God Loves Us

“God is love.”

1 John 4:16b

In the Emotional Eating blog post I provided a list of questions to help evaluate if you are an emotional eater or not.  The next step is to evaluate your relationship with God.  Whether you have determined you are an “emotional eater” (and remember, that means overemotional eater) or not it is important to evaluate your relationship with God.  For the emotional eater this is critical—your focus should be to replace your “relationship with food” with a closer relationship with God.  For those who are not emotional eaters, you may still find that your relationship with God impacts your behaviors (and thus behavior change ahead).

It all starts with God’s Love.

What does the Bible say about God’s relationship to the believer?  It is a relationship of unfathomable love by God towards His children:

 

It is a lavish love:

 

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!”  1 John 3:1a-b (NIV)

 

He pours His love into our hearts:

“. . . because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”  Romans 5:5 (NIV)

 

It is an unbelievably merciful, graceful, sacrificial love:

 

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”  Ephesians 2:4-5 (NIV)

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  John 15:13 (NIV)

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  John 3:16 (NIV)

 

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Romans 5:8 (NIV)

 

It is an inseparable love:

 

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Romans 8:37-39 (NIV)

 

It is a very present, personal love:

 

“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.’”  John 14:23 (NKJV)

 

It is an initiated, selfless love:

 

“We love because he first loved us.”  1 John 4:19 (NIV)

 

It is a knowable, abiding love:

 

“If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.  And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.  God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”  1 John 4:15-16 (NIV)

 

God loves us with a love that is greater than we can fully comprehend, and He expects us to love Him back, and others, as much as we can with the love He shares with us:

 

“Jesus replied: ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”’”  Matthew 22:37-39 (NIV)

 

God wrote a LOVE letter (the Bible) to you. 

Have you read it?

 

Once we know how much God loves us, our love for Him grows, and our growing love for God replaces our love for the world and unholy affections.  The N.E.W. LIFE book below is written to help people who struggle with a poor relationship with food to better health, for individuals in bondage to food and diets to find freedom, and to help those who have settled for a relationship with food to discover the incomparably more satisfying relationship with God and the abundant life that Jesus died to give us.

 

Dear God, Help us to know how much You Love us as revealed in Your Holy Word.  Fill us with Your Love that we may love You with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen

 

N.E.W. LIFE Books and Services

 

                    N.E.W. LIFE Print Book $20

 N.E.W. LIFE E-book $10

 

                                                                         N.E.W. LIFE Booklets $10/each

Nutrition Counseling

  

Behavior Change is a Process

“. . . being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” 

 

Philippians 1:6 (NIV)

 

Freedom from compulsive overeating is usually a process.  Compulsive overeaters do not stop “cold turkey” like smokers or alcoholics do, probably because compulsive overeating is not a predominantly physical addiction, but has a predominant emotional component to it which requires a process of healing.  Dr. James Prochaska, a well-respected professor and researcher of psychology, has identified 6 commonly experienced “stages of change” and explains that people often get stuck in the “Contemplation” stage for years https://www.avannistelrooij.nl/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Prochaska-ea-1992-how-people-change-AP.pdf.  He advises contemplators to focus on the negatives of their current behavior and to imagine the consequences down the line if they do not do things differently.  I propose that for individuals who struggle with alcohol, tobacco and drug addiction the negatives of their current behavior and future consequences are often harder to ignore than for individuals who “only” struggle with a food addiction, which may explain more cold-turkey change stories by smokers, drug addicts and alcoholics.  In contrast, we need food, and food is unquestionably a good thing for us to have, which may prolong denial about it becoming something that is actually harmful to our health if we abuse it.  This may be why healing from food addiction is often more of a process than overcoming an alcohol, tobacco or drug addiction.

Setbacks are a normal, helpful part of the process out of out-of-balance food behaviors.  It will be helpful if you can see setbacks as helpful instead of defeating.  The process of overcoming compulsive eating usually involves setbacks which get further and further apart (just like the grieving process that happens after the loss of a loved one).  Be gentle on yourself, especially when setbacks happen—they do not mean you are a “failure”.  Setbacks most likely will happen, and you can either learn a lot of valuable information from them that helps in the process of healing or you can let them defeat you.  Why don’t you make your mind up about that now.  And why don’t you evaluate which stage of change you are in:

 

Precontemplation:  Precontemplators have no current intention of changing.  They often feel a situation is hopeless, perhaps because they have tried to change before without success.  They use denial and defensiveness to keep from going forward.

Strategies: Help is needed from others to allow precontemplators to see themselves as others do.  It can come in the form of simple observations or confrontation.  Sometimes it comes from a visit to the doctor or a stirring life event such as the birth of a grandchild or a 40th birthday.

