106. Game Day Without the Guilt

Football season is here — and so are the wings, dips, chips, and drinks that can throw your weekend completely off track. But what if you could enjoy all the fun without the Monday regret?

In this episode, Dr. Stacy shares her favorite real-world strategies for staying mindful during tailgates and football parties — no food guilt required. You’ll learn how to plan ahead, eat with intention, and still enjoy your favorites without feeling stuffed, bloated, or “off-plan.”

👉 Inside this episode:

🏈 The pre-game strategy that keeps you from diving headfirst into the snack table

🥗 Why it’s totally okay (and smart!) to bring your own dish — no one’s judging

🍻 Drink hacks that let you blend in without overdoing it (plus a GLP-1 caution about alcohol)

💡 Mindset reframes: it’s about friends and football, not food

🍲 Quick, high-protein recipes for dips and chili that keep you satisfied all day

🔁 How to bounce back fast if you overdo it — no shame spiral required

Whether you’re watching from the couch or tailgating in the stadium lot, this episode will help you enjoy game day without the guilt — and wake up Monday feeling good in your body.

Listen now and score your healthiest football season yet! 🏆

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. I want to talk about tailgates and football games. So it is football season at my house. That means every Saturday and Sunday, almost people are over. We are watching football all day. And sometimes it can be hard to eat mindfully, right? So I want to give you some tactical tips and tricks on this episode so that maybe the whole weekend doesn't just go into flames, okay? Maybe we can get through a football tailgating weekend with grace, following our plan, and just not feeling like doo-doo by Monday, okay?

If this sounds familiar—if what you normally do is you get there and see all the snacks and tailgate food looks amazing, and you're circling the table like a hawk, and then maybe we have some chips and queso, and maybe we have some sliders, and then we have some wings, and then we have some other dip, and by halftime we’re stuffed and bloated and we don't even know how we're going to stay awake through the second half—you are not alone. But we just want to maybe try it a little different. Maybe just once, maybe one weekend, try it a little bit different and see what happens. So let’s go.

Pre-game strategy. I'm heads or tails on this, so it's hit or miss. Sometimes I think it is helpful to eat a protein-forward snack before you go. This can help you from diving headfirst into snacks. It is not rude to show up pre-fueled. It is not a bad idea.

If it is not going to change anything, right? If you go to these events and you know that you are not eating out of a place of hunger, if you’re just eating to snack, snack, snack, then eating something ahead of time might not matter so much. So I need you first to be mindful and kind of listen to your inside voice and your hunger cues. Next time you go to one of these events, ask yourself: am I eating this because fuel is needed? Am I eating for fuel at all, or is it just flavor? Or is it just habit, right? And we can talk about habit as a feeling here, right? So when we talk about fuel, feeling, or flavor—where is my tailgate eating happening?

If it is like, hey, I did my exercise, like I'm in the pumpkin challenge, I'm doing my 31 minutes, I had a hard workout, and then I went to the tailgate situation and I was starving and I overate for that reason, then absolutely 100% let's eat a little protein-forward snack before we go. Maybe we have some Greek yogurt, a boiled egg, some string cheese, a little protein shake—something. So it is okay to be pre-fueled as long as that’s going to make a difference in the outcome. We have to kind of see where we’re at before we can make a change. Are we eating from a place of hunger? If so, let’s not show up starving, okay?

Another strategy—and this is what I really highly recommend as the number one strategy—is to just bring your own dish that works for you, that’s on your protocol, that tastes good to you, that you’re not going to overeat, that it’s kind of a safety meal or safety dish. No one is going to judge you. Everyone is going to be thrilled that someone brings something. I know I am, okay? Because most of the time it's my house, and I love when people bring stuff. You might not think so, but my favorite thing that people bring is actually a veggie tray, because people sit there and eat it. If it’s out, they eat it.

Okay, some other things you could do. So if you want to just bring the veggie tray with full-fat ranch dressing or Greek yogurt ranch, whatever, I think that’s great. If you’re like, “Stacey, that’s not, I don’t want to do that. I don’t even like veggies,” whatever. Not a problem. We can do buffalo chicken dip and maybe make that with Greek yogurt. We can do turkey chili. We can do a fruit tray. All the kids in the neighborhood will devour the fruit and veggie tray while everyone is cooking pizzas outside every single time. So maybe one of those things.

If we want to bring fruit and veggie tray, that would be amazing. If we want to bring a dip, something like a high-protein dip, the buffalo chicken dip is very easy. Just go get a rotisserie chicken and some buffalo sauce and some Greek yogurt, mix it up, heat it up—amazing. Maybe we want to do a turkey chili if we kind of want something heavier.

Part three: scan and plan. Scan everything first and figure out what’s worth it and what’s just filler. Is there something that’s higher protein? Is there something that’s lower sugar? Pick your top favorites and don’t fill up on the stuff that’s random or easy to get or that you don’t love. If you know the store-bought plain cookies are always a disappointment—stop eating them, okay? If we know every time we eat these, we’re a little disappointed, they’re not as good as we want them to be—stop eating them. If it’s a potato chip that’s not your favorite—don’t eat it.

Your reframe for your mindset here is: we are not depriving ourselves, we are curating our experience. Only the best gets in. So if you go and there are plain chips and salsa that’s not homemade, like not the best salsa ever, and then there’s something else you really love that someone made—don’t eat the salsa and chips. Eat the thing that you really love and that you’re happy someone made. So curate the best experience you can.

Portion-friendly swaps. This is more like if you’re going to bring something, but the one thing that isn’t about bringing is to use a smaller plate. Science shows we fill our plate and feel satisfied when the plate is empty, no matter the size of the plate. So to be portion-friendly, use a smaller plate. Maybe that’s what you want to bring to the tailgate—the smaller plates, okay?

