I mean, really. We’re either virtuous or, growing closer to the Lord or not, like it’s either of him or it isn’t, which I would say it’s either virtuous or it’s not. I just feel like there’s very few things in life that are, you know, Neutral, not that there aren’t many neutral things, but when it comes to weight loss, I don’t talk to a lot of women that are neutral.

I talk to a lot of women who have a lot of thoughts. I can tell the reason why I wanted to say, weight loss isn’t a virtue issue, it’s an unmet need issue, so that they could drop the shame.  And they could drop the criticism. 

I will say that everything in life that has an emotionally charged feeling, well, let’s just say it is a virtue issue. Let’s say weight loss is a virtue issue, but the reason I wanted to do this podcast is so many women are trying to achieve virtue. A 100 percent of you listening want to be saints, I know that. 

100 percent of you want to grow in virtue. But when it comes to weight loss, we’re practicing in, dare I say, a not virtuous way. Like, a slightly sinful way, but not in a sinful way that is intentionally, we’re doing it in a sinful way in a way that’s just disordered. And when I say the word simple, I mean like in a way that’s actually taking us away from the Lord.

That’s making us feel horrible about ourselves. That we aren’t treating ourselves with the kind,  loving, like in a kind, loving, and tender way that the Lord would. We’re using weight loss to condemn ourselves and to speak horribly about ourselves. We’re saying things to ourselves  that we would never say to other human beings for eating food. 

Isn’t that crazy? Like the horrible things we’ll say to ourselves. For putting food in our mouths.  And I’m not saying that one sin is less sinful than another. But what I’m saying is let’s put the Lord’s truth on this. So I want to teach you how to authentically grow in virtue while you’re losing weight. And the reason why it has felt so  like it has is the reason why we have been actually separating ourselves from the Lord in an attempt to achieve virtue is it’s just been out of order. It’s just been disordered.

The last podcast in weight loss virtues, part one, I just talk about creating that order in your life.    I want to just talk a little bit about a litmus test on how to know if something is ordered. Okay.  The way things should be ordered is, we talk to the Lord, He tells us how to care for the human that we are, we take care of our authentic human needs, and in my opinion, the Lord asks two things from us with regard to self care. He asks that emotionally we keep our brain peaceful so that he can guide us. And physically he asks for food, water, shelter,  rest and movement. Well, let’s just forget the movement part right now, but I want you guys to see how the Lord truly does need us to be strong in these very simple ways.  

And I think that we discount the effect of living with chronic stress. And we think that living with chronic stress is totally fine because we live in the world. So we’re going by what the world says.  But living with chronic stress continues to destroy us physically and emotionally, and continues to take us away from the Lord. 

That’s why weight loss needs to feel simple and peaceful. So we can totally align it with the Lord. It should not cause more stress and chaos. I teach you how to create peace in every area of your life by taking care of your emotions in our community. But I want you to know that the Lord does want you to give attention to creating peace emotionally for you.

Living with chronic stress is like beating yourself on the head with a hammer and taking ibuprofen so you don’t feel the pain. But it’s still destroying your skull. It’s still causing you pain. You’re just dulling the pain by taking medicine. What I want to teach you how to do is to stop hitting yourself over the head with a hammer. 

First you need to know that that’s a real thing. The analogy here is when we authentically take care of ourselves, everything else becomes reordered. Weight loss feels simple. Weight loss feels easy. The way the Lord created, the order of things is that we go to him first, we take care of our basic needs, aligned with him, make sure we’re aligned with him emotionally, physically, so that he can speak to us.  

The food noise is down. The way that the Lord designed things is that there’s him first, we go to him, we align ourselves with him emotionally and physically, we take care of our needs and then we are able to authentically go out and serve the world. 

Let’s see how my analogy of how to know if something is ordered and how you can use that as the test. So let’s say we don’t do God. We don’t talk to the Lord. We don’t align ourselves with the way that he wants us to take care of ourselves.

