Denise:  Hey everybody. So in today’s episode, you are going to hear something very special. I have never actually published anything that’s inside our community until now, and you’ll hear me coach a woman through one of the most common fears I see in Catholic weight loss, the fear of gaining weight. And the fear of letting go of the scale.

And this woman’s experience was so poignant, and I just feel like she really encapsulated so many things that you guys are struggling with that I wanted to bring it to the public. Of course, I asked her permission. We’ll keep her totally anonymous, but I want you to hear how safe our community is, and I want you to hear how vulnerable she was allowing herself to be. And the shift that happened. 

This coaching shows what it looks like when we move from control and fear to surrender and letting the Lord in from trying to really just get it right with food, to learning how to walk with the Lord through it all.

And so my hope for you is that as you listen, I want you to notice where your own thoughts, are sound so familiar and notice where her words are exactly like yours. And I want you to remember that God always already knows the plan that works for you. 

And this process isn’t about perfection. It’s about discovering the freedom that he has already prepared for you. All right, so let’s go ahead and turn it over so you can actually hear the live coaching. Enjoy.

Woman: Hi. Okay I was drawn to this program because I struggle so much with self-hate and around my weight and talking to myself like I’m an idiot if I messed up the day before and messed up, is eating too much and struggling with sort of that back and forth all the time with food, obsessing over food. 

And I really occurred to me that the root of it was I needed to give this to God. And so I love the surrender novena and I love this whole program, but the thing that I really struggle with still is I really struggle with wanting to weigh myself. Weigh myself every morning. That’s such a hard thing for me to give up. 

Denise: Yeah. Yeah.

Woman: I don’t know what to do with that. 

Denise: Okay, so there’s ways to solve it and we’re gonna talk about that, but I wanna coach you through first, and you guys the word coach, you through. If you’ve never heard of coaching, it just means let’s look at the thoughts, the sentences that are going in your brain, and let’s see where that leads you. 

Because your thoughts are what really drive us to do everything, which, you know what I’ll explain later, but since you’re here, let’s just go ahead and dive in so you have the thought. I want to weigh myself.

Woman: Yeah.

Denise: I really wanna weigh myself. When you say, I really wanna weigh myself, and when does this come up? Every morning.

Woman: No, it comes up if I’ve had a really good day the day before or if I’ve had a, what occurs to me is a bad day, the day before. 

Denise: Okay. So let’s slow down. So your brain isn’t, I want to weigh myself. It’s, what’s this next question? The next statement is, I wanna see how, I wanna see what.

Woman: I wanna see how I did. Yeah. Did I lose weight? Yeah. 

Denise: All right. So if it’s a day that you feel like you did? Okay. And what does well mean to you? 

Woman: It means I didn’t snack at all. I ate exactly what I intended, or maybe a little less than what I intended. 

Denise: Okay. And then your brain says the sentence I wanna see.

Woman: My brain says, I’ll bet I lost some weight. I wanna see.

Denise: I bet I lost some weight. Okay. And then if you did not do well, okay, so tell me the other scenario and how you would describe that. 

Woman: So if I ate something that was not a part of my plan, that I rationalized eating, you know, the kind of crazy chaotic eating, even if it’s just a small amount of that. Then I wake up in the morning and I think I messed it up and I’ve probably gained weight and I’m basically looking for affirmation that, yeah, I messed up and I gained weight.

Denise: Okay. I wanna go back , one layer up. You said messing it up. To you means I ate something that I didn’t plan. 

Woman: Yes. 

Denise: And it sounds like it doesn’t matter what the food was or the amount, it’s just you didn’t put it on your plan. 

Woman: Yeah. I would say  that’s true. 

Denise: Okay. Let me just poke around your brain a little bit. What if you gimme an example of something that you would eat that you didn’t plan? 

Woman: Peanut butter, ice cream, a sandwich. 

Denise: Okay. 

Woman: Anything like that. Anything extra popcorn. Anything I don’t need. 

Denise: Okay. You’ve got a lot of judgments there. 

Woman: Yeah. 

Denise: I know we’re gonna get to the weight thing in a second, but let me ask your brain, why are you not planning them? 

Woman: Why am I not planning them? 

Denise: Yeah. Why are you not planning your peanut butter and ice cream and sandwich and stuff? 

Woman: Because I wanna lose weight.  And I don’t need to eat those things.

