Today’s (well, yesterday’s, it’s midnight…) NaBloPoMo post on BlogHer asks if you’ve ever tried to break a habit and failed…. Well…. here’s the thing.
I’ve tried several times to break the habit of dramatic overeating, and I’ve never succeeded because I’ve never really gotten to the heart of the issue.
The heart of the issue has always been that I’ve been eating to deal with emotions. It’s not really a lack of will power, although lately I learned to love myself and let myself be fooled into thinking that meant I didn’t have to care about what I put into my body (quite the opposite, in fact, I’d argue — loving yourself should mean taking good care of yourself). But I’ve realized lately that to really and truly love myself, I need to be able to do the things my body wants to do and right now I can’t… not all of them… because I stuff my emotions and deal with every occasion (good and bad!) with food.
I have tried to break that habit many times. But that’s been the problem. I have tried to break the habit. This is an area I have never really completely surrendered to God, mostly I think because I’m kind of afraid of what I have to give up. Because to give this to God means that it’s more than just using my self control and restricting all the bad things, or even most of them, but that it’s ok if I eat a few chocolates every once in a while…. it means I have to really examine the reasons WHY I want to eat the few chocolates. And I have to do that for the rest of my life, even if I am successful in losing the weight I’d like to lose so that I can go shopping in my own closet.
When I surrender this to God, as I am doing, it makes me reflect on days like today, where the end of my day with my Grade 1s was incredibly stressful — trying to bundle 18 kids for -18C windchills is not my favourite thing — and so I came home and ate a few of the chocolates from the box I impulsively bought yesterday. It makes me have to think — did I want those chocolates just because one tasted good? Or did I want them because some little voice inside me believes that if I eat the entire box I’ll feel better? Because… that voice is a very real thing for me, and changing only my eating habits isn’t going to fix that.
This time, this isn’t just my fight. This is a fight that I need my God for, and on days like today when I wanted to eat the entire box of chocolates because I had a stressful end to my day, I instead need to fall to my knees and beg for the strength to not have any, and ask God for the comfort I need from Him — because you and I both know I won’t find anything but regret in the bottom of a demolished box of chocolates.
125 Pounds to Freedom 