Free Indeed notes January 23, 2008--North Reading, MA

Lucy shared Romans 12:1-2 from the Message Bible:

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Lucy focused on what I highlighted in blue, taking your everyday, ordinary eating and placing it before God as an offering.

Thought of the day: SAFE---Separate Always Food and Emotions
***This came from a book that I can not remember the name of. Lucy, could you please post
the name of the book?

Practical Helps:
Food Journaling or Meal Planning is important for those of us with food related issues. We are much too good at deceiving ourselves that we have not eaten too much or too little (depending on how our food issues manifest). Again, this is not so we have yet something else to obsess over, but to give us the wake up call we need that we are eating too little or too much. It is a way to track the truth of our eating so that the truth can set us free.

Here are some links to printable journals that may work for you. You can download these to your computer if you have Adobe and print them out. I suggest keeping them in a three ring binder.
Food Log w/ emotion tracking
Food Diary w/ Nutritional Food Group tracking
I have also created a food journal. Here are the links for the journal I created:
Food Journal Page 1
Food Journal Page 2
Food Journal Page 3
You have to download my files from msn in order to view the journal. Page three has sections for weight, goals, and journaling. Oh, the files are Microsoft Works Excel.

Here is a link to do food and nutritional journaling online:
Prevention Magazine's Health Tracker

We also discussed some points from the recent issue of Prevention Magazine. The notes following are a combination of our discussion and the magazine.

Outsmarting Your Cravings

I. Stress can cause cravings
     Combat it by:
          A. Stimulating happiness
                1. Pray
                2. Listen to uplifting music
                3. do some kind of exercise
                4. read
          B. Wait it out
                1. Clean out a drawer, a section of your closet, etc.
                2. Check the time and wait fifteen minutes before giving in to a craving
          C. Choose the best distraction
                Use the words: " I feel _______________________ because of ________________.
                to identify what is going on with you emotionally. Find a positive activity and do that
                to channel your emotions in a positive direction.
II. Ask yourself if you have been eating less than usual
          A. Track your portions and foods eaten to see if you are eating enough
          B. Eat craving foods in moderation
               With eating craving foods, there may be a time where you avoid them completely in
               order to break any wrong associations you have with them. For me I did not eat
               sugar for eight months--I was FREE not to! I added it back in in very small amounts.
             Even now I have to watch very carefully how much sugar I consume.
          C. Eat a small amount of food you are craving rather than eating everything else in sight
               because you are avoiding that food.
          D. Call a friend or shoot off an email and talk about your craving and the reasons why it
               is not a good thing to give into it. Maybe the Lord told you to give it up for a season.
               Call for reinforcements!! Reach out to someone who will support you and pray with
               you.
III. Sleep--are you getting enough?
          A. If you are really struggling with a craving due to tiredness during the day have a small
               amount of caffeine (this is recommended by Prevention, not me!)
          B. Portion out anything you are going to eat to insure you do not overeat because you
               are tired.
          C. Avoid by flight if need be anything that is sugary or white flour based as that these
               things will add to your cravings by spiking your blood sugar then sending it down
               even further when they have passed through your blood stream.
          D. Take a cat nap. Set a timer for 15 -30 minutes and close your eyes.
          E. Go to bed early.
IV. Is this a HABIT?
       Do you do great with your eating except when you are with a particular friend or relative?
       How about at parties or holidays? Or when you watch tv or go to the movies?
          A. Get away from the kitchen or other food source.
          B. Use the "stop technique"-- say "stop" when you are tempted. Picture yourself lean,
               strong, and healthy. Even better, picture yourself obedient to the Lord in your eating.
          C. Change your habit by creating a new one.

Teaching:
Matthew 14:28-31

14:28 And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. 14:29 And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. 14:30 But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. 14:31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth [his] hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

Matthew 14:28-31 KJV

There are five things we can see operating in this scripture.

1. Peter walked on water.
      This is representative of the success we experience in areas of our lives as we obey the
      Lord.
2. Peter took his eyes off Jesus and put them onto the circumstances.
      We too can lose our focus on who called us to do what we are doing.
3. Peter started to sink.
      We begin to fall or fail and recognize ourselves doing so.
4. Peter called out to Jesus for help.
      Just as Peter, in his own ability could not walk on water, we in our own ability can not
      accomplish the things God has for us to do. We must have and ask for His help.
5. Jesus IMMEDIATELY caught Peter. This is what I really want to emphasize. God is good.
      He stands behind His Word. He is not a man and cannot lie. He will immediately send us
      the help we need when we ask for it. What we need to work on is not turning down the help
      because it did not come to us the way we expected it to. You see, we can really trust
      God.  The truth about God is that He is good, trustworthy, and wants to help you.

From the Book:
Conquering Eating Disorders by Robert McGee

We went over pages 47-48.
Step 2 "We come to believe that God, through Jesus Christ, can restore us to sanity."
Lesson 5: Believing the Truth About God
We read Psalm 139 and discussed the work we did on the pages. Anyone who was at the meeting is welcome to share what you did at the meeting. Please be sure to use quotes when directly quoting the book.

Again I remind everyone these are just the notes. A lot more is said in class. If anything is unclear please feel free to ask me about it!

For His Children,
~Coreena