Food Addiction: The Lie of “My Size” – Sometimes the
Clothes DO NOT Make the Man - Purity 1213
Purity 1213 12/02/2023 Purity 1213 Podcast
Purity 1213 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of a hazy summer sunset view of the
homeward bound direction of Waite Rd comes to us from yours truly as I captured
this scene on my way back to my countryside home on August 12th at
7:21pm.
Well, It’s Monday and I share today’s photo because
I like pathway photos and sunsets and because I wanted to suggest that A LOT
can change in a matter of a couple of months.
According to my “electronic personal assistant” who shall remain nameless,
sunset will be at 4:24 pm today! That’s a
3-hour difference from what I experienced back in August, that was less than 4 months
ago but the world kept turn and a moving, and man played with the clocks and
now we are brought into darkness by 5pm!
I wish I could say that the amount available daylight
was the only thing that has “faded to black since then” but as we have made
that trek from summer to late autumn I have seen many people’s careers change,
relationships break, and lives end and as we draw into a new year 4 weeks from
today, some things will never be the same.
But that can be a good thing too. I shared this photo from August 12th
because I personally was about to begin a journey into a whole new experience
of freedom and victory that I had always “hoped” for but wasn’t sure if I would
ever see realized.
I have always loved to overeat since childhood and
have been obese most of my life. I have had periods in my life where I had
great success in losing weight and getting better in shape, but I would often
lose the ground I had gained by returning to my overeating ways. I first got
the My Fitness Pal app because my weight was at an all-time high of 320 pounds
in February of 2013 and since then have fought the good fight and watched my
weight go up and down through the years. I stopped using the My Fitness Pal app
in 2014 which reported that I had gotten down to 275 pounds on my last entry on
December 6th – but had continued to try to get in shape and made
more progress. But this summer I got frustrated by my food addiction – my tendency
to “self-sabotage” by “cheat days” and “binge eating” that made my daily work
outs a lot less effective.
So because I was leading the Celebrate Freedom “recovery/discipleship”
Growth Group at Starpoint Church and I had overcome addictions to alcohol,
drugs, and sex in the past, I decided to treat my “food addiction” for what it
was – an addiction.
So I downloaded the My Fitness Pal app again and logged
in my weight as 238 pounds on August 18th. I have a
goal to be healthy, lose weight, and to get off of my sleep apnea machine. Others have successfully been able to discontinue
use of their CPAP machines with weight loss, and that was my goal going into
2023. By August I was floundering on
making progress, so I decided to trust in the Lord and to use the principles I
had learned with my other struggles to fight my food addiction and beat it for
good. I’m still fighting, but I am winning. Today I weighed in as 204.4 pounds
this morning and I am without a doubt in the best physical shape I have been in
for all of my 51 years and I have committed myself to treat my body as a good
steward for the rest of my life. “I ain’t
going back.”, as I like to say. There
will be no going back to “normal” because my “normal” was overeating and bad health.
A big part of my success was in seeing the truth of
the “lies” that surround food addiction.
Some of the lies that are common in this struggle are:
“Moderation is the key” – It might be for some but
for the food addict, or any addict – that key don’t work! Our experience has
shown us that we have a fundamental weakness in regard to our addictive area
and we have to come to the conclusion that “moderation” in the area of our
addiction will not work. Sorry, grieve the
loss – say goodbye to the notion that you could be friends with the thing that
kept you in bondage and move on.
Elimination is the key to victory. Bye-Bye. Never again. “That stuff is
poison to me.”
“I love __________”
Fill in the blanks. Whatever your
substance of choice is, because it causes you to self-sabotage and keeps you in
bondage you should hate it and will be better off if you learn to love the Lord
and yourself more than the object of your addiction.
“It’s okay to cheat once in a while.” It’s not.
Your relationship with your body is like any other relationship and going
against what you know is good, healthy, and right is NEVER okay. It’s double-minded living at its finest. It’s disobedience. It’s rebellion. And those
things describe the devil more than the Lord and it’s no coincidence that the
objects of our addictions steal our joy, cause pain, and ultimately lead to our
destruction. The enemy encourages our
fleshly living because it kills us and prevents us from being the people who
God created us to be.
