Let’s just dive in. One of the components of the Weight Loss with the Holy Spirit program is  an easy to stick to meal plan. And what the heck is an easy to stick to meal plan? An easy to stick to meal plan is when you plan food that’s literally easy to stick to.

Now, this is a concept that, on one hand, your brain will be like, Hallelujah! It feels simple. It feels easy. It feels open. It feels inviting, just like the Holy Spirit. And then your brain is going to be a little scared. It’s going to think, Oh no, I could do this wrong. And it’s actually so simple that you’re also going to wonder, will this even work?

The first thing is that you absolutely cannot do it wrong. So there’s no winning and losing in weight loss with the Holy Spirit program, or even in this approach, everything that we do, we’re either winning, which most people define as, Oh, Hey, things went the way I thought they should go.

It just means that our expectations were met. So either our expectations are met. Okay, that’s cool. That feels like a high five win, which essentially just means that you learned what to do. Just keep repeating that. So that’s awesome. But if things don’t go as planned, Then you learn from that, so you can experiment with some different things that might,  work, so you cannot do it wrong. You’re always winning or learning. We’re always growing. So I want you to know that with this approach. The second thing is that you wonder, will this even work? And we’re going to define work as leading to lasting weight loss.

Everything with this approach is about getting your result. For lasting weight loss to show you the truth in what you need to do. So you have lasting weight loss, not lose weight for a week,  six months,  a year or three years. I want to teach you the skills that you need.

So you have lasting weight loss for every season of your life for every day that you’re walking this earth. And you know that’s what the Lord wants for you too, and that’s why you’re listening. And so we’re going to be defining work as leading to lasting weight loss. That said, know that this approach to weight loss is very different from conventional weight loss.

Part of the difference between conventional weight loss and the weight loss with the Holy Spirit approach is that you’re learning skills. And once you learn a few skills, you can maintain your healthy weight for the rest of your life.  About skills.

Number one, they’re new, you’ve never done them before, so it’s going to feel really odd. Also, know that a skill can be practiced and over and over becomes more familiar and you become more skilled at doing the skill. Ha. Okay? So it just becomes easier. So what, and once you learn this, you can have lasting weight loss.

So the skills that you’ll be learning in this Creating an Easy to Stick to Meal Plan, believe it or not, is the skill of knowing yourself, being honest and showing up for yourself, knowing what food you want to eat. Isn’t that crazy that’s a skill in checking in with yourself and  knowing what you want to eat?

The other skill that you’ll be developing is that inner game because you’re going to be taking what you’ve believed and all of the thoughts and beliefs  you’ve accumulated from conventional ways weight loss, and that will be versing this new way of thinking, this new way of losing weight with the Holy Spirit, this new approach.

So you’re going to have this sort of inner game in your brain, is that the old way or is that this new way? And the more you focus on the old way. By doing things, the slower your progress will be in using these new skills. So if you can keep focused on the new skills and the progress there, you will continue to quiet the noise of the old skills, because the truth is that you wouldn’t be here if what you had been doing was working.

This is a new way. And the reason it wasn’t working is because it was never aligned with the Holy spirit and this will be. You’ll just continue to check in with the Lord of what He wants for you. And this is a skill and it’s going to feel odd at first, but just stick with me on this.

When you’re creating this easy to stick to meal plan, what food should you  plan?   We have two food rules. The first one is that you eat food that you enjoy.

And the second one is that you feel good about it when you eat it.  If you like Oreos and you feel good about yourself eating two or three Oreos, then you’re going to plan two or three Oreos. What you’re not going to plan is eight Oreos if you don’t feel really good about eight Oreos. I know your brain’s already am I supposed to plan Oreos?

Okay, the food that you will not be planning on the easy to stick to meal plan is should foods. I should really eat a salad

The second thing that you do not plan are foods that will lead to weight loss.

The reason why we do easy to stick to a meal plan is because it’s food that you enjoy and that you feel good about. So at the end of the day, if you don’t stick to that plan, it’s food that you enjoy. And it’s food that you feel good about. Then you’ll have some good information about what’s throwing you off the plan, right?

