How to Bounce Back Boldly After You Blew Your Diet

Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I have a little sleep secret I want to tell you about. Look, sleep is crucial for your fitness, but it's crucial for just plain old everyday life and function. And I find I sleep great unless I have a migraine. And I've had more than my fair share since perimenopause all the way through postmenopause. My secret weapon was Blue Sky CBD sleep gels. Each gel contains 25mg of CBD and 25mg CBN for deep restorative sleep. Something about it helps to reduce inflammation, which I believe for me was key in helping me get to sleep. But the biggest thing is so many of the over-the-counter solutions, whether for sleep or migraines, can ruin gut health, and liver health. Neither one of those did I want to be problematic for me. So this option is recommended by healthcare providers worldwide and backed by thousands of happy customers, many of whom come from our Flipping 50 community. There is zero THC, so it's non-habit-forming. It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites. What are you waiting for? Good night. Have you blown your diet ever? Even if you've just intended to eat really clean or not eat carbs or not eat processed foods and you blew that, this is for you. It's for all of us. I'm Debra Atkinson and you're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness in menopause and beyond before you know to ask them. The goal: to help accelerate your results with the science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman. It's not just you, but it's the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert and international speaker to founder of the first and the only exclusively made for menopause and beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the science of optimal hormone balancing, fitness, and longevity, and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy you want, need, and deserve. So you blew your diet. Where's the next step? What is it? If you've done that before, you know it's a hard spot to be in. Are you feeling frustrated after blowing your diet again? It's time to bounce back boldly and stop the shame spiral. And that's according to my next guest. In this episode, we're going to uncover the science behind why we overeat and how to regain control. Know the powerful strategies to turn things around. Let's dive into how you can bounce back with confidence, with ease, without beating yourself up, because it's never too late to bounce back boldly, according to our guest, who is none other than Connie Bennett. She is a former self-described sugar and carbs addicted journalist and author of the bestselling books Sugar Shock and Beyond Sugar Shock. In her new book, I Blew My Diet, Now What? She was inspired when Connie frenetically overloaded on carb garbage, or carbage, after a heartbreaking year watching her mother succumb to a fatal cancer. After her loss, Connie quickly packed on 21 pounds and her health went south. She felt ashamed. After all, she's an author of 2 books about how to quit sugar. Imagine that. But hitting rock bottom ignited Connie's curiosity. She put on her journalist hat, and for 7 years, she dove into the research to discover why people eat badly and what fast, easy, science-based tactics they can use to bounce back boldly, as she puts it. Connie is a certified health coach, life coach, and tapping practitioner. In fact, stay tuned because in the episode she actually demonstrates a tapping— gets me to do it, by the way— and founder of the Bounce Back Boot Camp. I think you're going to love this episode and find it super intriguing and a fun, not a shameful way to approach why we do this and ways to get through this and get over to the other side. Connie Bennett is in the house. Thank you so much for being here, Debra.

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

You are on a whirlwind tour with this book. This is not your first book baby, this is your third. We should mention the other two titles. And I have to tell everybody before we dive in here that I remember when we last connected in October, was it September this year? But you are a bundle of energy. You were so excited about this project. And, and that was, you know, 6 months ago, 7, 8 months ago, you know, and knowing that somebody has this much passion about their book, about connecting with other people, it's just so exciting to have you here because the, the energy even across the airways is palpable. So thanks so much.

Thank you. I, I like to think that I have some important messages.

Absolutely. And so I want to ask you though, and because everybody here likes— well, we're women, we like the dirt. So how did you get started doing this? How did you get started helping women who overeat or, or ate badly?

