesn’t that just apply to non-Christians? Wouldn't we be considered the righteous?"
Well, yes and no. Yes, we are counted as righteous through our faith (Romans 4:3, 5:1), but no, we're not always righteous in our behavior (Romans 3:10-12, 23). And where we're not righteous, we need the law.
I see this principle at work in my own life. I tend to be "lawless and rebellious" in the area of eating—I feel like I should be able to eat whatever and whenever I want. I don’t like placing restrictions on my eating. Because of this I need a law.
A naturally thin person on the other hand tends to eat only when she’s hungry. She’s not stamping her foot and saying, “I should be able to eat whatever I feel like eating,” because food isn’t that big of a deal to her. She can easily give it up. In her case, it would be legalistic to have rules about eating because she doesn’t need them.
Timothy says the law isn’t made for the righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious. That’s me when it comes to food.
Will the rules keep me from emotional eating? No, they can't save me any more than following the law can save me. Why? Because I'm not capable of following the rules (or the law) in my own strength.
Then, you may ask, if I'm not capable of following the rules, why should I have them? This is the answer - because they show me my rebellious ways and tell me when I need to go to God for help.
Let's see how this works with emotional eating. Let's say my rule is, "I'll eat only when I'm hungry." If it’s 3:00 in the afternoon and I’m craving something to eat even though I'm not hungry, my "rule" gives me a wake-up call. Barb, why do you feel like eating? Are you really hungry or are you going to food to satisfy your other needs? Are you willing to submit to God in this area of your life or are you going to insist on eating whenever you feel like eating?
If I didn’t have the rule, I might not notice that I’m eating for the wrong reasons. The rule itself doesn’t give me the power to eat the way God wants me to eat - but it does show me when I need to go to God to get that power. In that sense, the rule helps me.
Also - it's not the rule that's making me want to eat in the first place. I know it seems that way - after all, don't we start craving food the minute we go on a diet? Yes, of course we do, but we also feel like eating a lot when we're not on diets - we just don't notice it because when we feel like eating, we eat! It doesn't matter if we're not hungry, because we don't have any rules in place to tell us we can't eat when we're not hungry.
What the rule (law) does is point out the rebelliousness that’s already there in my heart - and it shows me that I need to go to God for help - because that's the only way I'll be able to follow the "rules."
Note: Although the rules themselves don't make me eat, the lies I believe about the rules often make me eat - and that's what I'll be talking about in my next post.
Because we know we’ve been saved by grace, and not by following the rules, I think we have a tendency to think that rules aren't very important. But is that true?
1 Timothy 1:8-9a says this: But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners . . .
At first glance we may look at this verse and think, “Doesn’t that just apply to non-Christians? Wouldn't we be considered the righteous?"
Well, yes and no. Yes, we are counted as righteous through our faith (Romans 4:3, 5:1), but no, we're not always righteous in our behavior (Romans 3:10-12, 23). And where we're not righteous, we need the law.
I see this principle at work in my own life. I tend to be "lawless and rebellious" in the area of eating—I feel like I should be able to eat whatever and whenever I want. I don’t like placing restrictions on my eating. Because of this I need a law.
A naturally thin person on the other hand tends to eat only when she’s hungry. She’s not stamping her foot and saying, “I should be able to eat whatever I feel like eating,” because food isn’t that big of a deal to her. She can easily give it up. In her case, it would be legalistic to have rules about eating because she doesn’t need them.
Timothy says the law isn’t made for the righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious. That’s me when it comes to food.
Will the rules keep me from emotional eating? No, they can't save me any more than following the law can save me. Why? Because I'm not capable of following the rules (or the law) in my own strength.
Then, you may ask, if I'm not capable of following the rules, why should I have them? This is the answer - because they show me my rebellious ways and tell me when I need to go to God for help.
Let's see how this works with emotional eating. Let's say my rule is, "I'll eat only when I'm hungry." If it’s 3:00 in the afternoon and I’m craving something to eat even though I'm not hungry, my "rule" gives me a wake-up call. Barb, why do you feel like eating? Are you really hungry or are you going to food to satisfy your other needs? Are you willing to submit to God in this area of your life or are you going to insist on eating whenever you feel like eating?
If I didn’t have the rule, I might not notice that I’m eating for the wrong reasons. The rule itself doesn’t give me the power to eat the way God wants me to eat - but it does show me when I need to go to God to get that power. In that sense, the rule helps me.
