Denise: Okay, everybody. Welcome back to the Weight Loss with the Holy Spirit Podcast. Today I have another very transformed and happy graduate of 63 surrendered, Jeannie, and she’s going to be telling us her amazing story, and I know that all of you’ll hear your story in Jeannie’s voice. So welcome, Jeannie. 

Jeannie: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. 

 Denise: Can you tell our audience just a little bit about you and your life in general? Just tell us a little bit about you. 

Jeannie: Okay. I’m 61 years old and I’ve been married for 40 years. I have three grown daughters who are also all married, and we have seven grandchildren. Three, seven year olds, a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old, and two one year olds. So I am a busy grandma. 

 Denise: Yeah, I love them. Let’s dive into the reason why you are here, and that is to tell us about your food and weight story and how that healing journey is continuing with the work that you started in 63 surrendered. So first, let’s start from your history with food and weight. 

Jeannie: I would say that I was an average, quote unquote, normal weight until I had my third child, and I had three kids in four years and I was teaching school and we were building houses and. It was very stressful. And looking back now, I didn’t know it then, but I think I obviously had cortisol issues or something.

But anyway, I gained a hundred pounds and so I was like 32 years old. I lost my health at 32 and I’m 61 now, so you can do the math. That’s 29 years I’ve been struggling with this, and I did all the diets, all the crazy diets, weight watchers, the Carbohydrate Addict Diet. That was a real fun one. The whole 30 couldn’t stand that one. Then fascia Weight of Fat Loss and Noom. 

And then one day I was on Instagram and your 63 surrender popped up and I was like, wow, what is this? And so I clicked on it and truly it is the program that is not about weight loss. Weight loss will come, but it is about peace. It’s about your relationship with Christ. It’s about not gripping. It’s about so many things and it’s been wonderful.

 Denise: So before you started 63 surrendered, so now you’re on the other side of your Yes. And the woman who’s listening to this might not have given her Yes. Yet, but before you gave your Yes to 63 surrendered in this whole process, if you can just take us back to what were you struggling with the most when it came to your food and weight and your relationship with God?

Jeannie: Food, I didn’t really realize it at the time. I mean, I kind of did, but food is where I felt safe. Food is where I found a lot of my worth. Not to be braggy, but I’m a really good cook and everybody loves my cooking. And so it started where I just did all this cooking. 

I was always cooking for bridge parties or for tennis parties or for let’s get together on the weekend parties, family gatherings, and it was always about the food. And I enjoy eating. I love food and I just had an unhealthy relationship with it ’cause I found my worth in food rather than in Christ. And that’s just not where it should be. 

But I did have a spiritual transformation when I was 40 and that’s when I really started studying the word of God. And I got really close to him and I got a lot of things cleaned up in my life, but I just never could quite overcome the food struggle. 

And so it makes you really tired. It’s just that’s why your program is so beautiful it’s not fatiguing. It brings peace. It’s relieving instead of fatiguing. And I want everyone to feel bad. I want every woman that struggles. 

Like it used to be. I just thought about food all the time. I either thought about what I was gonna cook or what I was going to eat versus what I should eat. It was just all these food thoughts and you’ve made me realize how powerful our brain is.

And you give us so many exercises on how to slow our brain down, how to take a breath. It’s hard to explain actually, but it’s so beautiful. The process is so beautiful and it’s so beautiful when you have a daughter that is an overthinker. I was with her this weekend and it was kind of funny. I was like, wow, you are taking a lot of brain space up with that.

You know? And I thought, oh, that was a Denise sentence. How much brain space are you really gonna put into that? So I think it really like bleeds over not to just food, it really truly bleeds over into your whole life, how you approach all kinds of issues in your life. It’s a peace program. I call it a peace program.

 Denise: Yeah. When you just said it’s exhausting, the food thoughts are just exhausting. That’s exactly where I was. It was like 85 to 90% of my thoughts were about food. 

Jeannie: I know, right? 

 Denise: There’s gotta be more to life than this. I know. The Lord didn’t create me just to think about food all day. 

Jeannie: Correct. Right. That’s correct. And that’s why I like that. That’s why I’m enjoying your program so much, and I’m so glad that I’m gonna be a lifetime member is because you bring that point home so beautifully and it does make you self-check. Why am I thinking about that so much?There’s so many more beautiful things to be thinking about. Why am I wasting my time on this? 

 Denise: And what happens, so that people don’t think that they’re doing the wrong thing is when we find that we find our comfort in food and we find now we’re a good cook and then now we like to eat. It seems like then food starts to fill so many buckets of our life, our identity, our recreation, our fun, our comfort.

