Prayer Investigator: Can Prayer Help You Lose 100 lbs? with Christine Trimpe

Christine Trimpe is a special guest for an inspiring episode of Prayer Investigator that explores one woman's remarkable 100-pound weight loss and spiritual renewal. Join host Linda Evans Shepherd as she interviews health and wellness coach Christine Trimpe about overcoming her self-described "casual Christian" lifestyle and food addiction through prayer, biblical principles, and lifestyle changes. Discover how Christine's pivotal moment at Rocky Mountain National Park set her on a path of holistic healing, where she not only transformed her physical health but also deepened her relationship with God. This episode offers practical insights, encouragement, and a powerful reminder that true transformation begins in the heart.

Chapter Markers:
0:00 - Introduction
2:15 - Christine's "Casual Christian" Confession
5:30 - The Rocky Mountain Turning Point
9:45 - Steps Toward Transformation
14:20 - Breaking Up with Sugar
18:15 - The Power of Prayer
21:40 - Prayer for Viewers
24:10 - Heart Transformation Leads to Bodily Transformation
26:45 - Christine's New Coaching Program
28:30 - Closing Remarks

Reflection Questions:
1. Have you ever experienced a "turning point" moment that prompted you to reevaluate your spiritual or physical health? What was that experience, and how did it impact you?

2. Christine mentions breaking up with sugar and refined carbohydrates. What are some practical steps you could take to develop a healthier relationship with food?

3. Throughout the episode, Christine emphasizes the importance of prayer and leaning on God for transformation. How can you incorporate more prayer and biblical principles into your own wellness journey?

4. Christine talks about filling the "holes" in her soul with unhealthy habits. What are some positive, life-giving practices you could cultivate to find fulfillment in Christ?

5. After listening to Christine's story, what is one actionable step you feel inspired to take toward holistic health (physical, mental, and spiritual)?

Linda Evans Shepherd is an international speaker and a best-selling author of 38 books including Praying Through the Hard Times. She is the CEO and founder of Right to the Heart Ministries which includes the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, Arise Esther Movement, Leading Hearts Magazine, and the Arise Daily Devotionals.
Important Links:
Linda's Prayer Books: https://www.gottopray.com/linda-s-pra...

Get Linda's Blessing Gift Here: https://blessing.pages.ontraport.net/...

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Transcript

 My friend Christine transformed her heart, and when she did, she dropped a hundred pounds. Stay tuned to find out how she did it. Welcome to the Prayer Investigator. I'm Linda Evans Shepherd. My guest today is Christine Trimpe, a health and wellness coach who has lost over 100 pounds, and she has a free guide for you, the cravings crusher, that she's going to tell you about at the end of the program.

Christine, we are so glad that you are here. Welcome to the prayer investigator. Thank you, Linda. I am overjoyed to be here.  Now, you confessed to me earlier today that you used to be a casual Christian. What do you mean by that? Tell us your story.  Oh, I love to say that I used to be a casual Christian and my life has completely been transformed because even despite growing up in the church, growing up in a Christian family, I spent 30 years, Linda, just wandering away from the Lord.

And like, I describe it like having a casual relationship with somebody in your community, you would bump into them in the grocery store, maybe, and you'd want to spend 10 or 15 minutes catching up on all the things. But then if you didn't see that person for  three months, six months, a year, it was really no big deal.

And that was my approach to my Christian faith, even though I was a child in. After school Bible studies and I gave my heart to Jesus all the time like every Tuesday But during 30 years of my life I was very far from the Lord until I came to my turning point moment and i'm sure many of your listeners Have had their own turning point moments.

Mine happened to be on the side of a path at Rocky Mountain National Park. And yeah, I love Rocky Mountain National Park. I was very excited to go there, take my husband there for our 25th anniversary. And we got to the Bear Lake park and he wanted to hike up to Nymph Lake. And so I set out on this adventure.

Um, and I was, I was, I was, I was on this, this path with him and it wasn't very long before I was really gasping in, sucking in air, and I literally could not go another step.  That was my turning point moment. That was when I had to face the hard truth that how I was treating my earthly temple, my body was not the way that the Lord had in store for me.

