The first thing we are tempted to do when dealing with our inner brat is to give her some rules. Your brat procrastinated on that big project and you had to stay up all night getting it done? She hasn't taken advantage of that expensive gym membership even one time since January? She has been web surfing for hours while the laundry evolves into a leviathon?
You surmise that what your brat needs is some good old-fashioned discipline. From now on, she is going to be up at 5:45 a.m. so she can be at the gym first thing. She could have gotten away with working out three days a week if she had kept at it in January, but now that it's summer, she will be up and sweating every single day if it kills her. You don't care how tired she is after a long day of exercising, working, teaching, mothering, cooking, and housekeeping, she IS going to spend an hour working on long-term projects before she even touches the computer keyboard. And two loads of laundry must be washed, dried, folded, and put away each evening or she will not be able to read or watch TV. She'll learn, right?
The rebel that lives inside of each one of us revolts in response to rules. I have witnessed this time and time again in people I love who are more outer than inner rebels. Rules are quickly assessed as "stupid" and not applicable to them. As an outward rule follower myself, I marvel at their refusal to acquiesce, and deep down, respect them for it. Nine times out of ten they are absolutely right that the rule is wrong. If you listen closely, you will hear your inner rebel roar when you give them rules like:
Absolutely no fat, carbs, or sweets
Everything must be recorded and tagged in a to-do list
Every decent photo must be scrapbooked and journaled chronologically
Everything you eat must be weighed, measured, and recorded
Every goal must be written, shared, and broken down into mini steps
You must eat 9-11 servings of produce and drink 11 cups of water daily
You must adhere to the schedule laid out in 15-minute increments
Most people who struggle to make meaningful lasting change are dealing with an inner rebel who hates rules. Two case studies. The first is FLYLady. I wrote a Woman's Day article about her home organizing routines more than a decade ago. Although she was an immediate success, there were as many anti-FLYLady responders as there were fan girls. FLYLady's rule that women wear their shoes all day really raised a rebel ruckus. Groups of FLYLady adherents formed whose identity was simply that they refused to wear their shoes in the house.
A second case study. Mark Forster developed a system of task management that initially thrilled his rebel forum. Tasks could be accomplished simply by intuition, when they "felt ready to be done." The only problem was there were still a number of rules in the system. Immediately, the forum members objected to the rules and began proposing alternate rules. More than two years later, they are still at it.
If you are giving your rebel rules, your inner forum is revolting against you! So what are we to do? Don't we still need rules to get our rebel in line? Rules work better for rebels when:
There are few of them. That's why trying to crack down in multiple areas backfires.
There is a really good reason for the rules you have. A rebel will immediately ask, "Why should I?" You better be ready with an excellent answer!
The rules aren't merely to please people. People pleasing isn't what rebels do.
The rules aren't extreme. Rebels still believe in common sense.
The rules aren't based in fear. Rebels aren't afraid of much, especially consequences that "might, possibly" happen.
I will give you a personal example of the Rebel Rules Philosophy in action. I would like to cook healthier meals more often. So today I noted a weekly menu on AllRecipes.com that was for grilled meals, complete with shopping list. I read one review that raved about this menu and I added it to my shopping list. My kids and the cicadas outside were very noisy at the time, but I could hear my inner rebel pitching a fit. She was saying, "You're supposed to grill EVERY DAY for a week? Really? Your kids are going to eat grilled zucchini boats? Uh-huh. And you're going to make a grilled dessert every night? That is just stupid!"
So rather than do what I would normally do and buy everything I need for the grilled weekly menu, only to let the stuff spoil because I don't cook it, and then wonder why I am so lazy, I listened to my rebel. I might grill once or twice this week instead.
What kinds of rules have you given your rebels that have been resisted? Are there any rules you've laid down that have lasted?
For the past several weeks, I have been leading a Bible study using my book, So You’re Not Wonder Woman. The most popular desired life change in our group is weight loss. One of the Wonder Women in the group said she ate to reward herself. And not only that, it seemed like food was the only really rewarding thing in her life. We brainstormed with her for calorie-free rewards and we prayed that God would be her reward.
We Need Rewards
But in thinking more about rewards, I realized I am in need of more of them in my life, too. Can you relate? I have been so enjoying using Things as my task list on my iPhone. I get great satisfaction from checking off my tasks one by one. While I look forward to checking off my tasks, I feel much less inclined to do the things I have to do every day that are checkmark-free (e.g., teaching, laundry, meals, clean up). In years past, I so desired a reward for completing some task that I grabbed a treat whether or not I was hungry. I no longer eat as a treat, but I’m hungry for rewards just the same. Strangely, my children don’t praise me for each lesson taught, every meal made, and every load of laundry folded. My husband, though often complementary, also can’t keep up with my voracious appetite for positive feedback.
Although it’s true that I ought to be content with God’s approval of my service, I find myself so frequently looking for a reward anyway. Unfortunately, the rewards I seek often draw me away from the schedule that I prayerfully developed to deal with numerous demands. The schedule works and when I don’t use it, I don’t.
