EP. 122 How to Enjoy Your Seasonal Pumpkin Spice Treats and Lose Weight

Tis the season for all things pumpkin. So I'm going to talk to you today about pumpkin cravings because I have them too. I want you to be aware. Don't be eating pumpkin treats blindly just because. I want you to learn how to eat with intention, not because the food companies have stirred up some FOMO, right? Fear of missing out. With their marketing. You're listening to the Stop Dieting Forever podcast, episode 122. What if it were possible to achieve your goal weight and stay there permanently without dieting? Welcome to the Stop Dieting Forever podcast, where you will discover the key components that most diets won't tell you because they want you to keep coming back. Not here. This is your last stop on the weight loss Struggle Bus. I am your host, Jennifer Dent-Brown, life and weight loss coach, and I am going to show you how to stop dieting forever. Let's jump into today's episode. Hey, LuxeLifer, welcome back to the podcast. And if this is your first time listening, welcome. I'm happy to have you here. Let me introduce myself formally. I am your certified life and weight loss coach, Jennifer Dent-Brown. From JenniferDent.com, where I educate and I guide my clients and my members to make behavioral changes that result in improved nutrition, improved dietary habits, improved physical ability, and overall general health and wellness. And look, my goal is to live a long long, amazing life and to feel really healthy while I'm living this long, amazing life. And I want to take y'all along with me. But listen, you can't create your healthiest life if you're still messing around with restrictive diets to lose weight. So I am glad you're here. I'm glad you have chosen me as your life and weight loss coach. So I have to be honest. Today's episode is going to be a quickie. I am recovering from COVID I'm about, mm, not 10 days from a positive test and the onset of symptoms. So the less that I talk, the less time I spend coughing, because you know the cough is like the last thing that disappears. But I had to talk about this seasonal epidemic— pumpkin. First of all, I feel like pumpkin season has started even earlier this year, like right after Labor Day. The leaves on the trees in the Northeast are still green. It's still summertime, but all of a sudden it is pumpkin season. So I'm going to talk to you today about pumpkin cravings because I have them too, right? And you know who you are if you're craving pumpkin this time of year because you've probably already indulged in a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks. Or maybe you've picked up that special limited edition pumpkin pie with caramel drizzle for your family. Mm-hmm. Or pumpkin cake. Or maybe you've already ordered the pumpkin martini during your last dinner out. 'Tis the season for all things pumpkin. Now, I am not a pumpkin hater. Like I said, I love pumpkin too. But I want you to be aware Don't be eating pumpkin treats blindly just because. This is what happens when you eat from emotion instead of intentionally. As a LuxeLifer, which is what you are because you're listening to this podcast, I want you to learn how to eat with intention, not because the food companies have stirred up some FOMO. Right, fear of missing out, with their marketing. How does this happen? You know how it happens. You walk into Starbucks or you drive past Dunkin' Donuts, and what do you see? You see a big-ass sign shouting at you with the newest pumpkin-flavored treats, whatever that is. Did y'all know that the pumpkin spice latte, also known as PSL, It's Starbucks' most popular drink, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in just a few weeks every single year. Starbucks alone sells over 30 million pumpkin spice lattes every season. 30 million, y'all! So I know some of y'all are out there, you probably got a pumpkin spice latte in your hand right now. And it's not just the pumpkin-flavored beverages that we have to contend with. It's pumpkin everything. Pumpkin potato chips, pumpkin beverages, pumpkin baked goods, pumpkin curry, pumpkin pasta, pumpkin cereal. You can even find pumpkin beer. Yes, Bud Light. Well, it's not beer, it's a flavored hard seltzer, but Bud Light has a pumpkin spiced flavored hard seltzer that you can buy. You can buy pumpkin Cup O' Noodles. You can buy pumpkin pie Pop-Tarts. And if you are a fan of Trader Joe's, as soon as you go into Trader Joe's, they release a number of pumpkin-flavored products every single year, including gluten-free pumpkin streusel muffins, gnocchi, pumpkin cookies and a Chipotle pumpkin roasting sauce. Mm-hmm, yes. Let me tell you something, I'm gonna let you all in on a little secret. Did you know that the food companies refer to this time of year as pumpkin spice season? That is the official marketing term that they use when they're sitting around the big boardrooms talking about pumpkin spice season. So I found this report from Nielsen Data from 2019, and it said that pumpkin-flavored grocery products brought in over $500 million. And y'all, pumpkin spice season is just a couple of weeks. It's not all year round, it's just a couple of weeks. $511 million to be exact. So the marketing people say that there are Multiple reasons why pumpkin is so popular and the reason why we just gravitate towards buying all things pumpkin. One, because it's a time limit on availability, right? Because pumpkin spice season is only a couple