Denise: Okay. This is just a thought exercise. Just like really, really diving into your brain. So the easy to stick-to-meal plan, to be able to lose weight forever. It is a mini skill. M-I-N-I skill?  And the easy to stick to meal plan is the skill that will get you there, and the way it does is it you’ll give yourself full permission to eat anything and your brain’s scared to do that.

Woman: Yeah, yeah. 

Denise: Yeah. So. I want you to think of this skill as this. There’s a mini skill, an MINI skill to being able to find your bike, and then the next skill is you’re able to take it out of the garage, and the next skill is you’re able to walk it over to the sidewalk. 

And the next skill is you’re able to straddle the bike and the next skill is you’re able to plop your butt up on the seat and the next skill is that you’re able to pedal a few times and not fall, but you’re gonna fall of course during all that. And then the final skill is that you’re able to stay on the bike for as long as you want and you don’t fall over ever. 

I mean, that’s not really true because you might hit a gravel spot, totally fine. You might hit a pothole, your tire might go flat. But in general, the majority of the time is you’re on the bike and you’re not falling. And what has happened is that we believe that when we make a plan that we’ll be able to be on the bike forever. 

But the problem is that you know that four or 5-year-old, or six or seven or nine doesn’t matter. They first have to even find the bike that fits them, right? Like if they went and used their dad’s bike, there’s no way they’ll ever be able to hang on that. And that’s what the easy to stick to meal plan. Is this finding the bike that’s first the right size? 

And you’re kind of like, dude, these handlebars even fit. I don’t know. Do I like this? Do I like the banana seat? Do I like this seat? Is this seat the right height? Is it too low? Is it a tricycle? I don’t even been on a tricycle. And it feels really odd when it doesn’t fit and your brain wants to mean it’s wrong.

But what has happened, and thank you so much for bringing this up, is that we have so gotten very distracted by the world’s view of diets and calories. We come with all of this information and the Lord’s like, wait a second. Wait, Hang on. Whoa. Hold the phone, you guys, the Lord’s like, listen, you guys, I gave you food so that you enjoy it and I gave you food so that it fills your belly and of course provides nutrients, right? Whatever. 

And we’re like, but we need food as a tool. We’ve been using food as a tool to feel good about ourselves. We’ve been using food and me, I used food as a tool to manipulate my body because if my body looked a certain way, then I’d be okay. I ate the right food, then I knew I was good. Okay. That feels safe. 

Woman: Yeah. 

Denise: Or my feelings got so big and I didn’t know how to process them. So anytime that I would feel an uncomfortable feeling, whether it was offended or mad, or angry or sad, or whatever. The Lord’s like, Hey, I’ll help you. But I didn’t know him and I didn’t know how to do that. But I had a beautiful tool in food. It helped me through all the things.

So that is to say that of course your brain is looking to the scale to be like, am I okay? Am I doing it right? And in the welcome video, I say, in this program, the way that you know, if you’re doing it right. Because you’re doing it. And it’s so uncomfortable because all of those external measurements that we have, I’m literally ripping your whoopy from you.

Woman: Can you say that again? I don’t understand what that means. I think. 

Denise: Like your binky, like your comfort blinky. What you’re running to for comfort and affirmation, the scale. 

Woman: Yeah. 

Denise: I’m like, you can’t do that. 

Woman: Yeah. 

Denise:  And I only say that with so much love because I saw so many women go through this program weighing themselves and then, they are still making the scale their God, and I can’t do that to you. And that is why we get to coach. ’cause your brain’s seeking comfort and affirmation in that number. This is the process that many women go through.

And the faster we can heal you from this, the faster you’re going to get your results. And so by trying to create safety in your body to make it easy to stick to meal plan. That is the root of the problem. But we can coach on the scale too. So what is, I said a lot of things. So what does your brain say when I say you have unconditional permission to eat any food?

Woman: That my brain says that’s nuts. I feel like the scale is representative of this power over me that gives me positive feedback and very negative feedback and it can control me on this cycle. 

And so the idea of being able to eat whatever I want. In a healthy way, feels like a wonderful way that I would love to live my life, but my knee jerk reaction is that realistic? Because I’ve never done that before. 

Denise: Yeah. Okay. So what we do is we call this like a bridge. A bridge thought. So you have the ideal. It’s, oh my God. I mean, you just lit up, like you kind of looked like you were talking about a dream when you said that. 

