So I’m gonna give you that tool. It’s a few questions that I ask myself that you can ask yourself. And then I want to share with you my actual answers. This is one of the steps of the process in my Slimer Summers toolkit. 

It’s a fun little toolkit that you can have that will really help you prevent lots of sabotage this summer where you can learn how to eat your favorite foods without guilt or fear of overeating. The toolkit has so many great things in it that will help you retrain your brain to be able to think like a naturally thin woman. 

So naturally thin women. Stop eating when they’re full. Naturally thin women allow themselves to eat their favorite foods. Naturally thin women don’t feel pressure from food pushers, and that’s actually one of my favorite parts of this toolkit is I give you 50 responses to how to handle food pushers. I also give you 50 ways to respond to someone saying, I made this just for you. Okay, so that’s my little plug for the toolkit. Get the toolkit. The link is in the description. 

Now, before I get to the tool that I want to review with you today, which is essentially like your game plan review, I wanna tell you one other thing in May I want to tell you about how my last six weeks have been and what I did to level up my self-care, knowing that these six weeks would be very busy. A very full, let’s say.

So in the last six or seven weeks, I have hosted two track dinners for my son’s track team. I had my in-laws visit for five nights. Included in that was hosting Mother’s Day. I ran a 10 K with my husband, which you guys heard about in my podcast. 

I had kept up all of my exercising. I was getting my son to volleyball games on Saturday mornings at 7:00 AM attending volleyball games in the evening. Attending all day Saturday volleyball games. Drove my son to a concert on a Monday night in downtown Chicago. Didn’t get home till nearly midnight.

On a Monday night. I am planning a shower with my friend. I spent three nights at my parents’ house, picked my sister up from the airport and drove four and a half hours to stay with them. And then drove four and a half hours back, dropped off at the airport. So I was away from home for four whole days there. And then my son graduated high school, my other son finished school.

And after returning home from my parents, I was home for one week and then we left for one week in Mexico. So of the last seven weeks, two of those weeks, I was gone, not at home. And of those, one of the weeks my in-laws were here. And I say that to just let you know, this was definitely out of the ordinary for me.

And because it was out of the ordinary, I challenged myself when we started the May 63 surrendered group to do it with them, a hundred percent, do it with them  and record. I made short videos of me doing the morning connect in the evening connect. 

So every day I would say, this is what I wrote down in the morning, and this is what I wrote down in the evening. Just today is day 28. Now I’m just counting for, we do a whole week of prep. So I started my recordings on the actual day of doing the daily practice and we’re on day 28 today.

And I wanted to do that really to show everyone that  no matter who’s in my house, no matter where I wake up, whether it’s in my bed. Or in this country or a different country, I can do the 63 surrendered process. I can do the surrendered method. I can wake up, I can connect with the Lord. I can say my surrender novena. I can make my easy to stick to meal plan, and then I can review it at night. 

And guess what? Sometimes I review it the following morning. Sometimes my easy to stick to meal plan was very specific. Sometimes it was very loose with lots of options. Sometimes I surrendered all my changes and sometimes I haven’t surrendered them. But the point is that this process isn’t meant to be done perfectly. It is simply meant to be a daily commitment.

And that’s my plug for this can literally happen for any person. And I’m just proving that to myself. I wanted to do it as a way to show myself and anyone that there is zero excuse to not do a 63 surrendered challenge. 

So if you’d like to get into our next round of 63 surrendered. If the doors are open, hop over to weightlosswiththeholyspirit.com/ 63surrendered, and we might have our doors open, but if you’re hearing this and our doors are closed, you can simply get on the wait list too.

Okay, friends, are you ready? Let’s really dive into this review. I wanna go through the questions first, you can write them down and then I’ll tell you my actual experience vacationing as a woman that follows the surrendered method. Who lives this way of life? Who pursues freedom over control over food. I just wanna be totally detached. I just want to enjoy my food and then move on with life. 

All right, so the questions that you’ll ask yourself after you make a game plan or after you attend an event or really anything in your life are what went well? The second question is, where do you feel peace or freedom around food? What moments did you notice that you felt satisfied and proud?

Number three, where did it feel hard or tense? Did you feel moments of pressure or temptation or old habits? The next one, did anything surprise you about how you felt or how you acted? What new awareness did you have? Unexpected reactions or shifts in your thinking? What thoughts did you practice that helped you stay connected to God? 

What truths verses or prayers anchored you? What might you want to tweak or try differently next time? What small adjustments would you like to make to increase peace? Presence or success. And then finally, write a short prayer of gratitude or surrender to thank the Lord and invite him into your next step, to the next event, to the next vacation.

