| Copied from�.. THE WEIGH DOWN WORKSHOP by Gwen Shamblin There are several important steps involved in the process of transferring your heart from food to God. One is to confine your eating to the boundaries of hunger and fullness. To do this, you must learn to recognize the difference between true physiological hunger and head hunger. Physiological hunger is the signal God gave us to tell us when to eat, and this hunger can be satisfied only with food. Head hunger is the desire to eat regardless of true physiological hunger. It can also indicate an emptiness that we feel that can only be satisfied by God. As you begin to feed your body only when it is physiologically hungry, the amount you eat will be reduced dramatically, and you will lose weight. As this process continues, you will discover that eating when you are physiologically hungry is far more satisfying than eating for any other reason. God created food to be used as fuel, not as a comforter. The hunger signal is the only legitimate reason to eat. Your heart will begin to desire less and less food, and the old magnetism to it will begin to diminish. STOMACH HUNGER In the Weigh Down Workshop, we refer to physiological hunger as stomach hunger. It is an empty, hollow, burning sensation, which may be followed by a growl. The stomach is located above the waistline just under the rib cage; so don�t confuse stomach growls with abdominal noises, which may be the result of overeating! Stomach hunger comes at different intervals after your last meal, depending upon what and how much was eaten and upon your activity level. Do not be impatient. Trust that your body knows when and how much it needs, and rely on it to signal you when it needs to be refueled. If you begin to doubt that your body has these signals, remember that they were perfectly intact at birth. When you were hungry, you ate, and when you were full, you stopped, and when you were sleepy, you slept. As you grew older, your natural hunger mechanism became unplugged as you followed man-made rules for eating, obeyed family table rules for cleaning your plate, and relied on diets and food exchanges to tell you what and when to eat. It is still intact, but you will need to be very sensitive to its cues at first. Keep waiting longer and eating smaller amounts until you discover the stomach growl. Stopping when you are satisfied is as important as waiting for the hunger signal to eat. This is crucial to losing your excess weight; and it will be the single most active step you take toward letting go of greed�the key to permanent weight loss. While you are losing weight, do not be surprised if your body signals satisfaction after only a few bites. This is not at all unusual because your body is actually trying to use up its stored fat. It does not want another large meal to burn up before it is allowed to use the reserve fuel. In fact, the body uses food just as a car uses gas. Our hunger and fullness gage is like the gas gauge on a car. �Empty� signals the need to refuel. �Full� signals enough. As long as your body has stored fuel, all it wants is a spark to keep the engine running so that it can burn what is stored. If you do overeat, do not despair--your body will once again signal you when it needs to be refueled. If overeating is habitual, then you are still grabbing more than your allotted share and not learning to be satisfied with the appropriate amount for your body. An occasional slip is no reason to give up and binge. Just start over, waiting for your hunger signal before you eat again. Eating between the boundaries of hunger and fullness will automatically limit your food intake, sometimes as much as 75 percent. You will probably be amazed at how much more you had been eating than your body actually needed. It will come as no surprise, then, that you begin to lose weight as a result of eating smaller amounts. You will also discover that these reduced amounts automatically result in lower fat, calorie, carbohydrate, and cholesterol intake. You do not have to keep track of these things at all! The more you continue eating reduced amounts, the greater satisfaction you will receive from what you are eating. Eventually, your desire for food outside the boundaries of hunger and fullness will go away. One more thing to know as you begin this new way of eating is how important it is to wait for true stomach hunger before you eat. You see, God created such an efficient system that you body knows when it has too much fuel in reserve. The last meal you ate will be the first fuel that is used up. Then, the body will use up some of the stored fat before it signals hunger again. It is actually designed to rid itself of the stored fuel! Therefore, it is very important that you wait for that unquestionable hunger signal before you consume any more food. If you don�t, you are not allowing your body to use the reserves (stored fat). You might maintain your present weight by doing this, but you won�t lose any. HEAD HUNGER In the weigh down workshop, all hunger other than true physiological hunger is defined as head hunger. In other words, head hunger is the desire for food beyond what the body is calling for. It includes going to food when we are stressed, angry, bored, sad, lonely, or lazy. But it also includes going to food just because it smells good, or because it looks good, or simply because it is there! Head hunger includes continuing to eat past full just because the food tastes good and is still on your plate. Head hunger also includes eating according to the clock, whether you are hungry or not. It is very important as you return to the process of eating according to hunger and fullness that you bypass eating with your family if you aren�t truly hungry. Instead, sit with them as they eat, and enjoy mealtime as a time of togetherness. Visit with your family as you wait for your body to signal hunger. And the microwave oven makes it easy to eat later if your hunger didn�t coincide with mealtime. As you grow more familiar with this plan for eating, you will be able to adjust your hunger schedule very easily in just a few days, so that hunger will occur at mealtimes. EXERCISE Just as dieting does not help your heart desire less food, neither does exercising. Exercise does have virtue for physical fitness. There is