What we turn to when we’re stressed or lonely. It’s like our solution for everything and our way to celebrate and our way to bond with people. It feels like all roads lead to food. 

Jeannie: Right.

 Denise: Which I think people could argue, oh we live in a culture where it’s about food. Okay, that’s fine. But is that working? 

Jeannie: This is what I used to tell my kids, and I tell myself this too. Just because everybody does it doesn’t mean it’s right. It means it’s common. And we weren’t created to be common. We’re created to be extraordinary. And so our job is not to just do it ’cause everybody else does it. And so our job is to do what is truly right. 

And what is truly right is what the word of God says. And he does tell us how to live. Exactly. And even when it comes to food, all food’s. Okay. It’s just the excess part that messes it up. Anything we do in excess is not how he created us to be. 

 Denise: You know and Jeannie, I wanna piggyback on that. And I was doing a podcast or something the other day, and it occurred to me that what’s normal, ’cause it’s normal for women to like talk mean to themselves and hate themselves. That doesn’t mean it’s holy. 

Jeannie: Right. Right. Correct. 

 Denise: Right. And the Lord wants us to be like him in ways. The other thing that I think is important for everyone to recognize is that the Lord made us so multifaceted and so unique and so intricate. If we fill all of those intricacies with one thing. 

Jeannie: Yeah. 

 Denise: And express it only with one thing. I just don’t think he made us that way. 

Jeannie: I think that’s a very good point. That’s a very good point. And we just, you somewhere in, throughout this whole process, you talk about how we make things into little mini gods, and I did make my cooking into a mini God. It’s where I found my fulfillment and that is not what he intended for me to do. 

And he used you to point that out to me ’cause I prayed for that like I had prayed. I will admit, when I did ate fat loss, I learned a lot about nutrition. I didn’t know very much about nutrition. So that taught me a lot about nutrition. 

And Noom taught me a lot about little psych tricks, but your program is a complete program because you bring in the spiritual element, which I don’t feel like there’s any other food program out there that has a spiritual element, and it’s the spiritual element that brings true peace. Like I’m truly at peace. In my soul.

I’m not walking around with all these thoughts bonking off my head all day long about, oh you’re good ’cause you ate that. Or, oh, you’re bad because you ate that. Or, oh, you’re being disobedient ’cause you ate that, you have a simple process that’s easy to follow, that truly brings peace. 

And once you write all that down, you don’t have to think about food the rest of the day. ’cause you know what you’re going to eat. You go and eat it and you’re done. And that’s all it is to it. It’s simple. 

Denise: Yeah. And you’re right, Jeannie. I don’t think there are a lot of programs that truly bring the Lord into the simple decision. So every moment of your day can be an act of worship and connection with him. And I like to say the Lord doesn’t care what you weigh, but he does care about not being with you and about what you are distracted with. 

Jeannie: Right? 

Denise: And so if you can just stay a hundred percent in this whole process with him, he’s rock on. Let’s do this. 

Jeannie: Right. And he does take away your anxiety. He does take away your shame or your guilt or he just, all these emotions. Just once I did that program, I just quit feeling all these radical emotions and now I truly just feel at peace and calm and I’m just different. And I appreciate that so much and I appreciate your willingness to answer his call to create this program. ’cause it needed to be created. 

Denise: I love that. Thank you. That really just fills my heart the way you said that. Because sometimes I feel like, am I being selfish here? ‘Cause I just get so filled from this work. But when you said it needed to be created, I heard something Jeanie that I really needed to hear in my personal good.

Jeannie: Well, I’m glad because you, I just truly believe you answered a call. We all have a calling on our life. We all have to answer the call. And even taking this program, even hitting click on this program that’s answering a call, he’s calling us, he’s trying to rescue us from this food addiction or this food battle, and he’s not gonna be able to rescue us if we don’t hit click. If we don’t say yes, you know, click on it. 

Denise: It only takes a click. 

Jeannie: It takes one click, one click to change your life. One click Truly. 

Denise: Okay. So you are again on the other side of your Yes. And we can clearly hear that your life has been transformed. But let’s go back before you started 63 surrendered, what were your concerns about trying another weight loss program?

Jeannie: Well, I’m always willing to try, so I don’t feel like I had huge concerns about it. I probably went in with some crooked thinking like. This probably won’t work, but it’s worth a try, you know? And so I really didn’t have that many concerns. I had hope. I had hope because I could tell that. This was a God thing. This is God-centered.