Woman: Yeah. 

Denise: That I can eat anything unconditional permission, and I don’t know what else you said, but it was really great. What did you say?

Woman: I think in a healthy way or in a moderate way. Right. So, that I’m appreciating it. Not a slave to it. 

Denise: Yeah. So I’ve got this food, I eat it, I enjoy it and move on. And then right now it’s this tight control where it’s like there’s right food to eat.

Woman: Yeah.

Denise: So we can’t expect you to go from one to the next, to the next to the next. How does it feel when you say there’s right food that I have to eat? What is your brain like when you sit down to make your easy to stick to a meal plan? What is it like to offer you? 

Woman: It wants me to eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch, not to have any snacks and then to have, one serving of what I’m cooking for dinner and then not to eat anything again after that. That’s my brain’s idea of an ideal day. 

Denise: Okay. So you guys, if you see the self-coaching model, the a line, the action line, which will make sense later, is she makes a meal plan that is within these boundaries. So what is the feeling like? Why do you do that? 

Woman: ‘Cause I’m trying to do my meal plan and because I like the idea of not being out of control. And I like schedules. I like order all of those kinds of things and it occurs to me like that’s a healthy way of losing weight. 

Denise: Okay. This will help me lose weight. That’s probably the thought you’re having while you’re making your easy to stick to meal plan. This will help me lose weight. And that sounds like a great idea. 

And you guys all are like, oh, that sounds like really clean. That feels really great. So when you say, this will help me lose weight, how do you feel? This will help me lose weight. 

Woman: I feel good about that. 

Denise: Yeah. If you feel really confident? Okay. So then what’s the problem? I’m playing around in your brain. Okay. 

Woman: Okay. The problem is yeah, it’s the thing that we’ve talked about that with the chaos eating and I’m, I was really good about it for a while and then I think I just don’t incorporate foods that occur to me as potentially trigger foods and then if they’re in my house.

So I think what started this time was. My husband and I were gonna have an at home date night, so I got chocolate ice cream and I thought we’ll have chocolate ice cream as like a special dessert for a Sunday night. 

And then I just knew it was there and I had it a couple of other times, and that was not part of my written out plan. And then I start to think like, there’s like this undercurrent thought of like, oh, screw it. And then I eat too much and I don’t feel good, and. Then I wanna punish myself the next day. 

Denise: Yeah. Because you’re in the, this will help me lose weight. Yeah. On a piece of paper that would help you lose weight. But that’s not why we’re here. I know you guys all hate to hear me say that. If you could eat that way, you would. But all of us are here because the plans that will help us lose weight we can’t stick to.

Woman: Yeah.

Denise: And the reason why is because we haven’t developed the skill. This is not like a secret. It’s a skill, which means you get to practice it, of authentically anticipating our needs. Number one, needs and desires. Knowing that, you know what? I love ice cream on the couch. 

And giving yourself permission to meet your needs and desires. And the other skill that you haven’t developed because you just haven’t practiced it long enough, but you’re going to, is how to emotionally support yourself without food.

Woman: Yeah. Yeah. That rings really true. 

Denise: And there’s three reasons we do the easy to stick to meal plan: to learn how to eat food without dieting, without fear and without guilt. And that’s what learning and allowing yourself to eat any food teaches you over and over. Okay.

The second thing is that you learn how to anticipate your needs and desires and actually are like, Hey I love you. That’s totally fine. We can do that without the judgment, right? Jesus doesn’t judge. He’s just so gentle. And the third thing is just like what I said, to be able to emotionally support yourself without food.

That’s when you practice the easy to stick to meal plan. Did you hear the word practice? No one was born knowing how to do it. It’s a practice, but what’s happening is your brain won’t even allow you to enter into the classroom of the easy to stick to meal plan because it’s so scared and believes that your safety is in losing pounds. Follow me just a little bit more if I can.

Woman: Okay. 

Denise: When you learn the skills and the easy to stick to meal plan, when you’re able to emotionally support yourself without food, when you know how to eat the food that you love without dieting or fear or guilt. 

And when you know how to think ahead in your day and be like, oh, you know what? My husband and I are gonna want this thing a thing, and we’re gonna do that thing a thing, and blah, blah, blah. You can make any plan and you’re gonna be able to lose weight because that plan will be made for you. 

