Denise:  Welcome everybody. Today I have a very special guest, Sue. And Sue is one of our graduates from our Celebrate Not Sabotage program that we walk through the holidays, learning how to really celebrate in a real authentic way where we glorify the Lord. 

And we just set down the things that don’t work for us anymore, whether it’s overscheduling, overdoing, overeating, overdrinking. We just sort of learn a new way to walk through Advent and celebrate the holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas. And Sue’s going to tell us a little bit about her experience. So welcome Sue.

Sue: Thank you. Thank you. 

Denise: To kick us off, tell us a little bit about who you are, your lifestyle.  

Sue: I’m a mom of two. I’m 58, mom of two and a brand new grandma of one. I still work full time in an office setting. So not a lot of exercise goes on walking back and forth, but I’m in an office setting working full time and then do a lot of volunteer work at my church to try to stay as active as I can. I’m in a couple book clubs. 

So all those hobbies also when I take a look at them aren’t very active either. I’ve struggled with my weight my whole life. Been successful and not successful. I’ve dropped, I like to joke, I’ve dropped the same hundred pounds, probably three times in my life. And can get on the bandwagon and go. And then something clicks and we’re back off track and really struggle to get back on. And that’s where I was when I came across this program.  

Denise: I think that’s interesting that you said, you lost 100 pounds. What’s the most you ever gained at one time and what’s the most you ever lost?  

Sue: 110 is the most I ever lost  took me a little over a year. And then that’s, I guess that same amount comes back eventually, when you’re where you started before you knew what happened seems to take a little longer to come back on than it went off. 

But before you know it, there it is, and you’re back at square one with what’s going to work this time. What can I try that’s different, that’s going to make the difference, something I can stick to. That’ll be a lifelong change. 

Denise: Okay. So I wanted to ask that so that people can totally relate to, oh my gosh, that gain weight, lose weight, gain weight, lose weight. And that is. Yeah, that swing is just so helpful for people to see the real solution, the real solution. So tell me about how you heard about Celebrate Not Sabotage and what were your concerns before you started the program? 

Sue: I saw it on Facebook. It came up in my feed. I have been working with a nutritionist for over a year. And it was going very well when I first started with her. I was learning a lot. And it was going well. 

And then all of a sudden I got off track and I was really struggling. I still see her monthly, but I was just really struggling to get back on track and kind of praying about what can I do different? How do I? Get back on track and now the holidays are coming and the new baby’s going to come and it just snowballed and I was scrolling through one day and the little ad came up for this program. 

And I looked at it quickly and I started to scroll again and then I saved it. I saved it into my saves. And about a week later, I was just having a rough day eating everything I shouldn’t and just pulled it back up and really read further what it was. And I just thought this might be what I’m looking for. I had never really thought about bringing the Lord into my weight loss.

And then I thought, geez, maybe that’s what’s been missing all along. So I registered right away and this is probably the first holiday season that I can remember that I actually lost weight. Over the eight or 10 weeks, whatever it was, I lost 9.8 pounds. 

And I didn’t feel like I had struggled to give everything up. It wasn’t like I sat there on Christmas and didn’t have any cookies or whatever. It was just the planning and just deciding what I wanted to enjoy and not enjoy that made the difference.  

Denise: What was different for you? Oh my gosh, Sue. Like I love all of that. So it sounds like there was zero hesitation. Once you decide I’m in. 

Sue: Yeah.  

Denise: Did you have any concerns though? Even after you said, oh, I’m going to do this.  

Sue: In the beginning, when I first started, I downloaded the workbook right away, printed everything off and just said, if I’m going to invest my time and everything in this, I want to go full force.

And I have to say over the first week, it was a little bit overwhelming because it’s a busy time of year. Then I just had to tell myself like, step back, you need to make time for yourself. to do this. It’s not that much time. Maybe it’s taking you a half hour a day. That’s only a half an hour a day. So you need to make the time for yourself. 