So we’ve removed every obstacle and every barrier to actually following a plan because it’s the food that you like. You’ve already decided this is what you want.  If you plan diet foods, I should eat this. If you get to the end of the day, you’ve got a whole bunch of distracting reasons of  why you didn’t stick to that plan.

I didn’t like the food. It felt restricting. It’s not what I wanted. So then what do you get stuck in? You get stuck for all those reasons. Instead, if we can just create a plan that you like, that you feel good about, that you want to eat. To the point where you look at lunchtime and you’re like, Oh, hey what did I plan?

And you look at your plan and you’re like, Oh my gosh, I love this. I’m so excited. I planned this. That’s how much I want you to love your plan, so the two foods that you will not plan to create an easy to stick to meal plan, which is the skill that you’re trying to develop so that you have lasting weight loss.

You will not plan should foods and you will not plan foods that lead to weight loss. What you will plan, foods that you like and that you feel good about eating. Now if you want to know how to eat food you like without guilt. That’s a different video . You can go into my YouTube shorts and see a whole series on that, but that’s something totally different and that’s just retraining your brain back to creating the easy to stick to meal plan. So you know what you should plan, food that you like, that you feel good about. You know what you shouldn’t plan. Should foods and foods that lead to weight loss. Because remember, we’re trying to develop a skill here.

The skill that we’re trying to develop is to know yourself, what you like, and also stay focused on that inner game. What you used to know is true, versus this new approach. Okay. Now I want to challenge you because your brain’s also thinking I don’t even know what I like.

I don’t even know what I like. So if I gave you half a million dollars to plan food that your husband would like, based on  what you know he likes and when he likes it, like he likes this for lunch, but he prefers these kinds of foods at dinner.

If I give you half a million dollars to do that, you could 100 percent do that. What about for your kids?  Just for one day. Write down what you think they would like for a snack. What you think they would like for lunch. 

You know that they would enjoy it. So if I gave you a million dollars to do that for yourself, I know you could do it. I know you could do it. I know you could check in with the woman who’s listening to this.

And you know that you like certain foods for lunch. You know that you like certain foods for breakfast, you like certain snacks. You prefer certain snacks in the morning rather than in the afternoon. And then there’s these special snacks that you like at lunch that you really don’t prefer, but you want different foods at dinner. So if I give you one million dollars, I know you could do it. But to help you, we’re going to use our second hack. And that’s creating go to meals. This is one of my favorite things to teach.

This is something that you can do with the Holy Spirit in prayer, or you set some time aside, maybe on a Sunday,  to create these go to meals. In fact, I just have been doing a new gut healing protocol, and just yesterday, it took some time, and I said, Lord, what would be… Some go to meals for me.

This is one of those awesome hacks.

So what you’re going to do is take out a piece of paper and write three columns. Actually, it’ll be four columns. Your meals will be listed down on the left and across the top, you’ll put option one, option two, and plan B.

So I’m going to coach you through exactly how I would lead one of my clients and all of the women who are part of the community of Weight Loss with the Holy Spirit community. The first thing that we do is I say, what’s the first meal that you eat?  She might say sometimes I eat breakfast, but I’m really trying to intermittently fast.

If you do eat breakfast, what is your favorite breakfast to have? And she might be like, oh, I love. oatmeal. What do you have with your oatmeal? And then she’ll go on to tell me all the things. I like blueberries and I like some brown sugar. And I just keep asking over and over.

What else do you like to have with that? What else do you like to have because our brains will want to stop thinking. I shouldn’t have more. I shouldn’t have That’s too much fruit So she might say I really like to have a banana with that and then I like to add some honey Or she’ll just tell me all the things but you just keep asking yourself.

What else do I like to have with that breakfast? What else do I like to have? Okay. What’s a different option? If you don’t have oatmeal, what else would you like to have? And so then she might tell me about some sort of smoothie, and then I’ll ask her all the things that are in the smoothie. Or maybe she’ll have eggs.