We just align ourselves with what the world tells us, the way that we should be losing weight, the way that we should be caring for ourselves. It doesn’t bring us closer to God, but by being aligned with the Lord first, then we know how to take care of ourselves better. Now, if we take two things, caring for ourselves and caring for other humans. 

The more we care for ourselves in a real authentic and holy way, the more we’re able to give to other humans. Okay? That’s the way it goes. So now let’s test it and see if it’s true if it goes the other way around. The more you care and give to other humans, does that authentically take care of you? Does that meet your human needs? Does that keep you calm? No, it doesn’t. It overextends you. It depletes you. So if you’re coming from a depleted state, you can’t authentically give to humans, overextending yourself in an, in other ways does create that disorder. You guys, and that’s just why I believe a lot of life feels so hard is we’re just not aligned with the Lord.

We’re not seeing the Lord’s truth. I hope that this podcast will help you see that, especially with regard to weight loss. I think I’ve made a pretty good case for how we need to order, align ourselves with the Lord. So that weight loss does feel easy. And I’m going to tell you one of the reasons why it’s so hard to align ourselves with the Lord is because we are so consumed by the world.

Here is how we align ourselves with the Lord. So that weight loss does feel natural and gentle. Okay, the very first thing we need to do, you guys, to reorder weight loss and to be able to grow in virtue is to cut out all of the worldly influence. I mean that I hesitated to write this and to say cut out all the worldly influence But yeah, cut it out. Stop following people on Instagram. Stop looking at diets. 

Talk to the Lord, and if you don’t know how to do that, we have a 63 day challenge that teaches you how to surrender all of your food and weight struggles to the Lord.  Number one cut out all of the worldly influence and you’re going to say, yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but listen, if the Lord wants you to research something, he will tell you and it won’t feel frantic.

It will feel calm. And you’ll be like, Oh, I was wondering about blah, blah, blah. Trust that he will reveal if you need to know something.  But I’m guessing that your diet history and your food history, you know a lot about food and nutrition. You could write books and books and books. You don’t need more info.

You need more Jesus. Just start talking to him more. I want you to start listening to this podcast from the very beginning. Listen to more and you guys, if you know me, I have never ever ever said that often. I have never, I’m sorry, I have never ever ever ever said that. Ever! But the Lord often says in my prayer life, tell her the truth. 

You guys don’t need more of the world. You need more of the Lord. You need more of this message. You need more of knowing how to reorder your relationship with food so that weight loss feels easy. It’s the only reason why it’s felt hard is your relationship with food and your relationship with yourself. 

That’s just the truth and I can say that because I’ve lived it. I put so many other things in front of myself and I called it sacrifice, but you know what it was really called? It was called self neglect.  And number three, authentically grow in virtue. And so the rest of this podcast will be on how you can practice growing in a variety of virtues aligned with the Lord in your weight loss attempt. 

Let’s talk about the one I hear all the time. Self control. How can you grow in self control without white knuckling? First thing you’ll do is get curious and in our community, I have women keep what are called food notes. So for seven days, all you do is record the food that you eat. You record the food you eat, which is the least important part of this, but you also record what your brain is saying while you’re eating the food. 

Isn’t that interesting? You record what your brain is saying. You can record your hunger level if you want. We also practice in our community three basic habits. Emptying our mouth before the next bite, emptying our hands while we’re chewing, and chewing 20 times. And so I just have women just note, are you doing that? Are you not doing that? Sometimes you’re doing that. 

So to grow in self control, we first have to become aware, and you can do those things. After seven days, you’ll be able to look back, and you will be able to identify where you aren’t feeling in control. What really is the problem? And once you do that, you can solve for it. 

Often dinner time is a challenge for people. Is it that I need to have a snack before dinner a couple hours before so I’m not starving? Is it that the other humans that I’m feeding are really chaotic and I need to grow in increasing my window of tolerance of their shenanigans? Is it that I sit down to eat and it’s the only time I’ve given myself a break all day and now I just want to eat, eat, eat, eat, eat?

