Week Five, Day One
Introduction
Hello, SSO Friend. The loud drumbeat of Skinny School is starting to make grooves in your brain. Your neural pathways are being formed which will change your eating forever. This time, you’re going to get it…and never again will you go back to the ball and chain of eating Trash Food (or even eating too much healthy food). The days of freedom are coming. Knuckle-knock!!
Many of you are having awesome weight loss success! Boom and congrats! (Can you hear the cannons and see the confetti and balloons falling from the ceiling?) But some of you are still struggling. That is the EXACT description of my groups! Some get it fast and roar, and some straggle behind. It can take a few months (!) for the thinking to sink in and click. Whatever you do, keep reading the lessons, the Genie’s teaching, work in your Ruby Journal, and meet with a BFF or your group. I don’t care if you fail 1000x. You will get this. There’s no reason you have to go through life in a large size. Anyone can re-train their brain on how to think. Bathe your mind with the right thoughts. TRASH FOOD is pathetic and places a huge burden on your body to digest. Give up that deceiver and liar.
EARLY every day while you’re re-training your brain, you need to have a moment when you commit that day to eating clean like a Champion. You have surveyed the day and know you will have to ditch Trash Food, you will have to plan and prep, and you will have to wait until you’re a three to eat. Also, early in the day, remind yourself that temptations will come and therefore, keep your Ruby Journal handy so you can remind yourself why you want to be thin and healthy. You decide this is a day you will track, plan, prep, pack, shop, and chop.
However, be warned, the Demanding Child will show up. I promise, she will. In fact, she will never go away as our desire for self-soothing and pleasure will never go away. You have to keep watch over Demanding Child forever.
Here’s a scenario: It’s 4 p.m. and you eat a little food and it is enough. But the food was good and you’d like a little more. The day has pressed you hard and you want more immediate relief and pleasure. You hear Demanding Child say in her sweet voice, “That is yummy. Just eat a little more. A little more won’t matter.”
Now, in order to accommodate Demanding Child, you have to turn off Sane Adult and “go unconscious”. You don’t want to hear Sane Adult’s reasons. You want the pleasure and the self-soothing. Part of the main teaching in Skinny School is that you decide to NOT turn off Sane Adult. You let her begin to aggressively reason with you. You start the fight. (Having your Ruby Journal available while you are still memorizing your reasons will help.) The reasons you don’t eat Trash Food—or even extra good food—are invited into the living room of your mind. Never turn off Sane Adult because she will remind you that you don’t want that janky food messing up your emotional equilibrium, your well-being, your metabolism, your healthy blood work, your zest for life, and of course, your slimness. You don’t want The Crud to descend. You want the scale to drop. You want to get in those skinny jeans. You want to live your life in a thin body during your short time on earth and this moment matters. No wedding, birthday, graduation, or holiday is going to throw you. No excuses this time. No whining. You’ve allowed that nonsense for years. The excuse, “This is a special occasion, so eat,” is a lie. The truth is, “This is a special occasion, so I will celebrate this moment, just not with food.” Your Demanding Child is always lurking in the alley, to persuade you to eat Trash Food…or just to eat past a five in fullness.
Until these thought patterns are in cement in your brain, you will have to battle. Say sentences to yourself like: “This morning, I determined to follow the SS principles of Ditch/Plan/Wait, the Miraculous Threesome. So I will carefully pay attention to the amount I eat and I will stop at a five. I know in my sane moments, I want myself to stop. My higher nature, Sane Adult, is in charge of me, not my lower nature, Demanding Child. I make choices based on what is really good for me. I can stop. I can stop.”
Skinny School is really about mental training. In Biblical times, when the men needed to focus, they would take their long flowing robes called loins, and secure them with a belt so the flowing robes would not hinder whatever work needed to be done. In Scripture, we are told to “gird up the loins of our mind”. Think about that: belt up the flowing thoughts of your mind. Don’t let those flowing thoughts be unsecured. Put a rope about them; tie them up. Mental training. You aren’t everywhere. You are focused on your current Top Four Life Goals and you choose what parade goes across your mind.
