And right now you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. You’re probably even thinking. This is controversial and is weight loss even Catholic? That’s such a vanity thing. So I know you’re probably having a lot of Judge Mc judge your thoughts right now, and this might be a little bit of a controversial episode, but I hope that you hear the truth and love in my voice.

This may even be a two part series because originally when I had outlined what I wanted to say to you. There was an outline and then I just returned from mass and had a bit of time where the Holy Spirit said, and now it’s time to record that. And some of the things that he wants me to say to you aren’t the things that were on my outline, so hang with me.

I promise you that if you’re a Catholic woman, you’ll hear hope, you’ll hear clarity, and you’ll hear an invitation from the Lord to get closer to him in some way. I’m not exactly sure what he wants for you, but I know that if you’re intrigued, he’s got something for you.

So before I dive into what is Catholic weight loss? how to know if you’re even doing it. And what I really call the Catholic Weight Loss Method or the phases of Catholic weight loss, I wanna talk to you about what Catholic weight loss is not. You guys, secular weight loss methods are so dangerous for Catholic women.

And I mean that because every woman that I’ve ever worked with, and we are going on, nearly 5,000 women who have come through the doors of 63 surrendered or in some other method, over 5,000. You guys come in wounded, you come in farther from God. You come in with lots of thoughts about yourself that are not of God.

You have lots of thoughts about the way that you should eat and shouldn’t eat, and none of that is him. None of that is the way that he created us to live. And I believe that when we’re following secular weight loss methods for women, women of faith, Catholic women, it’s dangerous to our souls and it takes us farther from God.

It’s very distracting to us, and not only does it take us farther from God, but one of the reasons it takes us farther from God is because it creates what I like to call mini gods, MINI, gods. Of things like food, of things, like the scale of things, like looking in the mirror of things like perfectionism, of things like self neglect, deprivation, restriction.

Before we move on, let me define what a God is. So what a God is a lower case G, God. A mini God is something that we’re giving authority to, something that we’re devoted to. Something that we put first in our lives, something that we look to, say, are you okay? Am I okay? Am I doing it right? Something that we look to for security, something that we look to, to say we’re okay. 

And so many of us have been using secular weight loss methods. If we follow the perfect diet, then we’re okay. We’re doing it right. If we’re perfect and don’t make any missteps, we’re doing it right. If the scale says the right thing, I’m doing it right. We can even make food a God in a different way. 

Something that we look to for comfort, something that we turn to again, be enough to be okay. To be something that we feel like we can’t live without, to be something that we use to control our life. Everything in my life will be okay as long as I follow this food plan. I’ll be able to get through this as long as I have chocolate. And to feel part of things. 

And I think there’s an element of humanness that comes from this. But I wanna tell you that we are called as Catholic women to make God our God, to make God our one true God. And you haven’t been doing anything wrong. You just didn’t know that the secular weight loss methods were creating mini gods out of human things, out of earthly things. 

We’ve just come to this. Concept of, because we’re women and we’re normal, and this is what happens in our communities and in our cultures. And I know this is more than just in the US. Women, not just in the US are listening to this, but I’m sure your culture is very westernized, where we have an image of what women should look like. 

We have the idea of how we talk about food or how we talk about ourselves, and that’s just become so normal and so insidious. And it is literally taking us farther and farther from the Lord. We’re making mini gods not only out of food, either following a strict food plan or food, using it to get through the hard things in life. 

We’re making mini gods out of the way. Our body looks out of our weight. We’re making mini gods out of perfection, out of productivity, getting a lot done. We’re making mini gods out of control. The inability to let things go or needing things to go a certain way, expectations or even routines, you guys we’re making mini gods out of having other people’s approval.

Maybe it’s our family. If they say I look good, then I’m okay. If I’m doing enough for them, if they praise me, if they give me that appreciation. We make mini gods. I mean, maybe some of us have a few too many glasses of wine. Maybe we’re just not willing to be uncomfortable. Or maybe we just want constant busyness so we don’t have to feel so that we feel like we’re good enough. 

I just want you to see the picture of everything that I just said. You’re like, well, yeah, of course. That’s just so normal and I want you to see that normal doesn’t mean we’re following God’s will. That’s what I mean by this episode might be controversial. But I also want you to see it as an invitation from the Lord where you are hearing the truth. 

