You Are What You Eat!
continued from the post- My Freedom Inside Shows up on the Outside!
You are what you eat! I have heard that statement many times and thought that I believed and understood it. Then I experienced an example that helped me to remember it forever.
My husband has always experienced digestive problems and had gotten to the point where he took Tums or other antacids on a regular basis. I kept suggesting that something needed to change in his diet.
Whenever I read about digestive health and nutrition, pork was one of the first items that was suggested to be eliminated. My husband had been eating more and more pork over the last few years because he ate in a cafeteria setting for meals because of his job. He often had bacon, ham, pork chops, ribs and roasts. Unrelated to that (or so we thought), his body began to have a distinct odor that even the kids noticed. We teased him and told him he must be getting old!
His stomach was bothering him more and more and so he came to a point of being ready to try something new. He eliminated pork first. Within a week his weird body odor completely disappeared. It was amazing. His stomach felt much better too!
Somehow this experience encouraged him to look even further into what he was eating to see if he could totally eliminate his digestive and headache problems. My daughter had recently figured out that she was intolerant to wheat products. As soon as she eliminated wheat she went from daily throwing up to healthy. So, my husband tried this too. Within on week he was a new person. No more need for antacid tablets, and headaches are rare. Both my husband and daughter released about 10 pounds without trying.
These experiences have peaked our interest in reading more about food and nutrition. One thing that kept coming up was the MSG and High Fructose Corn Syrup that is in so many of our processed foods. I had heard about this for a long time and believed that these were not good. What I didn't realize is how many foods had these products in them and that they help make your body fat! We were eating them all the time without realizing it!
MSG is called an excito- toxin. It stimulates your taste buds so that the taste is extra good, but it also makes you want to eat more of the food, and later on more food again. So here is an ingredient that works against your attempts at eating nutritionally and maintaining your God Given body size. It also excites the brain cells until they die. Read about it in the book 'Excito Toxins, The Taste That Kills' by Russel Blaylock, MD. My favorite food that has MSG is Ranch Dressing. Our family loves this dressing and felt like we were eating something good for us when we ate it with raw vegetables. Now we know! Other favorites for us used to be flavored Doritos. MSG is in so many foods- read all labels.
High Fructose Corn Syrup is an artificial additive that is cheaper and easier for manufacturing. There is research that shows that because of its chemical makeup it goes directly to the liver, releasing enzymes that instruct the body to store fat! We eat enough calories as it is, we do not need the kind that doubles its efforts in our body to make us gain weight! This makes me mad. It is in pizzas, baked beans, candies, yeast breads, flavored yogurt, baby food, ketchup, cookies, beer, sodas,mayonnaise, juices and most manufactured foods.
We have read some books that have alerted us to what is in our food. We do not buy into everything that is in the books, nevertheless we have learned so much from them. They are:
1. Natural Cures That They Don't Want You to Know About by Kevin Trudeau
2. The Liver and Gallbladder Miracle Cleanse by Andreas Moritz
3. The Apple Cider Vinegar Book, by Bragg
4. The Makers Diet by Jordan S. Rubin
The most recent awareness that we have is about the antibiotics and hormones in our meat and dairy. Again, this is something that was added so the manufacturer could make more money.
Two major condiments that we (especially our son) use in our house are Ranch Dressing and Ketchup. I make my own ranch dressing w/o MSG and I buy organic Ketchup- without the high fructose corn syrup. There are ways around everything. We are finding we can make changes. I go to the internet continually for ideas.
So, what are we doing about it? We shop around the perimeter of the store and rarely go up and down the aisles where there are processed foods. We try to eat whole unprocessed food. We eat raw whenever possible. We eat very little meat. When possible we buy organic. If we want dessert, we make it ourselves. We haven't completely switched everything over, but are on a journey of improving how we eat.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
My Freedom Inside Shows up on the Outside!
