Eileen I think immediately that I would fail. You know, I’d spent decades. I’ve experienced promising programs, everything was going to work, everything was going to go great. And they did work, but only for a short time, only for a short time.

And, I just couldn’t maintain any long term success. And couldn’t figure out why, because I’d had success in everything else in my life. Things seemed to go crazy. Great, but I could not handle this weight and when I saw, I guess it was on Facebook, the, promotion for weight loss with the Holy Spirit, I thought, try God, that has to be the answer.

It was the one thing that was missing that, I couldn’t do it myself. It was in the hands of a fool, right? That my weight loss, understanding all of that. And when I turned it over, it was a miracle. It was like Lazarus being raised from the dead. It truly was the obsession, addiction to sugar that I had, was horrible. It was horrible. And, I’m free of that. It happened right away. And I don’t care about it anymore. I can look at a bag of candy and it’s like a bag of rocks. It means nothing to me. So that’s a miracle, right?

Denise:  That is a miracle. And for the people who are listening, who hear you say it was so bad, it was an addiction, can you give us some specific examples so that women can say, oh yeah, that’s me?

Eileen Oh, plenty. Checking out at the grocery store, Hobby lobby, buying the candy bars. I didn’t buy just one, I bought multiple. Some for the ride home, and some for later, and hiding it, and sneaking it, and wrappers that were wrapped up in paper towels or Kleenex so that I could put them in the trash.

But the thing is, nobody was bothering me about it. Nobody was judging me or humiliating me about it. It was all me. I was the one who was doing that to myself. I was a Catholic school teacher and in the teacher’s lounge, oh my god, the treats that would come in constantly, but I didn’t just have the treats in the lounge, I took them back to my classroom with me and kind of snuck them back there so that I could have more.

It was horrible. It was an addiction. So the shame and the hiding and the sneaking, all of that, I’m free of, but it took a long time, it is my miracle, but it’s a long time coming, a long time coming.

Denise Meaning that you had lived with the attachment and the addiction to sugar for many years?

Eileen Yes. For, I guess a lifetime. I don’t had a problem with my weight until probably like in my forties before then I could eat anything and it wasn’t any problem. It kind of snuck up on me. When I was doing some of the homework, the family history and things, and, look deeper, I mean, a lot of tears shed over those worksheets. And, when I was finished, I said, well, no wonder I was addicted to sugar. No wonder, you know? So, yeah.

Denise The worksheets that you’re talking about are the ones that are in the main weight loss with the Holy Spirit program. They’re not part of the surrender.. 

Eileen Yeah. Any of them in the 63 surrendered, running the models. On the back of running the model, I had a whole page of writing. I’ve done a lot of writing. Just uncovering, uncovering all of the layers of why I had that obsession with food. And, with the sugar in particular.

Denise And I think what’s so cool, and I want the woman who’s listening to this to hear is that through this work, the Lord comes in and he reveals truths to you.

And so you can say, Oh gosh, of course we have a tenderness towards our past self instead of a condemnation or being critical. We can say, Oh course, look what you were going through. You tried your best. And I think that he reveals us. Stuff and heals our relationship with ourselves in the meantime of doing what feels like really simple work.

Eileen And heals the relationship with the people in my life too. The people in my past, but they were all doing the best that they could. And all of that forgiveness, that’s what the tears are about to all of the ability to forgive and to just move on.

Everyone did the best they could. We all have life situations and family situations that are troubled and areas that are broken. The brokenness is what has been just such a blessing to be able to move past that. I knew all along in my head. But by writing it down, and by associating it with the food, and the sugar, oh yeah, that’s what had controlled my mind, by having sugar as a drug.

It’s a drug. When that was all in my head, I couldn’t think straight. But now that it’s gone, now that I have been released from that through the Holy Spirit, through the Surrender Novena, I can tell that I’m thinking better. I’m just thinking more clearly.

Denise Connected to the Holy Spirit. Thanks, Eileen.

Peggy Sue, how about you? What were your concerns about trying another weight loss program?

Peggy Sue  Well, I just wanted something to work. And it’s just this whole menopause thing for me. I’m listening to my lean and just, I could parallel so many things as far as the 40s. Every decade, I started having some issues and then 50 was the true menopause and my hormones went crazy.

I needed to be on some antidepressants as I was crying all the time. But, I don’t know if that triggered some weight gain or what, but these last 10, 15 years have just been a real struggle. I can’t seem to get to where I want to be, where I feel healthy and, I’m being told by doctors that I am, metabolically, I guess it is.

All my blood work and everything looks good. I do have a little gallstone, but other than that, I work out a little bit at Jazzercise. I’m healthy on the charts, in the blood work and everything, but my BMI is obese, I’ve got two little granddaughters.

