Hey y’all! Hope you guys have had a great week. This topic is so near and dear to my heart. It’s so important, not only for myself but for those suffering in silence. A lot of you know I have struggled with an eating disorder for a good portion of my life, that maybe where you find yourself at today. If that’s you, I want to offer hope to you today. Hope that you don’t have to stay in the same place as you are today. You don’t have to have the same struggles or battles, if your willing to allow God in and put the work in…..YOU CAN HAVE FREEDOM. It’s there for the taken friend!! I have been on on the recovery road since 2019, I’m getting stronger and more free every day, and you can to my friend.
So I want talk about what helped lead up to me even being willing to get help and divorcing ED. I’m using the word willing for an important reason because if I said I was waiting on WHEN I FELT LIKE MAKING CHANGES I’d be waiting for an awfully long time. Because we can feel like every Monday we want to start over and TRY to get things right. But in my experience “WE TRY” “WE FEEL” and it hasn’t served me well.
Our church has a small group/conference called Freedom and WOW it’s incredible! Well, I went through it and right when it was time for conference, I got so sick and I couldn’t go. I was so so upset, discouraged and didn’t understand at all. At the time, I couldn’t see what God was doing behind the scenes and let me just say He is such a behind scenes kinda Guy. The 1st of January rolls around and 21 Days of Fasting And Prayer starts and prolly half way through God stuck His finger right on IT and said “Nicole now is the time, it’s time to deal with your eating disorder.”
Excuse me Lord but I don’t have a problem.”
Now mind you I was weighing myself everyday sometimes 2-3 times a day. BUT I DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM. Denial!
I had been abusing diuretics and laxatives for years. I would restrict and bing and I could restrict like nobody’s business but then I’d binge…..I was struggling with something, I didn’t know it had a name. It’s name was bulimia.
So it was at the moment I realized why I wasn’t able to go to the Freedom conference. God had something more He needed to deal with me on and bring healing to my soul. Right then and there I went to my medicine cabinet and threw out all my diuretics and laxatives. When I tell you I got set free from abusing laxatives and diuretics that day, I was completely set free and I never have I touched another laxative or diuretics. Hallelujah! Now I’d like to say it was easy from that point on and that I didn’t struggle but because my body was use to them and needed them to go to the bathroom. It was like crucifying the flesh…Ugghhh! There’s a healing period which I’m pretty sure I’m still in, I think it will take a long while to heal my intestines, body, spirit, and emotions from all that trauma I put myself through. But I’m here for it!🙌👊
It’s funny how we always think no one knows our deep dark secrets because we put on our mask every day and act like we gucci. But ya know what….I know…..God knows. And the pain of holding all of it in or keeping up the image will destroy you. It’s so important to find your people!
After much prayer and seeking the Lord on what to do, the first thing I needed to do was to tell my husband. Oh, how I dreaded that conversation, to the point it made me physically ill, I wanted to throw my guts up.
So finally I went downstairs and said “Honey I need to talk to you about something and it’s going to be really hard for me to talk about. Of course, I’m already crying and can hardly speak. I know the poor man is prolly thinking “Ohhhh I’m in the doghouse, she about to leave me! OR she’s having an affair!” LOL🤣🙈 I could hardly get it out I was crying so hard but once I did you could see the relief on his face that it wasn’t one of the before mentioned items lol. I’m being so vulnerable baring my soul, and he’s relieved I’m not having an affair. Lol😂 We can look for humor in everything.
I told him how I had been struggling and abusing laxatives and diuretics, restricting and binging. He listened and said “Thank you honey for sharing that with me I know that was extremely hard for you. How can I help or what do you want to do?” Well I had already been looking for a counselors, I thought a nutritionist was a good idea as well. So I started there. I also shared with our 3 daughters, what I was hidden in the dark it had to come out, so it could hold no more power over me. It was another step toward freedom.
