102. The Pumpkin Challenge Bootcamp - 31 Days to Reset Your Habits, Health & Holidays

Fall is the perfect season for a reset — cooler weather, cozy vibes, and a natural rhythm shift that makes it easier to recommit to healthy habits. That’s exactly why I created the Pumpkin Challenge Bootcamp — a fun, 31-day challenge to help you reset your routines before the holidays hit.

Inside this episode, I break down exactly how the Pumpkin Challenge works, why short seasonal resets are so effective, and how you can join us (yes, even if you’re starting late!).

Here’s what the Pumpkin Challenge includes for 31 days in October:
 ✔️ 31 minutes of movement daily (your choice: walk, run, dance, lift — it all counts)
 ✔️ 62 oz of water (hydration = energy + fewer cravings)
 ✔️ 1 daily gratitude (because mindset matters as much as meals)
 ✔️ 3 meals planned each week + 1 weekly 5K (progress, not perfection)
 ✔️ Daily check-ins + accountability in our private Facebook group
 ✔️ Fun prizes + pumpkin swag, coaching calls, medals, and more 🏆

✨ Whether you want to drop a few pounds (aka “drop a pumpkin”), build stronger habits, or just feel more energized this fall, this challenge is designed to set you up for success heading into the holiday season.

👉 It’s not too late to join!
 Sign up now at www.sugarfreemd.com/pumpkin2025 and grab your tracker + group access.

Let’s do this together — one pumpkin-spiced day at a time. 🎃

Free 2-Pound Plan Call!
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This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Hey everybody, welcome back to Weight Loss Made Simple. I'm Dr. Stacy Heimburger and today I want to talk to you about something that's really fun, it's going on right now. It is our annual pumpkin challenge. This year I changed it up a little bit so we're actually calling it a pumpkin challenge bootcamp because I wanted to make it a little harder with a little bit more accountability.

And I want to tell you about it because it is not too late to join. Today, if you're listening on podcast drop day, it is October 2nd, you haven't missed a thing. Basically you would have missed what I'm going to tell you right now. So not a thing, not too late to join. Fall is here and I always think of this as just the best time to try something new. We are back in the routine. So there shouldn't be anything like super disruptive. Maybe this summer, like some of our habits kind of came undone a bit, or maybe the hustle bustle of a new routine with the kids and stuff. Maybe it's gotten us where we're not, just on point like we were, okay? And so I think this is a great season to reset, restart, and I love this pumpkin challenge for that reason. Our brain also really loves seasonal challenges, right? It likes small little bursts.

So this challenge, because it's just October, it's 31 days, it is enough to set a new habit, but it's short enough that our brain does not feel overwhelmed.

So let me tell you about it.

These short bursts work so well for our brain.

I know a lot of people do five day, 10 day challenges, but I just don't feel like that's enough to really get into a good habit. We are doing so much accountability with this challenge, like daily check-ins in the Facebook, there's a new tracker, all of these things, because if you can really stick with something consistently for 31 days, you are going to go into your holiday season just in such a good spot. It's going to be really hard to shake you.

Okay, you're going to be on such good, like such a good foundation. You're going to be on such a good path for the holidays by doing the 31 Day Challenge. So what is the challenge about exactly? Well, it's about dropping a pumpkin man. So I have always called it that and people are like, what is that? It means we're going to drop some weight. So you can pick how much weight you want to lose, but I like to think of it as a pumpkin, right? So we're just drop a little pumpkin. And so instead of going pumpkin picking, we're going to like ditch some pumpkins. So you can ditch a two pound pumpkin or an eight pound pumpkin, whatever you want. Okay. And people really love this. I've had some clients just be so excited and losing. I've had people lose eight pounds, five pounds, right? We get to pick our pumpkin. Maybe it's just a little gourd. Maybe you just want to lose like a little bit. Maybe it's not about losing and you just want to reset some habits. Most people gain weight through the holidays, this will stop that. Okay, my clients don't gain weight during the holidays. And part of it is setting up these habits. And this pumpkin challenge is one of the ways we're doing it. So this year, what I wanted to do, we're still going to talk about my four pillars, basically, which is planning and movement and self care and gratitude. Okay, we're still incorporating those. So we're not reinventing anything. But what we are doing is making this fun and accountable and getting some friends involved. And we're going to base everything off of 31 this year. So it's 31 days, $31. We're doing 31 minutes of movement a day. We're doing a 3.1 mile, 5K weekly. We're going to do one daily gratitude, which will add up to 31 by the end of the month. We're going to plan three meals a week.

I don't know where the point one is with that, but it's three. And then our water, we're going to do 31 times two. So planning, I love planning. It's the core of everything we do here. Three meals a week, that's it. Three dinners a week. When you do this, your brain, it's less, you know, I like to do more days and not. Three is actually less days, okay? But if we go by the work week, which is five days, this three meals is more days than not. And I used to have, I have a client who this used to be just so hard for her and she was trying to plan meals every night. So we finally broke it down, like what's an amount you can do? And three is what she settled on and it did not take long and she like, it's not, it's second nature. It is not even hard for her to plan three home cooked meals, dinners for her family a week.

