What comes with freedom?

In the very beginning after God created the Heavens and the Earth. After God created man he put him in the Garden of Eden. He then gave Adam his first command:

Genesis 2:16-17 And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

Well, we know what happened after that. Mankind experienced spiritual death and separation from God because of original sin. I wonder how many wonderful things there were in the garden, and still Adam and Eve wanted more.

How about us? Why do we think we need more? If we had control over ourselves, we could eat freely. We would enjoy food but not suffer consequences. God desires for us to be free. But even in the garden with freedom, Adam and Eve were created to live in obedience. He put the tree there and commanded that they do not eat from it.

God desires to give us all we need. He made the Earth full of good things for us to enjoy. We need to train ourselves to be satisfied in Him. To live in obedience and have control. We can not do this on our own strength, we must depend on Him.

HE>i

I have always known some of my struggle is a pride issue. There was a point when I realized I was either obsessing about how I was going to try to lose weight, or obsessing over my calories and exercise. I thought about these things constantly. All of my worth and self-confidence was wrapped up in my weight. So even when I was feeling bad about myself it was pride. I was so focused on me and what people would think of me when my focus should be on God.

One day while running, I had a realization. I was thinking about calories and food and if I did such and such I might have 5 pounds off by next whenever. Suddenly I had the thought, I could be covered in scars or burns or be crippled, and there would be nothing I could do about it. I would just have to accept who I was. I could have a bad injury and not be able to run, or exercise. Why was I obsessing about something that shouldn't be that big of a deal. It is fixable.

I overcame a lot just with that realization which was over a year ago. And now, well recently I went to a wedding feeling like I looked pretty dang good. I bought a new dress which was the smallest size I have bought in about six years, and then someone asked me if I was pregnant. I was crushed. I could not get over it. For days. But it helped me to realize that the way I look is still too important to me. Being hurt by that comment is one thing. Allowing it to ruin my night and the next few days is another.

So needless to say, I have come to the point of really praying for humility. And I found that humility is also connected with food in God's word.

Yesterday I quoted Jesus from Matthew 4 as he used God's word against Satan when Satan tempted him to turn rocks into bread after fasting for 40 days. Jesus said, "It is written, 'man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

The first scripture I want to share is the one Jesus was quoting.

Deuteronomy 8:2-3 Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that people do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Being humble means we know His place verses our place. He is God the sustainer and provider, we do not get credit for things we do because everything we have is from Him. He causes us to hunger it says, and this is one of the ways he reminds us that we need Him.

He is also testing us to see what is in our heart. Mine is full of pride. I can see that clearly and it is ugly. I know the only cure is the work He is doing in me as I continue to seek Him. He has done so much in me already, I am so thankfully He is not done!

100%

I have been saying for probably two years that I have my food issues 80% figured out and I wanted more than anything to figure out the last 20%. Well, I can finally say, I I am there! I thought working on this blog would get me there. And, it has helped. One of the ways it has helped me the most, is by showing me the passion I have, to help people who are struggling with these issues. I have had a lot of women and men open up to me about their lifetime struggle with weight and food. But writing this blog, and even helping people, has not brought me to 100%. It was God's word.

And now I feel I have so much to say. It might end up being multiple more blog posts to tell you about what I learned and what God has to say about food, nourishment, craving, satisfaction, eating, hunger, and more.

I had the opportunity to be a counselor at Wildwood, a discipleship camp at Hume Lake. At Wildwood, they give you approximately an hour to be in God's word and have time alone with Him, every day. I loved this time. The first day we had "solo time" our leader talked about God's word being like food. His focus had nothing to do with diet or weight issues but he quoted Matthew 4:1-4. In this passage, Jesus has been fasting for 40 days and He was hungry. "The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." But Jesus answered, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

After talking about these verses with us he told us we can use a lot of other things to sustain or nourish us when we should use God's word. He posed the question, "Where am I seeking my food/nourishment?"

Basically, we all feel like we need to be filled up. Some of us go literally to food even when we aren't literally hungry. Some of us want approval, or success, or there is an endless list I could write about that aren't necessarily bad in themselves, but when we use them to take the place of God's word, we can never really be satisfied. This wasn't new news to me, and I think I have talked about it before in this blog. But when he asked the question, it made me want to see what else God's word said about food.

So for the next few days of solo time, I was able to look up and study these things. I learned so much. I can't wait to tell you about it. I am going to have to spread it out between posts. For now, look up Matthew 4 and ask yourself the question that our leader asked, where are you seeking your food/nourishment?

I Won't Go Back

I remember when I first moved here to Kingsburg. It is so hot here (pretty much over 100 degrees all summer) and I was quietly refusing to wear shorts and there is no way you would catch me in a tank top. I was miserable. MISERABLE!

