Did you know that calories are not the enemy? Food is just a tool that the REAL enemy uses to draw us away from our relationship with Christ Jesus. To break away from the toxic relationship you have with food, you have to turn to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to reveal to you when your thoughts become sinful because of food. 

show notes:

In this episode, Heidi shares her struggles with food fixation and how she broke that pattern by redefining her relationship with Jesus. Listen in to learn how your comfort food is hurting your relationship with yourself, with others, and with God. 

“Food is neutral; it should not have this power that we let it have.” ~ Heidi Bramm

Top Takeaways:

• Why food fixation is a form of idolatry just like any other addiction. 
• How the enemy carries out his mission of stealing, killing, and destroying by causing us to be controlled by food.  
• Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you when your thoughts become sinful and controlling. 
• Understand that food, even healthy foods, cannot fix your need to control.
• How to find peace by recognizing that food is not the real enemy but just a tool that the enemy uses to take your focus away from God. 
• How food obsession is affecting your personal relationships, purpose, life, and hindering your testimony. 

What you will learn:

• [7:21] Heidi shares her journey with food struggles and how Jesus has broken them. 
• [9:06] Defining food fixation and the enslavement nature of it in our lives.
• [12:25] The stronghold that food has on us making us feel powerless and controlled. 
• [13:30] All the things that the enemy comes to steal in your life. 
• [15:22] Why eating for comfort is counterfeit comfort only there to take the place of God. 
• [17:30] The spiritual and soul battles within us that steal our joy.
• [21:01] The food declaration to break your obsession with food and mend your relationship with God. 

Relevant Links:

• Full: Food, Jesus, and the Battle for Satisfaction by Asheritah Ciuciu
• Biblical Weight Loss Facebook group: facebook.com/groups/biblicalweightlossblueprint/
• Register for the Food Freedom Workshop, Nov 28 at 7:30pm CST: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pzoN6QIpSsyDiNy6sJQLdA

Detailed Transcript:

Hey, beloved, welcome back to the show. Wow. Okay, I know this is a topic many can relate to and y’all it is making me sweaty because I’m going to be going deep over the next few months on my own personal journey with this topic and it is scary. Okay, I need all the love and support you can give me right now. Because I just changed the banner on my personal profile for my upcoming food freedom workshop. And I did not want to, I could feel the shame trying to rise up in me, the enemy wants to keep me quiet on this, but I am doing it scared because I am on a mission to bring a whole new level of health and wellness and breakthrough to your home and but to you mama to overcome emotional eating so you can heal your relationship with food. So you can restore your identity in Christ and lose the weight for good.

As I was changing that profile banner, it was just like, “oh my gosh, what are people gonna think of me?” And I had to just remind myself that I am here for an audience of one. And it does not matter what others think of me. And my delaying this obedience is the same as disobedience. And so this is what God wants me to share in this season. So I’m going to do it. I know it’s not just for me, and somebody listening to this episode these next few episodes over the couple of months that are coming up here. I know that this isn’t just for me. So in this episode, we’re talking about knowing that calories are not the enemy and the truth that Jesus came to give us life and life to the full.

John 8:32 says “If you continue in My word, you are truly my disciples, then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

So knowing the truth that you are adopted into the Kingdom family that you are no longer a slave to sin, but a saint who has an inheritance in the royal family. Guys, that makes all the difference when you are facing your real enemy that has come to steal, kill and destroy. Your real enemy is not food or even calories.

But first, before we dig into all of that, I want to let you know what’s coming the end of November and also what’s launching in January of 2022.

Beloved, do you feel overwhelmed when it comes to food?

Have you ever felt stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of overeating yo dieting and obsessive thoughts about food or your body image?

Do you look at the scale to determine your self-worth?

Oh my gosh, I was there. That was me! And I’m so excited because I am doing a food freedom workshop and you are invited. We’re going to spend an hour together unpacking what it really takes to break free from bondages to food and struggles with weight — without exercise and even if you struggled your whole entire life.