My Freedom Inside, Shows up on the Outside!
continued from the Post called "Perspective and Anatomy of an Eating Disorder"
My story continues after God freed me from disordered eating. I met my husband after I had figured all these things out. God had totally changed me from the inside out. I became very content with life and where it was headed. I was happy and excited about my relationship with God. I came to know and believe that where ever he led me, it was good. When my relationship with my future husband became serious, I wanted to make sure he knew everything about me. I shared every detail with him. He loved & accepted me with my flaws. His acceptance of me was a mirror of God's acceptance. After we were married I went through 5 pregnancy's with the weight gain that comes with the territory. No matter how much I gained, I seemed to grow more beautiful in my husbands eyes. When I lost the weight, I grew more beautiful. If I got frustrated with my body, he did not. He never one time said to me, "do you really think that you should be eating that since you are frustrated with your weight?" Given my history, I think that if he monitored me in any way, or criticized me, I would have gone back to underground eating. God knew who I needed close to me in order to continue my journey to wholeness.
Throughout the next 25 years I continued with my conviction of NO DIETS! (If I even thought diet, then I wanted to eat everything, plus the kitchen sink!) However I was not completely satisfied with how I looked. I was still influenced somewhat by the skinny gymnast body in my mind. That was hard to compete with, & it left me unsatisfied with myself. My one regret of those years is that I spent any time being unsatisfied with myself. Even though God, my husband, my kids, and my friends accepted me, I still did not accept myself. I remember thinking that I did not want to look back at my life living in regrets, or wasting time being frustrated about my body.
If I knew then what I know now about food, my journey would have been shortened. I did not know that the actual type of food that I was eating was influencing my body so much more than I thought. My answer was not about how much I ate. I will write about this information that I learned in my next post labeled "You are what you eat!"
I continued with my conviction of no diets, eat healthy, & enjoy exercise. This kept me from becoming obese but I did gain weight with each pregnancy and kept some of it on.
I don't remember how or why, but about 7 years ago, I finally made peace with my body. I was then about 30 pounds over what I wanted to be, yet I finally accepted myself. The weird thing about this is that when I finally accepted myself totally I was finally free to release the weight that I had gained. I did not pursue losing weight, but God has led me on a journey that I did not expect.
This started with my niece and her husband deciding that they would fast from desserts until they got married. My kids asked them one day if this was hard. I expected them to say, "Yes, it is hard but it was a good thing." Instead they looked at each other with a puzzled look on their face and both admitted that except for the first few days, it was not hard at all and they did not miss it. Something happened inside of me at that moment. I had been aware of the fact that I had been eating things that I did not really need or even want. I ate everything in front of me and never said no. Remember that part of my strategy for not going back into disordered eating was to never say DIET! So consequently I said yes to everything. I decided then and there that I was going to experiment by going without desserts totally for a month. I did not say anything to anyone about this. It was between myself and God. Each time an opportunity came up (which was daily!), I just told myself that it wasn't that big of a deal to skip the dessert and that the next day I would be glad that I didn't have it. I told myself that I could have it if I really wanted it, but that I could also say no. I did this for about 3 months before I said anything about it. I ate everything that I wanted without the desserts and my body automatically lost weight. I actually had given up weighing myself but I knew I lost weight because my clothes were loose.
The cool thing about this experience for me was that I had come to the place that I could say no to myself and not feel deprived. I didn't pull up my bootstraps and make myself do it. I didn't do it because I felt bad about myself. I did it out of the fullness of my life. I guess you could say I felt full inside. This was God's work in me. The change that had happened on the inside for so long, was finally coming out to the outside.
The next thing that happened in my journey was that a friend of mine complimented me on how I looked, so I decided to tell her about giving up desserts and what that had done for me. She listened to my story and then suggested that I would like a book called 'Thin Within' by Judy Halliday. I bought it and read it with excitement. The book is a grace -oriented approach to lasting weight loss. The book practically told my whole story. God had already slowly but surely taught me what was in that book. Thin Within also challenged me in some new ways that totally changed the way I ate. If you are reading this and are frustrated with your ability to release excess weight and get back to your God given size, you have to buy the book. I have read it 4 times now. It challenges me every time. As I read 'Thin Within' and applied the principles my body began to let go of some more weight. I wasn't reading the book because I wanted to lose weight. I was reading it because I knew that I still ate out of emotion instead of taking my problems to God. I really wanted to deal with that issue. In this process of learning I lost another size.
