93. The 3 Biggest Weight Loss Lessons That Had Nothing to Do With Food

In this powerful episode, Dr. Stacy Heimburger opens up about the real breakthroughs that helped her lose 90 pounds — and not one of them was about cutting carbs or counting calories. Instead, it all came down to mindset.

If you’ve ever felt like you know what to do but can’t seem to follow through, this one’s for you. Dr. Stacy shares the top 3 unexpected mindset shifts that helped her stay consistent, break free from shame cycles, and finally feel in control of her weight — and her life.

You’ll Learn:
 ✅ Why planning isn’t punishment — it’s the highest form of self-care
 ✅ The #1 question that flipped her motivation switch
 ✅ How negative self-talk was sabotaging every weight loss attempt
 ✅ Simple ways to shift your internal dialogue (without becoming a motivational speaker)
 ✅ A quick planning tip that takes 5 minutes and changes your whole week

Reflection Prompt:

“Which one of these lessons resonates with you the most? What would it look like to practice just one this week?”

Free 2-Pound Plan Call!
Want to jump start your weight loss? Schedule a free call where Dr. Stacy Heimburger will work with you to create a personalized plan to lose 2 pounds in one week, factoring in your unique circumstances, challenges, and aspirations. Schedule now! www.sugarfreemd.com/2pound

This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. I'm Dr. Stacy Heimburger, and this is Weight Loss Made Simple.

Today, I wanna talk about my biggest breakthroughs in my 90-pound weight loss journey — and none of them happened in the kitchen. They all happened in my mindset. I wanna share the top three that were a little unexpected but really changed everything.

So if you're expecting this to be "cut carbs" or "count calories" or something like that — that’s not what it's gonna be about. I wanna tell you what changed for me that I continue to implement in all different areas of my life. And weight loss was kind of just the cherry on top, really.

So let’s get into it. Let's talk about it.

I’ve worked with so many women, and while I am so happy to give tactical tips and tricks and give you specific advice about food and nutrition, really, it all starts with our mindset.

And the first one for me was this idea of planning — and planning being self-care. So, lesson number one: planning is not punishment. Planning is self-care. It is a love letter to your future self.

Okay, so I first started planning dinners because I really felt like I would do fine all day long. And I think these three lessons apply to any food plan that you choose, right? We’re so inundated with so many rules. So I think these three mindset shifts can work with any food plan you want. These are gonna be the key to successful long-term weight loss.

So number one is: planning as self-care. I used to plan dinners. When I decided I wanted to give up sugar — because I wanted to be less hungry and thought, “Let’s try it, let’s see” — I sat down with my husband and came up with like 15 dinners that were easy, fast, and no sugar or low sugar — mostly protein and veg.

We just recycled those. I actually printed out a calendar and wrote them on there. I wrote days for leftovers.

These are the things I learned: at first, I didn’t leave room for leftovers. Now I know I need to leave room for leftovers. And the kids weren’t even involved in a lot of stuff, so there weren’t typically a lot of obstacles. But now when I do this, I know the obstacles.

So I will plan dinners knowing that we’ve got a sports game one night, or we’re going to be out one night, or we have some other plans. I sort of sketch in a Monday through Friday of generally what I think we’re going to have. Then I try and cook something we can eat all weekend.

I try and plan those out, and then I look for any obstacles. Like — does someone have a late meeting? Am I going to be at the hospital late? Do the kids have a game? Whatever.

Then I play it like a little board game, right? I just shuffle all the pieces around so that it makes sense. I’m not going to pick something that takes a long time to cook on a day that I’m going to be at the hospital late and Quad’s going to be at work late — because neither of us will be home to cook it. That’s not gonna work, right?

That was one of the pitfalls of when you’re planning and things don’t go as planned. You try and anticipate as many obstacles as you can. So I would try and anticipate and then move it around.

The other thing I did in our planning phase was figure out: when the plan goes wrong, what are the backup options? What are the safety nets?

That meant taking a look around: what type of backup meals could I have? Could I have something in the freezer that’s ready to go? Where could we get takeout from? Where could we get grab-and-go?

This really made such a difference. I really think this was the number one reason why I started to see real weight loss happen — because the consistency at the end of the day was what was missing.