And I tried all the secular things and they weren’t working. Or if they worked till you quit doing them like that. That’s what I like about this program. This isn’t something that you’re gonna ever quit. Like you could always do this. You can always do a surrender novena, always. And so it seems doable. 

These other ones like, when can I stop doing this? I hate this. When can I stop doing this? And I’ve never felt that way on this program. I’m only getting more and more excited about what’s gonna happen next if I keep doing this, what’s gonna happen next? And I just feel hope. Your program to me offers true hope. That’s why anybody that’s truly having a food battle should click yes. Because it’s worth it. 

Denise: So once you got into the program, what was the biggest surprise for you during the challenge? 

Jeannie: The biggest surprise to me was the peace that I felt. I have a very strong faith. I have a very deep faith, but I have a gripping faith like. One of the Surrender novenas, you talk about a lady that talked about panic prayers. I was the queen of all queens of panic prayers. I was always throwing up a panic prayer. 

And when you say, Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything. When you say that 20 times a day, and actually I say it probably 80 times a day. You finally start believing he’s gonna take care of everything. He’s got this, he is taking care of everything. 

And so when you say that enough times, you just start believing it. And before you know you’re just filled with that peace beyond all understanding that he promises us. ’cause he is the king of peace and he wants us to live in peace. 

And so we quit trying to make everything so hard. We, I think we as humans. Naturally make everything so hard, and when we just take a breath, relax and really believe that he’s gonna take care of everything, he just does. You just see it. 

Denise: So you were the queen of panic prayers and now you are living in peace.

Jeannie: Yes. 

Denise: And one of the smallest and foundational parts of our program is teaching you how to have a calm brain. 

Jeannie: Yes. 

Denise: Which allows peace. 

Jeannie: Yeah. 

Denise: Because calm brains don’t stress eat. And so if we can just teach that one skill, it helps you not turn to food. 

Jeannie: Correct. And it really does work because. We have a snack drawer at our house that I probably shouldn’t have, but when you have all these grandkids running around, you gotta have a snack drawer. Really. I guess you don’t have to, but we do. 

And I just can’t quite go buy the snack drawer without snacking. At some point in the day, I’ll get something out of the snack drawer, but I’m not, that snack door doesn’t even call me anymore. I guess it’s the calm brain, but like it doesn’t even come into my thought that, oh, I should go by the snack drawer.

And I love that. That’s the hugest change that I’ve really experienced through this whole thing is I cut out the snack drawer and I just would’ve thought that would be impossible with me. ’cause I love a snack drawer. 

Denise: So we’ve got more peace. We’ve got the snack drawer is just the snack drawer, it doesn’t feel like it controls you anymore.

Jeannie: Correct. 

Denise: You can let it be 

Jeannie: Correct. 

Denise: What other results have you had? 

Jeannie: Well, so in Noom you gotta get on that scale every day and that was extremely stressing to me. That was so stressing. And you emphasize, why are you getting on the scale? Why are you doing that? What is that gonna accomplish?

And so I’m taking your advice, I have gotten on the scale, so I can’t tell you a number of what’s happened. But I can tell something’s happened because my clothes are all fitting differently. My underwear is fitting differently. My bras are fitting differently. I know something’s happening and I just feel good. I just feel good. I’m happy. I’m peaceful. I’m just happy. Joy filled. 

Probably more than happy, joy filled, and it’s just because. Of how you’ve calmed my brain down, how you’ve taught us, you teach us how to calm your brain down and that I needed that lesson. I had a crazy brain. 

Denise: So for people who are listening, the reason why we don’t get on the scale, you can get on the scale when you start the challenge if you want, and then at the end, if you want, and the reason why we don’t get on it is because it’s very distracting.

And what I find is that, the over 7,000 women who have gone through this program, that when they are weighing, they’re distracted and then we have to coach them away from that instead. What I like to say is, let me keep you focused on where to put your energy and your time. ’cause we all only have a finite amount of time and energy on what’s going to really matter and it’s on learning skills. And you keep saying that you learned the skill of how to calm your brain down. 

Jeannie: Right.

Denise:  And so focusing on that, you all who are listening can hear that the fruits of learning that skill are way beyond stepping on a scale.

Jeannie: Way beyond. Correct. And really, I found that it has a ripple effect. It hasn’t affected just my food. It’s affected relationships, it’s affected my marriage. It’s affected my tone and it’s just changing me from the inside out. And I love that. I just love that. 

Denise: And would it be more accurate to say he’s changing you? 

Jeannie: Absolutely. The program. Absolutely Jesus is doing it, but it’s because your whole focus is on Jesus. It’s not how to eat less calories. It’s not how to burn more calories. It’s not how to eat richer macros or whatever. It’s not about anything like that. It’s all about him. 

