What’s the key to tried and true weight loss? For many women, that question is continually unanswered, and only leads to more questions, frustration and discouragement. Have you ever been there?
Diet options are a-plenty, but long term diet success stories aren’t always as plentiful.
According to statisticbrain.com, the #1 annual New Year’s resolution is to lose weight and eat healthier. The #2 resolution is for one to make life improvements. Yet, more than 21% of the resolvers will drop off the bandwagon after the first week! And by the sixth month, only an estimated 44% are still on target.
Why? Maybe at the six month mark, the other 66% no longer feel a need to try and lose weight or eat better. Or maybe those 66% just think it’s not possible.
Cathy Morenzie believes it is possible, and not only weight loss and better eating choices, but a renewed life, overall. Who is Cathy Morenzie? We, at TV-44, discovered Cathy via a simple internet search. Our initial goal was to find healthy meal options, and we desired to find a faith based focus as well, but it appears we were led to so much more.
Cathy Morenzie is the founder of Healthy By Design. She is “ a rational, disciplined, faith-filled, personal trainer who struggled with [her] weight, with emotional eating, self-doubt and low self-esteem.” (cathymorenzie.com) She’s also a self proclaimed chocoholic and one who needs continual accountability. Sound familiar? Cathy, in many ways, is just like you or me.
“I tried to change just about everything about myself for much of my life so I know what it’s like to feel stuck.” Cathy says on her website, cathymorenzie.com.
She has spent years as a personal trainer, as well as an entire lifetime as a woman trying to maintain her own healthy weight and lifestyle. Add in prayer and seeking God’s direction, and the result is: a system designed to do more than just guide a person lose inches or curb hunger. Her system is intended to restore, renew, and replenish a woman closer to wholeness.
“I think of health as in the category of finances, relationships, and other things God has given us to take care of…to fulfil,” she recently shared with me during a phone interview. “It’s like the scripture of the talents. How we manage these talents will affect our entire lives. I see health as a talent. You might be overweight not just because you eat too much, but because there is something deeper than that. “
“When it comes to weight, or exercise, you might ask yourself, ‘Why can they do it, but I can’t?’ Until you address that question, it’s easy to just keep going around the same mountain over and over again. But there is something God wants us to understand in the process. Actual exercise – health – is a representation of something deeper going on.”
Cathy says she likes to use the analogy of a car. When the check engine light appears on the dashboard, it’s a sign to us that there is something wrong inside the car. Health issues in our lives are like a check engine warning light, a message to us that something is “off” and we need to address it properly.
So what is the proper way to address it? It takes at least 21 days to establish a habit. Cathy offers a Healthy by Design program called the 21 Day Challenge, a no cost opportunity that offers realistic health goals, daily encouragement, easy to follow tips, a friendly environment, as well as a bit of humor.
Humor? Yes, humor. Laughter is a healer in itself!. Check out Cathy’s 21 Day Challenge – Day 1 – video. You’re sure to laugh, and then you just might get to that “a ha” moment.
So, did you see it? The “a-ha” moment? That a-ha moment is guidance by the Holy Spirit.
Cathy believes the first step toward success of any kind is to get clear on your vision. “Understand who God has called you to be. When God looks at you, what does He see?” she says. “Because if you’re not clear on where you want to go, how are you going to get there? That’s why we [ladies] try so many routes; we don’t always know where we want to go. So that is the first step, getting clear on your vision.”
But here’s the good news. You don’t have to feel alone while walking this journey. My first experience with Cathy’s plan was through her book, Healthy By Design, Weight Loss, God’s Way. This is a goal setting / encouragement book / Bible study all in one. It’s a 21-day devotional/study guide designed to assisting you in establishing that vision, and then not losing it.
And it doesn’t stop there. There are videos and blog posts available for each day of the challenge, and a network of women going through the same journey with you via a facebook page.
Cathy also offers Healthy By Design: 21 day meal plan cookbook, and Reflections of God’s Love, a 21 Day Devotional.
“Health is the topic, but really, it’s life,” Cathy says.
“My commitment to the world is to help women cut through all the weight loss confusion and conflicting information, so they can understand how to permanently lose weight. I help you move past the fears, the lies, and the insecurities, that stop you from losing weight, and show you a simple, Christ-centered, common sense approach to permanent weight loss.”
Information about all of this, and much more, can be found at Cathy Morenzie’s Healthy By Design website: cathymorenzie.com.
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