But I thought it would be super fun to talk about how you  can guarantee your own weight loss.  And you can guarantee your own weight loss when you are aware of the things that can come up and you know how to solve for them.  Now, often when we are talking about a guarantee, it feels really informal and contractual.

 

In fact, I offer a money back guarantee with my six month clients, with my client,  my personal coaching clients who commit to six months. I guarantee that they will lose a certain amount of weight and we decide on that ahead of time. It’s usually. 25 to 35 pounds.  And my guarantee is, I will guarantee that you will lose that amount of weight.

 

Otherwise, I will work with you until you do. Now, on the other side of that is that they are agreeing to doing a few accountability measures like, weighing themselves weekly, taking progress pictures.  taking some measurements. , I also have them fill out a pre coaching form before we have our coaching sessions together, their thoughts.

 

And this is just to increase the effectiveness of our coaching session. But my point is that they know their part to maintain that guarantee. And then I, then we just both get to work on Helping them lose their weight  and so I want you to be able to do this for you And I thought wouldn’t it be so fun to have every woman be able to guarantee her own success  I really encourage you that no matter what your weight loss goal is, that you put your focus on what you can control.

 

And you can control your behaviors. You can also control your thoughts. Now the women in our community would say, Denise, that’s not true. You can only control your second thought, which is very true. You can’t control your first thought because it just pops in your brain, but you can control your second thought.

 

And I teach you how to do that in our community.  One of my favorite things that helps me stay focused on what I can control is the phrase, it’s none of my business what God does with my efforts.  It’s none of my business what God does. But what is my business? God’s in charge of the outcome. My business is the behaviors.

 

My business is making my easy to stick to meal plan. My business is following it. My business is surrendering any changes. My business is noticing my thoughts. My business is all the things that I can control.  If I overeat, looking at that, learning from it, my business is taking care of me. My business is allowing myself to feel any feeling and create safety around that. 

 

This week I had a client have this massive breakthrough and she’s now practicing this new helpful thought.  I focus on what I can control and I surrender what I can’t.  I focus on what I can control and I surrender what I can’t. And this helps her keep her attention on what she can control on what will help her get to her goals instead of what she can’t and what was distracting her and causing her  angst  and being unsettled  and stealing her peace and distracting her. 

 

And so today I know that you have made a commitment or would like to make a commitment to you yourself.  To lose weight. And so let’s talk about the things that you can expect and Just know that they are part of achieving any goal my friends  okay, the first common pitfall is just being too vague in your goal and What I mean by being too vague is being like I want to lose weight Even if you’re specific like I want to lose 10 pounds.

 

I want to lose 20 pounds I want to lose 40 pounds being vague and believing okay. I made that goal You And that’s enough.  And what I want you to start to be clear on are the skills that you need to develop to Reach that goal and therefore you can get busy on learning that skill again Being aware that you’re not going to be good at the skill, which is totally fine  Being willing to be not good at it But persevering in the weight loss with the Holy Spirit program, we have many skills that build upon each other and we start them one by one.

 

The skill of noticing your thoughts, the skill of noticing how your thoughts affect your behavior, the skill of being able to change your thoughts so that they become helpful and they lead you to your goal instead of blocking you from your goal.  The skill of noticing that you’re having feelings of naming your feelings, the skill of noticing your needs. 

 

The skill of starting to meet your own needs. Ask for what you need. The skill of noticing your food patterns. The skill of slowing down when you eat.  The skill of chewing your food 20 times. The skill of knowing what food you like. The skill of creating an easy to stick to meal plan.  The skill of surrendering your changes.

 

If you make a change, the skill of creating go to meals. I know it sounds complicated, but I want you to see that they’re all very simple skills that build upon another. And so when you know what skill you’re working on, you know that you’re making progress.  It’s that stinking simple.  They’re clearly defined skills.