 

Contemplation:  Contemplators accept that they have a problem and begin to think seriously about changing it.  It is easy to get stuck in the contemplation stage for years!  Traps include the search for absolute certainty, waiting for the magic moment, and wishful thinking.

Strategies:  It can help contemplators to recognize the negatives of their current behavior and imagine the consequences if they do not do things differently.  Social support can be helpful.

 

Preparation:  Most people in this stage plan to take action within a month.  They think more about the future than about the past.

Strategies:  Preparers develop a firm, detailed scheme for action.  Many motivate themselves by making their intended change public.  Social support and self-reevaluation help in this stage.

 

Action:  Clearly and evidently modifying behavior; the busiest stage of change.

Strategies:  People in the action stage need to apply their sense of commitment to the change.  They should also reward themselves.  Replacing behaviors and making the environment more change-friendly are important in this stage.  Supportive relationships provide motivation.

 

Maintenance:  Often far more difficult to achieve than action.  Maintenance can last 6 months to a lifetime.  Programs that promise easy change usually fail to acknowledge that maintenance is a long, ongoing process.  Three common challenges to maintenance are overconfidence, daily temptation, and self-blame for lapses.           *[Maintenance is not more difficult if change is with God.]

Strategies:  People in maintenance should apply the same strategies as those in the action stage: commitment, reward, countering, modification of the environment, and helping relationships.

*My note.

 

Termination:  The problem no longer presents any temptation!  The cycle of change is exited.

(Adapted from Tufts University Diet & Nutrition Letter; 1996, p. 4)

 

It is not uncommon to straddle two or more stages!

 

Thank you God that you are with us in every stage of life.  Help us to identify where we should change.  Thank you for the power of the Holy Spirit given to us to transform us.

 

N.E.W. LIFE Books and Services

 

                    N.E.W. LIFE Print Book $20

 N.E.W. LIFE E-book $10

 

                                                                         N.E.W. LIFE Booklets $10/each

Nutrition Counseling

  

Emotional Eating

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus . . .” 

Romans 8:1 (NIV)

 

I have noticed that there are two large groups of people who participate in the N.E.W. LIFE program.  About 50% of the people do not know what a balanced diet is, no less an optimal one, confused by nutrition information (and misinformation) and because the Standard American Diet is so far from optimal https://newlifeforhealth.blogspot.com/2013/08/an-optimal-diet.html.  Teach them, they have hardly any barriers to change (which totally amazes me), contact them years later and they often have maintained many or all of the changes made. 

However, the other 50ish% of each class (and the culture at large?) comes with an additional component underlying their food behaviors—a very out-of-balance, or outright addictive, emotional component to eating.  Now don’t misunderstand—an emotional component to eating is right and good.  Nutriture and nurture are two God-given roles of food (watch a baby at the breast).  Nurture is not the problem—overnurture is.  And overnurture usually results from undernurture, as with a “good food/bad food” diet mentality and restrictive diets that lead to what I call the “deprivation-rebound overeating” cycle.  The most perfect eating plan on earth is not going to help that 2^nd (very large) group of people, because their “problem” is not first and foremost about food, but rather coping with underlying unresolved issues without the aid of food.  In fact, often it will make them feel worse for having “failed” yet another great diet.  So while the first group of people will say, “I don’t have a relationship with food”, I have never in all my years of teaching ever heard one person complain that I spend about 45% of the time in the N.E.W. LIFE program and counseling on “relationship with food” issues, because everyone realizes that we would do a huge disservice to a huge amount of people if we do not help individuals who need to deal with this issue.

So the first thing you must do if you are looking to take the journey to better health is determine which group you are in.  Are you an “emotional  eater” or not?  It’s time to be honest.  Do you have a relationship with food that is out of balance? 

Whenever I use the term “emotional eater”, what I mean is an overemotional eater.  There is an emotional component to eating.  The goal is not to achieve a lifestyle of eating behavior totally devoid of any emotional component to eating.  But if you have no self-control regarding food, feel enslaved by food, or have allowed food to become an idol and take the place of God, then food has taken a place it is not meant to be in.  Overemotional eating is often fueled by underlying unresolved emotional pain.  Emotional eaters also turn to food to comfort loneliness, to calm stress, and about as many other reasons as there are emotions. 

Individuals who struggle with emotionally-driven eating often use food as a coping mechanism.  For emotional eaters the problem is not first and foremost about food, but rather coping with other issues without the aid of food.  If you are an emotional eater food can be a coping mechanism to deal with feelings that might otherwise make you feel uncomfortable—you may even feel they threaten to overwhelm you if you did not use something (like food) to cope with them.  This is why it is so difficult to break the cycle of emotional eating—it takes feeling, and healing from, difficult feelings that are much “easier” to ignore, bury under food, or deny.  Ironically, if you are an emotional eater you probably eat to keep uncomfortable feelings from surfacing.  You may not be able to label the pain, or you may be in denial that there is any pain fueling your eating behavior.  When I was bingeing 5x/night I could not label what the pain was and I was also in denial and unaware that there was anything wrong other than my lack of ability to control my food intake.  All I knew was I felt anxious if I did not eat (to stuff the pain)—food was a calming device.  But once I started (with God’s help) to lift the coping mechanism, the pain started to surface.  That’s when it was time to walk through the pain with God—not around the pain, ignore the pain, stuff the pain, deny the pain—but walk through the pain, with God, to Healing and freedom on the other side. 