Oh, I really love eggs and toast with butter. Or maybe I like waffles or just whatever. Remember, you’re just getting out and asking your brain, What do I like? What do I like? And there’s going to be a little voice in your head. I shouldn’t have that. Oh, that’s too much  and that’s not part of this exercise.

All we’re doing is connecting with the Holy spirit and saying, Lord, do I feel good about this? Lord, do I like it? It’s just an act of honesty and making sure that the woman that you’re living as is being heard and seen. Does this mean that this is what you have to eat? No. But you’re asking her, what is she like?

Does this mean these are the only options you can eat? No. We’re just  having one time where you plan some options And then when you create your easy to stick to meal plan, you may choose something from this or not, so that’s option one and option two. If you want to do option three, that’s fine as well.

Plan B  is something that I can eat, that I can eat on the run. Oh my gosh, I left and I forgot my lunch. These are those situations where you find yourself stuck out, away from home, away from the foods that you want to eat. So we’re just planning ahead for that. How can you create a meal that you feel good about at a convenience store? Or in fast food. So if you’re thinking about this ahead, there is no drive thru trap. You’ve already decided what you want to get. So I had one client. If I’m on my way to work, and I forget my lunch, I’m gonna stop at a gas station. They have hard boiled eggs, a banana, and yogurt.

That can be a great snack. That can be a great breakfast. Awesome. So we had that for the gas station. I also encourage all of the women I work with to have three fast food options. So what are the three fast food places that you like to eat, that are in your circle, in your life, where you’re driving around?

And what are one to two things that you can order there that you feel good about? Another little hack. So we just go through each meal. What do you like to have? How about for Morning snack? What do you like to have? I had one client who started telling me the things that she thought she should have.

I should have an apple and peanut butter  and all the problems that were with that and I said, What would you like to have? So what I’d really like to just have are Cheez Its Because I’m giving my kids Cheez -Its and they love it. Okay. She’s but I don’t feel good about myself when I eat it.

Okay. What doesn’t feel good about eating Cheez-Its? So I wanted to see, is she saying I shouldn’t eat Cheez-Its or something else? So I said what feels, doesn’t feels good about eating Cheez-Its? And she was like I am okay eating Cheez-Its, just not eating them out of the box. Okay. And I said how would you feel good about eating Cheez-Its?

And she said if I just had one serving, that would be great. Problem solved. So we planned one serving of Cheez-Its. And I said, would that be enough? Or do you want to plan something else with those Cheez-Its? And she’s only like an hour or two before lunch. I can wait till lunch.

Okay. But just know that it’s totally fine to add extra things into Cheez It. And she might also say if I’m extra hungry, maybe I’ll add an apple to the Cheez It. It’s totally fine  to add optional food as well. We’re just planning ahead of time. So then we get to lunch. Now I have this one client who said, Oh, I love sandwiches.

Okay, so what kind of sandwich do you like? So we planned, she said my favorite’s chicken salad. All right, what are some other sandwiches that you would like to have? So we came up with some other, I think she said roast beef was another one, and then I said what do you like to have with your sandwich?

And then she said chips. Okay, how many chips do you feel good about? She’s I don’t feel good bringing the bag to the table. All right. So then we just get really clear, I’ll put it on the plate. What else do you like to have? And we just keep going through this. 

Then we went for an afternoon snack. I had one woman say I really would like to have an ice cream sandwich in the afternoon.  Her mind drama came up when she really wanted to have an ice cream sandwich at night in the evening after dinner. And so we just solved it. She said I don’t feel good if I have two ice cream sandwiches in a day, but if I have one, I’d prefer to have it after dinner.

Great, then let’s plan that. Then what would you feel good about having in the afternoon as an afternoon snack? So we just keep probing to find out what feels good, what’s enjoyable, what doesn’t feel restricted.

And  her afternoon snack might be apples and nuts. It might be a smoothie. It can be whatever you want it to be, and it can change. Remember the skill that you’re developing here is to simply ask your brain, What do you like? What do you feel good about eating? And to work that inner game of taking Your shoulder foods and setting them aside, or this will lead to weight loss.