of weeks every year. There are positive associations with fall, right? When we see pumpkin, we see orange, we start to think about, oh, the wonderful things about the fall season and the related holidays that come after the this, and it allows us to indulge in a sweet tooth. It gives us permission. Oh, it's pumpkin season. It allows us to like, let me grab that pumpkin muffin real quick. And so yes, the food companies know exactly how to hit your pumpkin FOMO button. I am here to tell you that you can be smarter than the food company marketing. How do you do this? But when you choose your pumpkin treats with intention versus emotion, you have the opportunity to make healthier decisions for your body. So let me just break this down for you. Let me tell you how this happens. Actually, over the next 2 episodes, so this one and next week, I want to attack pumpkin spice season in 2 different ways. I want to help you make the best decisions for your body and for your weight loss goal when it comes to pumpkin spice season. I want you to be able to have your pumpkin and enjoy it, but I don't want you to have your pumpkin and keep having your pumpkin and keep eating the pumpkin and it just completely derails your weight loss progress. So now that we have awareness the pumpkin spice season is a thing and it is heavily marketed to us, I want you to just understand that this is how your bratty brain develops the sneaky self-sabotaging thoughts about pumpkin. It's only available once a year, so I have to have it. I have to get it. So for 2 months, every time you walk past Starbucks or every time you walk into Trader Joe's, your bratty brain is going to offer you that sneaky self-sabotaging thought. It's only available once a year, so I have to have it. That sneaky self-sabotaging thought creates a certain emotion where you end up making an emotional decision to eat the pumpkin bread, to drink the pumpkin spice latte. It literally creates— this thought creates this emotional urge to eat the thing. And so when you feel the sudden sense of urgency to get that pumpkin pasta right now or to pick up the pumpkin Pop-Tarts for your kids. Like, when you feel that sudden urge to get the thing now, just know, be on to yourself. Just know you're making an emotional decision to eat the pumpkin treat. And just know that the food companies, they have won, right? They have hit that emotional button. That emotional button in your brain has been triggered. And the next thing you know, you're putting all the pumpkin stuff in your cart. You're going to the Starbucks drive-thru and you're getting your third pumpkin spice latte for the week. So listen, the more often you allow your emotional buttons to be triggered, the more often you're going to find yourself snacking and indulging in pumpkin spice seasonal treats. And then it becomes this gateway for you to slowly give up on your weight loss goal. Because as soon as pumpkin season is over, then it's Halloween. Mm-hmm. And your bratty brain offers the same thought about candy. It's only available once a year, so go ahead and eat it. And then that same sneaky self-sabotaging thought, it trickles into Thanksgiving and Hanukkah and Christmas, and before you know it, it's the new year. And you're crying because you didn't lose any weight over the past couple of months. Mm, yes, I have been there multiple times every holiday season for decades. I have been there. And for me, you throw my birthday in there. My birthday's in November, so it's like, oh well, hell, birthday, Thanksgiving, all the things. I'm eating all the things. Right? That was my life for every holiday season. But I stopped it, and I'm here to help save you from that same cycle. So on the surface, like, the little innocent decision to eat the pumpkin pancakes at brunch or to sip a pumpkin cold brew when you go to the beer garden with your coworkers is innocent enough, right? Just like little individual decisions. But that sneaky self-sabotaging thought, if you don't catch it, it will be running on autoplay in your mind long after pumpkin spice season is over. So my friend, let us stop the madness today. The madness will stop when you become aware, right? Aware of that sneaky self-sabotaging thought. When you become aware, when you feel that emotional urge to eat pumpkin something, when you feel the urge, like, oh, pumpkin, pumpkin, you get all excited, I want you to just like pause for a minute and check in with yourself and ask yourself some really powerful questions. Like, one, are you physically hungry right now? When you see the pumpkin thing and you're like, ooh, pumpkin pasta, are you physically hungry right now? Is eating this food Are drinking this beverage going to fuel your body or just satisfy a craving? Is version 2.0 of yourself eating pumpkin whatever just because? I want you to ask yourself these questions, y'all. Here's another one: if you were going to eat this or drink this with intention, how would you enjoy it? When would you enjoy it? You've never asked your brain these types of questions before, which is why you're always eating emotionally. These are just a few examples of what I call power questions. And as you grow in your journey as a LuxeLifer, you're going to get really good at asking yourself power questions. I remember I had one client and she's like, how do you know what questions to ask yourself. Because when you keep doing this work, you know what questions are going to help you tap into the person