And while I was in person with her, I just begged her. I didn’t really have to convince her too much to get on the mic with me so that we could record this episode for you. And what I want you to just hear is the string of how the Holy Spirit has his hand all over this work. How the Holy Spirit is always working in my life, how he’s always working in your life. 

And I hope you see that whatever you hear coming outta this podcast was meant for you to hear and that he knew that you would hear these words or if you do any of our programs, he knew that you would be doing that program, that you would be encountering him. I just love the way that he works. 

Anyway, this is one of those stories that I’ve been dying to tell you and we finally have the opportunity, so enjoy this episode with my sister Jessica. We’ll be talking about 63 surrendered, and I also want you to know that right now you can get in our June round of 63 surrendered, go to weightlosswiththeholyspirit.com/63surrendered, and you can get your resources immediately. 

Our kickoff call is this Wednesday, 11:00 AM central time. You don’t need to do anything until that point, but you can go ahead and get signed up so you don’t lose your spot. Grab a friend too. It’ll be a fun way to spend the summer learning the four daily disciplines that are essential for you to learn and live so that you live at your healthy weight for the rest of your life without any fear of gaining a back. 

All right, so enjoy this episode with my lovely sister, Jessica.  All right, everybody. Well, welcome to today’s episode. I am here today with my sister, Jessica. 

Jessica: Hello. 

Denise: I am so excited to chat with her today. I’ve been thinking about this episode for a super long time because every time I think of 63 surrendered, I think of the day that I learned about something that she had said she’d done. And it literally is the beginning of really what became 63 surrendered. So I thought it’d be fun for you to get to know her because I love her so much and I think she’s so fun. 

Jessica: I am fun.

Denise: And I want, and the truth is I just want her to know the impact that she has on simply being her and trying challenging things. So welcome Jessica. 

Jessica: Thank you. It’s nice to be here. Oh, it is so nice to be here. 

Denise: We are visiting our parents for a few days to celebrate our mom’s 74th birthday. Mom is here. Okay, so let’s dive in. So today I really just want to find out. Jessie, what? So we call her Jessie, although the whole grownup world calls her Jessica. So the whole premise is to find out how 63 surrendered got started. 

So it was 2024 and my mom was sitting with me at my house for Mother’s Day weekend. She was talking to my sister who lives in Long Island on speaker phone and my sister was saying that she had recently finished. You’d finished the challenge, right? 

Jessica: I think I had at that point, yes.

Denise: And the challenge was called 75 Hard. Now I have heard of 75 hard, 75 Hard is this challenge that you do for 75 days. Jessie, do you remember the five things you do every day, right? 

Jessica: Yeah. I’ll never forget. 

Denise: Tell everybody what 75 hard is. 

Jessica: So 75 hard is. It’s not supposed to be a fitness challenge. It’s supposed to be a mental toughness challenge to help you build mental toughness. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to be inconvenient. So there’s five elements to it where. One of them is you have to choose a diet. It can be any diet. He was not the creator of this. Andrew.

Denise: What’s his name? 

Jessica: Andrew Zel. Yeah. Look it up. It’s gonna. I can’t think of it at the moment. I know his first name is Andrew. 

So choose a diet, whatever you know it is for you that’s healthy, but no cheat meals, no sugar. No pizza? It has to be a very healthy diet and I’ll get back to that part in a minute. ‘Cause you can’t have any cheat meals and what happens if you do and then you have to have two workouts, 45 minutes each, not consecutive.

They have to be at different times of the day and one of them has to be outside. They can both be outside, but one of them has to be outside. You have to drink a gallon of water. You have to read 10 pages a day in a real book, not on your phone. It has to be a book that you’re turning pages, and it has to be a book where you are learning something. It’s like Harry Potter or whatever. You have to learn something new. 

And then you have to take a picture of yourself every day. Something that shows your body, it’s just for you. And now if you miss any part of this or if you skimp on any. if you don’t drink a full gallon. If you only do one, 45 minute workout and one half hour work. If you eat a chocolate chip, anything, you have to start over at day one. 

It doesn’t matter if you’re on day five, day 15, day 63, whatever. If you mess up at all, you have to start at day one. There were times where I, it’s like 11 o’clock at night and before I go to bed, I’m walking and reading a book as I’m walking in Lowe’s parking lot.

Denise: Yeah. 

Jessica: Because I have to get this all. I’m not starting over. No way I’m starting over. So that was it. That was the challenge. And I have to say, I had never done anything like that before and stuck to it, especially working out. I’ve never worked out 75 days in a row nonstop and then twice a day.

Like I’ve never, but I did it. I didn’t, I did not skimp on anything. If I was chugging a half gallon of water before bed, but I was not going to start over. Yeah. That’s so 75 hard. And it’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s supposed to be inconvenient.

Denise: Okay. So you’ve been through it, so now you can talk about it from that point. But if you went back to the first time you ever heard about this, what were your thoughts? and how did you hear about it? 

Jessica: Okay, so I heard about it from a very good friend of mine who’s also my hairdresser. He was going through some things in his life and he was always looking to challenge himself better himself. He’s constantly listening to books online, like self-help this and that, so he’s always looking for the next challenge. 

And we were having coffee and I was going through some things myself, and he felt like this would be a really good way. For me to refocus. He’s like, I really think you need to do this. He’s like, and don’t overthink it, because that’s the thing, when you hear about what it is and what it takes, you start thinking of these okay, I have this wedding coming up, or I have this trip coming up, so maybe I’ll start at, he’s stop.