Well, I actually had another life. I began as a journalist, and then I was a sugar and carbs addicted journalist. And I was besieged by like 44 ailments— brain fog, mood swings, headaches, etc., etc. And so a doctor told me that I need to kick sugar, which I did. And then I— it was amazing, all my ailments went away, 44 of them. But then a decade ago, after my mom passed away, I, um, uh, you know, in alcohol— in Alcoholics Anonymous terms, I fell off the wagon. But I'm, I'm not a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Um, I ate very badly after my mom died. It was a very, very difficult, uh, year with her. And, um, for the first time in more than a decade, I was pigging out, but not on sugar. I pigged out on carbs, which I now call— and, and particular kind of carbs, not the healthy carbs, you know, not the, not the fruits and veggies that pop out of the ground and grow on trees. No, we're talking about the stuff that comes in the packages and, you know, in the boxes. Yeah. Um, and so I picked out on, on, uh, movie popcorn and corn fried anything and chips and crackers. And so I now call it carb garbage. Carb garbage. So I was picking out a carb garbage after my mom passed away and all of a sudden I packed on 21 pounds. One day I looked down and I'm like, oh my God. Now, mind you, I'm a health expert, okay? I've written 2 books in the past. Sugar Shock and Beyond Sugar Shock. And, you know, I guess I take pride, or was taking pride, in the fact that, hey, you know, I've been helping these people and I'm walking my talk. I was not walking my talk. And, uh, this all happened. So my mom passed away, and then my book had come out like right before she passed away, so she was able to see it. Thankfully, she was proud of me. And about 3 months after she was gone, I had gained like about 10 pounds and I'm promoting my second book, which was Beyond Sugar Shock. So I felt like a complete fraud. It was just, you know, it was like I was, I was a complete hypocrite. And it's really taken me a long time to be able to laugh about it and poke fun of myself and go, hey, you know, This is what happens to people. And because of that, I— my background is as a journalist. I call myself like a former sugar and carbs addicted journalist, and I literally shut everything down. I had programs going. I mean, I was like, no, no, just— I'm not going to do anything. I got to figure out why did I pig out like with this craziness? I now call it— I was doing heartbreak bingeing. I mean, like with this frantic fervor, frenetic frenzy, just Crazy. It wasn't like emotional eating. No, this was like way eating of a whole different level. And so I now call it heartbreak binging. I've now identified a whole bunch of reasons that we overeat, and I've given some, you know, playful but provocative and indicative names for what kind of binging people now do. And so because of what had happened to me, I became determined, you know, what— why do we eat so badly? And by we, meaning millions of us, right? You know, and, and what— not only why, but when, when do these junk foods call out to us? And then what can we do to take back our power? And the thing was, in order to take back the power, your power, they— I had to find fast, easy— I call them FEASTs: fast, easy, awesome, simple Tested strategies. I think that's the acronym. Um, but they had to be, they had to be easy and they had to be fast and they had to be convenient. Just as I say that like junk foods are fast, easy, convenient. Well, I had to find tactics because we're accosted by temptations everywhere.

Yeah, nonstop.

But what I found is during particular times of life, those junk foods call out to us more.

Yeah, so I want to go back, if you will. Just indulge me for a second. So the journalistic life, did that, did that have something— so not that you should throw all journalists under the bus, but I mean, it's got to be fast-paced. You got to go, go, go. You're on. You got— there's a little pressure, you know. I'm sure that's about— we got to have viewers.

I wasn't doing daily, daily journalism anymore, so Okay, I had gone freelance, but I did— but I, but I took that kind of research mindset and, yeah, I call myself like a give me all the facts journalist.

Yeah.

And I took that, that attitude into discovering what is going on.

Mm-hmm. Awesome. And I love the acronym, so good. We'll probably come back to that. Mention the other two titles again. So That was during your evolution. So Sugar Shock and what was the other?

They're back there.

Oh, okay.

So the first, first one was Sugar Shock.

Great.

And that was in 2007. And then Beyond Sugar Shock came out in 2012. So I've taken a long time to come back. In the middle of all this, actually, I wrote another book to help people to crush their cravings. And I literally was done with the book. And I think I was talking to a coach and I was like, "Well, you know, I mean, I feel like a hypocrite. How can I tell people to crush their cravings if I haven't come clean about the fact that I had a major relapse? Like, I was not walking my talk." So that's why this book is now coming next.

So great. And you, in this book— so you've discovered these 21 reasons why people blow their diets, people as in us, we, all of us. What are the big 4 binge triggers? I am dying to know. So is one heartbreak?

