101. The Food Freedom Shift (and a Hint of Pumpkins)

If diets are all about rules, Food Freedom is all about shifts — and fall is the perfect time to practice them. 🍂

In this episode, Dr. Stacy shares three powerful Food Freedom shifts that will help you feel more in control around food this season (without waiting until January to “start over”):

✨ Shift 1: From Willpower → to Understanding Your Brain + Hormones
 Learn how hunger hormones like ghrelin, leptin, and insulin affect cravings, why sugar and lack of sleep throw them off, and how to work with your body instead of blaming willpower.

✨ Shift 2: From Restriction → to Abundance with Structure
 Why planning is the secret weapon of structure, and how to enjoy your favorite fall foods without falling into chaos.

✨ Shift 3: From All-or-Nothing → to Consistency + Compassion
 How to bounce back faster, stop “starting over Monday,” and build true long-term resilience.

Fall is the season of football games, tailgates, Halloween candy, and pumpkin spice everything — which means it’s also the season when old diet rules sneak back in. These three shifts will give you the freedom and flexibility to enjoy the season and keep your momentum going.

🎃 And don’t miss the teaser for my Drop a Pumpkin Challenge — a fun way to build playful accountability, jump-start consistency, and set yourself up for success before the holidays.

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, Weight Loss Made Simple, Episode 101. We are officially past 100 episodes. Can you believe it? It's kind of hard for me to believe, but I want to teach today. So we're going to pivot away from celebrating and we're going to go into full teaching mode today because I want to really start talking about my food freedom plan. And it's all about shifts, right? I told you

that dramatic change can be scary for our brain and sometimes hard to stick with. But shifts, little shifts, right? We're just going to trick our brain into coming along for the ride. So this entire plan is just all about making shifts. So this fall, I want you to think about three shifts and we're going to go over them today. And I hope it's going to help you get through the season.

I find that fall comes, like our schedule was, like all of October was booked way back in June, okay? So there are a lot of things, a lot of busyness that can start even before sort of the holiday season. And so think of this as setting the stage for your holiday season, okay?

All diets have one thing in common and that is rules, right? So do this, don't do this, measure this, you know, weigh that. If you follow the rules, you win. If you don't follow the rules, you lose. But as we know, life does not fall into this beautiful set of rules, especially not around this time of year. So I preach all the time: life happens. We have to be ready for that.

And I think this fall season, it's like life happens times three, right? We've got football games, tailgates, Halloween candy, Thanksgiving, all of these things coming up. We can't just start in January, all right? We still have a lot of months to go. And so even though this is kind of like the season of temptation, I want to introduce these three shifts that will really help.

…with this idea of having some food freedom and just feeling more in control around food. So the three biggest ones that I came up with to talk about today are:

Number one, we are going to go from willpower to understanding. And by understanding, I mean understanding our brain and our hormones a little bit.

Lots of times we're told it’s just willpower, right? I'm not losing weight because I don't have enough willpower. I'm weak, I'm broken, I'm wrong because it's willpower, willpower, willpower. Just try harder. Just say no. Just resist. Be tougher, be stronger, right?

No. We're going to let all of that go because our brain and our hormones are what drive hunger and cravings. And so it's not strength. It's understanding why our brain is putting that craving there, why our hormones are telling us we're hungry, and then managing that. So it's not about toughness. It's not even about mental toughness. It's about mental shifting, okay? So willpower to understanding.

I want to do just a really quick hormone reminder because I keep saying, you know, brain and hormones, so I want you to just come back up to speed with me.

So quick hormone reminder: ghrelin — growl — is our hunger hormone. That's what tells us when we're hungry, when to eat. If we don't sleep enough, guess what goes up? Ghrelin. So when we're really, really tired, we're going to feel more hungry. Ghrelin can also be trained. So if we always eat every day at 11, if we eat at 9 or whatever, we're still going to maybe have that hunger feeling at 11 because ghrelin is kind of routine responsive. That's ghrelin: growl, goes up if we don't sleep, and can be trained.

Leptin is the one that tells us we're full. So leptin is the one that says we've had enough, we can calm down. Lay down, leptin. If we eat too much sugar, sugar blunts leptin. It actually blocks leptin. So if we eat a lot of sugar, our brain does not get the signal that we are full, that we have had enough. Sometimes you’ll feel this if you eat something really sweet — it feels like you didn’t eat anything. You could eat 2,000 calories of sweet and your body won’t feel like you’ve eaten, because sugar has blocked leptin.

Insulin is what controls our blood sugar. When we have something really high in sugar or really highly processed, it spikes our insulin up, which drives our blood sugar low and sometimes will overcorrect. Then our body’s like, “Well, we’re too low now, we need to eat again.” So this is some of that spiking, crashing, feeling tired, and sometimes feeling hungrier sooner than we think we should.