You can’t think. Oh. And by the way, let me add one thing because this is no alcohol. There’s no, there’s zero alcohol. And that was one of the things I was like, oh, but Valentine’s Day is coming up and what if, my husband and I wanna go out to dinner and I wanna have a drink, so maybe I’ll start after Valentine’s. He’s like, stop.

That he’s like there’s never going to be the perfect time, the convenient time to do this. You just have to jump in. And do it. And I think maybe that’s what keeps people from doing a lot of things is. You’re looking for that perfect timing in your life.

And I’m gonna, okay. It’s never gonna happen. You just have to jump in and start it and do it and it works out. You find a way to make it. Work in your life? Are the things that make it hard that, like I said, the challenge that’s supposed to be, and then you find, oh wow, I really, I can make this work. I did do it. 

Denise: Yeah. 

Jessica: Even though I had these things, I didn’t lose focus on the goal and I stuck to it. So yeah, we were having coffee one day and he was on like day 11, I think. And I was and finally I’m just like, you know what? I’m just do it. Stop overthinking it. Just start. So one day, just a day or so later, I just started.

Denise: So you heard about it from him with coffee. Your brain went through the little freak out, like, how am I gonna do this? How am I gonna do this? 

Jessica: And then do I wanna commit myself and then if I do. And then I don’t do it. I’m gonna feel like a loser. Like I don’t wanna admit to him that because we’ve gone through other, this isn’t the first thing that he’s been like, okay, so this is what you’re going to do. This is the diet you’re gonna do, this is the workout plan. 

We’ve done these things together before, so I was like, oh, if I do this. I really like, I can’t, I gotta stick to it. ’cause I can’t tell Dwayne that I quit or I have somebody I’m accountable to. Yeah. 

Denise:  How long has he been your hairdresser? 

Jessica: I am 20, I would say at least, like we could be going on 20 years. 

Denise: Okay, so you guys are close? 

Jessica: Yeah. Oh yeah. He knows everything. Yes. Yeah. 

Denise: Okay 

Jessica:  Absolutely. 

Denise: So then you decide a few days later, I’m gonna give this a go. 

Jessica: Yes. 

Denise: Okay. So now you have finished it. Everything is fantastic and let’s fast forward. Go ahead. Go ahead. How many times did you have to start over? 

Jessica: No, I didn’t. I didn’t have to. I did. No, I did. I never had to start over. I did it. It was interesting like what did we get out of it? You know definitely that feeling of wow, we did it. It was hard. 

It was there. Because then the thing is there’s more to it actually than just the 75 days. After 75 days. There was phase one, phase two, phase three. I did not continue on with those phases. I wanted my life back. More than that. I’m like, okay, I went to 75 days. Without having a drink. 

And not that. But it was actually perfect timing. I was coming up on summer, I was like, oh, sweet. Now I can have a glass of wine, which like I didn’t wanna, I just didn’t wanna give up another that, ’cause it would entail a whole year of my life of being that strict. And I just, I was just happy I did it. I knew I could do it. Yeah. And yeah.

Denise: I feel like it’s a good point. A good opportunity to say that you did this during the winter months In Long Island? In New York? 

Jessica: Yeah. There was one day, because that’s the thing too with these workouts where one has to be outside and he’s like, oh, what if it rains? What if it snows? What if there’s a hurricane? Too bad. You have, you will find, his whole point was, be safe, but you will find a way. 

Denise:  Yeah. 

Jessica: And there was one day, it was a snowstorm. I wasn’t in workout clothes. I was in clothes as if I was going to go sledding. Boots and had, and I’m out trudging through. The unshoveled sidewalks, while it’s snowing and that was a really hard workout, but I did it. I would’ve never done that if it weren’t for this challenge. 

There were times I was sitting on the couch having coffee with a friend, that I would be like, oh, I can skip. But I was like, no, I am not starting over. I gotta, my workout. Go for a walk. Yeah. It definitely put me in a completely different mindset. I had a goal.

Denise:  So I love that example. So we have all thought I can skip. Yes, I love having coffee with my friend. And then that’s your first thought. And we always tell people on the podcast, you’re not responsible for your first thought, but you are responsible for your second thought. 

Because the first thought just pops in your brain, right? Like you have no control over that. So of course you’re like, this is yummy. I wanna stay here. What was it that you then took control of your thought, and what pushed you forward to get off the couch with. When you’re having coffee.

Jessica: Being on like day 50 and not wanting to start over.  But also, I think it’s more than that. I don’t know maybe necessarily how to explain it, but I didn’t wanna disappoint myself either. I certainly didn’t want to. I had my friend that I was staying accountable to also, but certainly at that point to myself, I was in it and nothing was going to stop me from achieving this goal.

There was a lot of things that I had to arrange or take an extra shower because I’m not gonna miss this workout, but then I have to be here in an hour or whatever it was. Things I would have never put myself through that, if not for this goal, this challenge, and the thought of, I think the whole thing is having to start over to the very beginning. 

It’s not oh, okay, I just won’t count this day, but the next day I’ll count. And then maybe I’m doing it for 90 days instead of 75, but ’cause I skipped a few days in between. No, I wanted to finish the challenge and I did not want to. Start from scratch. 