Maybe you want to bring mini sliders instead of big burgers. Maybe you want to bake wings instead of having fried wings. Maybe you’re going to bring the Greek yogurt dip instead of the ranch dip, okay? You could also bring just a small plastic cup—that’s your snack amount. Instead of making a huge plate of chips and dip, maybe just put a couple of chips in the cup and carry it around.

Any tailgate strategy would not be complete without a drink strategy. Here is my number one alcohol strategy. I teach every single one of my clients: start with a non-alcoholic drink. This works great if you’re at a restaurant and the waiter says, “Can I get you something to drink?” Say, “Club soda with lime while I think about it.” Nobody’s going to question it ever. And half the time or more, we don’t even want an alcoholic drink by the time everyone’s done ordering and we’ve had our club soda. Lots of times, we honestly just need to be hydrated—we’re thirsty.

Alternate alcohol with water. Always start with water, because sometimes we forget if we start with alcohol. You can do a spritzer or a mocktail. Bring your own cup—nobody knows what’s in your cup, okay my friends? Nobody knows. So if you bring a cup, you can have whatever you want in there. Nobody’s going to ask, and nobody cares.

If you are on a GLP-1, alcohol is going to hit harder on these medications. Your body just processes it differently. One or two drinks are going to feel like more. And if these tailgates are going late into the evening—things are not moving through your stomach the way they used to. So overeating and alcohol? Bad, bad combo. That more than likely is going to end up with you vomiting. And we do not want that. That’s not the point. We don’t want to do that. So that’s our drink strategy: start with water, maybe bring your own cup so no one knows what you’re doing, find spritzers or mocktails, and if you are on a GLP-1—major caution.

Part six: This might be the biggest reframe during the party. I want you to focus on the fun, not just the food. When we are talking about tailgating especially, I love football. I like to watch football. Normally. I’ll add the caveat to that in a second. But if you’re not engaged in the actual game, that’s okay. If you’re there for the fun and you just want to socialize, then focus on the fun. If you’re there for the football, focus on the football.

I was just saying the other day, I normally love football, but when my teams are just having the worst seasons ever, it makes me not interested in watching anyone else. I’m such a sore loser. If my team’s not winning, then I don’t care. So the Saints and Clemson are not doing well this year—which is an understatement for both of them—so I just don’t really care about football right now. That being said, I can focus on my friends that come over. I can focus on spending time with them, catching up with them. We can put some yard games out. There are other things we can do to turn the focus away from the food.

When we think tailgate, we think food—but I want us to start to shift that mindset. One of our key shifts is to start focusing on things other than food. Focus on the fun. Focus on the people. Try not to focus on the food. Because the fun does not come from the food—it comes from the people.

Bounce-back strategy is the last thing I want to talk about, and then I’ll actually give you a couple of recipes really quick that are easy to remember, but I’ll also put them in the show notes.

Sometimes we’re going to overdo it, okay? It happens. It’s not the end of the world. We can plan to be perfect all the time, and we will plan for disappointment 100% of the time doing that. We are not perfect. We are just humans, and we’re flawed. Sometimes we’re going to have the best-laid plans and sometimes we’re going to overdo it and it’s not going to work out—and that is okay.

We don’t want to say, “I blew it, that’s the end of the world.” We just want to say, “Next best choice.” Next, I’m going to do the next best thing. So if we find ourselves spiraling, if we find ourselves overeating, just do a reset, okay? Get out of your seat, walk around, get some fresh air, grab a water—something. If we catch ourselves in the middle of it, doing things we didn’t want to do, eating things we didn’t want to eat—just get up, change momentum.

If this is afterwards, just forgive and forget and move forward. We made a mistake, that’s not how we wanted to do it. Think about how you’d do it differently next time.

So if we wake up on Monday and we’re like, “Wow, that weekend did not go the way I thought it was going to go as far as food and fun,” take a second and just think: what could I have done differently? What would have made that better? What would change that whole scenario for me? Maybe I didn’t bring something and I should have. Maybe I didn’t bring my cup and I should have. Maybe I forgot to add water in—whatever it is. Just do a mental checklist of what do I want to do differently next weekend. And that’s it. Then we move on and let it go. No shame spiral needed.

Quick recipe: I know I told you about the buffalo chicken dip. That one is really easy. Use shredded chicken—go get a rotisserie chicken and shred it up. Get your favorite hot sauce or buffalo sauce and some Greek yogurt. If you’re doing two cups of chicken, do one cup of yogurt and a half cup of hot sauce, a little shredded cheese on top—maybe another half cup—and then bake it for 20–30 minutes at 350–375°. Very easy. Serve with celery and carrots—it’s delicious.

That’s a pretty quick snack dip to bring if that’s something you want to bring. And if you want to do a chili—turkey chili—use one pound of ground turkey, a can of black beans, a can of kidney beans, a can of tomatoes, one onion, and all your good seasonings (chili powder, garlic, salt, pepper). Simmer on low for six to eight hours—easy breezy, okay?

You know I don’t like hard recipes. I like it to be easy and fast. And if it’s in one disposable throwaway option to cook it in, that’s even more my favorite. We do not need to be slaving away to make healthy food or to make things that are on protocol. These things can be quick and easy. It does not need to be super complicated.

So, game days do not need to leave us with regret. We can have a really great plan. We can make some smart swaps, and we can be a little bit mindful. And if it doesn’t go 100% as planned the first time, we just review, revise, and try again next week.

All right, next week I’m going to talk to you about other swaps for the holidays because we’re moving into November. I want to give you some ideas ahead of time of ways to make comfort foods that don’t lead us off our track, off our plan, and that let us maintain our healthy eating throughout the whole season. So until next week, bye.