Growing Beyond~~~~95 Days till Easter Days 85-87

Growing Beyond    Day 87              Jan 3, 2013       Man-Made Rules

On this day I need to concentrate on getting rid of all the man-made rules that hinder my success. Rules such as: 1) I need to eat when everyone else eats, 2) I need to clean my plate even though I’m already satisfied, 3) the clock tells me when to eat, and 4) food gives me comfort when I need it.

Truly when spiritual issues and sensual indulgence are not tackled or addressed and redirected using the good news of Jesus Christ, then all we have are man-made rules. It’s hard to understand how we will follow a man made rule in a heartbeat but ignore the rules set out by God.

Why is it we are so willing to self-destruct using man-made rules and ignore the things designed to give us life not take it away which are the rules of God. Too often people think the Bible is outdated that the rules shouldn’t apply to the current century. Well let me ask you, “How long ago did man make up the rule that if you murder someone you will be convicted and stand the possibility of being put to death yourself?” That is an old rule made in an earlier century therefore it should be considered to be outdated. Right? Wrong!

As much as we would like to believe that rules were meant to be broken they aren’t. They are there for a reason but we need to make sure we are following all the right rules when it comes to our eating habits or our spiritual lives. God’s way is better than any man-made rule that ever could have been designed. Therefore its up to us to stay away from the man-made rules that have only lead to our self-destruction and follow God’s design of eating right. Rules such as: 5) eating when you are hungry not when the clock says to; 4) eating till you are satisfied not until the plate is empty; 3) getting my comfort from God instead of chocolate covered donut I thought was my friend; and 2) Eating when its right for me not when its right for everyone who happens to be eating at the time.

The number one rule: 1) Allow God to rule in my life, to have control over me instead of food and my desire to eat it whenever I want.

 

 

Growing Beyond    Day 86     Jan 4, 2013                    Desire for Extra Food

Whether I want to admit it or not I need to get rid of my evil desire for extra food. No, evil is not too harsh of a word as it really does describe it well. Just because I love something I’m eating doesn’t mean I need to eat more of it than I should. When I allow food to call my name and eat beyond what my body needs that is, evil. It goes against God’s plan for me to wait for my body to call for food and tell me when it’s time to stop.

I won’t die if I pass the opportunity for a maple bar donut. The extra helping of scalloped potatoes I think I need really doesn’t do a thing for me except round my hips out a little more.

 

I need to live my life taking in the food my body needs, not the extra my mind wants.

 

Growing Beyond    Day 85   Jan 5, 2013              Self-Control and Self-Discipline

Ten days into my 95 days till Easter journey and I am now thinking of self-control. Duh! The whole journey is about self-control and self-discipline. It’s almost a test to see if the spirit of God is alive and strong in me. Or maybe what I should say is it’s a test to see if I am going to listen to the spirit of God in me to use His eating system designed in me from the moment of conception. 

 

The extra rolls of fat on my belly, the added weight showing up on the scales shows just out of control I am when it comes to eating. My eating habits are at their worse and my body advertises that as I jiggle when I walk. I have no one else to blame but myself. McDonald’s is not to blame; it wasn’t Burger Kings fault I got fat. Dunkin Donuts had no clue of my intensions to over eat and carry with me on my hips the extra calories I consumed.

 

As much as we would like to blame everyone else, we are to blame. We are the ones who need to learn the dying art of self-control and self-discipline. This doesn’t apply to food only. It is something that needs to be practiced in everything we do. In our handling of money, the desire to do drugs, the way we treat others, studying for a school exam, coming to work daily on time, and the list goes on and on.

 

Now is the time for us to start controlling our own lives and stop allowing food or our emotions and desires to control us.

 

95 day journey till Easter ~~~~~ Days 90 to 88

Day 88       Jan 2, 2013       It’s me not the food that needs to behave

One thing I’ve learned over the years is the fact that it’s not the food that needs to be obedient. Too often we try to give the task of being obedient to the kind of food we eat. After all it should be the one who behaves as we do our part and eat all the “right” things, whole wheat, all natural, diet drinks, fat free, or whatever else. Needless to say if we eat more of those “right” foods than our body can burn up we are going to gain weight anyway. Once when I was on a fat free diet I figured I could eat whatever I wanted and as much as I wanted as long as it was “fat free.” Guess what? Yes you guessed it, I gained weight.