However, the pain can be so great that it may not only be helpful but necessary to not go through it alone, but with an understanding spouse, a trusted friend, a professional Biblically-based Christian counselor or an experienced Biblically-based pastoral counselor and, most importantly, with God. When you take each step with Him through the process of Healing He won’t miss any steps (as even the best counselor, without God, likely will).  He knows everything that has happened, and He knows your heart better than you do.  The Word of God says we don’t even know our own hearts:

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?”  

Jeremiah 17:9 (NIV)

God knows everything and He won’t miss any steps if you follow His lead for Healing.  I have heard professionals in the field of eating disorders say that people can get better from eating disorders, but they will have to live with the struggle to some degree for the rest of their lives.  But Jesus said,

". . . 'If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'"

John 8:31-32 (NIV)

I, for one, can testify to the fact that I am completely free from the 5-tier, 15 year, unrelenting bondage I was in to food, diets, body image, exercise and the scale.  I can sleep in the same house as Haagen-Dazs ice cream through the night (whereas before I had to keep it out of the house, but would often go out and get it in the middle of the night).  Now I forget to eat in situations that have been far more painful than the ones that had me bingeing for 15 years straight.  I remember when I was facilitating a Christ-centered support/recovery group and I shared a painful situation I was going through, one of the women asked me, "Did you eat?" and I was the most amazed person on earth that I actually forgot to eat!  When God Heals He really Heals.  Freedom from food/body image obsession is available to everyone.  All agree that the problem involves physical and emotional factors.  However, the spiritual component is just as important as the first two (if not more) and, if left out, the professionals are right--we can get better, but not necessarily free.  True freedom results in being able to grieve the pain of life rather than turning to the "aid" of food to "cope".  Often that healing requires forgiveness which, without God, is virtually impossible for many people who have experienced so much horrendous offense.

So there are two reasons (at least) why it is important that you determine to walk with God through the process of healing from pain and any bondage to emotional eating that may have developed.  First of all, if you have replaced a relationship with Him with a relationship with food, it’s time to repent and get that right.  Furthermore, when He leads the process He doesn’t miss a step, so the result is freedom.  I remember the exact moment 30 years ago that I stood in front of the refrigerator and, for the first time, felt conviction rather than the 15 years straight of condemnation.  I didn’t realize it then, but now I know that was the Holy Spirit, and that was a powerful work of God.  It was the key turning point from self-condemnation to self-acceptance (instead of 15 years of feeling “you terrible, slovenly, lack of willpower person” I was coming out of denial and recognizing “something is obviously wrong”, though I could not yet tell you what it was).  I finally said to myself that something was obviously wrong, but I could not label the pain.  All I knew was that I felt anxious if I did not eat.  The difference was (and this was the turning point from going continually downhill to beginning the process up and out of the eating disorder) self-acceptance (notice I didn’t say “self-esteem”).  I felt conviction instead of the condemnation I had been under up until then.  That was the key turning point—conviction is from the Holy Spirit, condemnation is from the enemy.

The reality is if you suffer from emotional eating driven by unresolved issues, in order to become free of the bondage to emotional eating (and the toll it is taking on your life) it will likely involve healing from pain.  I define freedom as being able to grieve the pain of life without the aid of food to “cope”.  Real life involves both pain and joy.  With God’s Grace we can deal with the pain.  I don’t think He meant for food (or drugs, or alcohol, or promiscuous sex) to take that role.  Think about it—wouldn’t that mean we might just as well become an alcohol or drug addict and be excused for the same reason?  

For people who are not emotional eaters N.E.W. LIFE provides the thorough basis to change behaviors and maintain healthy eating and lifestyle habits for the rest of your life.  However, if you are an emotional eater you will likely not be able to achieve permanent weight management and freedom from bondage to food until underlying issues are resolved and your relationship with God begins to replace your relationship with food.

So first step--evaluate if you are an emotional eater or not.  Perhaps some of the following questions will help you to do that.  It is not an exhaustive list, but consider the following questions, preferably during or shortly after an overeating episode, and ask God to show you what He will:

Am I experiencing true physiological hunger or do I just want something (anything!) to eat?

Am I eating to calm anxiety?  Do I feel anxious if I don’t eat?

Am I eating to calm stress?