Also - it's not the rule that's making me want to eat in the first place. I know it seems that way - after all, don't we start craving food the minute we go on a diet? Yes, of course we do, but we also feel like eating a lot when we're not on diets - we just don't notice it because when we feel like eating, we eat! It doesn't matter if we're not hungry, because we don't have any rules in place to tell us we can't eat when we're not hungry.
What the rule (law) does is point out the rebelliousness that’s already there in my heart - and it shows me that I need to go to God for help - because that's the only way I'll be able to follow the "rules."
Note: Although the rules themselves don't make me eat, the lies I believe about the rules often make me eat - and that's what I'll be talking about in my next post.
Monday, March 16, 2009
How to Make Yourself Truth Journal
Studies show that over a period of three days we tend to remember:
• 10% of what we read
• 20% of what we hear
• 30% of what we see
• 70% of what we say and write
Maybe that's why truth journaling works so well. There's something about writing the truth that helps you remember it and act it out.
The question is, how do you get yourself to truth journal when you don’t feel like doing it? Here are five things that can help:
1. Truth journal at the same time every day.
When I was struggling with writing my son (who likes to write) gave me some good advice: “Mom, just pick a time to write and do it at the same time every day—it will get easier as time goes by.” He was right—it did get easier. If you don’t have the time or the drive to truth journal every time you break your boundaries, try truth journaling once a day instead.
2. Set an easy goal.
If you don’t enjoy truth journaling, make sure you set a reachable goal. It should be small enough that you can make yourself do it even if you don’t feel like doing it. You could set a time limit goal (five minutes a day) or a writing goal (one entry a day).
3. Get your ducks in a row.
If you have to search for a notebook and pen every time you journal, you won’t want to journal. Make it easy to write by having everything ready to write and easy to find. If you’re going to use lie-truth charts print a bunch of them out. You can download these charts from the sample content tab at www.truthwaypress.com.
4. Truth journal about truth journaling before you start to truth journal.
I know this sounds a little crazy, but it will help you find out why you don’t want to truth journal. Here are some of the common lies that might be keeping you from truth journaling and the truths that will change your attitude.
1. It’s too much work.
Truth: It’s not too much work when I think about what it will accomplish in my life. It’s worth a bit of work to be set free from emotional eating.
2. I don’t have time to do it when I need to do it.
Truth: It doesn’t have to be done at a specific time to help me change the way I think. (Note: It is true, though, that if you wait until the next day to truth journal, it will be hard to remember your thoughts.)
3. It takes too much time.
Truth: It’s worth the time. And five minutes isn’t too much time.
4. I’ll just do it in my head.
Truth: Although doing it in my head is better than nothing, writing it down will be much more effective. It’s worth taking the extra time to write it down.
5. I’ll do it later.
Truth: The longer I wait, the less I’ll feel like doing it. I better do it now.
6. I’ll just force myself to (stick to my boundaries, etc) so I don’t need to truth journal.
Truth: I can only force myself to (stick to my boundaries, etc) for so long. Sooner or later I’ll break down and do what I feel like doing. It would be far better for me to put my efforts into forcing myself to truth journal—because that will change me permanently.
7. It doesn’t work.
Truth: It doesn’t work as quickly and as easily as I want it to work, but it does work. If I'm persistent and consistent, it will eventually change the way I think.
5. Pray about it.
Never forget that we're in a spiritual battle. Satan would just as soon see Christians focus on their behavior and not the renewing of their minds. Why? Because if we think like the world thinks we're going to act like the world acts - no matter how much we focus on our behavior.
If we want lasting change in our behavior, we need to take the time to renew our minds.
• 10% of what we read
• 20% of what we hear
• 30% of what we see
• 70% of what we say and write
Maybe that's why truth journaling works so well. There's something about writing the truth that helps you remember it and act it out.
The question is, how do you get yourself to truth journal when you don’t feel like doing it? Here are five things that can help:
1. Truth journal at the same time every day.
When I was struggling with writing my son (who likes to write) gave me some good advice: “Mom, just pick a time to write and do it at the same time every day—it will get easier as time goes by.” He was right—it did get easier. If you don’t have the time or the drive to truth journal every time you break your boundaries, try truth journaling once a day instead.
2. Set an easy goal.
If you don’t enjoy truth journaling, make sure you set a reachable goal. It should be small enough that you can make yourself do it even if you don’t feel like doing it. You could set a time limit goal (five minutes a day) or a writing goal (one entry a day).
3. Get your ducks in a row.
If you have to search for a notebook and pen every time you journal, you won’t want to journal. Make it easy to write by having everything ready to write and easy to find. If you’re going to use lie-truth charts print a bunch of them out. You can download these charts from the sample content tab at www.truthwaypress.com.
