So this episode is actually being released on May 18th, which is my birthday, May 18th, 2026. And you guys, this episode is very unpolished, very unscripted. I’ve talked to a lot of you that I had recorded this. I actually recorded this eight months ago and just haven’t released it. 

And, Catherine, who helps me edit my podcast, just keeps poking me, “Denise, when are you gonna release this, your uncut story?” Because I filmed it or recorded it very impromptu one day, and just got really vulnerable, and it was very unscripted. And you guys are gonna see that there’s even some audio issues in it. 

Believe it or not, this has probably been one of the most challenging, from a tech-wise, podcast to release. But I think that you are going to notice that it’s very powerful, and it’s not powerful because it’s me. It’s powerful because the Lord needed something to be released.

And I think that we had just so many hiccups, and dare I say spiritual attacks, with the audio and the tech, ’cause you’re gonna hear it. Just the audio is a little off, but I don’t think it matters. For the women who need to hear this story, it just doesn’t matter. So enjoy this.

This is my unscripted story. You’ll hear about a tragedy that happened when I was 14 months old. Gosh, you’re gonna hear the ins and outs, the ups and downs, and the ugly parts of my eating. It is a little long, so we decided to put this into two episodes.

Now listen, when this is being released, I want you to know that starting tomorrow, we have our meal plan challenge, which is the Catholic meal plan challenge for women. It’s six weeks and is how to create a meal plan you actually want to stick to. So I want you to get in. Go to the description. You will have the link there. Get in because this meal plan challenge starts tomorrow. It is worth pausing this podcast to get in.

But other than that, just know this is my heart speaking. I recorded this eight months ago, and I don’t even feel like the same woman who recorded it. The healing that has come from me just allowing myself to be so transparent in so many ways has just really brought so much fruit to my life. So just enjoy the podcast.

So today everybody, I was talking with the Lord this morning and I really got a sense that the Lord said to me, you know what Denise, it’s okay to tell the whole story. It’s okay to tell the whole story. And that came out of a writing that essentially I have this thought that I won’t get it right. What I tell you won’t be effective, and I can tell it’s blocking me.

I can tell that when I come to talk to you guys, I can tell that the need to be right or perfection, or to say the right thing to you is getting in the way of me just being so transparent and so vulnerable.

And I got this. I didn’t know this until I was a meeting with my team and one of the members said, You know, Denise, if we could just capture when you just talk and you’re so passionate, she didn’t say the word unscripted, but she meant the word unscripted.

And she said, if we could just capture that. That’s when women hear your heart. And I would just like to add to that. That’s when women see the Lord. When they can just hear, see me unscripted and I have a hard time going on camera. I have a hard time doing it. On camera mostly being unscripted.

Podcasts are a lot easier to do unscripted because I believe I have a finite amount of time to catch your attention. I believe that, honestly, I think that’s it. I think I really hold back by wanting to make sure that whatever time I get your attention is maximized. And that’s not a bad thing. I mean, that’s just the way that we’re living in this world.

But today I wanted to just come on and just tell you the whole story, and that’s what the Lord told me. It’s okay to tell her , the whole story, all of the details. It’s just, okay, let’s just lay it all out. Another thought that has kept me from doing this episode is the thought. I don’t wanna make this about me.

You know, this is about her journey. This is about her journey with the Lord. And the Lord also revealed to me recently, Denise, every morning, and you guys, this is true, every morning I pray, Lord, help people to only see you when they see me. That has really put me in a place of wanting to like step back and not be seen and push Jesus.

And what’s happened is I have sort of mistaken that. To believe that I cannot be seen or should not be seen. And he said, Denise, how are they gonna see me if they don’t see you? And I was like, oh, actually, you’re making a very good point. Lord, they can’t see you. They can’t know what you’ve done for me.

What you will do for her if they don’t see you, if you don’t tell your story. I think another thing that’s been holding me back from doing this episode as well is this concept, and I know you guys can totally relate to this. This concept of like minimizing my life, minimizing my struggles, like they’re less important like the Lord or life. There’s like people who have bigger struggles than me.

