We took a beautiful walk. We went to mass one day. And we did this awesome bike ride on this trail and we used E-bikes and , e-bikes are electronic bikes and I’ve never been on one. So that was really fun. I went on. 

My e-bike and I played around with it, but I also really wanted to challenge myself to not use the electronic version, the electronic part, and just really enjoy such a great workout. And I did that. It was a 20 mile bike ride. It was so fun. But it was cool because then my girlfriend didn’t have to worry about trying to keep up with me, or she could go faster if she wanted.

Because she liked to use the electronic part. Anyway, my point is, it is so fun to be back with you. I’ve got so many great things to share with you.  I’ve got my favorite little coffee drink. I’ve got my fresh glass of water and my favorite cup. Have you guys ever done that? Just have like a favorite cup. 

And I am ready to rock. Okay, so the podcast that I’m recording today is all about  two things. One is the three different elements of weight loss, the spiritual, the emotional, and the physical. You guys are all real familiar with physical but not the other two. And then I wanna talk to you about integrating in a tool that we use a lot in weight loss with the Holy Spirit.

In fact, it’s one of the foundational tools we use, which is called the Easy to Stick to Meal plan. And then there’s a caveat, a second skill that we learned called surrendering. And that just means you’re surrendering your changes. So I wanna talk to you about those tools and I wanted to record this podcast for.

All the women who have been trying, who are new to implementing that tool  or not, new to implementing that tool, but have a challenging time implementing that tool. And I wanna make sense of why that is because. It seems like a tool that you should be familiar with, right? Like making a meal plan, but why it’s so radically different and why your brain has a bit of a challenging time.

Sort of putting it in the right box because brains like to categorize things. So if it looks familiar, you think, oh, this is the way it should be. But really you might find that you’re resistant to doing it, and that just makes total sense. So let’s begin. So in the work with the weight loss, with the Holy Spirit program,  we address primarily two of the three components of weight loss. 

When you have been doing other programs, you have mostly been addressing physical  exercise, drinking your water, following a food plan, all to create physical change. Totally great,  totally amazing. Unfortunately, the problem is that you are able to stick to that and create that physical change, but it’s very temporary because you’ve only been addressing one of the three areas, which is the physical, totally important, very needed.

However, what I find is that once you come into weight loss with the Holy Spirit. Simply focusing on the physical has left you in a cycle of having results, losing results, having results, losing results. And one of the reasons why you’re losing those results is you haven’t addressed the other two elements, the other two dimensions of weight loss, which are the elements that actually lead to lasting change, that will lead to that transformation, that will lead to a new lifestyle that will create a new creation in you.

So you just live differently. And you never regain your weight. And those are the emotional and the spiritual components of weight loss. So for example, how that fits in is the majority of women know what to eat. They can make a meal plan all day long, and the only problem that comes up is when they don’t stick to the meal plan  and then they’re eating for emotional reasons. 

Totally normal. It happens to all of us. And so if we believe that not making the food plan or not making the correct food plan was what led to not sticking to the food plan, then we will only continue to look for the solution in the physical thinking, oh, I should have planned different food. I will say that one more time.

If we believe that what made you not stick to your meal plan was that you planned the incorrect food, then you will always go back to the food to find the solution  to making it so that you’re able to stick to it, but if you’re anything like me, what made it so that I was not able to stick to my food plan was not the food that I planned, but rather some sort of emotional occurrence.

So I was stressed, I was anxious, I was bored. I was procrastinating doing work. I was maybe overworking and needed food to get through the work. And so what we find is really the truth is, that what throws us off from these great meal plans is some sort of emotional reason, and that is why it’s very important to then have an emotional solution. 

Which means that if I’m stressed, then I need to be able to handle the stress, endure the discomfort of the stress, or be able to relieve the stress  in a way that is not food, in a way that actually helps me relieve the stress. Now, you guys might think that food is helping you relieve your stress and it is not.