“My size is _______ and will always be _________”.
My pants size was 40waist by 30 Inseam 40X30 for many, many years. I didn’t have to check what fit because I
knew “my size.” My shirts were XL. Period. My mindset was that was what it was and that I
had to be comfortable with that. Along
the way, I changed my pant size to 38X30.
Earlier this summer, I boldly bought and fit into 36X30, thinking I shouldn’t
push my luck beyond that, but as the weeks past and I stayed true to my food
plan, logging what I ate daily, and continued to exercise, it became clear that my new size of 36x30 was
too big. So last week, I decided to see what I could fit into. 32x30’s fit but are a little tight in legs but
33x30’s fit comfortably and are now “my size”.
Likewise, XL shirts hang on me now and Large shirts are my new size and
are loose and comfortable.
The “Lie of My Size” needed to be challenged,
defeated, and “My new size” had to be
accepted. I’m not who I used to be and,
again, “I’m ain’t going back”. I have to believe that I have defeated my
food addiction and now live according to my victory for the rest of my
life. I not only have to remain aware
of the caloric, carbohydrate, and fat “costs” of the food I consume, and maintain
my regular exercise routines, I have to also mentally accept the new “my size”
and not go back into the darkness of the lies that kept me in chains.
Another of those lies is: “___________ is good food!” Again fill in the blanks, for me it would be chocolate,
candy, cake, cookies, or ice cream, just to name some of the sugar laden
carbohydrate high foods that would destroy my progress. Those things taste good – but man, those are
not “good foods”. Don’t get me wrong –
you can eat anything – really anything – you just have to know the “cost” and
plan accordingly – but if you do the research – carb high foods are not worth “the
cost” if you are serious about being healthy.
And as unorthodox or unconventional this idea may be to you, it is a better
decision to decide not to eat these foods at all, rather than to be drawn in to
eating them and having them destroy your progress or to keep you in bondage because
you “need” for them. You don’t need
them. You are better off without them. And if you can admit that you are
addicted to them, the best course is to eliminate them from your life.
I don’t want to sound overly strict but if your “food
addiction” is anything like mine – it wreaks havoc on your physical, mental, emotional,
and spiritual health and it needs to be fought seriously and a huge part of the
battle will be changing your mind and your relationship with the objects of
your addiction.
Yesterday I went shopping and bought a new black
suit to replace my 50 regular jacket and 40x30 slacks. The Haggar slacks I got were only available in
32 or 34 inch waist – and although the 32’s fit, they were snug in the legs, so
I went with the 34’s, with a longer inseam of 32 inches. As for the jacket, a
42 Long was comfortable and is now “my size”.
I also bought some new shoes and will be ridiculously overdressed when I
go to Christmas Eve service and my family Christmas Eve celebration in 3
weeks.
As for the old suit, my wife has been giving away my
big clothes to a Christian woman she knows who has been able to take them and
give them to people in need. Yesterday she asked her if anyone could need a
suit in my old size. As it turns out,
this woman was alerted that there was a woman in need of a suit for her husband
who unexpectedly died and who needs a suit to put him in for his casket. So my old suit will be a blessing to this
woman in her hour of grief. I couldn’t
think of anything more appropriate. Where better to take a suit from my “dead
man” than to give it to another dead man, where it can serve a purpose and
where it can be laid to rest for good?
I always thought “my size” was XL shirts and 40x30
pants. But sometimes the clothes do not make the man, and the Lord comes into your
life and changes everything and shows you that the things you thought were set
in stone and impossible to change only required agreeing with the truth and
walking with God to overcome and defeat. Second Corinthians 5:17 tells us we
are new creations in Christ, and that’s the truth, but we have to believe it
and live according to it to experience it.
