How to Overcome Failure Eating (or Failure Habiting) with Heidi Bylsma

Taste for Truth - Weight Loss Encouragement

You know those days when you break your weight loss boundaries and then eat everything in sight? Or you’re trying to break a habit and you have an evening of indulgence?

It's hard to feel hopeful on those days. Yet here's the truth: God redeems failure!

In today's episode of the Taste for Truth Podcast, Heidi Bylsma and I discuss how God helps us on those failure days. We'll also talk about what you can do to get back on track after an evening of failure. We’ll gear the discussion toward weight loss, but the following tips can be applied to breaking any habit.

Here are just a few of the tips we'll be talking about:

1. Ask God, "Where did the derailment begin?"
2. Look for patterns. Do you find yourself breaking your boundaries for the same reasons over and over again?
3. Look for situations to avoid or ways to set things up differently for future success.
4. Make a plan for the future based on why you failed today.
5. Consider modifying your boundaries by keeping trigger foods out of the house. You can still eat these foods, but not at home. (If you’re working on a habit, ask, “What can I do on a practical level to make it difficult to practice my habit?”)
6. Do the failure eating questions from I Deserve a Donut (And Other Lies That Make You Eat) after an evening of failure.
7. Use failure as a learning experience by keeping a "lessons learned list."
8. Use the STALL tool: Stop. Turn. Ask God for help. Listen to what God says. Learn from what He tells you. Love what He tells you.
9. Remember that God doesn't expect us to be perfect, and we shouldn't expect that either. (But don’t use that as an excuse to give up.)
10. Have a praise fest.

Resources We Talked About on the Podcast

• Thin Within
• Heidi's Devotional: God Speaks to Me: Encouragement for Thin Within Sojourners
• Taste for Truth Online Bible study