I can hardly believe this is week 6 of Barb Raveling’s Weight Loss Bible Study! It has been going by so fast.
And it sure seems like a lot of you are experiencing some great breakthroughs. I have gotten to visit with some of you on the phone, in Skype, and in email and WOW! Your stories are amazing!
Please consider writing up a testimonial and sending it to me at heidi bylsma at gmail dot com. Let me know it is your testimonial that you would like posted to our Testimonials page (or you can just go there and post it in the comments, but I prefer to put it in the page itself!).
This week we get to deal with yet more pertinent issues related to the way we think that affects our eating. Here is a video about the first part of the week (the rest will come later this week):
If you are an email subscriber, please be sure to visit the blog site, as the emails don’t include the videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiFNBq5b7Is?rel=0&w=640&h=480I am editing this post because God led me to do some renewing of my mind about “This is Hard.” I want to share this with you. You can make a list like this and then read it out loud daily for your own “renewing of the mind” experience:
This IS HARD. That is true.
BUT:
God will use this FACT and make me more beautiful – more Christlike inside and out through the hardship.
I will persevere
When it is hard, I am perfectly poised to see God show up.
In my weakness, he will be made strong and visible.
When it is hard, I get to see HIM as the Redeemer.
I CAN keep going when it is hard.
I HAVE to keep going when it is hard.
He never promises that Life will be easy.
I share in the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ.
THIS IS LIFE! Life IS hard!
This is training for more challenging things in the future.
As I just DEAL with it and GET OVER MY DESIRE FOR EVERYTHING TO BE EASY I will develop and grow and change and be a better person—the one that God has placed me on this earth to be.
When life is hard, when eating 0 to 5 is hard, I know that I am becoming more like Christ. I am being trained to BUCK up for things yet ahead in my life.
I can PRAISE my God through this trial and blow the lid off of my own piddly expectations! GOD IS GREAT and He will show me His glory!
Satan doesn’t get to have his way with me.
LIFE IS HARD and I can LOVE it that way because I KNOW that this is for my good and God’s glory.
Through this being so hard, I get to develop a deep dependency, a greater intimacy with my God!
This week, your assignment (and mine) is the following:
- Evaluate your renewing of the mind goal that you set earlier. Do you need to adjust it? Do you need to recommit to it? If so, do it! What do you need to think differently about?
- Early on, Barb challenged us to commit to three days of staying within our boundaries. How about doing it again this week? Can you commit to just THREE days? Three days of saying YES to God and the boundaries that he has set for you? 🙂
- Complete Day 11 – Following my boundaries – Losing Weight – is HARD Eating of Barb’s Bible Study.
- Complete Day 12 – Hopeless Eating of Barb’s Bible Study.
- Continue to journal about the questions Barb asks and share with our community here. I know we are in the final stretches, but let’s finish STRONG! If you aren’t at the pace that I am posting at here at the blog, go at your own pace! 🙂
What has been the most rewarding thing about this study for you so far? What has been the most challenging thing?
I haven’t had a chance to study day 11 yet, but I actually wanted to respond to something from last week’s video (I finally had a chance to catch up on the videos yesterday). About journaling…. although I have attempted journals throughout the years, I have never stuck with it. So, I considered myself “not a journaler.” Well, I started a Lenten group study shortly before this study started. It was amazing – I was led by the Lord to spend more quiet time (not in reading a book, devo or study, but with Him and the Bible) with Him and to journal, as well.
The time was so fruitful and the journal experience amazing. So, when I started this study, I was committed to journal (almost) daily. I highly recommend it – I sometimes go back and read over past entries – it reminds me of God’s thoughts to me and it keeps me on track. I also use it to take notes from Heidi’s entries and videos/audios. And I do Barb’s study in it also. Just my 2 cents.
Thanks so much for sharing this! What great truth! 🙂
CMK, that’s awesome!
What is the most rewarding? Experiencing that I am, in fact, healing from “diet brain.” My mind is renewing re: dieting and is also coming to appreciate His ways, His leading and His guidance. I am almost thankful that I have this issue because I know that I will grow in it and draw nearer to Him. Also, it has been eye opening to see that I don’t need as much food as I think. It is also rewarding to be able to not listen about the next diet/exercise, etc.
What is challenging? I do want it to be easy and I have realized that I have to accept that it won’t be. It requires focus and discipline – the discipline can start to feel like dieting again, but if I focus on my boundaries then it is less so. I know that I really have to stay in my boundaries, not just make them (esp secondary boundaries), ignore them and continue my old ways and habits.
I am so encouraged by you all. It is so true that we can get into the “this is hard” mentality but truthfully anything that is worth anything is hard. Sometimes I want to give up but I realize that this is a good place to be because it keeps me clinging to God. Throughout these weeks I am learning how to renew my mind not only during prayer time but also throughout the day, and I think it is making a difference. The times I don’t renew my mind is when I am not prepared to follow my boundaries. You are all in my prayers.
Your renewing of the mind comments above: “This is training for more challenging things in the future” and “I am being trained to BUCK up for things yet ahead in my life” really sum it up for me today. This IS hard!! And God will show me the way through it. I’ve fallen short the past two weeks in prioritizing the time that I know that I want to give to this study, and I’m behind — but NO condemnation!! I’m where I am, and by turning to God, I’m back on track this very instant. Practice, practice, practice. More emotional eating, and eating outside my boundaries than I would have hoped for, but God is helping me step by step through some healthy challenges that in the past would have sent me off on a wild binge — now the boundary mishaps aren’t a full-on spiral and I keep turning back to God, and He sets my path straight. You said it… Life is hard, and I can love it that way! (who said it was supposed to be easy?)
