137. Why “I’ll Start Tomorrow” Keeps You Stuck

Have you ever had a moment where you thought:
“I already messed up… I’ll just start tomorrow”?

In this episode, Dr. Stacy Heimburger breaks down why that single thought is often the exact moment people lose momentum—not the off-plan meal itself.

You’ll learn why emotional eating and “falling off track” are actually normal nervous system responses, how guilt deepens the restart cycle, and why consistency has far less to do with perfection than most people think.

Dr. Stacy explains:

• why the brain reaches for food during stress and overwhelm
• how dopamine and nervous system regulation impact eating behaviors
• the hidden pattern behind “I blew it” thinking
• why restarting keeps reinforcing the cycle
• how to use “same-day re-entry” instead of waiting until tomorrow, Monday, or next month

This episode is practical, compassionate, and designed to help you stop turning one hard moment into a full spiral.

Because real consistency is not about never going off track.
It’s about learning how to come back quickly.

If you want support applying these tools in real life, join Lifestyle Support Monthly at: https://sugarfreemd.com/LSM

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

Have you ever had a day where things just went off, right? Maybe it was food, maybe it was stress, maybe it was just a lot. Maybe just a lot happened. But somewhere in the day, you had the thought, I blew it, I'll just start tomorrow. OK? And it sounds really harmless, but that one thought is actually the moment that this pattern of restarting locks in. And.

restarting really can crush our momentum. so

I want us to do something different in that moment. Surprise. So it's not what we did earlier in the day, really. It's what we do next after we have that moment that can determine everything about our consistency and really about our momentum and whether or not we get in this restart spiral. So I want to talk about that today. I want to talk about this.

I really just think it's one of the most important skills and almost none of us are taught it. So welcome back to the podcast. If you don't know me, I'm Dr. Stacey Heimberger and I really try and make things easy and simple, having everything to do with your health. But today I want to talk about when we're trying to make a new habit, whether it be about weight loss or exercise or just something in our health, we want to do something new.

And we have that moment where something just doesn't go right. And we think, I'll just restart tomorrow. That restarting, that moment when we decide to restart is so much more important than we give it credit for. Because if we give in to that moment and just restart as harmless as it may seem, it really crushes our momentum. And then all it really reinforces is our ability to restart. And so.

We've talked about it before. have a tendency when we do that to be a little stricter when we restart to make a few more rules as if making it harder and more rigid will make it easier to stay on track. And so it only takes a couple of rounds of that spiral before we quit. And my goal really, my overarching goal for everything 2026, for everyone in my membership, listening to the podcast, all the people in my world is that

I keep you from quitting this year. No quit 26. Okay? So I want to talk about this moment and how we can take it back and how we can maybe change it up. Okay? So we're kind of talking like, what do we do after a hard day? Okay? Because most of us really focus on like, I need to have a perfect day and I need to stay on track and I need to avoid mistakes. And so we, we do all that. But sometimes we're gonna go off.

right? So we are gonna have off plan eats. We are gonna have days where things just don't feel right. We feel off, we feel emotional, we eat differently than we planned. And it's that is not the problem. It's what happened next. That's the problem. So eating something off plan or

we ate more than we thought we were going to eat, or we just fell out of control for a little bit. That's not the problem. It's this thought, well, I've already messed up. I'll just start tomorrow. That's the problem. And it's normal. It's such a normal human response for that to happen. So it's not that you're weak or you're doing it wrong, okay? It's that our brain just wants to close the loop, right? And so

What happens is we have a long day and we're tired and maybe we're stressed and maybe we're overwhelmed, we're probably overwhelmed and we reach for food, not because we're hungry, but because we need something, right? So we talk about the three F's, we eat for fuel, we eat for feelings or flavor. This is gonna be that second F, right? Where we're eating for feelings because we're having big feelings of stress and overwhelm and our nervous system is over-activated.

and our brain just wants to provide comfort. So it's eating for those feelings. Because when we eat, we get a dopamine release and we feel temporarily better. So.

our body will actually physically make us feel hungry to close that like to make us eat. It's fascinating, really. So even more important to understand why our brain is doing that. Our brain wants us to feel better. It is trying to help us. It just, this is not how we need help for our long-term health. So we have a long day, we're tired, we're stressed, we're overwhelmed. We reach for food because we wanna feed the feeling.

because our brain doesn't like us to be uncomfortable. It wants to make us feel better. So we're not hungry. Okay. Our physical body might start to tell us we are because our brain is like, please eat. Okay, I don't want to feel uncomfortable. I want you to be happy. Eat something. Okay. So we're eating because we need something that's not fuel. So we're looking for comfort or relief or distraction. Okay.