I want to see them grow up. I just want to get a handle on this before it does triggers a health issue. Everything I try, I feel like it works for a while. And then, but, I just like the way that you speak about feeling good about the food that you’re eating, I’m a little nervous now because I haven’t kicked the sugar habit yet, totally. I have noticed, had a little bit more this weekend. I think through again, how did I feel last week? Or the week before when I was eating the food I felt good about. I’m trying to hang on to that and celebrate, but don’t go nuts.

Denise So in 63 Surrendered, we create this very simple, these few disciplines that daily we do them and we do them as a challenge.

And what we find is when we do these daily disciplines things happen. I don’t want to say stay on track, but food gets reordered. Food feels easier. It feels cleaner. And then the holidays, which is when we’re recording this, present new challenges.

Peggy Sue This program is just different because it is faith based. It is Holy spirit based. And, if he can’t help me. Who can?

Denise I think I know the answer to this question, you guys, but, briefly, what made you choose 63 surrendered over other weight loss options? Go ahead, Eileen.

Eileen Jesus Christ. Exactly. That was it. That was, the difference I can’t tell you the impact being with All these little squares of Catholic women who are with me and seeing their faces and sometimes it’s just their little avatar, but I know that they’re there and I know that they’re praying for me and I know that I’m praying for each one of them.

I found my people. I found my people and other people understand or say they understand, but not like this group. Everyone is trying to live our life for God. We’ve had our ministries that we do. That we care about. We care about our church. We care and you, Denise, you’re just such a role model of faith. Having you at the top there and then all those little faces that I see on my screen, I found my people.

Denise It’s a wonderful feeling. How about you, Peggy Sue? What made you choose this over anything else?

Peggy Sue Well, the Holy Spirit has always been a driving force. In my life, when I went to an all Catholic grade school, high school, college, but I had a little bit of, more of a conversion, after I guess it was my third child, and I got involved in my parish in Schaumburg, Illinois, and we had this Christ Renews His Parish, and a lot of that talked about that, movement of the Holy Spirit.

I could never see myself talking in front of people, and here I was giving a witness talk on the story of how God worked in my life after we lost our first child and things like that. The Holy Spirit has always been that spirit of love through God. And, I just, I kept seeing that pop up and seeing that pop up.

And then I listened to a couple of your little commercials and I just was very drawn to you. You have a familiarity, I think, of someone that I knew in college. And, she reeled me in as a freshman. And, I don’t know, there’s just a draw. You’re very, Holy Spirit filled.

I’ve been really working on my prayer life a lot. I think through COVID, I have an amazing group of 12 women that we prayed the rosary together on, Monday nights and, support each other. They’re my people, that community has been growing here, here now.

Denise And so what has been the biggest surprise or the highlights, from being in 63 surrendered? Eileen, go ahead.

Eileen I think the fact that I’m free, I’m free from the sugar addiction and the food obsession. It just isn’t all consuming and, it’s just made such a difference and that food is just food.

It’s no longer my comfort. It was my best friend. If I was depressed, I went to food. It just answered so many questions for me, I thought, even though it was creating problems at the time. I think that was the biggest initial surprise and then, understanding more about my faith life.

Like I said, I taught in a Catholic school, the Holy Spirit, that chapter was always one of my favorites. It’s just been renewing my faith, my confidence in God. My belief in him, my trust in him, the surrender novena, I cannot say enough about how that has helped me every morning, listening to you reading it, and then I go on to the Halo app and listen to Jonathan Rumi read it for me. So that has been the blessing, the additional blessing. I’m free.

Denise I’m free. I’d say that’s pretty good. Peggy Sue, for you, what surprises, or results have you had since 63 Surrendered?

Peggy Sue I know we’re really not supposed to be weight focused.

Denise No I think the people listening want to hear if there has been weight loss.

Peggy Sue That’s what I wrote down, just that, I started to see a downward movement because my husband and I have this little chart that every Saturday put our weight on there. And mine is just pretty much up, looked like this little, it’s not even a roller coaster. It’s just like a little anthill or something.

They’re marching up and down and all of a sudden I’m seeing this slope and it was just like, wow, it was a little by little. It was about, I think, seven pounds over the 63 days. It was just very encouraging, and I think, that just gave me motivation to want to stay with.

So that was a big surprise for me because I’ve just been fighting this plateau for a long time.

Denise Breaking through the plateau. Eileen, did you weigh yourself? Did you have any weight loss?

Eileen I do not get on a scale. I can’t. I cannot do it because I’m a Weight Watchers dropout multiple times.

Getting your little card at the beginning and weighing and they mark it down and going back and sitting and being all happy because something good happened and being all depressed. I can go down that depression hole, real quick. So I made my commitment with 63 surrendered when that started in September, I’m not getting on a scale.

