As someone who’s been a yo-yo dieter my entire life, I’ve tried every program imaginable. I count my calories daily, I’ve lost weight, gained it back, and spent decades riding that exhausting rollercoaster. So, when I sat down with Dr. Laurette Willis for my podcast, I knew I was in for something different. And I was right.
Dr. Laurette isn’t just another weight loss coach. As a certified life coach, cognitive behavioral therapist, and ordained minister, she’s created something I’d never encountered before: a program that weaves together biblical truth with neuroscience. For someone like me who’s struggled with both weight and mental health issues, her approach felt like the missing link I’d been searching for.
The Problem with Diet Culture
“A lot of people look at weight loss just from the physical standpoint,” Dr. Laurette explained early in our conversation. “And that’s the diet mentality. That’s where diet trauma comes in. That’s where the yo-yos come in.”
She hit the nail on the head. I’ve done that for decades myself. But as she pointed out, “we’re not dealing with the reason why we’re using food improperly for comfort in the first place.”
This resonated deeply with me. How many times have I finished a diet feeling triumphant, only to find myself right back where I started because I never addressed the underlying reasons? Dr. Laurette’s insight cut through years of frustration: “Let’s look at the reasons why we go to the comfort food instead of to the comforter.”
Understanding the Whole Person: Spirit, Soul, and Body
One of the most powerful concepts Dr. Laurette shared was viewing ourselves as complete beings, not just bodies that need fixing. Drawing from Genesis 1:26-27, she explained we are “spirit, made in the image of God,” we “have a soul—your mind, will and emotions,” and we “live in a body, your earth suit, the temple of the Holy Spirit.”
This understanding, she noted, comes directly from 1 Thessalonians 5:23, where Paul prays “your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“If you want to make a difference on the outside,” Dr. Laurette emphasized, “we want to do it from the inside first.”
The Balance Between Faith and Science
I shared with Dr. Laurette about my mother, who was wonderfully spiritual and charismatic but relied more on the spiritual side of things. She would read books advocating prayer and faith, and less on the cognitive, psychological approach. I’ve learned through my own journey that we need both.
Dr. Laurette confirmed this beautifully: “This is where a lot of believers have missed it.” She explained that many Christians love the Lord, love the Word, love prayer and church, and “we got the love walk down.” But the question remains: “Why do I keep going around this same mountain again and again and again? And that’s because the brain element is missing.”
As a cognitive behavioral therapist, she looks for ways to “renew the mind on the Word of God and then retrain the brain using neuroscience principles and techniques based on scripture.”
What sets her approach apart is her commitment to truth. “If I don’t see a correlation in the Word of God in scripture, I don’t use it,” she said, “because then it’s not going to be founded on truth.”
Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Science
I love how Dr. Laurette combines wisdom that’s thousands of years old with what we’ve learned through scientific research. As I mentioned in our conversation, we’re taking the incredible wisdom that has lasted millennia and bringing it together with neuroscience discoveries.
Her approach is grounded in Romans 12:2: “Don’t be conformed to this world, the world’s way of doing things, but be transformed. Your whole life can be transformed how? By the renewing of your mind... on the Word of the living God.”
The goal, as she puts it: “We want you to be healthy, fit, and free. Don’t diet, live it. It has to be something you can live one day at a time.”
The Power of Self-Talk and Neural Pathways
One of the most practical insights Dr. Laurette shared involved understanding how our brains actually work. She explained that when we repeatedly tell ourselves negative things—”I can’t do this,” “I always fail,” “I’m not good enough”—we’re literally creating neural pathways in our brains.
“We have to go to what is it that we’re saying to ourselves,” she explained. Our thoughts become neural pathways that get reinforced every time we think them, eventually becoming what neuroscientists call a “superhighway” in our brains.
The solution? Interrupting those patterns and creating new ones based on God’s truth. She uses techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy combined with Scripture to help people literally retrain their brains while renewing their minds.
Breaking Free from Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
Dr. Laurette shared a concept that stopped me in my tracks: the self-fulfilling prophecy. “If you keep saying, ‘I can’t lose weight, I can’t lose weight,’ guess what? You’re creating a self-fulfilling prophecy,” she explained. “You’re right. You can’t lose weight... because you said so.”
This isn’t just positive thinking—it’s about aligning our thoughts with truth. As she pointed out, Scripture tells us life and death are in the power of the tongue. “What you’re saying, you’re creating,” she said. “Your words have creative power.”
The transformation comes from replacing those lies with God’s truth, using what Dr. Laurette calls “Holy Ghost brainwashing—washing with the water of the Word.”
Practical Tools for Transformation
Dr. Laurette offers two free resources that listeners can access:
The Faith-Fueled Weight Loss Blueprint is available at christianweightlosskit.com. This resource addresses the weight loss journey from a faith-based perspective.
The Christian Meditation Kit can be found at ChristianMeditationKit.com, where Dr. Laurette teaches three steps to meditate on the Word of God in a moment. As she describes it, this practice helps you “start thinking differently, feeling, walking in joy and peace.”
My Personal Takeaway
This conversation with Dr. Laurette felt like coming home to something I’d been searching for my entire life. Here was someone who understood that we can’t separate our spiritual lives from our physical and mental health. We need both the ancient wisdom of Scripture and the insights of modern neuroscience.
Her approach isn’t about willpower or another restrictive diet. It’s about transformation from the inside out, addressing the real reasons we turn to food for comfort instead of turning to the Comforter.
As someone who’s struggled with weight and mental health issues, I found Dr. Laurette’s compassionate, science-grounded, Scripture-based approach refreshing and hopeful. She’s not just helping people lose weight—she’s helping them find freedom.
About Dr. Laurette Willis:
Dr. Laurette Willis is a Certified Life Coach, Cognitive Behavioral Therapist, and ordained minister who has spent over 20 years helping believers transform their lives. She is the creator of the Weight Loss Without Willpower program and founder of Praise Moves Fitness Ministry. Having overcome her own struggles with emotional eating, she now helps women walk in freedom through her faith-based, brain-renewing techniques that combine biblical truth with neuroscience.
You can learn more about Dr. Laurette’s work at drlaurette.net or connect with her on LinkedIn.
This conversation was part of The John Passadino Show, available on all major podcast platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Audible, Substack, and YouTube. For more information and resources, visit the show’s website at johnpwrites.com.
