04/28/2023
In the journey to renew your mind & change your thoughts so you can get off the yo-yo diet cycle & lose weight permanently is the shift from condemnation to curiosity.
You may wonder what I mean by that. As a person who’s struggles with dieting (binge eating, emotional eating, or compulsive overeating), there is LOTS of shame & condemnation associated. So why is that detrimental? Condemnation is declaring something or someone reprehensible, wrong, or guilty after weighing the evidence. When we continually fail at weight loss, we immediately put ourselves on trial for our inability to stick to our diet, We declare ourselves "GUILTY" and therefore need and DESERVE punishment. We beat ourselves up speaking harsh, critical, judgmental words to ourselves and our punishment is further restriction, especially of those food we're "addicted to" and can't control ourselves around.
This is the default response we have to our dieting failures whether it’s eating something we shouldn’t, binging, overeating or going completely “off track”.
Condemnation. Judgement. Punishment.
It’s THIS response that viciously perpetuates the yo-to diet cycle, binge cycle, & any behavior that keeps us stuck & unable to lose weight.
Through my own journey to recover from yo-yo dieting, binge eating, & emotional eating, God kindly, gently, and lovingly revealed this destructive pattern to me and began to teach me this truth: "So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus." Romans 8:1.
But what did this mean for my eating and my relationship with food. How could I apply this truth so that I could STOP condemning myself for continually failing?
I began asking Him to show me how to do this and He began to teach me how to look at my dieting “failures” from a place of curiosity, not a place of condemnation. To be curious about something is to have a strong desire to know or learn something.
(CONTINUED IN THE COMMENTS)