I reached out to a nutritionist but for me I have to say this is such a tricky part of having an eating disorder. They go over all your healthy issues, keeping in mind your eating disorder and then put you on a meal plan. Well for me what I had found is that I already had such a unhealthy relationship with food you telling me I can’t have a Dr. Pepper and I can only eat these things it wasn’t good for me. She would say things like “You will eat or drink this if you want to get healthy” I use that term “healthy” very loosly. Because all my life I had been putting certain foods in good categories and bad categories and if I ate from the good category I was good but if I ate or drank from the bad category “I was bad” I would heap so much shame and guilt onto myself which kept me spiraling. She reinforced my ED thinking and even tried to give me more “food rules. Needless to say, our relationship ended very quickly, I knew she didn’t understand eating disorders, I don’t know how I knew but I did. It would be another year or so before I tried again but this time I found a nutritionist that specialized in ED nutrition. Best decision ever! She was awesome and so precious. I was with her I think almost 4 years. She sneakily introduced me to intuitive eating. I had no idea what that was. Slowly but surely the rigid food rules I had all my life were fading away. I use to think I was addicted to sugar but as I practiced intuitive eating I realized it wasn’t the sugar I was addicted to it was all the restricting I was doing. This was not an over night process I didn’t get to where I was overnight and I wasn’t gonna find freedom overnight. My good and bad food list was gone and I discovered that food does not inherently hold any moral value. There is no 'good' or 'bad', food is simply food.
Having a eating disorder for me while it was obsessing over weight and food, I’ve also learned it goes sooooo much deeper than that. It went back to things from my childhood that led up to that.
I was raised in alcoholism, with that comes so much baggage. Enabling, people pleasing, codependency, fear, manipulation, people trying to control you, you feeling out of control, and not knowing what the day would hold. I think I learned to try not to rock the boat fairly early in life, that was a safe place….so I thought.
I love my mother and father dearly but they divorced before I was 2 and my father remarried and had 3 other daughters. He wasn’t there for me as much as I would have liked him to be or at the time needed him to be. Our relationship then wasn’t as strong as it is today. Thankful God brings restoration.
I lived with my mother who also remarried 4 times and that was very difficult for me in that I didn’t have a stable father figure. Let me say upfront I do not in any way blame her. She worked hard to raise me the best way she knew how and all she wanted was to be loved. She loved the way she knew how and so did my Dad. And can’t we all relate to that? We all want to be loved and accepted, we do what we know….right or wrong. It definitely hindered me in many ways but it also helped shape me into the woman I am today.
I was molested at a young age and back then that wasn’t something you talked about and they also threatened me about telling anyone. So that was yet another deep dark secret that got stuffed deep down.
Your life shapes you for the good or for the bad and at the moment for me it wasn’t good. Things were quickly building for the perfect storm in my life.
At a young age I quickly learned that when I expressed my feelings I got in trouble, or I was told I was wrong for feeling that way. I was also told on several occasions “If you do that you can’t come back home”. I felt rejected and like what I had to say or what I felt wasn’t important. So what did I do, I stuffed my emotions down further and further. That’s what we are doing with our eating disorders or any addiction for that matter.
By the time I had meet my husband and we married I had such low self esteem. I was constantly comparing myself to other women, and of course never measuring up. I literally hated myself. HATED! I would tear myself apart. It’s so sad to say these things but even watching TV was a struggle for me. If a beautiful woman came on tv I began comparing myself to her, telling myself how ugly I was. How my husband prolly would rather have her than me. It was AWFUL!!
The devil knows your weaknesses friend and he will use them against you. He will whisper lies in your ears and if you’re not careful you’ll believe them and they will hold you captive.
It wasn’t until I went to Al-Anon where I started getting help to deal with others in my life who had drinking problems that I was able to get free from some of that and I began loving myself. Today I am in a larger body than I would like BUT I like myself, no I love myself. I’m not where I want to be but praise God I’m not where I was. Amen!!
I can remember one day texting my sponsor with tears in my eyes from a baton competition and telling her how much fun I was having and how in the past they were so difficult for me because of all the cute young girl running around in their little costumes. I was getting FREE little by little and it felt so good!! Some of this is embarrassing to talk about but if I can help one person then it’s worth it to me.