Yes. So one, one of them definitely is heartbreak binging.

Is that all kinds of heartbreak? Is that relationship? Romance?

Uh, no, no, heartbreak binging would be the loss of a loved one.

So, okay, okay.

You know, it could be, it could be your parent, it could be a sibling, it could be a a spouse, a dog. Um, so heartbreak binging is one. The other— another one is, um, caused by relationships. I came up with several names for that, but basically, you know, if you're going through a split-up or divorce of some kind, you could be doing, um, you know, divorce devouring. If your relationship's troubled, you could be doing like bickering binging. Um, but then The book was already done and I was like, "Oh shoot, I should have put this one in," because I found some research. There are people, some people, they're in happy relationships and their marriage is just going great, but they may be doing what I call contentment chomping. So basically, relationships is a big reason that you may overeat, depending upon what is going on in your relationship. And then there's another one. Which is for people who've undergone trauma of some kind or some kind of tragedy, something, you know, really traumatic. They could be doing comfort crunching. And then the other one is what I call caregiving chomping, caregiving crunch. I came up with all these cute names and it's like, okay, I need to remember them all. It's, it's caregiving shopping.

Yeah.

And those are, and those are, oops. And those are, and those are the big binge triggers. But there are, there are, there are a lot of other ones as well. But those ones are something to watch out for. And, and they're, they can kind of blind, they kind of can blindside you. You know, you have unless you have some tools to keep yourself stable on a regular basis. For instance, I'm a regular meditator. In fact, I meditate a few minutes before the— before this podcast. It's like, okay, I need to be calm and centered before talking to Debra. So I made sure to meditate, even though I was a little nervous. Like, what if I fall asleep meditating? Yeah, what if I miss the podcast?

I'm sure that was a really good session.

No, it calmed me down. Um, but unless people have tools to deal with things that are going to happen, you know, life gives us lots of turns, you know, challenges, and we have to be able to deal with that. And that's what I try to do for a lot of the book in coming up with simple, easy ways to, you know, to, to handle these difficult challenges.

You know, the one that if I could look back over 4 decades of coaching, you know, more in exercise, and yet in exercise coaching, diet and nutrition have to come up because they're such a big part of it. The one that stood out for me as you were mentioning those 4 is actually the blindsiding one, is the contentment one. You know, so often I think people read about self-sabotage or they go and search for it and they, they read about the times when they self-sabotage and they don't get to their goal. But the other side is women often get there, but then they're in an environment where maybe all their friends or their family are not in it. And so they're where they want to be, but they kind of slip into this, you know, I'm where I want to be. And everybody convinces you, oh, you're doing great. Come on out with us. 'Don't go to the workout, come out with us instead.' And so I would, I would find some boomerangs coming back to me regularly, you know, and it's like, how did I let this happen? I was in such a great place, you know.

Yeah, the— that was one of the things that I looked into, which is the, the influence of peer pressure. And there's some absolutely fascinating research that shows that people are larger when they are friends with larger people. And/or they may eat a lot of junk food when they're with people who eat a lot of junk food. I think, I think basically it comes down to we really have to take care of ourselves and do what's right for us.

Mm-hmm. In addition to—

and maintain that strength.

Yeah, right. Yeah, it's a challenge. In addition to the 4 big binge triggers that we've mentioned, you say there are 3 other reasons people can overload on junk foods and Talk to me about that. I mean, is that the chemicals?

I came up with 21 reasons. Thank God I got my book here. I think one of, one of the biggest ones, and I actually just filmed a TEDx talk that's gonna go live later, and I mentioned this, and I It's— we live in what I call a junk foods jungle. Like, you just go out there, you go to the grocery store, you, you get in your car and you go wherever, you're always going to be tempted by something. And that's why we need to build ourselves, you know, build our strength and ability to just breeze by those temptations and not have them you know, wear us down.

So true.

But the— so one of the absolute biggest, you know, things could be going really well in your life, you know, no problem, and oops, you head to the grocery store, you head to the gas station. That was a big one for me. I was like, I would go to the gas station, I would be like, you know, Pavlov's dog. It's like, go to gas station, you know, eat junk food, go eat, you know, just— it was—

yeah.

