from food to faith
my history
By Becky Ivory
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I started binging when I was too young to remember. Dealing with the common problems of a broken home, and childhood sexual abuse, I was desperate to numb the painful emotions and fears of my childhood. Food became the only way I knew to escape from the constant anxiety that plagued me. At age 18, I jumped on the dieting pendulum and began swinging back and forth…dieting one day, binging the next…never able to stick with any one diet for too long before I found myself knee-deep in comfort-food. Over the next 30 years, I dieted my way up 127 lbs.
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In the mid-90s, I was deep in my struggle to find peace with food, and I heard the famous motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar say, “I think everyone ought to write a book.” That got me thinking, what sort of book would I write? After decades of binge-eating, I wanted to write a book someday about my journey out of compulsive eating. I wanted to help others avoid the years of pain and shame that I was still in the middle of.
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One day, while thinking about what book I would write, the words, From Food to Faith came to my heart and mind, and I knew that this is what God wanted for me, and what He wanted me to share with others. I knew that somehow, faith was tied to the answer I needed. But I wasn’t exactly sure how.
I began studying the scriptures to discover what God’s way of eating and caring for my body would look like. I found that He gave us an unlimited variety of foods, and expected us to eat in moderation and thanksgiving. I realized that He created our bodies with amazing capabilities to detect when we needed food, what kind of food we needed, and how much food we needed. [1] The real struggle for me was, why didn’t I seem to be able to do that? I began the From Food to Faith blog in 2010, determined to find my way away from excess food, and toward stronger faith, inviting others to join me on my journey. I was still wandering in the wilderness, but learning along the way what worked, what didn’t work, and what it meant to turn to faith. |
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The Big Change
Things started to really change for me when I finally got a coach and sponsor, who had overcome an addiction to food herself. Melanie was a no-nonsense mentor, who was finally able to help me see that food was only a symptom. The causes of my problems were spiritual. Spiritual? I just couldn’t believe it. I had a strong faith in God, I tried to followed the commandments. How could the problem be spiritual? Didn’t I just need to eliminate sugar forever? Or cut carbs? Or track all of my food, or take a vow to eat nothing but cardboard? “Nope,” she insisted. The answers were spiritual. It wasn’t long before I began to see that she was right. I started to recognize my tendency to feel like a victim…my desires to control other people and things to avoid feeling pain. It became crystal-clear that all of struggles with food stemmed from my own self-pity, resentment, pride and fear. And those feelings of self-pity, resentment, pride and fear, were attempts to shield me from further pain. To move forward, I had to deal with the physical, the emotional and the spiritual. |
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As I started to shift my focus to finding peace on the inside, I started to find that taking care of my outsides was becoming much easier. The more I took responsibility for my own actions and stopped trying to control the actions of others, the less anxiety there was to be numbed. The more I let go of my resentments and pride, the less I felt the need to fight with others, myself, or food. This is when I made a discovery that literally changed my life. I realized that it isn’t overcoming the war with food that brings us peace. It’ finding peace that allows us to overcome our war with food.
Since then, I have had greater peace and happiness than I had at any weight in the first several decades of my life. As a Certified John Maxwell Coach, Speaker, Teacher and Trainer, I have found that the vast majority of my clients list their struggle with food as their #1 concern. I knew it was time to invite those who are still struggling to join me on my journey. The time had come to share From Food to Faith with the world. |
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I invite you to join me on this incredible journey!
-Becky Ivory
-Becky Ivory
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-history-of-health-food-part-3-the-birth-of-dieting-70429431/