111. Bounce Back Fast After Overeating

If you’ve ever had one “off-plan” moment and immediately thought, “Well… I blew it. I’ll just start again in January,” this episode is your new holiday survival guide.

December is basically a giant obstacle course — school events, travel, office parties, cookies multiplying like they’re trying to take over the world. Your routines will absolutely get shaken up… but that doesn’t mean your progress has to.

Today, I’m teaching you how to turn any slip-up into momentum using one simple mindset shift and a powerful 60-second evaluation tool. No shame. No spiraling. No “I’ll start over Monday.”

Inside this episode:

✨ Why slip-ups are neutral data, not moral failures
✨ The 4 evaluation questions that turn mistakes into strategy
✨ What makes restarting feel SO hard (hint: brain momentum + dopamine)
✨ How to use a “Minimum Reset Step” to reboot your habits fast
✨ The 6-Hour Turnaround for getting back on track the SAME day
✨ Why compassion—not perfection—is what actually creates consistency

Whether you overate at a holiday party, skipped meals all day, or had a “cookie ambush” moment at work, this episode shows you exactly how to recover quickly… and confidently.

Want support building habits that actually stick (without all-or-nothing thinking)?

Grab my free habit tracker here → www.sugarfreemd.com/habits

It’s the tracker I teach all my patients—because progress counts even when it’s imperfect.

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. Today I want to talk about something that I think is important, especially as we get into the holiday season, full swing. I want to talk about what we do when our routine just kind of falls apart, right? It's December, our routines have a tendency to just die a little bit in December.

And December becomes basically a giant obstacle course. We've got so many things going going on at school. If you've got little ones, you've got all kinds of office parties. People are traveling, either you're traveling or people are traveling to you. Cookies are multiplying like they are trying to overtake the world. It's a little bit crazy. And so I think what we can do this December, instead of just saying,

I'll start in January. You know I'm not going to let you do that. I've been telling you all for the last couple of months we're not going to do that. What we can do is use any little slip up as a power up. And what I mean by that is instead of one little slip up kind of tumbling into this like forget it, I'm the worst. We're going to just do a quick little assessment of what happened and use it as a learning tool.

Okay, if we have a little slip and we learn from it, that is progress, right? That is still moving forward to our goal. And so that is what I want to teach us to do. Instead of saying like, forget it, I'm the worst, like I messed up, I can't do this. What I want us to do is just kind of reset and do so in a mindful way that we can learn from

We want to use those slip ups as data, not like a moral failure. Okay? So it's not a character flaw that we have a slip up. It just happens, right? We're not perfect. We are imperfect humans and imperfect things happen. So eating off plan happens. Life happens. And with all the obstacles through the holidays, it's going to like, it's okay. All right? Nothing's wrong.

So it's not proof that you can't do it or anything like that. We're not going to make it mean more than it does. A slip up means I did not follow my plan and I'm going to learn from it. That's it. It doesn't mean I'm a bad person. I can't do this. This will never work. I'll never lose weight. I'll just start in January. No, no, no. Like, I wasn't planning on eating that. I ate it. What can I learn from it? Okay, we're going to make it very neutral. It's not going to mean anything.

So how do we do that? Well, we're going to ask ourselves a few questions. And these questions are very simple and doable and it takes about like less than 60 seconds, but it will not only change the way you think about a mistake or a slip up, what it's going to do is just really empower you to make less moving forward, okay? Because we're going to learn, we're not going to keep repeating the same slip up. So the first thing we're going to ask is what happened?

And here's where your brain is going to try and tell you so many stories. Okay, like I have no discipline. I just can't do this. I'm the worst, right? No, no. We're going to adjust the facts, okay? So it's not, I can't be trusted. I'm an animal around food. Like none of that. It's just, hey, I had a cookie at work around three o'clock. I wasn't planning on having a cookie, but I had one. That's it, just the facts. I had a cookie at work at three o'clock.

Boom. So number one, what happened? Just the facts. Number two, what was I feeling? Right? So if we were not eating for fuel, which we likely were not in this scenario, why, like, what was I feeling? Was I tired? Was I overstimulated? Was I rushed? Was I a little anxious? Was I feeling like celebratory? Right? Emotions drive behavior.

