Hey everybody. So today we are going to be talking about the five mistakes of meal planning. I love the five mistakes of meal planning. So I talked to the women in our community who have learned the skill and have corrected all of these mistakes. They’ve learned the skill of making a plan that they actually want to stick to.

They’ve corrected these mistakes, and I’m going to be weaving in their stories throughout, but essentially it is that they used to feel discouraged. Controlled and  in their weight loss journey controlled by food, and now they feel peace and freedom and they’re actually enjoying their food. 

And that was my experience too. If you don’t know my story, 12 years ago I was stuck in a cycle of overeating. I would. Eat normally all day, and I would eat normally, especially in front of other people. But I was a closet binge eater, so I would hide in my pantry at night and I would be dumping chocolate chips in a jar of peanut butter, eating it with a spoon.

And then when my family would go to bed, I would scurry back downstairs to keep eating. And I was just so confused. And the thing is that it really took a lot of my self-confidence. And although I was praying a lot, nothing changed until I surrendered my food and weight struggles to the Lord. Okay? So that’s step number one for all of us.

But although that changes our heart and we want to be led by the Lord, we still don’t know what to do with food, right? And so. These are the mistakes that I’m going to go through so that you can correct them so you do know what to do with your food.

And if you want to walk a six week journey with me in learning how to truly correct all of these mistakes in your life so that you can make a plan that you want to stick to, I want you to go to the description and get on the wait list.

I’m creating a six week challenge. And I’m starting May 19th. I know in other places I’ve said I was starting May 12th, but due to unforeseen circumstances, we have pushed that out. So we’re starting May 19th, which is not a big deal at all. And so get on the wait list now and you’ll be able to correct these mistakes in real time.

And I just wanna say the benefit of doing it live and in a group is that number one, you make sure it gets done. And number two. It actually gets ingrained in you to where you are so focused on doing the same things over and over and over, and repetition is truly how we retrain the brain.

All right, so enough of that, get on the wait list and let’s go through the five mistakes. The first mistake, and this is such a big one, is not making a plan for today, the day that you are living in. I know that sounds so simple, but the thing is that the Lord only gives us today to deal with, and that is the only day that you really need to plan.

So even if you’re just saying, Hey, listen, this is my basic plan for today. This is what I’m gonna have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I know that can feel like, oh, I’ve made a plan for the day, but I don’t mean that. And you could even take someone else’s meal plan and say, this is what I’m gonna have for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.

But my point is I want you to think about your day. I want you to think about, this is what I’m doing at eight o’clock, and then I’ve got this at nine and this at 10, and this at 11, and this at 12, and I want you to truly decide what time you will be eating. And this isn’t about being perfect, but it’s about. In general, thinking about your day and will that work?

For example, you might say, for dinner I’m going to have stew and French bread. Well, what if today you’re at a basketball game? What if you’re driving kids around? What if you’re going to a grandchild’s basketball game that’s at six o’clock and then you’re not gonna be getting home till eight or eight 30?

Are you still having stew? And am I having stew before I go to the game? Or am I having stew after the game? What if it takes a half hour to get to the game and I’m leaving my house at five 30? How’s that gonna work? So I just want you to think ahead. Stew is not the problem. The problem is that you haven’t made a plan that actually works for your day.

So I just want you to think about that. Are we going to eat Stew at eight 30? That’s not a problem because there are no food rules you can eat after seven o’clock. It’s not even true that you can’t eat after seven o’clock.

But think about your day. Do you want to pack a snack so that you’re eating something at the basketball game? Or do you want to get popcorn at the basketball game? It doesn’t matter what you choose. Just decide ahead of time. I want you to think about your day. Are you going to be in a place where you’re able to eat what you’re planning?

And first of all, I want you to just think about your day and then plug in the foods from there. That’s the best way. Okay? The goal is that the plan matches your life. And that the plan is built for the day that you’re living.

So one of the women in our community, Theresa said, before I went to the kitchen, countless times a day, my appetite seemed endless, but really it was that I never had a plan. Or the right groceries on hand to put together a satisfying, healthy meal.

She said, now I feel liberated. Yes. She used the word liberated. She said, the guesswork and the insatiable need to snack are gone. She said, because I already know what I’m going to eat and win. She said, I feel so free. Isn’t that cool you guys? It’s once you’re taken care of, your brain knows it’s safe and. It stops going on alert, looking for food all the time.

It knows, oh yeah, at three o’clock I’m going to eat this. And again, this is not about being perfect, but it’s about thinking about you ahead of time and the obstacles that you could be encountering in that day. All right. Which takes me to mistake number two, not having options.

So what happens if you don’t feel like eating what you planned? So most women have two different things that they vacillate between. Number one, they either follow a plan perfectly or they say, forget it, and they just give up. Well, that’s so silly. Instead, just create options. If you had options, your plan would say, well, I could have option A, or I could have option B.

