Hey everybody. So today I wanna talk to you about retraining your body for weight loss. And this is not a podcast about macros, and it’s not a podcast about food. It is simply retraining your body and your brain to be in new patterns. And so I think you’ll understand this, if you’ve ever driven a stick shift car. 

And if you’ve ever driven a stick shift car, which I learned when I was in college, I just thought it was the coolest thing ever was to learn how to do the clutch and the brake and the gas, and then the gear shifter, and it feels so awkward. It feels like impossible. It feels like my brain will never, ever, ever be able to do this. 

And then pretty soon as you just do it over and over and over, it gets so into your body. And I wanna keep using that term into your body that it becomes what we would probably call automatic second nature to where, oh my gosh, not only can I drive a stick shift car, but I can probably, eat a full meal at the same time.

So this is not a weight loss analogy, but another example of this is I have found that I’ve been getting into this pattern of putting my dishes into the sink. And then my brain just thinks, oh, it’s just too much work to clean them off and put them in the dishwasher. 

And then when all the other humans in my house are doing the same thing now I’m kind of annoyed. Like I feel like people think that I should be putting their dishes in the dishwasher. And mostly all of the other humans, except for my husband, are trained to put their dishes in the dishwasher. But I’m finding myself doing the same darn thing. 

And so I’m intentionally retraining my body and my brain to done eating, wash dishes, put it in the dishwasher. ’cause my brain is believing it takes too long. It’s going to take, I don’t know, I guess I think it’s gonna take five minutes and then I’ll just do it all at once. But I hate doing that. I don’t wanna do that. 

So I am going to be intentionally retraining my body and my brain to just automatically done eating, load the dishes. And so today I want to just use this very simple concept that you can do the same thing for things that will help you with weight loss.

So I want to go through four different things that we use in weight loss with the Holy Spirit program that get your body into and are integrated into who you now become, these patterns  that will help you with weight loss. 

And so I want to, before I get into that, preface this by saying this is one of the reasons why simply knowing what to do does not help at all. By knowing what to do does not lead to success. By knowing what to do does not lead to actually doing it. 

And I was listening to a Tony Robbins podcast and he said, I don’t think knowledge is success. He goes, knowledge is potential success. And I thought that’s so good. So after I go through the four things that you might want to try to start retraining your body to be able to allow weight loss to occur, I’ll inform you on some ways that you can get started because simply knowing these will not help you. There will have to be some element of practice.

And one of the ways that you can actually shortcut this practice is by getting our new app, which is the number one Catholic weight loss app for women, and it continues to provide reminders for you so that you can retrain your brain with the habits that I’m going to talk about right now. 

That app is available for all of our participants in this next round of 63 Surrendered. That starts September 17th, so pop over to weightlosswiththeholyspirit.com to get your spot today. Alright, so here are the four things that you can start getting into your body. 

So one of the things that we teach in the weight loss with the Holy Spirit program is that when you are in a stressed brain, how to recalibrate and calm your brain. If you haven’t heard me say this, what happens when your brain is stressed out is that 90% of your blood is shunted and delivered to the fight, flight, or freeze response. 

So you cannot logically think when you’re in a stress response.  So we teach you how to detect when you’re in a stress response, how you get that sensation and that feeling. My stress response is often either deer in headlights, freeze. 

Where my brain is just shut down. There’s no even like no gears turning freeze, or it feels really fast and racy, and that’s when I answer quickly and I move fast. That’s kind of that fight. Or maybe even the flight response. I’m not sure it’s important to name it. But I can now detect it and know I’m in that response. 

So the first thing is being able to detect it, but the second thing is becoming as the next step of what do I do with that? How is my body now programmed to detect it? And now, and the calming practice that we have now integrated into our lives for the women who practice the surrendered method and the weight loss of the Holy Spirit program is we do a ten second pause. 

If you’re familiar with our work, this is what it sounds like. You inhale for three and you exhale for seven, and it sounds like this. Think, Feel, Exhale, Choose. So you inhale for three say think and feel, and exhale for a count of seven with an extended choose. It goes, Think, Feel, Exhale, Choose. 

And for those of you who would like to experience this, let’s do it five times together. Okay? Inhale. Think, Feel, Exhale, Choose. Inhale, Think, Feel, Exhale, Choose. Closing. Your eyes is helpful, inhale think. Feel, exhale, choose. Inhale, exhale, choose. Think, feel, exhale, choose.  Let’s just take a moment to notice how your body and your brain feel. I always feel so calm and fuzzy after I do that. 

That process oxygenates your brain. But also gives your brain time to recalibrate. Often we’re in a stress response because something unexpected happens, so it’s very normal for the human brain to be in a stress response when there’s an unexpected thing that happens.