And then, um, I begin my, my new book, I Blew My Diet, Now What? with the story of me in the movie theater eating popcorn.

That is the best, isn't it? I gotta say, it's the best worst that there is.

Yes. So I, I swear, I think probably 20 of the 21 pounds came from all the movie popcorn. And what was really interesting is I didn't eat sugar to gain all the weight. It was just processed carbs. In other words, I still had enough fortitude to go, "Okay, no, no, I'm not gonna have any sugar." But, you know, I was lying to myself because carbs, processed carbs, turn to sugar. Duh. But oops, it just sort of slipped my mind. Right, right. For like months, for like, I don't know, 8 months, until one day I'm like, how could I do this to myself?

Ouch. Yeah, so true. What surprised you the most? I'd love to know. In researching, you know, and writing this book in particular, I Blew My Diet, Now What? And, and by the way, all of us want all of you listeners to know I also endorse this book because so often You know, I can take you so far and we can talk about the right and the wrong and you can know it. And that still doesn't make you immune to, you know, what you're subjecting yourself when you go to the store. I find it actually a relief to use Instacart so I don't have to go. I don't have to go down those aisles, right? So I'm not going to tell Instacart to put those black bean chips in there. I just don't have to deal with it. Right.

Yeah. When COVID hit, it was like easy. You just never go to the grocery store.

Yeah. Yeah.

You have all your stuff delivered, but it's not quite realistic now. I'm sorry, I forgot the question. See, I'm a little nervous.

No, no. Well, it's a big question.

It's one thing. It's weird. It's like you're a journalist and you're like, you got your head in the research and it's like, it's a whole— it's just a different mindset. Okay, now I've got to speak about it. So I'm sorry, I forgot your question.

No, no, no, please don't be sorry. I asked a big question is, as you were—

Oh, what surprised me?

Yeah, what was it about? Okay, an aha moment. Hey, this is Debra Atkinson. I love creating the Flipping 50 podcast for you, and I have for over a decade. I also love helping midlife women shift not only their physical energy, but their beliefs about what effective exercise looks like and how much it can positively and powerfully impact your life. How you menopause and exercise in menopause determines how you live, not just now, but decades from now. If you're not exercising right now, you're getting tired, not stronger, or you think you don't have time or the energy to exercise, do a 5-day flip with me. I'll send you one short video a day for 5 days. It's just 15 to 20 minutes long. So you can see exactly how I plan out a fitness plan for myself and for thousands of clients I've worked with. You can get this at Flipping50.com right now. What are you waiting for? Let's start flipping 50 together.

I mean, a lot surprised. Me really a lot, a lot. But one of the things that surprised me the most was the effect of trauma on how people eat.

And are we talking like childhood traumas or something?

Any kind of trauma.

Okay.

And what I discovered in my instance was that not only was I dealing with, you know, my grief over losing my mom. But it was pretty traumatic to watch her. And because I moved out to be with her, I left my apartment in New York and was with her, and it was pretty traumatic. And so the two of them just coincided, and it was like, whoa. But people who may have a trauma from years before, or even something that they never processed And so, I mean, the research that I found was just— it was mind-boggling. That was actually showing that people may overeat due to trauma, different traumatic incidents. I'm not going to give specifics because there's no need to upset anybody, but they know what kind of trauma they might have gone through. Sure. This is one of the reasons that I am so big on Emotional Freedom Technique. It's tapping. You know what that is?

Yeah, I do, but my listeners may not. Okay, do you want to demonstrate even, or—

yeah, can we? Let me—

yep.

Okay, so, um, what tapping does— it— oh, and, and it's going to look weird. Just want to warn people, it's going to look really weird. It's also going to look ridiculously simple, like, how can that work? But I'm telling you, I'm a journalist, I researched this. There, there is mad— there's huge monstrous amounts of research from cutting-edge scientists showing that this stuff works. So what you do basically is first thing you do is you name what it was. So I don't know what would be a good example. Anything you're working on?