People who have been through more than me, and I think that’s a common thought that I hear from a lot of you guys that’s like, oh, I don’t, essentially, it’s like I don’t matter because their stuff is bigger. Well, I lived a long time in thinking I don’t matter and that I don’t matter, essentially means like the Lord made trash and I’m not going to like do anything. Because I’m the trash.

I mean, it’s like this really weird self neglect yet sacrificing false pridey, sort of disordered way to view our experience in our lives. And what I believe the more authentic truth is we’re not supposed to be judging the measure of my life compared to someone else. I’m not supposed to be diminishing their experience. I’m not supposed to be diminishing my experience.

I’m just supposed to say, Hey, this is what the Lord gave me. This is what he’s done for me, and keep my eyes on my own paper. And I just get that my story has nothing to do with Denise and all to do with Jesus, and I want you to consider that too. That what you’re going through deserves attention.

And the only reason it deserves attention, I mean, if we’re really looking at it at like from a Jesus standpoint, the only reason it deserves attention is because the Lord gave it to you as a gift. He gave you your life. He gave you your emotions. He gave you your struggles. Your crosses are meant to bring him closer to you. Your crosses are meant to give it attention.

There is a lesson in the cross. And he wants you to lean into it. What you’re going to hear is, I’m sure, I don’t know what I’m gonna say, but I’m sure it’s a lot about how bad things were and now how glorious things are, and they’re not perfect. But if he didn’t give me these crosses, I wouldn’t have the life I have.

But it’s only because I was given a cross, which was. I guess today I’m gonna really focus on my use of food to get through life and my inability to deal with my emotions. No one ever really taught me how to do that without just stuffing it down with food and being able to feel my feelings. But had I not decided at some point, oh gosh, I don’t wanna keep living this way and to ask for his help, I wouldn’t be where I am.

So the point of that. Piece that I just said was, the Lord cares so much about you. He cares so much about every single detail. He cares so much about what color of shirt you’re gonna wear, because chances are you feel better in one shirt than another. And he just wants you to feel him and his love. He wants you to feel so taken care of. He wants you to feel so seen, and known, and understood, and cared for, and protected.

And you guys, we’ll never feel that way, and we’ll never be able to feel his love unless we allow ourselves to get to know ourselves, accept ourselves, support ourselves, accept ourselves. I think I already said that. And when I mean support ourselves, it doesn’t mean, its totally fine that you eat like a whole bag of Oreos.

No, it means, oh wow. I see that you’re doing that. Let’s get some help. Let’s try something new. You don’t have to keep doing that. There’s a different way. I don’t know what the different way is, but self, I’m gonna help you find a different way.

So here we go. I want this to just be so uncut, although I do have somebody who edits my podcast to make sure that you guys aren’t hearing me say the same thing 15 times. ’cause I do that. But all the important stuff, all the ugly stuff, all the not so ugly, such a thought. All my not so shiny stuff. I want you to hear it.

And you know, you guys, honestly, the Lord said the other thing for me today. Because I like to make intentional thoughts. He just said, it’s okay. To let yourself be healed today, it’s okay to receive deep healing today. So I think maybe this episode might be meant for my own journey. Honestly, it’s probably like a hundred percent meant for my own journey.

But I hope you hear his voice so that, you know, it feels like such a privilege to do this, such a privilege to have a place that I can say, wow, he’s amazing. Such a privilege to have women who want this to be listening. Thank you for listening.

You know, I remember when the Lord wanted me to come public, if you will, where he was like, Denise, go find my hurting daughters and bring them to me. And I knew what he meant. I knew exactly what he meant. But I knew the only way to be able to do that was to share a very, very private journey that nobody knew the details of.

My husband knew that I was in food recovery, but nobody knew. the not so shiny side of it. And I remember feeling so much shame and so much fear about sharing those details about the things I would do with. Bowls and bowls of ice cream and jars and jars of peanut butter and bags and bags of chocolate chips.

And even going into garbage cans to eat food out of that, I said I wouldn’t eat and then I decided to eat or over drinking and then going get pizza out of garbage cans. Oh my gosh. And I remember thinking so, oh gosh, Lord, I know I have to say these things out loud so that someone else can hear it, but I’m so afraid to do it. And it was so hard.