So sitting on that stump on the side of the road, I remember just feeling so exhausted, so deflated, so much guilt, so much shame in my condition.  I remember praying, God, I just want to feel better. And I didn't pray to the Lord to help me lose a hundred pounds because I had tried for 30 years at that point to lose that extra hundred pounds I was carrying around.

But  I felt resigned to the fact that I was always going to be overweight. I just wanted to feel better. I wanted to be able to stop sitting on the sidelines of life and to be able to climb up a path with my husband when we go out on adventures and things like that. So in that moment, that is when God met me in.

My muddy pit, like what David talks about in Psalm 40, where he writes like, I waited patiently for the Lord. And he heard my cry for some reason, God was gracious enough to hear my cry in that moment. And then him and I, we began the very difficult work of pulling me up. From that muddy and miry pit, and he did put my feet on a solid rack.

And just like David writes, he put a new song in my mouth. And I just can't stop talking about how he's transformed my life because I had the resolve. Finally, for the first time in my life, and he led me step by step in what a true healing journey would look like leaning on the Lord. And he set me free from decades of obesity.

Lots of chronic health issues. And he did put a new song in my mouth and he actually told me to start talking about it, which  in my casual Christian years, I never was comfortable about sharing my faith or my testimony or anything gospel related, because I was hiding out too much and living in this guilt and shame.

So that's where my story began. Praise God, I did end up. reversing many chronic health issues, reversing morbid obesity, and leaving a corporate career to be able to write and speak for the Lord. So that's where I'm at today.  Wow. What an amazing story. And so I know that it just didn't happen overnight.

What were the steps that you took to see this change come true? It was a step by step process for sure. It took a long time to get to the point where, first of all, I had to actually acknowledge that I was stuck in my circumstances and a lot of those circumstances were of my own making. But. Graciously, God led me down a journey of discovering that weight loss is a lot about your hormonal health, and I had never heard anything like that from a doctor.

So as I began doing my own research, when I came home from that trip, I was immediately diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea because that's what I resolved. To do coming home from that trip was I want to fix my sleep. So I have more energy. So I scheduled a sleep study. Sure enough. I came home with a CPAP, but that just sent me down the path of investigating like prayer, investigating, uh, investigating hormonal health.

And I learned that sugar is a major hormone disruptor. And that was why I was pre diabetic. And that was why I had. Fatty liver disease and my standard American diet high in carbohydrates. I was not eating a whole lot of sugar at the time in the sense of the sweet sugar because I never was one to really indulge in that type of treats and stuff, but I was eating potatoes, pasta, bread.

Those are all sugars, which I didn't like. Didn't really think about them being sugar. So it wasn't until the Lord led me step by step into learning like the science behind what is happening in my metabolism with what I'm feeding it, that I began to walk out on this freedom journey with Jesus. And just, I really geek out about the science of low carb, sugar free living.

And just so grateful that through my own investigation, I was able to discover something that finally worked for me.  Well, that is so incredible that you made that journey. And I'm wondering, what would you say to other people who are going, Oh, wow, I need that. How can they get started on a journey like that?

Well, I want to encourage anyone watching that you can break up with sugar. It is possible. You can break those sugar cravings. I talk about cravings a lot because I really believe that God did create us to crave and that we do have these longings in our hole. When I talk about my food addictive behaviors, I was filling up those holes, those nooks and crannies in my soul with highly addictive foods.

Sugar and refined carbohydrates like potato chips, Doritos, things like that. They, I believe, I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I really believe that they are manufactured to keep us wanting to come back for more. Do you remember that old Lay's commercial? I bet you can't just eat just one.

They want you to keep eating more. So they are very addictive, but that pattern and that cycle can be broken. Physiologically. When you wean yourself off of sugar and refined carbohydrates like that within a couple of weeks time, you can realize that, wow, I am no longer craving sugar. I'm no longer craving unhealthy food. 

And then the hard work begins about dealing with all the emotional behaviors surrounding food and emotional regulation and all of that, which was truly the most difficult part of the journey. But by picking up my Bible every day.  Learning how God wants us to walk out this one life that he gives us.