And he says that to me often, Denise. Tell her the truth. And I was just listening to a Mother Angelica podcast and Mother Angelica says, to tell the truth is to love someone else. To not tell them the truth is to love yourself, and I want you to hear the truth. God wants to be your one and only God. 

And when we are immersed in secular weight loss methods that are so devoid of God. We are very distracted and start making many gods out of the things of that method, whether it’s a food plan, whether it’s the influencer, whether it is the macros, whether it is the scale, and I find that to be absolutely dangerous for Catholic women and their sanctity.

That doesn’t mean that the Lord doesn’t want you at your healthy weight, guys. He does, but he wants to do it with you. That doesn’t mean that the Lord doesn’t want you to feed yourself nourishing food, he does, but he wants you to do it out of love for yourself, out of love for him, and not because you’re denying or depriving yourself.

So it’s not the method or the actual thing that you’re doing that’s the problem. It’s the problem that you’re not doing it with the Lord. It’s the problem that you’re putting that method above what he has told you. It’s a problem that you are fearing food, that you’re fearing that you’re going to overeat food, or that you feel guilt when you do eat. Certain foods that aren’t on the specific method that you’re following, that’s a problem. 

We aren’t sinning when we eat food. There’s a way to eat food that is sinful, of course, but food in general is not a moral issue. There’s a way to turn this all around, so. To sum up this part of secular diets, I just want to say that you have not been failing your diets. 

Secular weight loss methods have been failing you because you are a Catholic woman who wants to grow closer to the Lord and they haven’t taught you anything about how he wants you to live your life. 

How he wants you to be at your healthy weight, how he wants you to talk to yourself, how he wants you to treat yourself. You guys case in point is the Lord gave you taste buds. You. specific taste buds. I have a friend who can’t stand cilantro. Denise Jelinek can’t get enough cilantro. I love cilantro. 

So the point is that he gave you the taste buds. He knew what foods you would enjoy. And by not allowing yourself to eat them doesn’t honor that. And I know your brain is really stretched right now because you think, oh my gosh, if I eat my favorite foods, I’ll go off the rails. And that’s not what the Lord wants. He doesn’t want me to live in gluttony.

No, you’re right. He doesn’t want you to live in gluttony, but what he does want is for you to be able to enjoy the foods that you love. And to solve for an address whatever support you need, that’s making you feel like you need to eat large amounts of food.

There’s something that’s unrelated to the food that’s causing you to want to eat large amounts of food, and that’s something he wants to heal you from. He wants to be invited into. He wants to help you solve for, he wants to teach you how to support yourself through whatever that situation is so you can enjoy your favorite food.

So you never have to turn to large amounts of food to get through life, to get through the life that he gave you. I think that’s another thing that secular diets don’t tell you either is that the Lord knew the life that he would give you. He knew that he would give you the family that you have, the job you have in or outside of the home.

The friends you have, the parish you have, he knew all the things that he would give you. He knew the entire environment that you would be living in right now, and I promise you. He did not say, all right, listen, I’m gonna give you this life and the only way you’re gonna be able to cope is to be able to eat large amounts of food and be at an unhealthy weight.

You guys, he just wouldn’t do that to you. He loves you so much. But the risk of following secular weight loss methods is that they pretend that your life doesn’t exist. They pretend like the problem is the food and the specific diet and the number on the scale. They don’t help you identify. What’s really driving you to eat large amounts of food? 

And even if they do help you with that mindset piece, they’re not saying, and PS, the answer is the Lord. PS. The answer is inviting the Lord in to heal you. Ps. The answer is surrendering to his will. The answer is letting him control everything that you can’t. Ps, your job and a way of worshiping him is to put your efforts into what he’s asking you to do, what your part is. With him. 

And your part is learning how to reorder your life and recalibrate it and refocus it to him, not. Just your Sunday life, not just your marriage, not just your parenting, not just your friends, not just your ailing parents. Every stinking area of your life, you guys, the Lord wants to be a part of it.

Whether you’re making a sandwich, whether you’re unloading the dishwasher,  whether you’re driving in your car, he wants to be part of it. He does not want you to start compartmentalizing your life and until you hear my voice, you probably didn’t even know that was a thing, that the Lord wants to be integrated into every area of your life.