who you're becoming as you reach— work towards your weight loss goal. It's completely automatic. But in the beginning, you depend on me to offer these power questions to you. Inside the Stop Dieting Forever membership, In our Facebook group, we have a whole list, a whole section of power questions that I've written, and I share with my members so you guys can use them as you're doing your self-check-ins, your self-coaching, and your journaling. So these are power questions to help you make intentional decisions versus an emotional decision. Now, when you get to like where I am, you don't have to ask yourself these questions as much anymore because you already know. You don't have to break down your brain to make a different decision. So I want you to learn this, right? I want you to become empowered and know how to ask yourself these power questions. So in order for you to live your healthiest life and to stop this endless cycle of dieting, You've gotta learn to stop blindly following your emotions to eat and drink all the pumpkin madness just because you have an emotional urge to eat the thing. Just because the marketing companies have hit your FOMO button. As my mentor in the weight loss coaching industry, Corinne Crabtree, says, you've gotta stop eating like an asshole during pumpkin spice season. Stop it! I want you to become smarter than the food companies who know exactly how to hit your weak spots. You do this by being intentional about the treats you do want to enjoy. So I'm not saying you gotta say no to all the pumpkin stuff. Like, again, I said I love pumpkin just as much as anyone else, but I am intentional about the pumpkin treats that I'm eating. You become intentional about what you want to enjoy by deciding what it is you want ahead of time, like giving yourself 24 hours or more, planning for it, and then deciding like how you want to consume it. And when you do consume it, I want you to enjoy it without feeling guilty that you're eating a pumpkin waffle with pumpkin syrup. This literally is a page from my own playbook. This is how I navigate pumpkin spice season. I just don't get suckered into trying all of the things anymore. Now, will I plan to have a pumpkin spice martini with rumchata and a cinnamon rim this season? Probably, and I will enjoy every sip of it, but you won't find me running out to go get them every single weekend until Thanksgiving just because I believe they're here for a limited time. Listen, let's be real. Pumpkin spice season will be here next year. Same time, same place. It happens every single year. Now, I know some of you who are listening just feel deprived of your favorite pumpkin muffin just listening to me talk about this. And if your brain is telling you that eating intentionally during pumpkin spice season is impossible, I'm thrilled that you're listening to me right now. I'm thrilled that you're listening to this podcast, because if you don't know how to enjoy a holiday limited edition seasonal treat without falling off of the wagon, I got you. I have something especially for you. Now, enrollment into Stop Dieting Forever, which is my lifestyle membership, will reopen on Monday, October 31st. Mm, yes, it's very intentional. And I will be teaching my signature class live, Create Your Have It All Holiday Plan. If you don't understand how I can eat dessert sometimes but not all the time, this class is for you. If you typically give up on losing weight this time of year, then this class is essential especially designed for you. When you become an official LuxeLifer and join Stop Dieting Forever in October, you will be invited to attend the live 60-minute class. And if, of course, if you can't make it live, because I know I've got members from all over the globe, it will be recorded. But you'll also get a worksheet so you can plan your have-it-all holiday. So you can eat the pumpkin pie with the caramel drizzle and you don't have to let it derail your weight loss progress when you create your Have It All Holiday Plan. So go to jenniferdent.com/stopdietingforever to add your name to the waitlist. And while you're waiting for enrollment to open on the 31st, you will receive weekly emails from me with tips and things you can begin to do immediately to start to undiet your brain. Every Monday I send out an email, and in that email I teach you something new, and then I tell you how to begin implementing what I just taught you for the week ahead. So if you're not on my email list, you're missing out. How's that for FOMO? Did I hit your FOMO button? Just go to jenniferdant.com/stopdietingforever, put your name on the waitlist, and then you will be on my list to receive those emails that I send out every single Monday. All right, this is enough talking for today. So in the next episode, I'm going to give you some ideas of how you can enjoy pumpkin. We're going to continue this pumpkin spice, seasonal discussion. But I want you to enjoy the pumpkin and feel really good about consuming it. All right, live luxe. Go to jenniferdent.com, check out the website, and I will see you in the next episode. If you like today's episode of the Stop Dieting Forever podcast and you want to learn more about creating a lifestyle and Instead of following a diet to lose weight permanently, be sure to visit JenniferDent.com. There you'll learn more about my unique weight loss process and how it can work for you. Go to JenniferDent.com to discover what you can do to stop dieting forever.