Empowered

Our First Place 4 Health class has finished for the season, but we aren't.

We've taken a break from the program and decided to do the new Bible study, Made to Crave for the next six weeks.  There was a great turn-out for our first class.  Lots of diversity in age, life experiences and weight.  I'm pretty sure that we're all going to be blessed by the study, each other and God's Word as we allow it to penetrate our minds and our hearts.

Last night Lysa TerKeurst, the author of the study, spoke to us on DVD about changing our way of thinking from feeling deprived about the choices we make to realizing that we are empowered by God to make permanent and meaningful changes in our life.  That we can move from craving food to craving a deeper relationship with Him.

Because I'm facilitating the class I'm a few days ahead of the group and I would like to share with you what being Empowered looked like for me today .

This box of cookies was dropped off at my desk about 2 hours before lunch time.  These Come See Me treats just screamed, Eat Me, especially since the cottage cheese and toasted bagel from breakfast were just a faint memory to my stomach by 10 a.m.

Ordinarily I would have taken one and then left the box at my desk for anyone who happened by and then finished up the left-overs when no one was looking.  But today I took fast action and made the rounds, handing out every single cookie in the box before my resolve gave way to the purple frosting.

The real miracle was that I didn't feel deprived, I felt empowered because I decided that a sugar cookie loaded with frosting wasn't worth the guilt  I would feel after I wiped the last crumb from my chin.

When lunch time finally rolled around I made another empowering choice. I had an apple, a cheese stick, a Fiber Plus bar and a Diet Coke and I was good for the rest of the afternoon and didn't think about food until dinner time.

An old Weight Watcher saying, "Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels," is true, but an even truer saying is "Nothing tastes as good as being empowered!"

It should be noted that I won today's battle with frosted sugar cookies, and I might not do as well tomorrow or the day after, but I'm ok with that, since all I can do is worry about today. Tomorrow has enough worries of it's own.