Love to Eat, Hate to Eat

Elyse Fitzpatrick

Description

Feel as Though You've Lost the Battle with Food? After years of dieting, you know there's more to weight control than what you eat. Having discovered the power that food can have over our lives, Elyse Fitzpatrick helps you identify the destructive eating habits holding you captivebreak the vicious cycle of emotional eatingsurrender your desire for controlbuild healthier eating and living habitsdevelop a flexible plan suited to your unique situation No secret recipes or magic answers will solve all your problems. On this journey you will find a God who loves you and knows everything about youa God who can transform your heart and change your life in ways you never imagined.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Harvest House Publishers
• Date de parution: 12 mai 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780736980128
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

LOVE TO EAT,
HATE TO EAT
ELYSE FITZPATRICK

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE , OREGON
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations in this book are taken from the New American Standard Bible, 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Verses marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. The NIV and New International Version trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society.
Verses marked TLB are taken from The Living Bible, copyright 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Verses marked ESV are taken from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Verses marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Cover by Studio Gearbox
Cover photo Nataliia Pyzhova / Shutterstock
LOVE TO EAT, HATE TO EAT
Copyright 1999/2020 by Elyse Fitzpatrick
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97408
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
ISBN 978-0-7369-8011-1 (pbk)
ISBN 978-0-7369-8012-8 (eBook)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author s and publisher s rights is strictly prohibited.
Dedication
To my dearest friend, Julie Pascoe, who was the first to touch my heart with Christ s love and has since taught me of God s power to keep His children through all their adversity.
Acknowledgments
I ve been blessed beyond measure by family and friends who have continuously encouraged me to follow on to know the Lord. Among these precious people are the members of my family, particularly my dear forbearing husband, Phil, who puts up with 15-minute dinners (on a good night) and encourages me in my ministry. My pastor, Dave Eby, and the members of North City Presbyterian Church (PCA) are so dear and have continually assured me of their love and prayers. Special thanks also to my dear sisters Anita Manata and Donna Turner, who have left little messages on my answering machine telling me that they re praying and are looking forward to seeing me again someday. I m also grateful for the women who have faithfully attended my Uncommon Vessels Bible studies and from whom much of the insight contained in this book has come. I must again thank Dr. George C. Scipione of the Institute for Biblical Counseling and Discipleship (IBCD) in San Diego for the way that he has patiently trained me to think about the sufficiency of God and His Word. I must also thank Jewelee Rossi (truly a jewel) for her feedback on this manuscript; my devoted mother, Rosemary Buerger, for her willingness to edit the rough drafts; and Steve Miller from Harvest House for his rare vision for biblical counseling and for his great skill in editing.
Everything I possess was given to me by our Great God and His wonderful children Thank You, Father.
Acknowledgments for the revised edition
I still say, Amen, to everything written above. I ve lived a life of blessing, having been surrounded by people who have loved the Lord and loved me. I am grateful.
I m also thankful to Steve Miller and Bob Hawkins from Harvest House Publishers who first gave me the opportunity to begin my writing career and who still see the need for this book.
I m particularly thankful for my wonderful family and especially for my dear husband who, for decades, has encouraged me to pursue God s call on my life and has gladly taken up the slack for me.
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Part One: A Renewed Focus
1. From Heartache to a Sense of Purpose
2. The Change God Desires
3. Mirror, Mirror, in My Heart
Part Two: Understanding Who You Are
4. We Are God s Temple
5. Why We Do What We Do
6. Christ Is Your Life
7. God s Life-Changing Power
Part Three: Embracing God s Methods for Change
8. A Right Perspective of Food
9. Making Godly Food Choices
10. Food and Your Thought Life
11. Crossing the Finish Line
12. Practice, Practice, Practice
Part Four: Practical Steps for Further Study
Destructive Eating Behaviors
Notes for Using This Book with a Group
D-I-S-C-I-P-L-I-N-E-D Eating Questions and Verses
Sample Daily Diary
Sample Personal Growth Sheet
How to Know If You Are a Christian
Notes
About the Author
About the Publisher
PART ONE

A Renewed Focus
1
From Heartache to a Sense of Purpose

Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
-1 C ORINTHIANS 10:31
I want you to know who I am and why I am so interested in this topic. I want you to understand my journey-I ll bet we re really not very different. Struggling with eating, dieting, and even binging and purging has been an abiding part of my whole life. The truth is that I have struggled with my weight for as long as I can remember. Even as a child, I remember the embarrassment of having to buy chubby clothes at the department store; of never being able to dress or look like the other girls ( That s not a style that would look good on you, dear, the saleswoman would say); of being the brunt of fat jokes (like the time my uncle asked me if I was going to subdivide and build because I had so much acreage); and the humiliation of knowing that others were always looking at how much I was eating. To add to all this, I grew up near the beach in Southern California-and all of my friends wore bikinis during the summer. I remember saving my money and buying one in ninth grade, thinking that I was going to lose weight so that I could wear it in the summer. I never did.
I know the heartache and devastation of being chronically overweight. This isn t something that just happened to me as a child. Even after I became a Christian as an adult, I would pray night after night that God would help me to lose weight. I would imagine how wonderful my life would be if I could just wake up thin the next morning. I read ads about liposuction and dreamt of the day when I could get a shot or take a pill and be instantaneously normal. I would diet and diet and do well for a time only to find myself entrapped again. After I had my three children, the problem seemed to get worse and worse. How could I weigh so much? How could I ever change? I would get depressed and-you guessed it-go eat to try to give myself some pleasure.
It wasn t until I began to understand that God had something more important in mind than merely my looking good or delivering me from the tyranny of food that I started to change and be thankful. God has taken this struggle of mine and turned it into a blessing. He s used it to get at strongholds of self-righteousness, self-indulgence, worry, fear, and pride in my own heart, and He s produced fruit from it that comforts and encourages others. Because I now have this perspective, I m able to rejoice over God s goodness even though I have to admit that I still struggle-sometimes more than others.
I m writing this book because I know the despair of hopelessness. I know what it s like to start a diet and to get derailed from it, sometimes only making it a day or two. I know the shame of jealously looking at other women who wear a size 8. But I also know the joy of fighting this problem, with both successful and unsuccessful days. I know the joy of knowing that through it all, He is with me in the fight.
What we have to understand is that this fight is for the long haul, and it s a fight for our good and His glory. Our goal isn t to finally arrive at the place where we re completely free from any struggles, though I am positive that s what we d prefer-it sure is what I would have liked. We would all like to simply read a book or find an app that would instantaneously transform us into the people we d like to be. But that s not God s goal for us. If it were, He would have provided it. No, His goal for us is to learn to trust Him in our struggle. It s learning to trust that His word about us and His love for us remain the same, no matter how we do in the struggle from day to day. It is learning to trust His love for us even when we can t approve of ourselves: how we look, what we ve eaten, how much we have exercised. His goal is in our learning that His disposition toward us doesn t depend on us at all. And it is only there, in the knowledge of His unconditional love, that we can be free from the hopelessness and self-condemnation driving our slavery to food and body image. He doesn t love me because I m finally a size ___, or because I have eaten clean all day, or made it to my CrossFit class. And the same is true for you. And the struggle is in believing that His love is all that matters. It matters more than anything. We ll talk more about this later.
I know you may be thinking, Yeah, but I m different, I ll never believe that I can be different, and even if I did, I would never change. I have felt that way. Part of my lifelong identity has been being an overweight woman. I ve never thought of myself as looking normal or being able to eat normally without concern, like s