Denise:  Yeah. I think what’s also cool is you reframe what feel like used to feel like huge inconveniences. Like a minor inconvenience of taking another shower. 

Jessica: Right. Okay. I’ll just take another shower. Right. Or, this was nice having coffee with my friend. It’s not like I’ll never get to do it again. I’m gonna, I have to go for my walk now, or I have, yeah. Or she joined me actually. Two I think comes up.

Denise: Oh, that is cool. and it’s so short term there’s an end date, I’ll be done with this, and then if I want to go back to all these other things. Right. I think it’s also interesting saying that you don’t wanna let yourself down. When you get to a certain point, you recognize this has benefiting no other human. 

Jessica: Right. True. 

Denise: This is bringing nothing to anyone else’s life except to yours. And that, we’re not used to doing that, especially as moms. 

Jessica: Right. And I think maybe indirectly in some ways it does. I have four kids. They knew I was doing this. 

Denise: What were their ages at the time? 

Jessica: It’s been like a year ago, 22 or 21, something like that. 17, 15. 12. 

Denise: Okay. So look around still providing meals and. 

Jessica:  Right, right. 

Denise: Grocery shopping and doing all the things. 

Jessica: They knew what I was doing also, and I think,  I’d like to think maybe seeing their mom do something hard and not. give up I think maybe that wow, look what she’s doing. She’s sticking to it, she’s there she goes for her walk again. Oh, there she is getting bundled up, and going out the door and it’s freezing outside and, but she’s doing it, so I don’t know. I hope that indirectly, I remember as a kid, our mom working out. 

You know, like the aerobics tapes, the songs of Whip it whip it real good. Your sisters. Yeah. And so even though, yeah, this is for me. Those workouts were for our mom. Your kids are seeing everything.

Denise: Yeah, they’re always watching. 

Jessica: Yeah. So hopefully, yeah, it was maybe not directly, I think, that was one of the things Dwayne brought. Dwayne is very much with his kids. Like he makes them do a lot of things themselves. He’s a great dad. He’s really a great dad.

And he gets on me sometimes for the thing he knows I’m making my kids lunch, just I’m doing, he is like, why are you doing, he’s they can do their own thing. Let them figure it out on their own for once. When he was tired to talk me into doing something, I’m like what if. so those are things that I needed to learn to like. They can do this themselves. 

Denise: Oh, right. Yeah, it helped you step away and not feel like get a little more perspective on, right, what is not my job? Or what can I pass off? What can I give? Let them start trying right. Okay, so as you all can hear, I hope you hear how amazing my sister is, first of all, and how challenging this challenge is.

I had heard about it, and it’s Andy Frisella who created it and let’s see, what year did he create it? What year did he create it? I am asking Chat GPT because I have recently heard about it not that long ago. And I would see like other women. Post it, and especially this one, this other woman who’s pretty hardcore, she posted on Facebook. That’s where I was on Facebook a lot. 

Oh, 2019. Andy Frisella created the 75 Hard program in March of 2019. He designed it as a transformative mental toughness regimen, aimed at developing discipline, confidence and resilience through a strict 75 day commitment. I think you can all hear it’s very strict and a 75 day commitment, and I just remember thinking.

That is, wow. I’m very amazed by it. And also I could never do it, and I just, I could never do it. Then I heard my sister did it and I was like, holy cow, if she can do it. 

Jessica: No, I know. 

Denise: I was like, oh my gosh. And then at that point, I’ll tell you, I had been missing my sister a lot and I was thinking, oh. Maybe she, if she ever does it again, then we could do that together and we have something that we can do together. ’cause we live like a hundred thousand miles apart. 

So I mentioned this to her when I heard that she’s done this. I said, Jessie, would you ever do it again? And you said, sure. And I said if you do, let me know ’cause I might wanna do it. So this is. I don’t know, like May 12th. It’s like Mother’s Day. Three weeks later, I get a call from her and she says that she and her friend are gonna do it, and we’re starting in three days. 

Jessica: That’s right. I talked. My friend was looking for something too, I’m like, why don’t you, she was getting married looking to get a little more fit. Okay, why don’t we do this? I’ll do it with you. 

Denise: Yeah. So they’re like, we are starting, and do you wanna start? And I’m like, no. No, I didn’t. I mean, I’m thinking in my head, let me think about it. And I’m thinking, oh, I really wasn’t planning on this. I like to, but just like Jessie, when her hairdresser told her about it, it only takes a few days where you’re like, what do I have to lose aside from lots?

It’s like you all the normal things. I’m afraid I’m gonna fail. I’m afraid I’m gonna disappoint people, but ultimately I’m not willing to say no. So I might as well just give this go. So we all started and Jesse recommended a few things like the podcast, listen to this podcast. It’s like how to get started. 

Jessica: Yes. I listened to his podcast over and over and over again just to, for like little nuances, making sure I was doing it right. There’s some, from what I understand, there are some Facebook pages or Instagram that are dedicated to. This program, but not through him. 

Denise: Right.

Jessica:  And somebody was another woman that had started, was telling me about it and she was in this group and people would post about their progress or oh, I almost forgot to take a picture, but I jumped out of bed and I took it, and the people were like, in these groups are not support.

Like I would if you were doing this. Just do it on your own. Do not join these Facebook groups or these Instagram or whatever that are because. They’re very negative for whatever reason. I don’t know why. They’re not supportive at all. And they would like, oh, well that wasn’t intentional. You almost, so it doesn’t count. You have to start over. 