So a lot can change in a few months, but a whole new
life can be experienced when you decide to surrender to the Lord and ask for
His help, truth, guidance, and strength to lead you out of the darkness of a
dead man’s life to walk into the abundant life of freedom, victory, peace, and
joy that the Lord. So try “that on for
size” and keep walking and talking with God.
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For
those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide,
I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/ .
Today’s
Bible verse comes to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By
John G. Kruis.
(
While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick Google
search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late author’s
work. (https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Scripture-Reference-Counseling-Kruis-ebook/dp/B00CIUJZT2?ref_=ast_author_dp )
This
morning’s meditation verse come from the section on Church, Communion of the
Saints.
Hebrews 13:17 (ESV)
17 Obey your leaders and
submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will
have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for
that would be of no advantage to you.
Today’s
verses are the second of two passages of scripture that fall under the fifteenth
point of our counseling reference guide resource’s section on Church, Communion of the
Saints.
15. Members of the church must honor and obey the elders whom God has appointed to exercise authority in the church.
Today’s verses encourage us to “follow the leader” of our local church. This of course presupposes that they are teaching you from the Bible and encouraging you to put its teachings into practice in your life. Pastors give good messages but the point behind their preaching is not to merely entertain us. They are exhorting us to live for God’s kingdom and to do the good works that He has prepared for us to do. So we should listen to their instructions and apply them to our lives where we can.
And we should do so, not begrudgingly, like a painful chore or religious duty. We should embrace their encouragements for Christian living as the blessing they are. For they will lead us closer to God and closer to being the people He created us to be.
So listen to your spiritual leaders and apply the wisdom of God’s word to your life and do it with joy!
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As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I
always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to
assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we are sharing from “God is in the Manger-
Reflections on Advent and Christmas” – By Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage you all to purchase Bonhoeffer’s books for your own
private study and to support his work. This resource is available online
for less than $10 at many sites.
God is in the Manger – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
ADVENT WEEK TWO - MYSTERY
DAY
TWO
The Mystery
of Love
The mystery remains a mystery. It withdraws from
our grasp. Mystery, however, does not mean simply not knowing something.
The greatest mystery is not the most distant star; on the contrary,
the closer something comes to us and the better we know it, then the more
mysterious it becomes for us. The greatest mystery to us is not the most
distant person, but the one next to us. The mystery of other people is not
reduced by getting to know more and more about them. Rather, in their closeness
they become more and more mysterious. And the final depth of all mystery is
when two people come so close to each other that they love each other. Nowhere
in the world does one feel the might of the mysterious and its wonder as
strongly as here. When two people know everything about each other, the mystery
of the love between them becomes infinitely great. And only in this love do
they understand each other, know everything about each other, know each other
completely. And yet, the more they love each other and know about each other in
love, the more deeply they know the mystery of their love. Thus, knowledge
about each other does not remove the mystery, but rather makes it more
profound. The very fact that the other person is so near to me is the greatest
mystery.
All that is Christmas originates in heaven and
comes from there to us all, to you and me alike, and forms a stronger bond
between us than we could ever forge by ourselves.
Maria von Wedemeyer to Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
December 19, 1943, from Pätzig
I thank my God every time I remember you,
constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because
of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of
this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion
by the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to think this way about all of
you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace
with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.
For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ
Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with
knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in
the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of
righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.
I want you to know, beloved, that what has happened to me has actually helped
to spread the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial
guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ; and most of the
brothers and sisters, having been made confident in the Lord by my
imprisonment, dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear.
Philippians 1:3–14[1]
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tomorrow------------------------
Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage
Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the
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at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts
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These teachings are also available on the
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Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and
to be encouraged.
My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian
encouragement via her Ask Seek Knock blog (https://tammylynask.blogspot.com/ ), her
Facebook Group: Ask, Seek, Knock (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098 ) and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on
Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)
“The views, opinions, and commentary of this
publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to
reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries,
or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication,
and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the
author may represent.”
Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the
Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas, ed. Jana Riess,
trans. O. C. Dean Jr., First edition. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox
Press, 2010), 20–21.