And what we’re trying to do is to create a new response to your brain recalibrating, which would be this ten second pause, instead of what you’re currently doing potentially is just turning to food. So we’re interrupting that pattern and getting a new pattern into your body.  The second thing that we teach is a method of how to actually eat the food that you’re eating. 

It doesn’t matter what’s on your plate, doesn’t matter where you are, but there are three habits, and the three habits that we want to integrate into your body is that you chew your food 20 or more times per bite. That you empty your hands between bites so that you’re not holding the food ready to shovel it in more. 

You’re not holding your water, you’re not holding your chips, your sandwich, your burrito, your utensils, nothing. Hands are empty. You’re not scrolling on your phone. And the third thing we want to integrate into your body is that your mouth is empty before you take the next bite. Okay. Again, just teaching your body how to eat slowly to savor food instead of eating it quickly.

And eating it quickly. The downside of that is often you’re not even experiencing your food, so you’re not even getting pleasure from it. Eating quickly potentially could be in a stress response, so I totally recommend doing the ten second pause.  If you are in a stress response before you eat your food, you only eat with a calm brain. And so we’re just teaching your body a way to eat slowly, a way to eat and be present to your food. Eat intentionally. 

And in the app, you get to go to each time that you eat and check off that you are doing those three habits, so you don’t have to remember to do them by just remembering in your own brain. The app will continue to remind you, which by practicing over and over, will retrain your brain, retrain your body. 

Okay. I think I also wanna mention that the ten second pause, it may take up to nine times to recalibrate your brain to calm down, and once your brain calms down, that blood can be redistributed to the best thinking part of your brain, which is the prefrontal cortex where logical thinking happens, where calm thinking, where you remember your long-term goals. We call that the best brain thinking. 

The third pattern that we want to put into your body is one that we practice and learn in 63, surrendered. Even if you’re not part of 63 surrendered, you can do this, and it is surrendering your changes. What that means is when you have an idea of what you want to eat, you have a plan. I always say it’s a written plan because a not written plan, a plan in your head is only a thought. That’s just a little bonus teaching here. 

But it has to be a written plan or I suggest a written plan for best success in retraining your body on how to lose weight. We write things down. But if you want to make a change, the concept of surrendering a change simply means I write down the change I want to make before I take the first bite. That is it. 

And although some people may say, well, is that even helpful? Yes, it absolutely is. We’re into integrating into your body a sacred pause. A moment for you to pause, notice I’m making the change, and write it down. 

Getting that into your body, that new pattern away from impulsive eating. The other thing that I love, the Sacred Pause, I love to call it a sacred pause, is that it’s not only rewiring impulse eating. But it’s an opportunity for you to connect with the Lord. We call it surrendering a change because we say, Jesus, I surrender. Fill in the blank, the change to you takes care of everything. 

We’re also practicing and getting into your body, not judging you. So you want to make a change? No problem. You write it down. We’re not thinking about the change. We’re not evaluating should I make the change, shouldn’t I make the change? It’s fine. Just change it. 

The skill that we’re working on now is not intentionally deciding the skill that we’re trying to get in your body. It’s to not be impulsively eating and to direct your brain. Give it something else to do. That is it. And when I talk to you about how to integrate these changes into your life, part of it’s just starting small. 

Be okay that we’re just learning how to get impulse eating out of your body. Get that out as an automatic habit and  put in sacred pauses. Get that into your body, that sacred pause. We’re not doing everything at once. Friends, when we do everything at once, nothing gets done. 

The fourth thing that we’re getting into your body, and it sounds like it might be contradictory to what I just told you, but depending on where you are in your journey, you may want to move on to number four, which is an advanced skill, a new thing to get into your body, which is allowing the urge to want to eat something.

And not answer the urge to let an urge be there and to know that your body is able to experience a thought, oh, I want to eat that. And notice that there’s a thought there. Have that pull  towards food and not answer it and urge to eat food and not answer it. Or perhaps it’s an urge to not eat food. Some people are scared to eat food, especially they might be scared to eat food that. Before was dangerous in their brain or against certain diet rules. 

So just noticing, having an urge to do something that wasn’t planned and you can just allow that thought to be there, to not answer that urge, to not start negotiating with it, to say what are the things that we learn?  And our more advanced women and I say advanced because they have learned the basic skills and they’re just continuing to refine and refine and refine.

And one of the places we eventually get to is learning how to make an easy to stick to meal plan and stick to it. And we don’t stick to it because it’s wrong to go off of it, but it’s because we practiced so often how to make an easy to stick to a meal plan, make changes. If we need to, we surrender the changes.

But we’ve become so skilled at accurately anticipating our needs and wants and desires and knowing how to meet those needs, wants and desires and the demands of the day. So part of that is that you are human and you will make an easy to stick to meal plan and have an urge to change it. 