no substitute for exercise when it comes to muscle toning, cardiovascular conditioning and bone strengthening. It can also help with digestion and with the healthy function of your organs: �For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come�. (I Tim. 4:8) Exercise is great for physical training, but it does not help your heart desire less food or lessen the desire to control the food. Your goal is to get your focus off food, but it is very tempting to feel the need to stay �in control� by walking around the block or running several miles after a meal. If exercise has become a stronghold for you and causes a deeper self-focus, if you wake up every morning planning your entire day around your exercise routine, or if exercise is the only thing that gives you peace, then it is a false god in your life. Your goal should be to focus all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength onto God instead of food and your body. Trust God, not exercise�He is jealous of our misplaced dependence. The only exercise you require is getting down on your knees to pray and getting the muscle of your will to surrender control of your natural, God-given hunger and fullness guide to the Creator. The muscles of your eyes need to be fixed on Jesus Christ, and the muscle of your self-will needs to bow before the Father. HELPFUL HINTS Eat only when you feel physiological hunger. Eat regular foods. If necessary, start by cutting your food amounts in half. Rate the food on your plate and eat the most pleasing bites first. Savor the taste of each bite. Stop as soon as you are satisfied. Rejoice in how little it takes to satisfy (instead of how much you can get away with). Eat more slowly. Eat with a fork; put it down between bites. When eating with others, enjoy the companionship as well as the food. If you have leftovers, save them for later or just throw them away. DO NOT EAT BEYOND FULL. If in a restaurant, ask for a carryout and take the rest of your great meal home. Again DO NOT EAT BEYOND FULL. If you are tempted to continue eating after you are full, remove your plate from the table, cover it with a napkin, or leave the table. Drink water, tea, coffee, or noncaloric (diet) beverages between hunger periods. Avoid drinking sweetened beverages between hungers. The sugar will interfere with your sensing true hunger. Just as you eat when you are hungry, drink when you are thirsty. Notice that when you are really hungry, food tastes great! But the taste will diminish as hunger begins to be satisfied. If you overeat, simply wait for the next hunger signals before eating again. When you are tempted or challenged, go to God for your strength and your direction, and look only to Him as the object of your redirected passion. You will need something to love and adore, and only God can return this love. EATING SITUATIONS Many times, questions arise concerning the way to handle specific eating situations when you are trying to lose weight. The wonderful truth about losing weight the Weigh Down way is that there are no special food rules to follow that include weighing, measuring, counting, or restricting food selections. All foods are to be enjoyed with thanksgiving between the boundaries of hunger and fullness. The only rule is to get your heart right with God�the body will follow. Listed here are some typical eating occasions and how to handle them within the boundaries of hunger and fullness: *it is lunch hour and you are not hungry: don�t eat. Your body is not calling for food, and if you do eat, it will only be added to what needs to be burned (your stored fat). If you get hungry before the next meal, you can eat a small snack of some kind to satisfy your hunger until mealtime�or you can choose to make that your mealtime. *you are about to starve, and mealtime is still an hour away. Don�t panic. Just drink an ounce or two of juice or eat something very small. This will satisfy your hunger enough to allow you to make it to mealtime. And even if you aren�t able to eat a snack, just remember that this hunger won�t kill you. In fact, the gnawing sensation will usually go away after a few minutes and won�t come around again for a while, maybe an hour. Just don�t use the premature hunger as an excuse to eat two meals! *you have only ten minutes to eat. Then eat in ten minutes. The Weigh Down Workshop recommends that you learn to slow down your eating for two reasons. First, you will be able to taste each bite instead of inhaling it. You can savor the quality instead of quantity. Second, you remain in much better control and can detect fullness better when you eat more slowly. The body processes food more slowly than the mouth chews it and swallows it. Therefore, it is important to eat slowly enough that your brain can signal your mouth that your stomach is full! However, once you have adjusted to the smaller amounts that your body is calling for, it is much easier to stop at a certain quantity, even if it has to be consumed in a short period of time. You must use all of these suggestions with the good judgment that God gave you and your body. *you hate breakfast and love midnight snacks. No problem�as long as you are responding to hunger and fullness. You could be a �P.M. person� who loves to sleep late and stay up late. These people usually start their day without hunger and prefer most of their food later in the day. Eating late at night is not wrong as long as you are hungry. And it stands to reason that if you eat late, you will probably not wake up hungry. The reverse is the �A.M. person� who rises early, ready to eat. These people often prefer heavier food early in the day, dwindling to lighter and less food at night. Either one is okay as long as you are using your hunger/fullness mechanism as your signal to eat. ========================== Ok, my fingers are worn out�.this is just the physiological part. The other half of the Weigh Down Workshop is the spiritual part where you learn to substitute love for God in place of your love for food. All in all it looks to be a decent program. I did notice a couple places in the book where you can see that she doesn�t believe in the Trinity�.might not have picked up on it right away though, if I hadn�t heard that before I read it and was looking for evidence of it. Hope you enjoyed reading. |