Okay, so I think I’m making a pretty clear case. That secular weight loss methods can take you farther from the Lord. So what is Catholic weight loss? And let’s just go with a very, very, very, very, very, very, very simple definition of what Catholic weight loss is.

In Catholic weight loss or doing anything as a Catholic woman just means that you’re doing it with the Lord. Are you doing it with him or are you not doing it with him? It’s not about the specific denomination of Christianity. 

We’ve had so many women come into weight loss with the Holy Spirit who aren’t Catholic and still find. Success, wild success. It is not about the specific denomination of your faith, but it is about how you worship and practice your faith. And as long as you’re doing it with God in the way that you worship the Lord, then it’s Catholic. 

So what exactly does this mean, and how do you know if you are allowing God to be integrated into this area of your life? Maybe I’m repeating myself, but it bears repeating. It’s simple. God is your God. Not secular things and not the mini gods, not the scale, not what you see in the mirror. Not the specific diet, not the influencer, not Denise Jelinek. 

But this is the really sticky part because no one has ever taught you this, and we’ve only really known how to approach weight loss from the secular method, and I already told you that that is not a great way to do that.

And when you heard about what a mini God is, and I want you to know that the discussion about. mini Gods versus actually loving our big G, God is not to criticize you. It’s not to condemn you. It’s not to point out where things have been wrong. It’s just a new awareness for you. 

An invitation for him, an invitation from him. A new beginning for you. Think of this as a resurrection, like the veil has been lifted and now you are clear that there is a different way. I want you to think of it as the light of truth. Again, all of the secular weight loss methods are not the problem. 

But if we’re choosing to take care of ourselves in the way that we talk to ourselves based on that and not knowing the Lord’s truth, that is the problem. When we’re making decisions on how to care for ourselves because of what the scale says or what we eat because of what the scale says, instead of what God says, that is the problem.

And I’ll say that when I work with women,  I’ll talk about the phases of weight loss. One of the very beginning phases in phase one, of the Catholic weight loss method. We do a challenge called 63 surrendered, and one of the reasons I remove the scale from that entire process is because it is so distracting. It is so distracting. 

And it really prevents many women from making the substantial progress that they could and allowing the Lord to come in and heal them because they are still making the scale their mini God, and I know it’s hard to let go, but I just want to. Emphasize how important it is from blocking that distraction from your life and protecting your life from that distraction so that the Lord can come in.

So I just mentioned the phases of Catholic weight loss. And I think that no matter whether you do this on your own or you choose to join our 63 surrendered group, that is a 63 day challenge that leads you through phase one. I want you to know what these phases are so that either way, you’re going to have to go through them so that you can have lasting weight loss.

So that you as a Catholic woman can integrate the Lord into your weight loss method, so that you can protect your soul from secular weight loss methods that are making mini gods out of the method so that you can protect your soul from having something between you and the Lord.

So I  think that. You get the concept that if you are a Catholic woman who wants to integrate the Lord into every area of your life, he in fact does care about you being at a healthy weight. He does want to be integrated into every area of your life. And if you have a Catholic weight loss method, it just simply means you’re a Catholic woman who is doing it with the Lord. 

Next week I’ll be talking about the phases of Catholic weight loss and how to do that. What does it even look like? What are the first steps? If you’re a Catholic woman and you want to invite the Lord into this area of your life, how do you even do that? 

So stay tuned. I’ll bring that to you next week, and until then, talk to the Lord about your weight. Talk to the Lord about your food. Ask him to reveal to you where your pursuit of health or weight loss is taking you farther from him.

Ask him to show you where you may be making mini gods out of the scale or following your food plan. He’ll reveal it to you. Just talk to him about it. Literally, he wants to be in every conversation with you, even the stuff. That’s our not so shiny side. That’s the stuff he really wants us to just lean on him and be so real and honest with him.

Things that we see ourselves do that we don’t even love. He says, thanks for inviting me in. Now I can heal you. Now I can lead you in that direction. So I hope this has given you so much hope. I hope you hear the Lord’s voice through this podcast.  

All right, everybody. Have a blessed day.