Okay, so if you have any interest, you can listen to my answers. I think it will bring you so much peace and clarity and help you see how this way of living is truly a way of living, intentionally of living aligned with the Lord. It isn’t white knuckling or being afraid of every bite, watching every morsel you eat or having the, I’m on vacation. I can eat all the things and feel horrible and then come home and restrict for two weeks. It’s just not like that. 

And PS I did come home and I stepped on the scale ‘ cause this is my work and I use it as an experiment. My weight was up 0.6 pounds from when I left, which makes total sense. Of course, it’s gonna be up just a titch, I ate different foods than I normally do, but the best part of my weight being up was that it didn’t mean anything. I just felt so good on vacation. 

And so now let me review my vacation with you using those questions. So what went well, and I said so, so many things. I made a game plan. I did my morning and evening review every day. I said the surrender novena. I made an easy to stick to a meal plan, somewhat   even.  If it was simply practicing intentional thought that I created from making my game plan. 

I have many podcasts on the game plan and one of the parts of the game plan is for you to look at what are some sabotaging things that can happen in this event and I just use vacation as the event. How have I handled that in the past? And then how would I like to handle it going forward? 

And I said one of the sabotaging things that has happened to me in the past is the whole, it’s on vacation. I’m on vacation, it doesn’t matter mindset. Or I’ll put food on my plate and be like, oh, it’s all mine. And we were all inclusive, so there were at least one buffet meal a day, so it wasn’t plated. 

And so that could have posed a problem for me. But by doing this game plan by. Really leaning into what do I really want? I realized I just wanted freedom, and so doing some writing, I came up with an intentional thought that was just amazing, and I used chat GPT to help me with this. 

But the intentional thought that really helped me was stopping is a privilege. Like stopping eating is a privilege. Overeating is a prison. And I just realized, you know what? It is a privilege to be able to stop. That is the gift I give to me and overeating that whole, it’s mine. I’m on vacation. That doesn’t feel good anymore. That’s a prison. 

What else went well is letting myself experiment with new foods and new desserts. You guys, I haven’t eaten this many desserts in years since I came into food recovery and I just wasn’t afraid of it this time, I wasn’t afraid the wheels would fall off the bus. And I’ll tell you, I have been afraid of desserts in the past.

But I recognized that that wasn’t a truth, that I could experiment, that I could try things. You’ll hear more about that coming up. I allowed myself to try whatever I wanted to and I didn’t pressure myself to finish food on my plate that I didn’t want. I allowed myself to take as much food as I wanted of desserts that I wanted. But I allowed myself to put aside what I didn’t like. 

So I would take a bite, and if I didn’t like it, I would put it aside and then I could decide, well, what of this do I want to keep? What would I feel good finishing? I was mindful of portions and of taking things. When I felt it might be too much. So I would notice, oh, that feels like it’s a little too much on my plate. 

So I talk in our community a lot about that honest and moderate portion. I allowed the Holy Spirit to nudge me when I was done. This was new. This felt so amazing. And I would pause if I wanted to keep eating and ask myself. Would this make me feel better or worse? It was nearly a palatable nudge when I was done and I could notice my brain wanting to say, eat more, but I would pause and check in. Why will this make me feel better?

And all I have to do, I have this thing I do at the end of a meal I put all of my utensils to the right hand side. The handles are sticking off, and then the utensil part, the fork, the knife, the spoon are on the plate. And that has just been one thing that once I do that, my meal is over. I don’t pick, my meal is over.

I am done eating. I can sit at the table, I can be in conversation, but eating food is over. Oh, it’s just a really beautiful signal to my brain that says that part is complete. I notice that I have a habit of speeding up when my meal is nearing the end. Isn’t that interesting? I noticed that. I said, this is a cue to slow down and check in with myself.

So I start a meal slow, and then I can notice myself speed up towards the end. And just noticing, I don’t have to evaluate it, dive into it unless I want to, but it was a pattern that I noticed and because of the.bility to notice things and be curious. Instead of being judgmental, I could then have the power to decide, do I wanna keep going faster?

Maybe I’ll slow down, check in, what’s going on with me? So a few other things that went well as I ate slowly. Most of the time. I enjoyed long lunches with my boys. And my husband sat around chatting long after our meals were finished. It was lovely, and I learned some new travel meals that went really well.