For many of us, food has become an increasingly complex issue that causes us to feel guilty, overwhelmed or even hopeless. If you feel defeated by your lack of self-control, or overwhelmed by your weight, and thoughts and longings for food, then come join us in the Biblical Weight Loss Blueprint Facebook group. This workshop is going to be held Sunday, November 28 at 7:30 pm Central time and we are going to dig into Scripture and reveal the path to freedom. This workshop will also give you a glimpse into the food freedom curriculum that we use in my biblical weight loss blueprint, which is my 12-week signature program that I’m launching, January 2022.

It’s a faith-based format and it’s comprehensive. It’s holistic in nature. We are body-spirit-soul. And so this program addresses all three with a guided fast and detox. That’s for the physical weight loss portion, a biblically-based food freedom curriculum for the spiritual piece, and finally personal inner healing sessions for the heart and soul-work that is so crucial for lasting freedom. A strand of three cords is not easily broken, and this program has it all!

Weight is just a symptom, it is not about the weight. And yet, it’s not NOT about the weight. And it’s about so much more than the weight but we know the weight is in the way so to speak right, in the way of us truly living our lives to the full. Losing the weight is really just the icing on the cake in this program since yes, you will be losing between 10 to 15% of your body weight, which for most people is about 20 to 25 pounds. But most importantly you will discover the joy of living free from food fixation. You won’t, you’ll just be so surprised by the fact that the thoughts that used to consume your mind that left you mentally exhausted and that like decision fatigue that you get when you’re like “should I eat this, should I not eat this,” okay? That food fixation, right? It’s, you’re going to be free from that. It’s so incredible.

By experiencing deeper satisfaction in Christ you find freedom and you will find the healing from the inside out. And you’ll just realize you no longer need to carry around this extra weight for protection, right because you found true healing and you will finally feel comfortable and confident in your own skin and be able to step into the fullness of what God has for you. I am so so so excited. So come join me for this totally free food freedom workshop that I’m doing for you. This is a spiritual battle we need to arm ourselves with spiritual weapons, we need to overcome the lies with truth.

And I will even have a special guest join us to share her experiences from the 12-week program so you can hear firsthand her results and her takeaways, what was hard for her, what she was surprised by, and then also workshop attendees will get first dibs on applying for the beta version of this program that just in January.

So if you’re ashamed to work out in front of others, if you feel like you can’t stay on a diet, if you can’t stop obsessing about food, or you can’t stop binge eating or drinking, if you avoid the mirror because of what you see and the reflection. If you are stuck in this cycle of shame and self-hatred with your body, or just overcome by fear and anxiety in social settings because you’re feeling like everybody’s looking at you and judging you. Or maybe you’re using food to cope and numb the pain from the past or even when you can’t handle the everyday, everyday stuff, right. And you know that deep down your soul is yearning to be set free. You know, this weight is no longer serving you and you are ready to let it go. You’re ready to be unburdened and just loosen the chains and be completely set free from the bondage of food fixation and binge eating and loneliness and isolation. Okay, please come join us in the Biblical Weight Loss Blueprint Facebook group for the upcoming Freedom Workshop. Again, it’s Sunday, November 28th at 7:30 pm. It will be hosted right in the Facebook group. All right, let’s dig in. 

Alright, beloved, I am so excited that you’ve chosen to just tune in and listen to this episode that is kind of starting to unpack this full life in Jesus. When I first began my own journey, I never could have imagined that the beautiful ways that Jesus would reveal Himself to me. It never even occurred to me to bring my food struggles to Jesus. Maybe you’re like me and you thought, “I should be able to handle this on my own. Like, this is something I should have control over. I should know how to be able to work through this mess. I’ve created this myself,” or whatever you’re thinking. It again hadn’t even occurred to me that my struggle with food could be broken by Jesus. I thought I could pray about it. I thought I could white-knuckle it. I figured I just had to figure it out on my own.