What it’s helping you do is distract you from feeling stress, but it’s not solving for your stress. So, for example, my son who is now going off to college and is picking a roommate and the stress that comes from, hey, I don’t think it should be that friend. Maybe you should try to dorm by yourself. And the stress of helping him see  down the road. What decision do I think he should pick, which I’m his mother, right?

Don’t I know. But also knowing, you know what, this kid might not make that choice.  And, and how do I wanna handle his choice?  What if he wants to room with his friend?  Maybe it actually is the best decision for him.  But I get to notice that I’m having some feelings of stress  and I get to deal with those feelings.

Going to eat over them will not help me solve this. I wanna give you another example of how emotional or how food does not solve our stress. So I had a client who had a situation where she. I can sometimes go to, I guess a late evening mass, and then she gets home and is putting groceries away and trying to put her kids to bed, and it was like eight or nine o’clock at night.

I mean, right away I am like, oh my gosh, we’ve gotta change something about that. At least for me, I couldn’t do that at eight or nine o’clock at night. And she of course, experienced a lot of. Pressure, a lot of stress and was eating to not feel that pressure and stress. Totally normal gang, totally normal. But now we get to look at that and learn from it.

What can we solve for? How can we create a different protocol, a different plan for when she has late mass? How can we unload her groceries at a different time? How can we plan better for her? And so that’s just what I mean by we are going to start addressing the emotional issues, really solve for your life. 

Really solve for your life. And so it makes a lot of sense. So now I wanna kind of transition to the easy to stick to meal plan and why it’s really challenging for many women to wrap their head around this. And I hope I’m making a very good example of this. So, the way that we create an easy to stick to meal plan is you plan food that you enjoy. 

That you feel good about eating and that it’s for the woman who will be eating the food. So for example, this woman who goes to Lee Mass and their family doesn’t get home till like 9:00 PM  ‘ cause I guess it’s a very long drive. Then we need to plan for what that woman who’s coming home at 9:00 PM will want to eat.

Do we need to have a crock pot meal? Does she need to eat before? Do they need to pack a snack? So on the hour long drive back home, they’ve got a snack. So we plan for the woman who will be eating the food.  It’s very simple. Those three rules. That sounds really simple and you guys are like, okay, yeah, that sounds simple.

Okay, got that. But so many women get really caught up in the plan food you like that you feel good about  because their brain thinks, oh my gosh, I’m gonna gain weight if I do that. Oh my gosh, I can’t eat that. I have to eat low carb  keto carnivore. They’ve got all these food rules. I mean, there’s that one that you can combine the foods that you can only have like starch if you have lean meat.

And then if you have fat, you have to lean meat with that. I mean, just all these food combining rules. Okay. Ooh, gosh, I just like getting like exhausted, even thinking about it and all these should. So know that when I tell you to plan food that you like, that you feel good about,  those two things are gonna cause a ton of mind drama. 

And the reason why is because you believe that the food that you eat will make you overweight,  number one. I’ll address that in a second. And you also believe that you cannot trust yourself around food you like. 

Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that amazing that you guys are all like, yes, that’s the problem. That’s the problem. Like  I think if I eat food I like, I’m gonna be overweight and I don’t think I can trust myself if I, if I eat food that I enjoy.  See, because that’s the emotional issue. Let’s address that emotional issue  and let’s get clarity on that. 

So let’s address the first one  that you are afraid that if you eat food that you like, you’ll be overweight. You’ll stay overweight. I’m gonna tell you that eating food that you like does not keep you overweight  all day long. You can eat food you like. You’re not overweight. In fact, you can look at all the people that are a healthy weight and they’re eating food that they like the majority of people  and they’re not overweight  and they don’t have some crazy metabolism. 

They’re just eating normal food. Eating normal food will not keep you overweight. I don’t think I can say it enough. I want you to just hear me say that over and over in your brain eating quote, normal food will not keep you overweight, and normal food just means food. You want to eat.  What will keep you overweight  is eating food because you’re tired, lonely, stressed,  procrastinating, bored, overworking, angry.

