Weight Loss Bible Study Day 7: Failure Eating

When I first started truth journaling 12 years ago, it never occurred to me to beat myself up when I failed.

My renewing of the mind project was anger, but since I never did anything when I was angry (no yelling fits, throwing things, or nasty words), I didn’t have any guilt associated it. I was a silent seether, and that was socially acceptable.

Without that weight of condemnation hanging over my head, I was free to just calmly go to God every time I was angry and truth journal.

It was a different story when I started renewing my mind for eating.

Self-Condemnation

Every time I broke my boundaries with eating, I would slip into self-condemnation. Not because God was condemning me. But because the world was.

I could hear their shouts loud and clear: You’re such a loser. You’ll never get over this. Why do you even bother? Go get something to eat. (On second thought, maybe that last one was coming from me.)

If I hadn’t already experienced success with anger, I never would have had the faith to believe God could also change me in the area of eating. But because I believed in the process, I kept pressing on.

He did eventually change me – but it took a lot longer than the anger issue. I filled up 2 journals and probably 25 Truth Lie Charts before I got to the point where food no longer controlled me. This took place over the course of several years.

Does It Have to Take That Long?

I’m hoping it won’t take that long for you. I wasn’t all that diligent in the beginning, and I gave up after a couple of months, then started in again a few years later. Once I really started getting serious about truth journaling every time I broke my boundaries, I made faster progress.

If you can, try to renew your mind as soon as possible after breaking your boundaries – before you eat another bite. That way you won’t slip into I’ve-already-broken-my-boundaries-so-I-might-as-well-eat mode which often leads to bingeing.

If you have the iPhone app, you can use the failure eating questions and verses any time you break your boundaries in addition to the questions that correspond to the reason you failed. If you don’t have the app, I’ve posted the questions at the end of this study.

If you’d like to read more on failure, go to my other blog (www.ideserveadonut.com) and click on the link for failure over on the right.

Bible Study

1. For today’s study, click on this link: Is Failure Inevitable? and do that Bible study with your eating failures in mind.
2. You could also do the trials Bible study for the trial of weight loss.

P.S. Here is an encouraging post on patience from Deb Wolf’s blog, Counting My Blessings: Click here.

The following questions are from the app, I Deserve a Donut. 

Failure Questions

1. Are you one of those rare people who can follow your boundaries effortlessly and perfectly without ever breaking them?
   • If not, what the sad truth you’ll have to accept right from the beginning?
2. Since you can’t go back and change what you ate today, what do you think God wants you to do now?
   1. Forget about the boundaries the rest of the day and start fresh in the morning.
   2. Beat yourself up.
   3. Remember that you’re in a spiritual battle. Continue to fight the battle with spiritual weapons, knowing that you’ll fail at times. Be extra diligent with your weapons in the next 24 hours so you don’t break your boundaries again.
3. Which option are you inclined to take? Why?
4. What are the odds you could take that option without regretting it later?
5. If you want to live a life with boundaries, will you have to stop breaking them at some point?
6. What would be the advantage of stopping today?
7. What will your life and body look like a few months down the road if you develop the habit of consistently following your boundaries?
8. When you think of what you’ll gain, is it worth the sacrifice to follow your boundaries the rest of the day?