Well, like, and what do you—

like, you have to give an example. So even though You have to give an example of something. So let me think of a good example. Okay, I'll just pretend. Okay, so let's say, let's say your listeners are feeling in the mood to eat some chips or donuts or crackers. So even though— so this is considered the karate point. Even though I feel this urge to eat that donut, I totally accept and approve of myself. And then you do it 2 more times. This is called the karate point. Even though, oh my God, I really feel this urge to eat that donut, darn it, I really want it, I totally love, accept, and approve myself. Even though I really, really, really, really want that donut, I totally love, accept, and approve myself. Now this may be a little difficult to do because of the headset, but we'll try. Because then what you do is you go through what are called the acupuncture points. So, and you just say, this craving, this craving, this craving, under the eye, under the nose, this craving, here in the nose, over the mouth, this craving, this craving. This is one of my favorite spots right here, like, uh, this craving, this craving. This craving. And literally you go through that. So that's one round of tapping. Boom, that's it. Um, you can literally go through those rounds, and literally research shows that doing 5 minutes of that or whatever, your cravings will go way down. So when I was trying to get over my carb addiction, which is pretty much what it had become, there were lots of things that I tried, and I literally hired a an EFT coach to help me to deal with it. I'm laughing because I just remember this. He said, okay, so what I want you to do, Connie, is you have to bring samples of your favorite Chuck Boots. So I'm there with— I had to go to the movie theater, had to go in the door, I had to buy the big basket of popcorn that I normally would have, or the you know, the big box. I had to go to the store and buy all the chips. I mean, and I was like really stressed out because I'm not supposed to eat the stuff. I'm just supposed to buy it. But I had to buy it like the night before the session with the guy. But it was amazing. So I had all the stuff in front. I was supposed to open the bag, the bags, and smell it. It was just— I mean, and I did it once, not one, so more, lots of those rounds. So we did like maybe 2 sessions or whatever. And I'm telling you, my cravings went away. I mean, that combined with some other tactics, it was amazing. And there is some awesome research showing that EFT can really help with cravings. I also did, um, can I tell people about my Hum Hug Rock? Really?

Too late. Yep, go for it.

Of course I give the name. Okay, so this was another one. Even though I had gone through a tough time, my mom had just passed away, and I still needed to escape. So I really wanted to go to movies. I don't know, movies just became one of the ways that I dealt with it. Yeah, but I knew that if I went to that movie theater, I was going to have popcorn. Popcorn. I was— it was automatic. Movie, popcorn, done deal. So this time I said, I'm not going to have popcorn this time. I'm, I'm, I'm just— I'm not going to do it. I promised myself I got to figure out a way to conquer this ridiculous popcorn habit. So I sat in my car and I turned on the radio. Or no, I think I turned on a CD. I still have CD player in my car. And, uh, and I turned on this really soothing melody. And then I was like, okay, hmm. And this was like all kind of intuitive. And so this, you know, this tune was just going. And so I started hugging myself and I started rocking. And then I started humming and said, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm. And then, then I got fresh with myself and I did this one, one song. And then I was like, okay, I don't know if I'm quite ready to go into the movie theater just yet. And I did a second song and literally two rounds of this. I went into the movie theater that day. And I didn't have any movie popcorn. And that was over a decade ago. Wow. But then I'm a journalist, and I was like, why did this work? You know, I, I don't understand. I mean, I've tried everything, I, you know. And so then I researched it like crazy, and it basically— what I had done was I had combined about 4 different modalities. So not first, there was the hugging. So that was one thing. Then there was a humming, and then there was the rocking, and then, and then, you know, I may have touched myself or whatever, and it was like all these different modalities, and that's why it worked. And so then I spent all this time trying to figure, okay, I got to give a name to this process. So I now call it the Hug-Hum-Rock process. And what's very cool about it is that you can do it anytime by yourself, with somebody. You can do it with friends. It's very fun. It's funny. You look like an idiot, but who cares? But you can do it in such a way that you don't look like an idiot. Like, you can just kind of, you know, I'm standing actually. I'm— I have a standing desk here. Um, so, you know, I'm— so you could do like that. Nobody will know. You're just kind of hugging yourself. And it was like amazing. I was like astonished. So that was sort of what I tried to do with this book, I Blew My Diet. Now what? Was to come up with techniques that are simple and easy and maybe fun and, you know, maybe a little silly, but who cares if it works?