I don’t care if you’ve been an emotional, all-over-the-place person in the past. You can change. You can grow. As I like to say, it’s glorious to be a human.
This is hard to admit, but one time I was making a list of everything in life that gave me pleasure and honestly, food was at the top (embarrassing!). A shock ran over me as I realized my life was mostly responsibility and I had little other pleasure in my life. Instead of food merely being pleasant-tasting nutrition, it had become my favorite source of pleasure.
About this time around 20 years ago, I remember a Sunday School teacher talking about “surrendering all to Christ”. I felt like I was doing that. At that time, I had five little kids, seven and under, and my only free time was during their naps when I slept and possibly read a little. Life often felt heavy. But, I said to myself, this is my cross. However, this same Sunday School teacher came over to our house and my husband gave him some golf clubs. I found out this guy played golf a couple times a week and tennis several times a week. What? I thought. How does he get that much free time to enjoy life if he’s surrendered to Christ? Why isn’t he “more miserable” like me?
I had a wrong outlook on enjoying life. We can be surrendered to Christ, doing His will, and He will still let us have some time to refresh ourselves. “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” It was still a few years before I understood that I was responsible for finding joy in my life and to set boundaries for how much I worked (for many years, I expected my husband to provide the joy in my life.)
Currently, I have much joy. I am in touch with my gifts and strengths and give them away. I know my values and spend the huge part of my day working toward my current Top Four Life Goals.
Be sure to take time to find pleasure in life. There’s the pleasure of seeing, of hearing, of learning, of thinking, of creating, of the sun, of flowers, of fresh food, of children’s faces, of good books, of family, of a friend’s comfort, of nature, of springtime, of a walk, of a cup of coffee with a friend, and so many millions of other pleasures. Find the ones that are meaningful to you. And take responsibility for getting them in.
Food is pleasant-tasting nutrition, and if you are only eating when you are hungry, that means you are not eating very often and not eating very much. Therefore you will need to find other ways to enjoy life. Knock food off the throne of your life. Again, it is merely pleasant-tasting nutrition!
This section was adapted from Week Two, Day One in Wife School Online and has been formatted to fit Skinny School Online. This thinking was a life-transforming teaching for me when I first heard it. When we realize our emotions come from our thoughts and that we can choose our thoughts, we begin to understand the power we have to live in a self-controlled, emotionally-happy manner.
Imagine you are alone in an alley at midnight in the worst part of town. You hear garbage cans tip over and see shadows move across your path. What is your emotion? Fear, right? What if I told you that you are perfectly safe, that there is no danger anywhere in the vicinity? Did your previous emotion of fear follow your thoughts or follow reality?
Did your previous emotion of happiness follow your thoughts or reality?
Do you see how your emotions followed your thoughts and not reality in these examples? What is so stupendous about this truth is that if we learn that our emotions FLOW FROM OUR THOUGHTS, we can take responsibility for and choose to have “good thoughts”. The concept of thinking “good thoughts” is not my idea. Paul tells us in Philippians 4:8 what to think about (whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable).
In psychology, there is a term known as “cognitive restructuring” which simply means learning to think different thoughts. Paul tells us in Romans 12 to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind”. So that’s what we are going to do with the Ruby Journal lists. We are going to transform your thoughts about food by the renewing of your mind.
When you consistently and continually bathe your mind with the correct thoughts about food, you begin to have different emotions toward food. I cannot adequately express to you how important this is. Many women have completely changed the way they feel about food because they consistently wash their brains with the benefits of eating for hunger and nutrition and the detriments of eating for self-soothing and entertainment.
Remember, your brain hates new ideas. It likes what it is used to and what is comfortable…The principles in Skinny School are the same as in Wife School in that changing our thoughts (making new grooves in the brain) is the key to changing our behavior.
