So let me dive in. The number one thing that you can do for your weight loss efforts in 2025 is to say the surrender novena. I have linked it in the description here If you’ve never said the Surrender Novena, each day you have a short passage and then you will say 10 times, Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything.

But instead of saying, Jesus, I surrender myself to you, you can of course say that, I also want you to insert things like, Jesus, I surrender my weight loss to you, take care of everything. Jesus, I surrender my health to you, take care of everything. Jesus, I surrender. Feeling controlled and confused by food.

Take care of everything. Jesus, I surrender my binge eating to you. Take care of everything. Jesus, I surrender being overweight to you. Take care of everything. So if that is the only thing that you do for your weight loss efforts in 2025, I promise you the Lord is going to swoop in and start taking care of you.

So I want to share with you my story and how I came to know that surrender was the missing piece to lasting weight loss. I’m going to be sharing with you a workshop that I have done on that. Before I get into that though, I want to tell you that the method that I will be outlaying in the workshop is very effective.

And I know it’s very effective because I have run a challenge with this method last fall. And I want you to go to weightlosswithaholyspirit. com if you want to read about those testimonials. If you think that you would like to join hundreds of other Catholic women and finally learn how to surrender your food and weight struggles to the Lord in a 63 day challenge, go to weightlosswithaholyspirit.com and get signed up today. We start January 6th. We use three spiritual disciplines to surrender our food and weight struggles to the Lord. If you haven’t heard the story that I released on Monday, go back and listen to that podcast and you will hear a few women on.

Their experiences of weight loss and surrender and being released from sugar addiction and next Monday I’ll be releasing another success story for you guys when we surrender any area of our Life to the Lord, especially our food and weight, you know, he’s so faithful. And the challenging part for so many people is that in our head, we know that the Lord will come in and help us, but we just don’t have a systematic way to know how to surrender.

We love the concept. It makes sense. What in the world does that look like? And that is why adhering to these three daily disciplines for 63 days. And one of those disciplines is saying the surrender novena is a very simple framework that allows you to continue to invite the Lord in,

I cannot say enough how simple and natural weight loss can feel when you surrender to the Lord, because then He instructs you and reveals how He wants you to lose weight in a way He created for you. This will all make sense the more you listen to the rest of this podcast, where I will explain. 

Pause this podcast, go to weightlosswithaholyspirit. com, get signed up for our start date, January 6th. It is a 63 Surrendered challenge because we spend 63 days surrendering to three daily disciplines so the Lord can take over your food and weight struggles and you can be at your healthy weight the rest of your life.

So I’ll say it one more time, weightlosswiththeholyspirit.com. Pause this podcast

Get your spot in the 63 Surrender Challenge and then come back because I’m going to tell you how I came upon this. Why it works and the exact simple framework that you will be doing during the challenge.

Okay, so I hope you have your spot in the 63 surrendered challenge. Enjoy the rest of this podcast where you will hear how surrender is the missing piece to lasting weight loss. Here’s the workshop.

Today we’ll be talking about surrender, which I truly believe is the missing piece to lasting weight loss.

Today I want to talk about why everything you have tried has been leaving you feeling the way that you feel right now, which is probably either confusion and despair, unsure of yourself, unsteady.

Not even knowing if it’s going to work and a little afraid to try again. I’ll tell you why that’s happened. And then what you can do instead, which is essentially be able to surrender your weight loss struggles to the Lord. There’s actually a process to it. It’s not just a prayer thing.

And I’ll tell you why prayer doesn’t work or at least it didn’t work enough for me. And as women of God, I’m pretty sure you’ve been praying for a while. But I’ll tell you what you can do instead. And then to show you how you can make sure that you actually follow through on what you learn today and what the Lord reveals is the next step for you so that you can feel really fantastic.

All right. So let me tell you just a little bit about me. My name is Denise Jelinek. I’m 47 years old. I have two sons. They are teenagers. Fun fact about our family. Both of my boys are adopted. I am a wife. I’ve been married for 21 years. My husband and I, you would think that we are married for 50 years. Every time we tell somebody it’s over 20, we’re like, we made it we just feel like Olympians that have won a gold medal. We’re not perfect. We’ve had an emotionally abusive marriage. It has now been healed. But we just take so much pride in our years and our commitment to each other.

And we have a really like C minus marriage with regard to communication, but we just keep trying. So I think that’s really fun. The other thing that I think is really, unique about my journey is that I’m a convert to Catholicism and I’m a convert from nothing. I had no faith. I had zero faith. We were not even Christers.

