Well, ladies, I finally got to read Chapter 3 from our Bible Study “Stressed-Less Living” today. Those statistics at the beginning of the chapter are frightening, but boy it made me realize that I am SO not alone in my stress!
One thing that I have found is that I am an emotional eater. When I get stressed or upset, I turn to food (and not healthy stuff like fruits and vegetables). Thinking about it, I have really begun to struggle with my weight over the past few years, which happens to correlate with my marriage to my wonderful husband with two teenagers.
He has great kids, but I have have never had a child of my own. I have never raised a child, and I received my “welcome to parenting” with teenagers. Yikes. It has been a challenge, and throw on top of that a difficult ex-wife, and well, you find me eating a bunch of french fries and greasy burgers (my favorite junk food).
Reading this chapter has made me realize that I need to change my eating habits. I have been trying to do this for the past year, but I can never keep to it very long. Usually something stressful happens and I fall off the wagon and reach for the bad stuff once again, and I surrender to it and decide it’s just my “destiny” to be overweight.
The Lord is there to guide me. I need to take advantage of that! So my biggest healthy change that needs to be made is my eating habits. I have decided that I will go to God when I am stressed instead of going for the bad stuff. I realize that this is not going to be easy, but that’s why we have God, right?
Pray for me, sisters. This is going to be a tough journey for me, but a necessary one. Boy were my eyes opened on page 62 when Tracie compares ignoring stress to refusing chemo therapy when diagnosed with Cancer! WOW!!!
So, what am I going to do, you ask? I am going to strive to begin each day with prayer about my struggle with food when I’m stressed. I think I need to pray about it when I’m NOT stressed, so that hopefully once I become stressed I will just go to the Lord in prayer by instinct.
I included the scripture of Isaiah 30:15 at the top of this post, because it has reminded me that in quietness and trust is my strength. YES! I will begin each day with quiet time with my Lord and Savior, and HE will give me the strength I need to get through the day and make better food choices.
I can do this!!!!!!!!!
Stephanie's Journey 
Amen, Stephanie! Loved your post this week! Chapter 3 was truly an eye opener for me as well. Time to rid our lives of stress before we endure major damage control. I can relate to your food issue since I am the same way. I have started drinking water before a meal which helps me eat less. Prayer is a mighty powerful weapon that can help us on all our trials with God’s help. Prayer always gives me a peaceful mind! I pray you are gaining as much from this study as me. God bless you and happy weekend! 🙂
Oh, Stephanie…you are not alone! A previous job I had was so stressful that Big Macs and French fries became my comfort food…3-4 times a week. Yikes! I am so much better, but I still have cravings for that type of food. I always joke that they put something in the grease to make it addicting. 🙂 Thank you for sharing, Stephanie! Yes, you CAN do this…I believe in you! ❤
Stephanie thanks for sharing. It’s great to know others struggle with the same issues, like eating the wrong things when stressed. I like where in Isaiah 30:15 too where it reminded me too that quietness and and trust is our strength. Trust to be has been an issue and in this chapter of Stress Less Living, I found myself centering on a question I think God would ask ” Do you trust Me” then maybe I could Trust more , stressless and run to God first not after the fact. God bless you as you continue this journey to Stress Less.