Right, Mary! I am so glad you are doing this! God IS doing a new thing!
This post and video helped me drive past a fast food chain without going in! Victory. It was hard but I kept telling myself that I have to accept that this would be hard each and every 24 hour period. No more rationalizations to start tomorrow after I binge today! BTW, I’d love it if you made a document attachment with the bolded comments from the post. It would be helpful to carry around with me. I guess I can cut and paste it. I’ll try that!
Oh, Minda! That is so gratifying to hear! Yes! I celebrate with you! I totally “get” how hard that can be. Amen to setting aside the rationalizations. THIS moment matters. I want to claim THIS moment for Christ! If you make a document like that, I would love it if you send it to me so I can upload it to share with others if you want! Thanks!
Thank you so much for this post! I am rewriting it in my journal right now. My dad was in the marines and a saying that was drilled into me at an early age was “go hard or go home!”. I tend to start out with great intensity and commitment, but it fades as time goes on. I am trying this time to be more consistent and take it one day at a time. Sometimes it helps me to only focus on today and not all of the weight I have to lose. Thanks again!
So glad it was helpful! Sometimes, instead of one DAY at a time, we have to break it down even more than that. But YES, focusing on the now instead of on the weight is a great idea. I especially love focusing my attention…all that zeal and attention I used to focus on my weight and food…on the Lord, instead. It is amazing how that brings home practically “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all of these things will be given to you as well!” So glad you are here! 🙂
For me, the most rewarding thing about this study so far has been getting into the Word more. I have been so encouraged! Something challenging I’m dealing with right now is that I feel like I need to eat everything I can even though I’m not in 0-5. I’m not going crazy, but I do notice I feel like I’m panicking and almost like I don’t think I will ever be hungry again. So weird! Anyone else go through that?
Definitely Christina I understand what you mean about getting into panic mode and wanting to eat everything you can before you reach 5. Most times after doing that, I find that I have gone over a 5. Now what I do is renew my mind often about the benefits of eating 0 to 5 and the benefits of being satisfied rather than being uncomfortable when I feel stuffed. In other words, I am learning to be happy with just enough to not feel hungry anymore. I still have daily struggles with stopping at satisfaction but then I keep on reminding myself that the next time I am at 0 I will have a chance to eat that food. We all know this is not an easy journey, but our effort along with God’s great help will lead us into freedom from food issues.
I don’t know where to leave this comment, but I could really use some prayer and encouragement. I have been in a mental battle about food for several months now. A lot of it has been brought on my my own choices and curiosity. Before that I followed Weight Watchers (for 3 years). I am currently following a certain eating “plan” prescribed my a naturopath. I’ve had good days and bad days–which right there says DIET. And now I’m at the point where I am feeling very deprived and out of control. I haven’t felt like this in years! Tonight I ate with abandon, which I also haven’t done in years. I’m sick and tired of this struggle. I just want to eat 0-5 and be done with it.
Christina. I will pray for you. Like you, I did weight watchers foryears and other diets and suffered the same kind of eating sometimes. I would promise myself a cookie after weigh in and that cookie turned into an eating fest. It has taken a long time for me to recover from why I call “diet brain”. I would really take stock of this naturopath plan – it may just be a diet in a different form.
I was just thinking earlier today about all of the destructive eating habits that I no longer do. Even today I had a huge success bc i didnt eat past 5 after work. I made sure that I had a Praise fest in the car on the way home. The Lord has transformed me but in His time. I would like to never think about it again and naturally eat 0-5 but He has other plans :).
I love how Heidi simplifies it. Eat when hungry. Stop when not. Go to God for all other things that draw you to food when not hungry.
Also when you say “mental battle” I think of Ephesians and putting on the armor of God. Picture yourself doing it!
Ps I am still struggling, making lots of mistakes, but finally trusting in The Lord instead of a diet.
CMK, thank you so much for sharing that! I was really encouraged. Today I have been thinking about how here are so many diet books and eating plans in this world. And which one is the right way? All I know is that God gave us a brain and a stomach: hasn’t He given us ALL we need?
God used a special person and some key scriptures to show me that I need to rest in Him. Weeks ago I found His peace about food and it was amazing, but I keep searching and hoping–and it is something I have has to repent of. It’s like food/diet research has become my drug and I need my fix.
The struggle has been not completely understanding what Gods will is for me, because any eating “plan” sounds like God could be behind it–but what does He want for ME?
Thank you for your prayers!
Heidi, thank you so much for this week 6 video! I went through Thin Within material a couple of years ago and have been struggling away on my own without a lot of success. A couple of weeks ago I went back to the Thin Within site and came across this study.
God is using this Weight Loss Bible Study to gain my attention. It’s exactly what I have been needing! I’ve been “catching -up” so I can be on the same week as everyone else and today I began Week 6.
This video was just for me! I realize that somehow, I have been expecting this to be easier, I’ve been looking for a quick fix. I have been feeling frustrated day after day…I need to accept that this is HARD and then move on, with Christ’s strength, of course.
Thank you to all who comment, it is so very, very encouraging to know I am not alone in this struggle!
Corrinne
Hi, Corinne. so glad to have you join us. Barb’s material has really mad a HUGE difference for so many of us. It is my pleasure to get to share it with you! Thanks for posting. 🙂