Habits of Hope: Cultivating a Deeper Life with God

20.How to Crush Sugar Cravings with Faith and Hope: Christine Trimpe’s Story

• Season 1 • Episode 20

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What if breaking free from sugar addiction could unlock a life filled with joy, health, and hope? In this powerful episode, author, speaker, and health coach Christine Trimpe joins us to share her incredible journey from sugar shackles to sugar freedom. 

With over 100 pounds lost and a new life gained, Christine’s story is one of faith, perseverance, and holistic healing. Discover how small habits, fueled by God’s strength, can lead to lasting transformation in your physical, emotional, and spiritual health.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Breaking Free from Sugar Addiction
    Learn how sugar disrupts your hormones and how eliminating it step by step can improve your health and energy levels.
  2. The Power of Faith-Based Healing
    Christine shares how her relationship with God transformed her life, giving her the strength to overcome years of yo-yo dieting and emotional shame.
  3. Small Habits, Big Results
    Discover practical strategies like focusing on whole, God-given foods and improving sleep to jumpstart your health journey.
  4. Healing Emotional and Spiritual Wounds
    Addressing emotional wounds and spiritual cravings is as vital as changing your diet for true, lasting freedom.
  5. The Importance of Support
    Community and accountability play a critical role in breaking free from sugar addiction and staying on track with your goals.

Christine Trimpe is an author, speaker, health and wellness coach, and founder of the Sugar-Free Me Method. Christine’s latest book, Sugar-Free’d: Stop Losing the Weight Loss Battle, Start Gaining the Victory, shares her proven strategies for physical and spiritual transformation. (Affiliate link at no cost to you)

Ready to transform your health and life? Grab Christine Trimpe’s newest book, Sugar-Free’d: Stop Losing the Weight Loss Battle, Start Gaining the Victory, available now on Amazon. Dive into her faith-filled journey, gain practical tips, and start your own path to victory.

Enter to win a copy of Christine's book in the blog version of this interview: 
Contest runs from 1/21/25-1/30/25. You must live in the continenta

Habits of Hope Podcast is for informational and inspirational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional advice—spiritual, medical, legal, or otherwise.

Ginger Harrington (00:06.329)
What if breaking free from the habits that weigh us down, both physically and spiritually, could be the key to unlocking hope and lasting transformation? Today, we're diving into a powerful story of freedom, faith, and holistic health with my friend, Christine Trimpe, whose journey from sugar shackles to lasting wellness has inspired thousands. Her message is clear. You don't have to keep losing the weight loss battle. 

You can start gaining the victory with hope and God's strength on your side. Welcome to Habits of Hope, Cultivating a Deeper Life with God. I'm your host, Ginger Harrington, and today's episode is one you're not gonna wanna miss. We're so glad to have Christine. Welcome, my friend.

Ginger, thank you so much for inviting me to be a guest. I'm delighted to be here. Well, we are thrilled to have you and I love the practicality of your message when it comes to habits of hope. It's not just spiritual habits, but also physical habits that we want to have in place in our life for physical health and wellness.

And sometimes those things are really hard. Sometimes we've got habits we want to break. I know that you are going to really help those of us who struggle with just liking that sugar a little too much. And I personally am well equipped with the yo-yo weight loss battles. Christine is an author, speaker, health and wellness coach, and the founder of the sugar-free me method. Christine's incredible story of losing over a hundred pounds.

and finding freedom from sugar addiction is just one part of physical transformation. It's also a testimony of faith, perseverance, and God's power to heal us in every part of our lives, soul and spirit. We're very excited about Christine's book, Sugar-Free'd, Stop Losing the Weight Loss Battle, Start Gaining the Victory. It releases this month, and I can't wait for you to hear what she's got to say today.