Even if you fill out your lists and change your thoughts about food for a season, it will be temporary if you don’t repeatedly immerse yourself in your “new thinking”. Our brain grooves are deep and we return to prior thoughts if we don’t bathe and re-bathe our minds. The newest psychology books on “how to evoke change in the human” repeatedly say “find a way to change one’s thinking”. That is why I am so insistent on the Ruby Journal lists. This is the means by which we override our cemented grooves of thinking.
Back to today’s lesson: Friend, many of you self-medicate because of unhappy emotions. This is a long process, but begin to listen in on your thoughts, and if they are unpleasant, replace them with other thoughts. You will start to see that you have a lot of control over the emotional environment you live in. You can choose NOT to be offended, etc. And when we dial down our emotional climates, we have less need to medicate.
Meditating on God’s thoughts is the best!
A fit and thin friend was at the gym. Two very large ladies were there and said to her, “Girl, why are you here? Look at you! You are tiny.”
My friend said that it occurred to her these women had erroneous thinking. They thought after you got thin, you would not have to keep going to the gym to maintain your thinness and you could revert back to your old ways.
I used to have this mentality—that if I could just get thin, then I could enjoy myself again with lots of Trash Food. A trainer who looks like a Greek god once told me he still doesn’t eat the chips at Chili’s. I was shocked. I thought, “You look perfect. Why can’t you eat what you want?” But again, I did not understand that to maintain thinness, you still have to workout and eat clean.
There’s a sadness in this. Our Trash Food is comfortable and soothing, but it is like a girlfriend who pretends to be nice and complimentary, but is plotting to steal your boyfriend. Our brains and thoughts have to be renewed with regards to food, eating, and exercise. We have had the wrong thoughts. Getting to our goal weight is not just a season and then we return to our previous habits. We must make new habits. They are not fun at first, but in the end, they are electrifying! Life is always about choosing. We cannot have everything. We choose thinness or we choose Trash Food.
Being thin is about three things: what you eat, how much you eat, and how much you move. My friend Jeanne recently sent me this article that has a list of choices of different combinations of those 3 ingredients. If you ignored all of them, you were one size (very large!). If you ignored two of them, you were another size (a little smaller but still large). The article also said that if you want to go to the wild extreme of being a bodybuilder, you must agree to extremely stringent rules (which, in my opinion, would take too much sacrifice and time.)
The point is, it’s a sowing and reaping world. If you sow certain habits regarding eating, restricting sugar and bad carbs stopping at a five, and exercising (Chapter 9 is coming!), then you reap the consequences. You cannot beat this system. What you eat, how much you eat, and how much you move will show up on your body. I know, I know, you want a pill. There are none. Your body cannot be fooled. You decide what car you drive your soul around in by those three ingredients. Decide to take responsibility for getting the car you want: a clanker car or a Mercedes (or maybe, just a nice Buick).
This is from a girl in our class. (I will never use what you write to me unless I get your permission.)
“
I just got out of my Zumba class and I went to Costco. I was actually not hungry before my class so I exercised on an empty stomach. After the class, during my Costco shopping, I resisted all the offers of free food. However, when I got to my car and was loading the food in my trunk, I remembered that I had bought some turkey Swiss rollers. As you might guess, I was now very hungry. So I ate two of those rollers. Only two! Could I have eaten more? Of course I could have. But I had had enough in that I was no longer hungry. This is a new way to think, to stop when I’m no longer hungry. The food tastes so good so, predictably, I want more. But stopping at a five makes me happy. Eating too much makes me depressed.”
As I write this, I am in a public place and the woman to my right is about 80-100 pounds overweight. The woman to my left is in a similar weight class. I know it is unfair and wrong to treat people differently based on their weight, but it happens often. The lady on my right had trouble flagging down the waiter. It’s sad that humans judge other people by their outer appearances. But of course, God knows the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). We live in a fallen world and other humans judge us very negatively when we are overweight. It’s wrong, I agree. But it’s the truth. People don’t have the same respect for someone who is chubby as they do for someone who is sleek and thin. We can kick the wall, scream, and yell how unfair it is all day long but it won’t change how the world views fat people. Fat is not respected.