I did a Facebook Live, I don’t know, like a couple years ago, and I remember I’ve watched it since and I’m like crying through the whole thing and I’m like, but I know I have to do this so that you know, I know you because I know I don’t look like I know you. That’s one of the things that my brain likes to tell me too, like, Denise, you’ve never been over 200 pounds. You really don’t know what it’s like to help her.

And I just know that that’s my brain trying to say, Go play small. Go stay safe. Go back to the cave. If you don’t tell her, then you can’t be ridiculed or criticized or I don’t know all the things. But my point is that I remember feeling so afraid to do that, and now I can see the Lord is like, yeah, let’s go tell her again. Let’s go tell her again, because now there’s even more details.

And guess what, Denise, this isn’t for her anymore. This is for you. Apparently, the Lord wants to unlock another level of healing for me. I can tell he’s been bringing some like healing people into my life. When was the new spiritual director that I saw last week and honestly he got me to become aware of something that I had no idea. It’s not related to food.

Well, I’ll just tell you like I’m so hesitant to like be so raw and honest with you guys, but you know what? Whatever, like what’s the worst thing that’s gonna happen? What he got me to notice, and I’ll just start with my story.

So I was born, I know seriously, you might wanna fast forward, but I feel like I have to do this. So I was born in a small town of 1200 people to Albert and Judy. Albert and Judy had two other children. They were Dawn and Darren, and I was Denise, I was another Dee, and my brother and sister were all blondes. I’m originally a brown head, but it doesn’t matter.

Anyway, both my parents grew up in small towns. They were one of eight very big family. Well, they had a property where they lived in a mobile home and my dad had a garage. He was an electrician and he fixed cars, so he ran his business out of the garage.

And, you know, every once in a while, as things with gasoline would happen he would have a fire or something in the garage. I don’t think the fire department was ever called on it, but you know, he figured it out well because my dad is just so resourceful, like the most brilliant man that I know, he can figure out anything.

You guys, the man has built. He’s fabricated, which means build. I didn’t know that was what that word meant. He’s created tools so that he can build things. So he has a vision to build something and if he doesn’t have the right tool, he creates the tool. Isn’t that incredible? I just think that’s amazing. He’s still living, he’s 80.

Well, when Denise was born, I believe they had started building a house at the same time. And so I was raised, I don’t know if I was raised in the new house. I don’t recall the timing of this, but my dad had built a house on the property. So at first they lived in the trailer with garage, and then they built this new home.

And this new home is where I know I was, at least for my first birthday. So in this new home, there were three bedrooms upstairs. It was a split level home. I’m 48, so I was born in 1977 and in the seventies, you know, split level homes.

And if you don’t know what a split level home is, it means like the portion of the lower level is underground and then there’s the middle level, which is ground level. And then you go up like six to seven more steps. And then there’s this upper level. All of the bedrooms were in the upper level, the kitchen was in the lower level.

Well, when I was 14 months old. This was in the seventies. And natural gas, as you guys know, if you ever like smell gas, it smells like sulfur or eggs. Well, back in the seventies, natural gas did not have an odor. There’s zero odor, so you don’t know if you have a gas leak.

And it was around six in the morning and we had a gas leak. Of course, no one knew. And the story goes, and I could be getting some of the details wrong here, but something sparked the gas and our house exploded.

And you guys, I have lived with that story for 48 years and it has probably only been since I chose to put the food down and find a different way that I can actually have feelings about that. Like right now, that horrifies me to even say this. That happened to my dad. That’s just so sad. Oh my gosh. And that’s one of the things that I think I unlocked with this spiritual director.

So the three bedrooms were upstairs and the craziest thing happened is that I was asleep with my brother and sister and I did not stay in the house. I was blown across the street and the story goes, I landed in a bush. I’ve never heard any other story than that, so that part must be true.

I really just imagine the Lord picking me up, carrying me across the street and just putting me in a bush. I was found later, but I’ll tell you a little bit more about that.

So everything exploded. The door fell down, my dad fell on top of it. And a neighbor came over and drugged my dad out. So my dad and I became the sole survivors of this tragedy, this very fatal accident.