Ginger Harrington (02:15.374)
Christine, can you tell us a few things you'd like to share about yourself with our audience today? Hey, I am so excited to be here and share with The Habits of Hope. I love the name of your podcast, Ginger. It's amazing because truly my life has transformed because of a huge switch in habits. And praise God that I finally

set out on a faith-based journey to change my habits, to ditch bad habits that were not serving my health well and to adopt new healthy habits. I call it my holistic health habits, fueled by faith. I went from living in those sugar shackles to now living sugar sober, which is what I call it. Now that I'm trained in sugar addiction, sugar, food, carb addiction.

It just, makes so much more sense. And so I'm excited to be able to share about where I came from. And I know that there's probably many women out there that can totally relate to my story. I get them. I know where they are. I know where they've been. You mentioned the yo-yo dieting. I know where they've been and I know where they want to be. So this journey that the Lord has brought me on, I'm very happy to share some hope.

hopeful habits with your listeners to move them from away from those decades of yo-yo dieting and into the freedom and greater joy that that God wants for us. Honestly, he wants that for us. Yeah. And I love that you say that because I think it's really easy to get caught up in the body image and appearance pressure of our culture and the images that are around us all the time and our self-esteem as women.

for most of us is somewhat tied, maybe not completely, I hope, but somewhat tied to our physical appearance. And then there's the whole how we feel issue. When we are struggling with sugar addiction, we don't feel good. It impacts our body. And I definitely wanna talk about that, not just the appearance of our body, but the function and feel of our body.

Ginger Harrington (04:21.412)
So let's walk back to the beginning of, maybe not the beginning of your story, but the beginning of your journey of transformation. What was that moment like for you when you realized something's got to change? Yes. So I'll start at my turning point story, which actually happened on the side of a mountain on a 25th anniversary trip with my husband in the fall of 2015.

And he had planned out lots of hikes and trails to conquer in this Rocky Mountain National Park. And I was exhausted before I even got out of the car, to be quite honest, because I was carrying a hundred extra pounds of weight, but I did give it my best effort to try to go up a trail that he wanted to go up. And when I looked at the trail marker, I thought, well, it's only a half a mile. I could probably do that. But then I looked straight up and had to really give it my best.

Girl Scout try and unfortunately I didn't make it about halfway up that trail. I ended up sitting on the side of the trail on a stump gasping for air telling my husband to go on without me. He's like, are you sure? said, yes, I'm positive. So in that moment I sat on the stump. had dark sunglasses on, which is good because tears were welling in my eyes and I just had a berating conversation with myself. I felt horrible. I felt frustrated again. felt like I let

down my husband again. And like you said, I just did not feel well. And I remember saying a short prayer like, God, I just want to feel better. Because in that season of my life, I struggled with my weight for 30 years. And so that was 30 years from the age of 18, sitting on the side of that mountain at the age of 48. And in that moment, I didn't think I would ever lose the weight because of the yo-yo dieting cycle that I had been on for those 30 years. But I just said, God,

I just want to feel better. And praise God, he must have been waiting for me to say something like that because he truly met me in that moment. He put a new resolve on my heart. went home from that Colorado trip and I finally did something that I had been putting off for nearly 10 years. I scheduled a sleep study. I was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea. I came home with the CPAP machine, which began giving me better sleep.

Ginger Harrington (06:45.998)
So I was waking up more refreshed and that really was truly the first medical intervention that I credit for putting me on the path to healing in my physical health. And so that's where that turning point moment started. Yeah, yeah. So thinking back to that moment, you've talked about some of your emotional response and how you were berating yourself. And I think that it's really easy.

to allow conversations of shame to rob us of our hope. And so tell us a little bit about what was going on in your head with that conversation, because I have a feeling that a lot of our listeners are gonna be able to relate to the conversation of shame, even if they don't struggle with weight. Yes, yeah, I carried the weight of guilt and shame for many years. And I did hide it pretty well. If you would ask my friends and family, they would have told you that I was

overall generally a happy person, but it really was something that I carried in secret. I didn't even discuss my misery and the shame I felt with my husband. That's how difficult it was. Because of my continued, you know, trying, losing 60 pounds, gaining 70, losing 50 pounds, gaining 55, it was just a vicious cycle for so many years that it kept piling up. And the reason I can look back and identify what it was

that I was carrying is because also all those years, Ginger, I was a casual Christian. I was raised in the church. have my best friends from my youth group years are still my best friends to this day. But at the age of 18, when I went away to college, I became a statistic and I left the church. I had no passion, no reason to go and find a church that my parents encouraged me to do. You're in a strange town. Now go find a church. That was the last thing I wanted to do. Right. So.