Denise: Ouch. 

Jessica: Yeah. Just really whoa. Or, oh, I wasn’t gonna have time to read my book. So I was on the, I was walking my dog and reading the book or, that doesn’t count. I was like, wow, I listened to this guy’s podcast. Over and over and over. I probably listened to it, like at least 20 times. 

Just to really, and nowhere did I get anything like that where he’s but it has to be intentional. Which I don’t even, what does that even mean? Intentional? She intentionally got outta bed to get the picture said she forgot, before she went to sleep.

Like, how is that not, it’s really. I think it just seems like these pages are one, are a way for people to like one up on somebody else or tear people down or feel better about themselves or you’re not doing it as good as I am. I’m so glad I wasn’t part. ’cause that just sounds so negative and nasty. 

And so because he never said anything, like you have to finish it within a certain time, in 24 hours or before 12:00 AM that it was nothing. It was just really like before you go to sleep, you have to make sure you get all of this in before you go to bed, basically.  Whatever time that is, you go to bed. 

Denise: Yeah. 

Jessica: So anyway I’m sorry, I forget how I got off on that tangent. 

Denise: So you decided that you wanted to do it again and I was getting started and so you told me to listen to the podcast. 

Jessica: Right. Listen to the podcast. Yeah.

Denise: I chose to download the app. You did not? 

Jessica: Yeah. I didn’t even know about it. Yeah. 

Denise: The app is where you can upload your picture and then just kinda check off. I did it, so that was cool. And then I looked a little bit at the Instagram groups then and read a couple articles that other people, not him. Had written. 

And this is important later for the story because I just saw so many people who were loving this challenge, unrelated to this guy. They just loved the concept of the challenge. So that’s where we’ll get to a little bit later. But, so for me, I just started with. Listening to the podcast and I did the app, and then we started a little texting thread, right? 

Jessica: A group text. A little group text. 

Denise: I made it, I think, I feel like I had a restart on day four. Something happened. 

Jessica: I do remember something like that. I forget what it was. Did you just forget a picture or something or?

Denise:  No, I felt oh, okay. So I want to go back to what I chose to do for my eating pattern, was and this will be relevant to my audience. Jessie said, you have to follow a clean diet so I don’t drink alcohol, so that wasn’t a problem. But the two most defensive foods that I had been eating were things like diet soda and sugar free york peppermint patties.

So I was like, alright, I’m gonna cut out, like the aspartame and all of the artificial sweeteners.

Jessica: Right. ’cause this whole thing has no sugar. 

Denise: Right? 

Jessica: Yeah. 

Denise: And then again, relevant to our audience, I thought, you know what? I’m gonna not do my chaos behavior, and one of the chaos behaviors that I can have is standing and eating. So I was like that. If I stand and eat, then that is just not good. 

So I think that’s what happened. I ended up standing and eating or something and I was like, no, that’s what I wanna do for this challenge. I wanna not stand and eat. I wanna make sure everything that I eat is seated. 

Jessica: Okay. 

Denise: So I think it was something, or like I felt like. Anyway, I felt like my food was like, not peaceful. So I was like, you know what guys? I just wanna start over. And I think everybody was like we wanna start over too, you guys.

Jessica: I think we, yeah, we did. We’re like let’s, I think we wanted to be a supportive. I think there, Rachel was like, you know what I didn’t feel great about this day and wondered if I should, I don’t, let’s just start over.

Denise: Yeah. Rachel was Jessie’s friend that was doing this with us? 

Jessica:  Yes. Yeah. 

Denise: Okay, so here we go along in the challenge and I’ll get back to you in just a second. So we’re going along in the challenge and I have never walked as much or exercised as much as they wanted. So like Jesse said, you have 2, 45 minute workouts and one has to be outside. Okay.

Jessica: It can’t be consecutive. Can’t be back to back.

Denise: It can’t be back to back. I have feet issues and so I really wanted to make sure that I was being very, very, very smart. I stopped running during this time and said, I’m just going to be walking. And I was really concerned about the excess exercise on my body and not being able to recover. So I wanted to take it really easy. Meaning like I started walking. I was like walking safe, walking is good. 

Jessica: Lo and behold, I loved walking.

Denise: It was so incredible. I had no idea how much I really enjoyed getting out, and I really felt that I was letting my mind relax. There were so many times that I was walking and quiet. I would either say the rosary or just be talking to the Lord, and it was so amazing. I just felt really connected. On one of these walks.

I started thinking. this guy, this Andy Frisella. Created this challenge didn’t cost me a dime to start. And everybody’s talking about his challenge. All of these influencers, all of these Instagram pages, all of these blogs, all of these Facebook groups. 

And they’re talking about just this little challenge that he put together and people are wanting to do it, and not only wanting to do it, but tell other people that they’re doing it. Which I thought, wow, they’re really growing awareness for this really cool thing, this mental toughness that he is trying to help other people gain. And I thought to myself, self, in the words of my father.

Jessica: Yeah.

Denise:  Self, how can I capitalize on this concept? Because people want to be told what to do every single day.

Jessica: Interesting. Yeah, that’s good. 

Denise: Give me a few things to do. 

Jessica: Yeah.

Denise: Just tell me what to do. 