And you can start practicing and getting into your body. Hey, that’s fine. I can have that urge, but that doesn’t mean I need to change it because I love what I planned. This plan works for me. I know it does. That you’ve become so skilled in accurately anticipating your needs. 

And so let me go through those one more time so you can start to say, I might wanna try that, I might not. And then I’ll tell you how to integrate it in which ones you feel ready for and maybe which ones you wanna wait on.

The first one is practicing the ten second pause to recalibrate your brain to a calm thinking brain, because guess what? Friends? A calm brain is one of the best assets you can have in every area of your life, especially weight loss because a calm brain does not stress eat. 

Number two, the three habits of slowing yourself while you’re eating, chewing your food 20 times, emptying your hands between bites and emptying your mouth before the next bite.

The third thing is practicing surrendering the changes, which simply means, oh, I wanna make a change. No problem. Write it down before you take the first bite allows you to connect with the Lord. It starts to get impulse eating out of your body and into your body, a sacred pause. And to not judge and start negotiating all the changes.

Number four, learning how to have an urge in your body to do something, and that’s fine, but it doesn’t have to be answered. You don’t feel obsessed and compulse and controlled by a thought or an urge. It can be present and unanswered. 

So here’s how you start this. Whatever you just heard, something resonated with you. And if you’d like to practice this surrounded by hundreds of other Catholic women, then join 63 Surrendered. You’ll not only have the support and love of women in this sisterhood, but you’ll have the support of this app that will be in your pocket all darn day long. 

The app is optional. If you’re not an app person, that’s totally fine, but I don’t want you to miss out on getting in this next round of 63 surrendered. Our kickoff call is September 17th, so be sure to get to weightlosswiththeholyspirit.com to get your spot. 

But in the event that you choose to go on your own, here are a few things that might be helpful. I know it did. Where you’re like that could be helpful for me. Maybe I wanna try that. And so I encourage you to start small, which means pick one thing guys. Pick one thing, pick one thing, and pick one step in that direction to practice. 

So for example, if you were going to do the ten second pause, perhaps you might write it down on an index card, or you might put it in your phone. Or you might write a list of times that it would be helpful to use, or you might intentionally practice it twice a day or practice it twice this week. Or you might notice when you’re getting stressed, we’re gonna take one step toward that. 

For the three habits, I would probably have you write down the three habits on a piece of paper and practice it for three minutes of one meal. And three minutes on the next meal tomorrow, and maybe you take two weeks of setting a three minute timer and simply practicing it at most meals for three minutes. 

You don’t have to worry about doing the whole meal, but do you see how it’s just one step? Start small. You can start saying, Hey, it’s possible to make progress with starting small. It’s okay to start small. It’s okay to just begin where I am. 

As you go, you will naturally start to make it three or four minutes or five minutes. It will start to get into your body. It will start to become more natural. But hey, you guys, in the beginning it will feel unfamiliar. Anything new, feels unfamiliar, and your job is to be okay with it, feeling unfamiliar. 

Your job is to not make it mean that you’re doing anything wrong. It just means it’s unfamiliar. It’s not fully integrated into your body yet, but you are the one that is a hundred percent in control of whether or not it gets integrated into your body.

And that just means that you’re able to withstand feeling uncomfortable discomfort and not making it mean anything. It just means you’re trying something new. Thoughts that could be helpful are, I’m learning to eat more slowly. I believe it’s possible for me to chew my food 20 times. I believe it’s possible for me to be more present.

I know this will help. I know this will become more automatic. I believe that’s possible. I’m willing to try to eat slower. I’m willing to try to calm my brain. And finally practice. And what I like about practicing is I want you to just think of it, give yourself a luxurious amount of time to practice one very simple skill.

So for example, the three minutes at a meal. What if you took one month and you said, I’m gonna pick one meal a day to practice this for three minutes. Just one month or one month? Wow. That’s a luxurious amount of time. There’s no rush to practice these things guys.

Just expect to practice one thing for a very luxurious amount of time, and what happens then is you actually make progress faster than you expected. But I like to say, Hey, you know what? I’m gonna give myself the next month to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. One simple thing, one step. 

So I hope this has been helpful for you to see how integrating new things into your body will help you on your weight loss journey, and it’s practicing these skills. It is practicing these skills that help them become more automatic. 

Remember, one of the most important things that we get to start doing now is opening our eyes and living intentionally, and I hope this has been helpful for you. Remember, you don’t have to do this alone. You can walk with the hundreds of other Catholic women who are learning these practices. One day at a time in 63 surrendered.

Imagine where you could be in two months before Thanksgiving, finding peace and freedom in your food, entering into the holidays, not worried that you’re going to overeat because you’ve practiced the tools. 

So that you can trust yourself around food. I promise you, it’s amazing. If you don’t know how effective this program is, listen to the three podcast episodes prior to this and you will hear the miracles that it can do in your life.

All right, everybody. Have a blessed day.