This used to be me. Every two hours my body was like, “Yes please, more.” And they would be really intense cravings. My hunger hormones were just totally wrecked. The good thing is we can fix all of these things. They don’t happen instantly, depending on how long they’ve been out of whack, but we have the power to recalibrate these hunger hormones and get them to work for us.

So instead of beating yourself up for lack of willpower, if you notice, “Hey, I’m hungry sooner than I think I should be,” ask: What’s going on with me? What’s going on with my hormones right now? Did I skimp on my protein? Did something have sugar I wasn’t aware of? Did I stay up too late last night scrolling TikTok and now my ghrelin is high?

We can start asking ourselves questions about our hormones instead of just saying, “I’m bad and wrong because I don’t have willpower.” Nope. We’re not going to do that anymore. This is biology, not discipline. Biology, not discipline. So our first shift is going to be willpower to understanding.

Number two, shift number two: restriction to abundance with structure.

Restriction is all those rules, right? No carbs. No eating after seven. Fast all day. Eat air sandwiches. Whatever the restriction is.

Abundance with structure says: we can enjoy foods, but let’s put them in a framework that works for me. Let’s plan ahead.

So the secret weapon of your structure — this abundance with structure — is planning. It’s saying: “I’m going to this party and I’m going to plan to have two drinks.” Or, “I know they always have this one thing I like, so I’m going to have that one thing and be mindful when I eat it.”

That’s the structure I’m talking about. I can eat what I want to eat, I just need to plan for it, be smart, and be mindful.

Structure is the planning–mindfulness piece. It’s not about perfection, but it is about making decisions ahead of time when our brain isn’t tired, stressed, or hijacked by good smells.

It is pumpkin season. Think of it as the fence around the pumpkin patch. Your pumpkins can be all different sizes. We can choose them, some are smaller, some are bigger, some are sweeter — but we still have a fence around it. So we don’t just spill into chaos and go mindless when we’re eating.

So we might want to plan our protein first. We might want to plan one treat on purpose instead of three. We might want to plan a leftover day so that we don’t eat out or grab something on the go. It’s about safety nets — what fast food places near me have options that work? Where can I grab items so I don’t go face down into a pizza?

Planning, planning, planning. That is how we can have abundance, because planning is the structure we need.

Shift number three is going from all-or-nothing perfection to consistency and compassion — my two favorite words.

Fall is full of moments where we get into all-or-nothing. Halloween candy is the classic. Either I have no candy and I’m “good”… or I rebel, have all the candy, and now I’m “bad.” I ruined it. I fell off the wagon. I’ll start again next week, next month, next year.

Our Food Freedom plan says no.

We’re going to be consistent and compassionate.

Instead of “no candy ever,” maybe we use abundance with structure: I’ll have one or two or three, but I’ll eat them mindfully.

Consistency means asking: what’s the next best choice?
Compassion means saying: I made a little error, but that’s okay.

If I plan for three pieces of candy and I have four, that doesn’t mean I eat ten and say, “Forget it.” It means: I’m human, I had a moment, and now I’ll make the next best choice.

Quick resets. Compassion. Mistakes happen. What matters is bouncing back faster.

Long-term weight loss is not perfection. It’s consistent compassion.

So, to recap:

1. Willpower → Understanding.
2. Restriction → Abundance with structure (planning).
3. All-or-nothing → Consistency and compassion.

Fall is full of comfort food. Pumpkin spice lattes, Halloween candy, pumpkin bread, chili. When diet rules sneak back in — “just say no,” “wait until January” — that’s when we use these shifts.

And speaking of fall, I have something fun coming up: my Drop a Pumpkin Challenge!

I’ve run this for three years, and this year will be year four. I love it because October can feel overwhelming, and this challenge brings mindfulness and accountability back before the holidays. Instead of starting holiday weight gain, we “drop a pumpkin” — however much that pumpkin weighs for you.

This year it’s a 31-day challenge for $31:

• 31 minutes of movement daily
• Plan 3 meals a week
• 1 five-k a week
• 62 ounces of water daily (31 x 2)

There’s a private Facebook group, daily accountability, fun prizes, even medals for the 5Ks. People have lost up to 8 pounds in this challenge, but more importantly, they build consistency.

Go to www.sugarfreemd.com/pumpkin to sign up.

So again, our three shifts:

• Willpower → Understanding brain and hormones.
• Restriction → Abundance with structure.
• All-or-nothing → Consistency and compassion.

If you want to kickstart with accountability, join my Drop a Pumpkin Challenge.

Thank you so much for tuning in today. Please share with a friend if you think it’s worth it, and I’ll talk to you next week. Bye!