And so let's just figure out what the emotion was, okay? That's it.

Next thing we're going to ask is what did I need, right? What did I really need in that moment? So if I was tired, it probably was not the cookie. Probably needed a little bit of a break. So did I need rest? Did I need a break? Was I a little bit hungry? Did I need some protein? Did I just need to connect with someone? Should I have like phoned a friend? Okay. Did I need to be doing something fun? Did I need 10 minutes alone? So what did I need? This

can be a little bit longer than one minute if we're not used to asking these questions, but I promise it gets faster the more we do this. And the next thing, and I think arguably the most important question would be what can I try next time? So I always like to tell my clients, if you had to repeat today, tomorrow, right? If it was Groundhog Day or Bill Murray, if you know that reference, and I had to do the exact same day tomorrow, what could I have done differently? So could I have...

I don't know, had a big glass of water before I walked into the office and saw the cookies. Could I have taken one and saved it for later? That's actually my favorite trick, okay? When my brain is just a little bit wrestling with the food, just wrap it up like I'll have it later when I'm more rested. Nine times out of 10, I do not eat whatever it was later. But my brain doesn't know that in the moment and it's very happy that we take it, okay? So just what are these things we can try?

So I can try and phone a friend, I can try and do some deep breathing, I can try and go for a walk, I can try and wrap it up for later, I can like really just be mindful and make sure I'm hydrated, make sure I'm not hungry, any of that, okay? And that's how we turn the slip up into a little bit of a strategy, okay? We learn from it. So we don't have to have all this guilt and this shame spiral that comes afterwards because we had a little slip and we're learning from it and we're going to do better next time. And that's all we can do, right?

All right, so let me tell you some other reasons it might be a little bit difficult to restart.

I'm going to explain a little bit about the brain because this part does matter. Once we've been off, off the rails, off track, especially more than one day, restarting can feel very heavy. It's like pushing a rock up a mountain with like one finger. And there's two reasons for that. Momentum is one of them. Your brain loves to repeat whatever you did yesterday.

Right, yesterday was structured, it was intentional, we didn't die, right, we made it through the day. So it feels really easy for our brain to do that same thing today. If yesterday was really like chaotic and off plan, interestingly, that also feels easy, right? It's whatever happened yesterday feels easier today, even if it's not what our routine was. So if I ate the cookie yesterday and the cookies are there again today,

And I like, my brain's going to be like, well, we ate one and it all worked out okay, so let's eat another one. Okay? So it's just this repetition that the brain really likes. It's why I recommend like never missing two days in a row, because the hope with one day is that some part of your brain remembers two days ago when we didn't eat the cookie or we did the workout or we drank all the water or whatever. But if we...

have to go back three days, that's too much. Our brain cannot possibly do that. And so we have set up a new routine. This is not like a morality thing again. This is not like you're a bad person or you can't handle yourself. It's just a momentum thing. It's just what our brain does. If we've had a couple of days on a new habit track, even if it's not one we intentionally picked, it is easy to repeat that today.

It's why it's so important to be intentional, because if we do something repetitively, our brain is just going to do those on autopilot. Our brain's kind of lazy and it likes to put things on autopilot. So if we don't walk three days in a row, right, it's way easier not to walk. All right, so it's just momentum. And then the other thing is, you know, this dopamine, right? Dopamine is such a powerful,

neurotransmitter in our brain. It is so powerful. It drives so much action. It really is like where our brain gets its pleasure. Okay. It's normal brain chemistry and we just need to use it for our good, right? Use that for good or for evil. We need to use the dopamine for us. So it's when we go for a walk pointing out how much we like it, reminding our brain like this is a good dopamine hit. We really like this. But understanding

that if we give it some artificial pleasure, like a sugary cookie, it is normal that it is going to want the sugary cookie the next day. All right, so what's one other thing that we can do? So we've learned from it. Maybe we did our little, like, what happened? What was I feeling? What could I do different? We did the whole thing. And we understand that it's going to be hard to start tomorrow, but what if we're just like really feeling like we can't get it going?