I want to help you free yourself from this unfair discrimination. I want you to earn respect as you present yourself as a fit individual with self-discipline.
The nice overweight woman sitting by me started telling me about her work in “human transformation in the jail system”. Honestly, the woman was very kind, but since she is 100 pounds overweight I am automatically skeptical of her knowledge of “human transformation”. I know, I know. It’s wrong. But I think, if you can’t control your eating, how do you know anything about “human transformation”?
We humans are a judgmental bunch (I’m guilty!). I’m certainly not trying to be mean. I was chubby in high school and college so I know all about suffering from being overweight. But instead of trying to make the world accept us for eating for entertainment and self-soothing, let’s try eating for nutrition and hunger and then being thin. We will NEVER have self-confidence or freedom in our spirit until we learn and master self-discipline.
Self-discipline can be learned. That’s what our Skinny School course is about: helping you learn self-discipline in your eating. I want you to enjoy your one precious life as a thin woman. Life is tough enough when you’re thin. You don’t need to handle this awesome, precious gift called Life with the ball-and-chain of being chubby.
Get Hooked on Nutrition
Studying nutrition is like studying the stars. Both are so complex! God put unfathomable complexity into our food to nourish our incredibly complex bodies. The Bible says, “It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves” (Psalm 100:3).
So think about this when you eat a salad with fresh romaine, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, a few shaved carrots, scallions, hard-boiled cage-free eggs, and some grilled free-range chicken. Can you imagine the cocktail of phytonutrients and antioxidants you’re feeding your body!?
See nutrition as an opportunity to bathe your body with little soldiers. HERE is a website that lists vegetables and their different nutrients. Each vegetable is ridiculously complex! And you already know how complex your cells are, with the ribosomes, mitochondria, etc. (You were listening in biology class, right?)
Week Five, Day Four
“My husband and I were going to the airport and I was starved. I had not made time to “pack”. So I was worried because I didn’t know what I would find at the airport. I went to a Starbucks outlet in the airport food court and they had a little tray of fresh vegetables with buttermilk dressing. I bought that and ate it. I was still hungry. We went to the gate. Across the way was Jason’s Deli. My husband was on the phone with his business and I walked up to Jason’s Deli. Why, they had an organic vegetable soup. I ordered that and got an apple to put in my purse to eat if I was still hungry. When the clerks were packing my soup, they started to put some saltines in the bag but I nicely said, ‘No thank you, I don’t care for crackers.’ This is my new woman. I can figure this out. It’s a mindset.”
Women in Skinny School are writing me these awesome stories of how their mindsets are flipping. Mindsets change, then hip sizes change. 🙂
Demanding Child Shows Up in Unexpected Ways
How sneaky your Demanding Child can be!
Tonight was a rare night. It is Friday night and I have had a nice day. I spent some time shopping with my daughter and I had lunch with one of my sons. Tonight, David went to a basketball game with a friend which is unusual. Because I am involved in giving two parties tomorrow, I had much food preparation to do tonight. I went to Kroger around 8 o’clock (I know, I know, that’s procrastinating. It’s a problem, I admit.)
Anyhow, I’m pushing my cart through Kroger and this loneliness descends on me. It is a huge sadness. I let my thoughts go to a place that showed me this is how it would be all the time if something happened to David, me shopping alone on a Friday night. And I just got incredibly sad thinking about how lonely I would be because David is so important to me. Immediately the thought occurred to me of how nice it would be to taste to some chocolate. Chocolate, for sure, would cheer me up.
And yes, there would be pleasure and self-soothing in those minutes of eating the chocolate. However, I quickly reminded myself that I would become down emotionally for not eating clean. Eating sugar is a choice which results in losing emotional tranquility. When I get off my program, I mess up my metabolism. I had worked out at the gym this particular morning and the chocolate would’ve negated all the hard work I had done.