I was overweight and bordering on obese. There is a funny thing about being overweight, some people need to lose 100 pounds or more and some need to lose 40, but the mental aspect of being fat is the same. You are self- conscious yet you have done it to yourself and you continue it. I had a million plans and a million diets that I continually failed. Instead of losing weight I would gain it.

I so remember going out to the river trying to cover up my rolls and flabs and just wishing I didn't have to go. I felt disgusting. When you are overweight you are so self conscious but the only person who is really noticing it is you. Look around, there are fat people everywhere. Is there anyone pointing at them saying, "Disgusting?" No.

Your friends know you and love you no matter what you look like. They may wish you'd lose weight because then you'd stop complaining so much but they don't think about it when they look at you. Do you think about it when you look at an overweight friend?

So it is summer now and I have been wearing my shorts and my tank top. I have even worn a bathing suit in public multiple times. I still have weight to lose but I am now comfortable. That is such a perfect word, "comfortable." I was so uncomfortable before. I will not ever go back to where I was. There are a million reasons but the best is that I have come to where I am now by changing my lifestyle. I like my new lifestyle. I like the food I eat and the amount of it I eat. I am satisfied and I even enjoy food for because I don't feel guilty. I still eat ice cream and cookies but I do it in moderation. I exercise. A LOT. But I love it and I will not give it up.

If you are uncomfortable in your own skin, start making a change. Whatever you are doing that is maintaining being overweight is not worth it. Who cares if it takes two years to get to your goal weight. Will you be more comfortable once you make some healthy changes and lose 5, 10, 30 pounds... YES!

Do I really want to succeed?

I remember this idea I had in my head for the longest time, I had a suspicion that I actually didn't want myself to succeed. Why would I run 5 miles and later that day cancel it out with calories, saying "I deserve this."

I finally heard someone put a name to the thoughts I had about what I saw doing. "Self-sabotage." Having a name helped so much. I could stop myself before eating the ice cream I thought I deserved and say, "I am self-sabotaging, why am I doing this?"

But even with identifying the problem it has still been important to figure out what my reason is for not wanting to succeed. I have figured out a few reasons but there could be many for you. If you think you struggle with self-sabotage you need to figure out why you are doing it. Do you think you're not worth it? Do you want to make sure people really like you for you, and not the way you look? Are you protecting yourself somehow from being hurt with a wall of being overweight? Knowing the reason is the beginning of the healing you will need to do before you truly succeed.

Me time

We are all in different points in our lives. Right now I am staying home with two small children. One of them can do very little on her own and the other wants to do very little on her own. I am always needed. It isn't like it was when I was nursing in the middle of the night and felt like 99.9% of my day was devoted to taking care of my kids. Now I have a little more time but there is so much to do. I listed many of these things just now and then deleted the list because so many of them are things I enjoy but they are also obligations. I honestly feel like I am running all day to get stuff done but at the end of the day you can't tell that I have done much.

Now I know not everyone is at the same point in their life. Some people work really long hours. Some are in school. But I know very few people who think there are enough hours in the day. So there are things on my obligation list, even though I enjoy many of them: spending time in God's word, exercising, spending quality time with my family, and even my small business is something I enjoy. But with all the obligations there is one thing that is easy to leave out. Me time. It can be put aside because other things are more important. But guess what happens if you don't have "me time"? Eating a brownie becomes "me time." Drinking an 700 calorie coffee drink in the car on the way to costco is "me time." How about something you actually enjoy to do that isn't food? Something that is almost like a delicacy. Something maybe you do on your vacations?

For me it is reading or writing. I LOVE to read but I have barely read at all since my children were born. For you it could be a thousand different things. And I am not talking about something you sort of like, like jogging. I do love jogging but I also know it is an obligation to exercise.

So why not set aside 20 minutes to an hour - for you? You are worth it. How might your whole day and attitude be different if instead of cleaning when the kids napped (or whenever you hour of downtime might be), you read a book, or scrapbooked, or played an online game, or did something else useless except for the fact that you enjoyed doing it!

So what would your me time be?

Eating 4 Cookies does not Equal a Vacation from My Children

...a short rant..

I think I have gone over this before. Why does my brain think stuffing myself with comfort food will make me feel better.
My kids are great. I love them. They are so fun and funny. But my hubby has been so busy lately it has all been on me. Not complaining. Two
of those days he was building our new fence all day in 100 degree weather while I was inside the air conditioning. So totally not complaining. But I hear the words,"I need a vacation" run through my head as I shove a cookie in my mouth.
So now as my 4 year old pretends she is a dog eating her spaghetti with her face in the bowl and my two year old, snot dripping from the nose, laughs hysterically every time I tell her not to do something, I feel worse because I overdosed on cookies. I need a vacation. Not to Hawaii. Just to somewhere by myself for like 2 hours.