We didn’t go to church at Christmas or Easter at anything I always like to say, do not underestimate the power of the prayers of a grandmother. My grandma was a daily mass goer and I would go to mass with her probably three times a year when I would spend the weekend with her.

And that was all. So just know whatever your faith journey, whatever your children’s faith journey is, look at me now. I talk about the Lord every single day. Day after day after day, and this is what I do, but I didn’t come to my faith until my late 20s. Isn’t that amazing? If your kids walk away from their faith, just know that the Lord’s hand is always on them.

You can be really far from the Lord and have no clue there even is a God and still have an amazing relationship with him. Here’s where I was 10 years ago. I was a closet binge eater.

I would be in my pantry. I spent most of my evenings hiding in my pantry and you guys, my pantry is literally only like a cupboard door, but I would have the pantry doors open and on the shelf, there’d be a jar of peanut butter and I would be dumping the chocolate chips in the peanut butter and just eating it with a spoon and then dump more chocolate chips in and eating it with a spoon.

And I was so Stinkin confused why I would want to spend my evenings doing this. My boys were four and three, and let’s say three and six at the time. And I told you, both of them are adopted. I tried really, really hard. Not that other people don’t, but I had to intentionally go through many, many lengths to get these children.

I had a husband who loved me. I didn’t know it was emotionally abusive at the time. I didn’t understand why I would rather be in my pantry eating jars of peanut butter. I would feel massive regret and say, Oh Lord, I’m so sorry. 

I’ll never do it again. By this time I did know the Lord. I wasn’t working like I am now, but I did know him. The next morning I would pray, Lord, I’m so sorry. I’ll never do it again. And then I would find myself back binge eating, feeling horrible.

I’ll never do it again. When I had those moments of clarity and I said, Lord, I’ll never do it again. I felt really strong. And I thought, yes, I can do this. Now. I don’t know if you can see this picture, but this picture is me with my arms, strong, like big muscles. And I felt really motivated.

And I was like, all right, this is it. Things are going to change. During those motivational times, I would try things. I would try trainers. I did therapy. I did online therapy two times with a phone therapist. I would buy online programs. I would join groups. I would try dietitians. I would write my own diet programs.

Because I didn’t tell you I’d had my own personal training business since 2005. So I knew what to do. And I want you to know that this issue has nothing to do with knowing what to do. It has nothing to do with what you know, you’re not stupid. You’re not weak. I’m going to tell you what the problem is.

But none of this worked. It only worked short term, and it left me feeling like what the heck is going on? Part of the problem is I was living in this place where I had three gods. And my three gods were the scale, right? As long as I was the magic number, everything was okay.

It didn’t matter what I ate, how much I ate. Or how much I didn’t eat. As long as I had that magic number, I was okay. But if I didn’t have that magic number, I was not okay. My other God was the mirror. I really wish you guys could see these pictures. I hope you can, cause I love that little mirror picture.

If I looked a certain way, my hair was done, I looked okay in this outfit. I was okay. Didn’t matter if I was overeating, binging or not, I would be okay. And then the other God that I was using was food. I can get through anything as long as later tonight I can eat like I wanted.

I could not wait for my husband to put the kids to bed so I could stay up and eat like I wanted. And I say that these were my gods because they gave me comfort. They were what I turned to, to know if I was okay. They are what I turned to, to cope with life.

And when I was feeling really motivated, whose strength was I using? I was just using my own. I won’t get into the real story of what brought me to my knees and where I hit rock bottom. But I realized at some point I can’t keep doing what I’m doing. And I’ll tell you, I did not come to full surrender.

I did not come to the lasting solution that I live today because I had to lose weight. I was a personal trainer. I’d been exercising for years. I’ve never given birth to my two children. So I never had a full term pregnancy, which I think helped me from gaining a whole bunch of weight.

And I just think genetically,I don’t know why I wasn’t over 200 pounds. I was probably about 20 to 25 pounds heavier than I am now. That isn’t why I looked for a solution. I looked for a solution because of the mental anguish. 85 to 90 percent of my day was spent thinking about what can I eat?

When can I eat? What can I eat? When can I eat? How much do I weigh? What do I look like? It was exhausting. I said, I can’t live like this. I know there’s more to life. And I found that solution. And then the Lord called me to share it with other people. And this is what I do all day long. So again, Reagan, I’m so grateful that you brought me here so that I can talk about that with you guys.