You know, I would plead and beg that he would break the chains of my food fixation and set me free from the distractions that Satan taunted me with. It is something that food for me it was a lure, it was a trap. It was a trick to fill me with instant gratification. Instead of running to God, I would run to food for comfort and to satisfy my flesh. So I wouldn’t let the Spirit lead me. I would use it to numb pain. And so I don’t have a lot in the way of tacticals in this episode, I more just want to plant the seeds that will open your heart to the idea that the Lord wants to fight this battle for you. And victory is found in Jesus. So I’m going to define a few things and also share my personal takeaways from chapter one of Asheritah Ciuciu’s Full book. I went through this book in 2019. And it radically changed my life. In fact, I had a come to Jesus moment in the bathtub, where the Lord instantly delivered me from a spirit of gluttony with drunkenness. And I will share that in another episode.

But all that to say this book is powerful, it will change your life, which is why I chose it for the 12-week curriculum for my breakthrough program, the Biblical Weight Loss Blueprint. Okay, so to truly give you weapons for weight loss that work for lasting freedom, I’m going to unpack this book over the next 12 episodes.

And I first want to start out with defining what is a food fixation. So food fixation is oppressive. It is an enslavement. It is these thoughts over and over and over again these thoughts and these habits that torment and overpower us they control everything. It’s that constant track in your brain of what will I eat next? How much do I weigh today? What will others think of me? Why can I get free of this? Why can I be like others? Why is it so easy for her? Why do I constantly keep struggling with this? What am I going to eat today? Should I have this? Should I have that? Should I avoid that food? Oh my gosh, I just ate that I can’t believe it. Now I have to go eat some more because I ruined my day, right? Or now I have to punish myself because I ate something I wasn’t supposed to. That is a food fixation.

It’s the inordinate preoccupation with thoughts and longings for food. And really at the core of food fixation is a form of idolatry because just like any other addiction, it holds our affections. It holds our focus, it consumes our mind and our thoughts. And so we’re thinking about food and everything that surrounds it more than we’re thinking about God more than we’re thinking about Jesus, and it hinders our relationship with God.

John 10:10 tells us that “The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy,” and He says, “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”

So when we look at what the enemy’s real plans are, his sole mission is to steal, kill, and destroy. And one of the ways he carries it out is by causing us to be controlled by food. You know as well as I do, right that 80% of what lands us in, usually in the doctor’s office is a result of our lifestyle choices. And so when we think about food and food addictions that, you know, have us giving in to our cravings and being controlled by our cravings. And having us try to lose weight without success because these foods are constantly calling us back. That is something that he is using. After all, he used a simple piece of fruit right to cause the fall of the entire human race.

And so if Eve can fall for it, if Adam can fall for it, these things that are pleasing to the eyes that have these promises, that we know are really just trying to appease our flesh and satisfy our flesh. But in the end, it’s not successful for us, it’s not good for us, it really just steals from us and uses, you know, is a way to control, to shame us, destroy us. And again, when we look at it in this way of idolatry, right, the worship of a false god, we are seeing that when we partake in overeating, you know. Way back during ceremonies, people would eat the food that was dedicated to demons, because it was a way for them to come along with those evil spirits. Now, I’m not saying that believers today are doing this and sacrificing food to idols, but we still engage in that sin of gluttony and essentially partner with demons by overeating, when it’s not something that we feel like we have control over when our food thoughts and over indulgences, and overeating and just this way to comfort or numb or whatever.

And we’re turning to food almost like, you know, you catch yourself with, uh, your hand and a bag of chocolate chips or regular chips. And you’re like, “How is this even happening? How am I even doing this?” You’re on this hypnotic highway of food and you don’t even realize that you’re doing it. That has a stronghold over you that has control over you. And so there’s another definition I want to bring up here. And that is the word stronghold.

A stronghold is anything that has a stronghold on us, right? It can make us feel powerless. It’s almost like you’re being controlled by something else. And so when we look at this and apply it into our lives, around food, it becomes like this bigger than life, food fixation, steals our attention again, and our focus. Makes us feel like we’re controlled or this thing has mastery over us. It consumes so much of our emotional and mental energy that an abundant life is virtually impossible for us. And so it makes us feel like we don’t have control over our actions because this stronghold is what has the control over us. And so when you look at this constant presence of these thoughts that are overwhelming, that are making us feel hopeless, that is not the life that God intended for us. So we need to break that and in order to do that, we need to recognize what the real enemy is here.

