In the Fall Reset, you’re going to learn how to eat the foods that you love without overeating. You’re going to learn how to care and support yourself emotionally without turning to food, and best of all, you are going to learn , when you mess up or overeat, which is going to happen because you’re human, how to not give up on yourself for, like, a month or years.

And instead just keep practicing and coming back, and that’s what gets you to your healthy weight, and that’s what keeps you at your healthy weight. So if you are not joining us for the Fall Reset, do that because you know you’re going to do something in September anyway, and you might as well do something that will get you to your healthy weight forever and that gets you closer to the Lord.

So click the link in the description and make sure you get your spot with us. We start on Wednesday, September 9th. Okay. But today, we’re going to talk about some weight loss myths, and I love weight loss myths because what we find is that we are busting them all over the place.

And thank God, because we’re showing you a different way to be at your healthy weight that doesn’t require all of the deprivation and the shame and the restriction and the stop living your life. So I’m just gonna start going through different myths that people believe and some different ideas that I have. So this is just a montage of what I believe and what I’ve seen to be true with women.

And one of the very first things is that people believe that you’re overweight because you haven’t found the right plan, which is why so many women are searching for the right plan. And there are so many plans out there. I mean everything from carnivore to keto to low fat to high fat to the insulin resistance diet to paleo to intermittent fasting. We can go on and on and on. And the truth is that you all tried all those things.

Now, if you’re in Catholic weight loss, that’s working for you, but all of us have years if not decades of trying all of these other plans believing that, if I just find the right plan then I’ll be at my healthy weight.

And that’s a myth, because the plan is not what’s keeping you overweight. The women that I work with are not being stuck overweight because they haven’t found the right plan, it’s because they haven’t addressed the reason that they’re overweight. And it is not because they’re not having the right plan.

When you do weight loss the Catholic way, you don’t have to have a perfect plan. In fact, there is no plan. The only plan that is perfect is the one that you plan for yourself today using foods that you genuinely enjoy and that you can eat peacefully. Because when you do that, you can maintain your healthy weight, and we’re not creating more problems by dieting because it’s not the plan that’s keeping you overweight.

The restriction from dieting is keeping you overweight, not addressing the real problem, which is usually not knowing how to care and support yourself without turning to food. That’s the problem. That’s what’s often keeping women, at least that I work with, overweight. Now, if there are other medical issues, then those need to be addressed as well.

But I promise you, for the majority of people, it is not finding the right plan. And I will reiterate the right plan, if there is one, is the plan that you made for yourself today that works for your day to day that includes foods that you genuinely enjoy and that you can eat peacefully, period. Okay.

Another myth is that if something hasn’t worked for you, it’s because you weren’t disciplined enough or didn’t have enough willpower. And I would just like to reframe that. Because all of the things that I’ve tried in the past that didn’t work were not because I didn’t have enough discipline or didn’t have enough willpower, and I’m going to assume that that’s the same thing for you, because you do have a lot of discipline, and you do have a lot of willpower.

But what happens is that we aren’t able to follow a plan that competes with our life. You cannot follow a plan long-term that makes your life harder, that creates more pain for you, that’s more deprivation and restriction and punishment. And so when I didn’t follow a plan, it was because it wasn’t made for me. It didn’t really work for my life.

When you didn’t follow a plan, it was the same reason. Likely, it was because we were trying to simply make our lives easier, and say I can’t keep this going.” And so to preserve our sanity, our internal wisdom said, “We can’t do this anymore.”

And I think there’s a lot of flavors and complexities to that, as well as we just didn’t know how to care and support ourselves, so we tried to then go back to doing something hard. We didn’t know that there was a natural, gentle way to be well, to be healthy, that worked for our life.

And so we have erroneously believed that it’s simply willpower and discipline, that you’re either on a diet or you’re off a diet, instead of saying, “Oh, wait, here’s the life that I live. How can I be healthy in this life?”

So again, it’s not a discipline or willpower issue. It’s almost an unmet needs issue. I hear women talk a lot about this concept of, “Oh, I just need to work on portion control.” And again, I don’t think portion control is the issue. I think it’s an unmet need issue. I’m gonna say that again. Portion control is not the issue, it’s an unmet needs issue.

So why am I eating more than my body needs? I’m seeking something, and so let’s tune into ourselves and find out what that something is. What’s truly underneath of that? What is the me that’s not being met?

And then therefore we’re not just worrying about keeping our food a certain portion, we’re addressing what the real need is and then meeting that. Because simply only eating four ounces of meat will truly not meet your needs.

I think you’re starting to see a theme here, that to get to your healthy weight, we’ve got to address the reasons that you actually are overweight, and then meet those needs without turning to food. Because one of the myths is that you have to give up the foods that you love.