At the same time I also started working out at Curves. I had taken aerobic classes, ran, walked, played sports, and worked out in a gym off and on most of my life. The only thing that I had not done was any weight bearing exercises. I started at Curves because I was ready for something new and the concept of a 30 minute workout seemed appealing. I really became motivated when my mom at 65 went through a bout with cancer. She almost died as she went through radiation and chemo. Before her treatments she was robust, healthy and active. We water skied and snow skied together each year. As soon as she started treatments, she could not eat anything for months. She was fed through a tube. Several months after she stopped the treatments she started at Curves. 3 months later we water skied and she popped out of the water faster than she had ever done before in her life. It was because of the workouts at Curves. That same ski trip, I couldn't get out of the water for the very first time because of added weight, and soreness in my knee and shoulder. I decided that when I could I would start Curves too. I had the chance several months later. Within 2 months of starting Curves I had lost another size.
So between making some lifestyle changes in my eating and working out just 3 times a week for a half an hour, I lost 2 sizes. I had already come to the place where I had accepted myself at the larger size, but was excited to let go of the extra weight so easily.
After one year at Curves I was talking to my mom about whether I should continue or not. Her comment was," you need to take care of your health." Somehow her comment helped shape my commitment from that point on to concentrate on my health and not worry about the weight. It made it easier to continue working out. I have worked out at Curves for 5 years now and it has continued to help me. My knee and shoulder problems are greatly improved, & I eventually lost yet another size to my total shock. When I do the things I love like water/snow skiing, I can do it with energy and strength. (I know that Curves is not the answer for everyone, but for me it is a perfect combination of a short work out, I can talk to other women while working out, it is in every town that I live in or visit, and it also gives a whole body workout every time.)
My story is about experiencing the joy of becoming free from the inside out. I am writing about physical changes in this post, but what really changed in my life is a growing relationship with the Almighty, Everlasting, Loving God. It is He who patiently taught me, and led me and continues to lead me on this journey. He had been working in my heart already when I heard from my niece and her husband that going without desserts was not hard at all. (A year before this, I could not have done it and would not recommend it if you love desserts.) It was God had showed me my need to make a change in my inside attitudes about food when he provided the book 'Thin Within". He also showed me what Curves could do for me before I ever committed to it. The point is that as I journey with God and take the next step, He meets me there to teach me, heal me and show me the way. He is very, very patient!
It is very significant how much joy I experienced as I let go of this excess weight. If you have read my posts from the beginning of my story you will remember that there was a time in college when I lost the 10 pounds from my high school weight that I thought would make me perfect. Yet when I did, I was not happy at all. Something was missing in that victory. It actually led to more turmoil inside. Now as I released the excess weight the cool thing was that I was so very content and full inside. Only God could do that, I could not do it in my own effort. Believe it or not I was happy at a weight that was 15 pounds above my high school weight. The victory is not in what my body weighted. Rather it was in the joy & freedom I felt inside. In the Bible in the book of John chapter 8 verse 32 it says, "So if the Son sets you free you shall be free indeed."
My journey continues to this day. I have learned even more about why our bodies react the way they do to the food we eat. I have learned some things that I feel can possibly shorten your journey to achieving your God given body size. My next post is labeled "You are what you eat!"
continued from the Post called "Perspective and Anatomy of an Eating Disorder"
My story continues after God freed me from disordered eating. I met my husband after I had figured all these things out. God had totally changed me from the inside out. I became very content with life and where it was headed. I was happy and excited about my relationship with God. I came to know and believe that where ever he led me, it was good. When my relationship with my future husband became serious, I wanted to make sure he knew everything about me. I shared every detail with him. He loved & accepted me with my flaws. His acceptance of me was a mirror of God's acceptance. After we were married I went through 5 pregnancy's with the weight gain that comes with the territory. No matter how much I gained, I seemed to grow more beautiful in my husbands eyes. When I lost the weight, I grew more beautiful. If I got frustrated with my body, he did not. He never one time said to me, "do you really think that you should be eating that since you are frustrated with your weight?" Given my history, I think that if he monitored me in any way, or criticized me, I would have gone back to underground eating. God knew who I needed close to me in order to continue my journey to wholeness.