So let me help you make sense of what you’ve been going through. You probably identify with a lot of my story. You’ve tried things on your own strength. You’re like, I can do this. I’m going to stick to this plan. I’m going to do this exercise program. And then at some point, something stopped.

Either you stopped working or the program that you did stopped working, it probably was maybe you hit a plateau. But likely, you stopped working. Because what I’m finding more often than not is women are like, here’s this box. And I’m okay if I’m in this box and I’m doing whatever the program is.

And the minute I step outside of this box, Oh, forget it. I can’t do this. And the reason why this box didn’t work, you guys, or whatever program that you’ve been using hasn’t worked is because it wasn’t made for you. You haven’t found something that’s with your tastes with the rhythm of your life that works for this season of your life, your family, your schedule and what happens.

And the problem with this isn’t that you stop working. The problem isn’t that you gain your weight back. The problem is what you make all of that mean. You make it mean that because you were trying to follow something that was never meant to work for you because it’s not based on your life, you’ve made it mean that you’re the problem.

And you start to believe some flavor I can’t lose weight. My body’s broken. I’m gonna have to starve myself. It’s my thyroid. It’s my hormones. It’s my willpower. It’s too hard. I’m weak. I’m lazy. None of that is true. But the problem is you believe it.

And when you believe it, you are stuck. You cannot move past it. If you believe that you can’t lose weight, then why would you try? If you believe that you have to follow someone else’s program, then you’re gonna keep following that program. It’s not gonna work for your life. You’re gonna stop using it. Not because you’re weak, but because it doesn’t work for you.

It was never meant to work for you, and I know you can look at all of your past weight loss attempts and be like, well, it kind of worked. Yeah, there’s parts of it that you liked, whether it’s Weight Watchers, Noom, Keto, Carnivore, whatever. There’s parts that did work, and you can take those, but the parts that didn’t work just weren’t meant for you in this season of your life.

Number one, because you’ve never had anything, no one’s ever taught you how to lose weight that works best for your life, and you’ve always been using your own strength. Here’s the truth. The problem is that you’re using your own strength.

If you’re anything like me, you’d pray in the morning. You guys see that? I’m praying. Lord, I love you. Help me so much. And then I would get up from my prayer area and I’d walk into my day thinking I’m on my own. Use my own strength. I made some really great plans. I would have these Elaborate diet plans.

They were realistic but I would use my own strength and I would use my three gods to tell me if I was okay. Well, what’s the scale say? Am I doing the right thing? What do I look like? Is that okay? Is it the right food? If I followed the right food plan, then I’m doing the right thing. The problem is focusing on that never got me to the root cause of why I was overeating.

And so learning how to surrender to the Lord, was the solution so that I could start to access the Lord’s strength. I’m going to tell you a framework that I use for surrender, to access the Lord’s strength. I don’t know if you guys know the Surrender Novena, but it’s amazeballs. And when we surrender there’s four things that happen. When you use a very simple process to surrender.

The first one is you guys, anytime we surrender, it’s not this. It’s not praying, praying, praying. It’s something you have to do something. So for example, in our marriages, if we were going to submit to our husbands as the leader of our family, we would have a discussion with him. And then let’s say we disagreed, but we said, listen, I’m going to surrender to him.

Then I concretely choose to surrender where I’m going to be done fighting this. It is a concrete way that you show the Lord your willingness. And you guys, if you give the Lord a crack of willingness, just a crack, he throws the door open. I’ve seen it over and over and over. I have a woman who’s been doing this process yesterday. I talked to her and she said she used to daydream and be consumed by sugar thoughts. And she would daydream about it. She told us about this like ice cream Sunday. And she just said the Lord has removed that obsession from her.

You guys, we show him a crack of willingness and submit to a simple process. He does the rest. It’s his strength. The other thing is that the process that I’m going to show you helps us. Quiet our humanness because the only thing blocking you from hearing the Lord is the noise in your brain and body.

So the thoughts, what can eat, when can eat, what can eat, when can eat, the cravings, the physical cravings. This process helps quiet that. Often I talk to women who say they need self control or they need temperance this process. Works with those virtues so that you can grow those virtues in you, but not in a way that’s like, you have to do this, but in a way that’s really gentle and natural and meets you where you are and takes you one step further.

And yes, we do want to grow in virtue, but you guys, I was talking with a woman the other day and she said, Oh, I just need more self control. I just need more temperance. And I said, the truth is, that often we’re overeating out of unmet needs, not out of a lack of virtue.