And once I got over that little hump of, yeah, you have to invest it. And the time that I invested became enjoyable. You know what I mean? The time that I was investing was prayer time in the morning. It was extra prayer time. It was extra planning. It was making decisions about what I wanted to do and not do that left me feeling great when I was done. So it really was a good investment rather than a struggle of what I was going to do with my time. 

Denise: Yeah. The actual work became more of a deepened your relationship with the Lord. 

Sue: Absolutely. 

Denise: And it actually made your life better and easier and simpler. And I remember early on, you were really discerning on, do I want to include certain things in my calendar or not? Can you tell our audience a little bit about that. 

Sue: I guess I had so many things in our lives. We just do because we’ve always done, and some things you do have to do. But I guess I never really looked at a lot of it as an option. And I really spent a lot of time on the planning, the calendar thing, where you plan your weeks and you take a look at each event that’s there.

And I spent a lot of time on that. Cause I knew I had an extra busy Christmas with out of company coming in, my daughter expecting the baby a couple days after Christmas. So I really mapped everything out like the whole month ahead of time. 

And then I really started to look at things and the thing that struck me the most was the line, you need to love your reasons for doing what you’re doing. And so many of the things when I really looked at and I’m like, I don’t really love why I’m doing this and some I could come up with an alternate reason that you had explained that made it okay.

But some of them were just like, this is really a lot of time and I don’t even enjoy it. Why am I doing it? And a couple things were like a certain committee that I was on, at church, I decided, I really didn’t like being on this committee. I liked being on this committee. 

So let’s stick with that. And let’s get rid of that one. And really just really looking at those things and planning ahead and just making those decisions for yourself and finding the time to do other things that you enjoy more.

Denise: Oh my gosh. Yes. Sue, it gives you the opportunity. And I say this for everybody else to pause. Open your eyes on your life. 

Sue: Yeah. 

Denise: Decide. What brings me joy? What do I really love instead of just doing things out of habit or autopilot? And the other thing I want everyone to hear is that you had a very unique holiday situation. New baby, lots of out of town guests. 

So you actually knew that because it was so busy, you actually spent extra time on being discerning and planning and really intentional on making this the holiday season. That You wanted.  

Sue: Right. And I promised myself that and just learning to just discern and offer things up and not get stressed about things I found so helpful and just crazy things like you’re out doing a little bit of shopping and you get stuck in traffic. You didn’t plan. 

And I could feel my heart start to race whatever and then just to be able to learn to step back and say. Does it really matter that you have to sit here for 15 minutes? So let’s take this 15 minutes and pray while we’re sitting here, let’s do something positive. We’re stuck in the traffic anyway.

We’re going to get done what we need to get done. It’s not the end of the world. So really  that intentional thinking of stepping back and really taking a look at what the situation was and just being able to find that peace and that calm so much easier, I think.  

Denise: I think  you just gave us a glimpse into the answer of this next question, but what made Celebrate not sabotage different than other weight loss programs.

Sue: Obviously, bringing the Lord into the whole thing and not only the simple little things that from simple things like chew your food 20 times or put your fork down empty hands, those little things. That were actually part of the weight loss thing related to food if you want to see. 

But just taking that time and I had been familiar with the surrender novena. I had done that before but hadn’t really practiced it every single day. And just by starting your day with that. And just saying, this is what I’m going to do. 

I’m not going to worry about it, just being able to not worry, and be able to sense when that worry is starting to just say you know what. I’m not going to worry about it. We’re going to let him worry about it today and just. Be at peace with that was so different. 

But yet that was such a big part of it. And I believe the most important part of it, but yet I still get those little hints, like those three hints when you’re eating. I had been having some IBS issues. Went away because of that. Because I just didn’t realize how fast I was eating.

And that was causing other issues that were physical issues that just by doing that it helped that after we had spent months of trying to eliminate certain foods and doing whatever thinking it was that one all along I was just whiffing my plate and not even realizing it, and eating more than I needed to eat, because I didn’t even realize I was full. 