Throughout the next 25 years I continued with my conviction of NO DIETS! (If I even thought diet, then I wanted to eat everything, plus the kitchen sink!) However I was not completely satisfied with how I looked. I was still influenced somewhat by the skinny gymnast body in my mind. That was hard to compete with, & it left me unsatisfied with myself. My one regret of those years is that I spent any time being unsatisfied with myself. Even though God, my husband, my kids, and my friends accepted me, I still did not accept myself. I remember thinking that I did not want to look back at my life living in regrets, or wasting time being frustrated about my body.
If I knew then what I know now about food, my journey would have been shortened. I did not know that the actual type of food that I was eating was influencing my body so much more than I thought. My answer was not about how much I ate. I will write about this information that I learned in my next post labeled "You are what you eat!"
I continued with my conviction of no diets, eat healthy, & enjoy exercise. This kept me from becoming obese but I did gain weight with each pregnancy and kept some of it on.
I don't remember how or why, but about 7 years ago, I finally made peace with my body. I was then about 30 pounds over what I wanted to be, yet I finally accepted myself. The weird thing about this is that when I finally accepted myself totally I was finally free to release the weight that I had gained. I did not pursue losing weight, but God has led me on a journey that I did not expect.
This started with my niece and her husband deciding that they would fast from desserts until they got married. My kids asked them one day if this was hard. I expected them to say, "Yes, it is hard but it was a good thing." Instead they looked at each other with a puzzled look on their face and both admitted that except for the first few days, it was not hard at all and they did not miss it. Something happened inside of me at that moment. I had been aware of the fact that I had been eating things that I did not really need or even want. I ate everything in front of me and never said no. Remember that part of my strategy for not going back into disordered eating was to never say DIET! So consequently I said yes to everything. I decided then and there that I was going to experiment by going without desserts totally for a month. I did not say anything to anyone about this. It was between myself and God. Each time an opportunity came up (which was daily!), I just told myself that it wasn't that big of a deal to skip the dessert and that the next day I would be glad that I didn't have it. I told myself that I could have it if I really wanted it, but that I could also say no. I did this for about 3 months before I said anything about it. I ate everything that I wanted without the desserts and my body automatically lost weight. I actually had given up weighing myself but I knew I lost weight because my clothes were loose.
The cool thing about this experience for me was that I had come to the place that I could say no to myself and not feel deprived. I didn't pull up my bootstraps and make myself do it. I didn't do it because I felt bad about myself. I did it out of the fullness of my life. I guess you could say I felt full inside. This was God's work in me. The change that had happened on the inside for so long, was finally coming out to the outside.
The next thing that happened in my journey was that a friend of mine complimented me on how I looked, so I decided to tell her about giving up desserts and what that had done for me. She listened to my story and then suggested that I would like a book called 'Thin Within' by Judy Halliday. I bought it and read it with excitement. The book is a grace -oriented approach to lasting weight loss. The book practically told my whole story. God had already slowly but surely taught me what was in that book. Thin Within also challenged me in some new ways that totally changed the way I ate. If you are reading this and are frustrated with your ability to release excess weight and get back to your God given size, you have to buy the book. I have read it 4 times now. It challenges me every time. As I read 'Thin Within' and applied the principles my body began to let go of some more weight. I wasn't reading the book because I wanted to lose weight. I was reading it because I knew that I still ate out of emotion instead of taking my problems to God. I really wanted to deal with that issue. In this process of learning I lost another size.
At the same time I also started working out at Curves. I had taken aerobic classes, ran, walked, played sports, and worked out in a gym off and on most of my life. The only thing that I had not done was any weight bearing exercises. I started at Curves because I was ready for something new and the concept of a 30 minute workout seemed appealing. I really became motivated when my mom at 65 went through a bout with cancer. She almost died as she went through radiation and chemo. Before her treatments she was robust, healthy and active. We water skied and snow skied together each year. As soon as she started treatments, she could not eat anything for months. She was fed through a tube. Several months after she stopped the treatments she started at Curves. 3 months later we water skied and she popped out of the water faster than she had ever done before in her life. It was because of the workouts at Curves. That same ski trip, I couldn't get out of the water for the very first time because of added weight, and soreness in my knee and shoulder. I decided that when I could I would start Curves too. I had the chance several months later. Within 2 months of starting Curves I had lost another size.