Jessica: Yeah, that’s true. 

Denise: They also wanna do it for an extended period of time, so you could come up with a two week challenge, but they are intrigued by a longer challenge because it feels like a greater commitment. And I think that is the beauty and the simplicity of that 75 hard. 

So I just kept thinking and mulling this around in my head. How can I use that structure of a long enough time where you can see a change, but keep it very simple to, if you succeeded or you didn’t succeed, did you do these things or you didn’t do these things?

At the time, I was also very committed to the surrender novena, and I’d seen amazing things happen in my life, mostly like bringing. So much peace in my life as well as just saying, I can’t control this, Lord, it’s yours. So I knew, I thought, oh, the surrender novena, oh. And as I’m walking, these little lights just keep coming in my brain.

And so I felt the Lord saying, yeah, the surrender novena. And I’m like, oh yeah, surrender novena. That’s cool. Nine days, 9, 9, 9. And then if we extend that, what if we did that three times? That’s only 18 days. So anyway, and then it got to the 63, so that’s. Seven Surrender Novenas. And then I’m thinking, okay, what would I want these women to do?

And you guys know, I think an easy to stick to meal plan if you can make that every single day. Oh my gosh. You’re ahead of the game. So if I can teach people how to do that for 63 days, just do that one skill and easy to stick to meal plan. Alright. Alright. Yeah. What else would a woman need to do?

Like I’m thinking of you guys. What could we distill down and would be the top things that if you could just do for 63 days, that would have a huge transformation in your life? Surrender novena. Easy to stick to meal plan. And then literally connecting with the Lord in the morning and the evening. That’s it. 

If you could do those four things every single day, your life would be measurably different. I’ll tell you that I did not distill it down quite that much in the beginning because our first iteration of 63 surrendered. I was like, okay, we’ll take a progress picture every day and we’ll do exercise 30 minutes. Okay.

So I had this idea and I thought, this is really good. I really felt the Holy Spirit sparkles on this. I really felt like this is gonna be great, but Denise can’t do anything without her team. So I went to the team and I told our team, which you guys, before we did anything like this was so out of the box. It was so different than anything that we’d ever done. 

Everything else we’d ever done were like small groups of. 12 weeks, like 20 women going through this whole, certain process. And it was a pretty extensive process. So we’re talking like distill it down, make it very simple for 63 days. And I remember calling my mom and being like, they said yes. They said, why not? Let’s try this. 

Because you guys, you can’t just launch a program. You have to get the graphics, you have to get the Facebook ads, you have to do the workbook. Like we’d never done anything like this. It was being created from nothing. To something and it would be a lot of work for potentially nothing.

They were just taking a huge leap on this idea and just trusting I don’t know. Maybe we could get this. So at this point I’m still only like day 30 into this challenge, but I can see, I’m so grateful for my Yes, and I can see that it could. Potentially benefit many other women. And the work that I really truly feel like I’ve been called to do with weight loss with the Holy Spirit.

So the team is getting together, they’re starting to work on the graphics and all of this, and we said, we’re gonna launch this like September. At this point, it’s like July. So I’m so grateful the team is already working on it. Now, come July. My mom says, Hey, your sister’s coming to visit. Let’s go pick her up from the airport, her and her family.

And I say, yes. Great. Sounds awesome. So I picked my sister up from the airport. The whole family is in the van. My mom is driving and I look at my sister who’s been up since 3:00 AM ’cause they’re coming in from. Long Island you were up since.

Jessica: Yeah, probably. I do like to take ridiculously horrible early flights. 

Denise: And I said to Jessie. Because we’re still in the middle of our 75 hard, probably a week day, 30. Like I said.

Jessica: This is, I just like to say this is like the part that I’ve been dreading for months. 

Denise: So I say to my sister, Jessie, how are you going to get in your two workouts today? And she promptly replies with. 

Jessica:  Oh, I’m not doing that anymore. Something.

Denise: Yeah. She was just, like, so nonchalant. She goes, oh, I gave that up weeks ago. I was like, I was speechless. I like literally was like, and then.

Jessica: I think you might have asked me how Rachel, I was like, yeah, she’s not doing it anymore either. I felt so bad. Okay. I was not ready. When I had just felt like it had, I don’t think it had been that long. I had just come off of 75. I don’t know what I was thinking when I said, yeah, I would do it again and ’cause no, I didn’t want to do it again. I did not wanna do it again. 

At least not that. Now, I have thought recently, oh, maybe I would do, but at that time, I just. Because I guess what did we start, when did we try and start it? 

Denise:  We started it like June 4th or something like that. 

Jessica: That June? Yeah, that was my summer. 

Denise: Yeah.

Jessica: But I didn’t want to tell you that we weren’t doing it because I didn’t wanna discourage you or.

Denise: Which was the smartest, most loving thing ever. Was it? Oh my gosh. As you guys can hear the scream of this 

Jessica: I’m glad you always see the nice part of it, or maybe the nice part in me when I was thinking like, I am totally betraying my sister right now, but you.

Denise: Yeah. Okay. So if we just go back over the timing of this, you and I start 75 hard in June. I take this to the team probably late June, early July, and they’re running with it. I’m committed. And now I clearly see where the Lord was like, you have to do this. If you don’t do this, you can’t know something. Right? ’cause that’s what happened on the walk. Now I know something that’s meant for the whole world.