It was so funny because the first. A couple days I tried to do that and I sat down and I started eating. I’m like, Oh my gosh, I’m still sitting here eating. And my husband like looked at me a couple of times, cause usually I’m done and I have everything half cleaned up and he’s still eating, and I’m like, Oh my gosh, you really. ate fast. 

So I believe what I took away from it most was my spiritual life has improved tremendously, but other things too, and I lost weight on top of it. And I learned so many things about what I was doing, not necessarily wrong, but what were my chaos foods? What were my chaos situations? 

I did all those exercises where I saw that I’m terrible when I’m at any sort of buffet table, but you can stand it with appetizers. So I just needed to teach myself. look at what’s there, decide what you want, make a small plate and go sit. So just those simple things of awareness, I think so much of it is just awareness. Being aware of what you’re doing made a difference, just made a difference in so many ways.  

Denise: I’m sitting here and just like in awe of hearing everything that you are able to accomplish if you will, or learn in eight weeks. Over the holidays is really astounding to me, everything from practicing and for people listening the three habits that we practice in our community are you chew your food 20 times, two each bite 20 times empty your hands between bites. And you don’t put food in your mouth until you have an empty mouth.

And I, just to hear that it healed your IBS simply, and you’d been like trying to eliminate different foods and I’ve got issues myself and I know it can be like quite uncomfortable and all the treatments that we’re trying to do, foods and whatever. And so these three little practices.  

Sue: Has made such a huge difference.  

Denise: And then for you to not actually be on a diet. I think that one thing that’s really confusing to humans listening to this are like, how did she lose nine pounds over Christmas without being on a diet? And this wasn’t one of our prepared questions, but if you had to explain that to somebody who doesn’t understand, how would you explain  how you lost nine pounds without being on a diet? 

Sue: Just by being, I think more aware, like I said, by slowing down and eating and being full, actually feeling full and not wanting to eat more, even though it was there by planning my meals. I was very good about planning my meals and not super detailed. 

But every, I would did it the night before I would just jot down. You’re going to have oatmeal for breakfast and then knowing what my portions were, but then planning events, the event planning was big, especially during the holidays.

On Christmas day, you’re going to go to a family dinner and it’s going to be a potluck and it’s going to be a lot of carbs and there’s going to be 25 desserts because that’s how my family is. And there’s going to be amazing cocktails.

And to just say to yourself, okay. I’m going to have a small plate. I’m going to pick two sides. I’m going to have a larger portion of meat, and I’m going to have a big salad to start. I’m going to have, like you often say, the bread, if it’s good bread. If it’s not good bread, I won’t. And I’m going to eliminate the butter because I want to be able to have a dessert.

And then I’m going to pick maybe one dessert, maybe two smaller sizes of desserts, and that’s what I’m going to have. And then you just enjoy it so much more. And I never felt that I was being deprived of anything. That was the big realization that I came to, that you can just have a little of this and have a little of that and feel full and be relaxed and feel good about what you ate and not feel like, Oh, I really wish I could’ve had that cookie. Cause I did have the cookie. 

And just my portion control happened automatically because I was eating slower. I was selecting what I wanted and I was full. I never went to bed hungry. I never felt like I was starving and needed a snack in between. I just felt completely in control without. Feeling like I had to control it. 

I don’t know how else to say it. Like sometimes you’re on the diet and you feel like, okay, I got to control this. Okay. I’m at 300 calories. I should only be at 275. All that  overthinking. This was so much more relaxing. Just look at it, what’s on that table. So just have what you want. 

And if you ended up having an extra dessert, and you needed to surrender it, that was okay. Did you really enjoy it? Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Maybe you didn’t enjoy it, and you thought, next time I wouldn’t even surrender it, because I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I was going to.

So just, that constant, just being aware. And just, Relaxing, learn to relax and not let things just bother you. Let it, like even right now, my, some of my Christmas decorations are still up. I haven’t gotten to it. There’s a red light up heart in the window. So the neighbors think they’re down, but they’re not down on the inside of the house and that’s okay, I’ll get to it.