So three is totally doable and we can do Taco Tuesday as one of them. And so now we've only got two, okay? And we could do something else and then a leftover day. And that can make up your three. It is what you want it to be, but by planning three dinners a week, it just really cuts down on like that grab and go emergency food, especially if your week starts to get a little bit busy. And it just gets you into the mindset of planning.

All right, and that's all we want to do. We're setting groundwork for really strong habits to let us breeze through the holidays without gaining weight. So three meals a week, that's what I want you to do. We're going to do one 5K a week, okay? So 3.1 miles once a week. And we're doing that mainly because I want to give out prizes and I love the idea of giving you medals for your 5K. So we are going to do one a week. You can walk, you can run, you can...

You can swim, whatever you want. And we're going to just post that in the Facebook group and then I can give prizes. So that one's for me a little bit. We're going to do 31 minutes of movement a day. And this is, we're going to go back to our OTMs, our opportunities to move teaching that we've done or our exercise equivalents, okay? That we've talked about, being creative with our conversions with what exercise counts for what. I just want you to do 31 minutes.

And it's 31 because there's 31 days in October and we're going to do everything on 31 so it's easy to remember. But that can be walking, that can be going up the stairs. We can do that five minutes at a time, okay? We can do it five minutes every hour for six hours and then like a little bonus walk to the car and we're done, okay? So this is not meant to be overwhelming. It's just to get your body back into moving, okay? If you live in Louisiana like I do, sometimes it's hard in the summer and so hot out.

But the weather's getting nicer now, so there's no reason we can't just do 31 minutes outside, inside. It's not going to be like hard 75 or whatever. Like there's no rules about inside, outside, or what it needs to be, just 31 minutes. We're going to do one daily gratitude. Just one thing that you're grateful for, so at the end of the month you can look back and see 31 things.

And that's going to be so nice, right? Especially leading into November, which is all about being thankful and sort of recognizing family and things like that. So we'll have 31 things of gratitude, will be on a roll already. We'll have a big pocket full of gratitude going into Thanksgiving. And then our water. Now this one was harder because 31 is not enough, right? But we can do 31 two times. So we can do 62 ounces of water. And then I was trying to figure out like how exactly do we do that?

But eight, eight ounce glasses would be 64. We're going to call it 62 for the purposes of sticking with our 31 times two, but it's about eight glasses of water. Okay, so we're going to, it's not like a gallon of water. It's not something crazy, but it is probably more than most of us are drinking. So it's not going to be easy, but it will be attainable. And then like everything, I'm going to ask you to track it in a way that is not all or nothing. So we're going to figure out how to, we're going to just color in each glass of water and then we'll see how far we've gotten. We're going to color code our minutes of steps, our minutes of exercise. Okay, it is not all or nothing. Posting in the Facebook group is going to count and I've got so many prizes to give away because our brain loves positive reinforcement and I love to give gifts. So it works out for all of us.

So I have all kinds of things. I've got pumpkin swag. I've got coaching. I've got gift cards. I've got medals, all kinds of things. Okay, so I am ready to send out all kinds of prizes. So I really cannot wait for you to join me. And then I want to tell you about last year when I ran this, I had two coaches come in and do these bonus talks with me and I'm going to reuse those talks. I'm going to keep them in as bonuses.

Because I thought they were still great. So we've got Ashley Lowe, who does Lifting with Lowe. She does personal training and coaching. And so she has a little bonus lesson in there about opportunities to move. And then we've got Narella Flood, who is a Drinking Less coach. And so she does a great job telling us how we can be mindful about planning alcohol for the holidays. So.

Those are still going to be in there this year. I thought they were just too valuable to let go. So we're going to have those in there as little bonus calls for you to listen to. I really can't encourage you enough to join us for this challenge. I think it's going to be so wonderful. I'm going to cheerlead you through every step of the way. You're going to pick your size pumpkin and we are going to drop a pumpkin. And it's just going to really set the groundwork for some great habits to get us through the holidays without gaining weight. So again.

31 days, a couple of days less if you're joining me the first week of October, it's not a big deal, you haven't missed anything and it's about consistency not perfection, so you're still going to be eligible for all the fun prizes, okay? But we're going to do three meals a week that we plan, one 5K, that's our three and our one, 31 minutes of movement, one daily gratitude so that we get to 31, and then 62 ounces of water. All right, so how do you join?

The most important part, it's not too late, so I want you to join. It is www.sugarfreemd.com/pumpkin2025  forward slash pumpkin 2025. And that will of course be in the show notes. Go check my Instagram. It'll be in the link tree there. You don't want to miss it. It's such, such a fun challenge. And I think this extra accountability and checking in this year is going to make it even more powerful and really set you up for success before we start the holiday season. So I will see you there. All right, everybody, I'll talk to you next week. Bye.