And so a few weeks after me knowing this and getting the ball rolling for our team, then I find out that you stopped. A hundred percent felt exceptionally shocked in the car. And then later I was like telling my husband, you won’t believe what happened. And then my boys, you won’t believe what happened.

And I told the story every time where you’re like, I stopped that weeks ago. And I really thought, why don’t really have to keep doing this? I really don’t. I really don’t. And then just like you said, you get to a point where you’re like, I’m not doing this for other people. If I don’t finish this, it will be a disappointment to me.

Jessica: Right. 

Denise: And then we got to do the whole thing about Bob with that, with like, why am I doing this? And maybe there is more in this for me. And I just wasn’t willing to give up. I think that’s all I kept saying. It was, I’m just not willing to give up. My sister already did it and I was amazed by that and I want to do that for myself.

I clearly was so grateful that she didn’t tell me when she said, oh, I didn’t want you to give you up. And I’m like, thank you for not telling me. I didn’t want you to give up. And I really genuinely said, thank you for not telling me, because I think I would have been like, oh, yeah, screw it.

Anyway, so we created 63 surrenders. So let me tell you now the journey from there. I did finish 75 hard. In the meantime, I learned a ton. I think that some of my workouts, I kinda stretched what you would consider a workout. 

Jessica: Wait, what did you do? What books did you read? 

Denise: Oh, I, oh my gosh, this is the best part. I read Byron Katie’s Loving What Is, and Byron Katie, I talk about her every once in a while. She’s a mindset coachy person, but she doesn’t call herself a coach, and essentially she’s like. loving what is because so often in life we’re like, it shouldn’t be that way. She’s but yes it should be because it is.

Jessica: You’re right. 

Denise: And it really bends my mind that she has these four questions that you can put up to anything where you’re like. I’m so mad about A, B, C, D, E, F, G. He or she shouldn’t be that way. And she leads you through four questions that help you see, like you can think that all day long, but do you like how your, her questions are? Is that true? 

So you can be like, he’s being a jerk. Is that true?  Yes. Can you absolutely know that’s true? You can still say yes. And then she’s like, when you have that thought, how do you react? And then you’re like I stew on how he’s such a jerk and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. What if you couldn’t have that thought?

I love that question. What if you couldn’t have that thought? Then what would you do? I would just live my day. I would just go about my day. And her whole premise is the only reason why life is hard or whatever, is because you’re stewing about your thoughts. Because if you couldn’t have that thought, then you would just, whatever.

Jessica: Interesting. 

Denise: I know it’s.

Jessica: That might be a good book. It’s a good book.

Denise: What did you read? 

Jessica: So I’m a real estate agent as you, so my first book was Ninja Selling. I have to say, like the books were, I think I needed to change the time that I read the book because I would read in the evening and that’s when I was tired, and so I felt like I wasn’t. Absorbing the book so much.

I actually feel like if I really wanted to get everything out of Ninja Selling, I need to go back and read it again or, and then it was getting towards the end of my challenge and I’m like I gotta get a book. I’ve finished the book. I didn’t really prepare for the next one, so I just grabbed something off the shelf. Now I’m like reading a book about Thomas Jefferson. I was like, wow. 

Denise: Oh yeah. 

Jessica:  Like I got through and it was like towards the end of the challenge and so I think I read like the first, 50 or 60 pages of, Thomas Jefferson something or other, and then the challenge was over. I was like, oh God, I don’t have to read that book. 

Denise: Yeah. 

Jessica: Because you have to learn something. Guess I’ll learn about Thomas Jefferson. So that was. 

Denise: Yeah, I liked reading the book a lot. I thought that was super great and I would do it like on the bike at the gym or something. And then I did find that it was such an inconvenience. I did not go back to it after the challenge. 

Jessica: Yeah.

 

Denise: I just don’t sit and read a lot. 

Jessica: Right, right. No, I agree. I agree. I guess books on audio or so, ’cause you can be doing something and still because learning. 

Denise: Yes. Anyway, I did finish the challenge. I think it was really great. A couple things that I did find that I liked to do was I started doing Soul Core and Soul Core is don’t, so I’m gonna use this word loosely, like yoga, but not yoga. Soul Core is two Catholic women, and they say the rosary and they do these different moves, and I really like that. So I would recommend anybody doing that. I don’t still do that, but I did like that. 

And then I would do a lot of walking and I would do, like I said, I would stretch the idea of a workout and I would do like stretching or foam rolling sometimes. But the point is that I finished, Jessie finished, and then now we have this beautiful creation called 63 Surrendered, which I really feel like the Holy Spirit was like, take it to the world. Go find her. 

So we ran our Facebook ads, the first group of women that we had come through. I’ll never forget watching the number go from 100 to 200 to 300, and we had. Not quite 500, like 430 women in our first group, which was incredible. 

Jessica: That’s crazy to me. 

Denise: Yeah.

Jessica: That’s amazing. 

Denise: And I think that when women see that. This is the answer to their prayers when they can see that the Facebook ad comes at the time. They just know that it’s an invitation. I truly believe that’s the way this program works. So the first iteration of it, was take a progress picture every day. Exercise 30 minutes a day. 

And then we had the surrender novena check in with the Lord in the morning and the evening and the easy to stick to meal plan that looks like it’s six things, but I distilled it down and say, oh, it was only five. ’cause I said, to make a long story short, what I started to realize is that people were getting very distracted by that progress picture.