 

The food was being obedient but I wasn’t. On diets we’ve had success with often once we lose our weight and stop dieting we gain our weight back. Why is this? It’s frequently because we haven’t taught ourselves to be the one who obeys God’s rules for healthy eating by eating when we are hungry and stopping when we are satisfied.   

 

It doesn’t matter what food we eat. We can eat a candy bar if our stomach is truly hungry and we stop when satisfied. However, it’s always smart to eat the food that is best for us nutrition wise such as vegetables and fresh food but don’t think it’s the one that needs to be obedient. Obedience to proper eating habits is our job. We are the ones who need to behave not the food.

 

Day 89          Jan 1, 2013     God’s Word In Action

A good task for anything we do is to keep God’s word in our heart. This is how I conquered my stress seizures over 20 years ago and this is how I can defeat my weight problem. Scriptures such as “I can do all things (lose weight included) thru Christ who gives me strength (Phil 4:13). God’s grace is sufficient (2 Cor 12:9) I don’t need food to complete me or my life. My body is a temple of God (1 Cor 6:19,20) I need to take care of it and use it to glorify God not disgrace Him by my choice of eating habits. Earlier in that same chapter in Corinthians it talks about how we may think all things are lawful for us but all things are not helpful and we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be under the power of any of it. It goes on to say food is for the stomach and the stomach for food but eventually God will destroy both.

 

The ice cream I thought I needed, the fulfillment lasted about as long as the ice cream bar did. Once it was gone it all was gone including the satisfaction. What I need to do is concentrate on the fact that what remains is my spiritual temple I’ve been assigned caretaker to. It is the thing that will last forever and it’s up to me to see to it that it is cared for properly. It doesn’t require ice cream, pie, cookies, or extra food servings. It requires care, nurturing, attention, and the proper feeding of spiritual food instead. It entails me to allow God’s word to be in action in all that I say, do, and eat.

Day 90    12-31-12   The Fight Against Frustration

In attempt to do anything in life whether it’s dieting, going to college, working, training horses, riding cows, building bridges, etc we will always run into some kind of frustration. Recently as I weighed myself to see if I had lost any weight the scale went up instead of down.

 

Instant frustration could be felt over the fact that all my hard work wasn’t paying off. At the rate I was going I might as well quit now instead of trying to go on. The same old tape recordings in my mind began to play once more, “this is the way it always is, and no matter how hard I try I just can’t seem to lose weight so why bother!”

At the risk of trying to lie to myself along with everyone else I truly wasn’t trying. My ratio of efforts was reflecting on the very scale I stood upon as I pointed my finger at it yelling “liar, liar!”

 

When we lie to ourselves we are only adding to our frustration instead of taking away from it. Frustration is grown on the root of stress and it needs dealt with properly like everything else. Yes, life has its frustrations but that is no excuse to yell and scream and point our fingers at everyone else without looking at what the true problem is.

 

Frustration has a way of setting us back but we don’t have to give ourselves permission to stay there and make matters worse. Its better we stand upright once again and keep moving forward stronger and better as we overcome each of life’s frustrations and setbacks one day at a time.

 

© 2013 Karen J. Gillett at Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing for Growing Beyond

 

 

Growing Beyond~~~~~~Hunting bad eating habits

Remember Elmer and his rabbit hunting? That's what I am doing but it's habit hunting instead.

Bad Eating Habits …      Just to name a few :(

*eating by the clock

*because its there

*seconds just to eat more

*while cooking

*Socially

*eating after certain things, after walking, during a movie, etc

*have to finish what I started eating

*emotional eating

*overeating after 5pm

*inability to say NO cuz I might hurt someone’s feelings

*out of control eating on weekends

*acting as if I have to eat it because this will be my only chance to eat a sundae, pie, cake, cookie

*mindless eating, eating without even thinking about it

94 days to Easter~~~~~~~~~~~~~Habit Hunting

December 27, 2012

It is now 94 days till Easter. My task today is to go out hunting habits. To get rid of the old habits that feed my desire to eat what I want, whenever I want, as much as I want. Habits such as eating by the clock, eating because I happened to be in the kitchen, eating because I’m upset, eating because everyone else is eating and eating beyond full just because I can. Other things that need to be hunted down and gotten rid of are the habits of eating too fast and eating while cooking as well.