And in that moment, it works, right? Because we get the dopamine and we feel better. We'll feel a little better. We'll feel a little calmer. We'll feel more settled. But then...

our brain that was doing such a good job of trying to save us from discomfort starts thinking. And it's like, I shouldn't have done that. I just ruined my day off. Like I ruined it. It's always very dramatic, right? I ruined it. I fell off the wagon. I blah, blah. I'll fix it tomorrow. And that's where we actually deepen that pattern. Okay. So it's not in the eating. It's in the

My brain wanted to solve a problem, but now it's beating me up for solving the problem, right? And that is the response to the eating that deepens the pattern.

This over activation of our nervous system. Our brain wants to regulate it. High rewarding food can do that quickly. It'll shift our state temporarily. This is like this is just normal. This is our brain trying to help us not failure. So I just like we need to understand why our brains doing this, right? Because we're not gonna be mad at ourselves. This is we're gonna understand.

having bad feelings, I'm overwhelmed with discomfort, my nervous system is activated, my brain wants to re-regulate me, it does not like feeling dysregulated, it doesn't like when my nervous system is over-activated and so it's gonna look for a high rewarding food to do that quickly to get that dopamine to like, dopamine actually helps calm us down, okay, when we're in this state.

So we eat a little something, we feel temporarily better. It's a very effective strategy, okay? It is a very effective tool in the toolbox that we have probably used so often, it is really easy to access for our brain and for our body. And we might even try and resist it a little bit, but our brain's like, well, I'll just make you feel hungry then. I'm gonna throw up, like, I'm gonna make your stomach grow. How about that, right? Because it wants to get us out of that discomfort. Effective fast acting.

But immediately after the relief happens, our brain comes back online, the thinking brain, the other part of our brain that's like, wait, we had goals and plans. I've messed up. I'm the worst. And then we feel guilt and frustration and discouragement. And now we're uncomfortable again. And what does our brain want to do? It wants to regulate it again. It doesn't like us to feel uncomfortable. And so this is where one off-plan E can turn into

one or more days of being off the wagon. Okay, so that one decision can turn into a full day decision, can turn into a whole week decision, right? Because there's just like more guilt every time.

So instead of saying, like, what can I do next? Our brain is like, we're done here. Like, I can't, like, no. And then there's only restart at that point, OK? Restart tomorrow. Like, I'm done. don't like, even if it tries to break out of that loop, like, if we're guilt, reward, guilt, reward, guilt, reward, instead of.

like clawing our way back out of that our brains like we should just take a nap I'll start again tomorrow try again okay so I want you to start thinking of those moments as just that they're just moments they are not these huge like blowing it moments they're just tiny they're little and they're gonna happen so the power is not in avoiding these moments it's about having a

plan, a safety net, if you will, of how to return instead of restarting. So consistency really is not about I never go off track. I never have an off plan E. I'm perfect, right? Because there is no such thing as perfect. It's about I come back quickly. Like, I understand it's just a moment, and I have a recovery plan. And so I'm going to teach you a few things that might help.

I need you to understand too, when you are new to interrupting patterns, because that's all this is, is a pattern that needs interrupting. When we are trying to interrupt this pattern, it is very common to not even have awareness of it until pretty far down the line. So part of learning and having these tools,

again is not to be perfect, is you're not gonna catch it before it happens every time. Maybe sometimes, more than likely, you're going to catch this whole scenario when you're at the guilt phase. I'd like you to catch it there if you can, okay? But maybe it's the second round of guilt. I don't know. Wherever you catch it, you catch it. Just because you catch it late doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

This is something brand new we're trying to learn. Okay, so we can, number one, interrupt the thought. So, and when I say interrupt the thought, it's not the first one, it's this, I blew it. Okay? Instead of blame and guilt, I want you to recognize like, that there must have been a moment. There was a moment, let me.

think about that moment. Okay. So instead of being like this, my god, you're the worst. It's like, I can learn something here. Like a light bulb goes off as opposed to like, someone punching you with like, in the face. Okay, so we're not going to beat ourselves up. We're not going to say I blew it. Like I want that thought to be like a light bulb of, I must have had a moment. Let me think about this. What can I learn? So

Instead of immediately trying to fix it. I just want us to be like, I had a moment and try and re regulate yourself. Because again, most of this is coming from our nervous system being a little dysregulated. And so we might need to do some deep breaths. We might need to go for a walk. We might need to listen to some music, step away, change environments, re regulate yourself, ground yourself, just your hand on your heart with a couple of deep breaths is all you need to do here.

but do as much as you need. So if that means you need to just go for a walk, go for a walk. If you need to go for a drive, go for a drive, whatever. Something to re-regulate. So the light bulb goes, we have the thought, I'm the worst, right? The light bulb goes off like I must have had a moment, but we're still like spiraling in those thoughts for a second. And so we need to re-regulate. So we need to try and stop the thoughts.

maybe do some deep breathing, re-regulate. Then we want to choose the next best thing, not the next perfect thing, okay? Just some thing, choose the next thing. So it might be our next meal, it might be something simpler than that or even more familiar than that. I don't want us to have any thoughts about undoing what we've done, right? This is not a, we're not keeping score.