After all these years, I still get caught and have to reason aggressively with myself when I’m in an emotional funk. Who could’ve predicted that one? I’m walking around Kroger, thinking about how sad I will be if something happened to David. Where did that come from? I’m pretty aware of the old Demanding Child at this point, but she never wants to die, and always has new angles to surprise me. I never would’ve been ready for that one. Be on your guard. Demanding Child will show up when you don’t expect it.
Why Do I Have to Work So Hard With All This Planning?
The whining and the moaning about planning and prepping is loud. I can hear you. Ha ha. And I can hear myself whining about the same thing.
So what is the problem behind all of this? Self-pity. Yes, self-pity. We are asking ourselves, “Why do I have to work so hard? Why is this so much trouble? I shouldn’t have to do all this work to be thin.”
I read about a policeman in NYC yesterday who was merely asking some boys about stolen bicycles when one of the youths shot him in the head and neck. This policeman is now a quadriplegic. His new mission in life is to teach others about forgiveness. He has ZERO self-pity. Now, compare being a quadriplegic with just having to ditch sugar and bad carbs.
There is a lady at my church who is always smiling and giving, but three of her three sons have died. Three out of three! She doesn’t express self-pity at all. Compare losing three out of three sons with having to plan and prep.
Friends, our thoughts of self-pity are some of the most vile, stinking, horrible, life-destructive thoughts you can think. Self-pity causes you to be self-absorbed in your own little world. Instead of looking at who is not loving and giving to you enough, start thinking about how you can bless the world by giving away your gifts.
I can’t tell you how many of the women I counsel have been filled with self-pity. This person doesn’t treat them with high enough attention; this situation is difficult; this person doesn’t pay them enough respect; this situation is unpleasant. Wake up, friends. This is called life and all roses have thorns. If you repeatedly think or say “poor me, I have it so hard”, it is a sick cry for attention. “I don’t feel good,” one woman constantly tells those around her. Privately and softly I tell her, “Then go to the doctor and keep looking for answers, but no one wants to hear how you feel bad all the time. Work proactively to get healthy, but quit complaining. It is terribly unpleasant and it only repels everyone around you.”
This is why I insist on my students writing out what they are looking forward to, what strengths they have, what gifts they have, finding where they buzz and sing and flow…because life is about giving away your gifts, not sitting and moaning about how life is hard. I see very talented women sit on my sofa and moan about how hard things are all the time. I never laugh or criticize them because I soaked in self-pity for years. It is a trap and a dungeon of the Accuser to keep you from living your life with joy and zest. Stop blaming. Start being grateful.
Our self-pity is pathetic. If your mother has self-pity and complains, then you probably do too. But you can draw a line in the sand and change. You can quit being that way. (Don’t blame your mother. Forgive her and be different. You can keep your daughter from being like this by modeling it!)
Take full responsibility for being a song in the lives of others. Find your zone and gifts and give them away.
This is a happy way to live. And when you’re happy, you have less need to medicate.
I will probably address self-pity in every other lesson. It is sneaky and in costume and you don’t recognize the damage it does to you. You MUST learn to listen in on your thoughts! Here are some common thoughts that are full of self-pity: “I had a hard childhood. My husband doesn’t know how to love me. My children are so difficult. My finances are always a mess. My friends don’t reciprocate. I’m not appreciated at work.” Self-pity is prevalent in almost every woman I counsel. It is. It’s ridiculously prevalent in me. I hear self-pity whine in my brain all the time and I order it to leave immediately.
Instead of bathing your brain in the normal, unhealthy, self-pitying thoughts, become one of the few elite emotional champions who decides to not be offended and who decides to be a giver (50/50 or 60/40 or 70/30 in all of your relationships). Instead of “woe-is-me, my life is not what I want,” be one of the tiny percentage of people who instead says, “I will take massive actions on my goals every day, not letting anything fall to chance.” In addition, be one of that tiny select group who takes their issues to God in prayer and waits on their knees until God answers with the peace that passes understanding.