So between making some lifestyle changes in my eating and working out just 3 times a week for a half an hour, I lost 2 sizes. I had already come to the place where I had accepted myself at the larger size, but was excited to let go of the extra weight so easily.
After one year at Curves I was talking to my mom about whether I should continue or not. Her comment was," you need to take care of your health." Somehow her comment helped shape my commitment from that point on to concentrate on my health and not worry about the weight. It made it easier to continue working out. I have worked out at Curves for 5 years now and it has continued to help me. My knee and shoulder problems are greatly improved, & I eventually lost yet another size to my total shock. When I do the things I love like water/snow skiing, I can do it with energy and strength. (I know that Curves is not the answer for everyone, but for me it is a perfect combination of a short work out, I can talk to other women while working out, it is in every town that I live in or visit, and it also gives a whole body workout every time.)
My story is about experiencing the joy of becoming free from the inside out. I am writing about physical changes in this post, but what really changed in my life is a growing relationship with the Almighty, Everlasting, Loving God. It is He who patiently taught me, and led me and continues to lead me on this journey. He had been working in my heart already when I heard from my niece and her husband that going without desserts was not hard at all. (A year before this, I could not have done it and would not recommend it if you love desserts.) It was God had showed me my need to make a change in my inside attitudes about food when he provided the book 'Thin Within". He also showed me what Curves could do for me before I ever committed to it. The point is that as I journey with God and take the next step, He meets me there to teach me, heal me and show me the way. He is very, very patient!
It is very significant how much joy I experienced as I let go of this excess weight. If you have read my posts from the beginning of my story you will remember that there was a time in college when I lost the 10 pounds from my high school weight that I thought would make me perfect. Yet when I did, I was not happy at all. Something was missing in that victory. It actually led to more turmoil inside. Now as I released the excess weight the cool thing was that I was so very content and full inside. Only God could do that, I could not do it in my own effort. Believe it or not I was happy at a weight that was 15 pounds above my high school weight. The victory is not in what my body weighted. Rather it was in the joy & freedom I felt inside. In the Bible in the book of John chapter 8 verse 32 it says, "So if the Son sets you free you shall be free indeed."
My journey continues to this day. I have learned even more about why our bodies react the way they do to the food we eat. I have learned some things that I feel can possibly shorten your journey to achieving your God given body size. My next post is labeled "You are what you eat!"
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Perspective & anatomy of the eating disorder
Perspective & Anatomy of an Eating Disorder
continued from post- Never Say Diet!
Looking back, I am not surprised that I had an eating disorder. I helped create it by my actions, my lack of knowledge and the lies I believed. I also know now that we have an enemy of our souls- Satan. If he can't keep us from becoming a Christian, then the next thing he will attempt to do is to keep us from living a victorious Christian life. The path I had been headed was not only NOT victorious, I actually wanted to take my life at one point. Total praise goes to God for how he uses the hard things in our life to bring us to himself and deepen our relationship with him.
So let's look back:
On the outside I looked great and really had a fun childhood full of good things. I was healthy, happy, had 2 parents together, got good grades, & had several close friends. I had a relationship with God even though all I knew about it was that He saved me and I was going to heaven. When I graduated from high school I was voted Best All Around for my senior class. I was successful in school, sports, cheerleading, & friends. I had a happy life and it surprised me when I worked myself into an eating disorder but underneath the surface the dam broke.
The first ingredient was that I was a super-sensitive child. Therefore when my Dad made statements like "you shouldn't eat that or you will get fat," or "if you just lose 10 pounds you would be perfect," I chose to begin to sneak eat and chose to believe that I wasn't really loved by my Dad. Another less sensitive child might have heard those same statements and not even remembered them let alone respond to them. Based on those statements and others like them I chose to believe that my Dad did not accept me or really love me. It took me years to realize that he really did love me, just not perfectly like I wanted him to. I realized much later that even though we love our children dearly we can not meet all of their needs perfectly, only God can.