You know what I mean? It doesn’t matter. There’s other things going on and it’s just that just calming effect, especially during the holidays, was so much more beneficial than even the weight loss portion. I think. 

Denise: Yeah, and the way that you were able to accomplish that, for everyone listening, is that in the program, one of the things I promise you is that I will not waste your time on anything that’s going to waste your energy, because you don’t have extra energy.

And so, by the three habits that we just discussed, but then also, we have very simple food rules that you choose food that you love, that you feel good about. And it’s for the woman who’s going to be eating it. You know, you have to recognize, Hey, I’m going to be at this party and there’s going to be these desserts. So what does that woman want to eat? 

And then the other thing that we do is we create what are called game plans. And those game plans are you just get to think ahead of time. How do I want this to go? What will I enjoy? What will make me feel good? 

So that you’re not trying to make in the moment decisions that once you go to the party, you already know your plan. And that doesn’t mean you can’t tweak it and change it. Totally fine. You can just tell the way you’re talking how calm you are. What was the biggest surprise for you of this program? 

Sue: I was hopeful going in that it would get me back on track and I would start losing weight. I guess the biggest surprise for me was just the dramatic change outside of losing the weight. I’m tremendously more closer to the Lord now. 

And I was before, and I was going to adoration weekly. Now when I go to adoration, there’s so much I need to talk to the Lord about. Whereas before, sometimes I really struggled for that hour to focus and now the hour goes by so fast.

Just getting in that habit of that extended morning prayer. I try to do most of it in the morning, doing the daily readings and  just all the extra benefits outside of just losing weight, learning. To grasp my thoughts and get a handle on them and do some intentional thoughts.

I’m realizing when tornado thinking has been a big thing. That’s one of my favorite term. Cause . I very often do that at night. I lay down and then my mind is racing a mile a minute and three hours goes by that I’m not sleeping. And I’ve really learned to just stop that, either to be able to grasp the thought and change it. or to just let it go. And that’s been tremendously helpful. 

So I think that was the biggest surprise of how much I’ve gained  beyond losing the weight. You know what I mean? Being able to be on a program that I feel I can stick with all the other things in life, the peace, the calm, all those things are just like an added benefit that I guess I didn’t expect. 

Denise: Where would you say you are? So now we are four or five weeks out from the programs ended, I think probably a month ago now. And tell me what it’s like for you now. Have you dropped everything? Do you have been continuing it? 

Sue: Oh yeah, I’m continuing and I joined the Restored program. And I’m really working on the bootcamp. It’s been a little crazy, so I haven’t. I guess done it as quickly as I thought I would, which is fine. It doesn’t matter. There’s not a time thing. 

But right now I’m really working with the model more because you don’t do as much of the model in Celebrate Not Sabotage. That was a lot of, the planning. So I’ve been trying to really work with that model on everything in life, not just food. 

So I’m still doing the Novena every morning, still planning my meals. And it’s just. Going well, it’s becoming more natural. Now I don’t have to think about it. The work isn’t as much work or it isn’t taking me as much time. Cause I just know what to do now. I didn’t really have to think about it as much.  

I used to just go to the nutritionist and say, I’m off the rails and I can’t get back on. I don’t know what I’m doing. And she would. Give me a million great suggestions, but it never seemed to. And now I find if I have a bad weekend or bad three, four days that I can just turn it around much easier on my own. 

Just step back, refocus, surrender it, go back and maybe do a meal plan. More extensively or break things down a little bit more or go back to that chaos cog and see what are you doing. Guess what you’re back on the couch with the bag of chips instead of making a serving or you’re back, like just trying to step back and see where all those things that I became aware of. 

I guess they were always there. I just became aware of all those things  when I’m overeating. When I took a look at that, where are you when you’re overeating while you’re up? You’re never at the table. Like you said, you’re never at the table with a plate full of food. 