 

So what skills do you need to develop to meet your weight loss goal?  The second common pitfalls is. Emotional resistance. Okay. You guys,  every day, you’re going to not want to make an easy to stick to meal plan. Your brain is going to throw a tantrum every day. You may feel or fear guilt, shame.  You’re just going to have feelings. 

 

That doesn’t mean anything. It just means that you are human. And what we get an opportunity to do is to notice, Oh,  I’m feeling resistance. And just know that your brain will resist anything that feels unsafe.  Let me give you an example. In the Celebrate Not Sabotage challenge, we will be creating daily an easy to stick to meal plan.

 

We did the same thing with our 63 Surrendered challenge. You create an easy to stick to meal plan.  You can put anything on it. The foods that you love, that you feel good about. And if you make a change, that’s not a problem. You just surrender it.  That’s it. So no matter what you put on your plan, if you do need to make a change, you surrender.

 

And that just means that you write it down before you take your first bite. It just creates awareness around what you’re doing and it helps you talk to the Lord. During this whole process, would you believe that there’s, see how there’s zero risk. You can’t get it wrong. There’s zero risk. You can put whatever you want down.

 

In fact, when you’re creating your easy to stick to meal plan, you can put options. I have one woman in our community. She’s got like a list of, I think six or seven snacks that she feels good about. So she just writes the word snack. And then when it’s snack time, she goes and she looks at our list and decides what she wants.

 

Okay. So there’s zero risk.  But so many women will still have the emotional resistance their brains will offer them. I don’t want to do it  because they’re afraid to do it wrong. Even though I just told you, you can’t do it wrong because you can put whatever you want on the plan. You can put options, you can even change it,  but their brains will still offer them that emotional resistance because it’s feeling that being wrong, that thought I could do it wrong. 

 

is preventing them from doing it.  And so I just want you to expect emotional resistance to be there because it clearly still doesn’t even make any sense in our, logical brain. But emotional resistance doesn’t have to make sense.  It’s just a feeling. It’s probably a very old feeling and expect it because you have come from decades or many years of diet mentality and believing that you have to eat a certain way or you’re wrong. 

 

And so we can reprogram your brain. We can teach your brain that it is safe to try things.  to experiment, to become a scientist. And then if it doesn’t go the way you thought, that just means you have information. It doesn’t mean you’re wrong. It’s new information.  So expect emotional resistance. 

 

Piggybacking on that number three is just inconsistent motivation where one day you’re motivated or at the beginning of the day you’re motivated and you’re not as motivated later. That’s not a problem. , we. Create easy to stick to meal plans because we know that it’s going to be hard to make good decisions later in the day.

 

But we want to make sure that we are taking care of that woman later in the day. So you don’t have to muster strong motivation all the time.  You may even find that if you don’t get a lot of sleep, you’re not even motivated to make an easy to stick to meal plan.

 

Again, motivation can wane.   But that doesn’t mean that you don’t follow through. You can still be committed and not motivated.  You can still be surrendered, but not motivated. There are many feelings that we can cultivate that you can reach for that aren’t motivation, that will still get you what you want. 

 

 Now the next one that might come up for you.

 

It’s that feeling of overwhelm. And this comes up a lot for the women in our community thinking, Oh, it’s going to take so long.  It’s going to take so long.  It’s just, I have so far to go.  That’s a very unhelpful thought. Again, focusing on what you can control and what you can control  is what you do today. 

 

And so I give you permission to have that thought, wow, it’s going to take a long time,  but that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to try today.  So when you feel overwhelmed or life feels too heavy,  expect that. What’s interesting is as we’re gearing up for our holiday program, some women may think that, Oh yeah, I really want to feel free from excess weight.

 

I want to feel in control around the holidays. I love the holidays. But, they feel heavy when I think of feeling out of control around food, but the holidays aren’t a good time  to lose weight.  It feels like there’s too much.  So you can just notice your brain wants to think  it’s too much.