Okay, so if we overeat at lunch, I don't need to then fast at dinner. We're not undoing, okay? We're just starting from where we are and we're continuing. So there's no penance involved, okay? Whatever happened happened, we start fresh.

And then I want us to really try and do that same day. Now, sometimes this happens late at night, so that's not possible. But I don't want us to think intentionally, I'll start tomorrow. We've said that too much. Definitely not like I'll start Monday. Okay. I want it to be same day as much as possible. So let me pose this scenario. I don't like I'm not eating

after dinner, right? I'm not going to have my snack. It's one of the, I think, hardest habits to break, or even easiest habit to break, but easiest to resurface, okay? So hardest to break permanently. So maybe I like did well for a while. I wasn't having after dinner snacking, but I had an after dinner snack.

I don't recognize it until I'm like, man, I wasn't doing that anymore. I'm the worst. Okay. I had a moment. All right, I'll work on that. Let me re-regulate. And then I'm not gonna undo it, but I'm just gonna acknowledge it happened. Like, okay. I'll have a glass of water. I'll make sure I'm hydrated before I go to bed. Hydration's not undoing it, but I'm doing the next best thing in the moment instead of an all start tomorrow.

So what can I still do tonight? I could still do my, like make sure I met my bare minimums. I did my stretching. I'm going to drink a glass of water. Right? So I'm still going to hit my other anchors and then I'm going to go to bed and with a fresh, fresh start. Okay. Same day. Every time we can come back quickly, we weaken that old pattern of restarting. Okay. So if this happened at breakfast, this happened at lunch, like next meal.

what's the next best thing I can do? If it happened after dinner, like right before bed, like how I hit all my other anchor points. Let me just reinforce my stretching or get a glass of water. Okay, we don't want to give our brain the evidence that we start over tomorrow. So that's the end of the night can be a little bit tricky. So that's what I wanted you to hear that one. But if we've had a stressful afternoon, and maybe we ate more than we planned at lunch,

And then we're like, my gosh, I'm the worst, right? We're gonna keep going. We're not gonna wait till tomorrow.

We're going to say that was a moment. Re-regulate. All right, I've got another meal coming up, another chance for success. That's it. OK?

No punishment, no overcorrection. This is really important. No punishment, no overcorrection. Just whatever was the next thing planned. That's it. Then our brain's gonna be like, well, that doesn't count. We need to do that. No, we don't. We just need to get back to our baseline as quickly as possible. Because these things are gonna happen. We are gonna have off-plan eats. We are gonna overeat. We are gonna like lose track. We're like...

Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Life is going to life. We just need to get back as soon as possible. And so we just don't want to say anywhere in our brain, I'll start tomorrow, restart tomorrow, I'll restart Monday. No, Like, OK, what's the, I was going to have this for dinner. I'm just going to make sure I do exactly what I said I was going to do for dinner. That's it. I had a moment.

then we can go back later and try and figure out what was going on for me and like what we can learn from it. That's like next level.

It's okay that we don't recognize that we've like that anything has happened until the guilt phase that is normal to the more in tune we get and the more we do this and the quicker we can start resetting not restarting resetting like the quicker we can get back to our plan. It will help our brain recognize sooner. Like there have been times I've recognized it like mid chip when I've been like rage eating.

And I'm like, oh my gosh, like, I don't even remember getting that bag. OK, I must have had a moment. Calm down. Like, next best thing that I can do. What's next? Then later, I can look at like whatever led to that moment and do the work there. Does that make sense? When you're in the moment and it's hard to see clearly, and so,

Being connected or inside a group or a community or even just having one accountability partner can really, really help here. It helps us get perspective a little bit faster and we don't stay stuck in that loop for as long. So if you need that, that's what the membership is for. I started the membership this year because I think it is so important to have other people that are going through the same thing and

I want everyone to just know, like it doesn't need to be hard and complicated. We can make this easy and fun. And part of that is being connected to other people. Okay. So we're going to focus on what we did right. Gold stars all around. It is fine if we don't recognize and we don't interrupt the pattern until the guilt phase, but I want us to at least interrupt it there.

then we can start working our way backwards. But the key things to remember are that it's normal that it happens. It's normal we're going to feel guilt, but that's where I want it to stop. So whatever we need to do to give our brain evidence that we're fine, right, re-regulate yourself, and then don't restart the next day. Do whatever is next on the agenda, do that, however it was planned. No punishment, no overcorrection.

All right, again, membership, www.sugarfreemd.com/LSM

 That's lifestyle support monthly. That's where you get supported on your healthiest lifestyle every single month. We're going deeper into all of this, making those safety nets, making those plans, getting some accountability. If this was helpful to you, please rate and review, share with a friend. I would really, really appreciate it. Thank you for being here, and I will talk to you next week. Bye.