Happy {Half} Hour - The Weekend Success Set-Up!

Hello, hello, my good people. Happy Friday. What's up? This is Happy Half Hour Weekend Setup. This is Jennifer Dent-Brown, life coach, and I help women learn to stop dieting forever. So this is a fun thing I wanted to do, is have a little one-to-one, one-to-many, um, at this particular time on Friday. But first, before I tell you why I picked Friday at 5, let me grab my happy hour beverage, which is actually, um, Spindrift. This is not an advertisement, but this is actually a sparkling water beverage that I drink all the time. It is delicious. I recommend it to my clients who have addiction to soda, so it gives them the fizzy taste, but it's kind of like no sugar, no funky additives, no unnatural flavoring. It's just, um, no fat, no— 9 calories. And, uh, yeah, it's really good. So it gives them the fizzy taste that they like from soda, but it is much better for them than soda. So Spindrift is what it's called. I get this in Target. You can buy it online. They have lots of different flavors. This is, um, raspberry lime. So anyway, I love to drink my beverages out of a wine glass, so let's make this fun. All right, so this is— welcome to the Luxe Lounge. This is Happy Half Hour, and the reason why I wanted to get on and do a live stream on a Friday at 5 PM, which is a very odd time, right? A lot of people need to get their motivation like on a Monday morning, and they need like that pick-me-up in the middle of the week. So maybe Wednesday might have been a good a good choice. But what I find with my clients, Fridays is when they all kind of let it go when it comes to staying on plan and sticking with their eating protocol. And I know this to be true. So as soon as Friday 5:00 happens, and actually for me back in the day it was Thursday, we would start happy hour on Thursday after work. And then it would kind of snowball. The eating would just snowball. So we would do happy hour on Thursday, would have drinks and happy hour food. And ironically, I used to host happy hours. I used to host young professional happy hours. For those of you who are from Philly, you remember Zanzibar Blue? It used to be down on Broad Street. Yes, me and my friend Mel Shannon, we used to host happy hour, and the restaurant would pay us $1 per person to get people to come in. That was like networking back in the day. That was so much fun. And we also got free drinks and free food. So every week I was posted up at the bar yapping and talking and meeting people and drinking and eating. So we would go to happy hour on Thursday, and then we would usually stay there till like 9:00, 9:30. And then we would go to dinner. Like, I remember McCormick and Schmidt, again Philadelphia Broad Street, right across from City Hall. Um, they had that late night happy hour that started at like 10 o'clock. So then we would go there and get more food to eat and drink, and then we would go home. And so Friday was kind of like, yeah, you know, whatever work day. Friday we go to happy hour again, and that just rolled into Saturday. Hey girl, you want to go to brunch, or hey, you want to go out to dinner on Saturday night, or maybe it was date night. And then Sunday was kind of like, well, I've already blown Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I'm just going to eat whatever I want to eat and then I'll get back on track tomorrow. So if you can relate, just give me a holla. And if you're here, tell me, you're just say hi. This, um, Facebook is different, so I can't see any comments or if anyone's joining, but if you're there, just say hi. And if you're watching the replay and you're not watching it live, just go ahead and type in play so that I know that you watched and I can say hi to you if you have a question. All right. So if you can relate to, um, your weekend going like that and kind of the snowball effect and you're just eating, eating, eating with like no really good plan and you're just putting off getting back on track until Monday, then this happy half hour is for you. And this is why I wanted to do it on a Friday at 5 o'clock. Hey y'all, go ahead and type hi and say hello to me if you're watching live. So my clients, what I've seen, not all of them, but what I've seen is that Fridays, you know, Monday through Friday, they're great. They're logging their foods, they're doing everything they need to do. Um, this is within my Stop Dieting Forever weight loss program. But Fridays they kind of go ghost, right? And then I don't hear from them. They're supposed to post over the weekend and I don't see nothing on the weekend. And then on Monday they come in, you know, with their weight and it's like, oh, and I'm like, well, what happened, right? So how was your weekend? What, what did you do? And so I know the feeling of being super like strict and you're on it all week, Monday through Friday. You're like, got my breakfast, got my lunch, got my dinner, I'm on point. Like my eating was perfect. And you get to Friday and you're like, I need to relax. Hey Alexis, I just want to like let my hair down and just sit back with a glass of wine. Should be drinking your Spindrift. Um, and just, you know, like congratulate myself for a week well done. And that's all well and good. But what happens is the snowball effect, right? So you heard me, explain what used to happen to me when we started happy hour on Thursdays and it just snowballed into Friday, which snowballed bad eating habits into Saturday, and then by Sunday you're like, whatever, I'm gonna start again on Monday, right? And you will undo every good thing that you've done for your body during the week in a 1, 2, 3 day period. So this is why I wanted to do happy half hour on Friday at 5 o'clock. So you are going into the weekend with a plan. And this is what I teach my clients. So if you are available to write down and take some notes, take some notes. If you have questions, go ahead and pop them in. I'm happy to answer them. If you have any obstacles or challenges that you face during the weekend, tell me. Let me coach you through them. We can talk about it. All right, so let me take a sip of my Spindrift. For those of you who are just joining, I'm drinking Spindrift sparkling water. It is my favorite, and it is real fruit juice in salsa water, no sugar added. It's delicious. All right, so the first thing that you'll want to do when it comes