I will know. I can see my cheekbones now. So I know that something’s happening. I can feel my clothes are getting looser, but the scale was a false God to me. It was a false God. It just wrecked my emotions. I could be way up or just down in a hole because of a number

Denise I and I tell you, you guys, when we started this work, for me personally, in my own recovery journey, I didn’t weigh for over three years. My focus was on my daily commitment to putting my food and committing it to the Holy Spirit and then getting on with my life.

And then, if I noticed that I ate off my plan, my work was to look at that and say, why wasn’t I supported? Where did I turn to food? That was my work. And, it just helped me stay focused on what really mattered. Cause the scale got to be distracting and that’s not for everybody, Peggy Sue.

Right. But I’ll say Eileen, for me, it was. And there’s even times even now, I’ll be like, why are we doing that? We’re not, no, we’re just, we’re, there’s no, there’s no reason for that. 

Eileen Yeah. I’m curious about it, but not curious enough to step on that scale, because if I think I should have lost 20 pounds. And if it says 18, I’ll still be depressed.

Denise: Yeah.

Eileen: My numbers are better. My cholesterol is down 20 points from the last time. From a year ago, so, I know that things are working. When I saw my son in California for Thanksgiving, he said, you’re looking good, mom, and he’s an ER doctor, so he looks at everything closely.

So that matters more to me than a number. I’m, I just know I can go nuts over that scale.

Peggy Sue: What do you do? Do you do the doctor scales ladies though? But because when you go to the doctor, that’s almost like the first thing you walk in, get on the scale. 

Eileen: Right, I don’t ask.  

Denise: For those three years, I said I would stand on it backwards or I’d close my eyes and I would say, don’t tell me.

Peggy Sue: Wow.

Denise: Yeah, it was so distracting to me because I knew I just wanted freedom. I just wanted to take care of myself, do the right thing, and use my behavior and my relationship with food as my measure of success.

So what would you say, Peggy Sue, would you say there are any other highlights? You mentioned losing seven pounds. Any other highlights or results from your experience? Was 63 surrendered?

Peggy Sue: I knew planning was important. Track your foods, see what the patterns are, what’s making you gain or lose or whatever.

But, this planning is different because you start the day you make the plan for the food and then you just get it off your mind, your everything, your day. And you don’t have to think about it anymore. And the days that I could do that, it was very freeing.

Yeah, it’s definitely a different way of looking at food. I know I’ve even gone to confession, talked to the priest about, do I have the sin of gluttony? Because I can’t move this weight. All of us. And he said, no, I shouldn’t look at it that way. But yet the more I went through this program and I was thinking we’re obsessed with food.

We’ve made food a god, some of those thoughts of its really helped me along the way.

Denise: Yeah. And that’s what this program is. You guys, those program is designed for you to surrender your food and wait for the Lord and say, Hey, how do you want me to do this? And when we find from him these very simple and peaceful ways.

On the days that we plan with him, we’re like, Oh, my day feels open and light and free. He didn’t create food for it to be 90 percent of our brain space. So if you could go back to you on day one before, or even before joining the challenge, what would you say to yourself? 

Eileen: Try God. That’s what I would say. Try God, you’ve tried everything else, and it hasn’t worked for a long term. It worked at times, but I would tell myself to just ask the Holy Spirit to welcome him in, and trust the program. And I write that down every day, trusting the program. Just do the work. I did lesson plans every week, and I had daily lesson plans, and that’s how I treat this program.

These are my lesson plans every day. That I present to myself and I follow them. I have learned after probably two weeks in 63 Surrender, what foods I like, I like to make just a wrap for lunch. So I always have the food ready. I have some chicken that’s air fried and I’ve just taken control of that part of my life to have things available.

And have lettuce cut up and things like that. But things I knew before, but this has inspired me. Because I know I’m going to be writing it down and sometimes for like the evening meal, I just put in protein and veggie. I don’t get myself real specific about things like every single meal, every bite I’m going to put in my mouth.

I make it general so that I have that flexibility to go. If I want to have tuna fish, that’s a protein, then have salad with it. So I’ve adjusted the program that way, like Peggy Sue was saying, putting on her daily, thought list, just her breakfast, lunch and dinner, but it’s okay to adapt the program to what works for me.

But I know I can, I can be OCD about things and say, oh, wait a minute. I didn’t have that turkey for lunch. I had something else and I better surrender that, no, I just had protein and a veggie.

Denise: That’s right. I like how you said I can adapt the program for me. I want to tell every human listening to this, the program was created for you and the Lord will show you what he wants for you in it. I promise you, he created this for you, Eileen. He created this for you, Peggy Sue. And as long as you allow him to be your teacher, he’s going to show you how to make it work for you.

And so Peggy Sue, if you could go back to you before you started this program, what would you say to yourself?