 

There’s overwhelm.  Expect it. It’s a normal part of not being okay with where you are.  and wanting something better for you. It’s a normal part of not liking where you are, yet not willing to stay there, overwhelm and uncertainty is normal, 

 

but not being willing to stay where you are   is powerful. And knowing that the Lord is calling you to more 

and is willing to give you his strength and all you have to do is say yes. And truthfully, my friends, what I want you to do when you feel overwhelmed is to say, what is the next right decision here? What’s the next right thing I can do for me?  You don’t have to solve all your problems. You don’t have to solve all of them today. 

That’s heavy. Who can do that?  But what can you do right now?  In this next moment, what’s the next right decision? And that helps refocus your brain on what is possible and keeps you moving forward toward your goal and not stuck and spinning out. You guys, overwhelm is that tornado thinking that just keeps you stuck. 

What’s the next right thing? 

Again, you’re not doing anything wrong if you feel overwhelmed.  But know there’s a way out by that one question. What’s the next right decision? Okay, number five, my friends, is something that you can overcome very easily, although it’s impacting your life significantly right now. And that is that mean girl living in your head.

She is very mean and critical and judgmental and not your friend.  But in a way, did you know that she’s so scared?  She’s trying to say, Hey, listen,  you’ve got to stay on top of your game, you’ve got to be perfect. Look, you screwed up there because she’s so scared. 

She’s trying to keep you safe. 

But guess what?  You don’t need to be criticized and judged.  You can tell her it’s safe. It’s safe to be kind. It’s safe to see your accomplishments. It’s safe to notice all the wonderful things that you’re doing.  We can speak kindly to ourselves and be our own best friend. And notice the small progress we’re making, the big progress we’re making.

And reach our goal. We don’t need to punish ourselves or criticize ourselves to reach our goals. She thinks that you have to.  That mean girl that lives inside of you thinks that she’s motivating you with fear. 

And that may have worked in the past,  but what I know is that the reason that the work and the weight loss with the Holy Spirit program works so well is because it’s fully aligned with the Lord. And what we get to do is take an opportunity to look at every area of our lives and our self care and make sure it’s fully aligned with him. 

And so we look at even the way that we’re talking to ourselves,  We make sure that we’re using his words. We’re viewing ourselves with his eyes and we’re talking to ourselves the way that he would. 

You guys, we have to surrender every area of our self care   and align it with the Lord.  Our thoughts,  our relationship with food.  The way we talk to ourselves. That’s why this works. Because it’s his way. It’s the way that he designed things.  And you come from your years of trying the world’s way of dieting  and motivation with fear and restriction and deprivation and   he’s just offering you an easier way.

He’s saying you don’t have to do that anymore.

That’s his gift to you. That’s the gift that the Lord will give you, if you join the 8 Week Challenge, that Celebrate Not Sabotage Challenge.  I think, I like to think of it as this. I like to think that you give 8 weeks to the Lord  for him to teach you  how to end your food and weight struggles with this very simple process.

And his gift to you is the healing and miracle  of releasing you from fear of shame and guilt and overeating  and excess weight. That’s the gift that he gives to you. 

So  the negative self talk. We’re just going to slowly by slowly decide not to talk to ourselves that way anymore. And it simply starts with becoming aware of it. And once you start to become aware of it, I promise you within a week, maybe two weeks, but usually within 10 days, women have significantly decreased the negative self talk.

And I think it’s because they’re willing to change that. And then the Lord just comes in and gives you his strength. And the minute you hear yourself being critical, he’s Whoa, Hey, no, sweetie, we just don’t do that anymore. I love you. See,  look how you made that easy to stick to meal plan.  And he just starts to offer you  his eyes and starts to talk to you in a way that allows you to use the words that he would use to talk to yourself. 

Okay.  So number six common pitfalls is the external distractions. And I can’t really, as we go into the holidays, literally I cannot think of a time of year that you will have more external distractions for meeting your goals. goals  and  learning how to surrender your weight struggles to the Lord.