My mom, who I imagine must have been downstairs in the kitchen, it was like six in the morning was trapped, and my brother and sister, who were four and seven at the time, did not live either. So I just say that because I really feel like as the Lord has revealed more and more to me, I feel like he said, you know what? This one she’ll fight for me. This one we still need her.

And so the story goes that my dad was rushed to the hospital. The fire department came and realized that no one else had survived and they had all left, but there was one paramedic from this small town of a volunteer fire department, and she found me.

She found me and said, wait, there’s one more, and put me on the seat of her car, and drove me to the hospital. My grandma, you guys hear me talk about a lot. My grandma heard that there was one more coming in and she assumed it was her daughter. It was not.

So when the paramedic walked in with me and her arms, then my grandma. Just held onto me for dear life, which I can imagine. Gosh, now being a mom, I just see how you had to be like, wow, this is it. This is all we have. This you guys is how I know the Lord wanted me to do this because I’ve never cried like this about this. Thank you. Weight loss with the Holy Spirit for giving me an outlet.

So my grandmother held onto me for Dear Life, dear life. And from that moment on, I think I just, she introduced me to everyone as her Miracle baby. And I really was like kind of annoyed when I was a kid. Like she would be, oh, this is my miracle baby. But I see why I would do the same thing.

Okay, so my dad was bandaged up. He had a lot of cuts on his neck and his face, so he had a lot of bandages around him. And my grandma said that she took me in to visit him and I was freaked out and like got really scared and she just turned me my back so I wouldn’t see him and laid me down by him.

And she said, okay, Albert, talk, say something. And he talked to me and she said she could just see my whole body. She could see my whole body just go, and relax. And I can see now both of those humans and my life. Now I’m my safe place. My grandmother is no longer with me, but she always was as that source of unconditional love. My dad the same. I think that’s where that wire, that safety in my brain as a kid.

And that just shows me, you know, just how important our early brains can be. So I’ve never recognized that. And that’s what that spiritual director allowed me to see was I grew up with such a sensitive kid. I cried a lot. I would cry a lot when I’d come home from my grandma’s house. I’d spend the weekend with her. I’d cry a lot coming home.

And, I didn’t tell you this and people would be like, well, why? You know, why are you crying? And the spiritual director, I think helped me see that she was that source of unconditional love, that really safe space, and I just never, I was just a young child feeling, but not able to express missing my birth mom.

Now that doesn’t minimize the fact that I was raised by an incredible woman. My dad remarried when I was three. She came with an older brother for me and a younger sister. My sister, you guys, she’s been on the podcast. I love her. I love my brother too. We had a blended family and we just all tried our darnedest. It was a beautiful, loving home.

So all the tears that you just heard does not diminish the loving home I grew up in. We were not perfect, but everybody, seriously, in my mind, I know everyone tried our best and I grew up, I think a lot like you guys. You guys grew up in an era where women were constantly dieting, where the thinner you were the better.

And I think there was an era where we just learned that your body. Got you. Safety. Your body got you a husband. Your body got you attention. People were nice to you if you were pretty okay. Maybe it’s just me, but these are the messages that I ended up learning.

And I don’t think it was like evil. I just think that our human brains believe that, or at least the home that I grew up in, was that, hey, listen, if you look a certain way and you act a certain way, people are gonna be nice to you and they’re gonna be kind to you.

And when you don’t act a certain way or you don’t look a certain way, people aren’t as nice to you. And we just got that message. And I remember my mom saying over and over. So when I say my mom now, I mean my stepmom, but she raised me. So she’s just always been my mom.

I remember my mom just being like, Hey, I just want you guys’ life to be easy, right? Isn’t that what we want for all of our children? So she literally was trying to teach me how to have an easy life. And part of that was you act the way that you want people to act.

You know, don’t be too pretty, don’t be too good. People will be jealous. Don’t underperform, don’t overperform. Just find the sweet spot. And I really internalized that as a, I don’t know. I think I was a really sensitive kid where I was like, Hey, just love me man. Just love me. Just be nice. I was not, I did not feel comfortable around anybody’s unpleasant emotions.

