The Made to Crave book by Lysa Terkeurst was a really fun read. It's written in conversation style. You feel as if you and Lysa are just having a hear-to-heart discussion about the spiritual side to being healthy and losing weight.
It consists of 19 chapters, and is a quick read with only 192 pages. You could easily read the book between two or three days. You may even be able to finish it in one day.
Each chapter ends with reflective questions, much like a mini Bible study. I must confess that I skipped those parts, but they did seem beneficial, and I may go back at some point to finish those parts of the book. They were not very long and seemed very doable. I just didn't do them. I was just focused on finishing the "conversation".
The thesis of the book is that we are made to crave God above all else, including food. I found this book refreshing because it tackles the issue of losing weight and eating healthy in a new way. It's doesn't list a bunch of numbers or recipes. It's not an emotional therapy book either. It has a teensy-weensy bit of science in it, but it mostly focuses on the spiritual aspect of our relationship to food.
I had heard about this book from a friend of mine that had just went through a major life overhaul. She started making working out her priority and eating right. By the end of one year she had lost over one hundred pounds. She looks great! She later posted on Facebook that this was book that started it for her.
And now I can see why.
Lysa's book challenges you to find your "why". She also gives the reader some "go-to scripts" as she calls them, to retrain how you think and respond to food. She goes to great lengths to connect scripture to our food problems. The reader learns how to develop the spiritual gift of of self-discipline.
But Lysa doesn't preach when she does this. She is open of how hard it was for her. In many ways the reader is simply reading Lysa's health journey. She talks of crying and pouting for food. She tells fun stories from her life that prove to be encouraging too.
Beyond her refreshing perspective, I really liked how she had two special sections at the end of her book. One was specific to the Bible verses used in each chapter and the other was dedicated to the "go-to scripts" that she used to change her thinking about food.
I really liked this part because I am a person that likes to memorize things like that or copy them and put them around my house or work. By having these two reference sections, it makes it easy to do that.
If you're looking for fresh perspective on what it means to living a healthy lifestyle, and you're interested in what God has to say about it, then this is the book for you!