Being sensitive I was also self-conscious and hard on myself. I didn't feel particularly great about myself. I tried to make up for this by excelling in sports, especially gymnastics. I had decided in my freshman year that by the time I graduated that I would be the best high school gymnast at my level in our 7 high school area. I wasn't thinking that I would be the best I could be, but that I would be above everyone else- best all around. I did achieve this. I believe that this was a way that I was trying to feel okay about myself. It was something that I could control. I began to define myself by my physical abilities and my love for gymnastics. (Gymnastics is a tiny girls sport- I was 5'9")
Add to this that I did not feel that I was attractive. I felt that there was something wrong with me. I surely did not have many guys breaking down my door trying to date me. I thank God for that now! I saw it as rejection then, but now I see it as God's protection.
I also had a lack of knowledge of food and nutrition. I ate the typical American Diet which was full of fats and comfort foods. I did not gain weight in high school because I was so busy and extremely active. This all caught up to me in college. My life style slowed down somewhat. Our fun revolved around food. I gained weight. Then I set out to diet without knowledge of proper nutrition.
When I went on that the 1000 calorie diet, worked out 3 hours a day in gymnastics, and ran 3 miles a day, I put my body into starvation mode. My metabolism slowed way down to protect itself. My thoughts began to revolve completely around food as if I were a starving person in a prison camp. I started to obsess about food. I faulted myself about this. I believed I was obsessed because I wasn't disciplined enough. I started to beat myself up with this fact, so not only was I starving but I was telling myself how bad I was for feeling that way. Here is where things came together in a destructive way. I was self-conscious, sensitive, had a lack of knowledge of my body and nutrition, believed lies about myself, and then finally I starved myself to the point where my body was shutting down.
I know now that Satan can not read your thoughts as God can but he can see who you are, your personality, your background, how you respond to things, and your circumstances. He uses these things in our lives to tempt us to believe lies. If he is successful, then we are defeated. I became progressively more defeated to the point of feeling lost and without hope.
The lies that Satan wanted me to believe were:
1. I was not truly loved.
2.The only way I could get attention and be someone is through my physical abilities.
3. If I could just lose the 10 p0unds then I would be perfect.
4. Something was wrong with me.
5. I was unattractive.
6. If I was successful in limiting my food, that meant that I was okay.
7. If people knew what was really going on (the binge eating) then they would think I was crazy and would not want anything to do with me.
This last lie was the greatest of all. This kept me from sharing what was going on with me to anyone. I became more and more lonely. I know now that if Satan can get you alone he has more power over you. There is no one to dispel the lies! It is just like animals in nature. The predator tries to isolate an animal out of the herd so that he can overcome it. I was completely overcome until I finally shared my obsession with someone. Bringing this to the light was such a hard thing to do but it was truly the beginning of my healing. I am thankful for Terri and Jan (the people I first chose to share it with) who were so accepting of me.
I have come to learn that God answers all of our prayers. We do not need to pray in a hopeless way. He just may answer our prayers differently than we expect. I thought He would make me perfect, instead He set me free from my self-imposed perfection. God also always answers prayers in a way that is the very best for us. God answered my prayer when I cried out to Him in my desperation. He led me to other believers that could fill in the gaps of my knowledge of Him. He led me to hear truths that have set me free. As I continue to learn even now 30 years later, God is showing me more truths especially in the area of how certain foods affect our body. This will be continued in the next blog- My inside freedom shows up on the outside!
continued from post- Never Say Diet!
Looking back, I am not surprised that I had an eating disorder. I helped create it by my actions, my lack of knowledge and the lies I believed. I also know now that we have an enemy of our souls- Satan. If he can't keep us from becoming a Christian, then the next thing he will attempt to do is to keep us from living a victorious Christian life. The path I had been headed was not only NOT victorious, I actually wanted to take my life at one point. Total praise goes to God for how he uses the hard things in our life to bring us to himself and deepen our relationship with him.
So let's look back:
On the outside I looked great and really had a fun childhood full of good things. I was healthy, happy, had 2 parents together, got good grades, & had several close friends. I had a relationship with God even though all I knew about it was that He saved me and I was going to heaven. When I graduated from high school I was voted Best All Around for my senior class. I was successful in school, sports, cheerleading, & friends. I had a happy life and it surprised me when I worked myself into an eating disorder but underneath the surface the dam broke.