Any food that you’re eating for emotional reasons, that is what’s going to keep you overweight. So that is why it doesn’t matter what you plan, it does not. It literally does not matter what you plan. Because I’m not teaching you how to eat the most perfect food because it doesn’t matter what you plan gang. 

In this program we’re addressing the emotionless spiritual reasons. The only thing that’s gonna throw you off are the emotional reasons, so that’s what we’re gonna start solving for, and it will make it even more simple for you to create an easy to stick to meal plan and to eat the food that you plan if you are eating food that you enjoy. 

If you are planning food for the woman who will be eating it, and part of that is if you know that you’re coming home late from church, maybe you drive through that night, planning a burger and fries will not keep you overweight, impulsively eating a burger and fries because you’re stressed out. Well, we’re just trying to create some new patterns in your brain. So the first time is just addressing the mind drama that comes up, that you will be overweight. You will not be overweight.

You will continue to be overweight, eating normal food if you don’t address the emotional issues.  And that’s what you’re doing in weight loss with the Holy Spirit. That’s what you’re doing. By creating this easy to stick to meal plan if it allows, it puts the food over in a place that’s reordered the way that the Lord wants you to eat food, which is eat the food you enjoy because he gave you taste buds and fill your belly. 

Okay. We’ll get into that more, but let’s address number two and number two if you feel like you just can’t trust yourself. I hear women say to me, I just love food, and this is one of my favorite examples of how that’s just not true. We can love food and be a normal weight. So I had this client who has been struggling with, when she first started working with me staying up late because her husband would go to bed and then they were empty nesters, and then she would stay up on the couch and just eat food and eat food and eat food and like until like 11, 11:30 at night. Okay. 

She does not love eating that food. That’s not fun. Driving through and getting a milkshake and a hamburger and fries  because you just had a horrible day at work is not loving your food. But I wanna tell you what it is to love your food. So this client created an easy to stick to meal plan and found herself in the middle of the day in this downtown area that she said she never gets to in front of her favorite bakery.

And the bakery is typically not open when she visits this downtown area. And she had not planned to have a fig scone that day, but she said to herself. Self. My dad always says that. I said to myself, she said to herself, listen, if that bakery is open, I’m gonna go in and if they have a fig scone, I’m gonna get one. 

And the way she told me that story was that calm. That is calm. She goes, because I love fig scones. And so she walked into that bakery, it was open, and she walked up to the counter.  And they had a fixed scone. She ordered the fixed cone  and I can’t recall if she sat and ate it there or took it home. I think she sat and ate it with and just had like a cup of coffee and just enjoyed that time with herself. 

And later when she was telling me that story, I said, yes, that’s enjoying your food. Bringing home five fig scones, eating them. When your husband goes to bed at 11 o’clock at night, barely tasting them, shoving them in your mouth is not loving the fig skin. And so I want you to know that you are going to start to grow and trust around food that you enjoy. 

It’s a skill and you will start to prove to yourself over and over that it is possible. One of the things that really helps with this, there’s two that we do. The first one is that we start to implement three habits. That you’ve heard me talk about before, and they are that when you eat, you chew your food 20 times, you empty your hands between bites, put your hands in your lap while you’re chewing, and that you don’t put more food in your mouth until your mouth is empty. 

This allows you to just be present. It allows you to slow down. It allows you to eat calmly. You are not stressed eating when you’re doing those things. And what’s super cool is if you find that you’re not doing those things, then you get a chance to say, whoa, I guess I am a little stressed.  That’s cool. That’s how you bring the physical into informing you about your emotions. You just open your eyes on your behaviors. 

Okay, so I hope you see that. No wonder you’re having lots of mind drama about the easy to stick to meal plan because you think that the purpose of the easy to stick to meal plan is to change your physicality, to change you physically, and it is not. It is to change your relationship with food. It is to create. 

A new order, reorder your relationship with food  so that you can  enjoy the food that you like.  We are trying to create, we are trying to address the emotions, the emotional connection with food. And we do that a couple different ways. The first way  is that. So the goal of the easy to stick to meal plan is to address your emotional connection with food.