In the last paragraph, it looks like I said to do two opposing things: one, work as though it all depends on you, and two, pray like it all depends on God. We are finite creatures and our minds can’t easily wrap around and embrace two-seemingly contradictory ideas. We ask, “Which is it? Do we work and accomplish our goals or do we ask God to?” The answer is both. Both!
I don’t demand that I understand everything anymore. I mean, I don’t understand the human eyeball and how it looks at something and somehow, sends a picture of that to the brain. I don’t understand how a tiny acorn has a huge oak in it and knows exactly when to turn brilliant shades of orange in the fall and then knows when to drop its leaves each year. I don’t understand a lot and I don’t understand how we are to work as though it depends on us and also to pray like it depends on God.
You know, the Apostle Paul who wrote “pray without ceasing” was a hard worker. “I strive”, he says. In fact, he worked so hard that God had to put him in prison so he would write the Epistles for us. Figure out what you are called to do with your one life and get busy daily taking massive action on your goals. (If you are a wife and mother, I’m pretty sure that your number two goal is just that, right after the goal number one of knowing and loving God :)).
Find out what you love to do. Read some books to discover how you are wired. Read Career Match by Shoya Zichy (which will give you much information about yourself, even if you are not looking for a job). Your current Top Four Life Goals need to be God-given. He gives you a calling that is in line with your gifts and strengths.
Self-pity is a monster. Work on slicing off her head. Champions don’t engage in self-pity. They listen to the parade that is walking across their mind and when they hear self-pitying thoughts, they say, “Enough of that” and get busy thinking about something else. Usually something about using their beautiful, fabulous, one-of-a-kind gift and skill set to love and give to others!
Week Five, Day Five
Severe Emotional Trauma
If you need healing from traumatic emotional scars from your childhood, or from a divorce, or from a serious loss or grief, then by all means, get some great Christian therapy! Don’t keep wrestling with the same sad thoughts. You are responsible for getting healing. No one is coming on a white horse to rescue you. There is free counseling at many churches. Call them up. If you don’t like the first or second counselor, go to a third one. There is no excuse for not dealing with issues and putting them behind you. Emotional healing is available, but you will need counseling and help. This course is for women who struggle with food, not for women who are still emotionally bound to a childhood trauma, like sexual abuse. If you are still severely wounded, get help, my friend. There is no stigma in getting help and healing is available for all.
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Getting Through the Difficult Evening Hours
Below is an example of how planning and prepping can help you get through the difficult evening hours…
Yesterday, I came home late and was tired. And very hungry. The first thing I did was pop some (already) cooked cauliflower into my mouth, fix myself 2 big cups of hot Blueberry Herbal tea with stevia, and grab 2 large handfuls of (already prepped) celery to munch on while I got dinner on the table. The salmon was already marinating in the fridge so we started the fire on the grill. The green beans and cauliflower were already cooked and just had to be reheated. I kept munching on the celery and then started munching on the cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes in the salad (already prepped).
I cooked a couple sausage links for appetizers (I buy sausage from an Amish farmer so it is pork raised with care, not with antibiotics and nitrates). Knowing I was having sausage links for appetizers, they were thawed. (Mostly, I let the boys and my husband eat the sausage because although it has no carbs or sugar, it is very high in calories. I do pop a couple bites in my mouth, though. Two, not 20.)
Now it’s dinner time. I made a Hollandaise sauce (recipe on my website) to go on the salmon, but I didn’t pay attention because I was texting, and it overcooked. Oh well. Now for dinner: a little salmon, some tartar sauce (not as good as Hollandaise), more cauliflower and green beans, and a little salad. I’m no longer hungry and I can feel the food in my stomach, so I stop.
I also made baked potatoes because our boys are trying to gain weight. My husband and I don’t eat these. I load their potatoes up with cheese and butter.