It's like a minimum reset step. Can I just, right? So my weight loss coach teacher, When I got my advanced certification, this is one of the things she teaches all the time. She even had like little bracelets say, can I just, all right? So it's one tiny decision. So it's not about having like a perfect day. So if I ate the cookie on Saturday, it's not about being perfect on Sunday. It's like, can I just do one small thing? Can I just have...

Like, I just write down what I ate today? Even if it's the end of the day, like, can I just write it down? Can I just add a little protein to my plate? Can I just walk for three minutes? Like, what is this minimum reset? And that little reset is a nice little hit of dopamine for our brain, right? Because our brain does like to please us, right? So if we set this like, today I'm just going to write down what I ate.

or I'm just going to drink one extra glass of water, or I'm just going to add protein to my plate, like one tiny small decision in the right direction is really all we need to get back on track. So when our brain feels like it's too big, like it's pushing the boulder up the mountain, can I just do one small thing? One little tiny reset to sort of get us back on track. So this is something like a six hour turnaround. So if we make one little mistake,

We don't have to wait till tomorrow or next week or January, okay? I read a book once that said, like, if you drop an egg and it breaks on the floor, you're not going to be like, well, forget it. I mean, I broke one, I might as well break them all and throw them all on the floor. We're not going to do that. So we're going to do this little six hour turnaround or next decision turnaround, okay? So no matter what happens, holiday party, dessert buffet, stressful day, whatever, we're...

literally one decision away from being back on track. Okay, so that decision can come within an hour, but we're going to say six hours just for fun, okay? So within six hours, we can reset back to our habit. So it's just a minimum little reset, right? So if I didn't get that walk in today, maybe I just take one extra flight of stairs, or I do one little loop around my driveway, or one loop around the kitchen.

Right, just to remind my brain like, hey, I like to walk, right? One small little thing. When I go to make dinner, I add protein to my plate. So whenever the next food, exercise, movement, wellbeing decision comes comes up, that's a critical point. So we can just say like, it doesn't matter what happened before. It doesn't matter the one egg that I broke. I'm not going to break the rest of the carton, right? I'm going to make the best next decision.

So that also can build like our bounce back muscle, right? A muscle, like we have a yes muscle and a no muscle and what we practice improves, it grows, right? So if we have a little slip and we do our little assessment and we make our next best, can I just, and like the next decision we make, we get back on track, that whole process is so much easier the next time. Okay, so I just want you to remember like,

be super compassionate. The fact is, it's December and this is going to happen, all right? There are so many landmines in our way that we just have to be compassionate, all right? And maybe our goal is not to continue to lose weight. Maybe it's just like, hey, I'm going to maintain. I'm going to make sure I do this, whatever it is. I'm going to make sure that if I eat off plan, I'm going to do Stacy's assessment. That's enough. That is an amazing decision, by the way.

That will help so much come January when it's time to do the next challenge or it's time to make a new goal, right? Just getting in that habit of assessing, what can I do different next time? Can I just do this one small thing? That small step mindset will help you like just achieve audacious goals. It's amazing what little small steps when we're willing to just keep getting back on track. So good, okay?

So if you want help with this and you like want to track some habits, don't forget, I have a free habit tracker. You know I like to track differently than most habit trackers. I do not like all or none. like, you know, some progress gets some praise, okay? So you can get that at sugarfreeMD.com forward slash habits. I'll make sure the link is in the show notes. Next year, I'm going to, I mean next year.

It's not next year quite yet. We're going to get there, but next week I want to talk to you about training your brain how to refocus a little bit faster. So I want to talk to you about some very interesting and out of the box meditation techniques that I think you're going to love. So for today, I want you to remember slip ups are not the enemy and it's not the end of the world. You are not a bad person. Like you are beautiful and wonderful and amazing. You're human and slip ups happen. So if we can use those as neutral data to make the next decision.

better and easier and sort of just take that as feedback and learn. Amazing. Okay. So I'm sharing for you, but I will see you next week. Bye.