The real enemy is not food and is not calories. Okay? For me, the enemy’s preferred bait is food. He’s using food for that purpose. He’s using the cravings and the comfort, the elusive promise that this, these foods are going to give me comfort right?

He uses food to steal my peace through consuming thoughts about food.

He uses it to steal my victory by luring me back into temptation.

He uses it to steal my joy by drawing me away from God and into shame.

He uses it to isolate me from others, slowly killing my soul.

He uses it to kill me slowly through body afflictions.

He uses them to keep me quiet, to wreck my testimony, and dull my light causing darkness and desperation of worldly solutions, right?

This cycle of yo-yo dieting and promises in the next fad, etc, all of that. So ask yourself, what is controlling your heart in this moment? Is it Satan? Or is it the Holy Spirit? Bondage enslaves us again from what Jesus died to set us free from. So ask the Holy Spirit to reveal. This is what I did. I said, “Holy Spirit, reveal to me and convict me. when my thoughts become sinful and controlling.” When it’s obsessive. When it’s this idolatry. Thinking that food is going to solve my problems, that food is going to bring me comfort, that food is going to take all the pain away, right?

Food cannot fix anything. Even the need to control, with healthy food. Right? I only compound my misery when I take my brokenness to food, even when it feels like I’m doing a good thing by eating healthy. But then that is controlling me. And I’m having anxious thoughts about eating something that I shouldn’t be eating. Food is neutral. There is no obsessing about should I or shouldn’t I, it’s food. It’s neutral. It should not have this power that we let it have.

So I asked “Holy Spirit,” I said,” Help me to abandon my self-constructed salvation projects and turn to you, eat and drink of Him and find peace, joy and comfort and delight in Him, find the daily bread and water in Him, and also the abundant milk and honey.” So when I was going through this chapter in 2019, this was actually a kind of around this time, it was November 30, I have in my notes, and Holy Spirit revealed that the sugar rush or the high, the kind of adrenaline/cortisol rush that I was getting from eating processed foods, baked foods, rich foods, it was the counterfeit comfort in the form of numbing that I was seeking and putting in place of God’s comfort. So this sugar-rich, warm, creamy, you know, think about a latte, crackers and cheese, baked goods, chocolate, you know, muffins, anything with sugar, that rush that I would get in my physical body, right?

The adrenaline, the cortisol, all that was giving me comfort, but it was a counterfeit comfort in the form of numbing that I was seeking after instead of putting my God first. And so that food was taking the place of God in my life. So one thing I’d written down in my journal is, “where and how can I find soul and spirit satisfaction and God?” Because at this point, I was completely lost. I’m like, “Okay, how do I do this? Like, what does this even look like?” And so I had written down, “okay, well, it’s not in shame. It’s not in autonomy. I’m not going to find it myself. It’s not in self-sufficiency. It’s not in masking my need for God.”

It’s not in worldly things, you know that I would kind of look for satisfaction, whether it be Facebook or work or my devices. But here’s what I, what I wrote “that I will find it in: an abundant life, in divine purpose and calling, in belief, in faith, in surrender, in obedience to the Lord, and bringing people to Jesus, right? Saving of souls, relying on God’s power to do for me what I cannot do on my own.” And so I had written down soul, spirit body, right? We are three-person beings, we are made in the image of God. And so we are tri-dimensional, God purposely placed our souls and spirits inside bodies. And this represents God – our souls like God, our spirits like his Holy Spirit inside, and our bodies which is Christ.

Jesus didn’t ignore his appetites, but he wasn’t controlled by them either.

Okay, so I put when we look at

Soul: transform your thoughts and feelings about food,

Spirit: satisfy your hunger for God in His presence and

Body: find a healthy eating plan that satisfies.

