5 Myths About Freedom

 

5 Myths About Freedom

 


 

Myth #1 Living in Freedom is so much easier than always being on a diet.



Truth; Being on a diet gives us a false sense of willpower.  Somehow it seems easier to follow a plan when someone else is making the rules. The truth is we have the same amount of willpower we had before. We don’t trust ourselves with freedom. We haven’t had enough practice. You probably have more information than you will ever need on calories, carbohydrates and eating, it’s time to trust yourself and your body to make the right choices.

Truth: This thinking dooms us to failure. We don’t know how to live free of a diet. We aren’t taught to follow our own bodies cues of hunger or enough. Our only measure of success is the scale, which we step on to obsessively to either be affirmed or stop off of felling dejected. The promise of 5-7 pounds in bold print on every diet plan, should also be followed by the 10 pounds you will gain when you inevitably fall off of it.

Truth:  We have allowed our minds to be molded by society, instead of by truth. You were created with a functioning body and mind. Food was never meant to be pastime, your comforter, or the object of our affection. The answer is not a diet; the answer is to make small changes that eventually become lifetime habits. This may result in quick weight loss, but will probably result in a slow consistent weight loss that will last a lifetime.

Myth #2 Spending Less and Eating Less is the same as dieting and budgeting.

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Truth: This is like saying; having a job is the same as owning your own business. If you are an employee your employer set the business goals, and decides what how you will get there. Your job is to do as you’re told, and then get paid. On a diet if you follow it to the tee you will lost 5 pounds in a week; do the work, get paid. The owner of the business however can be free to choose; he can make or lose as much as he wants by the amount of effort he/she chooses to put into his/her business.

Truth: You can be free to make the choices one at a time that are right for you. You get to be responsible for the results that will be lifelong.

Truth: How you choose to spend and eat should be choice by choice, not rule by rule. You will make good and bad choices, but you will learn, grow and move forward. There are things that I have chosen to stay away from because they become a constant distracting temptation if I know they are around. That will change as I get stronger. This is not a diet, this is a life choice and it’s mine to make.

Myth #3 If people see me eating what I want, they will judge me.

Truth: This is partially a myth. There are people that will judge you for everything you do. You can’t stop judgmental people, they will always exist. The truth is; if you are living in freedom most people don’t know what to do with it, especially if you don’t fit into the box of success they have in their heads. People are used to living by the standards and rules that others put on them. Society makes the standard and then people create rules for you to reach their standard (which by the way is always shifting). When you rely on God’s Spirit in your life to help you make choices, everything changes. Now it’s not what you are doing, but why you are doing that matters. Why do you want one more bite if you are no longer hungry? Why do you feel the need to buy something you don’t need? Why do the urge to tell a better story than the person next to you?

Truth: When others see you living in freedom and slowly losing weight while eating what you like, it may give them the courage they need to take a leap of faith as well.

Myth #4 The results are too slow.

The real question is how much progress have you made with diets, rules and budgets so far? My husband and I used to fight constantly about debt, which usually ended with me making all kinds of promises to make drastic changes tomorrow. He would retort, “Just stop the bleeding”. In other words all your big drastic changes usually end in a binge, and over time you are bleeding out, stop one; stop the bleeding! I have made so much more progress with small, consistent changes, than I ever saw in 20 years of impulsive, drastic, rule based diets or budgets, all aimed at fast results.

Myth #5 There’s not point, I will just fail

Truth: That’s the best Myth of all. You can’t fail because there are no rules to break. You are on a journey, and success just means not giving up. Every step in the right direction is better that 20 quick fixes and relapses.  When your goal is to fix your thinking and create small daily habits, the rest will follow. I gained 5 pounds and only paid off $3000. of my debt the first year I committed to this process, but I didn’t give up. My goal was freedom, not a quick 10 pounds. This year however I have lost my first honest 6 pounds, without dieting, all the while eating normal food and not losing a night of sleep because of a the numbers on the scale. I am slowly but consistently moving towards a debt free life. That feels awesome. The feeling of owning my choices and trusting the Spirit to guide me is nothing I’ve ever known before, and don’t want to live without.

HOPE WIRTA   hope@stopspeating.com