Did you make a New Year’s resolution to get in shape? Have the food cravings started? Should you give in?
You’re stuck in traffic when all the sudden a food craving strikes. It comes quick. It comes strong. Like a panther on the hunt. The prey? YOU!
You remember your New Year’s resolution to eat better and exercise more. You want to feel better, look better, and live longer. . .but this food craving: Should you give in?
It may be for a Snickers bar, Chunky Monkey or french fries. Or, if you’re among the fortunate, you covet strawberries, carrots, freshly baked multi-grain bread, or another nutritional saint.
Up the road sits a 7-Eleven, beckoning.
What should you do?
A. Try your very, very best to ignore your food craving.
B. Proceed to the 7-Eleven and fulfill it.
The Shocking Truth
If you selected B, you chose wisely. Fulfilling your biological food cravings, which differ from emotional food cravings (hang on, we’ll get there), is smart because you’re listening to your body. The result: you’ll think and feel better.
Did you know that carbo-cravers tend to have lower serotonin levels than people who prefer protein-rich snacks? Their lower serotonin levels prompts them to eat carbs to help counter the blues, nervousness and irritability. When they get their serotonin “fix,” their mood improves.
This is how you can know whether your food craving is biological or emotional: When you have a biological food craving and fulfill it, you feel nourished. It doesn’t take much food to meet your biological needs either. One bagel, a wedge or two of low-fat cheese, or a couple of chocolates–that’s it.
Emotions Run Wild
In contrast, emotional eating looks for comfort in food. It goes along with “I’m a loser” self-talk. Also, one small treat is never enough. Never.
Emotional eaters confuse love and self-acceptance with food. It is their drug of choice. Their god.
Lonely? Spooning in a pint of ice cream seems a safe “friend.” Anxious? Crunching a king-size bag of chips can give nervous hands something to do. Angry? Eating any food in excess can be a distraction and a way to “stuff” feelings–until self-hate slithers around your ankles and chains you.
Been there? Yeah, me too. I think we all have.
So Now What?
If you are an emotional eater, please turn to the Lord for strength. He will help you. Ask him to show you why you turn to food for comfort rather than falling into His embrace. Give Him your emotions: your anger, your sadness, your happiness, your anxiety, your resentment, all of it. Every time you’re tempted to act out your emotions and eat, pray. Ask Him whether this is what he wants you to do. If you need help in handling emotional eating, turn to a friend or a counselor.
You’ve prayed over your meals, haven’t you? Something like, “Lord, bless this food and the hands that prepared it.”
If so, you MUST watch this hilarious YouTube video, as we continue our focus on food this week. Tomorrow: great reasouces for you. Also, if you missed Tuesday’s online radio show with Michelle Myers, author of The Look That Kills, here’s the link. Michelle is among my most compelling guests ever. Click HERE to listen after you belly laugh though the video.
Here’s part 3 of my series on food, God and friendship. Kinda like Eat, Pray, Love (the movie or the book) but without the Brazilian hottie, ashram and pizza. I’ll share a chapter of my eBook Food as True Friend in each post. Here’s the second chapter, “Speak Well.” EnJOY.
Speak Well
“Fatso.” “Blimp.” “You’re ugly.” “You’ll never be pretty.” “No one wants to be seen with you.” “How can God even love you?”
You would never say these horrible things to a friend, but chances are, you trash-talk yourself. Between your pierced ears, your mind entertains lies of your beauty and worth, or lack thereof. Satan tempts you to lie to yourself; sadly, unless you resist him, he’ll con you. You’ll believe the lies and tear yourself to pieces as a wolf rips apart sheep.
I know I have. My mom has too.
So have the women who’ve attended my Inside Out Beauty workshops. In fact I’ve never met a woman so comfortable in her skin that she accepts herself just as she is. Yet God accepts her. God accepts you.
To the question “What’s one thing you’d like to change about your body,” she anonymously wrote: “Everything.”
I hurt for her. Chances are her eyes twinkled, or her eyebrows arched lovely, or her skin pinked healthy or something, anything. I suspect she trash-talked to herself. What about you? Why do you call yourself names?
How can you stop?
What replaces these ugly names?
These are the questions to ponder in this chapter as you discover how to quit trash-talking and befriend food.Continue reading this chapter.
Do you want to order the entire eBook and discover how to befriend food? ClickHERE.
Here’s part 2 of my series on food, God and friendship. Kinda like Eat, Pray, Love (the movie or the book) but without the Brazilian hottie, ashram and pizza. I’ll share a chapter of my eBook Food as True Friend in each post. Here’s the first chaper, “Think Well.” EnJOY.
1 Think Well
“For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. . .” Proverbs 23:7 (Amplified)
Ponder this proverb. What does it say to you about your thoughts? They are powerful. So powerful are your thoughts, they can shape you.
If you think badly about yourself, if you have a poor image of God, you will feel crummy and you will look crummy and you will act crummy. . .whatever you weigh. Your negative thinking translates into a negative life. You may make poor food choices because you think wrong. The flipside: Think well and you far more likely to eat right and weigh right.
Do you have a few questions? Good. I had a whole list of them when God told me to toss aside “fat” thinking and begin thinking the right way.
I wondered, What is thinking well? How do I think well? How long before I think well?
Will thinking well actually help me weight right?
To continue reading chapter 1 of my eBook Food as True Friend, 7 Secrets to Peace with Food and Your Body, God’s Way, please click here.
Another resource: my Thinking Well webinar. I still need to get this up at my website. If interested in viewing this hour on-line presentation, contact me.
Did you miss the introduction of this book? Read it here.
Today begins my series on food, God and friendship. Kinda like Eat, Pray, Love (the movie or the book) but without the Brazilian hottie, ashram and pizza. I’ll share a chapter of my eBook Food as True Friend in each post. Here’s the intro. EnJOY.
At 10, while other kids memorized the names of the state capitols, I learned the Weight Watchers diet plan. Two servings of fisheach week and one of liver – yuck; thankfully it’s no longer required – and a bunch of other stuff, measured by the ounce. Two scales dominated my mom‘s life and mine back then: one on the kitchen counter (for food); the other in the bathroom.
The latter she used each morning, door shut, after a trip to the toilet and before even a sip of water.
Or was that me?
To continue reading the introduction of Food as True Friend, CLICK HERE.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Julie Staiger, a guest on my online radio show “Sisterhood of Beautiful Warriors,” has something to celebrate: Her book Get Up and Walk publishes in March. It her miracle story, beating a brain tumor and black mold, Crohn’s disease and a bunch more. Here’s the post I wrote on her. You’ll find a link to the radio show featuring her too. You can preorder her book at her website: www.juliestaiger.com.
Hi Beautiful Warriors!
Hi Beautiful Warriors!
Hi Beautiful Warriors!