4. Truth journal about truth journaling before you start to truth journal.
I know this sounds a little crazy, but it will help you find out why you don’t want to truth journal. Here are some of the common lies that might be keeping you from truth journaling and the truths that will change your attitude.
1. It’s too much work.
Truth: It’s not too much work when I think about what it will accomplish in my life. It’s worth a bit of work to be set free from emotional eating.
2. I don’t have time to do it when I need to do it.
Truth: It doesn’t have to be done at a specific time to help me change the way I think. (Note: It is true, though, that if you wait until the next day to truth journal, it will be hard to remember your thoughts.)
3. It takes too much time.
Truth: It’s worth the time. And five minutes isn’t too much time.
4. I’ll just do it in my head.
Truth: Although doing it in my head is better than nothing, writing it down will be much more effective. It’s worth taking the extra time to write it down.
5. I’ll do it later.
Truth: The longer I wait, the less I’ll feel like doing it. I better do it now.
6. I’ll just force myself to (stick to my boundaries, etc) so I don’t need to truth journal.
Truth: I can only force myself to (stick to my boundaries, etc) for so long. Sooner or later I’ll break down and do what I feel like doing. It would be far better for me to put my efforts into forcing myself to truth journal—because that will change me permanently.
7. It doesn’t work.
Truth: It doesn’t work as quickly and as easily as I want it to work, but it does work. If I'm persistent and consistent, it will eventually change the way I think.
5. Pray about it.
Never forget that we're in a spiritual battle. Satan would just as soon see Christians focus on their behavior and not the renewing of their minds. Why? Because if we think like the world thinks we're going to act like the world acts - no matter how much we focus on our behavior.
If we want lasting change in our behavior, we need to take the time to renew our minds.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Later
(And I also choose not to have a strawberry smoothie right now even though my daughter is making them and they are very good for you and also very delicious!)
(Because I don't have to eat just because everyone else is eating, right???)
(Because I don't have to eat just because everyone else is eating, right???)
Just for today . . .
I choose to eat what’s best for the rest of my life and not what’s best for the next five minutes.
I choose to see myself through the eyes of God and not through the eyes of other people.
I choose to give up my right to eat just because someone else is eating.
I choose to say no to one more brownie and say yes to energy, well-being, and living life in control.
I choose not to define myself by a number on the scale.
I choose to not eat even one bite outside my boundaries.
I choose to go to God’s Word for help and not the refrigerator.
I choose to eat what’s good for me and not what’s available to me.
I choose not to condemn myself when I mess up.
I choose to die to self and live for God.
. . . and I hope I do the same tomorrow.
I choose to see myself through the eyes of God and not through the eyes of other people.
I choose to give up my right to eat just because someone else is eating.
I choose to say no to one more brownie and say yes to energy, well-being, and living life in control.
I choose not to define myself by a number on the scale.
I choose to not eat even one bite outside my boundaries.
I choose to go to God’s Word for help and not the refrigerator.
I choose to eat what’s good for me and not what’s available to me.
I choose not to condemn myself when I mess up.
I choose to die to self and live for God.
. . . and I hope I do the same tomorrow.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The Things that Make us Eat
Although it’s the lies we believe about food (and eating) that make us give in and eat when we shouldn’t be eating, it’s the other things going on in our lives that make us start thinking about food in the first place.
If you were to look at your life and assign percentages to all the emotions and situations that make you eat, what would it look like? This is how mine would have looked eight years ago:
Boredom 10%
Discontentment 25%
Annoyance 25%
Good food available (that I was eating because it was there and really good, not because I went out searching for it on a bad day.) 5%
Procrastination 10%
Unhappiness 25%
I was an unhappy, discontent person in those days, and I ate to try to make myself happier. The solution wasn’t to get a great life, to eat within boundaries, or even to learn the truth about food, although all of that would have helped me lose some weight, I’m sure.
The real solution was to die to myself and the idea that I had to have a certain kind of life to be happy, and then to live for God—to learn to love Him so deeply that I wouldn’t need a relationship, a lifestyle, an adventure, or a delicious treat to make me satisfied.
Thank God, He started me down the path that led towards Him. I was actually a Christian at the time—I had been one for about 25 years already—but my life wasn’t all about God. I was thinking I needed other things to make me happy.
Anyway, He started changing me. One of the main things He used to do that was truth journaling, and through renewing my mind on a regular basis, I began to see my life through His eyes. I lost my discontentment and unhappiness, because He gave me joy. I was no longer easily annoyed, because God helped me see others through His eyes.