So number one, we reorder your relationship with food. And you guys, it’s a process. Slowly by slowly, by slowly this will happen. You will  reorder food the way that the Lord created it for you to enjoy, to fill your belly, and we won’t need it for emotional reasons. Not in the beginning, but that is why learning this tool and addressing all the mind drama that comes up with your resistance to doing it is so important.

And I address two of those mind drama things, which is I’m afraid I’m going to gain weight and I don’t trust myself to eat food that I like. Oh, I wanted to tell you about one other thing. The other thing about trusting yourself around food is that in our program, we help you identify what are called chaos foods because there are some foods, and I’ve heard about this with many clients, there’s some foods, there’s some food ingredients that really cause a strong reaction. 

That will throw you off your easy to stick to meal plan. I was just coaching a woman yesterday and she said that she had that strong reaction with white sugar and she just knew down in her bones it was not a food that she wanted to put on her plan. And the only reason why she would be reaching for white sugar is because of emotional reasons.

And so as she’s new in this process, she will probably reach for white sugar and overeat white sugar  a couple times before we really get into the emotional aspects. But when she does reach for that white sugar, that’s amazing because that’s a neon sign that tells us exactly what we need to start solving for.

Because she’ll clearly see that the white sugar didn’t solve the problem, so we’ll need to have a real solution. And the white sugar was just like appointing a neon sign to what the problem is.  But we help you solve that. So it’s not a problem if you overeat. It tells you exactly what you need to work on. 

It tells you the life event, the emotion, the thought, and that’s what you need to work on. And so in our process, we do help you identify if there is a chaos substance that you choose to not have. And often that’s very, very few people who actually have  substances that they have a strong reaction to. 

They’re usually just not planning food that they like because the only time they’ve had the food that they truly enjoy, like the cookies and the cakes, is when they’re eating them impulsively. And so it’s not that they’re having a reaction to the substance, it’s simply that they’re denying themselves the enjoyment of the food, and then they go  and impulsively eat it. 

I think another thing that you avoid with the easy to stick to meal plan is that feeling of deprivation and being left out. Because we do know that if you choose to live in deprivation, which you will not do on this easy to stick to meal plan, you will always overeat from a feeling of being deprived. 

You’ll overeat no matter what you’re depriving yourself from. If you’re depriving yourself from food you enjoy, then you’re going to binge on that. If you’re depriving yourself from spending money on yourself, then you’re going to binge on overspending at times. If you’re depriving yourself of free time or of relaxation, you’re gonna find that you are.

Fall into sloth or you become so burnt out because you’re overworked and you’re depriving yourself of relaxation and  recovery, that you overdo it. So know that any life out of balance, a deprived brain will seek whatever it’s been deprived of. Like if you don’t give yourself water.

You can tell that you wanna just drink like a camel and your brain wants to think, oh, I’m deprived of food. No, but anything that you deprive your brain of, it’s going to seek that. If you don’t have relationships, if you isolate yourself, then there’s gonna be times where you just wanna be around people or you feel so lonely because you’ve been so isolated. 

Okay. And we’re just not going to do that to ourselves anymore. We’re not gonna deprive ourselves. So the easy to stick to meal plan allows you to reorder your food the way that the Lord  ordered it to be, for you to enjoy, for you to fill your belly. It also repairs your relationship with yourself. You can start to notice where you are depriving yourself  and so many women. 

They haven’t given themselves full permission to enjoy food that they like because they think they can’t trust themselves, and this allows you to repair that relationship. Not all at once, gang, not all at once, but it will get there. Again, that’s the emotional component that we need to address. We need to address why you are denying yourself things that you like.

See, you can trust yourself.  We’ll slowly get you there. So many women say, I don’t know what I like to eat. And then I say, really? How many years have you been living as you, when you wake up in the morning, you know the breakfasts you like, you know the snacks you like to have after dinner, you know the dinners you like to have. And if you don’t know. And then that’s another thing that comes up.