A Better Reward
So I decided to try something simple this week. And it wasn’t a new brownie recipe! Though since I keep talking about brownies, here’s a guilt-free recipe:
I decided to add my scheduled activities and regular chores to my task list. Now I have things like “Make lunch and clean up” and “Give kids a bath” in Things to check off. Knowing that I can check it off and subsequently add it to my task log for the day encourages me. I may be disappointed by not getting to everything I had planned. But by recording even routine activities, I see how very much I accomplished anyway. Of course, I would like it even better if I got applause and whistles for each checkmark. Hm. I may be on to something here!
This method of rewarding yourself can be just as effective using any other electronic (the HomeRoutines app is great for this!) or paper task list of your choice. If you have a hard time getting through rush hour traffic, a boring meeting, or your kids’ bedtime routine, add it to your list and check it off with pride. Brownies are good, too, but add to the waistline and the weight of guilt for many of us.
As a fat-free alternative, checkmarks are a delicious treat. Try them and let me know if they suit your tastes.
Thank you to everyone who checked out my Body for Life before-and-after photos and thank you especially to anyone who told me they were inspired to embark on their own Body for Life journey. Seeing others succeed is the most satisfying reward for me!
I have taken a week off from eating and exercising the Body for Life way and I’m really glad I did–perhaps not for the reason you think! I got a chance to remember how bloated and fat and blah I felt! One of the really big changes I made doing BFL that I didn’t mention in last week’s post was drinking 10-11 glasses of water a day. I wasn’t doing that this week and I woke up in the morning dry as the desert. It wasn’t a good feeling. This week I got my food cravings out of the way. I made SCD-compliant blueberry pie, lemon freeze, lots of crepes, and Avalanche ice cream. I can’t say enough wonderful things about my new Everyday Grain-Free Gourmet cookbook by Jodi Bager and Jenny Lass. If I could kiss these ladies, I would!! Their recipes are certainly a gift. BUT, I am ready to eat less fat and sugar than I’ve been consuming and enjoy that just one day a week.
I am excited to start using Gyminee on my Iphone to track my workouts. I always have my IPhone with me to listen to music anyway, so recording my weights and repetitions on it will be very convenient–I hope! I’ll let you know what I think. I also downloaded Interval Timer for the IPhone. I don’t know how useful it will be to time my rest periods between weight lifting sets, but it will be great for times when I am walking/running for cardio in the neighborhood.
If you’ve been taking a break from any kind of routine that really works for you, why don’t you join me in returning to it this week? If you join Gyminee, I’d be honored to have you for a GymBuddy. My name is melphd.
Last spring, my husband and I complimented a 60ish furniture salesman we know on his youthful physique. He told us to read the book, Body for Life. My husband and I have worked out for many years, but frankly I haven’t been inspired for the last few. I found myself doing less and less at the gym. This June I remembered our salesman’s recommendation and ordered Body for Life from www.paperbackswap.com. I read the book and was immediately inspired to do the 12-week challenge. Read more about it here.
God took away my compulsive overeating problem in 1996 and I maintained a 30-pound weight loss until 2004 when doing the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) for ulcerative colitis caused me to lose an additional 12 pounds. Unfortunately, most of this weight loss was lean muscle–especially since I wasn’t doing as much strength training as I had in the past. During the last couple of years, I have regained the 12-pound loss and then some from eating more and working out less.
BFL appealed to me because it argued that strength training had to be planned and intense to be effective, cardio could be just as effective if it was short and intense, and muscle gains and fat loss occurred when eating six small meals a day comprised of one protein and one carbohydrate portion. I typically wandered around the gym goal-less, doing whatever I felt like doing. I often ate poorly because I didn’t want to take the time to make something nutritious. Doing BFL gave me a daily plan for exercise and for eating, too. Just knowing that I had to come up with a protein and a carb for each meal gave me the structure I needed to start eating better. Combining BFL with SCD was a little challenging at first as I cannot eat processed low-fat, non-fat foods. I did eat cheese made with 1.5% milk and no additives and occasionally splurged and ate small amounts of things like olive oil and full-fat homemade sour cream. I took full advantage of my free days, eating anything I wanted, except for the last two weeks. I did use EAS’s 100% whey protein even though it isn’t legal on SCD. I didn’t have any problems tolerating it and I made delicious smoothies with it as well as frozen coffee drinks using homemade almond milk. Finally, I took glutamine, creatine, and CLA daily.
After 12 weeks of BFL’s 6-day-a-week eating and exercise plan, not only did I lose 5 pounds, 8% body fat, and 1-2 dress sizes, but I have increased my strength more than 150%! I have also been getting up at 6 a.m. for 12 weeks. That’s been a goal of mine for years–to consistently get up early each day. Not only that, but my body now only requires 7 hours of sleep. I always needed 8 before and I still felt tired. I have so much more energy! The discipline of BFL has taught me how to meet other challenges in my life, too. One of the keys of BFL was to prepare for the next day’s workout the night before. I have preached this for years, but didn’t give it 100% of my effort until BFL. I just knew that if I didn’t plan my workout, meals, and my workout clothing for the next morning, I wouldn’t accomplish anything. I was actually afraid not to do these things! I knew that all it would take was one day of not planning, one day of resetting the alarm to catch some extra sleep, or one day of eating whatever I wanted when it wasn’t a free day for my challenge to fall apart. I didn’t give myself the option of not doing it.