You’re at a table grazing, buffet table grazing or you’re in the living room or you’re in the chair reading a book with the whole bag of chips with, the whole container of gummy fish or whatever it is. So just step back and take a look. Which of those habits have I gone back into and how can I just easily turn it around? 

Cause most of the time it’s just, you’re not aware you’re back in it before you realize. And when you step back and take a look at it, as if you’re on the outside looking in, then I just flip back those pages in my book and I can see. Look at this. When you did this, these were the places that you overate and that’s what you’re doing again. 

So we just need to step back and avoid that again, and count out the six gummy fish that you decided you wanted to have, put them in a little dish, sit back down. And it’s simple. You know what I mean? Once you can step back and see it.  

Denise: Yeah, I hope everyone hears that  you’re not perfect. You’re still going to overeat. You’re going to fall into old habits. But it doesn’t mean I’m stuck. I’m a loser. I can’t do this. It’s, I’m a human being. Let me go back to my tools. Let’s reevaluate. Understand what happened. Let’s solve for what happened. And then we just pick up. This is called life. It is just called life. 

Okay, for anybody who heard you say the model, what that means is the self coaching model. And when you’re in Celebrate Not Sabotage, we really keep you focused on the holidays, trusting that you’ll eventually learn everything that you need to learn to get to your healthy weight for the rest of your life. 

But immediately during the holidays, we need to just give you what you need to get through that. But now you’re in the boot camp and you’re learning even more mindset, hacks, and so the goal is that you will learn everything you need to so that you can maintain your healthy weight for the rest of your life. Sue, so going back to the challenge, what were your top three highlights? Or the results?   

Sue: I would think learning to surrender everything, not just the extra piece of cake you were going to have or what. But really take a look at your life and learn to surrender everything and just let it go and the sense of calm and peace that you experience because of that and the worry is just gone.

I think being able to eat the foods I love in a new way, not binging or overeating in a controlled way and still lose weight. And I guess my prayer life and my relationship with the Lord has changed. improved tremendously. That’s been a dramatic experience. 

And I thought it was in a pretty good place before, and it’s so much better. Like you didn’t think it could get that much better in eight weeks. That’s probably the biggest win, even if I didn’t lose a pound, I think that would be the biggest one.  

Denise: And I hope that everybody hears how you keep saying calm and peace, because the number one goal of our program truly is aside from helping you get closer to the Lord, of course, but on a human level is being able to teach you how to get through the ups and downs of life without stress eating. And the way that we do that is that we teach you how to have a calm brain because a calm brain does not stress eat. It’s just that simple. 

Sue: It is that simple. And I notice it in other people now, like I can see it like in my sister and a couple of friends that seem to get very stressed very easily. I like feel like I’m on the outside kind of looking in thinking that’s really not a big deal. Why are you letting that stress you just, and it’s interesting watching other people like once you found that place where you can just just let it go. you notice it more than other people too, I think.

Denise: So a couple more questions. If you could go back and talk to you before joining the challenge, what advice would you give to yourself? 

Sue: I would probably  focus more, tell myself like, you’ve never tried making the Lord part of your journey. And this is something that you probably should have thought about a long time ago. And that will make the difference. 

Tell myself that you need to trust that, if nothing else, you need to trust that. And whether you lose weight or not, that’s a win in itself. But that’s what I would go back and say. Really take a look at this.

Because when I first joined, I guess I wasn’t totally looking at it that way. I looked at a couple of the other different things in the little write up and I thought, Oh, and then you add the Lord to this and this might work this way, but I never really looked at it as, geez, why haven’t you done this all along, that should have been a no brainer from day one. So I think that’s probably it. 

Denise: Yeah. I hear that a lot. People are like, I didn’t think the Lord cared. I’m like, yeah, he cares about everything. And so for the woman who is listening to this and she’s like, Oh, I really want to have a peaceful holiday season. 

The holidays are coming up. I’m just so busy. I can’t do this. Or maybe I should, I don’t know. So for the woman who’s on the fence, what would you say to her? The Catholic woman who’s on the fence. 