So if you look back at my chart—I lost 75% of my reasons for overeating. Naturally, I lost some weight, and it stayed off because God had changed the way I thought and viewed life. I wasn’t just using self-control to keep from eating.
Now if I were to analyze my life now, I would still have reasons for eating too much. In fact, I now have a couple of new ones: stress and fear of gaining the weight back. Stress, because I’ve added writing to my life, and fear of gaining the weight back, because I’ve lost it.
These are two new areas to truth journal for me. I have to put in the effort to see these new things through God’s eyes, because when I’m in the habit of viewing them through His eyes, they’ll no longer bother me and cause me to eat. Does that make sense?
What you could do if you wanted, is to analyze your own life. What would your percentage chart look like? What’s making you feel like eating the most in general (realizing that this could change on a daily basis)?
Emotional eating is such a huge problem to overcome, because there are so many other problems feeding into the behavior. When I look at my percentage chart, I think, “No wonder I always gained the weight back every time I lost it. My life hadn’t really changed, only my eating behavior for a short time.”
There’s no way I could have tackled all those problems at once. When I started working on those areas of my life, weight wasn’t even a motivating factor. I just wanted to get rid of the sin in my life. Losing weight was just a an unanticipated and pleasant side effect of bringing my life into submission under God.
Why don’t you try to make your own percentage chart and see what you learn? It might give you an idea of what to work on. I hope it will also help you understand yourself better and not be so quick to condemn yourself when you fail at your boundaries once again. Because when we look at our percentage charts - it's no wonder we have problems!
If you were to look at your life and assign percentages to all the emotions and situations that make you eat, what would it look like? This is how mine would have looked eight years ago:
Boredom 10%
Discontentment 25%
Annoyance 25%
Good food available (that I was eating because it was there and really good, not because I went out searching for it on a bad day.) 5%
Procrastination 10%
Unhappiness 25%
I was an unhappy, discontent person in those days, and I ate to try to make myself happier. The solution wasn’t to get a great life, to eat within boundaries, or even to learn the truth about food, although all of that would have helped me lose some weight, I’m sure.
The real solution was to die to myself and the idea that I had to have a certain kind of life to be happy, and then to live for God—to learn to love Him so deeply that I wouldn’t need a relationship, a lifestyle, an adventure, or a delicious treat to make me satisfied.
Thank God, He started me down the path that led towards Him. I was actually a Christian at the time—I had been one for about 25 years already—but my life wasn’t all about God. I was thinking I needed other things to make me happy.
Anyway, He started changing me. One of the main things He used to do that was truth journaling, and through renewing my mind on a regular basis, I began to see my life through His eyes. I lost my discontentment and unhappiness, because He gave me joy. I was no longer easily annoyed, because God helped me see others through His eyes.
So if you look back at my chart—I lost 75% of my reasons for overeating. Naturally, I lost some weight, and it stayed off because God had changed the way I thought and viewed life. I wasn’t just using self-control to keep from eating.
Now if I were to analyze my life now, I would still have reasons for eating too much. In fact, I now have a couple of new ones: stress and fear of gaining the weight back. Stress, because I’ve added writing to my life, and fear of gaining the weight back, because I’ve lost it.
These are two new areas to truth journal for me. I have to put in the effort to see these new things through God’s eyes, because when I’m in the habit of viewing them through His eyes, they’ll no longer bother me and cause me to eat. Does that make sense?
What you could do if you wanted, is to analyze your own life. What would your percentage chart look like? What’s making you feel like eating the most in general (realizing that this could change on a daily basis)?
Emotional eating is such a huge problem to overcome, because there are so many other problems feeding into the behavior. When I look at my percentage chart, I think, “No wonder I always gained the weight back every time I lost it. My life hadn’t really changed, only my eating behavior for a short time.”
There’s no way I could have tackled all those problems at once. When I started working on those areas of my life, weight wasn’t even a motivating factor. I just wanted to get rid of the sin in my life. Losing weight was just a an unanticipated and pleasant side effect of bringing my life into submission under God.
Why don’t you try to make your own percentage chart and see what you learn? It might give you an idea of what to work on. I hope it will also help you understand yourself better and not be so quick to condemn yourself when you fail at your boundaries once again. Because when we look at our percentage charts - it's no wonder we have problems!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Journaling the food vs. Journaling the emotions
Have you ever had one of those days when you feel like eating absolutely everything in the house? It doesn’t matter how good it is—you just want to eat. On those days, truth journaling about the food probably won’t be enough to keep you from breaking your boundaries.
Why? Because there’s something more powerful going on—some emotion, some situation, some person—something that has you so upset that you just want to eat and eat and eat.
