Day 3 of the Very Low Calorie Diet. hCG. Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, aka The Pregnancy Hormone. (If you’re reading this and wonder what on earth I’m talking about, please feel free to use google.)

I woke up one morning last week and decided “today is the day”. My bff had been talking about her latest round with hCG, and apparently it stuck in my mind. For the past 6 months or so, I’ve been eating as a reaction to life. I never understood ’emotional eating’ until I began emotionally eating. It’s been a rough year. I’ve had to give complete control of a situation to God and that has not been simply done. I discovered the morning last week that it had not been done at all.

I woke up and told myself “today is the day”. Actually, a voice inside of me told me. I don’t think it was my voice. You know the one – “Why bother? You’re a crappy mom. You’re fatter than you’ve ever been. Do you *see* your chins? Your hair is nasty. Those zits are disgusting. You’re a shitty friend. You don’t have any friends. Because you’re a **really** shitty friend. Look how hard your husband works. What if something happens to him? Your kids will be screwed if they’re left with only you. You really think you can keep a business running like he can? You forget everything. It’s no wonder no one wants to hang out with you. You’re lazy. You suck.” – you know, **that** voice.

“Today is the day.” It was the day to start getting my body back in working order. It was the day to stop feeding my face for the sake of celebration, the sake of loneliness, the sake of no-one-cares-anyway. It was the day to properly honor this temple that God has entrusted to me. It was the day to stop teaching my kids by example how to run their body into the ground. It was the day to pray.

Yep, pray. Overlapping all of these other things this day was about, PRAYER umbrellaed every single one. Two thoughts were happening simultaneously. PRAYstopfeedingfaceER. PRAYhonorGodER. PRAYstopleadingbybadexampleER. Prayer was the meaning of today. More on that later…

My answers to chapter 2 of Made to Crave, by Lysa TerKeurst:

1. The resounding fact that I have no control over my children. Oh, I can discipline, attempt to teach lessons, prepare them for adulthood, encourage them, love them and lead them in the ways of Christ. But I cannot control their thoughts, their actions, their relationship with people and God. We’ve had a tough year with our 15 year-old son and instead of reaching to God, depending on God, trusting God, I chose to control what our son does, who he talks to, what activities he can or cannot be a part of, and even went so far as to control the words that come out of his mouth and the thoughts that he is or is not allowed to think. Oh yes, I’m the parent and being responsible for my child is my job. HOWEVER. In all of this, I can only think of two times that I even consulted God as to what to do. In fact, the two times I did cry out to Him all I did was cry. A lot. I cried because I’m scared for my son. I bellowed because it hurts to see your child hurt. I bawled because everything I have done to ‘train him up in the way he should go (Proverbs 22:6)’ ended up turning to crap. I yelled because I was mad at God. I was disappointed in my son. I was fearful for the example he was to our younger daughter. I was disgusted by my son’s actions, thoughts, words and plain ol’ indifference to life in general. So I cried. And cried. And probably went into the fetal position with my helplessness and overall fear. My. Son. Is. Not. Perfect. I obviously failed as a mother, so I guess I’ll go eat worms. Only in this case the worms were cake and cookies and chocolate and pastries in outlandish amounts and all of the time.

2. My need to draw closer to God.

3. I would have received God’s guidance instead of getting fat(ter).

4. I used this ‘method’ about 14 years ago and lost 40 lbs. And kept off the weight, worked out and cared about what I put in my body. For 6 years. Even to the point that I was diligent in not gaining unnecessary weight when I was pregnant with my daughter. I have never gotten back to my pre-pregnancy weight, but I have still cared about food. Working out? No. I’ve totally not cared about that. But this past year, I have consciously, callously destroyed God’s plan for honoring Him with this temple He houses my soul in.

5. Moderate but longer-term approach. Although Phase 2 of the hCG diet is a rapid weight loss phase, there is a lot more to follow through with. One craving at a time – Hope, Trust, Need, Comfort, Growth, Communion, Desire, Truth.

Kind of a modge-podge of things in this blog, but if you stay with me, I will catch you up as I continue with this book.