Partly because I was never taught to like live with my own emotions. I mean, you guys. A kid who’s crying for no reason, and you’re like in that era where it’s like, oh no, honey, don’t cry.

Don’t cry. There’s my grandma. Oh, honey, don’t cry. Don’t cry, don’t cry. I love you.

And the kid’s like, well, I don’t even know I’m crying, right? Because it’s some unresolved issue. My grandma couldn’t have ever helped me there. And then there’s my mom, like, don’t cry, because you know, I feel bad. And so I’m making everyone uncomfortable with my feelings.

And so I learned to not cry. I mean to the point where when I was a kid, if I started to cry, I just became like exceptionally paralyzed. I was just in this massive stress response where I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t say anything. All I could do was like keep my eyes open, and I think I like still have that distress response.

So just going through life, just continuing to not have the ability to name my feelings, feel my feelings, et cetera, and then just really feeling like my feelings were unsafe. I couldn’t have consciously thought that, but that’s the message that my body started to believe.

The other thing that my body believed was not only were feelings, except happy feelings were fine, but that as long as you acted a certain way or performed at a certain level, you got attention.

So I really started to become just a real people pleaser and just seeking approval and validation from not only my parents, but friends, and then later in romantic relationships, which is, you know, just absolutely reinforcing, Hey, you get what you want. You act a certain way. And then it really just all the while transforms my relationship with myself.

So I’m just like judging my judges around myself. Like, I don’t even like you unless you act the way I want or feel the way I want, or look the way I want. So it’s so interesting how that relationship with ourselves is so primary. Because if I would at least have had the ability to feel safe with my feelings, like I wasn’t judging myself if, and this is where the healing comes in.

Now as an adult, where I can say, oh wait, we were trying to fill this void in our lives by other people’s approval by other people telling us we’re okay. And the vehicle to get other people’s approval was to act the way they wanted, look the way they wanted. I think those were my two big ones. I’ll just look a certain way and act a certain way.

Okay. So then to act a certain way typically meant I had to work in perfectionism. ’cause you’re only gonna act a certain way as long as you have high standards for yourself. So that’s where you like push past fatigue, you know, perfection or real high achieving.

You guys. I was a piano player when I was in high school. I practiced two hours a day because my piano skills got me a lot of attention. My piano skills I felt a lot of safety in. But then if we go to the, I’ll be okay. As long as I look a certain way, well then that’s when we get into not only clothes and makeup.

But you guys, this is I think, the piece that we start making our body a God. We need to really manipulate and make sure the body looks a certain way. I think that’s very common for people who have food issues is if I manipulate food a certain way or do enough exercise, you know, look the right size.

That’s where food and our relationship with food becomes like a vehicle to feel safe because we create the body that we want. We create the body that we think we need to have acceptance. So I think my food stuff stemmed from two different places. The first one was stuffing my feelings down because it felt very unsafe to be anything but happy and up and good.

So bad feelings were never addressed. I had zero, zero ability. I didn’t even know that was a thing. And then striving for the perfect body. The perfect body meant I was safe. People would like me, I would get approval.

And so, you know that really kicked off when I was in college. I was over drinking a lot to feel good about myself. I would restrict food before I would go out drinking so that I could get drunk faster. My relationship with alcohol has always been kind of funky.

My relationship with alcohol has always been a tool, so I’d never drank to enjoy it. It was always to get me somewhere, like, to improve the party or make me like myself or to calm me down. Alright. So it was always a tool. I see that now. And food was the same way. It was just a tool. It was a tool to stuff down feelings or it was a tool to get the body that I wanted.

All right. Everything was odd and disordered. That was kind of in college and people go through that stuff. And that’s when I started getting into strength training as well. But I was like binge eating too. I would just cycle on binge eating, restrict. It was just depending on what tool I needed.

If I needed to stuff my feelings down. It was binge eating. If I wanted to change my body, it was restricting. If I wanted to get drunk faster, I was restricting. So it was like pick the flavor of tool. And then we got engaged the summer before I got married, I got married in September. I just remember I was just chewing tons of gum and I was very limiting my food. And I just had this thought, I wanna feel as good as I possibly could on my wedding day.