And I have some women who just put snack on their plan, but they have a list of five snacks that they feel good about, that they’ve already thought ahead of time. So now you’re always following your plan because you have options. And when you have that flexibility, you feel safe. And there’s also this consistency.

You keep building this habit over and over and over. And here’s what Janine said. She said before, I used to think constantly about when I could eat again. She was thinking about one meal while she was eating another meal. She said I would white knuckle my way through avoiding desserts, cookies, candy.

But she says, now I feel more at peace with food. I’m not thinking about the next meal while I’m eating this one. I love that. I did the same thing. She said, I make one meal for the whole family now and I get to enjoy the favorites again.

You see, she used to only. Cook food for her family, but not let herself eat it. She would cook two meals and now she just cooks for the family and allows herself to eat any food. White knuckling is what happens when there’s no options, so give yourself options.

Alright, mistake number three is using someone else’s plan. Okay. This is what all of us have been doing for several years and decades. It keeps women stuck for years believing that someone else knows better than you. You’re just eating what you think you should be eating, not what works for your body, not what works for your schedule, not that works for your taste buds or the day that you’re living in.

And often it doesn’t include the foods that you actually enjoy. This is the number one reason women give up on their plans because they aren’t even plans that were created for them. So actually, it’s a good thing. Give up on something that isn’t yours.

Stop trying to believe that other people know better than you about you. God created you the way that he uniquely created you, and the more we get to know you, your taste buds, your preferences, your life. The more you have a plan that you never wanna stop living with because you make plans that you actually want to stick to.

Susan said this, she said before I learned how to make a plan, I actually wanted to stick to it. I was either binging because I was about to start another diet or on a strict plan eating what someone else told me to eat. She said like a robot not enjoying any of it. I didn’t even know what foods I liked.

You guys. I just wanna say a side note, so many of us, it’s just a discovery process. You aren’t gonna know the foods that you like because for so long you’ve been denying yourself to even consider that it’s okay to eat them. So it will be a discovery process. Your brain will say, well, I don’t even know what I like to eat. Okay, it’s fine. Just know. We can find out, we can discover it.

Susan goes on to say, now I feel confident. I know what I like to eat. I can eat the amount I need, feel satisfied, and look forward to my meals. She said, I feel that my needs are met in a way that gives me peace and joy. Gosh, she didn’t even know what food she liked, but that’s what following someone else’s plan has been doing to you for so long.

Okay, so correct that my friend. Mistake number four is not eating food that you actually enjoy. And here’s what happens when you don’t eat food that you actually enjoy, you feel deprived, you feel restricted. I always felt very left out and forgotten and not special, like not important enough to eat food that I liked.

I almost felt like I was being punished. You guys are, you can just like feel it right now when you think of not eating food that you like. But when you start to allow yourself unconditional permission to eat food that you like, there’s a huge shift that happens. You start to allow yourself to not only eat the food, but enjoy it.

And I know some things come up. We’re afraid we’re going to overeat. Well, we can handle that. You can learn how to eat food that you enjoy without overeating it. The majority of people who are overeating food aren’t eating food and overeating it because they’re enjoying it. They’re overeating it because they’ve got a chaos, stressed out brain.

So when we eat food calmly, we can. Enjoy it truly and not overeating it. I also believe that allowing yourself to eat food that you enjoy practices the virtue of honesty, because you’re honoring how the Lord created you. We see how we’re honoring God. We’re saying, Lord, you made me this way. I see it, and I’m going to allow myself to experience that, to experience this part of my life, to not shame it or deprive it or believe that you made me wrong.

Yeah, I bet you never thought of it like that, did you? You’re just not treating yourself. In a way where it’s punishing in a way that you’ve done something wrong, so now you don’t get the good things. But instead, caring for yourself and saying, yeah, you do get the good things, but good things doesn’t mean that we eat ourselves to the point of feeling sick. That’s not good. That’s not being kind.

So the mistake is not eating foods that you actually enjoy. Let’s correct that. Jackie said this, it was just so perfect. She said, before I thought about food all the time, I grazed all day because I always felt hungry. She said when I tried to be quote good, I’d feel deprived, and then I’d cave and the mean girl voice would show up.

She said, now having a plan that I actually want to stick to has taken all the food noise away. She said, I don’t have debate what I’m going to eat. I already know. So the mean girl can’t even start. She said, now I genuinely want to write down fruits and vegetables because that’s actually what I want to eat. She said, it’s a miracle. She said, I feel empowered and strong.

I’m controlling my mind instead of my mind controlling me. Yeah. That’s what this skill, making a plan that you actually want to stick to will do for you. She said she stopped treating herself like a problem and she started allowing herself to eat the food that she actually enjoyed.