And I think that’s what’s missing for most people. We get so beat up by our day — frustrated, tired, stressed, so many feelings — that dinner is the one that breaks the camel’s back. It's like: “Don’t ask me what’s for dinner — just order something.”

Or: “I’m gonna eat what I planned, but I’m gonna eat too much of it.” Or: “I’m gonna pair that with two glasses of wine because my day has been so bad.”

So I really started to feel like these planned dinners — especially when it was one where I knew I was gonna be working late but Quad was gonna be home — I could say: “You're in charge of cooking this meal.” I would just write it on the calendar — literally, “You're cooking this night and here’s what we’re having.”

Then I’d get home and it would be done. It was such a relief. It was so nice.

I don’t know who said it to me — maybe another coach — but it was like, I had taken care of myself already. Me now, knew future me was gonna have a shitty day at some point — and I could take care of her now by planning a dinner that would be ready.

Either by putting it in the freezer, or having someone else cook it, or by knowing what my takeout options are. I could give this love letter to myself by taking care of me, even on my worst day, in just a few minutes of planning.

What I also learned about planning is this: our brain wants to tell us that it’s going to take so long — and it literally takes less than five minutes to run through your head and figure out three to four meals to make in a week.

If you have leftovers, that’s all you really need — three or four. You don’t need seven. Your brain wants to say you need seven. You do not.

There’s always going to be a leftover day. So we need three or four. And if we’re doing Taco Tuesday — now we’re down to needing two or three.

Our brain wants to make it really difficult. But it’s really, really not that hard.

When you start with the idea that food does not need to be overly exciting — you don’t need to be making new meals every night — you can just recycle your favorites for now.

While you’re trying to lose a couple pounds, while you're re-establishing a healthy routine, while you're doing this — you don’t need to be eating something different every night of the week.

You can recycle, reuse, and repeat meals — and it's fine and good and easy.

Then grocery shopping becomes easier, cooking becomes easier, cleanup becomes easier — and it all just becomes easy.

We don’t have to overhaul our whole life for this. We just need to take five minutes and pick a couple of meals we want to make next week.

Every meal we can plan ahead of time is just a really nice treat we’re doing for ourselves.

Because when you're stressed at the end of the day — and things have not gone as planned (spoiler alert: they never do) — you're ready for it. And you have something, and it’s there, and it’s healthy, and it’s good.

One thing I’m trying to implement — that I’ve been talking to my clients about — is trying to prep one extra.

If I’m food prepping and I’m going to make three servings — make four servings. Take that extra serving, put it in the freezer, and write it down.

But this is the crucial step I want to implement for my own family — and I’ve been encouraging for my clients — go to your calendar and write it down.

So if I make an extra batch of sausage chicken and have it in the freezer and it’s ready to go — I need to write what it is so I know what it is when I open the freezer. Then I go to my calendar and write it down for a day.

Especially because we just did all this travel to pick up kids from camp, and school is going to be starting soon. I can look a few weeks ahead and see a week that maybe has travel or a big routine shift, and write it in for that.

So I know I don’t even have to worry about food prep that week. Maybe I don’t even have to plan meals for the week they go back to school — maybe I can do that in the month leading up and just make an extra.

So planning is just such a beautiful thing to do for yourself.

Our brain — for some reason — really wants to make it hard. It tells us it’s the worst and that we can’t be spontaneous. It tells all these bad things about planning.

But planning your meals ahead of time is just a beautiful, lovely self-care thing you’re doing for future you. And future you will thank you. Because I have thanked past me many times for taking care of me and having dinner ready.

It’s such a relief. The worse the day, the more meaningful it is — because that’s when it really takes such a weight off to know you’ve already taken care of yourself.

It’s like you already knew you were going to need that. How nice of you, right?

So these three mindset shifts:
✅ Planning is not punishment — it's self-care.
✅ Ask better questions — what would it look like if it were easy?
✅ Change your inner voice — stop being negative.

They changed my life.

None of that was about food. Not one of those three things had anything to do with food.
But it all made picking healthy food, treating myself nicer, eating better food, moving my body — all of that became a thousand times easier when I started doing these three things.

So I would love for you to just let me know — which one of those resonates most with you?
Please, please reach out and let me know.

Otherwise, I will see you next week!

Please forward this to someone who you think it might be helpful for.
And if you would rate and review the podcast, I would love that.

Until next week — I’ll see ya, bye!