And every diet you’ve done has likely had foods that you can eat and foods that you cannot eat, and I would like to offer a different way. What if you can eat absolutely any food, and as long as you know how to eat it peacefully. It works for you at your healthy weight.

And so by putting our attention on learning to eat calmly and peacefully, and meet the needs we have, our emotional needs, without turning to food, then any food is fine. Because I truly believe that any food can be eaten and you can be at your healthy weight.

And there are three foods that will keep you not at your healthy weight. And those three foods are foods that you eat to not feel something, sad, bored, lonely, angry, offended, or foods that you eat to feel something, special, important, celebrated, appreciated, seen, known, heard, loved, or any foods that we eat on autopilot because of stress or out of habit.

But if you intentionally sit down and eat a piece of chocolate cake and ice cream with whipped cream and you eat it peacefully, that will not keep you overweight. I’m guessing that eating that every single day would not feel peaceful to you. So we just get to tune into what feels peaceful and you will know that the more you practice this method. That’ll all flush out, and this is exactly the work that we do in the fall reset for you.

Okay. Another myth is that you have to stop living your life. Have you ever not gone to an event because you were on a diet? Have you ever not engaged in something socially because you were on a diet? The answer is probably yes.

For all of us who have tried to lose weight, we have intentionally avoided something because we were on a diet, because we couldn’t trust ourselves around food, because it would ruin our diet. And that’s a myth. To have lasting weight loss, we have got to learn how to be anywhere and to feel peaceful around food and have it not sabotage our weight loss. And the only reason that it would sabotage our weight loss is because we wouldn’t be eating the food peacefully.

In Weight Loss the Catholic Way, which is what we practice in the fall reset. The four daily disciplines that you practice daily are so flexible that you can do anything socially. You can go on vacations, you can celebrate, and they ebb and flow with you. They go with you.

In fact, we just had a woman in our community who went on a two-week vacation in Germany. She said the land of sausages and chocolate. And she says she didn’t often weigh herself, but she did weigh herself before she got on the plane, and then two weeks after when she got back, and she hadn’t gained a pound.

Now, I don’t think it’s a problem that you go on vacation and gain weight. I do, because I’m eating differently. But what she really said was that she practiced this way of life, the four daily disciplines, even when she was on vacation, and that it is just so ingrained in her life now. And this is a woman who’s been in our community two years.

And so you don’t have to stop living life to have weight loss the Catholic way. And by the way, she’s down over 50 pounds since she started. So the point is, no, you do not have to stop living your life.

As I did that workshop, I started thinking about some people say that they don’t have the bandwidth to do another thing. They don’t have the time or the energy, and that weight loss takes a lot of time and energy. And I was mulling that concept around in my brain, and I believe that that’s a myth as well.

So go with me on this. If weight loss takes a lot of time and energy, let’s just look at the time and energy that can be spent. Not addressing the issue. And I looked at how I used to spend my time and energy, and the way I used to spend my time and energy was lots of mental energy on what can I eat, what can’t I eat, what should I eat, what shouldn’t I eat?

And if I eat something now, then I’m not gonna have something else later, but I’d usually always eat the something else later. And then I would feel horrible about that. You guys know I used to stand in my pantry and dump chocolate chips in my jar of peanut butter and feel horrible about that. I would spend time getting those extra treats at the coffee shop and then feeling horrible about that because it just felt very impulsive.

And where I spent a lot of my time was researching. Researching online about the most perfect diets or the perfect way to eat or different nutritional things about how to be, like, really clean or the toxins in foods because the toxins create this need to protect the organs by holding onto extra water. Oh my gosh, all of this.

And another place that I would spend a lot of time was in the grocery store, going down the aisle that was usually some sort of, like, chips or treats or just odd foods, and I would pick up, and I would just peruse the aisle like somebody does, like a clothing shop. I would peruse the food like somebody would like a clothing shop. I would pick it up like clothing.

I would pick it up, and I would look at it, and I would read the nutritional information, and I was just so fascinated by all the different foods. I would spend so much time in these aisles looking at different foods, and then I would start bargaining with myself. Am I gonna get it? Am I not gonna get it? Put it in the cart, maybe walk around the store, and then put it back on the shelf.

I mean, whether or not I got it doesn’t matter, but the point is, the mental energy I was using and the actual time I was using in the grocery store was taking up time. And so when somebody tells me that, “Gosh, Denise, you know, the fall reset, I don’t have the bandwidth. I don’t have enough time and energy to just add one more thing to my life.”