From the age of 18 to that moment in Colorado, I was very casual about my relationship with Jesus. And so I really didn't truly have an understanding of how I could have let go of that guilt and shame that I carried for so many years. And also the interesting thing that I've learned in my healing and my journey, knowing that I've been physically and physiologically addicted to sugar, there was something going on in my brain. There was a brain disorder.

Ginger Harrington (09:08.284)
And I was definitely hooked on sugar. Addiction is a beast of a disease that has many outlets. Mine happened to be sugar and foods high in carbohydrate. And my brain just kept constantly screaming for that, feeding the cycle of poor metabolic health, which again, landed me in morbid obesity and other chronic health issues like pre-diabetes and fatty liver disease. But knowing that what I know now about addiction kind of helps release the guilt and shame too, not just

not just spiritually can I hand that over to Jesus, but also physically and physiologically and emotionally knowing what was going on in my brain has really helped me recover. That's one of my biggest passions is to help women's. I'm fortunate that I never got sucked into the body positivity movement with obesity. I used to a lot of that. And I knew deep down, I knew deep down in my heart that the way I was caring for my body was not honoring or glorifying to God.

And I knew that I just didn't know how to break free until I started going on this health journey. Right. you know, information is power, right? Yeah. And I love that God in His graciousness not only brought you to a place of greater health physically, but also a place of greater health spiritually and intimacy in your relationship with Him. And

So when you were on that mountainside and you called out to God in prayer, in the days that followed, when did you begin to have a sense, my gosh, God is answering that prayer. He's doing something. What was that like? Yeah, it was amazing. was shortly like I came home from that trip in September. I was diagnosed with fatty liver disease in November. I had my CPAP machine in October. So I started waking up more refreshed.

And I remembered a funny story from one of the years that I did go to Bible study for a parent's sake. I remember the Bible study teacher leaning into a video teaching saying, I want you to pray to God to wake you up at five a.m. so that you can spend time in his word. And I thought, Lady, I'm exhausted. I'm not going to pray to God to wake me up any earlier than necessary. But when I got that CPAP machine and I started making.

Ginger Harrington (11:32.532)
a commitment to my health as far as what food I was putting in my mouth. I started waking up more refreshed and I started waking up around 5 a.m. without an alarm. And so what's a girl to do at 5 a.m. And that is when I started picking up my Bible every single morning and I haven't put it down since. It's it's the first thing I do every day. So, yes, he did start moving in my life by helping me wake up refreshed, good sleep.

There's, can't say enough about good sleep, right? Well, let's, let's talk about that a little bit because sleep is so very, very important. And I know that in times when I have been exhausted, physically tired, it impacts me mentally. It impacts me emotionally. I get frazzled more easily. get frustrated more easily. I get upset and stressed more easily. And that in itself can create.

a bad cycle. And so let's talk a little bit about some of the benefits of sleep and maybe some things that you've learned that can help. don't sleep as well as I used to. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on how to sleep better. Sleep habits are so important. I know. It's been a struggle for me over recent years too, because I went into menopause and that impacts us, right? That doesn't make things better for sure.

But what the CPAP machine did help me do is to establish some good sleep habits as far as like getting ready for the night, making sure that I spent some time off of digital products and that like my room was cool. My room was dark. I've really been my sleep habits. Ginger are still a work in process. Trust me, still work. I struggle and some nights are better than others. But I've also learned that if your sleep habits are not

in sync with what your body needs, that makes it really difficult to lose weight too. That can impact a weight loss journey. If your cortisol hormone is spiked high, that can impact your sleep. It is a very delicate balance for sure, but very important for us to try our very best to establish great sleep habits. Yes. And I know in my own journey of weight loss challenges, I

Ginger Harrington (13:57.783)
In 2000, I was diagnosed with Graves' disease and ended up having my thyroid ablated. So for all these years, I've not had, you know, natural thyroid function. So ever since then, it's always been a struggle, but it was a struggle for me even as a kid. I can remember I was not morbidly obese as a kid, but I was certainly chubby. And I can remember specific instances in grade school of being made fun of because I was chubby.

