Whose voice are we listening to?

In his book When the Enemy Strikes Charles Stanley writes "Never forget the devil's purposes:

• To draw you away from God
• To thwart God's purpose for your life
• To deny the glory of God in your life
• To destroy you in any way he can, including physical health"

The misuse of food is a tool that Satan uses to draw us away from God. As a matter of fact, as long as we're preoccupied with a poor self-image, bizarre eating patterns, and obsession with dieting and purging, we're limited in the freedom and joy we can live out with God. It's not that they can't coexist- it's just that they aren't firing on all cylinders.

God has a lot to say about freedom. His words bring hope, as Paul explains:

It was for freedom that Christ set us free, therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:1-2)

Any voice that opposes God's call to freedom in a believer's life is false. Any voice that stifles hope or mocks the belief that we can live free from bondage is not from God. He is our greatest cheerleader, and He is the provider of our finest victories.

Eating as Community Behavior

Sorry I've been so absent on my blog! I've been traveling nonstop, and finally have been able to sit down and breath... just in time for the holidays! Actually, I love the holidays, and they are even sweeter to me as I live my life free from the pain of overeating, purging, and starving.

Many women I speak to equate the holidays with overeating, or the panic of having to figure out what to eat or not eat. Sweets and treats, parties and functions- all lend themselves the opportunity to enjoy the people, gatherings, and food that we are around, or the opportunity to eat (purge, restrict) to our destruction.
God seemed to have three things in mind when he created our bodies to need food:
1.) We need a variety of foods for our bodies to function well
2.) We have taste buds so that we can enjoy food and the flavors they provide
3.) We can eat in community rather than in isolation and secrecy

Around the holidays we are typically eating in community more than other times of the year. Many women don't eat in front of others, only to binge on food later. Baking becomes disastrous as dozens of treats are consumed before they are wrapped. Those struggling on the anorexic end worry about what they will be served and how they can hide their restrictive habits.

A perfect contrast to this is Jesus' approach to food. He ate when hungry, stopped when satisfied, and loved the community act of sharing a meal together. His good friends Martha, Mary and Lazarus routinely ate meals together and talked. His first miracle was performed at a blow-out wedding where the party would have ended in disgrace if He didn't step in. And some of the most profound words found in the Bible took place at a last supper.

The fuel to disordered eating is secrecy and isolation. So this holiday season, let's enjoy the food and company we have. Let's savor the conversations rather than the plot to get rid of the food later. Let's celebrate the taste buds we have, and the texture of rich conversation and love. It's a delicacy too precious to ignore.

Hunger or habit?

Why do we eat what we do? What pushes us, prods us, and pulls us towards food?
As I stood in my hotel room this week, traveling around the country like a vagabond for the organization I consult for, I recognized that hunger often has very little to do with why we eat.

I arrived at my hotel tired and stressed as I thought about the days that were ahead. My husband was waiting to hear about a big job opportunity, one that would put him back in the major leagues as a coach, after a heartbreaking exit from the NY Yankees coaching staff- and all I wanted to do was eat crackers! I was nervous, tired, and a bit on edge- and my instinct was to grab the bag of cheddar rice cakes that I brought along in my suitcase.
Instead, I dropped to my knees beside the hotel bed and bowed my head. I asked God to fill the hole in my heart and nerves, instead of me numbly eating crackers.
A sense of purpose and peace came over me as I stood up. After living free from food compulsion for over 20 years, I still know my weak times. Those times I'd like to grab food out of the desire to feel numb, or to erase nerves and apprehension. We all eat from emotion at times...a cup of great cocoa when it's cold and we want to feel cozy, the chocolate when PMS is raging in our bodies, chicken soup when we feel sick and want to be comforted. There's nothing wrong with that at all! The trouble starts when we turn an emotion into an eating habit.
Soon the habit is how we function- rather than feeling our lives as God has intended We stuff our days and nights with drive-thru raids, cupboard hoards, and compulsive eating, rather than feeling the pain or mundane of life.
Even Jesus Himself felt bored, lonely, angry, hurt, apprehensive, joyful, sorrowful, disappointed, and let down by those he loved and trusted. But we don't see Him stuffing away His pain with figs, bread, fish or wine. He felt it. He lived it. He believed in a greater purpose than momentary discomfort.
We are invited to feel our lives rather than stuff them. I think I'll R.S.V.P to that invitation today.

