1. When it comes to your relationship with food, what repeated behaviours or events describe the cycle you experience and feel powerless to stop? I will do great seating right and exercising for a week and then I just bomb! I crave whatever and I eat whatever I crave...which is usually a ton of food. Then the next week I am up again or won't go to weigh in because I'm mad at myself. This makes it really hard to lose weight. Then when I finally get down 20ish lbs I'll think, I can do this on my own, and then I stop going to my meetings and weigh ins and i gain back all the lbs plus some.
2. What reasons give your desire to eat healthier? Do these reasons give your struggles with food a purpose strong enough to help you resist unhealthy eating? How do you respond to the statement "I had to see the purpose of my struggle as something more than wearing smaller sizes and getting compliments from others.... It had to be about something more than just me"? I want to be able to do things and not have my weight or lack of fitness stopping me. I want to be able to go to any normal store and fit the clothes, I don't want to feel self conscious, I want to be healthy. No, they don't have a strong enough pull on me to keep me away from food. Over the past 6 months I have seen the amazing power that food has over me. It is terrible, that is one reason I've decided to do this study, not to be a size 6, but to be able to live without that need for food. I knew food was bigger then God to me but I felt helpless to do something about it until now. I feel like these are the tools I need and the motivation I need to stop foods control. So my big strong motivation? That food would have a healthy place in my life and God would reign once again.
3. Consider your eating experiences over the last few days or week. Using the list below can you recall specific situations in which you turned to food for these reasons?
- Comfort
I was sick last thursday-saturday, just a bad cold, but man was i feeling bad. Because it was a cold I still felt hungry but healthy food was not going to give me the comfort I wanted. So empty carbs it was.
- Reward
I don't know that I've experienced eating for reward THIS week. However I know this is something I do on quite a regular basis. My biggest one is that when I do well losing weight one week I reward myself by allowing myself to eat whatever that day... how does that make any sense? eat away my weight loss to reward myself.
- Joy
I associate eating with joy. Growing up and still to this day my family has family celebrations for any holiday and they are fun! I have always associated eating with those times and so when I'm celebrating or joyful/excited about something I feel I need to eat as a way to commemorate that time.
- Stress
I do respite for a living and this past weekend... while sick... I made home-made cheese buns. Lets just say when the going got tough the cheese buns "fixed" it for me.
- Sadness
You know I wouldn't say I'm a sad person in general so I don't know that eating because I'm sad is something I deal with often. However I am an emotional eater so I'm sure that food would "fix" me when I'm sad too.
- Happiness
This might be the one time I don't turn to food right way. I do over eat when I'm with friends, family, celebrating, out for dinner etc. However if I was home alone and found out something that made me happy I would turn to other things before food for sure.
Keeping the same situations in mind, how do you imagine your experiences might have been different if you had relied on God, craved God, instead of turning to food?
Alright so I guess I'm looking at the comfort and the stress. Yes, it would have been different, would it have been perfect I can't tell you but I know that if I had relied on God to help me through those cravings he wouldn't have let me down. I can think of at least one incident a day since starting made to crave where the "old me" would have eaten extra, binged etc. but instead I said a prayer and was given that power to walk on!
Alright so I guess I'm looking at the comfort and the stress. Yes, it would have been different, would it have been perfect I can't tell you but I know that if I had relied on God to help me through those cravings he wouldn't have let me down. I can think of at least one incident a day since starting made to crave where the "old me" would have eaten extra, binged etc. but instead I said a prayer and was given that power to walk on!
4. How do you respond to the idea of using your cravings as a prompt to pray? How has prayer helped or failed to your previous food battles?
This is the best tool I have gotten so far! It has worked wonders! A) if I ask God to give me the strength I need to walk away, throw something out, just not touch. I need to rely that he will deliver. B) I know if I pray then go and eat a,b and c then I'm sinning and I'm going against what god has asked of me.
Previously I've never really used prayer consistently so I can't really say it's done much.
This is the best tool I have gotten so far! It has worked wonders! A) if I ask God to give me the strength I need to walk away, throw something out, just not touch. I need to rely that he will deliver. B) I know if I pray then go and eat a,b and c then I'm sinning and I'm going against what god has asked of me.
Previously I've never really used prayer consistently so I can't really say it's done much.
5. In your battles with food, are you more likely to choose a drastic, quick-fix approach or a moderate but longer-term approach? What thoughts or feelings emerge when you consider dismantling your own tower of impossibility one craving at a time? I am more likely to pick the moderate long term approach but I want to drastic results. I feel so excited to know that with God helping me I have to power to say no to food, no to my cravings and use that as a way to glorify God. Every time I'm saying no, every prayer of help or thankful ness I'm sending up, I'm one step, one brick, closer to God regaining reign in me.
Prayer:
Lord, the work you are already doing in me is amazing! it's phenomenal how when one of your children decides yes I'm ready, here I am Lord, shape me, you don't say no. You are here shaping me, giving me the power I need over food. I thank you Lord, that you are empowering me in a way I have never felt before. I are giving me the drive I need to go to the gym, to get out running, to want to spend time walking. Lord, my craving for food is still there but you have helped keep it manageable. And I thank you for that. Lord, I pray as I go on today that you would continue to give me the strength I need to stick to the plan. That no matter what # the scale gives me I'll be able to see your glory and power and the great changes you have made it me through that. I pray that I will continue to remain strong that my usual Thursday binge will be a thing of the past and that your power and your might will over come that and that it won't even be a temptation. I thank you Lord, that you are helping me to understand the woman I am and see deeper into my issues. Lord, the fact that I can dissect some of my issues is a huge blessing and being able to do so I believe is one tool that will help me to be successful in the long run. Lord, your faithfulness just blows my mind. Thank you for not giving up on me and for shaping me in to the Woman of God you want me to be. Amen
Lord, the work you are already doing in me is amazing! it's phenomenal how when one of your children decides yes I'm ready, here I am Lord, shape me, you don't say no. You are here shaping me, giving me the power I need over food. I thank you Lord, that you are empowering me in a way I have never felt before. I are giving me the drive I need to go to the gym, to get out running, to want to spend time walking. Lord, my craving for food is still there but you have helped keep it manageable. And I thank you for that. Lord, I pray as I go on today that you would continue to give me the strength I need to stick to the plan. That no matter what # the scale gives me I'll be able to see your glory and power and the great changes you have made it me through that. I pray that I will continue to remain strong that my usual Thursday binge will be a thing of the past and that your power and your might will over come that and that it won't even be a temptation. I thank you Lord, that you are helping me to understand the woman I am and see deeper into my issues. Lord, the fact that I can dissect some of my issues is a huge blessing and being able to do so I believe is one tool that will help me to be successful in the long run. Lord, your faithfulness just blows my mind. Thank you for not giving up on me and for shaping me in to the Woman of God you want me to be. Amen
Victories:
I helped out at a lunch at my church yesterday. I knew that the food that they were going to be serving wasn't food that would fit into my meal plan so I packed a lunch! Then I spent a quick minute praying before I left asking God to give me the power to say no to all the other food. I did it! I made it through without eating even one of those yummy looking chocolate cookies.
Went for my second run today. It was a bit harder then the first but totally doable!
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