And this process helps you identify the needs and actually meet them.

The third thing is that it keeps your brain happy. Did you guys know that your brains really want something to focus on? And if you don’t tell your brain what to focus on, it’s just going to run rampant and focus on whatever it’s used to focusing on. Brains are fabulous at doing what they’ve always done, which is why habits form so easily.

Brains just keep doing what they’ve been taught to do, this is a way to make your brain happy. Tell it what to focus on and give it something to do that actually moves you forward in your goal. The fourth thing is that this process is 100 percent aligned with your life. Your life. Whose life? Your life. Who’s trying to lose weight? You are. Who wants to live in a healthy way? You do. So, what is this process? There are four daily disciplines. You say the Surrender Novena every day.

Number two, you’re going to check in with the Lord in the morning and the evening. I have two questions that I have. My people ask in the morning and three that they ask at night. 

The third one is your plan, your food. You create what’s called an easy to stick to meal plan. An easy to stick to meal plan is simply making a plan of your food, What’s easy to stick to? You are not allowed to plan foods because they’ll lead to weight loss, and you are not allowed to plan any food because you should plan it.I have three food rules for the women in my community. You plan food that you like, that you feel good about. If you feel good about four Oreos, plan four Oreos.

If eight Oreos doesn’t feel good, then you don’t plan eight. And the third rule is that you plan for the woman who will eat it. What does that mean? If you’re coming home after work or a long day, you’re not going to plan something that’s elaborate to cook. You’re going to maybe have an uber eats day evening. 

You’re gonna maybe make sure that there’s a crockpot meal made. You’re gonna have something very simple. So we just started planning that. And the reason this works my friends is because as you go through this process and you create an easy to stick to meal plan food, that’s realistic of the food that you like.

The majority of women that I work with, they have emotions and they have food choices. And right now they’re eating based on emotion. So what this process does is, has you in the morning or the night before, think about the foods that you want separate from your emotions. The foods that you want, that you like, it helps you grow in self trust. Now, at this point, you’re probably saying, but Denise, will I lose weight? Here’s what I’ll tell you. Eating normal food, food that you like. Normal food. No diet foods, no keto, no carnivore, unless that’s what you, unless that’s what the Lord has told you to eat.

That’s fine. Eating normal foods does not keep you overweight. Going to breakfast, eating, moving on with your day. Maybe have a snack, eat, move on with your day. Lunch, Eat, move on with your day. Eating normal foods at meal times and then the meal time ends and you move on with your day. That will not keep you overweight.

It’s not the food keeping you overweight. What keeps you overweight is taking the same food and eating it because I’m lonely, I’m tired, to have fun, to bond with people, because I’m bored. I didn’t relax all day. That same food is being used for emotions. That is what keeps you overweight.

Hamburgers and fries during a meal that you enjoy and then you are done with won’t keep you overweight. Eating way much being full because it’s the only fun I get and the only time I get time to myself that’s going to keep you overweight. So the genius that the Lord revealed in creating an easy to stick to meal plan is this.

If you have an easy to stick to meal plan, food you love, like you look at your plan and you’re like, Oh, I’m so glad I planned that. Way to go. Thank you, Denise. If you have an easy to stick to meal plan and at the end of the day, you didn’t stick to it. That’s amazing. Now you’ve got information. Something emotionally came up and pulled you aside.

Or your schedule changed. I don’t know. You’ll know what it is. If you have a diet meal plan that’s calorie restricted, based on someone else’s food choices, based on the perfect macros. And you’re still living with your food and emotions together. You’re gonna get to the end of the day and not follow that plan.

And you’re going to be able to tell me all the reasons you didn’t follow the plan. It was restricted. I didn’t like it. These were all the reasons. And you believe that the reason you can’t lose weight now is because you don’t have the perfect plan.

You’re making it all about the food again. But the food isn’t the problem. What is the problem? The problem is that your emotions are tied to your food choices. So if we can create an easy to stick to meal plan, and we start to separate our emotions. And you learn some tools on how to do the emotional thing, which comes, but it has you have to feel safe to create this easy to stick to meal plan.

And at the end of the day, you don’t follow that. It’s so brilliant. My friends, that’s like a neon sign going. This is what you need to look at in your life. That’s causing you to overeat. Work on this. And that is what you take to the Lord. And you’re like, Hey Lord, tell me all about how I’m not giving myself time until the end of the night to relax.

