Replacing My Cravings

The past several weeks I have been consumed with cravings.  As much as I try to over come them I have been giving in a little too much and the scale shows it and so does my body and my mind. 

I first read Made to Crave in August of last year.  I was already in the thick of my weight loss journey but it helped to gain new tools, new insight and ways to look at things.  But as I mentioned the last several weeks/last month I have been struggling.  I try to replay quotes from the book in my head but I was forgetting most of the important tools, quotes and scriptures in the book.  So I am rereading Made To Crave by Lysa TerKeurst.

Chapter two is titled Replacing My Cravings, I honestly don't think there could be a better chapter than that right now!  When I first checked this book out from the library and read it I truly felt like she wrote it just for me and leaping off the pages were all the things I was struggling and dealing with and it cut right to my heart.  So today as I re read this book on my kindle {I bought it while it was on a super cheap sale knowing it would come in handy!} I am highlighting each passage that speaks to me and even taking the time to notate what I feel! {I am really digging the e-reader thing.  I have had it for a while but this is the first book I have truly read on it.} 

I don't know why my cravings have been so intense.  When I first started the 17 day diet they weren't that bad and I made it through eleven days without much hassle and then I got the flu.  I was losing weight and feeling great and wasn't looking back.  This time around I can't gain any momentum, I want to eat everything I know I shouldn't have.  I am the type if you tell me I can't have or do something my brain seems to focus on that exact thing. My willpower has been dwindling and I have honestly been trying hard to get it back! From now on I am not going to tell myself I can't have that.  But I am going to celebrate what I can have and ask God to help me feel satisfied with healthier choices as Lysa suggests in the book.

At the end of each chapter there are questions in a "Personal Reflections" section.  I want to take some time to share what I was thinking.  The first questions asks 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?
My thoughts I too have a ridiculous relationship with my scale.  I know that I am not defined by that number, it is not a measure of my self worth but rather how much my body weighs but that thought alone does not stop me from stepping on the scale each morning and expecting the number to go down from yesterday.  I know this is unrealistic and unhealthy and it is why I have moved the scale from my bathroom to my closet, because I will now have to make additional effort to weigh myself.  When the scale doesn't change and I have been working extra hard at eating right and exercising I cry and beat myself up over it.  Then it is harder to make good choices and is no longer a motivation for me. 

I am about 25 or so pounds from reaching what I have set as my goal.  Not only do I want to reach that number on the scale but I want to be satisfied with myself and my body.