Jessica: Right. 

Denise: And it doesn’t really help though. 

Jessica: That was like the one thing. Yeah. That was like, oh, I gotta do that. Picture. Picture. 

Denise: I noticed it caused a lot of mind drama and I thought, this isn’t helping her. Let’s take that out. We don’t need to do that. And so then we got down to, oh, and the other thing that I didn’t do with 75 hard, and we talked about it with our team, is do we wanna do, if you miss something that you have to start over.

And we’re like. I just don’t feel like that’s the spirit of this, because we want women to say yes and then to also learn how to coach themselves, to just pick themselves up the next day. Like it’s not a big deal. We’re not going for perfection here. We’re going for learning. We’re going for progress. We’re get to the end of the 63 days. And whatever you have meant to learn, you will have learned. 

And then a caveat to this is we have a lot of women who are. Say, oh, I don’t start at day one. ’cause we start at a group at a certain time and you guys, I’ll tell you, one of the most successful women who has ever been through this program and who has still worked through it, started in September, in that September group and reached out to me via email at like day 40.

And she’s listen, I didn’t start this thing. Can I still start? And I said, whether you surrender one day or 60 days or 40 days. You’re just learning a new lifestyle and it doesn’t stop at the end of the challenge, you just keep going. And she now, 6, 7, 8 months later.

Jessica: Wow.  That’s great.

Denise: Is still working because she didn’t let herself believe that, oh, I didn’t start on day one. I’m behind better. Just scrap me. Right, right. 

Jessica: Yes. 

Denise: And I wanted to share that story with you. So we went through, that was September. We ran it a holiday program. That’s fine. When we ran it for January, we had over a thousand women start. Of course. 

Jessica: That’s amazing. 

Denise: Isn’t that amazing? 

Jessica: Yes. 

Denise:  We had over a thousand women start and now when we ran it for Lent, we had over 2000 women. 

Jessica: Wow. 

Denise: So I know. I want you guys to.

Jessica: That’s awesome. 

Denise: So, by my sister. Listening to her hairdresser. 

Jessica: Yeah. Thank you Dwayne. We should put Dwayne on the phone.

Denise: And simply saying yes to this and taking 75 days for herself. I know that you can clearly see the chain of events that slowly, by slowly, by slowly, by slowly created this opportunity for women to say yes to themselves. And now, 63 surrendered is simply a way for people to stop the diet cycle, to learn how to do something different. Trust me. That’s all you guys want.

You just tell me what to do and it’s something different. You check in with the Lord in the morning and the evening. I’m gonna tell you guys, it’s two questions in the morning, three questions at night. You say the surrender novena every day, and then I teach you a different way of meal planning where you learn how to plan the food that you actually like in a way that it’s easy to stick to.

But you don’t even have to stick to it. If you decide to make a change, you just surrender the change. And so we’re just trying to teach you a new way to meal plan so that your brain sees it’s easy, that your brain sees it’s safe, and that if you make a change, it doesn’t mean you’re a failure. It means you’re a change. You just made a change. 

So I hope that. You get into the next round of 63 surrendered, we’re launching every single month. You can get in the next group. So if you go to weightlosswiththeHolyspirit.com, you can either get in the group now or you can get on the waiting list and be notified of when the next group is.

Before we get going, before I leave this, I want to tell you a few of the things that have happened for the women in 63, surrendered. One of the parts that it’s very important for me is to always make sure that I tell you what to focus on so you don’t get distracted, and you’re always going to want to fall back into a diet mentality.

But one of the things to focus on is not the scale. It gets very distracting and it causes a lot of energy directed in the wrong place. So we let you weigh in the beginning and we let you weigh in the end. 

Some of the amazing results that once we put the scale away and just follow these four simple steps is I’ve had women who say my sugar addiction is like totally gone, which is incredible to me. Women who say, I haven’t weighed a day and I’ve gone from size 30 to 24. 

Jessica: That’s incredible. 

Denise: That is incredible. 

Jessica: Yes. I love that. 

Denise: I was showing my sister some of the progress pictures that women have posted and they’ve lost. They were, it’s so cool. It’s so cool. But they’ve only lost two pounds, but their body is redistributed.

Jessica: Completely changed. It looked like she had lost more than two pounds. 

Denise:  Yeah and some of the most important ones are people feel so much. More calm around food. They’re eating the food that they love. They’re not feeling controlled by food anymore. There’s just so much food freedom, so much more peace in their life.

And I think whatever the Lord has in store for you, whether it is a physical miracle, whether it is just an emotional miracle, you will have some sort of profound change. And so I encourage you to say yes to you and to try us. Jessie, is there anything else that you want to say to our audience and maybe about trying something new that you’re scared about?

Jessica: I think, just do it. Don’t, don’t overthink it. Don’t, if you’re not happy, with where you are right now, and so why keep continuing? Day after day, and I still feel crappy. It’s still the same, so why not? Why not try something new and challenging and you never know where it can take you or change your life. You realize, wow, I had that in me. I didn’t realize it. 

Denise: Yeah. 

Jessica: I didn’t think I could, and I think with a support group with somebody like you, that’s so encouraging. I always find when I talk to you about things, I always feel encouraged. I never feel down about myself. I think that’s your gift, is that you are able to encourage people in a way that they’re like, oh. 