Sue: Don’t hesitate, just trust it. Run, don’t walk. Sign up, let it be your Christmas present to yourself, whatever you want, however you want to look at it. Because it will make a big difference, not only in your eating habits, maybe you won’t lose weight, maybe you’ll lose a lot of weight. But you will. It will definitely transform your life in other ways. 

And you will be closer to the Lord when you’re done. And I think that even if you don’t do every worksheet, if you don’t do every little part like you can take away so much for it. So even if you only,  let’s say there’s 10 little pieces, if you only get seven of those little pieces, it’s still going to be a plus for you.

And it’s going to be well worth your time and you deserve it. You deserve it. You should give it to yourself, and I know that the old saying they always say you can’t be, a big help to everybody else if you don’t take care of yourself first is so true. 

I mean my holidays were so enjoyable, and I was able to relax my daughter and relax my out of town company and my husband and stuff, because I didn’t let it stress me, and I was eating and enjoying what I wanted. Family parties were enjoyable. It just will truly make a difference in your life.  

Denise: Yeah, oh my gosh. Okay. I have one more question for you though one of the things that I tell people with this work is this will be a turning point in the way you view food and weight loss. It’ll just be a turning point. You’ll be like. And I know you did it over the holidays, but would you say that was true for you? 

Sue: Absolutely. Just in such a simple way, like it wasn’t involved. You didn’t have to learn how many grams of protein or this or that, whatever that can all come later. That’s what I’m working on now. I’ve got the program down pretty good that I’m following it and now I’m trying to tweak  those meals a little bit now. I’ve controlled my eating. I’m eating slower. I’m feeling better. 

Now let’s take a look at really what am I eating? Okay, I’m probably not getting as much protein and stuff as I need  and those are the things I’m working on now, but they’re much less stressful because. 

Denise: Yeah.

Sue: I have the main piece down. Do you know what I mean? Like I know what I need to do. So deciding to drink a glass of milk with this meal. So you get a little more protein is an easy thing. You know what I mean? And those are, I guess the scientific or the things that you need to read to learn.

But once you have the main program down, that all seems so much easier and that will come in time. And that’s not the most important thing right now. Most important thing now is that you’re getting it down. You’re feeling comfortable. You’re at peace. You’re feeling better about yourself.  And that will come. 

Denise: Yeah. And I believe that if weight loss feels hard, it’s because we’re focusing on the food and the food is not that it’s not important, but that’s like step five. And I think that what you experienced with the nutritionist, she was super helpful, but she was already on step five and you’re going to keep falling until you learn one through four. 

Sue: And I had done so much research and I had read so much and I had taken classes and doing whatever that I would joke with her. I would be like, Cassie, I could be you. I know everything I could be you because places today and I could tell you what you need to do. I know what I need to do. I’m just not doing it. And there’s a missing piece somewhere. 

And she’s so excited because I go back now and I tell her, and I see her that this is what I’m doing. I’m just putting down my fork and I’m chewing and now I don’t have IBS issues and I’m eating everything I want to eat and I’m losing weight. And she’s very interested, and when I tell her and very happy that I just found a way to do it, like I knew what I needed to do. I just didn’t know how to do it.

Denise: Yeah, that’s right. And do you feel now like on a scale of one to 10, 10 is totally confident. One is not confident. How confident are you that you are like. I can follow through with what I want to follow.

Sue: Nine and a half, Yeah. Almost there. There’s always that little bit extra work you need to do, but I would say nine and a half, and I don’t feel a rush to do it either. If it takes me two years. Whatever. You know what I mean? Now I’m trying to add the exercise piece back in. So little by little, it’ll just happen. I believe that.  

Denise: For the rest of your life. Is there anything else you want to share with the women who are listening?  

Sue: Just encourage them to do it for themselves, do it for yourself. You deserve it and you will benefit from it greatly. 

Denise: Yeah. Oh, thanks Sue. Thanks so much for sharing your experience. 

Sue: Thanks for giving me the opportunity.