Exactly. What— so where does this fit in? So I know you have this one too, the what the hell attitude. What is that? Where's that fit in?

Well, there's actually some research from scientists and they call it the what the hell attitude. It's, it's pretty startling. So now, I mean, I imagine a lot of your listeners can relate to this, like, so, um, oh, you know I went through a really tough time today. You know, my boss was mean to me, or, oh, my friend pissed me off, or, oh, my loved one, you know, can't believe what they did. Oh, what the hell, I'll just go eat, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And literally, there's a scientific term for it, but I call it the what the hell attitude. And when you cave into that what-the-hell attitude, you're just like, let's just, whatever, we're going to give up. And so I'm suggesting that, you know, at least you own up to the fact that you, you're, you're in, you're kind of, you're about to go down the rabbit hole. I think that that's one of the things that I was trying to do was to get people, you know, you're about to go binge. You're that close. You're like, 2 seconds away, or whatever, 5, you know, 2 minutes away, whatever. And it's like, okay, if you can do something in that moment as temptation hits, you can stop. And so literally just recognizing, oh, I'm having this attitude of like, what the hell? And you can— and you can just— you can— you can stop it.

So I find it fascinating that you put yourself in that situation of going to the movie theater because I mean, everybody here knows, I mean, do they not pipe the smell of popcorn and Odell's butter out into the parking lot? I mean, that is like really like putting yourself in jail, you know, it's like to want it so badly. That's, that's— yeah, I think that's really hard.

Well, I had just moved across country to be with my mother. I didn't have any— I think I had like one friend who was busy all the time. You know, the pain was so intense, you know, that, that I just— I knew, I knew I needed to escape. So yeah, and I— and at the time I wasn't strong enough to like use all these great tactics, you know. I was just barely surviving. So for 8 months I was like barely surviving. So So, so yeah, I tempted myself.

So many of our audience members can relate to that. I mean, of course, you know, we all get to that point at one way or another. I want to tap into one more thing so that you— you have all these quips and quotes inside, and I don't want to let them go. So you have something called Goal Power Plus.

How does that work?

How does that work?

Well, people talk a lot about, oh, I don't have any willpower to do X, Y, Z. And there's actually been some very interesting research about willpower, you know, that's kind of like, kind of makes you nervous. Like, really? Yeah, I can run out of willpower. And I looked at this research and I'm like, okay. That's pretty negative. There's got to be another way to tap into something so that you have the moral strength and the desire, you know, and the conviction to just stay away from that crap so you can feel better. I mean, I basically, you know, there's a reason to eat better. It's not like, oh, I want to lose weight so much. And that's not where I'm going from. I'm like, you eat better, you'll feel better. I mean, that's you. If you eat better, you will feel better. Not that isn't like— that is like it's been shown and I've seen it with myself time and time again. So what I'm saying you should do is get in touch with, well, what are your goals? And for me, when I was first kicking, you know, the, the garbage, carb garbage, My goal was to feel better. Like, I mean, I had all these crazy ailments, the ones I mentioned at the beginning. Well, they had— almost all of them had come back and, you know, pounced on me yet again. So if I ate better, I was going to feel better. If I ate better, I was going to be a better me. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't living up to my potential. And so you tune into your goals Instead of, oh, do I have the willpower to do this? And so the minute you see whatever that object is that's tempting you, a donut, a cookie, or whatever, and think, well, wait a minute, what are my goals? Before you have one bite, what do I want? Do I wanna feel better? Do I wanna, you know, get along better with my loved one? Be more cheerful? Yes, weight is an issue that of course a lot of people think about, but I think weight is just a small part of it. Do I want to just treat my body better? And so when you have those goals, when you zero in on those goals rather than whether you have the willpower, that will bring you through, that will give you the strength. That's why I call it willpower, goalpower plus. 'Cause you get a lot of pluses from it.