People say, I don’t know what I’m gonna feel like eating. Okay, well that’s fine. You can plan two to three different things. And guess what gang? If you change your mind and you don’t want those two to three different things, you get to surrender your change. Surrendering your change just means that you write down your change before you take your first bite. 

It’s not a problem. If you make a change, it’s new information, maybe you can plan differently for the following day. And the final thing that the easy to stick to meal plan does with regard to the emotional component is it helps you separate your food choices from your emotions. It helps you separate your food choices from your emotions. The majority of women make their easy to stick to a meal plan the night before or in the morning.

I’m a morning kind of person simply because I like to think fresh throughout my day. You are using your best thinking brain to think, what do I want? And you also are using your best thinking brain so that you can coach yourself out of those should away from the should, believing that there’s a right way or there’s a wrong way. 

Believing that you shouldn’t have something, that there’s a specific rule. And again, just allow your brain to think that it’s thought forever, but we get to introduce these new truths and you can practice thoughts like, well, I’m willing to try this today. Let’s see how this goes. One of my clients just loved that thought.

Well, I don’t know. We’ll try this. Let’s see how it goes. And that really helped her be really lighthearted and experimental with this new concept. Because if you’re separating your emotions from your food choices, that means you’re making it easy to stick to a meal plan, food that you enjoy, that you feel good about eating.

And that is for the woman who will eat it. And let me go back to that second one that really trips people up. What does it mean? That food that you feel good about eating? Yeah. This is again, how you’re repairing your relationship with yourself. 

And this is how you are gonna start  checking in with you. You that you feel good about. So one example I like is  if you’re going out for pizza or your family’s having pizza and you’re like, I’m gonna have one slice of pizza and a salad,  and you just get to poke around your brain, okay, do we want one?

Well, what if we had three pieces of pizza and a salad? What if we had five pieces of pizza and no salad? And you might be like, no, I, I like to have the salad. Okay, well, what about three pieces of pizza and a salad? And you might be like, yeah, that sounds really good. And I would say, well, what about five pieces of pizza and a salad?

And you might be like, oh, no, no, that’s too much. Okay. So you get to poke around, well, what feels good? What feels right? So maybe you’re gonna go out for breakfast with someone and you’re like, alright, so I’m gonna get the two eggs over easily. And, this is me. I like two eggs over easy with sausage, patties, toast, and cottage cheese.

And then I always get a side of mayonnaise. ’cause I do actually personally pretty much follow a low carb thing. It’s really good. It just helps me not be hungry ’cause I can then fast as long as I want. A totally different podcast. And this has been many years in the making. This is not how I started food recovery by the way, so I started food recovery, just eating normal food. 

But God has led me on many different rabbit holes since then about my diet, but anyway, if I’m going for breakfast, I love to have two eggs over easy sides of mayonnaise,  sausage, patties, and two pieces of toast. and cottage cheese. And  sometimes I get sliced tomatoes too.  So that’s what I’m gonna order. And then I would be like.  Do I want two sausage patties or one, two just feels too much.

Like I love exactly what I just said and I know that I love that because I’ve had it several times. And I know when I’ve had too much. So if I go and I get an. Omelet, I’ll say I’m gonna have half of the omelet. ’cause they’re usually huge if I eat them out.

And I’ve had tons of times where I’ve eaten the whole omelet and I feel garbagy for the rest of the day. So you’re gonna just start to know what you feel good about. So as you’re planning your meal, just notice anytime that you’re saying should  or shouldn’t and just get to say, well, what do I feel good about? And you’re gonna know inside your body, and you just get to play around with that. 

Okay. So let’s move on to the concept of surrendering. So throughout the day, we have in our 63 surrendered challenges, a concept that is called surrendering. So you make it easy to stick to a meal plan, but if you make a change, it’s not a problem. It’s called surrendering. And that means that you say, Lord, I’m going to surrender this change to you.