The first ingredient was that I was a super-sensitive child. Therefore when my Dad made statements like "you shouldn't eat that or you will get fat," or "if you just lose 10 pounds you would be perfect," I chose to begin to sneak eat and chose to believe that I wasn't really loved by my Dad. Another less sensitive child might have heard those same statements and not even remembered them let alone respond to them. Based on those statements and others like them I chose to believe that my Dad did not accept me or really love me. It took me years to realize that he really did love me, just not perfectly like I wanted him to. I realized much later that even though we love our children dearly we can not meet all of their needs perfectly, only God can.
Being sensitive I was also self-conscious and hard on myself. I didn't feel particularly great about myself. I tried to make up for this by excelling in sports, especially gymnastics. I had decided in my freshman year that by the time I graduated that I would be the best high school gymnast at my level in our 7 high school area. I wasn't thinking that I would be the best I could be, but that I would be above everyone else- best all around. I did achieve this. I believe that this was a way that I was trying to feel okay about myself. It was something that I could control. I began to define myself by my physical abilities and my love for gymnastics. (Gymnastics is a tiny girls sport- I was 5'9")
Add to this that I did not feel that I was attractive. I felt that there was something wrong with me. I surely did not have many guys breaking down my door trying to date me. I thank God for that now! I saw it as rejection then, but now I see it as God's protection.
I also had a lack of knowledge of food and nutrition. I ate the typical American Diet which was full of fats and comfort foods. I did not gain weight in high school because I was so busy and extremely active. This all caught up to me in college. My life style slowed down somewhat. Our fun revolved around food. I gained weight. Then I set out to diet without knowledge of proper nutrition.
When I went on that the 1000 calorie diet, worked out 3 hours a day in gymnastics, and ran 3 miles a day, I put my body into starvation mode. My metabolism slowed way down to protect itself. My thoughts began to revolve completely around food as if I were a starving person in a prison camp. I started to obsess about food. I faulted myself about this. I believed I was obsessed because I wasn't disciplined enough. I started to beat myself up with this fact, so not only was I starving but I was telling myself how bad I was for feeling that way. Here is where things came together in a destructive way. I was self-conscious, sensitive, had a lack of knowledge of my body and nutrition, believed lies about myself, and then finally I starved myself to the point where my body was shutting down.
I know now that Satan can not read your thoughts as God can but he can see who you are, your personality, your background, how you respond to things, and your circumstances. He uses these things in our lives to tempt us to believe lies. If he is successful, then we are defeated. I became progressively more defeated to the point of feeling lost and without hope.
The lies that Satan wanted me to believe were:
1. I was not truly loved.
2.The only way I could get attention and be someone is through my physical abilities.
3. If I could just lose the 10 p0unds then I would be perfect.
4. Something was wrong with me.
5. I was unattractive.
6. If I was successful in limiting my food, that meant that I was okay.
7. If people knew what was really going on (the binge eating) then they would think I was crazy and would not want anything to do with me.
This last lie was the greatest of all. This kept me from sharing what was going on with me to anyone. I became more and more lonely. I know now that if Satan can get you alone he has more power over you. There is no one to dispel the lies! It is just like animals in nature. The predator tries to isolate an animal out of the herd so that he can overcome it. I was completely overcome until I finally shared my obsession with someone. Bringing this to the light was such a hard thing to do but it was truly the beginning of my healing. I am thankful for Terri and Jan (the people I first chose to share it with) who were so accepting of me.
I have come to learn that God answers all of our prayers. We do not need to pray in a hopeless way. He just may answer our prayers differently than we expect. I thought He would make me perfect, instead He set me free from my self-imposed perfection. God also always answers prayers in a way that is the very best for us. God answered my prayer when I cried out to Him in my desperation. He led me to other believers that could fill in the gaps of my knowledge of Him. He led me to hear truths that have set me free. As I continue to learn even now 30 years later, God is showing me more truths especially in the area of how certain foods affect our body. This will be continued in the next blog- My inside freedom shows up on the outside!
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