There will be so many distractions that come your way.  It’s parties and baking and the stress and the shopping and the wrapping and the special programs.  And the decorating and the list and the list. Like you guys are listening to this and we just need to take a breath because the Lord would not ask any of us to start preparing for his birth  if it required us to self destruct to do it.  If it required us to neglect the care of ourselves.  I was just doing a coaching call the other day  And we were talking about self care and  how we have been told to take care of everybody else instead of ourselves and that, that’s just like the righteous thing to do. 

But I will tell you another truth that I know  is you, my friend listening to this, you are not more important than any other human being,  but you are just as important.

You are not.  more important than any of the Lord’s other creations, but you are just as important. 

And that is why being surrounded by a community of women who say, let’s celebrate   this most joyful time of year in a way that authentically brings us joy, that authentically brings us peace, that brings in the Lord’s light. And I love Advent. I love that we get to start.  bringing in the Lord’s light into our lives.

And I invite you to bring in his light and to start shedding the darkness, the heaviness and the dread and the guilt and the shame over your food and weight struggles. This is the most perfect time of year   because truthfully it aligns not only with our liturgical calendar,  But, man,  it’s just so easy to fall even further into the food and weight struggles during this time of year because of the distractions. 

Let’s don’t do that this year. Let’s don’t do this, that this year. And during the Celebrate Not Sabotage Challenge, I’m going to be teaching you one of the skills  and the tools that I love to use. for those common holiday pitfalls. I call it protocols and essentially we just decide how to handle it. How do we want it to go this year? 

We’ve lived so many years saying it’s not going to happen again. I’m not going to eat all the cookie dough while I’m making the Christmas cookies. I’m not going to eat all the holiday fudge, but unless we sit down and make a plan with our best thinking brain and are surrounded by a community of women who will help us follow through and accountability,  it’s just not going to be different this year. 

It just won’t.  Number seven is not having accountability. You guys, when you are working toward a goal, you need accountability.  Find a friend  in our community. We have weekly coaching calls. Yes, but on top of that every Wednesday Most Wednesdays. Sometimes I have to move it to Monday, but every Wednesday we have a check in call and a check in call is third is a moment is that and Every Wednesday we have Check ins are for every single member of our community.

They get two minutes You To say what’s working well and what needs work? We have three different times. We have an early morning time, a midday time, and an evening time, and that will work for the majority of women. For the women that it doesn’t work for, they do a virtual check-in  and just type out their, check it in our online community. 

But you need accountability.  And what’s so amazing is you hear  other women being accountable and you hear their struggles  and then you also hear their wins.  Last week we had one woman say, it’s a miracle.  I’m no longer controlled by sugar. She goes, sugar can be a box of rocks.  She’s I just, it’s just a miracle. 

And when you hear that, it’s possible. And I’m not saying you have to give up sugar,  but to feel not controlled by fill in the blank,  It’s just amazing. 

 Number eight,  not solving for the habits and patterns that are throwing you off.  I want you to hear me. Everything in this world is solvable. Everything in this world is solvable. And I had a friend who said everything in this world is solvable,  except if you die. 

 And the truth is if you die, the only problem is, are you right with the Lord? And I’m like, that is so true. You guys, everything is solvable. Everything is solvable. So if you are not solving for a pattern or a habit,  is going to be a common pitfall. So opening your eyes to the problems that are throwing you off.

One of my clients really wanted to address watching TV and overeating. So we created a little experiment where she went one week where she just wrote down what she was eating.  And I had her answer a couple questions just so we could open her eyes to the problem. What are we even solving for?  What we find was that she was typically pretty bored.

So we came up with a plan that she would decide what she would watch that was entertaining. So that TV was actually a release for her and not just some mindless boredom.  So then the second week  She decided to be more intentional about what she was watching again Writing down any food that she was eating and would you guys believe that she did not eat any food that week? 

She said there were a few times that she felt the urge to eat  and she just checked in with herself and she said I’m Not gonna get up  And she checked in and found that she was bored,  but she had that thought. I’m not going to get up. And she just said, I’m going to see what happens here.  And she said, you know what happened?