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Denise. Yeah, you’re right. yeah I didn’t do this wrong. I’m not doing it wrong. So thank you for that. And you bringing that to all of these women and lifting them up like that is a really great thing. So it’s, yeah. 

Denise: Thanks. 

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah, so just just do it. Just.

Denise: Yeah. But I wanna bring up one other thing that a lot of women, and this is the main reason that people don’t do what you just said, is they felt exactly like you did when Dwayne was saying, let’s do this. You did not want to start something and not finish it. ’cause you’d had that in your history. How did you overcome that? Or what would you say to the woman who’s I just don’t want to fail again? 

Jessica: Okay you, I’m not gonna say you’re not gonna fail. It’s gonna be fine. You’re gonna, it’s gonna, you’re gonna do it perfectly. It’s gonna be great. You’re gonna, you just are. Pick yourself up, you can try again. Try. Try again. I did have that person, Dwayne, which I think these women have you and their whole community Yeah. 

Denise: And their whole community. 

Jessica: Yeah. I had Dwayne and we have a history of challenges here and there that he would put in front of me. You can’t think I have this coming up so I can’t do it right now. So you will find a way if it’s important. To you if you’re important. And make yourself. Important enough. To do this, put yourself first. 

Stop putting, my kids have this because you’ll, you will show, you’ll still show up for your kids. You will still show up for your family. ’cause that’s what women do, women are able to do. That’s true. Many things. And still give, practically 100%, but you have to fill yourself, your own cup first because if you’re empty, you have nothing to give your family either. 

You have to do something for yourself that’s going to make you feel good about yourself. Because otherwise if you don’t feel good you, you have nothing to give your loved ones. It’s going to. 

Denise: Yeah. I really find that so many women, especially in the Catholic circle, to really use that word, sacrifice. Sacrifice, sacrifice, and you, I’m all on board for true sacrifice, but so often, and I found myself doing this years and years ago, is I used the word sacrifice, but for the truth was self neglect.

Jessica: Yeah. 

Denise: Oh, I’m gonna do it for everybody else, right? But the truth is, I just didn’t wanna take care of myself. Or maybe I just didn’t know how to, or I thought it was.

Jessica:  Right. I had so many people, what are you. I forget which friend it was that would ask me, how are you taking care of yourself? What are you doing for yourself? I’m like, I took a shower. 

Denise: I know exactly.

Jessica: I’m like, I’m trying to think. I’m like, oh, I got my hair done. I don’t know. How am I taking care of myself? I guess I’m not, I don’t. So this is definitely a way that, it’s, you are doing it for yourself, you’re doing it for your health, you’re doing it for your mental wellbeing. You have to.

Denise: Looking back now, aside from being a good example for your kids, how did you show up differently and how did that benefit from your family, regardless of if they saw you do the challenge or not? Just how were you a different person? 

Jessica: Oh, that’s a hard question because it’s, so sometimes I think these, there’s like some nuanced things that you, maybe you don’t even realize that you’ve changed or I don’t know. That’s hard.

Denise: No. Okay. I think what I’m trying to get at is once you feel accomplished at something, and once you probably got through your second workout of the day, you were like, oh yeah. Once you got that gallon of water in, like you just have this uplifting where you just feel like. I don’t know. Super accomplished.

Jessica: Yeah. 

Denise: No I certainly did. And sometimes.

Jessica: And you do go through, oh my gosh, thank God I got that over with. Yeah. The, especially the water. Really, the water was hard. 

Denise: Yeah. Okay. 

Jessica: But it was definitely a feeling of wow, I did this. I got, and just encouraging your kids to. Whatever the challenges you can do this, you can work, you’ll find a way, you’ll, you gotta get it done. You can’t let yourself down. You made a commitment. It’s, yeah. 

Denise: Finally, I’d like to end with, you said, we were talking about our favorite quotes on. Overcoming what can be perceived as failure or wanting to give up. And I said some of the ones that I had seen were things like, you don’t fail. It can just be a pause. It’s okay to not pressure myself today. It can be a pause.  But you said your favorite is.

Jessica:  I like the one. You’re not starting from scratch. You are starting from experience. 

Denise: Yeah. I love that too. I think those are the perfect words to end this podcast. So you are not starting from scratch. You are starting from experience where you are right now has prepared you to be here. It is not an accident that you’re hearing this, it is not an accident that whatever’s stirring in your heart right now is stirring you. You can trust that.

Jessica: Especially in this challenge, if they go through a day where you’re like, oh, I messed up on my meal. I didn’t get my 30 minute workout and I didn’t,  instead of giving up the next day, you’re, again, you’re not starting from scratch. You’re starting experience. You can start again and you’re not relearning everything, so I like that quote. 

Denise: I love that we always tell people that. Say something happens, you overeat. And I’m like, that’s amazing. Now you know, now we have tools to look at. What to solve for. Now we have information. You never have to overeat like that again, because now you have a different perspective.  So you are not starting from scratch. You are starting from experience. So thank you so much, Jessica. 

Jessica: Thank you. Of course. 

Denise:  It’s so awesome. 

Jessica: We’re hugging right now. 

Denise: We are. You can’t see us. And our mom has been an awesome audience. You wanna say goodbye? 

Denise and Jessica’s Mom: Goodbye everyone. And I am so proud of my two girls. I love them so much. 

Denise: We love you too. All right, everybody. Have a blessed day.