Voices We Hear in our Heads

Have you ever stopped to think about what you hear in your head? The endless banter and chatter almost becomes natural to us- except for the fact that there is nothing natural about beating yourself up daily. Author Tim Hansel states that the average person speaks about 120 words a minute, but psychologist tell us that when we self-talk, that is carry on conversations in our heads, we speak at a rate of about 1,300 words a minute...70% of those words being negative! So where do these voices come from?
Most of what drives disordered eating plays out in the head before we ever grab a spoon or fork. Lies and accusations rant in our minds. "You will always fail." "You'll never change."
"There is no such thing as freedom. This is as good as it gets." On and on, like a bad tape stuck in a recorder- the messages play in our minds. Most voices we hear come from one of three sources:

• Our parents (spoken and unspoken)
• Our culture (media, peers, teachers)
• Satan (called the "Accuser" (Revelation 12:10) and "Father of Lies" (John 8) by Jesus

It's Satan's voices that really toy with our minds as we attempt to separate truth from lies. Charles Stanley, in his book When the Enemy Strikes points out that Satan has a few main purposes:

• To draw you away from God
• To thwart God's purpose for your life
• To deny the glory of God in your life

Food has been a brilliant tool in his hand to draw us away from God. The lies and accusations we feel heap condemnation and despair on us rather than hope and freedom. Speak back to the lies! Don't believe them anymore...call them out! There is truth and inspiration waiting in God's whispers of belief in you...

(For more on this topic check out chapter 6 in my book Truly Fed: Finding Freedom from Disordered Eating www.trulyfed.com )

Why Hunger?

What's our problem with hunger? I've done a lot of pondering on this topic, and have come to realize that we were created with a need for hunger. When our bodies are done using what they've been fed, we are supposed to feel the trigger of hunger. The problem is, we are so used to either stuffing ourselves throughout the day, listening to diets and food plans that tell us when to eat and how much, bingeing on food to the point of feeling ill, or abusing hunger (anorexia)going after its starvation effect. Why are we so afraid to experience the normal function of hunger in our lives?
I believe we experience three types of hunger:
Body Hunger: This is the natural function of the body that uses up the food we ingest, and then needs to be filled again.

Spirit Hunger: The desire to be filled spiritually by communicating with God in prayer, learning from the word (the bible), fellowship with other believers, and experiencing the beauty of God within creation (nature, music, people).

Emotional Hunger: Eating to cover up an emotion such as boredom, loneliness, fear, anger, stress or frustration.

Many times we are really hungry spiritually, yet we stuff in food rather than turn to God. Sometimes we have an emotion that is glaring, yet we eat to cover it up and not "feel" it. Sometimes our bodies are just plain hungry, yet we deny our body the satisfaction of feeding it properly, or binge instead of listening to what our bodies need. Paying attention to what kind of hunger we are experiencing can start to undo disorder when it comes to food.

Garbage in the trash can or garbage in my body

I've been traveling a ton lately, and each time I go through airport security I watch a ritual that amazes me. As people near the check point where their luggage will be inspected and liquids aren't allowed, a frenzy of liquid consumption takes place. Bottles of soda, whipped cream coffee drinks a mile high, waters, teas, and juices are downed in lightning speed. The comments of these frenzied drinkers are always the same "I can't take this with me, I better finish it up!" I wonder how many of these people actually want or enjoy what they are slamming down in those harried moments before going through security.
It brings up a point I constantly think of when I think about being free from food bondage. If I don't want or need the food or drink, I can easily throw it away, because it's garbage in the trash can, or garbage in my body. I'll choose the trash can!
For many of us we grew up being taught that we had to clean our plates, regardless of feeling stuffed or not hungry. "There are starving children in India!" was a phrase I remember hearing from well meaning adults. The truth is, eating what I don't want just to not waste food, is wasting it in my body! Our bodies are not trash cans, and eating what we don't need never helps anyone in India either.
We were created with a miraculous mechanism in our digestive system that alerts us when we are feeling full so that we can stop eating, feel satisfied, and move on to something else. The problem is that we are accustomed to not listening to that mechanism. We leave the table with pants unzipped, feeling guilty and overstuffed. Next time you are feeling full, but still have food in front of you remember this phrase "It's garbage in the trash can, or garbage in my body...I'll choose the trashcan!"

Battle of the Binge

I was talking to a lovely woman yesterday about her struggles with food. She was lamenting the fact that she has gained weight due to binging. Throughout the year she had taken two Truly Fed classes, and experienced the joy of freedom, but had crawled back to her old habits and heartache with food. As we were talking I thought about the actual reality around binge eating. As I see it, there are two types of binges: a premeditated binge and a tidal wave binge.
A premeditated binge is one where you plan in advance what you are going to stuff yourself with. Thoughts of a drive-thru romp, a blaze through the snack aisle at the grocery store, or the plan to bake something and devour it by yourself- all result from a premeditated plan to consume a large amount of food secretly.
A tidal wave binge is when you are eating a meal or snack, and the taste of the food, or the feeling you get from eating it, completely overtakes you. Like a tidal wave that has gained momentum over the ocean, the desire to consume insane amounts of food washes over you and crashes upon your taste buds, hands, and stomach. Before you know it, wrappers, bags, and boxes have been emptied, leaving great destruction behind.
Here's the good news... God cares about binging, and is there as an ever present help to redirect our premeditation, and to stop the tidal waves. Think about these truths as you enter into binge habits:
Premeditated binges~ Psalm 19: 14
"Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my rock, and my redeemer."

Tidal Wave binges~ Romans 12:21
"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

We can change the way we think and respond to food. We don't have to be slaves to the lure of binging!