And then the only way I know how to relax is with ice cream. Being clear on what foods create chaos in your life. is very helpful to support this. At this point, some foods do create chaos. It’s a learned behavior. And if we can remove those from your life for a little bit, it usually helps stick with an easy to stick to meal plan. A lot of women feel fear at first about that concept, but then later feel a lot of freedom. And it’s not forever. it is just to stop the distraction and to quiet the food noise.

The other thing is I like to help women create what’s called a safe eating plan. And that just simply means you look at some of your chaos eating behaviors, and these are behaviors that create. Mindless eating for me, it was anytime I would stand in eating out of packages or boxes, eating other people’s foods, cleaning up and eating while I was eating while I was cleaning up dinner, eating my kids leftovers.

So for me to eat safely and to eat in the Lord’s will, I have a safe eating plan so I seated slowly. Food that’s prepared, right? Not while I’m preparing it or cleaning up food that’s prepared for me on a plate prepared for me.

I’m not eating somebody else’s food prepared for me. And so that safe eating plan just keeps me mindful. It keeps me in the Lord’s will. So I know if I’m doing those chaotic behaviors, I’m in a stress response and I’m turning to food because I’m running from something. I’m feeling stressed. Again, the safe eating plan, creating an easy to stick to meal plan.

When you’re not doing that, it is a neon sign. That’s like, welcome to the work. Now, you know what to work on. It’s not a mystery. Isn’t that amazing? You’re not distracted by following a food plan that isn’t made for you. This is made for you. And it feels really weird at first. And your brain’s going to not want to trust it, but I promise you, you’re reordering your relationship with food.

You’re reordering your relationship with the Lord. When I say reordering your relationship with food, God made food for three reasons. So let’s all assume that he made it to nourish our bodies, okay? That’s kind of ho hum, boring. So yes, we know that. But he also gave you taste buds so that you enjoy food.

And then he gave you food so that your belly doesn’t feel empty. So you’re not uncomfortable. So let’s just eat for those reasons. It’s so gentle. It’s so loving. And then we get to learn how to care for the other things, the other things that need our attention, where we need support, where we need love, where we need compassion for ourselves, thus my friends, all of the things that aren’t the food.

Once you turn that over to the Lord, and once you start to really find solutions for those things, you will be at a healthy weight for the rest of your life. When you are willing to feel any feeling and know that you’re safe, you will be at a healthy weight for the rest of your life. And I truly believe that if you’re not at a healthy weight, it’s because there’s an area of your life you’re not surrendering.

But that will not be revealed if we continue to stay distracted in diet land. You will never know what those areas are. And you will just continually be chasing, and striving, and chasing, and striving, and chasing, and striving, and tripping, and falling, and feeling horrible about yourself. Let’s get off of that.

Let’s start living the life that you want. And the fourth daily discipline is totally optional, and that is 30 minutes of exercise. And I want you to expand your concept of what exercise is. And remember when I said, You take what you like, like if you’re not in a place to start exercising, that’s fine, I want you to expand what you believe exercise is.

Because in my opinion, exercise is anything that focuses on your physical body that benefits it. That could be anything from wrist rolls and neck rolls to high intensity interval training and cardio and strength training. But I believe even 30 minutes of stretching. It’s just super beneficial. It’s a way that we say, Hey, Lord, you gave me a physical body.

Okay, I’ll take care of it. It’s just a way to steward our health. It’s a way to surrender to the Lord. God will take your food and weight struggles unless you want to stay stuck in your old thoughts of this won’t work. It’s too hard. I don’t even want to try. I’ll just give up. So if you want to stay in your own strength, your brain is going to want to complicate things and make it hard and make you feel overwhelmed.

And that critical mean voice is going to come in and you know, it’s on your own strength when you hear those things. But the Lord’s voice simplifies things, feels peaceful and feels uplifting. And you guys all know that when you heard me talk about that process. You could feel the difference between your strength and your brain trying to figure it out, and the Lord trying to reveal something to you.

So if you have felt the Lord revealing that this is what He wants for you, and this is what He’s calling you to, then go to weightlosswithaholyspirit. com and get your spot today to join hundreds of other Catholic women in practicing three spiritual disciplines for 63 days, learning how to surrender your food and weight struggles to the Lord.

And when you do that, you learn a simple framework to be at a healthy weight for the rest of your life. Amen. Amen. Go to weightlosswithaholyspirit. com and get signed up today.