Have I been the "nurturer" for others so much today that I am using food to nurture me?  

Am I eating because I feel lonely?

Do I feel unloved?

Am I depressed?

Am I angry?

Am I overeating to "celebrate"? (some “feasting” is OK but holidays and social gatherings may affect your eating too often)

Am I eating to avoid love and intimacy?

Am I eating to avoid facing problems?

Am I eating to punish myself or others?

Am I overeating in response to depriving myself of food?

Do I binge several times a week?

 

God bless you on your journey with spiritual, emotional and physical health and Healing.

N.E.W. LIFE Books and Services

 

                    N.E.W. LIFE Print Book $20

 N.E.W. LIFE E-book $10

 

                                                                         N.E.W. LIFE Booklets $10/each

Nutrition Counseling

  

My Story

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

2 Corinthians 5:17

 

My own experience with weight gain, dieting failure and bondage to food started with 22 years of nearly all consuming physical, mental and emotional involvement in elite gymnastics competition, coaching and judging.  Along with the stresses and loneliness of a gymnast training and competing at the elite level, I was raised in a dysfunctional family system.  I wish to say here that the effect of a country gone so far astray from Christian principles is that, at this point, it may be that a majority of families have a significant amount of "dysfunction".  There is no blame intended here.  If anyone is to blame I am because I turned to food instead of God for comfort.

I began to use food in more than its God‑given place to fill legitimate unmet needs.  In seeking God I would have found the way to heal, overcome, and live righteously in a fallen world and that He more than meets our unmet needs.  Instead, after retiring from elite gymnastics competition at the age of 17, disappointed in myself for not making an Olympic team, I began to use food to quench feelings of inadequacy and low self‑esteem.  The vicious cycle had begun, and as my body weight increased beyond what is healthy I felt increasingly worse about myself so I dieted, and I dieted hard.  Before long I had developed a bondage to food and body image which resulted in a 5-tier, 15-year addictive relationship to food, diets, body image, exercise and the scale. 

My pattern was to eat 4‑5 times in the middle of the night and then exercise 2‑3 hours each day driven out of guilt and fear of fat.  I was "purging" myself of the food I had eaten.  It made me feel somewhat better to make up for, at least in part, the out‑of‑control eating I was engaged in.  This went on for 15 years straight, no Sundays off!  Regardless of the constant dieting and excessive exercise, I gained over 60 pounds in the first 2 years as I turned increasingly to food to try to quench unlabeled and unresolved emotional pain.  Food is a substance which in its rightful God‑given place is a wonderful means of nutriture and nurture.  However, disobedience can pervert the abundant blessing which the Lord has given to us and it can be misused in a way that God never intended for it to be.  Anything can be good or bad, and food may be used or abused just as drugs, alcohol, sex, etc.  I realize now that even exercise can be misused too:

“For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” 

1 Timothy 4:8 (NIV)

Later when I obtained a master's degree in nutrition I was given the opportunity to do nutrition research.  This gave me an appreciation for the observable biochemical nature of the science of nutrition, that there are causes and effects and, in more practical terms, consequences of our actions.  During this time I also became certified as a Registered Dietitian through the American Dietetic Association (renamed the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in 2012).  Professional work has included teaching nutrition education/behavior modification programs for the American Heart Association of Colorado, radio shows, hospital, business and community seminars and 10-week programs, health club programs and consultations, college instruction, publishing, individual consultations, and finally, development of the N.E.W. LIFE program.  I have been free from the bondages of food abuse, diets and preoccupation with body image for over 30 years.  I define freedom as the ability to grieve the real pain of life without the aid of food.  I am the most amazed person on earth that I actually forget to eat even in response to deep pain whereas previously it had unyielding power over my life.  Anorexia, bulimia, and compulsive overeating are the extreme manifestations of a growing epidemic of eating disorders, and there are an immeasurable number of people struggling with bondages to food, body image and emotional eating in-between those extremes.  My heart goes out to the women, men and children who struggle with food addictions, emotional eating, and eating disorders, as well as to a Church burdened with disease due to out-of-balance eating behaviors.

I hope and pray that as I share from my experience and the Word of God it will help others.  I prayerfully write each blog post in truth and love only to share with you what I have learned thus far, praying that He will fill in the gaps necessary for each and every reader.  It is not the intent of this author to “preach”.  As you can see I come with my own history of eating/exercise disorder, the result of a self‑esteem futilely tied to body image and performance.  My purpose is to share the hope of Jesus Christ and that freedom from bondage to food and diets is available to everyone. 

May God bless you on your journey as He has on mine.

N.E.W. LIFE Books and Services

 

                    N.E.W. LIFE Print Book $20

 N.E.W. LIFE E-book $10

 

                                                                         N.E.W. LIFE Booklets $10/each

Nutrition Counseling