How can we put in more relaxation, either earlier in the day or schedule more later? So we just get to understand what we need to solve for. That is amazing self control, so that you can put plans in place so that you are really identifying what the problem is. Another way to grow in self control is to get very clear on your chaos foods.

I have a whole podcast on what chaos foods are. It is also another beautiful way to grow in honesty, and the coolest part is that you can grow in honesty simply by listing your chaos foods. You can eat them all day long, but at least recognizing which foods are causing you chaos, we will really help you to grow in honesty and the willingness to even do that work.

Oh my gosh, you’re growing in so much courage. Isn’t that amazing? You’re also growing in honesty and courage when you eat those foods and you recognize, wow, that was the effect it had on me. Okay, now I know there’s no shaming, there’s no blaming. We’re growing in understanding. We’re learning how to care for you.

Remember, it’s one of the basic things the Lord needs is for you to have peace in your life. And if you have constant chaos with your food, you are not having peace in your life. That is truly how you grow in self control. Another way that we create and grow in the virtues of fortitude and prudence are by identifying vulnerable and stressful situations and creating game plans to think ahead on how we want to handle those situations. 

We can grow in honesty with your needs, you guys. So many women are saying that they’re sacrificing for other humans and taking care of other humans and they call it sacrifice. But I’m going to tell you when I was doing it and calling it sacrifice. It wasn’t really a sacrifice and I know that because the fruits where I felt resentful and I think a more adequate and authentic way of saying what I was doing was self neglect. But what if we have the courage to be honest and honest?

And the humility to start looking at our own needs. Hmm? I have a 5 day challenge where you ask yourself 3 to 5 times a day. What do I feel and what do I need? What do I feel? What do I need? You can get that 5 day challenge on our website, weightlosswithaholyspirit.com. It’s great, it’s a way to grow in awareness and to connect with the Lord. 

Another thing to grow in honesty is to just love your reasons for doing things. Let’s stop blaming other humans. Other people aren’t making us eat things. Other people are asking if we want to have a bite of something. We can clearly say no or you can say yes. Just love your reasons.  Other people make special food for you.

You can choose to eat it or not. Just love your reasons. You can choose to overeat. There might be a dish when you go on some sort of massive amazing vacation where you are in Italy and you never go to Italy and they’ve got Italian gelato and you, you know, you just are like, Oh my gosh, I’ll never get authentically Italian gelato. 

I want to have more. But you just know that. You know you’re going to feel full after. Why don’t you just be honest with your needs? But let’s stop lying to ourselves. It’s not true that we never  get things. It’s not true that we can never have things. 

Because you can have whatever you want. You can say, this is so good, I really want to have more. I know I’m going to be over full and that’s fine. Let’s just start living with honesty. And what’s so cool is when you start living with honesty, that doesn’t mean you’re going to be stuck and stay there forever because the way that you’ve lost weight in the past is that you see yourself overeat and then you’re critical and condemning and that feels horrible and all you want to do is overeat more.

Instead, why don’t we look at what was really happening? Do you need some more support somewhere? Let’s look at what your thoughts were. Let’s look at how we can help you change that pattern, meet you where you are and slowly take baby steps out of it. That is called honesty. That is called fortitude. That is called courage and perseverance. 

Let’s talk about patience. So many people say, I just want it to happen faster. How about we grow in patience? How about we practice patience by keeping our attention on our part, what the Lord wants for us  by waking up daily and having the fortitude to commit and surrender our day to the Lord, ask Him what He wants us to eat, and then we allow the timing to be on his. 

Trust that it will be in his timing. And notice when we’re getting frustrated. I just want you to know that frustration will distract you. Annoyance will distract you. Instead have courage and fortitude. You just need to practice new thoughts. I’m willing to wait on the Lord. I’m willing to focus on my part. You know, I teach you how to. Align your thoughts with the Lord. And so it’s these times we feel frustration or we feel like we’re  working away from our virtues, that we just need to align our thoughts with the Lord.

