The Facebook ladies on Sacrificial Diet are in the second week of doing a 40 day one-meal-a-day fast. I just learned yesterday about it. I'm going to join them on Tuesday. That will give me time to get it in my head first.
I slipped a couple of days. I ate outside of the five-hour window, so I am sure there was a weight gain, but I'm not checking! I'm back on it now.
Tomorrow I will pick out another verse of the week. There are so many from which to choose!
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Every Day Battles
It's still a struggle for me to throw away old habits of eating from a fast food place. Yesterday, it was just convenient to go through a drive-through and it was in the allotted five hour time, but fried sandwiches and french fries are what I'm trying to get out of my life, at least, mostly.
I did eat a great lunch, though. I got some romain lettuce and diced up some avacodo and tomatoes and put on it, wrapped it up and ... yummy! Since I didn't bring along any onions, I just had to salt it. With it, I drank unsweetened tea. That food was so good. I know the salt and tea weren't the perfect choices, but it was much less sodium than a hamburger, I'm sure.
I am staying within the five hours. I feel good about that. I almost over did that yesterday. I was mindlessly eating pistachio nuts while watching a movie. I'm not one that has to have food with a movie, so this was an exception.
Baby steps. Seems like I'm taking baby steps in everything! Time I updated to toddler steps at least.
I did eat a great lunch, though. I got some romain lettuce and diced up some avacodo and tomatoes and put on it, wrapped it up and ... yummy! Since I didn't bring along any onions, I just had to salt it. With it, I drank unsweetened tea. That food was so good. I know the salt and tea weren't the perfect choices, but it was much less sodium than a hamburger, I'm sure.
I am staying within the five hours. I feel good about that. I almost over did that yesterday. I was mindlessly eating pistachio nuts while watching a movie. I'm not one that has to have food with a movie, so this was an exception.
Baby steps. Seems like I'm taking baby steps in everything! Time I updated to toddler steps at least.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Deeper Study
With this Fast-Five diet that I'm doing, and the improvements in food choices I'm making, I'm feeling much better physically.
Success breeds success.
I'm looking more into fasting. I'm learning about juice fasting with books, the internet and a movie/documentary called "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead".
I'm looking at doing a juice fast possibly in the Spring, if I can keep up this Fast-Five fast, which I do plan to do.
Angela stayed with her fast until she lost 100 pounds. That is what I plan to do. I feel so much better, why not stay with this? Juice fasting, however would be another type of fasting that I will have to read more about before I feel comfortable doing it.
If you've done juice fasting, please comment and let me know how it went!
Success breeds success.
I'm looking more into fasting. I'm learning about juice fasting with books, the internet and a movie/documentary called "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead".
I'm looking at doing a juice fast possibly in the Spring, if I can keep up this Fast-Five fast, which I do plan to do.
Angela stayed with her fast until she lost 100 pounds. That is what I plan to do. I feel so much better, why not stay with this? Juice fasting, however would be another type of fasting that I will have to read more about before I feel comfortable doing it.
If you've done juice fasting, please comment and let me know how it went!
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Gaining Strength
The verses of the week are really helping me grow stronger in resisting the temptations of food. I am not perfect by any means, but I'm getting closer to it! This week's verse for some reason really meant a lot to me.
Yesterday, before I wrote here, I had eaten some left over pizza - dead food! - and before noon at that! The craving overcame me and I didn't have the strength to overcome the craving. I guess that's the reason I was drawn to this verse.
For the rest of the day, I ate only fruit. I felt better, even cleaner, as a result. This morning, the scale showed I had come down in weight. Yay!
Yesterday, before I wrote here, I had eaten some left over pizza - dead food! - and before noon at that! The craving overcame me and I didn't have the strength to overcome the craving. I guess that's the reason I was drawn to this verse.
For the rest of the day, I ate only fruit. I felt better, even cleaner, as a result. This morning, the scale showed I had come down in weight. Yay!
Monday, September 10, 2012
Cravings
The time for the requested prayers of the elders is over. When I craved food before, I would stop and pray. Now, I pray, but there's not the request that I had before. I need to add purposeful prayer to my fasting again in order to fight these cravings. I'm praying and fasting now for a little toddler on our church's bulletin prayer list.
The new verse of the week is from Numbers 11:4. The people that accompanied the Israelites who were not fully Israelite or who loved the Israelite people so much that they were allowed to go with them began to have "intense cravings". Their cravings gnawed at them. Day after day of eating this "Angel Food" (see an earlier post) got monotonous. They began to remember their home foods - meats, fruits, vegetables. They especially craved the meats.
Because of their disgust of this good manna, God became angry with them and killed some of them with fire. Moses had a "talk" with God and God gave him instructions of how to obtain meat for those who were craving it. Although they were getting the meat they wanted, they died because of it and the place that they died was called, "Kilbroth Hattaavah" (meaning "graves of craving") because there they buried those who yielded to craving.
Quite a story, huh? Why is it included in the Bible? I believe it's included for the lessons that can be learned. Here is the lesson I get from that story...
God had given the Israelites and those with them the perfect food. It is, after all, included in Heaven along with the Tree of Life to be consumed by those who spend etertnity there. (Revelation 2:17 - although this could be figurative, but I don't think so). Rejecting it was rejecting God's gift of life.
Today, rejecting good foods straight from the ground, closest food to the hands of God, so to speak, might just be the same thing as rejecting God's gift of life to me. Every bite of life giving food gives just that: life. Every bite of dead food, takes a little bit of life away. And, too much of either of those has its problems, too. The Israelites were only allowed a certain amount of manna each day. Trying to get more got them into more trouble.