All the things I’ve talked about cause frustration, confusion, distrust, guilt, rejection, fear of failure, shame, people pleasing and so much more. That’s what you begin to think, act, and do. So fast forward to going to counseling, I felt like God lead me to this specific person. I mean for goodness sakes her name was Hope!
Hope means a confidant expectation of something good. Hope was exactly what I had been looking for, for my whole life. Not the person although she’s has been such a blessing in my life but the HOPE God gives us in our time of need.
Hope was what I needed to overcome this disorder and other things in my life that have so enslaved me.
Hope for my future.
Hope for freedom.
Hope to have a voice.
Hope to share my feelings and not feel like I’m wrong for having them.
Just HOPE!
So while I’m still on the road to recovery, I’ll be honest I don’t do the laxatives or diuretics, but on a really bad day or week in my own weakness I have been tempted to restrict and bing, but not as often as I use too PRAISE GOD!! That’s progress. But even if I did give into the temptation to restrict or binge God still loves me and it’s ok God is so good and faithful and He will do it for you to precious one.
Today I can say I have HOPE for a better life. A life of freedom. I have good days and bad days but the thing I’m finding so valuable is my VOICE AND MY FEELINGS, whether their good or bad they are mine and it’s ok to have them and express them in a appropriate way. They no longer have to be stuffed!
Learning to not be lead by my feelings but to feel them and know they are real and they are mine and it’s not wrong to have them or express them.
My job is to allow God to bring healing to me, set healthy boundaries, and use my voice when needed and NOT STUFF IT! Stop stuffing things down just because someone may not like it or not want to hear something uncomfortable. You are not responsible for someone else’s feelings, just your own.
And here’s a freebie, LOL, stop taken ownership and fixing things that are others responsibilities. I have to stay on my side of the street in order to keep myself in a healthy place.
Extending grace to myself is so much harder than it is to do for someone else. I’ve had a lot going on around me and IN me. Sometimes ED screams so loud and other days I feel victorious and it’s so quiet. Imma just say it’s hard work and it’s an every day battle.
A battle to NOT weigh myself everyday.
A battle to eat lunch or not eat lunch.
A battle to not restrict food.
A battle to not binge.
It’s just a battle.
I know the battle belongs to the Lord but sometimes we’ve done things for so long they become ingrained in us and they become a habit and it is a process of overcoming.
This one right here is sooooo soooo important, it’s important to recall where you are versus where you were.
I’m not where I wanna be but I’m not where I use to be either.
I’m no longer abusing laxatives or diuretics. I haven’t done that in 5 years or more. That’s a big ole W!!! 🎉
There were days I would wake up and decide I’m not going to eat today and I wouldn’t. Now I’ve come to realize that restricting food was a form of punishment to myself. I can tell you that thought hasn’t crossed my mind in so long, PRAISE THE LORD!! 🙏🙌🎉
I’m not weighing myself everyday. Y’all literally don’t even know what an amazing accomplishment this is. I would weigh myself everyday, sometimes 2-3 times a day. This is a double W🎉🎉🙌 In order to do this though I had to remove the scale from the bathroom and outta my sight. The first week was so hard I almost got up in the middle of the night to weigh myself, I know it sounds crazy. But that’s ED for ya! I did really well for about 2 or 3 months and not even sure what happened but I decided to go to it’s deep dark hiding place and pulled that evil scale out and stepped on it. THAT WAS A BAD MISTAKE FOR ME! It set me over the top because I had actually gained a little weight as my body heals from all the trauma I put it through . I got in all kinds of fear and old patterns started showing up. Imma do this, Imma do that. I’m not gonna eat this or that. Imma exercise for X amount. That’s ED behavior and it’s what I’m trying to overcome.
But here’s the thing, I’m finally allowing my body and metabolism to heal from all the dieting and self destructive behavior I’ve done to my body so that’s going to happen before it gets better. You can’t put your body through hell for years and years and expect it to perform a peak condition in just a few months. NO it took me a lifetime to get here. It’s a healing process kinda like how our hearts have to heal after being broken. I could just choose something quick and fast because so often quick and fast works, we see results but its temporary and we find ourselves right back in the same place 6 months or 2 years from now at least that’s been my experience. At this place in my life I’m choosing healing and finally getting to the root and freedom even if it takes me a lifetime.