It’s gonna be the bike of the right size, it’s gonna be the bike that fits with your life, your size. It’s gonna be the food that fits with the rhythm of your life, with your own taste. And it’s gonna change in 10 years. And it’s different than it was 10 years ago. Or even last year. But unless we wiggle and say, I don’t know, this is a little uncomfortable. 

But let’s just try to see what can I stick to today. Who am I today? And your brain’s gonna be scared. Of course it’s gonna be scared, but how can we say brain? It’s okay. I’m learning something new. I’m just gonna try this today. Let’s see if I can stick to it today. Because the crazy thing is you’re probably not sticking to the plan that would help you lose weight.

Woman: Yeah.

Denise: Can we let your brain be a little scared? It’s an uncomfortable feeling, but it’s just a feeling. 

Woman: Yeah. I think it means letting my brain let go of control. 

Denise: That’s interesting because you’re still planning the food like you are in control. 

Woman: Right. 

Denise: I think you’re not in control. 

Woman: Because I’m not doing it the way I’ve always done it. So it’s trusting something else. Right? So it’s, I guess it’s a control, but I’m trusting a different way of doing things from how I’ve always do done things, which I think is probably, yeah. That’s a little scary, right? So, yeah. 

Denise: Okay. Well, let’s just go with that. When we’re scared of something, let’s just take it to the worst case scenario. What’s your brain think is the worst thing that could happen?

Woman: The worst thing that could happen is that I’ll tell myself I can eat these foods and then I’ll just eat them uncontrollably and I’ll just, I’ll never get out of that hole and I’ll just gain a ton of weight and give up. 

Denise: Okay. All right. So you guys, there is this caveat to this program and that is that you have clearly identified your chaos foods. You know that when you eat chaos foods. And I have a caveat to that too. 

When you eat chaos foods, you’ll have a strong reaction. And normally when people have that strong reaction, it is they will overeat more. They will eat more than they plan, and they will probably overeat more food too. So if we can identify the foods that when we eat them create this strong reaction, we don’t put them on our plan.

Woman: Yeah.

Denise: That doesn’t mean you won’t want to eat them, but that is when we use other tools like the ten second pause, like what I’m going to teach you today to identify when your brain is stressed out, when you’re having a stress response, and then wherever you’re having a stress response, awesome. Let’s go identify that. Let’s work through that. 

You have clearly identified an area that’s been holding up your weight loss. Amazing. Yeah. And a diet won’t show you that. It won’t reveal that to you. So the worst case is you eat all your chaos foods. What if you don’t eat your chaos foods? 

Woman: What’s the worst case scenario if I don’t eat my chaos foods? Or just in general? What happens if I don’t eat my chaos foods? 

Denise: Yeah. What if you make an easy to stick to meal plan for one day and it doesn’t include your chaos foods? What’s the worst thing that would happen? 

Woman: The worst thing that would happen would be I would still eat off of my plan and or eat too much. 

Denise: Okay. How would you handle that? What does too much mean? Woman: Eating too much means like I go back for seconds or, I eat at a time when I’m not supposed to eat. Eat things that weren’t things that I had decided I could eat. 

Denise: Yeah. Lots of love for you. You’re really helping a lot of people. I want you to know that. Okay, so how will you handle that? 

Woman: That’s the problem. That’s the thing with the scale. How I would love to handle that is to just say, that’s okay. And no cepi right? I’m gonna begin again, and Lord, I love you. Help me to do this with you. And I think yeah, I think my knee jerk reaction is to white knuckle it and try and do this on my own. 

What I’m kind of getting out of this is what I’d really love is to be doing this with him, to create a plan with him and give myself forgiveness and love if I slip. Yeah, I think that would be like a first step, like you’re talking about with the bike, right?  

Like that would be a first step if I try out the wrong bike instead of saying, you’re a fricking idiot you messed this up. To instead say, that’s okay, try a different bike. Like you were maybe too hungry. Maybe you need to allow yourself to have a little snack in the middle of the day, or something like that. That would be very forgiving and loving. 

Denise:  Yeah. Because what you’re doing right now is testing out with different bikes. 

Woman: Yeah. 

Denise: So you’re like, I’m gonna make a plan. By the way, if you don’t follow it, totally fine. That’s a different skill. Making a plan is one skill. As you go throughout your day, you can surrender your changes. Ideally, you would surrender them, but again, that’s just a skill. 