And I did. I felt amazing on my wedding day. And I remember going into the bathroom at the end of the night and I looked at myself. And I checked my body up and down and I looked at in the mirror and I was like, you did it. You did it. You made it through this day. You look great. And you feel as good as you wanted to. You did that.

‌So after I got married, I started my first full-time professional position. Until then, I had only been in undergraduate school and then I did two different graduate degrees. See, look at me and just like, tout, tout, tout. Overachiever, overachiever, right. Isn’t it amazing? No.

But I never had a job. I never had a full-time job. Right before our wedding, I got hired on as a fitness director at a Y-M-C-A. Two weeks after we got back from our honeymoon, I started that professional position, new life, new marriage. Never had a full-time job. Crazy.

So the stress of that job and the stress of this new life, I knew one thing to do. I knew I could work well. I knew how to overachieve, so I would just work. I was working for a nonprofit. I would work 6:00 AM to 10:00 PM you know, That’s what I signed up for. I’m gonna be the best worker ever.

You guys, I had no idea, like my husband, three weeks into our marriage was like, I’m miserable. And I was like, why? He’s like, you’re never home. We never do anything. I’m just like living by myself. I’m taking care of the house. And I was like, and I remember thinking to myself like, well, what’s the problem with that? I don’t get it. Go do what you wanna do. Just go do what you wanna do. I’m doing what?

And I was like, so foreign, like, you wanna spend time with me? I literally was like, I don’t get it. What’s the problem? I like couldn’t believe that he wanted to spend more time with me. Just genuinely lies that funny. Isn’t that funny? Yeah. I’ve never been really great with relationships.

Relationships are not my strong point. I’m learning to be good in relationships because, you know, it was, relationships are tools, like my whole life has just been a tool. What do we need to get? What do we need to do to get the end result? Okay, we’ll do it. Just go head down go. The feelings. Ooh, I don’t even know what that is.

So, soon after my wedding day, I quickly gained 20 pounds. And I’ll never forget the first Thanksgiving that we were married, my husband went out on Black Wednesday. If you remember, black Wednesday, back in the day, was the biggest going out night.

So he went out with his friends. I had to work the next day ’cause we had this like food drive slash fitness event at the YMCA in the morning. And so I had work the next morning, so I stayed home by myself, and this you guys was the turning point. This is when I really realized, oh, you’ve got a problem with food.

So we had bought a tub of uncooked cookie dough back in the day. That was one of those fundraisers that kids would come door to door and sell you. So a neighbor kid had sold that to us, and I was home alone. It was dark and I felt lonely. I didn’t know I felt lonely, but something was weird.

So I started eating the cookie dough, standing at my counter, eating the cookie dough spoonful after spoonful, after spoonful. Put it back in the freezer, take it back out, eat it more spoonful spoonful, put it back in the freezer. And then I was like, wait, I can eat this whole thing. ’cause I can just go in the garage and throw up.

And until that point, I had never been a binge purger. And I remember being like, oh my gosh, that’s brilliant. Why have I not thought of that before? That’s incredible. And I don’t know why I thought I should go in the garage instead of the toilet. That’s weird. So anyway, so I tried, I was like, I’m gonna go in the garage and try to throw up.

And I tried and it just didn’t work. And I tried and I was like, oh. I was like so disappointed that it didn’t work. I don’t know, I couldn’t like vomit or something or like, not as much. I don’t even remember. I just remember being like, oh, that didn’t work. So I don’t know why I thought it didn’t work, but it didn’t work.

And it was the first time that I realized, oh, that’s. Like at the same time I’m like, oh crap. This is a red flag. I think. I think something’s wrong here. ’cause I knew enough because, when I was in graduate school, I was on part of an eating disorder. Management team. So, which meant that I like helped the women, the girls regulate exercise, which by the way is not effective.

So I’d been around eating disorders for a long time. In fact, I didn’t do like a thesis for my master’s degree. I did a project and the project was all on body image. So, I mean, I’ve been studying this stuff for so long. So the next day I felt like absolute garbage and I was like, something’s wrong.