I’m like, no, what happened? She’s the feeling went away.  Just the urge went away.  Okay. So that’s an example of solving for something. Another client of mine, she works six 30 to six 30. She’s a physician six, six 30 AM to six 30 PM. She comes home. She’s grabbing chocolate chips while she’s making dinner  and just felt like so spiraling out. 

Okay.  So we started talking and she was ready to make some changes. So what we did was we created a transition  protocol, a transition routine.  And she goes, Oh, I don’t, I said so.  And we implemented a breathing technique that she would use.

During this transition period. And when I say a transition period, it was come home, get changed into comfy clothes.  I don’t even do that.  Ah, and you can see the light bulb went off in her head that she just came in, blazing hot, just  believing that she had to keep that pace from her stressed work day. 

And there was no transition for her to relax. Her body didn’t even know it could calm down. So we created a  a transition routine where she came home,  she changed into comfortable clothes.  She practiced a breathing exercise and it’s a breathing exercise that, is very simple.

It’s used by the military to calm soldiers down in stressful situations. So I knew it would be super effective. She’s a physician in an ICU unit. So I knew this would be very effective for her and it would be quick. Okay.  You guys, I just got an email from her. 

She said, hi, Denise. I’ve tried the breathing exercise in the transition routine for the past two days. It has been helping even just taking five to 10 minutes for myself when I walk in the house and being intentional about the breathing  exercises is helping. I found I am better able to manage my emotions for the rest of the evening.

I noticed myself getting anxious when getting ready for bed last night and thinking about work. I stopped into the breathing technique and I was able to calm myself down.  This my friends is what this is all about. Solving for the real problem, solving for the patterns and the habits that are really throwing you off. 

And number nine,  perfectionism,  the common pitfall  of I fell off my plan, which is actually literally impossible. As I told you, when you create an easy to stick to meal plan, all you do is surrender your change. Okay. But let’s say 

you say, forget it. Your brain says you blew it. And you’re like I ruined today.  But does that even mean  the problem? My friends, there is just perfectionism.  You believe that you have to follow  a certain protocol, stay in a box, and if you step outside that box I ruined it. I might as well blow it up, blow it out of the water.

This is my last chance.  You guys,  you know that you can’t go too far down

You can stop at any moment. You don’t have to make it worse.  I just want you to know that when you’re thinking that way, just tell yourself the truth,  you’re holding yourself to a high standard of perfectionism. 

So when you notice that,  just say, Hey, that’s not realistic. 

When you’re working towards a goal, there’s experimentation. We try things. Sometimes the experiments go the way that we thought they would go. Sometimes they don’t.  What if 50 percent of the time they go the way that we thought and 50 percent of the time we get information that helps us run another experiment that will increase the likelihood of it going the way that we thought it would?

Would that be worth running an experiment? 

 Allow yourself to stink and be human.  Be human. The Lord created you human. And what is perfectionism anyway? You’re only going to be perfect when you’re like the Lord, and then you won’t even care about the earthly human definition of perfect.  Divine perfection.

Divine perfection is the willingness to say, I tried.  I love you. Pick yourself back up.   That’s what the Lord wants.  What’s the proverb? My kid said,

 My kids learned in school,  or you are not called to be the best. You are only called to try your best, to be your best. And part of your best self is allowing yourself to make mistakes. To be human. That doesn’t mean we give up on the goal. That doesn’t mean we weren’t called to the goal.

It   means we’re human. We persevere. We learn.  We grow in fortitude. We’re being refined. Some of our biggest

weaknesses become our biggest strengths. You guys, I just want to say, I used to stand in the corner of my pantry dumping chocolate chips in a jar of peanut butter, eating it with a spoon,  hiding from my husband.  Waiting for him to go to bed so I could stay up and eat even more like I wanted.  I’ve eaten out of garbage cans. 

I ate pizza that was in a garbage bag in the outside garbage. 

Isn’t that crazy? 

