Replacing My Cravings (Chpt 2)

I'm still at it! I missed blogging yesterday, but I started my healthy eating plan and lifestyle change, and I followed through again today, THANK GOD! I've had a bit of struggle with it today, but I know God is carrying my through the temptations, and each small victory is paving the path!

1.) Lysa describes her morning ritual with the scale and her failed efforts to eat healthier as a vicious cycle she felt powerless to stop. When it comes to your relationship with food, what repeated behaviors or events describe the cycle you experience and feel powerless to stop? For me, it's generally a once a month weigh in, that leaves me angry. My weight is either the same amount of too much, or higher. I was addicted to sweets, I was addicted to all food, really. I just loved to eat. All the time. Any time. If I had just eaten, and someone invited me to eat with them, I'd do it. It was the one thing in my life I felt like I had NO control over. I would try to eat less, but if I got too hungry, then I would just binge eat for two days. God is leading me out of the cycle and into something better now!

2.) There are many reasons we have for wanting to eat differently - losing weight, fitting into a favorite pair of jeans, looking good for an important event. What reasons motivate your desire to eat healthier? Do these reasons give your struggles with food a purpose strong enough to help you resist unhealthy eating? How do you respond to Lysa's statement, "I had to see the purpose of my struggle as something more than wearing smaller sizes and getting compliments from others...It had to be about something more than just me"? I don't want my joints to hurt from carrying around the weight, I want my asthma to improve. I hate the way I look when I see myself in the mirror. Even my kids have commented on my weight. Yet, those motivations have never been enough. Realizing that I idolized food, and ran to it for comfort, in joy, in sorrow, in celebration...in all times, made me realize that I wasn't running to God in those times. Also, realizing that God wants to help me, and that He is strong enough to do what I can't, has given me a sense of the coming victory!

3.) "I had to get honest enough to admit it: I relied on food more than I relied on God. I craved food more than I craved God. Food was my comfort. Food was my reward. Food was my joy. Food was what I turned to in times of stress, sadness, and even in times of happiness". Consider your eating experiences over the last few days or weeks. Using the list below, can you recall specific situations in which you turned to food for these reasons?
Comfort: If my feelings get hurt, I reach for the candy.
Reward: I do this all the time! Look, I did dishes. Candy. Look, I vacuumed. Candy. Look, we did lots of school. Candy.
Joy: When I want a big pick me up, we head off to the restaurant. Lately, Buffalo Wild Wings.
Stress: When my baby daddy stressed me out a couple weeks ago, I ate a huge bowl of chips and queso.
Sadness: I want warm, chili, soup, goulash, etc. when I'm sad.
Happiness: When I'm happy about a new photo shoot, we go eat!

Keeping the same situations in mind, how do you imagine your experiences might have been different if you had relied on God, craved God, instead of turning to food? I imagine that I would have learned from each experience more, and more quickly. I also think my relationship with God would have been deepened as I learned to depend on Him and recognized how trustworthy He truly is. Food is so disappointing.

4. How do you respond to the idea of using your cravings as a prompt to pray? How has prayer helped or failed to help in your previous food battles? I think it is a brilliant idea, and I've been praying when I start craving! God has been faithful to answer each prayer, and I'm feeling His hand guiding me through this process!

5.) Brick by brick (or craving by craving), Lysa dismantled her tower of impossibility and used the same bricks to build a walkway of prayer, paving the path to victory. Brick by brick is an effective way to dismantle something but it also takes time and careful work. In your battles with food, are you more likely to choose a drastic, quick-fix approach or a moderate but longer-term approach? What thoughts or feelings emerge when you consider dismantling your own tower of impossiblity one craving at a time? I always wanted the quick fix! I wanted to be done craving, done over eating, done with all of it RIGHT NOW. Yet...when I failed...then I just wanted some magic formula that would make my body look great no matter what I ate. I feel like this is what I ultimately want, but giving up the sweets and candies and all the excess food is a challenge. I'm on day 2 of my healthy eating plan, and the thoughts that are emerging are SWEET VICTORY. Two days down...and forward I shall carry on. Learning to pray away cravings...learning to just pray when I'm craving. That's going to be my new challenge tomorrow. Instead of just pleaing a desperate prayer of craving removal, I'm going to pray for someone or something going on in the world, that way, as my eating habits are changed, my prayers are growing and not self-centered!