Self-Control

Good morning everyone! I hope you're ready for a great, on-plan Wednesday!

As I've shared before, I've been involved with a Beth Moore Bible study since last September, studying the fruit of the Holy Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control). Yesterday was our last study on the very favorite topic of everyone - self-control :-). The lessons on love, joy and peace, etc. were all great and I learned a lot, but there wasn't a lot that necessarily "stepped on my own toes." Our study of self-control was, no surprise, challenging, but also very insightful. Beth talked about self-control in every area of our life, including what goes in and comes out of our mouth.

In writing about controlling what goes into our mouth, Beth noted that "the temporary comfort of food cannot begin to match the inevitable long-range guilt and self-defeat." Wow, did I ever identify with that statement! As I read that, I reflected back on years and years of trying to deal with a myriad of emotions by eating and remembered again how it back-fired every single time. It was a vicious, and never-ending cycle of defeat.

One of the things I learned on Take for Shape Life/Medifast was how to bring under control what went into my mouth. I learned the importance of eating small, frequent meals throughout the day. This is important because this keeps our blood sugar stable so we don't experience the drops that leave us famished and reaching for the nearest food, and it keeps out metabolism burning at a higher rate because we're constantly fueling the furnace. Eating frequent, small meals is something that I still do every single day.

Eating small, frequent meals in and of itself wouldn't necessarily have broken the cycle of emotional eating, however. Emotional hunger is an entirely different thing, and it can be ravenous long after we've met our physical hunger needs. When I made the decision that I was going to stay on plan, no matter what, I soon realized that food could no longer be a source of comfort for me. If I was stressed, eating a Medifast oatmeal wasn't going to eliminate the stress! I realized pretty quickly that I would have to deal with the "stuff" in some other way besides "stuffing" myself.

When I was tempted to slip into emotional eating, I did a couple of things. First, I prayed, because I understood that I didn't have the strength to do this on my own; I looked to my Heavenly Father and asked for help, and He was faithful in answering that prayer. I then found something else to do. Sometimes it was to go for a walk or get some exercise, but often I would log online and connect with some of you. I'd read the blogs, I'd check out the discussion boards, and I spent time reading success stories and looking at the success photos.

What I didn't realize at the time is that, as I chose to do other things, God was teaching me how to gain control in this area of my life. Beth Moore says that "self-control stops." That's a pretty simple statement, but I think Beth does a great job of summing it up. Self-control stops.

I tell people all the time that when I ordered my first 4-week package, I was hoping that maybe I'd be able to lose a little bit of weight. I had no idea that God had so much else in mind, including a lot of emotional and spiritual growth. And He taught me what it means to gain control over what goes in my mouth.

Who's planning to have an on-plan day?