Denise: Yeah. Romans 12:2, “Do not conform to the ways of this world. And be transformed by the renewal of your mind”. And Jeannie, that could only happen because you said yes and you said, okay,  Lord, I want that. 

Jeannie: Right. 

Denise: And then he can come in and he’ll only go where he has permission.

Jeannie: Correct. We have to open the door, he’ll knock, but we have to open the door. That’s why they gotta click yes. They gotta click join. They gotta click. It’s the best investment you’ll ever make, and it will bring you true peace. And isn’t that what we’re all looking for, I’m 61 years old. I’m tired of the fight, I’m tired of the battle. I wanna go out filled with peace. 

And when I get to those pearly gates, I want ’em to say, well done by good and faithful servants. One way to be faithful is to eat properly, to fuel our body properly. And I just feel like with this program, the emphasis is on how to do that without feeling deprivation. You know, it’s okay if you eat a bag of chips. It’s okay. It’s okay. 

Denise: And I think when you say being faithful, another part of being faithful is just to look at, Hey, what’s standing in the way of me and the Lord? What’s standing between us? 

Jeannie: Right? Right. 

Denise: We are distracted, and then we just start minimizing those things in our life. So if it’s anger and we start minimizing anger and work on overcoming that. If it’s emotional eating, we start looking on how to solve for that, whether it’s nicotine or maybe we’re, whatever it feels like is taking us from the Lord, it is our job to address it. 

Jeannie: Right. 

Denise: I have a friend who’s like, you know what, we’re gonna be purified this part, you know, this side of purgatory or the other side. And it does, it just feels like it’s a real purifying process. 

Jeannie: It is a purifying process for sure. And what’s beautiful about it is the support system. The other ladies like those coaching calls. I love those coaching calls and I love on Slack when everybody gets hyped back and forth and you start to feel a real bond with these people and we encourage each other. Nobody beats each other up. 

If we have a win, we all celebrate the win. If we had a struggle, we all encourage each other through the struggle. It’s just a beautiful group of people.

Denise: A lot of women who just love the Lord and want the peace that Jeannie’s talking about. 

Jeannie: Yeah. And it’s available. Yeah, it’s available. 

Denise: So Jeannie, if you could go back and talk to yourself before joining the challenge, what advice would you give yourself? 

Jeannie: Just to say yes to the challenge for sure. And I wish, I am kind of sad that I’m 61 and just figuring this out. I’m sad about that. I wish this program would’ve been available when I was 32 and losing my health. I just didn’t know anything. And I do think we’ve come a long way in our mental health journey, just in general, and we know a little bit more about what things are causing what things.

And so I think I did the best that I could with what I had to do it with. But now if there’s a young woman out here listening to this, say yes now, don’t waste 30 years, And then say, yes, go ahead and say yes now. 

Because every day is one more day on the kingdom calendar and he’s either coming or we’re going, but. We do have a finite number of days here, so we need to make the best of them and this is one way to make the best of them. 

Denise: I like that you brought that up, Jeannie, because when I came into this work, I was introduced to it when I was 37 and I remember being surrounded by women who were in their sixties and seventies, and I just remember thinking, Lord, how did you pick me so early? Like, gave me decades of freedom. I just felt so chosen. 

Jeannie: You are. You are chosen and you’re chosen ’cause you answered the call. I think a lot of us are chosen, but it’s whether we have the courage to say yes. It takes courage to say yes. Yeah, it takes courage to do something different, but one of my favorite sayings is, in order for something to be different, you have to do something different.

And so this is something different that I have found. That actually works for me and encourages me and offers me so much hope, and I just feel like it’s something I’ll always be able to do. I won’t be able to say, oh, I tried that. This is not a program that you would just say, oh, I tried that. 

Denise: Right. As long as you’re a woman who wakes up in the morning and says, Hey, Lord, I love you and I wanna walk with you, then this program doesn’t end. 

Jeannie: Correct. Correct. And that’s why I really love it. And you always do. Emphasize that if you have a willing spirit, there’s no timeline on how it’s gonna work or when it’s gonna work.  None of that. ‘Cause we can’t control really any of that. But what’s guaranteed is it will work. You will have fruit from doing this program for sure. No doubt about it. 

Denise: It works. It works because he works.

Jeannie: Correct? He’s working in us, we’re working with him. He’s working in us. It’s a team effort and. It’s how he intended our lives to be. He just wants a relationship with us. That’s all he wants. And so he’s calling all of us to say yes. 