 

The hard part about dealing with habits is the fact that they happen so automatically that you commit the bad habit before you even realize it. Suddenly tonight as I was cooking dinner I found myself snitching yet another bite of food from the pot. There was no pre-meditated decision only an old habit that took control once again.

 

Truth be known over the years of trying to “diet” the one thing that crashed most of my diets were the habits I couldn’t seem to break. Nice try, Karen, but no cigars or candy! As much as I would like to blame all those bad habits the true culprit was me. It was me that allowed something to control my behavior, it was me who easily gave in to temptation, it was me who chose food over God when I knew the consequences. It was me not McDonald’s, Dairy Queen, Papa Murphy’s pizza, Dunkin donuts or anything else to blame for my obesity.

 

So although indeed the bad habits have to go I’m the one responsible to make sure that happens. They are not going away on their own, and they are more than happy to stay as long as I welcome them into my life.

 

 

Growing Beyond ~~~~The master of food

The purpose for Christmas is the fact that Jesus is the reason for the season. Praise the Lord for that. Soon Easter will be upon us and the purpose for that occasion is the fact that we are the reason for the season. Christmas we celebrate the birth of Christ, on Easter we celebrate the birth of ourselves in Christ through accepting the gift of His love and forgiveness.

However, what about the time in between the two seasons of the coming of Christ and His death and resurrection for our salvation. One year I had an elder at the church challenge his Bible study group to find something to be thankful for each day between the two seasons. It was a really interesting assignment as I made sure I went beyond naming simple things like "I'm thankful for my toes" one day and "I'm thankful for my ears" the next day and so on. Also a challenge was making sure I had something new each day.

This season I have chosen something different to pre-occupy my time in between the two seasons. I will be taking a journey "out of Egypt." Not Egypt the country but Egypt as the symbol of a place of slavery as the Israelites were in, in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Years ago I went through a program called Weighdown or "Exodus out of Egypt by Gwen Shamblin when I did I lost 60 pounds. The focus of her program was to stop trying to make our food behave and take on the responsibility of self-control ourselves. The object of the program was to eat like God designed our bodies to eat, to do so when we are truly hungry and to stop when we are satisfied.  

 
As successful as the program was for me since then I have found myself back in that imaginary place that is real, that place of slavery once again. The idol of food that I vowed to never bow down to again slowly returned and I have only myself to blame for the self-inflicted chains I bound myself into once again in extra pounds and bad eating habits. Indeed the minute I was diagnosed with cancer I gave up caring about my weight. I had bigger fish to fry, problems to solve, battles to fight. I didn't need to concentrate on my weight.

Wrong! There is no excuse good enough to justify purposely doing damage to my body simply because I love food and don't want to exercise self-control. When I went to the Cancer Treatment Center in Arizona they told me that body fat in a woman produces hormones, the very thing my cancer is made from. For every extra fat cell I have I'm feeding my cancer. How nuts is that!

It's time to break that chain of slavery I have wrapped myself in and get back to what God wants for me in my life. He wants my undivided love, no sharing it half and half with food. My total worship, no dividing it up between the donut I'd love to eat or the extra serving I think I need and God. He wants me in control of me instead of allowing Satan to control me with his temptations and lies.

Instead of growing beyond my current pant size I need to grow beyond my slavery to food and other things in my life. Therefore journey with me to Easter starting the day after Christmas. Your bondage may not be to food, it can be to alcohol, gambling, tobacco, sex, money, drugs or other things but its still a form of slavery. As Galatians 5:1 says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."

The time is now, to stand firm, gain control of ourselves, and walk as Christ designed us to walk. Time to grow beyond our slavery and set ourselves free as Christ's death and resurrection intended for us. Let the journey begin.

Saying no

Recently in our quest to lose weight and eat healthy my granddaughters and I have joined forces. One day as I said no to this lovely muffin I sent a picture of it to them and told them what I did. Or better yet what I didn't do. I didn't eat this. Some of life's journeys are hard and it helps to have the encouragement of others to get through them.