So I put down “food is not the enemy”. Our strongholds and walls that were created by Satan and his army are there to steal our attention and our focus away from God. They are meant to consume so much of our emotional and mental energy, again, that then abundant life is strangled. It’s impossible and our callings remain largely unfulfilled. And our believing lives are virtually ineffective, not by notably bad things, but by everyday distractions, overwhelms, obsessions, fixations, time-wasters, and so that life slowly gets sucked out of you. You feel strangled, suffocated, drained, and hopeless.

So things that I put down that need to go were, you know, because when I think about when I was more likely to turn to food, and I was able to journal this and notice patterns over time, it was being triggered on Facebook, and we’re going to talk about triggers. It was spending too much time on my business. And so I wasn’t feeling fulfilled in these other areas of my life. It was clutter in my office and in my home. And just that, surrounding me and knowing that I needed to deal with it, but wasn’t creating the time or being intentional about dealing with it. And so what I wrote down what needs to take place, I’m like, Okay, “we need to have a homeschooling plan. And we need to have a daily work schedule and a daily family schedule. And a personal schedule. Time to declutter.” You know, time is meant to serve you. It is a great servant, it’s a terrible master. Something that really hit me in her first chapter of her book, in this Full book was this little excerpt and I’ll read it to you.

She says, “There is an enemy and he is after something in your life and it is the truth. And I fear that we do not take this seriously enough. If I were your enemy, I would make you numb and distract you from God’s story. I would use technology, social media, Netflix, travel, food, wine, and comfort. I wouldn’t tempt you with notably bad things, or you would get suspicious. I would distract you with everyday comforts that solely feed you a different story and make you forget God, then you would just miss the spirit’s leading in you, loving you and comforting you. Then you would love comfort more than surrender, obedience, and the saving of souls.”

Does that hit you as much as it hit me? I mean, wow, the battle, right? Satan and his army are fighting as hard as they can to keep, again ME, I’m saying for me, they keep me from looking for satisfaction in all the wrong places. The weapons are not worldly diets. fads, wine, Netflix, social media. They are prayer, God’s Word, the Spirit of God. In 2 Corinthians, Paul says, “We fight with spiritual weapons that have divine power to demolish strongholds, we can rely on God’s power and truth to annihilate our enemy.”

Yay, good news, right? He delights in fighting this battle for us and we are assured victory! So here’s the declaration I wrote and I invite you to adopt this for your own. Get out a pen and paper, whatever comes to you let the Holy Spirit guide you. And this is my declaration.

I said, “I am fully dedicated to overcoming food fixation, by the shame and hate, and any other stronghold in this area that is keeping me from finding satisfaction and comfort in the Lord. Thank you, God, for breaking the power that food and alcohol, and sugar addiction has had over me. And by the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit, I command it to bend the knee to the authority of Jesus Christ right now. I receive God’s empowering strength to change my daily habits and thoughts as He carries me day by day and continues to work and the transformation that he started until it has finished.”

All right, love. Don’t be deceived by thinking that that extra bite, that extra helping, or that cookie sleeve isn’t hurting anyone. Because just like any other addiction, it doesn’t just affect our health, it affects our relationships. Our relationships with ourselves, our relationships with others, and our relationship with God. It affects our lives and our purpose and the sowing of seeds, and it hinders our testimony. So just like Jesus didn’t ignore his appetite or let it control him, teach me, Lord, teach me and lead me during times that I am struggling so I don’t spend more time and energy thinking about food than I do about growing and my relationship with Christ. And I delight more and am happy more in my relationship with Christ than I am in food.

So that is all for today, beloved, again, be sure to join us in the Biblical Weight Loss Blueprint Facebook group for our upcoming workshop, the end of November. All are invited. It’s open to everyone. In the meantime, I pray that you prosper in your health just as your soul prospers, that the Holy Spirit continues to guide you in all truth, that He will not speak on His own but he will tell you what he has heard and he will tell you about the future and that he tells you the prosperous plans the Lord has for you in Jesus name, amen.

Hey, beloved, real quick before you go. If you found value in today’s podcast and you learned something new, head over to iTunes for covered beloved and leave a five-star review. Hit subscribe while you’re there. And of course, if you have friends who would benefit from today’s episode, be sure to share. Until next time, remember God’s got you covered.