Yeah, I love that. And I think it is, it's like you've got to turn a corner first. And then there's a quote that I've said over and over and over again. So just bear with me if you are an old goat and you've been here for a long time. But a client who was very resistant, you know, in getting started once said after she had stuck with it long enough, she said, "Feeling good feels good. Why would I ever want to stop this?" You know, this perfect quote was like, we have to have you though feel it. Nobody else can hold that over your head. It's until you want to feel it. Connie, you come with gifts and we love you for that. So you have something special for our audience members. How can they get it? Once they get their hands on the book?

Well, so I have, uh, two gifts actually.

Oh well, even better.

So one of the gifts is, um, it's a free chapter. It's chapter 1 of my book, um, I Blew My Diet.

Now, great, great.

This is what's called an ARC, advanced reader's copy. So, um, I don't know if I mentioned that, um, I hired a cartoonist. She's like one of the top cartoonists. And so even though I deal with serious topics, we— there are a lot of cartoons in it from her, so they're really fun. So, and then the other gift is something, um, it's a week's worth of recipes, uh, from, um, the woman who did the meal plan for my book. And you don't have to buy my book to get this that get this recipe. You know, it's our starter week, I guess you could call it. Really, really, I mean, tasty recipes. Like there's even a dessert recipe in there and there is like no sugar, no agave, no honey, no barley malt, no artificial sweeteners. And it is good. There's a few of those in my book too, but I, I, I, You know, there's just a few, not a lot. But I, because I worked with this woman who's a nutritionist and, and a recipe formulator, and I gave explicit instructions. And I think at first she thought I was a little crazy. It's like, you want— you don't want this, that, or that? Oh my God. But she did it and they taste amazing.

So great.

So I have both of those gifts.

That is awesome. And where can everybody find them and find and follow you.

Life is not always going to run smoothly, and so I do want to give your listeners some hope and help. And I think what a lot of people don't realize is how powerful they are. You know, no one else puts those chips or crackers or cookies or whatever junk foods— no one else puts them in there, in in their mouths. We put them— we put that in our mouth. So it's up to us. We can choose to cave into the garbage and to sweets and then suffer the consequences, whether it's feeling, you know, having no energy the next day or gaining weight or feeling— having horrific headaches. Or we can do the opposite, which is that we choose to make better choices. And, and the thing is to remember, whenever you see that temptation, that you, the minute you are about to go buy something that's not healthy for you, that you have the choice. The power is up to you. And I think it's very easy in this junk food jungle to forget that, you know, to let temptation, you know, kind of bring us along. But we can, we can stand strong is what I like to say.

So good, and you're such a great example. And I think really in an even better and relatable example because you did it, put it in your past, and then there it was again, but you went forward again as opposed to throwing your arms up in the air and figured out, wait a minute, let's unpack all of this. And you did it for everybody else too. So thank you so much, listeners. So I'm going to make sure you've got the right link, and we're going to send you to the place where you can get all the juicy gifts from Connie. And that'll be at flipping50.com/bloomydietgifts. And we run words together, we put no spaces there. Bloomydietgifts.com. And that'll be in the show notes. So when you're hearing this, if you're, you're out for your walk, you're lifting, we love you doing that. And/or you're commuting, we've got you. You just come over to the show notes and it'll be there for you. Connie, thank you again. Congrats on the book and on the TEDx talk. When—

if that is published, we will link.

Yeah, okay, love it.

Thank you so very much for your time. I appreciate it.

You're welcome. Thank you so much for listening. To listen and access a decade of episodes and the show notes, visit flipping50.com, where you'll be able to find all of our prior episodes. And I made it easy for you to make the most of your listening time by selecting 5 specific areas most commonly high priorities for our community and giving you top 10 lists if you let me know you'd love them. If you know a midlife woman or a soon-to-be one who wants to optimize her midlife energy and time with the right exercise and lifestyle changes and a mindset shift about just what is possible, share this podcast with her and I thank you. There is no more powerful health influencer in the world than you, midlife woman.