And, you know, those are very hurtful things and messages that get into our psyche. I think that as we embrace habits of hope, whether it is a weight loss journey or not, I think God wants to free us from some of those old messages that are hurtful and wounding. And so I'm just going to move forward in your story. How did God

work in terms of some of the messages that you had been carrying or wounds that you have been carrying. Did you sense that God was beginning to heal you emotionally as well as physically? most definitely. I also was a chubby kid. I went through some seasons of life that I was chubby and made fun of. So I have those wounds from being bullied as a child. And even into my adult years, I can remember people being rude and mean in my college years. And I, you know, that's just so

strange at that season of life. But anyhow, yes, I had lots of emotional baggage that I was carrying. 99.9 % of the women that I talked to are carrying some of that weight from childhood wounds, from being overweight as a child, from a mom who constantly put them on a diet, just things like that, that really like we don't even think about them often. But when we spend the time and really work this stuff out with the Lord through our spiritual journey.

that's where the healing can take place. And that's where I love to talk about the freedom. The first thing I like women to do is to get their food choices right. Let's try to get our hormones in balance with the diet that we're eating. And once we get the food choices right and we have some momentum, we're losing weight, we're moving forward in our weight loss goals, then it's a good time to go back and deal with all those wounds. It's really good to have your lifestyle habits in place.

Ginger Harrington (16:19.839)
before you start digging all that up. I'm sure that makes sense, right? Right. Yeah. Start with the physical and then get to some of the harder things because sometimes those emotional pieces can be really challenging to deal with. And I love the fact that you really encourage women to start that process from a place of momentum and some success, because particularly if you've struggled and have lost hope that you could actually do this, get free of it and

you know, get healthy, that positive movement does so much for us. And then you're coming to the emotional pieces from a different place versus coming from a place of defeat and frustration or hopelessness. And so I love that. That's really, really wise, my friend. Yeah. And that comes from a, then you're coming from a source of strength, you know, Natalie, of course I encourage women to get in the word, dig in the word. That's going to be

our source of strength first and foremost, but God can equip us to face this battle. And it's just so exciting to see the women like losing a little bit of weight and then dealing like, I have this in my history that I know I don't want to go back there. I want to release this to the Lord. I want to surrender this. I want to adopt better, healthy habits, not only for my physical health, but for my emotional health and most importantly, my spiritual health. All those great habits put into place. We're holistic beings. God created us.

body, mind, spirit, heart and soul. And that is something that I missed out on for so many decades when I was focused in so narrowly on like Weight Watchers points, for example, I could count my points. I could do that for two or three months, but I was not doing anything about my heart health and not the kind of heart health that my cardiologist cares about the kind of heart health that my savior cares about. Right. I neglected that because I thought it was something that I could do in my own power and my own control.

Again, this is all a lot of emotional issues that we have to work through. But putting it all together and realizing, recognizing that God created us as holistic beings is a beautiful thing. And that's how I see so many women moving forward and being set free from this. well, I'd like for you to tell us a little bit about why sugar specifically can become such a problem, because there are many foods that can

Ginger Harrington (18:46.689)
cause you to gain weight. Eating too many French fries and hamburgers and things like that can be issues, but it seems like the carbohydrates and the sugars are more damaging and are harder to kick. And so let's talk about that a little bit and give us some hope for that. absolutely. I love to help people get off sugar for sure. I never really knew how much sugar was in our standard American diet.

our food environment is loaded with sugar. And I do think that these foods are created in the factories to be hyper palatable, to keep us coming back for more. So even though despite, I would go through seasons of thinking I was eating healthy, I could not identify a lot of the food that I have been eating that I thought was healthy, like whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, potatoes, sweet potatoes, those all digest as sugar.

because I had insulin resistance, any amount of sugar, carbohydrates that I was eating was really damaging my metabolic health. And what put me onto sugar, what raised my awareness is when I was diagnosed with that fatty liver disease, my gynecologist kind of poo-pooed it off because I'm sure she was expecting it. I was more than 100 pounds overweight. And at the time we were diagnosing some painful ovarian cysts. So that's what she was concerned about.