Well, back in the day as part of being a fitness director, magazines would come across my desk and one of them was Fit Pregnancy. And while we were married and I knew we wanted to get pregnant, I thought we’d get pregnant. Kind of like soon. I don’t know why. ’cause I was on birth control at the time, you guys, I wasn’t Catholic at the time, although I did get married in a Catholic church, which was amazing.

My husband insisted, even though I thought it was the stupidest idea ever, and part of the being in the fitness director anyway said, if you’re going to get pregnant, the best thing you can do for your future child is to deal with your emotional issues. And I thought, well, I don’t wanna pass this on to my kids.

So I went into therapy. Well, I went into therapy and I found this guy. I remember reading this book called Fatitudes and it was like the attitudes that keep us fat. And this guy also did counseling. I don’t even know how I found him, so I decided to do counseling with this man and work through the Fatitudes book with him.

One of the things was to identify where you are eating and overeating and to solve for it. One of the places I was overeating was in my one hour commute to work. And so I thought, okay, well how do I solve for this? I must be bored. Okay, that must be the thing I’m really trying to deal with.

So bored. So how can I entertain myself in the car? And this is before cell phones and I was listening to talk radio at the time. I love talk radio. So I was like, well, I must be bored with my radio station, so I’ll find a different radio station.

And I found this call in show where people would call in and they’d ask marriage questions or kid questions, and it felt very Dr. Laura-ish. I love Dr. Laura. She was this Jewish woman who had this call in a radio show where people would call in. It was kind of like, , a Dear Abby or. When people would put, that’s back when people read newspapers.

They’d pose a question about their personal life and then this person would answer it. And I just thought that was super entertaining. Always good. It wasn’t just about the news, it was great. And I loved it. It just happened to be at the right time that I was in my car and I thought it was so fantastic.

Well, I later realized that the call-in show was. Called the doctors in with Dr. Ray Guarendi. Come to find out he is a Catholic therapist, and I am now listening to Catholic Radio. And I was like, Which meant nothing to me. It just meant like I, this show’s entertaining. It’s keeping my attention. Okay, this will help me stop overeating.

Well, slowly by slowly I started really enjoying the radio station and some of the other shows and. Fun fact about Denise, when I go for runs or when I work out at the gym, I sometimes listen to music, but mostly I’m always listening to podcasts now.

But back in the day I listened to talk radio ’cause I thought it was entertaining. It kept me company. So I’d go on runs and I would be catechized and not even know I was getting catechized and learning about the Catholic church and the Catholic faith.

So this is where we’re gonna wrap up part one. Here I am in my binge eating life trying to get out, and I come upon Catholic radio. You will hear next week how this became a turning point for me, because at this point I was a non-Catholic listening to Catholic radio and being catechized unintentionally. Isn’t God so stinking funny? I thought I was just being entertained.

So as a reminder, tomorrow starts our How to Make a Meal Plan You Actually Want to Stick To. This is a six-week challenge for Catholic women, and what I want you to know is that by the end of this challenge, you will be a woman who can not only enjoy her food again, but you will be able to eat food that you enjoy without dieting, without feeling guilty, without fear of overeating it.

You will be a woman who has learned the skills on how to get through the ups and downs of life without turning to stress eating or emotional eating, and you will also be able to accurately anticipate your needs. You’re going to start being able to care for yourself and support yourself through your days.

And I just wanna ask you, a woman who can meet her needs and emotionally support herself without stress eating, a woman who can enjoy food without dieting or fear of overeating it or feeling guilty, a woman who knows that she can be cared for throughout the day, does that woman struggle with losing weight? Does she think weight loss is hard?

And the answer is no, she doesn’t. This is the number one skill that I learned 12 years ago that has kept me at my healthy weight for 12 years, and I want you to know that, too. So go to the description, get in the challenge. We start tomorrow. And I tell you what, guys, here at Weight Loss with the Holy Spirit, this is where we do everything, including weight loss, the Catholic way.

And that simply means putting God first. Not the secular way where we put the magic food plan or the magic weight or the magic dress size as our god. No. God is our God. He’s a God of peace, of simplicity. He’s a God of order, and I want that for you. I want that peace and freedom for you.

So join this next challenge. I will see you there.