Never Say Diet!

NEVER SAY DIET
continued from Post- A Defining Moment

I now had an inside realization that God loved me and accepted me no matter what. But I still had a very long journey to go on about accepting myself. I had made the decision to force myself to eat what ever I ate in front of other people. The next thing that happened is that I became sick of living my life thinking about food at all. I became more upset about the compulsion than I did about the extra weight that I still had on my body. So I prayed a prayer from my heart. I asked God to take away the compulsion. I wanted to wake up in the morning more excited about living than food. I wanted to wake up with a zest for life. I think it was around this time that I started letting go of any hope of getting back to my high school weight. I decided that I cared more about living a full life free from food addiction than I cared about looking perfect.

I prayed that prayer because every time I focused on losing the weight by dieting, all i could think about was food. If I started a diet, I was focused on food, so I thought about it more and wanted to eat everything in sight plus the kitchen sink. So a new idea came to my head. I would not try to lose weight or limit what I ate. Instead I began to focus on the positive. By this time I had taken classes in nutrition in college. Being very interested for obvious reasons, I read anything that came in my path. I wanted to understand my body better. So I knew that fruits and vegetables were a priority for my body. I started thinking about how great my body felt when I ate these things. I tried to include them every day. I also thought a lot about how physically bad I felt when I ate processed foods with white flour and sugar. I also focused on how great I felt when I exercised. (Exercise was fun and easy at this point because I was a Physical Education Major, so I had to take PE classes. It did become more of a challenge later when I was out of school.)

I didn't know it at the time, but I was starting to live a biblical principle. Philippians 4:8,9 says "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-THINK about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me- put it into practice, and the God of peace will be with you." Proverbs 23;7 says "For as he thinks within himself, so he is.
As I focused on what I should do or eat instead of on what I should not do or eat, the compulsion lost more of it's hold on me. In fact, more than focusing on what I should do, I thought about how much I liked these things. I knew that I could NEVER SAY DIET again.
My body began to release some of the weight that I had gained. I settled in about 5 pounds above my high school weight. I was physically active. My life was very full with friends, learning, and best of all my relationship with God.

A victory for me during this time would be to make homemade cookies and not eat them all. I felt accomplished to eat just a few and leave the rest.

God answered the cry of my heart when I was so desperate and out of control. I had thought at first that if I was really a Christian, that He would answer my prayer by making me perfect. I thought that I would instantly eat perfectly and lose my weight. Instead God had a much bigger plan. He wanted my heart and a relationship with me. He allowed me to get to the end of myself so I would finally really look up. This has been a continuous journey that I am still traveling on.

As I have been on this journey for the last 30 years I have learned so much. I am still continuing to learn. In my next blog I will begin to share my perspective looking back on the eating disorder.I will also share what I have learned so far that has helped free me for the bondage of food, dieting and extra weight! The next blog is called Perspective!