I went and did my own research and I didn't bookmark it. I don't know where I got this from, but I remember reading that sugar is a major hormone disruptor and my liver was full of fat because of the excess sugar and carbohydrates I was ingesting from my standard American diet. And that was really a light bulb moment. And that's what took me down the path of identifying exactly how much sugar I was eating.

And even though I was never somebody that would eat a lot of the white sugar, like I would not eat a row of Oreo cookies or I would not eat a half a gallon of ice cream. wasn't a sweet type of person. I was more of a savory sugar person. Like I loved potato chips. I loved my potatoes. I liked to fill up on that. and bread. Bread was a big one. I filled up on bread and I could never get enough bread. And that immediately breaks down as sugar in your digestion. so

Ginger Harrington (21:10.657)
That was very eye-opening to me, knowing that sugar is a major hormone disruptor and learning that weight loss is primarily about a hormonal imbalance. My insulin was very unbalanced. My blood sugar was unbalanced and insulin is your fat-storing hormone. So I set out on a mission to balance my insulin and see what would happen if I stopped burning sugar every day for fuel, which would then allow me to tap into burning fat for fuel. And that's...

That's when the magic happened. That's when I went on this amazing weight loss journey and was no longer a sugar burner all day, every day, and turned into a 24 seven fat burner. Wow. That sounds really awesome in terms of moving forward and understanding what's happening in your system. So let's shift gears a little bit and just continue down this journey. So how do we get off of it? Like, how do we break that addiction?

Because we all love bread, we all love dessert, we all love potatoes. there's other sources of sugar, beverages and alcohol and I'm sure even other things too. Yes, it is like I said, it's surprising how much sugar is in our diet, our standard American diet. I would recommend a step-by-step approach. First of all, I educated myself in how much sugar is out there.

And then the very first choice I made was ditching coffee cold turkey because I used to like to have a little bit of coffee with a whole lot of like French vanilla flavored creamer or speaking my language. Yeah. So I was starting my day with this huge burst of sugar and then I would eat oatmeal with blueberries and a drizzle of brown rice syrup because at the time I was in a program to prevent

full-blown diabetes, I had pre-diabetes, so was in a diabetes prevention program. And I was told that oatmeal was approved. Well, now when I calculate the grams of sugar in that bowl of oatmeal with blueberries and the drizzle of brown rice syrup, that's more sugar carbs than I eat in three days now. And I was eating that every single morning. So I just took this step-by-step approach to, did the coffee for a few days.

Ginger Harrington (23:27.731)
I swore off the candy in my office. worked in an office full of women. So you have to imagine how much junk and sugar was there. I swore off the weekly birthday cake celebrations that we had in the office. And I just step by step began eliminating all of the sugars in my, what was going in my mouth. And then I did happen to see my cardiologist who does care about my heart health. And I told him I went on this quitting sugar journey and he was so supportive.

He was so excited. He's like, that's amazing. And it really truly is Christine, 95 % what goes in your mouth is going to help you reach your weight loss goals. And then 5 % will be fitness because you'll want to move your body. And he was so right. I mean, that's exactly what happened. I never wanted to move my body. I did, I did, but I didn't want to because I just didn't feel good. But now moving my body feels wonderful. And it's, I considered an act of worship for having my mobility.

regained. yeah, I recommend 100 % a step by step approach. You can bust the sugar cravings. You can. And that is something that we have to deal with. I believe cravings is like the root cause for us not only, especially for Christian people. We have physiological cravings. Our brain is screaming at us. Like I want more sugar. But we also have spiritual cravings. We have these cravings of the soul. And for me, I was stuffing those cravings. I was coping.