Peggy Sue: I would say you will be amazed at the results and remember slow and steady wins the race. I know I’ve been told that before through other programs, some of the things I’ve learned in these other programs are helping me too, but actually being able to put them into action with prayer focus and planning.

And I like what Eileen said too, that as teachers, when you have a good lesson plan, your class tends to go a lot better. And when you kind of wing it that day, things don’t go quite so well. So you know, it’s a matter of having that good plan.

Denise: Peggy Sue, I like how you said slow and steady wins the race.

You guys slow and steady wins the race because you’re going to be in the race until the day you die. And so all we do is we show up, we stay, we give the Lord our attention. We surrender this to him and that’s what we wash, rinse, repeat. Wash, rinse, repeat. This lifestyle does not end.

The 63 days is simply to give you a focus and to teach you the method that you can carry on the rest of your life. You never have to stop it. I had one client who said, it feels so good. It’s like the first time I’m not cheating or failing. I’m like, that’s right. And so finally, for a woman who’s listening to this, who is on the fence and she’s unsure about if she wants to do 63 surrendered.

What would you say to her, Eileen?

Eileen: I would say if you feel drawn to this program, if anything puts you in the path of the Holy Spirit, try. Just try. There’s a reason that you were brought here. There’s a reason I was brought here. Peggy Sue was brought here. You were brought here. There’s a reason that we’re here.

And, to pray for guidance from the Holy Spirit. He was given to us. by the Father through Jesus to help us and guide us and be our advocate and our counselor. So I would just say to try, just try and trust that God has given you this direction for a reason.

Denise: How about you Peggy Sue for that woman who’s on the fence? She’s unsure if she wants to do this.

Peggy Sue: I would say if you believe the Holy Spirit can answer your prayers and you’ve tried everything, And you’re a woman of faith. Give this a try. The Holy Spirit works through other people and I think Denise is being inspired by him and speaks verbally for him at times.

So I’m comforted by her gentle words and encouragement. It just makes sense to pray your way to a healthy you.

Denise: Yeah. Thank you. You guys, I think that so often when I talk to women, they’re like, I didn’t know God really cared about my food and my weight. And I really believe that the Lord of course wants us to be physically well, but one of the reasons he cares about our food and our weight is because it’s adding heaviness and burdening our lives.

And separating us from hearing the Holy Spirit. He’s like, Whoa, I don’t want any separation between us. Come to me so we can remove that. So I can speak to you. And I also think he wants us to turn to him for our food and weight struggles, because it is our suffering and it’s causing us despair and he wants to take all of that.

He wants to be integrated into every area of our life. And so for the woman who’s like does god even care? Yeah. Yeah He cares about everything about you He loves you so much. Well, I really appreciate both of you being here. Is there anything that you’d like to share?

Eileen: I think I want to say again, Denise, that I’m so grateful that the Holy Spirit chose you to be God’s hands on earth, for his greater glory. You’re an angel, you’re loved and appreciated. And, you’ve just made a difference in my life. Thank you.

Denise: Yeah, you’re welcome, Eileen. And I will tell you that as you speak those words, I have spoken those words to someone else.

And they said to me, I’m only giving you what I was given. And I was like, well, that’s true. And that’s how this work works. The Lord keeps using me and my friend, and then me and you, and now Eileen, you’re going to have that same effect on another human somewhere. And they’re going to say the same words to you.

Isn’t that amazing? And so the Lord has chosen you for this. Anything you want to say, Peggy Sue, final thoughts?

Peggy Sue: Thank you, and thank you, Eileen, for sharing, you’ve given me more things to think about,

Denise: It’s all a journey. Well, I really appreciate you guys being here. Thank you just so much. Such a blessing, such a blessing.

Eileen: Thank you, Peggy Sue. I’m praying for all of us. Yes. And I know you’re all praying for me. Like I said, I found my people.

Denise: Yeah. I love that. I’ve had that feeling. Thank you.

And If weight loss has felt hard for you and you feel like you have tried absolutely everything, take heart. There is one thing that you haven’t tried. You haven’t tried the real solution. The real solution is surrendering to the Lord and letting him take over, letting him give you his strength, letting him show you what he wants.

He can do all of that for you, but it takes your surrender. So join me and hundreds of other Catholic women who will be surrendering our food and weight struggles to the Lord as we spend 63 days practicing three spiritual disciplines that allow all of that to happen. Allow Him to take your food and weight struggles.

Allow Him to give you His strength. Allow Him to show you what He wants for you. We start January 6th, three disciplines practiced for 63 days. With one amazing God, we’ll end your food and weight struggles forever. We’ll show you how to get to and maintain your healthy weight in a way that feels natural and gentle.

And the reason it feels natural and gentle is because it’s the way that he designed it for you. So join us January 6th.

Go to weightlosswithaholyspirit. com and get started today.