After dinner, my husband ate some nuts. He is thin so he also ate some homemade peanut butter ice cream that I make just for him with stevia (I eat one teaspoon of this but I am 2 pounds from my Goal A weight). I made myself some more tea, this time, something called Sleepytime Vanilla. I love sipping hot beverages.
I save an apple for after dinner, because I like a little treat, but because I ate so much dinner, I was not hungry at all and didn’t eat it.
Now it’s time to make lunches. One of our thin sons likes peanut butter crackers in his lunch so I make these (don’t buy them pre-made, too junky). I stick one tablespoon of PB in my mouth. It’s a great dessert. But only 1 tablespoon. “Enough is as good as a feast.”
More chatting in the kitchen, a couple phone calls and texts, a couple emails, and soon it’s time to get ready for bed.
If you look at that scenario, there was a lot of pre-prepping and pre-planning. There was stopping at a five. There was a BLT (Bite, Lick, and Taste) of the ice cream and PB. And lots of yummy warm drinks.
No deprivation. No Trash Food. Just a healthy way to live. But you’ve got to make it a habit to plan and prep. It’s the second tenet of the Miraculous Threesome: Ditch, Plan, Wait. Together, these 3 principles will take you where you want to go.
Do this over and over and your weight will no longer be a concern. You can use your energy on all the great things God has given you to do with your one very short life here on earth.
No Discouragement!
Do not be discouraged when you fail. I want to beat this drum over and over again. If you hear yourself say, “I’ll never figure this out”, that is a lie coming from the Accuser. Of course you can figure this out. You are a human being, created in the image of God, and humans can learn and change. The secrets are bathing and re-bathing the mind, writing in your Ruby Journal, meeting with your group, forgiving yourself, using failure as a learning experience then persevering with the Miraculous Threesome: Ditch, Plan, Wait. You know you learned to type, to cook, to make small talk, and to do your make-up. You can learn this. Currently, you just have wrong habits because you have the wrong thoughts.
A friend of mine used to struggle with her weight but figured it out when she was 30. So, she raised her daughter with sentences like, “Aren’t carrots delicious? They make us so healthy” and “Only eat until you are no longer hungry, Dear” and “Just taste the ice cream, but a couple bites are enough. Sugar is not good for us” and of course, “Your heart and character are what God cares about. But your body is the car that drives your soul around so you need to take care of it.” This daughter doesn’t struggle with food. She uses it to nourish her body, eating for nutrition and hunger, not self-soothing and entertainment. You can learn this and you can teach it to your daughters.
We women have plenty to struggle with. We don’t need to struggle with our eating.
Healthy food is a beautiful gift. Trash Food is trash. However, if you mess up, no guilt. Just get back on the bus right now. Not tomorrow. Not after lunch. NOW.
Have “The Talk” Before Entering A Danger Zone
Here’s THE TALK:
“I am getting ready to enter Danger Zone X (fill in situation). In Danger Zone X, there will be Y (fill in temptation). In the past, I have responded inappropriately. But now, I am entering Danger Zone X and I will respond to Y (temptation) with Z (my new pre-thought strategy!) Booyah!”
No more going to sleep or going unconscious. No more letting “whatever is there” or “what you did in the past” control you. Be intentional and choose ahead of time, before you walk into the downhill mud slide.
That is how Champions talk to themselves.
Closing
Average people think it would be nice to reach their goals, as long as it does not get too uncomfortable. They complain about sacrifices. But the Champions in Skinny School know that they will have to endure a level of “suffering” to get what they want and they are totally up for it. Champions’ actions are consistent with their true desires and therefore they can tolerate discomfort. Train your mind to think like this. You can change how you think and you can change how you choose.
There are a lot of great verses in the Psalms about freedom. Isaiah 42:7 is one I like:
“…to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.“
Freedom is such a beautiful word.
May God richly bless you!
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JULIE N. GORDON 