with emotional dysregulation by using food. And the food that gave me the most satisfaction was these foods high in carbohydrates, because my brain really loved that reward. And our brains really love that reward. But it is possible to crush those cravings and to quiet that food noise. For anybody listening that's like me that was a full-blown sugar addict, full-blown food addict, there's a ton of food noise going on in our head. But I want you to have hope.

that building these new healthy habits day by day, step by step can quiet that food noise and give you the victory that you've been looking for for years. For me, it was 30 years. That's such a powerful story, Christine, and thinking about the, okay, how to do this. We know what to do. Yes. But, you know, the difference between knowing and doing and then doing consistently is its own journey of hope.

Ginger Harrington (25:54.903)
And so what were some things that were helpful for you to get that how piece in place like the doing it? Yes. First thing I always love to talk about is is an encourage is for you to spend some time learning something new. So I learned the new science. It was new to me science of low carb living.

It was new to me about intermittent fasting as a, not only a spiritual practice, but also a very healthy way to live day to day. We don't need to be eating all day long. So I spent time learning all these things and I call it learn the science, apply the science, change your life. I say that all the time. Some very practical advice I could give is I focus on the perimeter of my grocery store. That's where I find all of the whole food.

Like these foods don't even need an ingredient label because they are as the way God created them. And I call it God's good smorgasbord. So if you think about your grocery store, you can think about the perimeter and you can spend very little time going up and down the aisles. And I go up and down the aisle for things like mustard and pickles. That's about it. Or in coffee and tea. But think about the perimeter of your grocery store. Plan out what you can purchase there. You do have to skip the bakery section though.

You gotta, you gotta like run past the bakery section. and then, know, if you just think about that plan out, make a grocery list based on the perimeter of your grocery store. And that's the whole food that you can focus on fueling your body. Well, so good. good. I know one thing for me that is helpful is not having tempting foods in the house. The things that I'm trying to not eat.

And sometimes that's hard with a family because my husband does not have to be as careful about what he eats and he likes certain things. And just because I am trying to be healthy and super careful with what I eat, I don't always want to inflict that on other people, even though I know it's good for them. And so are there any tips and tricks along that line of how to manage your

Ginger Harrington (28:07.169)
healthy choices if you live in a situation where not everybody wants to live that way. Right. I recently heard an extension on a quote that we're all familiar with. Like you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Right. We're going to lead by example. But now I also add you can lead the horse to water, but you can't make him drink. But how do we make him thirsty? I just lead by like silent, quiet influence. mean, my family personally, they can't

They can't deny what has happened to me. Not only have I healed physically, but I have healed emotionally. My mood is a million times better than it ever used to be. And they just see the joy coming out of my life every single day. And so just being a quiet influence, and we also have to learn strategies like how not to let people drag us down. Like if great aunt Martha is trying to force apple pie on us, how do we turn that down politely?

while understanding that it's probably great aunt Martha's love language to want to feed you pie. So it's just, it's a, it's a balance it's, and it does take strategies and it actually does take practice. But I always say that the more you lead by example, sometimes it takes people years to come alongside. I have good friends that I want them to follow me. And some of them have taken six years to take the first step. But I know that they, know, when we, when we lead

well, by example, and that's not just in the way we eat. It's just the way like all these daily habits that we have spending time with Jesus, serving, encouraging, know, using the fruits of the spirit that the Lord has given you to influence lives around you. yeah, it's use the gifts and the stories that the Lord has given you to change lives. I guess that's like how I would sum it all up. Right.

Well, one of the things that we always talk about here at Habits of Hope is a specific scripture that relates to each specific habit that breeds hope in our life. And so what are one or two scriptures that were a significant part of your transformation journey of finding hope over sugar addiction? Yeah, I this verse.