Or, and you can say this specific food, and you write down what food you’re going to eat. And then you eat it. Three things happen here. The first one is that you see that making changes is part of the plan. You’re stopping the shame cycle of making changes. It just means you wanted something different. It means nothing else. 

You chose a different food. You’re not bad, you’re not weak, you just chose a different food. Maybe what you’re starting to see is actually you enjoy a different food than you had anticipated, so you can plan differently the next day. I think that’s pretty cool. Number two, it interrupts impulsive changes, so although you might be impulsively making a change.

Which just means suddenly making a change. You’re not shoving it in your mouth, you’re pausing. Your brain is very used to making an impulsive change and eating it right away. So it’s very used to that pattern, very used to that pattern, very used to that pattern. Physiologically, your brain knows that pattern.

So we’re just trying to interrupt that pattern and create a new pattern, a new loop. Sometimes they call them habit loops, but I really don’t even like using the word habit because I think habit is thrown around way too much. It is a pattern that your brain is used to the synapses of this and the neurotransmitters.

They are just used to running in this way and we’re just interrupting the pattern. So can we stop using the word habit and just use the word, my brain is familiar with this pattern. I’m going to create a new  pattern. We’re going to teach my brain a new pattern,  and anytime we learn something new, we’re not good at it.

So we’ll just all expect to be new at it.  And we’re not going to do this perfectly because it’s a new pattern. It’s a new skill.  So it interrupts the old pattern.  And the third and most important thing that we’re doing is we’re saying, Jesus, I surrender this change to you,  take care of everything.  We are inviting the Lord into this change. 

And if we only looked at this from a physical standpoint, you would say, well, that’s silly. What’s the point of that? You are just changing and eating a cupcake physiologically, you’re not getting any closer to your weight loss goal. Okay? That’s the physical side,  but that’s not what we’re doing here, folks.

We’re pulling the veil back. We are working on the emotional and the spiritual side of weight loss. This is where the real transformation happens. Emotionally, we’re not eating impulsively. We’re creating new patterns in our brain. We’re taking the shame cycle out. We’re interrupting that. We’re saying, actually, this is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. 

I’m learning something new about myself. I prefer this food instead of that food.  See that emotional connection to you repairing that relationship with you  and the spiritual side. Lord, I’m inviting you into this. Do you see that  that is how this tool is transforming you so that you can have lasting weight loss  and the quicker that you can get over it? 

All of the mind drama associated with it. The quicker we can truly address all the mind drama  that’s creating the resistance. And the more that you can start to trust this process, the more you can say, I don’t know. Let me try this. The more you can be open to it, the more you can lean into this new, gentle way, this very flexible way. 

To be willing to be experimental, to try things, to recognize that you’re learning new pathways in your brain, creating new patterns that you’re growing from this, that you’re inviting the Lord in, the more you will have lasting change. And you will know that you are embracing this easy to stick to meal plan and addressing the emotional and the spiritual aspects. When it feels that way. This yummy, youngsters gooey sort of ah, swirly, yummy feeling. And when you’re only addressing the physical, when you are only addressing food.

To create a physical change, your old ways will feel strict and rigid. You’ll feel deprived. You’ll feel defeated that you’re a failure, that you’re weak. And if you notice those feelings,  that’s what we get to lean into and address because you’re having some belief in that. The goal of the easy to stick to meal plan is to create physical change. 

And if you want to diet, feel free to diet, but that is not what the easy to stick to meal plan is meant to do. That is not what surrendering your changes is meant to do. And so I hope this podcast, whether you’re in our program or not in our program, has helped you see. How this tool can transform you to be a new creation. 

In our program, we do 63 surrenders, which is the challenge that we do for 63 days. Practicing this easy to stick to meal plan and surrendering the changes. It’s 63 days. It’s 63 days because it’s seven surrender Novenas. Each novena, as you know, is nine days. 

So if you’d like some more information on our 63 surrendered challenge, I want you to reach out to our team at Team at Weight Loss with the Holy spirit.com. All right, everybody. Have a blessed day. Thank you for listening.