It's a faith based journey, and when you lean on the Lord for this, you can overcome these obstacles and these hurdles that are keeping you unhealthy, stuck in unhealthy patterns for your body, mind, and spiritual health. How did prayer help you adjust to your new lifestyle?  Every day I have to wake up and my Bible and beans time I call it and part of my process is always journaling through prayers and surrendering.

It's a daily surrender, Linda. It really, truly is. And specifically for me, my daily surrender is in regards to my food choices, my fasting routine. My. Feelings and my fitness, not just fitness of my body, but also my mind. And I do that all by faith. And so I spend that time every day, first thing, surrendering all of that to the Lord and prayer is truly the only thing that has gotten me through this, because I know that day by day, especially in.

Seasons of overwhelming emotion that I can run back to prayer. I can run to my journal if I need to go and if I think, Oh, I just learned something two days ago, the Lord showed me through his word and I always run back to that and read stuff like that. And then just spend time in prayer with him. It really, truly is the biggest tool that I used in this transformation process. 

I know that there's someone watching who is saying, Wow, that sounds fantastic. But honestly, I need prayer before I can learn how to live a life of prayer like that. Christine, could you just pray for them? Pray with them so that they can get started into this journey. Yes, absolutely. And I'm going to pray through my favorite verse that sustains me right now.

So Heavenly Father, we just want to come to you for any listener right now, Lord. I know I've been through this journey and I know that it is possible for you to fill each and every listener's heart with greater freedom and joy that David writes about in Psalm 4 7. You fill our hearts with greater joy than when green and new wine abound and Lord.

So we know that you have. You have a plan and a purpose for each and every listener's life today. And we just want you to come alongside, give them guidance and just direct them, put something on their heart for their wellness and help them turn to you, Lord. And we ask all this in your precious name.

Amen. Amen. I'm just going to add a prayer to that. And I'm just going to say, Lord,  our friend, we all need a change. We all need to get right with you and learn how to walk without addiction, whether it's the Oreo cookie or  it's something in the medicine cabinet.  Lord, help us. Show us the way out  so that we can learn to walk with our full hearts with you, committed to you and to have you in our life, renewing our hearts, renewing our soul every day.

Lord, we just lay it all down in Jesus name. Amen. Christine, do you have one more thing that you would like to share with our viewers?  I have another favorite scripture I'd love to share because this really speaks to what changed my life. When Jeremiah in chapter 15, 16, he writes, when your words came, I ate them, they were my joy and my heart's delight for I bear your name.

Oh, Lord, God almighty. And that truly is what changed my heart. Linda was getting into God's word.  Flipping over that casual relationship into a deep and abiding relationship with him is this weight loss journey. It, it has all been about a true heart transformation and for that, I'm ever grateful for his word.

So with your heart transformation, you got a body transformation. Right, exactly. Like the weight loss is wonderful, but it's the heart of the matter. It truly is the heart of the matter. It's the heart behind it and boy, I am so excited about this and you have an announcement to make about how people can get involved with your training.

Yes, I have a brand new coaching program that I'm so excited about because it's going to go hand in hand with my book that's coming out this fall and the program is called the Sugar Freed Me Weight Loss Solution and it's a holistic program. I say it's holistic health. Field by faith. We focus on the body, mind, and spiritual health, and they can connect with me through grabbing my free guide, Crush Your Cravings.

Like I mentioned,  I believe God created us to crave, so let's learn how to crave well.  And how can people get a copy of that? They can connect with me through christinetrim. com.  That is wonderful. Well, I know that there are people here who are already typing in your name into the internet to find what you have to offer because it can be life changing and life saving.

And so not only will they get a new heart, they may get a transformation. And that is beautiful. Thank you so much for being here today, Christine. Thank you for having me, Linda.  I hope you enjoyed our time with Christine. And if you did, would you like, share, subscribe, comment? We would love to hear from you and we have a free gift for you.

It is a beautiful blessing that you can play, pray, and print. Just go to MyPrayerGift. com and remember God loves you and He wants you to talk to Him. See you next time.