The picture on the left above was taken a year ago this weekend. I don’t have a before shot from 12 weeks ago that I am willing to share with the world (LOL), but trust me, that I looked just like this 12 weeks ago! The most incredible part of this transformation is that God enabled me to do it. BFL emphasizes reviewing your goals daily which I absolutely believe in. But I knew that I wasn’t capable of achieving them in my own strength. I prayed daily that the Lord would give me the ability to get through each workout. He did!
What’s next? I plan to continue the BFL workouts and eating plan. I will probably be a little less fanatical on eating throughout the week, but otherwise I will continue on. My prayer is also to inspire others. Looking great is a wonderful confidence booster, but that isn’t what got me out of bed at 6 every morning. I wanted to be as healthy, as strong, as faithful to a goal as I possibly could be. I look forward to taking on new life challenges now, including developing a spiritual workout for people who would like to make any kind of change. If that’s you, let me know and I would love to have you be a program tester. Most of all, I want God to get the glory for the changes He made in me. If He can change me, He can change you! You can be in the best shape of your life, not in your own strength, but in His.
P.S. Why on earth am I wearing high heels with a workout outfit? I took some pictures in other outfits and forgot to change shoes.
A dear friend told me recently that she understood exactly what I was saying about surrendering in the area of weight loss. What she wanted to know more about was how to eat after you surrender. That’s an excellent question!
My Weight Loss Story
If you haven’t read my book with its description of my own battle of the bulge, you don’t know that I had tried just about everything to lose weight. I had tried counting calories, half-starving myself, appetite suppressants, exercising, a support group, would have tried Jenny Craig if I could have afforded it, not dieting, psychology and exploring my reasons for eating, and even reading the Bible and praying about it. I was leading a weight loss group at church and I hoped that my position would force me to succeed, for fear of failing publicly. I had initial success with every method I tried. Many women wouldn’t think I ever had a serious issue with weight. I can understand that.
At my highest weight, I was about 30 pounds too heavy. But the weight of the issue in my life was huge. It was all I thought about.
I thought about how tightly my clothes fit in the morning. I would be determined to eat lightly for breakfast. When I didn’t, I would berate myself mentally and would be even more determined to eat lightly for lunch. Of course, I typically overate for lunch. I was so depressed about it, I rewarded myself with some candy in the afternoon. All the way home from work I would tell myself I would make up for all of it for dinner. At the same time, however, I could see myself devouring an entire pizza. I spent the entire night depressed about what a terrible day I’d had. I would be better the next day I’d reassure myself, but the cycle repeated.
When I began learning that I was engaged in a spiritual battle, many good things occurred. I was reading my Bible, praying, and learning the difference between worldly wisdom and God’s ways. But I was still determined to succeed in my own strength. I would tell myself that I would just read more Bible verses, pray before every bite, etc., etc. It didn’t work. I really believed that God could do it for other people but not for me. One day I prayed a very dangerous prayer.
I said, “God, whatever it takes to release the hold food has on my life, DO IT.”
He did. Nothing dramatic happened. People didn’t make fun of me for being overweight. I wasn’t kicked out of group leadership and my husband didn’t threaten to leave me. Instead, I reached the end of myself. I realized that after 14 years of struggle, I just wasn’t capable of defeating the thing. I told God tearfuly, “If you want me to have victory, you’re going to have to do it because I quit!” I literally said it out loud in my kitchen.
How Do You Trust God After Surrender?
That was surrender. What came next? What eating principles, diet or exercise plan did I follow that gave me the victory? I have no idea. All I know is there was no system of not eating certain foods, counting calories or bites, or thinking about it AT ALL. That is a miracle! In fact, I didn’t even weigh myself until months later when I realized I no longer felt addicted to food. I have testified to the fact that the Lord gave me absolutely no idea how this happened so that I would not be touting the Melanie-plan to weight loss. And I would have been! But even though I can’t give you the 10-step plan, I do want you to have the same awesome victory I have been given. Here’s what I suggest:
*Pray that the Lord would do whatever it takes to release you from the bondage of obsession with food, weight, and exercise.
*Tell God that you quit, that you know you don’t have it in you to do this. Give Him permission to take over COMPLETELY.
*Every time you find yourself thinking about how to lose weight, confess it as your desire for control. Ask forgiveness and for the Lord to keep you out of His business!
*Renew your mind. Since writing this original post, I met Barb Raveling. She has helped me see that there is another way to trust God after surrendering in the area of weight loss: renewing your mind. I can’t recommend Barb’s book I Deserve a Donut and the iPhone app enough.
Don’t believe the lie that only certain people can enjoy freedom from the bondage of food. God bless you as you trust Him.
I’m a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. My life can be a little crazy, so I look for sanity-saving ideas to use and share. I hope you’ll read my About page to learn more.