For me, living this lifestyle has simplified things. I have so much more time. I have so much more energy. So much more brain space has now been freed up to live life and to not always be thinking about food or the mental calculator, and that’s hard. That’s a lot of energy. That’s a lot of time. And the fruits of that are nothing but being stuck in a cycle

And so I wonder if when people say learning a new way, the fall reset, or weight loss the Catholic way. I just don’t have the bandwidth to learn something new. I just wanna offer that this something new is not using more energy.

It’s not using more time. It is simply redirecting your time and energy that you’re already spending, that I was already spending, in the problem and solidifying the problem, and instead redirecting it into the solution so that I could start taking the steps to being the woman that I want to be.

And I think it’s the same thing with any resource that we have, whether it’s money, whether it’s time, energy, attention. We just get to decide, do I want to put it stuck in autopilot on what’s not working, on what’s causing me to not love my life.

And I remember it really was, one of the things that living stuck overeating and stuck in that cycle really cost me was a lot of confidence. I just felt so horrible about myself. I couldn’t pull myself out of it.

But when God found me and I was able to finally surrender everything changed. Which I want to bring up another myth, that focusing on our weight loss takes us farther from the Lord, that it’s vain, that it’s selfish. And I think that there is a way to lose weight that does feel vain and selfish and is not focused on the Lord.

But that is not us here at Weight Loss the Catholic Way. Everything that we do is not only done as an act of worship and love for Him, but it is done with Him. And so often, at least for so many years, I tried to just pray my way to being free, pray my way out of getting out of that cycle, and I couldn’t. And I didn’t know how to truly surrender to God.

And I think that a lot of you are in that same place, where you feel like you’ve been praying and praying and praying, and nothing’s happening. And what I want to offer you is that. In the fall reset, there is a system that teaches you how to daily surrender to the Lord. And once you know that system, you just practice it over and over and over. So that your weight loss efforts are united with him.

And one of the most surprising things that people tell me is that they had no idea how close they would feel to the Lord after they did Weight Loss the Catholic Way, after they did the fall reset, after they did 63 Surrendered, that they had a new relationship with the Lord that they’ve never had.

And so that is just so exciting that you can finally surrender your food and weight struggles to the Lord, allow him to come into this area of your life, and truly have that freedom, that peace, and be at your healthy weight. And I think the last thing I wanna say is one of the myths is believing that someone else knows better.

And I want to tell you that no one knows better than you and the Lord for you. Denise doesn’t know better other nutritionists don’t know better, that you truly know what’s best for you. But you probably haven’t gained that trust with yourself, and you haven’t slowed down enough to learn what your body is telling you and what you really need.

And there’s a way that you can learn how to do that so that you can start tuning into the Holy Spirit who lives in you It’s just so that you can gain that trust with yourself, so that you can meet your own needs, so that you can give yourself the care and attention and love that only you can give you.

There’s this whole concept that self-care is selfish but here’s the truth is that there is only one human on this earth created to take care of you. Who is that? That’s you. And I believe that second to loving the Lord, our number one job on this Earth is to take care of ourselves.

And that is true because no other human was designed to take care of you. Your parents, yes, but now that you’re an adult, there’s nobody else. Nobody else has been entrusted to the care of you. You have been entrusted to the care of you.

And so your work is to care for yourself the best that you can. And I know there’s a lot of mental shenanigans because you’ve probably never seen that model for you, and that’s okay. Sometimes we don’t take care of ourselves because we feel worthy of it.

Sometimes we simply take care of ourselves because we know that’s what God wants. And slowly by slowly, we start to develop that relationship with ourselves. We allow the Lord to come in and heal that relationship with ourselves.

So this has just been fun to talk about the different myths that I think secular dieting has put in our brains, and to really look at it through a Catholic lens. And when we look at things through a Catholic lens, we get to see them through the way the Lord sees them, through a very simple, ordered, and peaceful lens.

And so if you would like to lose weight this way, it is not too late, my friends. We don’t start until September 9th for you to join the Fall Reset, where you can spend 63 days of surrender, learning how to lose weight the Catholic way.

Getting to your healthy weight, getting closer to the Lord, learning how to eat the foods that you love without overeating them, learning how to not give up on yourself, and to imperfectly practice this with all of us, with hundreds of other Catholic women surrounding you. It is incredible.

And if you want to know what’s really in store for you, I want you to go listen to the previous podcast right before this, which are women’s inspiring stories who have gone through the program that we use in the Fall Reset.

Okay, everybody, so I hope you’ve enjoyed this. Remember, at Weight Loss with the Holy Spirit, we keep God our God. Not our weight, not our pant size, not the scale, not the magic food. We keep God our God. I’ll see you in the fall reset.