Don’t do that. That will only slow your progress.  

 So then it comes to dinner and you’re going to do this same process. I know dinner is going to be different all of the time. And one hack is that you can create what’s called a skeleton, which means that I’m going to have this formula, which means I’m going to have a certain amount of meat. I’m going to have a certain amount of starch or carbohydrates. And I’m going to have a certain amount of  dressing or sauce. And so what that might look like is in general, my meals will be four ounces of meat or protein. I will have two servings of carbohydrates or starch, and then I will have a quarter cup of dressing or sauce and you know this can change with each meal but you can say in general this is what I like. What I did not put was two tablespoons of dressing. Is that what you want? Is that enough? I worked with one client who loved her salads. This is an act in just being honest with ourselves.

Is two tablespoons enough? She’s I don’t know. I don’t really measure it. And I said why don’t you measure it one day? Why don’t you just know what you’re actually eating? Measure it. And then you’ll know, is it a quarter cup? Is it half a cup? Is it four tablespoons? Is it two tablespoons?

There’s no wrong way to do it. There’s not a right answer. She could have a cup of dressing. Doesn’t matter. As long as she knows what she’s eating and she feels good about it.  Evening snacks. If you haven’t seen my video on the evening snack drama, I encourage you to watch that.

It’s also podcast number seven. If you follow me on my podcast, Weight Loss with the Holy Spirit, just know that it’s the same process for every single meal. What do I want? Do I like it? What would I like to eat?  Now the number of meals that you eat is 100 percent up to you, and it might change per day.

Remember that person who might be intermittent fasting? This is just an optional breakfast. It might be an optional afternoon snack. Everything is 100 percent optional because it’s based on you and what you want. I just encourage you to plan in the morning when you have your best thinking brain.

Okay, a couple things is that how many meals you eat is totally up to you. You decide what you like, but it’s not that you don’t eat them because you’re trying to lose weight. If you get in that mentality, you are not working the skill and not learning what you need to learn during this skill, which is what do I want?

What do I feel good about? And then Retraining your brain from what you’ve been taught and conventional weight loss to this new method, which is weight loss with the Holy Spirit. I love that scripture. That does not conform to the ways of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

And these two hacks, these two skills allow you to practice that in a real world way, where you say, Holy Spirit, let’s learn a new way. I want you to lead. This health and weight loss journey for me. Okay, so how do we use these go to meals to create an easy to stick to meal plan?  When you wake up in the morning or the night before, you just decide, What do I want for breakfast?

What am I going to have? And now your brain’s going to be like I don’t know what I want to have. Okay what are two options? And my brain does the same thing to me. And so what I say is, Hey brain, let’s just try this. Let’s just try this just for one day. This is just for one day. Let’s just try it.

You can put options. What do I want for breakfast? What do I want for a snack? If you have a morning snack, what do I want for lunch? Remember, everything can be optional. You can just add in extra options. You can also have multiple options for lunch. I might have chicken salad, or maybe I’ll have a cup of soup, or maybe I’ll have half and half, and then maybe I’ll have chips with that.

They can be optional items. It’s just you decide ahead of time. Now, for each meal that you plan, you’ll ask yourself two questions. And this is what makes it easy to stick to a meal plan. Is this easy to stick to? If not, what do I need to change? You’re asking your brain, is this easy to stick to? And you might look at that  and think, that’s not enough food.

If this isn’t easy to stick to, what needs to change? What do I need to add? What do I need to take away? What do I need to change?

This is all an exercise in connecting with you. There’s no wrong way to do this. So these two meal planning hacks will lead to lasting weight loss because these are skills that you will learn and practice over and over and over and over. And if you want to jumpstart your weight loss journey, I’ve got a free five day weight loss challenge that’s waiting for you.

Go to weightlosswithaholyspirit.com and this time next week, you will know exactly where to put your efforts so that your weight loss is lasting. Alright everybody, have a blessed day.