Throw away the diet books and be healthy!

I stopped.   Guess what?  I am now FREE. You know what else?  When I see posts, and diets, and plans online….I run FAR FAR away.  I know that it is like a “drug” to my brain.  It pulls me in, distracts me, makes me unhappy with how I currently look.  It pulls in the nasty word…comparison.  Is that how I should live?  Never feeling good enough?  Never feeling worth it?  No.  Absolutely not. I know that for me, (and I am sure many of you if you think about it) – all of the diets and focus on health has actually made us worse.   Let me give you a little background here.  If you don’t know me, I am an obsessive person.  If I have a goal or something I think I should be doing, I do it 100%!  I strive, I try, I work, and I beat it to the ground.  So, in the area of nutrition, food, workout…I let it become something that was controlling my life.  I HAD to workout every day.  I HAD to write down everything I ate.  I HAD to workout extra hard if I had too much to eat.  I HAD to make goals and re-make them and re-make them.  I was OBSESSED.  You know what?  It didn’t get me anywhere but to a place of craziness and discontentment.  It took me to a place of disordered thinking about health and disordered eating.  No one wants to be there!   I was heavier than I had ever been.  I was more unhealthy than I had ever been.   The one thing I was trying to get away from came at me with more force than I ever could have imagined. Have you ever thought about how much time and energy is spent on thinking about your physical health?  Yes it is important to be healthy, but it is NOT healthy to obsess about numbers, calories, good foods/bad foods, diets, weight and more.  It is not healthy. Relate the amount of time you spend thinking about your physical health to the amount of time you spend thinking about your spiritual, mental, and emotional health.  Is it equal?  Are you in balance?  Probably not.  I can say that confidently because I have been there!    I follow this simple rule:  “Listen and Lose” and I created a book about this.  Listening to my body for hunger cues.  Listening to my emotions before eating.  I believe with all of my heart that this is the answer.  I want you to believe it too.  It works and it is peaceful. Do I still struggle?  Yes!!  But am I in a better place?  Yes!   Am I more healthy than when I was thinking about all of that all the time?  YES!!!  I am free.   In life, that is what we all need to strive for…freedom.  Freedom in Christ, freedom in our lives, and freedom from the food, body and diet rules that surround us in society. This new year, I want to challenge us all to live in balance.  I want to challenge us to not get sucked into the newest diet.  I want to challenge us all to be aware of the time we are spending reading diet posts, challenges, researching and more. Don’t let your goal of being healthy become unhealthy.  Let’s realize that our worth comes from WHO WE ARE and who God created us to be.-not the size of our clothes or the number on a scale. Take the time to find balance and freedom…..You are worth it!  ]]>