And what I’d like to talk to you today about are the false gods of weight loss. And in the past I’ve used the word mini gods, M-I-N-I, but I truly love the concept of a false god because I only want in my life one true God. One true God. I want no false gods. One true God. So let’s talk about what a god is and how we can be making false gods out of the scale, our pant size, and food.

And I bring this up as a conversation to, again, be light, to introduce a concept to you, perhaps to illuminate to you something that needs to be rooted out in your life. And I don’t have this conversation out of shame at all, because I can tell you I still struggle with making all three of those things a false god in my life.

But if we look at our one true God, and we look at. And I’m sure there’s a thousand definitions of what a god is, but I picked three to keep this a very simple conversation. If our one true God is where we find our security and our safety, I’m okay because I’m His. I’m okay because He’s protecting me. I know He’s ultimately working everything out for my good. I am safe and secure because I am the Lord’s.

Okay, so it’s where we find our safety and security. The second attribute, if you will, of a god is its where we find our value and our worth. I am valuable because I am God’s, and He created me. That makes me of infinite worth. And the third is how we act. So as daughters of the Lord, we do things to please Him, and we’re willing to be uncomfortable.

Some of the things that we do aren’t always great, and we don’t really wanna do them. Like, we forgive because it pleases God, even when we don’t feel like it. We’re kind and loving because it pleases God, and sometimes we don’t feel like it. We’re honest when sometimes it would be easier not to be, because we know it pleases Him.

And we keep Him as our one true God, and we have faith, and we surrender to Him even though it’s so hard to trust sometimes. So if we take those three things, where we find our safety and security, where we find our value and our worth, and what we are willing to act toward to achieve, so to please that God, our one true God. I’d like to go through the false gods. And have that conversation about them.

So if we take the first one as our body size and our body shape, when we make our body size and our body shape a false god, it’s where we find our safety and security in the way our body looks. I’ll be okay if, dot, dot, dot, I look a certain way. I am safe and protected if I look a certain way.

And yes, we live in a Western culture, and we could arguably say that some body sizes are more valued than another. But as women and daughters of Christ, we want to find our safety and security in Him. So when we’ve had decades of dieting mentality, it’s very easy to make a false god out of the way that our body looks. I’ll be okay when my body looks a certain way.

Okay? It’s also, we could be very prone to finding our value and our worth in the way our body looks. We feel more valuable if we’re thinner or less valuable if we are bigger, that one feels better or worse than the other. And it could go a million different ways. Some people find safety and security in their body being bigger.

But it’s not in our body size that we find our value. Our value is found as daughters of Christ because He created us. But it is so possible to make a false god out of our body and find our value and our worth there. And the third part is we do things and we act to please that god or to achieve that body shape.

And so if we make our body a false god, then we’re willing to do the uncomfortable things to achieve that. We’re willing to white-knuckle our way through various diets or restrictions or deprivation. And I want you to hear me. I am not saying that being at a healthy weight is a bad thing. I’m not saying that being healthy is a bad thing.

What I’m saying is that we care for our bodies as a way to steward our bodies as a gift from the Lord well. We take care of our bodies as an act of appreciation. And we give ourselves health by doing healthy things. Because we value our bodies because they’re gifts from the Lord. Health and a healthy weight are not our false god.

Because we’re valuable enough because we’re His, we then value ourselves In the most ordered way. I mean, that’s the most ordered way. But this conversation is to talk about how that can become sort of skewed when we have that diet mentality, and when we’re in the diet culture, our bodies can be a false god.

So now let’s move on to the scale. The number on the scale, not the actual device. Nobody is really bowing down to the device, I don’t think.

But the number on the scale, and when we look at that in terms of our three attributes of a god, finding our safety and security in that number, that we almost exhale if the number is the, quote, “right number,” and then go into dread if the number is the wrong number. When the scale can determine your emotional wellbeing, it has become a god. A false god, but a god.

When we look to the scale to give us our value and our worth. I’m okay if the number says the right thing, and I’m not doing okay if it says the wrong thing. I’m more valuable or less valuable or more worthy or less worthy because of that number. That’s when it becomes a false god. And that’s, again, when we are willing to do uncomfortable things. Maybe go on a liquid diet.

I remember doing things like I’m doing a raw food diet. I’m only doing liquids. I’m only doing fruits and vegetables so that I could get that number on the scale to move. That’s when it becomes a false god. I’m now caring for myself because of what I want the scale to say, not because of how God tells me I should treat myself.

And finally, if we look to food. Now, we can look at food from a couple different angles. I’m gonna look at food from the emotional angle first. So if I lean on food to give me my safety and security, that when I’m emotionally having a hard time, I turn to food for comfort, it can become a false god.