Your body is an instrument not an ornament. You are more than a body💣💯✨
Friend, YOU are more than a body! Diet culture and social media is always telling us how we don’t measure up because of our size, weight, or looks.
Our insecurities can then lead us to the next best diet, restricting, binging, over exercising, and much worse. Diets don’t work on a permanent lifelong basis and they sure don’t promote freedom. Most often when you reach your desired weight you gain it all back and then some within 5 years or less.
If you only love your body when you love how you LOOK that is not love.. That is
OBJECTIFICATION. Think about that for just a minute.
🌟Your body is an instrument, not an ornament.
I’m here to tell you, no matter what your size, weight, or color sweet friend you are GOOD and accepted just the way you are.
🌟 Your body is good right now.
I know that’s hard to accept and think but it’s true! His Word says, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Psalm 139:14
“There is no beauty finish line you have to cross before you deserve to feel good about yourself. You are worthy of love exactly the way you are.”
👑You worthy of love.
👑You are good just the way you are.
👑You are accepted just the way you are.
👑You are Gods masterpiece.
👑You are the apple of His eye.
🌟🌟🌟Just let that sink in and penetrate in those deepest places of your heart!
👑You are loved just the way you are.
👑You are more than a body!🌟
Your body is an instrument not an ornament.
Friend, you are more than a body💣💯✨
Fast forward to 2024, God had put it on my heart to change the way I coach but I couldn’t find a school that had what I wanted. Until this year, I found Christian Non diet Academy, everything I wanted. But let me tell you how is has stretched me. It’s been so hard, so challenging, but oh man it’s so good! Kasey Shuler who is the founder and CEO is just precious. Check out her podcast The Joyful Healy Show, you will love it. I’m sure I was her most high maintenance student🤪🫣 She always leads with grace, wisdom, and encouragement. I would be fearful or anxious about something and she said to me “It’s all grace here” that penetrated me so deeply. We had the best instructors and guest speakers, and I had the bestest mentor, Amy Connell. I was all googly when I found out I had her lol🤣 I even told her I was gonna try to not geek out at our first meeting LOL🤣🙈 Too late. She has helped me tremendously, challenged me, encouraged and supported me. Blessed me. So thankful for this opportunity, we are the proud betas. I was all googly when I found out. I even told her I was gonna try to not geek out at our first meeting LOL🤣🙈 Too late. She has helped me tremendously, challenged me, encouraged and supported me. So thankful for this opportunity, we are the proud betas. Oh, go check out Amy’s podcast too, Graced Health, she’s fantastic! She also has a new book out called “Your Core Strength” if you have a young girl/young woman in your life go buy it!
At NDCA we learned about intuitive eating, prayer, self sabotaging, trauma, body image, eating disorders, disordered eating, and soooo much more. God brought me there for a purpose, to seal the things He has put in my heart, to use my voice, and help other women who are stuck in the destructive patterns I was in. God is so good to walk with you, love on you, and help you get to the other side sweet friend. I’d be honored to help you as well.
THE WORD:
Psalm 139:14 I will praise You because I have been remarkably and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, and I know this very well.
Song of Solomon 4:7 My darling, everything about you is beautiful, and there is nothing at all wrong with you.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Don’t you know that your body is a temple that belongs to the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit, whom you received from God, lives in you. You don’t belong to yourselves. You were bought for a price. So bring glory to God in the way you use your body.
Zephaniah 3:17 For the LORD your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.
You are loved sweet friend and accepted just the way you are! We all have our issues whether it’s an eating disorder or some other kind of addiction God wants you to turn to Him and let Him help you. He will take what the enemy meant to harm and destroy and use for your good. But it’s up to you to let Him.
My ministry exist to inspire women, trapped in eating disorders, disordered eating, and diet culture so they can live a transform life free from restricting, comparing, guilt and shame, by renewing their mind, restoring their body, reviving their spirit with biblical principles and actionable intuitive living principles.
Welcome to my new journey and blog ReviveHer Beauty Renewed
Big hugs,
Nicole 💗
Comments