to starting off your weekend— and this is what I— any class that you've ever heard me teach, if you've ever attended any of my master classes, If you're one of my clients, you always know, like, you have to know what your goal weight is, right? If you don't know, if you're on this weight loss journey and you're kind of like, well, I think I'll be good if I weigh like 130, but you know, when I was in high school I was 125, but you know what, maybe 135 is okay, right? If you're like all wishy-washy and you don't understand and you're not clear about what your goal weight is, then you're just treading water and you're not going anywhere, right? So you need to have a very specific goal weight number. I like to add the ounces on there, right? So if you want to get to 120, then it needs to be like 120.4 pounds, right? That is your goal weight and that is what you are aiming for. If you don't have a goal weight, now's the time to get one, okay? So just go ahead, if you can type in your goal weight here in the comments section, or just write it down in your notebook. But you need to have a goal weight, period, done. And it doesn't fluctuate, it doesn't change. It's not like, oh, well, maybe if I can get to this, then maybe I can get to that. No, just pick that, just pick the number and go for it. Okay, so get clear with your goal weight. If you're clear with your goal weight, then you should know what you weigh right now. So I teach my clients, the Stop Dieting Forever method, we weigh ourselves every day. Yes, every day we get on the scale, we track our weight. Why do we do this? Well, one, first of all, I teach you how to take the, the anxiousness and the anxiety out of getting on the scale, right? The scale is just a number. It is neutral. It has no meaning. It has— it's just data. Right? We tend to put all of this heaviness around, oh my God, what is this number on the scale gonna say? And if the number on the scale doesn't think— align with what you think it's going to be, or if it's like too high, then you like freak out. And then you have all these different thoughts and you make up all these stories in your head and you beat yourself up about this number, or you're very excited about the number. Either way, the scale is neutral. It is just data. It's math. It doesn't mean that you're a great person, doesn't mean you're a bad person. It doesn't mean anything. It is neutral. So before you get on the scale every day, I teach you how to get your mind right, right? And so you want to get on the scale and you track your weight every day. That way you are not surprised when all of a sudden you put on your favorite jeans and they're like, Ooh, these are a little bit tight. And you're like, dang, I must have picked up some weight. Because by the time your pants are too tight or getting a little bit snug, that's like a 5-pound weight gain for some of us, right? And you don't want to wait until your weight is 5, 6, 7 pounds up before you do something about it. So if you're keeping an eye on your weight every day by tracking it, you should be good to go. Now, if you are interested, I'm happy to share with you the weight tracker that I use with my clients, that I use. Just send me an email, jennifer@jenniferdent.com. I will send it to you. It's actually a Google Doc so you can track it online. It's a very specific formula and way of tracking your weight, but I'm more than happy to share a copy of the weight tracker with you. So that's something that you, you're not already doing and you're interested, send me an email, send me a DM in Facebook, um, jennifer@jenniferdent.com, and I will email you copy. All right, so first thing you need to do is get clear on your goal weight. Now, every weekend is different, right? So every weekend we have different things that are happening, um, and on Friday you need to decide how are you going to handle this particular weekend. So I want you to specifically think about this upcoming weekend, right? Do you have special events you're going to? Do you have, you know, special activities that you're invited to? Are you doing anything out? Like, do you have date night with your boo? Are you hanging out with your girlfriends? Are you having a movie night? Are you going out to dinner? What is going on in your weekend? So you need to think about that. And while you're thinking about that, or you could be like, you know, I have nothing going on this weekend. It's a pretty calm, even, cool Not a whole lot going on this weekend. I'm just chilling out, which is great. So you want to think about this particular weekend and what is upcoming for you because we're going to plan for these things. So as you're thinking about what's upcoming for you, and I'm thinking about events that involve eating, like social eating and/or drinking, I want you to decide. So you know your goal weight, right? You've got that written down. You know in your brain what your goal weight is. You know what your current weight is. You know how much you weigh right now. Because you should be weighing yourself every morning and writing it down. And then I want you to decide, right? I want you to make a full grown woman decision and decide, do you want to continue to lose weight this weekend? Do you want to maintain your current weight this weekend? Or do you want to purposely indulge? And allow the scale to go up a little bit at this weekend, right? It is 100% completely up to you. You make that decision ahead of time and you follow that plan. It is perfectly okay if you decide like, hey, Saturday night my husband and I are going to our favorite restaurant and I don't want to eat the grilled chicken and salad when I go there. I really want my favorite dish, right? That is perfectly okay. In the Stop Dieting Forever weight loss course, we call this a fun eat, right? So you plan ahead for that special occasion where you want to indulge. And so when you know that you're going to be consuming extra sugar, extra carbohydrates, extra fat, alcohol, you know you're going to be consuming that, then guess what? You expect for the scale to go up. And that is okay because you've made that decision, right? So you, you're either going to make the decision to gain weight this weekend, you're going to make the decision to either maintain your weight, so just stay even, not or not, and keep, keep, keep the boat steady. Or you're like, look, I