Okay, where did I feel at peace or freedom around food? Where did I notice moments where I felt satisfied and proud? I said, Ugh. I felt this, especially when honoring the nudge of the Holy Spirit and allowing the urge to eat more to be there. Notice that my brain wanted to offer me, Hey, we can keep eating more.

But I followed the Lord’s prompting instead. That just feels so freeing. So freeing. Another place I felt free was getting things to try. Like desserts or any other foods that were on the buffet and not pressuring myself to eat it. If I didn’t love it, I would allow myself to put food on my plate and not eat it.

That was very freeing for me, not feeling controlled by food, being on my plate or allowing thoughts like, oh, I’m wasting food, or I should finish it, or It’s all mine. It’s interesting. I have that thought. It’s all mine. It’s all on my plate. It’s mine. I get to have it, and that’s why I realized that, although that sounds like a great belief, that really makes me feel controlled by the food and I don’t like that.

Another way I felt free around food was making a game plan. I was so proud of myself. Where did it feel hard or tense? This is the next question. Were there moments of pressure, temptation, or old habits? I say yes. I noticed old thoughts of clean my plate the very first night. We went to the buffet the first night, and I didn’t want that to continue for our entire trip.

So the next morning I made a game plan. Yes, folks. I did not make a game plan until I got on vacation, but it just needed to be that way where I saw myself do something that I did not want to continue on that trip. I noticed that going to a buffet and getting a plate right away didn’t feel good.

I didn’t like walking in. Putting our stuff down at the table and getting a plate. So I decided to sit down, order my drink, and then I came up with a new protocol. I would walk around the entire buffet, just sort of perusing at the selection, knowing that the Lord would prompt me to what he wanted me to eat.

And by doing that very calmly and open, I could see, oh, there’s that. Oh, there’s that. And then I would say, oh my gosh, no there’s that. And what’s very interesting is without a calm brain that can feel overwhelming. And I could feel almost like it’s consumed by all the choices, and I should have all the choices.

But this was a different experience for me. This was pausing, saying, Lord, what do we want? What do you want me to have? I could just check. In some days I felt like the salad that I really enjoyed, some days I felt like a big plate. Of a variety of meats. Some days I like to have my steamed broccoli that they had there. It was grilled broccoli. It was so good with eggplant.

And then sometimes that’s just not what I wanted. I could just detect what I wanted. It became a very calm, steak’s not high. This is just one meal. What will you enjoy? I knew I enjoyed savory foods, but I don’t like a lot of food. When I eat a lot of food, I feel very heavy and because many times we were going straight to the pool, I didn’t wanna feel heavy, but I did wanna feel satisfied and savory food. I love that. 

Other things that I noticed was that I had some should thinking regarding, oh I shouldn’t eat that. Or especially like around dressings or higher fat foods. And then I would remind my brain, it doesn’t matter what I eat, I just want peace with my food. I just wanna enjoy it. I just wanna savor it and I wanna stop it enough.

That was my main goal on this trip, was to get food that I enjoy. And stop when I’ve had enough. And that’s really where I’m noticing I feel my best. I feel my best, not necessarily the specific foods that I’m eating, but in the amount not overeating them. And perhaps it’s just because I really classify myself as a volume eater where it doesn’t really matter what kind of food that I’m eating, I can. Emotionally eat, and I have bags of baby carrots. 

So it’s more the volume of food that gives me that comfort. So for me, being able to stop at enough is just food freedom. And then one night I noticed some old thoughts that came up. My son had gotten up to leave and I had the thought, oh I wanna take that food off his plate. There was something specific, it was some sort of dessert that looked like a tart or something. 

And I was gonna take it off his plate when he left. And I was like, whoa, Denise, that’s not yours. One of my chaos eating behaviors is eating off other people’s plates. And so I just said to myself, Denise, if you want that, just go back to the buffet and get it. And then I realized, no, that’s an old thought. 

So my son left, then my husband left. And I was sitting there all by myself. I was finishing my dessert and I had the thought, you know what, Denise, you can go back and get more. Nobody’s here. And I noticed that thought. Oh wow, that’s old. I remember thinking that. So my brain knew that thought. But it’s just a habit loop. It’s just a brain thought loop.

And I knew I would not feel good going back to get more. My husband was going to go watch the show and at that point I was going to go back to the room by myself and I thought, well, when we get back to the room, we can have another piece of our sugar free candy if we want. Because that’s one of the things that I’ve been planning two pieces of my Sugar Free candy during the 63 Surrender Journey.

You guys, I got out of the buffet and waited out there was my husband and I was like, oh, I thought you were gonna go see the show. And he is like, oh, it doesn’t really interest me. And I could tell my brain was throwing a tantrum, like, oh no, he’s gonna come back to the room with me and I won’t be able to eat my candy. 