And it’s a very simple process. I will teach you how to do that. It’s a skill. And then how about we grow in humility, recognizing that we need to learn a new skill. We go in courage and fortitude by practicing that skill and not being good at it. And not giving up, but it’s just a skill. But I think the number one virtue you guys, we need honestly, is humility, is to recognize that we are fallen, we are weak, we are really confused.

The world’s tossed us up. It’s like having a jar, a mason jar, full of pond water and you know, it just kinda settles there. And you have the water on the top and the sand on the bottom. But when it comes to weight loss. Like when the water is still and peaceful, like all the garbage falls to the bottom. 

But I find so often when it comes to weight loss, it’s just like all shaken up and we just can’t see clearly and then not seeing clearly, it’s not hearing, being able to detect the Lord’s truth. And I’m going to tell you, you are going to know the Lord’s truth because you will feel clarity. You’ll feel, it will feel simple. You will feel peaceful. So we want to let the pond water settle to the bottom.  And the biggest part of that is learning something new.

Learning, not the world’s way. And that takes so much humility. Yeah, you are weak. Yeah, you are confused. But you’re not horrible. You’re not weak. You guys, that’s false pride. I’m gonna tell you, you’re not more important than other human beings. But you are just as important and starting to recognize that you are just as important takes so much courage.

Isn’t that uncomfortable to think about? It takes so much courage to sit in uncomfortable feelings. It takes so much courage to authentically and honestly say no to something else, because you’re going to say yes to the Lord and to taking care of yourself. 

You guys, this work and growing in virtue, to achieve weight loss is holy work. It’s a sacrifice of the world’s ways. And I think I want to do a podcast. I actually want to do like a whole workshop called the sacrifice of self care because it is so counter cultural and it feels so scary,  but it’s exactly what the Lord wants.

He’s done with you neglecting yourself and calling it sacrifice. He wants to lead you and be integrated into every area of your life, every area, your food, your weight, everything. He wants you to restore your life to the proper order. Him first, then care for you the way that he asked. My goodness, the Holy Spirit lives in us. We are a temple. And we have to care for it in that way, restoring us to his peace so that we are aligned with his thoughts so that our bodies are strong,  not in a disordered way, but in a truly life giving full way. 

And the biggest one aside from humility with humility is the fortitude to wake up every morning and to make this daily commitment to yourself in the Lord. So I hope this podcast has helped you understand how to pursue all virtues  in a truly godly way to reorder your life, to restore you to the way that he created you. 

And weight loss will just naturally occur. Isn’t that crazy? By pursuing virtue and reordering your life, your weight will balance out. And this is why lasting weight loss is possible with the Weight Loss with the Holy Spirit Surrendered Method.  

And if this method has intrigued you and you think, hmm, this is something that I would like to practice, you are in luck. Our 63 Surrendered challenge begins Ash Wednesday. But this 63 surrender will also include a special Lenten fast where we will be fasting from the scale, learning how to surrender to the Lord and not the scale.

We’re doing our kickoff the day before Ash Wednesday. Join the 63 Surrendered Lent Challenge where you have four daily disciplines that you will focus on every day and learn how to surrender your food and weight struggles to the Lord.

It is the very perfect thing to do to unite yourself with the Lord, to learn how to reorder Him  as the God of your life and to create more peace and enjoyment with your food. And again, like I said, as we pursue virtue and allow the Lord to lead us. With food and weight, our weight naturally balances out.

This is just a beautiful day, a beautiful way every day to wake up, and a beautiful system that shows you exactly what to do to surrender your food and weight struggles to the Lord. So go to weightlosswiththeholyspirit.com and get signed up for the 63 surrendered challenge today. 

I hope this has been helpful. Have a blessed day.