Ginger Harrington (30:29.303)
came to me after I went through this entire health and healing journey and I gained the victory. I was reading Psalm 4, 7, where David writes, you have filled my heart with greater joy than when there are grain and new wine abound. And to me, that just speaks very symbolically of grain and, okay, here's food, grain and new wine, right? Food, I have to deal with food every single day. I have to make wise decisions. And they're talking about a celebration in this verse. It's a harvest.

but it's a reminder that God has filled my heart. God can fill your heart with greater joy than anything else in life, anything else, anything that you're struggling with, whether it be addiction to sugar or food, or whether it be a mountain of debt, or whether it be you're weary of praying for the same situation, or you have a prodigal son, whatever it is, God can take you on this journey. He might meet you on the side of a mountain like he did me.

I love all of David's Psalms. They really are very meaningful to me and very encouraging to me, especially when days are harder and have different difficult circumstances to face. But yes, I love God's Word every morning. Yes, yes, that is such a significant habit of hope that impacts every area of our lives. Thanks for sharing those verses with us. Honestly, I don't even recall reading the first one. Give us the

reference for that first one about the greater joy. Right, Psalm 4-7. And what I quoted is the NIV version from my NIV study. There's a little bit different. Yeah. But find it. And it really jumped off the page at me one day after I had gained my weight loss victory. It just jumped off the page and said, this is you. This is what happened to you. And I'm like, yes, thank you, Jesus. wow. That is just so cool when God really gives us a specific verse.

And it does breed hope and joy in our hearts. One, knowing that our Lord is communicating specifically with us and He's with us in the struggles and in the victory and in the details. It just feels so personal and that in and of itself gives us great hope and joy just to know that God is right there. And so I love that. Let's talk a little bit about your book that is releasing.

Ginger Harrington (32:50.374)
today. Tell us how this book came about and what you're most excited about with the book. Okay, the book Sugar-Free'd Stop Losing the Weight Loss Battle Start Gaining the Victory has been a work in process, a heart project since 2019 is when I really first started setting out to write it. And I had to put it up on a shelf for a little while, Ginger, because I went through a very difficult season in life with a family situation.

And but God had prepared my heart to face that situation. Fortunately, I was in a healthy place, physically, emotionally, spiritually to deal with this. But I put the book up for a while, went through this really difficult season and was able to bring it back down and start writing back in it again. So I'm very grateful for that. But the one thing that I can look back and see, initially, the book was going to be very well, what's the word I'm looking for? Like just like rah rah.

It's the victory. Let's stand on the mountain with me, right? Because I went through this weight loss journey and I reached my goals and I was so excited. I wanted to share it with the entire world and then my world crashed and I went through like three very long years of a trial, actually a legal trial, which was I would not recommend anybody have to go through.

But the fact that I did not regain my weight and get back into an unhealthy place physically and emotionally and spiritually is just a testament to the power of God. And so it made the book that much richer, that much deeper, that much more of a spiritual journey. So it is, it is a physical, I do give some physical guidance, like how to do this, how to quit sugar, how to gain the weight loss victory. We talk a lot about the emotional health and also the spiritual health.

I've broken it down into four sections called resolving it, restoring your body, renewing your mind and redeeming your spiritual walk. So it's journey. It's definitely a journey. I'm, I'm, I'm just so excited about it, that the fact that it took this long to come to fruition. And it's also releasing seven years, almost to the date that I got to my healthy weight. I love that. You know, sometimes God is just so in the details.

Ginger Harrington (35:06.34)
So I'm gathering, and this is just a question here, but based on what you're talking about, the spiritual and emotional components of this book, let's say I have addiction of some kind in my life and I'm struggling spiritually, struggling emotionally, but weight is not my issue, sugar's not my issue. Is there value in the book for someone who's not battling weight or is this specifically geared toward

someone who is on a weight loss journey? I think it would be most attractive to people that want to lose weight, but yeah, definitely, certainly the spiritual and emotional principles and applications that I share in the book can be used for any. And I always say like when I'm invited to speak to churches, I'm not invited in as a weight loss speaker. I'm invited in as a joy. Joy is my umbrella.

speaker and it really can address any of the heavyweight, any heavy circumstances that we're carrying in life. How do we navigate this? What are some good new practical habits that I can put into place? And quite honestly, I think everybody could clean up their way of eating. Most people can. Like it's I think it's a very small percentage of people that are eating healthy. If you just look at the obesity epidemic in our country. Right. So I think it will be applicable to anybody.