And I just thought, you know what, Lord? You’re really taking care of me here. You really are. And I think that’s just so beautiful when we can see the Lord’s hand and protecting us. So good. And I just have to tell you, I was so tired that day, so, so tired. I couldn’t wait to sleep and just. I think it’s interesting, and I want you to know that when we are fatigued, our brain will go back to these default thoughts sometimes. 

And just recognizing that we don’t have to follow our thoughts, that we can have them. But doing this review helped me see that. All right, so did anything surprise me about how I felt or acted? Were there any new awarenesses or unexpected reactions or shifts? And I said, yes. I noticed that I didn’t like having ice cream in the afternoon one day, and then dessert after dinner. 

And then that day I also had one of the virgin pina colada. So what I noticed is I did not like having three sugary things in one day. That was way too much for me in one day. In fact, that was the day that I ended up having all those old thoughts. Was there a connection? I dunno, maybe. I just did not feel like that was really kind to my body. My body didn’t feel good. I didn’t like the way my brain was thinking. 

And what’s so amazing you guys is when I did this review, I realized it wasn’t about the calories. It wasn’t about the sugar, it was about honoring how my body felt. I was so exhausted that night. That was wonderful. I loved noticing like, Hey I don’t wanna do that again. That’s just not what I wanna do. For me.

Another new awareness was that I felt so committed to not overeating, and I wanted freedom from feeling controlled by food more than anything. More than anything, I have to tell you, this was a new level of self-care for me. This was a new awareness, a new commitment.

And I don’t think I could have experienced that without going on this vacation and being presented with so many options for eating. I’m just so grateful for this. Another new awareness, I said I felt absolutely amazing in my body, totally free from so many body image issues. 

You guys. I think I know that the body that I’m currently in is not the thinnest body I’ve ever been in, and I think at different times in my life I would’ve just pinched and poked and squeezed and put my swimsuit on and looked in the mirror in 40 different angles.

I didn’t do that this vacation. I even went swimming after meals. I was in my swimsuit. It was just crazy how free I felt. I didn’t compulsively mirror check. I want freedom and to feel good about the way I treat myself. That is what I want more than anything. And honestly, when I treat myself well, when I care for myself and what I mean by that.

It is when I allow myself to enjoy exercise. But more important than that, when I allow myself to eat food that I enjoy and to stop and not be overstuffed, I feel so much confidence in my body. It’s just incredible. It really helps me. 

Okay. What thoughts helped you stay connected to God? What truths, verses, or prayers anchored me? Freedom through living in his will really helped me that I can have freedom by savoring what God wants, by savoring what God wants.

Oh, that just feels so good. I love the word freedom. Another phrase that helped me was stopping as a privilege over eating is a prison. Another phrase that helped me was. Connecting with the Lord in my interior and saying, Lord, you show me. Show me what you want. 

So what might I try or tweak differently? What small adjustments would I like to make to increase peace, presence, and success? I said, gosh, I think I would possibly like to add, keeping track of things I’m grateful for after each meal. Like, oh Lord. Thank you for your nudge. Oh Lord. Thank you for this specific food. Oh Lord, thank you for this conversation.

I think that that would bring a level of awareness of the entire experience of the meal, that in addition to the food or the amount of the food, I think that would be cool. 

I also think I would like to make a game plan ahead of time. Really focusing on the fears and the sabotaging behaviors that I’ve experienced in the past so that I could have more time to think about it so that I could feel even more prepared just to have that more conversation with the Lord. I think that would be fun. 

Then finally, I wrote a prayer. To the Lord, thanking him and inviting him in, and this is what I wrote. I said, Lord, wow, this was really a turning point for me. I feel so, so grateful for what you revealed to me, because what I really want, which is what you really want from me, is total freedom, total detachment.

What I want is to live, to have life between meals, a rich, vibrant, connected. Fully connected with you, fully guided by you, life fully lived with you. I want that peace in all areas of my life, especially with my food. I don’t want anything to come between us. Lord, no distractions, no chaos. I want to, want nothing more than what you want.

Thank you for this trip and what you reveal during the many opportunities to practice this next level with you and my next level of connection with you. Thank you, Lord. I love you. 

So I hope this has been helpful for you. Knowing that you can review your game plan and part of reviewing your game plan just brings so much richness, so much awareness, so much progress. And if you would like to pick up the entire toolkit, just go into the description and click the link. 

All right, everybody. Have a blessed day.