On days like that it's usually much more effective to journal your beliefs about the situation itself rather than about the food you feel like eating. Let me tell you what I do on those days in case it will help you with your own struggles.
1. Find out what’s bugging you.
This may seem obvious, but in reality, you may not know what’s bugging you. Think back over the last day or two. Have you had any relationship problems, any looming deadlines, any big worries? Has anyone said anything to you that made you feel bad? Are you experiencing any negative emotions?
2. Truth journal the emotion.
Once you’ve figured out what the problem is—or at least what you think the problem is—you’ll need to carry your thoughts captive to God in that area. Write your thoughts down and number them, then replace the lies with the truth. If you don’t have peace after truth journaling, you’ve probably either missed a lie or you haven’t fully submitted to God.
Sometimes what you’ll find in truth journaling is that the truth isn’t pretty, and there’s nothing you can do about it. In those situations you’re going to have an “opportunity” to die to yourself and live to God—no, it’s not fun, but it’s necessary if you want to experience peace, and there really is joy in submitting to God.
3. Study the emotion.
This will sound crazy, but what I sometimes do when I’m experiencing a real onslaught of negative emotions is to go back to the chapter of Freedom from Emotional Eating on that emotion and rework it.
Even though I wrote the Bible study, it’s an entirely different experience to do the study, because then I’m forced to answer my own questions, and God uses those questions to convict me all over again.
If you have the study, it might be helpful to jump to the chapter on the emotion you’re struggling with. You may want to check out other books on the topic, too, if it’s an emotion or situation you struggle with on a regular basis.
I probably have ten books on my shelf on organization and time management, and I was telling myself today as I truth journaled procrastination for about the millionth time that I really need to get some of those books out again so I can get my life organized!
4. Spend time with God
If you’re going through a hard time, you need to spend even more time with the Lord than usual. Sometimes you really have to wrestle through a negative emotion to find peace, but it’s worth it. Seek God in prayer—pour through His Word—spend the time you need with Him to finally see your situation from His point of view.
When you’re finally able to see a situation or person through God’s eyes, the negative emotions will drain away from you, and His peace will fill your soul. And when His peace fills your soul, you won’t need to truth journal about the food - because you’ll no longer be interested in it. Honest.
Why? Because there’s something more powerful going on—some emotion, some situation, some person—something that has you so upset that you just want to eat and eat and eat.
On days like that it's usually much more effective to journal your beliefs about the situation itself rather than about the food you feel like eating. Let me tell you what I do on those days in case it will help you with your own struggles.
1. Find out what’s bugging you.
This may seem obvious, but in reality, you may not know what’s bugging you. Think back over the last day or two. Have you had any relationship problems, any looming deadlines, any big worries? Has anyone said anything to you that made you feel bad? Are you experiencing any negative emotions?
2. Truth journal the emotion.
Once you’ve figured out what the problem is—or at least what you think the problem is—you’ll need to carry your thoughts captive to God in that area. Write your thoughts down and number them, then replace the lies with the truth. If you don’t have peace after truth journaling, you’ve probably either missed a lie or you haven’t fully submitted to God.
Sometimes what you’ll find in truth journaling is that the truth isn’t pretty, and there’s nothing you can do about it. In those situations you’re going to have an “opportunity” to die to yourself and live to God—no, it’s not fun, but it’s necessary if you want to experience peace, and there really is joy in submitting to God.
3. Study the emotion.
This will sound crazy, but what I sometimes do when I’m experiencing a real onslaught of negative emotions is to go back to the chapter of Freedom from Emotional Eating on that emotion and rework it.
Even though I wrote the Bible study, it’s an entirely different experience to do the study, because then I’m forced to answer my own questions, and God uses those questions to convict me all over again.
If you have the study, it might be helpful to jump to the chapter on the emotion you’re struggling with. You may want to check out other books on the topic, too, if it’s an emotion or situation you struggle with on a regular basis.
I probably have ten books on my shelf on organization and time management, and I was telling myself today as I truth journaled procrastination for about the millionth time that I really need to get some of those books out again so I can get my life organized!
4. Spend time with God
If you’re going through a hard time, you need to spend even more time with the Lord than usual. Sometimes you really have to wrestle through a negative emotion to find peace, but it’s worth it. Seek God in prayer—pour through His Word—spend the time you need with Him to finally see your situation from His point of view.
When you’re finally able to see a situation or person through God’s eyes, the negative emotions will drain away from you, and His peace will fill your soul. And when His peace fills your soul, you won’t need to truth journal about the food - because you’ll no longer be interested in it. Honest.
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