It is written mostly for Christian women, but I know a lot of men are going to appreciate it as well, That is great. And, you know, God's timing is perfect in my own writing journey. And even doing this podcast, there were there were long seasons of starting and then having to to put it on hold. And God never wastes the weight and W.A.I.T. Right.

But he uses that and it ends up making whatever that end goal was so much richer and more impactful. That's another habit of hope is trusting God's timing. And sometimes for some of us, that weight loss journey can be a long one, but just be encouraged friends that God's not wasting your weight. the day comes when

Ginger Harrington (37:22.872)
you are able to move forward and having wonderful tools and encouragement and spiritual equipping is so valuable as part of that process. And Christine, I'm so glad that your book is going to be so helpful for that. Now you have at least one other book, right? Or maybe more than one? I'm not sure. I haven't kept up with all the things. We actually just finished up the season of my Advent devotional that I take

I take readers on a joy-seeking journey in the Advent season through the Gospel of Luke. And that's just been an extra special blessing, too. That book was a total accident. I never intended to write an Advent devotional. I had set out to write a Christian nonfiction about how to lose weight, right? God's way. So, yeah, it's just been really fun. And that one's called Seeking Joy Through the Gospel of Luke. Yes. And that is a great one. OK.

So in addition to your Advent devotional, you also have a coaching program. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yes, it's also called Sugar-Free. It's called the Sugar-Free B Weight Loss Solution and it's going to work hand in hand with the book. So I hope that anyone that reads the book that needs extra support knows that there is support out there. And I have learned through my sugar addiction training that success

is very heavily dependent on support and group coaching is very powerful, very impactful. So I did set this program up as a group coaching program with a few one on one check in calls with me, but mostly it's a group program. And it is amazing the way these women support each other. It is such a blessing to me to see all of these women who are just like me and we all get each other. again, we all know where we've been. We've all carried the trauma. We've all carried the guilt and shame.

and we all have the same destination. We all have our eyes fixed on Jesus. And I always tell them, when you show up, God shows off. And that is like the whole heart of my ministry is to get women to show up, respond to what Jesus is putting on them about their health and wellness and let him use that story for his glory. Amen. That will preach my friends. So if someone is like,

Ginger Harrington (39:46.092)
Okay, yes, that's me. Sign me up. How do they find you? All right. I do have a website by my name, which is Christine Trimp dot com for you can find my books. You can find out about my weight loss program. You can also find my speaking page and invite me to speak through that page. But yes, that's the best place to connect with me. And of course, the book releasing is available on Amazon. Awesome.

Well, Christine, before we wrap it up and finish things off, is there anything last thought that comes to mind that you'd like to share with our listeners? Let's circle back around to the idea of habits. I always say that small habits build and deliver big results. So if you're looking for big results, whether it be a weight loss journey or a debt journey or a prayer journey, whatever it is in your life, just take it.

I highly encourage step-by-step plans. so these small habits that you build, they will deliver results and let that give you hope. Let that inspire hope in whatever it is that the Lord is putting on your heart that he wants your attention for right now. that is yes. And that is so closely aligned with the heart of this podcast. Those habits, practices, rhythms, they really do support.

us to where we're not having to spend so much time and effort trying to do the things, And small is big. small is the new big. Christine, thank you so much for sharing your story and your heart with us today. Your journey is beautiful and inspiring and such a great example how God can use even our struggles and the places where we may have lost hope in life to shape.

and draw us closer to him. So friends, I encourage you to check out Christine's book and her website. You'll find the information in the show notes. And Christine, we're cheering you on and we just pray that God is gonna bless this book and everyone who reads it. Remember friends, the journey to hope and healing is just one step and one small habit at a time. Christine, thank you so much for joining us.