There are journey's that are not always fun but having a cheering section around you helps. Our plan is to go without sugar until July when we go on vacation. We may mess up once in awhile on our journey, so far so good, but that's okay as we learn to pick ourselves up and keep on going. Moving forward in life in spite of the obstacles that may come our way. The best thing our cheering section can do for us is to holler "jump" when those obstacles appear as an encouragement to keep on going and don't let life stop you.

Journey Note 2 Bloom where you are planted

Well its three or four days into my quest to improve in a few selected areas of my life. Don’t worry I have others but let’s take one area at a time. So far I have lost a couple of pounds, my checkbook is current, my house is a little bit cleaner. I have written some journal notes as I wanted to do but haven’t got a chance to write some devotionals like I would have.

Like many other people I start out strong but the momentum doesn't see to last. As soon as my husband is around or at the sign of the slightest distraction its over with. Truly I have no one else to blame but myself. As much as I would like to blame my husband for my lack of discipline its me who needs to change that as an area of weakness needing improvement.

We are told to bloom where we are planted. It would be great to be in the ideal setting, with the perfect atmosphere and situation for anyone to blossom into a wonderful Christian woman. Dream on. It doesn’t work that way. In fact sometimes the areas where we grow the most are in the area where diversity lies.

I’m moving forward. The only one who can stop me is myself in I allow the elements of life to control me instead of God.

Off I go on a continued journey. A couple of pounds lighter mind you! I just had to throw that in, again.

Let the Journey Begin

Journal note #1

Before starting my quest to work on areas in my life that need improving I kneel before the Lord. I have found out the hard way over the years the best way to start and finish all my expeditions is to do so on my knees. Doing so as I call upon the Lord to travel with me, to not only be my guide but to be my companion as well.

The beauty about prayer is it doesn’t require physical knees to bow upon what is required is a spirit willing to bow humbly before the Lord. We can do it in a chair, from our bed, or walking down the street. We just need to do it.

Its funny how when we find something wrong with our car we instantly get it into a shop for service but we seldom do that for ourselves. When I came down with cancer I had several people tell me I needed to stop thinking about caring for others and start caring for myself.

Although I don’t plan to stop caring for other people I will try my best to care about myself. I have several paths of improvement I want to take and learning to control my eating is one of them. I love food, I love to eat, I love the taste, I love to munch. Like my puppy dog I seem to always need to have something in my mouth. Over the years I have lost weight only to gain it immediately back. I’ve probably have lost over 150 pounds over the years only to gain it back three, four, five pounds at a time.

Thinking of what Hebrews 12:1 said about throwing off everything that hinders us I need to throw off the need to eat when my head tells me to eat and not my stomach. I need to throw off the desire to not hurt anyone’s feelings by not saying “No” to their offers of food I don’t need to be eating on. I need to throw off being lazy and not exercising like I should.

At work today I was doing okay. When people offered me candy I took it but didn’t eat it. However, when it came to the special cheese someone had I never hesitated to eat a slice of it. Going along with the crowd hinders me and it is something that needs to be thrown off as well.

Another path of improvement is my house cleaning skills. I’m good at cleaning my house when I take the time to do it. Being a packrat, or someone who likes to hang on to stuff just strictly because, hinders my ability to improve in this area. What is a person suppose to do when they go into a room with a black garbage bag to throw things away but yet can’t find anything they would throw away. Anyone else who came into the same room would have found multiple things to toss in the trash.

A third area I want to work on at the same time is the vicinity of handling my money well. For too long now I have allowed it to control me instead of me controlling it. It’s time to start telling it where to go instead of it dictating my life.

Another area I want to discipline myself in doesn’t necessarily need “improvement” but I want to do better just the same. That is the area of writing out my journal notes on a daily basis. With a notebook full of half written notes again I’m reminded of my need to finish what I start. So daily I have made it my discipline to finish one handwritten note a day.

Last but not least my biggest path of improvement ties the pavement of all these paths together and that is improving in the area of doing something all the way to the end, to finish what I start.

So here to the diet that only lasts a week, here to the money who dictates too quickly, here to my packrat tendencies that clutters my life. I’m on the path to improvement in a race I intend to finish to the glory of God and the benefit of myself.

Let the journey begin!