Fighting cravings: prayer with purpose and thankfulness to God for His life-giving foods. It has to be easier to deal with cravings the more battles we win.
The new verse of the week is from Numbers 11:4. The people that accompanied the Israelites who were not fully Israelite or who loved the Israelite people so much that they were allowed to go with them began to have "intense cravings". Their cravings gnawed at them. Day after day of eating this "Angel Food" (see an earlier post) got monotonous. They began to remember their home foods - meats, fruits, vegetables. They especially craved the meats.
Because of their disgust of this good manna, God became angry with them and killed some of them with fire. Moses had a "talk" with God and God gave him instructions of how to obtain meat for those who were craving it. Although they were getting the meat they wanted, they died because of it and the place that they died was called, "Kilbroth Hattaavah" (meaning "graves of craving") because there they buried those who yielded to craving.
Quite a story, huh? Why is it included in the Bible? I believe it's included for the lessons that can be learned. Here is the lesson I get from that story...
God had given the Israelites and those with them the perfect food. It is, after all, included in Heaven along with the Tree of Life to be consumed by those who spend etertnity there. (Revelation 2:17 - although this could be figurative, but I don't think so). Rejecting it was rejecting God's gift of life.
Today, rejecting good foods straight from the ground, closest food to the hands of God, so to speak, might just be the same thing as rejecting God's gift of life to me. Every bite of life giving food gives just that: life. Every bite of dead food, takes a little bit of life away. And, too much of either of those has its problems, too. The Israelites were only allowed a certain amount of manna each day. Trying to get more got them into more trouble.
Fighting cravings: prayer with purpose and thankfulness to God for His life-giving foods. It has to be easier to deal with cravings the more battles we win.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Taking Advantage of the Opportunity
Yesterday, I read all of my posts on this blog. The one about the angels' food had a sentence in it that struck me numb all over - again. It was something like: "If we could eat the food of the angels now, would we?" We do have food that is closest to God's hands - raw fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. I mean, these foods come directly from the Creator as a gift of life to us. So, why do I go to the processed dead foods instead? Cravings. Cravings come from what we are habitually used to doing.
The opportunity is there to take advantage of God's gift of life-giving foods.
Today, a new day. It's new every morning. I gained a pound from yesterday's over-eating, even though I stayed within the margins of the fast-five. I fooled myself into thinking that I'll be okay as long as I stay within the time. Today, I take advantage of the foods available to us directly from God's creation.
And... praying for peace and for liberty to continue in our God-blessed country.
The opportunity is there to take advantage of God's gift of life-giving foods.
Today, a new day. It's new every morning. I gained a pound from yesterday's over-eating, even though I stayed within the margins of the fast-five. I fooled myself into thinking that I'll be okay as long as I stay within the time. Today, I take advantage of the foods available to us directly from God's creation.
And... praying for peace and for liberty to continue in our God-blessed country.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
New Every Morning
The verse of the week is: Lamentations 3:22-23 - "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."
More verses in that chapter are good to reflect upon, but I'm limiting it to these two for here.
Every day begins with a clean page. I'm glad God's mercies are new every morning. Remembering to start fresh every day is a challenge in itself. But God doesn't forget. Our heavenly Father is full of compassion and mercy and is not without feeling toward our physical needs.
Our elders in the church had asked us to pray for a week about some possible changes that could take place in the church. I decided to fast and pray and not talk to anyone about it until the time was over, which is nearly a week ago now. I was wanting to do a pure fast - just water, but instead, I fasted this 19-5 hour way. It was better than no fasting. Still, this fasting increased my strength in prayer. The elders decided in the way that I was hoping for, but I prayed for the best to be done. Naturally, I thought the best was "my way", but that's just human nature. I believe we should pray for God's will in spite of our own will be done. It's how Jesus prayed, after all.
I'm continuing the 19-5 fast. I hope to continue it until I lose the weight I need to lose. I'm SOOOO heavy. I want to lose half my weight. I need to lose no less than 100 pounds, but 120 pounds would be what I want to lose. Actually, since the elders asked us for prayer and I started back in daily fasting, I've lost 4 pounds.
Forgiveness again. Starting again. Mercies again. New every morning.
More verses in that chapter are good to reflect upon, but I'm limiting it to these two for here.
Every day begins with a clean page. I'm glad God's mercies are new every morning. Remembering to start fresh every day is a challenge in itself. But God doesn't forget. Our heavenly Father is full of compassion and mercy and is not without feeling toward our physical needs.
Our elders in the church had asked us to pray for a week about some possible changes that could take place in the church. I decided to fast and pray and not talk to anyone about it until the time was over, which is nearly a week ago now. I was wanting to do a pure fast - just water, but instead, I fasted this 19-5 hour way. It was better than no fasting. Still, this fasting increased my strength in prayer. The elders decided in the way that I was hoping for, but I prayed for the best to be done. Naturally, I thought the best was "my way", but that's just human nature. I believe we should pray for God's will in spite of our own will be done. It's how Jesus prayed, after all.
I'm continuing the 19-5 fast. I hope to continue it until I lose the weight I need to lose. I'm SOOOO heavy. I want to lose half my weight. I need to lose no less than 100 pounds, but 120 pounds would be what I want to lose. Actually, since the elders asked us for prayer and I started back in daily fasting, I've lost 4 pounds.
Forgiveness again. Starting again. Mercies again. New every morning.
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