When I start to moralize my food, “Well, I’m good if I eat this way, and I’m not good if I eat that way. I have more value if I’m eating a certain way and less value if I’m eating a different way.” If we start moralizing our food, putting labels on our food, and believing that my worth is determined by the food that I put in my mouth, I’m making it a false god, that it’s defining me. It’s giving me a- my identity.

And I’ve been on both spectrums, where I just think, “Whoa, I am Miss Eat Clean. I am so healthy. I am way above all of the other humans because I am so much more evolved. And I’ve been on the other end where I feel like a piece of garbage because of the food that I put in my mouth.

And I want all of us to know that no matter how little or how much we eat, it does not affect our value. It does not affect our worth. We are equally loved and valued whether we’re eating a salad or a chocolate cake.

But I want you to see, and of course all of us are saying, “Well, yeah, that makes sense.” And I think that this is how God views this when we are moralizing our food and giving ourselves value based on the food we put in our mouth. I think He’s saying, “You guys are kinda getting this a little skewed because I don’t see it that way at all.”

And when we make food that false god, we’re willing to be uncomfortable. We’re willing to do hard things to make sure that we eat a certain way. Or you guys, you have to understand this, and I’m sure some of you have lived this, I know I have, especially when I was more in my binge eating days, where I would coordinate life around when I could eat certain foods, and I would start preparing to make sure I had certain foods in the house over the weekend.

And if I didn’t have certain foods, maybe I would go get them, or I would make mock sort of, let’s just say it was a like chocolate ice cream. Maybe you make some sort of mock version. I’ve had women in our programs say they’ll make. This one woman told me it was a poor man’s peach pie, where she would take white bread, butter, sugar, and I think canned peaches.

And so you would make sure that you had something, and I’ve heard this a lot with women who have sugar cravings where they will eat bread and butter and sugar. But we’ve all done that, where our brains have been consumed by and absolutely obsessed with eating certain foods at a certain time, where we’re willing to go out in the middle of the night, some of us, and get that food.

That’s when it becomes a false god. That’s when it becomes where we’re seeking our security. That’s where we’re believing I’m only okay if. And I bring this conversation up because I will be the first one to raise my hand and say that I have struggled significantly with all of these, and at greater or lesser degrees, probably 100% of the time.

And I actively work to remove them as false gods. And I think that’s what God is asking us, to start to notice where we’re putting our safety and security, our value and worth in what our body looks like and what the scale says, in food, in the way we’re using food or not eating food.

And what I think the truth is, and what making God our God again simply says, “Hey, God loves me. I’m valuable because He created me and loves me. And therefore, I will care for myself as that valuable human, as that cherished daughter, as that precious daughter of the Lord’s.

And that’s the reason I’m caring for myself. That’s the reason I nourish myself well. That’s the reason I allow myself to eat any food unconditionally and learn how to do it in a way that’s peaceful. That’s the reason, because I’m His. Not so that my pants size changes, not so that the scale moves, not so that I feel that I’m eating the right food, so I’m truly His.

And that is how all of what we do in Weight Loss with the Holy Spirit can be an act of worship. That we’re doing it simply to please Him. And so that, my friends, is what I mean by weight loss with the Holy Spirit. We keep God our God, not the scale, not our pants size, and not the magic diet, because God is our one true God.

And you are worthy, you are valuable, you have infinite worth. It has nothing to do with the food that you put in your mouth. It has nothing to do with what the scale says. It has absolutely nothing to do with the size and shape of your body.

Yes, we want to be healthy, but we want to be healthy as a gift to Him. We want to be healthy because that is what He wants for us. And that’s why we do this work, because we want Him as our one true God. We want our lives ordered and balanced, and we want our lives completely connected to the Lord, completely aligned with Him.

I hope you heard something today that you needed to hear. And if you’d like to take your first steps in making God your God, the first thing is being able to surrender your food and weight struggles to the Lord, which we love doing with the Surrender Novena every single day. And the second thing is being able to reorder your food the Catholic way, to meal plan the Catholic way.

And a lot of people have no idea what that even means. Well, if you’d like to take your first steps and learn how to finally meal plan the Catholic way, which I truly believe is the number one skill that you need to be at your healthy weight for the rest of your life, it’s the number one skill that’s kept me at my healthy weight for the last 12 years.

It’s the number one skill that I started using when I first started and I still use today, then I invite you to start the Catholic Meal Planning Challenge. It is a self-paced course that you can do over six weeks. I’m gonna put this link in the description and you can get started right away.

So enjoy that Catholic Meal Planning Challenge because it will be the way that you truly can keep God your God. Not the scale, not your pant size, not the magic diet. We keep God our God.

All right, everybody, have a blessed day.