Weight loss Success: Day 23
Find models and teachers. There are thousands of people out there who are living healthy lifestyles. Watch them on TV and make friends with them in real life. Some of them will go out of their way to help you and enjoy doing so (it may even be them fulfilling their purpose). Learn their habits, watch what they do and when, why and how they do it. Ask them questions. An example of this is watching my coffee habits. I love straight black coffee. Other people love coffee with sugar, fancy cream etc. I can guarantee you that if you insist on all kinds of extras in your coffee you don’t enjoy it more than me. And if you decide to copy me since I have had good success in getting fit – it will be a struggle. But at some point if you stay with it you will love black coffee just like me. It will give you just as much satisfaction as any fancy coffee. It also does not have all of those empty calories that just don’t fill you up.
For a few people addiction is simply the result of a long term routine. It is similar to the routine you have driving home every day. You have gone this way for years. Now there is a way home that is one full minute faster. You try that way but it is not the same. You have always gone the other way.
But for most addictions it is much more complicated. Your addiction seems to have a life. You try to stop and it keeps dragging you back in (from now on instead of calling it it, we will call it Damon). You argue and fight with it (Damon), but Damon seems to always win. You plan on how you are going to stop and Damon sits you down at the kitchen table and tells you what you are going to do. You explain to Damon that you are really done this time. Surprisingly a new calm and confidence comes over you, He has stopped arguing with you.
The next day Damon sits you down at the kitchen table and explains to you that your boundaries are way too strict. Just because you struggle once you start doesn’t mean you can’t indulge a little bit. This Damon guy is very tricky. If you love Chocolate (fill in your vice of choice here) His first trick is to flood your thoughts with how much fun it will be to eat just a little. When you defeat him on that he may stop trying to get you to get started but now He whispers to you to just think about how good it tasted last time you had it. Damon then explains to you that your problem was not a couple of pieces, it was going overboard with it.
Key Point #1 Strict boundaries are essential. Because you accidently got away with crossing the line means nothing. When you purposefully cross the line on borderline things, it will cause you to fall.
Damon also likes to tell you how bored you are. How frustrated you are. How you are going nowhere. How other people are letting you down. Take just a moment to think about specific ways he tries to trick you and deceive you. Damon seem to know whether he should come right at you with a full court assault or just try to trick you by getting you to lower your defenses. If you have been fighting addiction for a while you are getting better and better at fighting direct temptation. Now you need to shore up your defense. Great defense starts with working on your journal every day. I talked about journaling in my video “Quitting addiction exercises”. With journaling you write down all the overcoming addiction idea’s that apply to you in a notebook so that you can refer to them daily. This allows you to apply these idea’s consistently until you form new habits.
Next we need to learn from history. In Genesis Eve was told to not eat the Apple. She loved God and was fine with not eating the apple. Then satan asked her: did God really say you could not eat the apple. Lie #1. He next told her about how great it would be to eat the apple. Lie #2. Then he said how she would be like a God if she just ate it. Lie #3 She had unlimited variety of perfect fruit to choose from. God said she could not have that one. Satan kept telling her that she had to eat it. She ate it. Let’s look at the event from Genesis 3:3
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ 4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
Now I will skip forward to the destruction that was caused by their disobedience.
16 To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.” 17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Whenever I hear this Bible story I think. I would never have eaten the apple. She ruined everything by eating it. God was providing their food, was protecting them and was going to let them live this dream life forever. But, the problem is that Damon does not tempt me with an apple. He tempts me with the thing I want most. And if I give in, I have created new destruction which is a result of my sin. Yes Jesus died on the Cross for my past sin, but now I have started the mad cycle again.
To stop the cycle we have to shut Damon up. We do this by repenting of our sins and asking Jesus to forgive us. Next we read our Bible every day, start to learn how to pray and find a good Church. As we learn how to obey the Bible a great change will happen. When we are good with God, now we have the Holy Spirit advising us instead of Damon. He starts to tell us the benefits of doing good. He fills us with love and begins to fill us with joy. He starts to show us the purpose for our lives. If you never look back at your addiction or sin you will now live a great purpose driven life. If you do look back you will struggle back and forth.
Key Point #2 Get the addiction out, get the sin out and don’t even spend one second thinking about your old way of life. This gets Damon out and the Holy Spirit in.
Read Psalm 7
Pray: Father help me to align with you because when I am doing things your way -we are more powerful than any substance can be.
How to lose weight: tip #22 Learn to cook and love skinless chicken – it is high in protein and low in fat.
Read Psalm 7
Pray: Father help me to align with you because when I am doing things your way -we are more powerful than any substance can be.