So if one day you just don’t surrender your changes, but make changes. Okay. The next day is another opportunity to learn. No one is starting over. I want you all to stop saying I’m starting over. 

Woman: Okay. 

Denise: Where no one’s starting over. It’s like being like, you know what? I’m gonna stop my heart and start my heart beating again. Nobody starts over. Life continues. You are a different woman after this call than you were when you started. Tomorrow after you follow, and I’m really hoping that when we get off the call, you’ll make an easy to stick to meal plan for the rest of the day. 

Woman: Yeah. 

Denise: When you wake up tomorrow, you’ll be a different woman. With all of this experience, hours of experience. So that when you sit down to make your plan tomorrow, or maybe you’ll make it tonight, you’ll be like, that worked yesterday. I’m gonna do that again. That didn’t work. I wanna change that. I wanna tweak it. I like to say, we’re gonna try this and tomorrow we can tweak it.

And literally you can tweak it at any time. Because you just surrender it. Or let’s say for example. Tonight. Tonight something happened and you were like, oh, I’m gonna actually change my entire dinner. You just tweak it, rewrite it, totally fine. And if you don’t rewrite it, totally fine too. 

Woman: Yeah, I really love that. Yeah. 

Denise: Because you didn’t come here to do the same thing. 

Woman: Right. 

Denise: You came here to be released for the Lord to cut the strings on that diet. 

Woman: Yeah. 

Denise: You’re here to be set free. I really believe that. Thank you. Yeah, I really, I think I’ve been treating it like I have to stick to it. I’m creating a plan that feels hard and I punish myself if I don’t stick to it. And that’s where the scale comes in. 

And I need to recognize the plan is the thing that I’m trying to fit to my life and the novena and then the plan mean including God in this. And then, yeah, taking the knowledge from the day before and adjusting it to fit what’s realistic in my day. So I love that.

Denise: Yeah. How do you guys like the idea? And I just really love this idea that because God is out to outside of time and space, your perfect plan, the plan that works for You is already there. 

Woman: Yeah. 

Denise: You just now get to uncover and discover it. Isn’t it amazing that the Lord has already created it for you?

Woman: Yeah. That’s crazy. 

Denise: But it’s true. 

Woman: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve never thought about that before. That’s really beautiful. 

Denise: So you’re like, Hey Lord, show me what it is. Because he knows all we have to do is chit chat with him. 

Woman: Yeah. Yeah. This is really beautiful. Thank you. And I feel like this is an area of my life I’ve been keeping God out of for such a long time, so thank you. I love that. 

Denise: Yeah. Hang on. Before you go, I want a thought that you can continue to practice was the Lord knows the plan that works for me. Or like, I’m just gonna try this. I’m gonna see how this works today. There’s no wrong way to do this. 

Woman: I think the things that I want to repeat for myself is, Lord, you know the plan that works for me. 

Denise: I love that. 

Woman: That’s really 

Denise: Wow.

Woman: And there’s no wrong way to do this is a good mantra also. Thank you.

Denise: Yeah, thank you. Oh my gosh. I know everybody is like, thank you. That was like amazing. You’re the best.

Denise: ‌Gosh, I mean, the courage that it took her to raise her hand. I want you to hear how safe our community is. Oh, I want that for you. And I love how that conversation ended with the reminder that the Lord already knows the plan that works for you. That’s the invitation for you today for all of us. 

See the fear of gaining weight or needing to see the number on the scale. It’s never really about the number. It’s all about safety. It’s all about our brain feeling like it’s in control. It’s about wanting something outside of you to tell you that you’re okay. 

But what if the Lord is saying that you’re okay right now? What if peace isn’t found in managing the number, but in learning to walk with him? One surrender at a time, one mindset shift at a time, one invitation to let him heal you at a time.

Because that’s what this work is really about. It’s really about just learning to listen for his voice and getting affirmation from him instead of the scale. Learning to release control without spiraling into chaos and discovering what works for you in this season of your life. It is just amazing. 

So this week as you make your meal plan, I hope you are or step into any day. Just remember, you aren’t starting over. You’re becoming a different woman. You’re just a new version of you each day, you wake up as a new version of you. 

You can become that woman who fully trusts the Lord with your food, with your body. And becoming that whole healed self that he has for you at your healthy weight, and that’s what freedom looks like. 

Okay, everybody, I hope you really enjoyed that and you were inspired and touched by her courage as well as experienced a shift in yourself. Have a blessed day.