Does that mean I should just stay there?  Does that mean I should hate myself and shame myself?  It felt horrible the next day, but I love it now. I love saying that was a part of my life because you hear me say that and you’re like, dang! Dang! That’s what she did?  Guys, I used to over drink so much. 

I remember over drinking at my son’s kindergarten graduation.  Kindergarten graduation. Why does a woman need to drink before she goes to her kindergarten, her son’s kindergarten graduation?  What was I running from? What was my brain so afraid of? What was I not coping with?  I could only know  when I stopped drinking, when I stopped numbing out from life. 

I love that I can tell you those stories now. 

I love that I can love that woman.  I love that  she’s been rescued. I love that she gave me a chance to be here.  I love that she felt so  bad that she was willing to change. I love that the Lord called me  out of that into this work. 

 And if you hear how far I’ve gone,  if you’re thinking, dang, I don’t want to go that far, or you feel like you’ve gone that far,  I just want you to know  that anytime you’re ready, we’re here for you. You don’t have to go any farther.  You can stop digging. You hit your bottom when you decide to stop digging. 

This holiday season,  I’ve got a challenge for you. It’s eight weeks. It’s eight weeks to learn how to end your food and weight struggles. I like to say you can look at this Celebrate Not Sabotage challenge as a door and you’re like Through that door is my path to freedom  Through that door is my way to end my food and weight struggles  And you’re like, Oh,  but where’s the doorknob? 

And that’s what the challenge will give you. The challenge will give you the process that’s doorknob. So you could open it and walk through that door because  on the other side of that door is the Lord.  And then he says, thanks. Come on in. Welcome. I’ll take it from here. I don’t need you to do anything else. 

He just needs you to say yes.  And you know if you’re being called to this, because you’ve been praying and you’ve been praying for an answer.  And this is him saying,  I created this for you.  I’m ready for you.  Say yes.  I promise you won’t regret it. 

Earlier today, I was talking to the Lord and he gave me  some words about the work that I do. And he said, Denise, I just want you to tell her the truth.

He said, she’s been praying  and she needs to know that this is me,  that this is me. This is me, Jesus talking to her. And you’ll know if this celebrate not sabotage challenge is right for you.

You’ll know it’s for you. If you’ve been praying for an answer for awhile,  You feel God calling you to this  You’ll know it’s for you if you’re done With trying to lose weight with dieting and counting points  You’ll know it’s for you if you’re ready to deepen your faith and reliance on the Lord and just  You just feel yourself shaking your head and you’re ready to just open your grip and say you take it Lord  You’ll know it’s for you if you’re ready to stop feeling the shame and guilt around food  You just want to  stop feeling so controlled by food. 

You’ll know it’s for you if you just have a deep desire to feel normal.  To be at a healthy weight.  And to do it 100 percent with the Lord.  Just go to weightlosswithaholyspirit. com, okay? Get signed up right now. 

So in closing, expect the common pitfalls, and if you’re going to do the celebrate not sabotage challenge, this is almost like the perfect intro. Just know that you’re going to need to learn skills and they’re going to be uncomfortable. You’re going to have emotional resistance.  Your motivation is going to wax and wane and that’s totally normal.

You are going to feel overwhelmed. Again, totally normal.  You’re going to ask yourself, what’s the next right decision.  We’re going to start talking to ourself kindly because that negative self talk will hold you back. There will be so many distractions, but instead of running from them and believing that they’re going to lead you away from your goal, I’m going to help you learn how to handle them and lean into creating solutions for the habits and patterns that are holding up your weight loss. 

I’m going to give you tons and tons of love and accountability so that you stay on track.  I’ll help you stay on track and then you stay on track for you. And we’re going to give ourselves so much grace because perfectionism is one of the common pitfalls.  Okay, everybody, please go to  weightlosswithaholyspirit.com. Get signed up for the Celebrate Not Sabotage Challenge today. The Lord is inviting you. All you have to do is say yes. Have a blessed day.