Denise: I tell you what, you are just, your energy is so contagious. I’m so grateful that for all of you listening, Jeanie and I recorded this podcast several weeks ago, and then there was a hiccup with the software. And I reached out to Jeanie and I was like,  it didn’t save. And all this jazz. Will you come back on? And she gratefully 48 hours ago, said Yes.

And I’m so grateful because it is such a gift for me to just be like so filled with your spirit, which I know is just the Lord, and it, oh, my heart is so full and I know whoever’s listening to this, her heart is so full too with hearing your voice, and it is just the Lord like just pouring into her.

Jeannie: Well, let me say one thing to anybody listening to this podcast. It’s not any coincidence that you’re listening today. He is calling anyone listening to say Yes and just feel confident in your yes, because you’re gonna get so much fruit from participating in this program.

And he just wants a relationship with us and this is a great place. It’s a safe place and I just wanna encourage anybody that is looking for a healthy way to be healthy to try this ’cause it is beautiful. 

And Denise is the greatest cheerleader. I’ve ever encountered in my life. No matter what you tell her, you tell her some crazy thought you’ve had. She can turn that thing around to a positive. She can talk you off the ledge. It’s fantastic. You’ll really enjoy the coaching calls, I promise. They’re fantastic.

Denise: But, and my goal always for all of you guys is to teach you how to do that for yourself. And Jeannie, you know you’re doing that all the time. 

Jeannie: I know. But I really like it when you do it 

Denise: For sure.

Jeannie: You make me think of things. I’m like, oh, I never really thought about it like that. 

Denise: Oh yeah. We all need somebody else to look at our brain because we’re all stuck in our own head. 

Jeannie: Right. And I do think that it is so much noise in our world just with our phones and with television and radios and just so much noise that we kind of get lazy or tired or something and we just kind of stop thinking and we just kind of start cruising through life and we’re just. Existing rather than living. 

And I do feel like this program makes you so aware of your thought processes that you’re kind of like, oh, I really should think about that a little more. Or I should think about that a little differently. Or I should think about that a little deeper. And it kind of invigorates you. It’s wow, I am a thinking being, I can think about something. I don’t have to just do it ’cause that’s the way I’ve always done it. So I have found a new energy in that through this, all of this.

Denise: So to sum it up, if you had to say something to the woman who’s listening who might be on the fence, who said, I’ve tried so many things, this is just gonna be another thing that I give up on, or it’ll work for a little bit and then it won’t work, and I’m just gonna fail, what would you say to her?

Jeannie: What I would say is that Jesus is all in this program and Jesus is calling all of us and he is knocking on the door, but only we can choose. So you can choose. You can choose to be tired, or you can choose to say, oh, it’s just pointless, or whatever. Or you can choose him. Who’s the Prince of peace? Who’s the king of kings? Who is our only hope? He’s truly our only hope. 

And just say yes because it is. It’s just mind boggling how beautiful living in peace is. I just really didn’t know that I could live in peace, even though really my circumstances haven’t changed that much. I still have the same husband. I still have the same children. I still have the same grandchildren. I’m still busy.

But I’m just so much more relaxed now and at peace, and I just would like every woman to feel that peace. Don’t get worked up over all this stuff. It’s all problems are fixable. All problems are solvable. 

Denise: Everything is solvable in life except death. But the only thing that’s a problem at that point is are you right with the Lord or you’re not. 

Jeannie: Correct. Correct.  Where are we going? What direction are we going? 

Denise: Well, I just so appreciate you taking the time. I feel like you have said everything else, but let me give you one opportunity. Is there any parting words that you’d like to leave with our audience?

Jeannie: I just wanna say that every woman  has their own battles. I just think, I think a lot of women have battles and they do make you tired and they do make you feel broken or whatever, but truly when you surrender to God, ’cause it’s all based on surrender and when you truly do surrender this stuff. There is just a peace that comes with that, and he wants that for all of us.

So just say yes. I just don’t think you would regret saying yes. There’s just a joy there that everybody’s waiting to live. We’re just to live in joy. We’re called to live. Consider it all joy. So let’s go. Let’s say yes and see what he’s gonna do. Let’s go. Let’s go people. Let’s go. 

Denise: Yeah. 

Jeannie: Yes. Click out. That is so great. 

Denise: Oh, I love it. Well, Jeannie, thank you so much for being here. It’s just been such a gift to me and I know a gift to everybody else. 

Jeannie: Oh, you’re sweet. Thanks. Thank you, Denise, for all that you do because truly you are answering his call and truly you are teaching us what he wants us to know. And I just thank you for that, honestly. Thank you. Thank you.