So I want you to pause for just a minute here. Do you see what happens when women correct just these four things? Everything starts to reorder. It allows the Lord to come in and heal, to reorder, to create simplicity, to create peace, to create clarity, to let the confusion, the deprivation, the chaos, all of that to drift away.

And I know you’re going to have to overcome. I shouldn’t eat this. This won’t work. What if I gain weight? I’ll teach you how to overcome all of that mind drama. But you can see it is totally worth it. It’s totally worth it.

And mistake number five is making a plan that you don’t wanna stick to, that you can’t sustain. That’s the final one. See, when we follow other people’s plans, when we live in deprivation, we can follow those plans for maybe three months, maybe three weeks, maybe three days. If you’re like Denise Jelinek, who couldn’t follow anything for longer than three days.

But you won’t be able to follow it for life. And if you can’t follow something for life, then you have nothing sustainable or lasting. You have no permanent change. And my goal isn’t that you follow things perfectly.

My goal is that you find a way that you can eat that works for you where you say, yeah, I wanna live this way. That you have allowed the Lord to heal and reorder your relationship with food because. Being able to make a plan that you actually want to follow is something you are not born knowing.

It is a skill. It is what allows you to heal your relationship with food and be at your healthy weight forever for the rest of your life. It’s what brings peace to your days. Again, not because it’s perfect, but because it’s yours. It was made for you because you made it with the Lord, based on you. Your taste buds, your day, your life, your preferences. It’s just crazy you guys.

It’s just so important that we start opening our eyes on our own lives and start living them. The life God gave us in the bodies that He gave us with our tastes, with our desires that he gave us, and Anna said this, she said, before I was thinking about what I could or couldn’t, should or shouldn’t eat, I was coordinating and calculating in my head most of the day.

Now. I know I’m taken care of. I know when and what to eat, and it feels peaceful. I feel cared for and loved and prepared. I mean, my gosh, you guys, you are the only person that can give that to yourself. You, no one else can give it to you, and no one else was created to give it to you. It’s our job to learn how to live our lives aligned with the Lord.

And that even means in our food. This is why so many women say, I don’t wanna stop living this way. I feel free around food, and I can finally trust myself. ’cause this isn’t a diet. Being able to make a plan you actually want to stick to is a skill that becomes then just a part of your way of living.

And there’s another part. What most diets will never teach you is what happens when stress hits. This is what Gianna said. She said before I was at the whim of my emotions, usually starting the day with discipline and ending it out of frustration and exhaustion.

She said, but now that I make a plan that I actually want to stick to, I’m much kinder to myself. I’m finally letting God into this lifelong struggle with food and believing he wants me to heal. And Corina said before I thought about food all day and made choices on the fly, she said I’d end up making choices I felt bad about.

Now, I can use my brain to think about other things and other people besides myself. I have more time to pray and process my emotions. She said I feel more relaxed and ready for my day. I feel free. Gosh, more time to pray, more space to process emotions, more energy for other people, our lives. And that’s what gets freed up when food stops running the show.

And so I’ve been teaching this skill how to make a plan that you actually want to stick to. I’ve taught it to over 5,000 Catholic women in a variety of programs, but now it has been very. Evident to me from all of the women that I’m working with, that this is the skill to learn to get to your healthy weight for the rest of your life.

And it’s why I’ve decided to make an entire course and challenge a little six week challenge for you to learn all the ins and outs of how to make a plan that you actually want to stick to. And I’m going to be walking with you step by step through this, not just how to plan. How to make a plan that you follow through with why, because you want to.

And there are little things to learn along the way, and there’s some mind drama we’re gonna have to clean up, but that’s why we’re doing this all together because by the end of the six weeks, you’ll be a woman who can not only make a plan that she wants to stick to, but you’ll be a woman who knows how to care and support herself emotionally. Without using food.

You’ll be a woman who knows how to enjoy food without dieting, without fear of overeating. Without feeling guilt. You’ll also be a woman who now starts to actually care for herself, to anticipate her needs and to stop living in self neglect.

So listen, I want you to get on the wait list. We are starting May 19th. Get on the wait list now and you’ll be notified the minute doors open because you want to get the early bird pricing. Trust me, it will be early bird pricing.

So get that because this skill will change how you relate to food for the rest of your life, and I know that because you will not want to stop doing it. I haven’t stopped doing it for 12 years, and every single woman who uses this. It says the same darn thing. It’s brought so much peace and simplicity to what used to feel chaotic and stuck and discouraging, and despairing and struggling.

And it is time that you have this skill. So get on the wait list. See at weightlosswiththeholyspirit. This is where we lose weight, the Catholic way, which simply means we put God. First, so learn the skill and learn how to let God heal your relationship with food and give you so much enjoyment, give you that enjoyment that he intended you to have with food and to get to your healthy weight.

Alright everybody, I will see you then.