got a goal to reach, I know my goal weight is this, and I am 100% committed to getting there as fast as possible. So you're not going to slow down your progress by just maintaining or gaining. You're like, nope, I'm going to lose weight this week. So that is what you need to decide to do. So I want you to think about what's going on ahead and you make that decision, right? And then you just commit to it, right? You commit to it, 100% committed to whatever decision you make. Don't be wishy-washy. Don't be like, oh, you know what, I'm going to lose some weight this weekend. But as soon as somebody was like, hey girl, you know, do you want to go and catch a movie at Movie Tavern? I don't know if y'all have Movie Tavern, but here in Philadelphia area, it's like one of those really nice movie theaters where they have the reclining seats and it's like a full-blown restaurant with a full bar and really good food. So you might get a call, be like, yeah girl, let's go to Movie Tavern. And all of a sudden you're like, your commitment to lose weight over the weekend is gone, right? So whatever you do, you have to commit to your goal. All right, so here's a very common mistake. I'm going to go over 3 mistakes that people make over the weekend, and these are very common mistakes. And these mistakes, if you keep making them, will keep you at your current weight and keep you away from your goal weight. If you keep moving in this trajectory, in this path. Alright, so the first mistake is that you use the weekend as a free pass to eat whatever, whatever you want, right? We just talked about that a little while ago. Soon as the clock hits 5:00 p.m. on Friday, all of a sudden your brain is like, give me the wine, give me the wings, give me the nachos, give me the pretzel bites. Oh yes, and I'll take a piece of cake too, right? It's like we just take our foot off of the gas pedal, we relax, and we just like, you know what, I'm gonna enjoy this food right now. And if you keep doing that weekend after weekend after weekend after weekend, you're going to keep seeing the same result, and that is your goal weight is very elusive. You're not gonna— it's gonna be— it's, it's, it's, it's, it's like a hanging carrot, right? You can't really reach it because You keep making the same choices weekend after weekend after weekend, right? And we convince ourselves that, oh, I've had a hard week, I'm about to relax. We convince ourselves that food is going to help us relax, or food is like some type of reward for staying on plan during the week. And guess what, ladies? The food is just going to keep you away from your goal weight and keep you waking up on Monday frustrated again when you look at the scale and you're like, god darn it, the scale isn't moving. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Okay, so that is the first mistake, is that you use the weekend as a pass to eat whatever you want. So here's your strategy to mitigate this mistake, right? You're going to write down— remember a couple minutes ago I had you thinking about like what activities and what plans that you had coming up that involved eating. So I want you to write down what those events are and what day they're on and when they are. So I have my clients actually write down Friday, Saturday, Sunday, right? And for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, they write down what they're going to be eating. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, BLD, for each day. And that way it's kind of like, you know, meal planning for the weekend. Lots of times we'll do meal planning for the week, but as soon as the weekend comes, we're like, whatever, I'll just figure it out as I go. But if you think ahead of time, like, okay, Saturday night I got this thing to go to, so this is what I'm going to be eating on Saturday night. And you write down what you're going to be eating based off of what you committed to on Friday, right? So remember, we committing, we're committing to either losing weight, maintaining weight, or gaining weight. So whatever that decision is that we made, we're going to apply that to our strategy for the weekend. So write down whatever events, activities that you may want to have a fun eat. And then if you're looking, you're like, darn, all right, happy hour on Friday, Brunch on Saturday, family dinner after church on Sunday. Hmm, that's like 3 areas where I could potentially overeat. So then you make a decision like, okay, what am I going to eat on these 3 days during this particular time? And just be very intentional. So again, if you know Sunday brunch is our Sunday dinner, your mom is making her famous macaroni and cheese, and that's what you really want, well then you say, okay, Sunday dinner, that's gonna be my fun eat for the week, and you write that down. Excuse me. But for Saturday brunch, you commit to having something on plans. Maybe you'll have like an egg white omelet with veggies, or grilled chicken salad or something like that at the restaurant. And then Friday at happy hour, maybe you'll be drinking sparkling water like me, and you find something, a healthier option on the menu. Doesn't mean you don't go, it just means that you're changing what you're eating. And this brings me to mistake number 2, right? Mistake number 2 is that You get worried about what people are thinking. Excuse me. You worry too much about what people are thinking. So you're going to happy hour and you've made a commitment that you're going to lose weight and you're going to eat the salad and you're not going to drink alcohol, but you're afraid your girlfriends are going to be like, girl, what you mean you ain't drinking tonight? Like, let me get you a $5 glass of Pinot Grigio. Come on, you know how we do. Right? And all of a sudden you're like, oh no, you know, I am not drinking today, right? I'm at happy hour but I'm not drinking today. And you are too worried about what they're gonna think, and so you give in and you say, all right, give me the Pinot Grigio, give me the Chardonnay, pass me the martini. All right, and then you're like, pass me the chicken wing. Hey Kimberly A. Robinson! And so you give in by pleasing them instead of pleasing yourself and keeping your commitment to yourself. And that is a mistake, and that is a mistake that we do all the time. The mistake could be with your girlfriends at happy hour on Friday. The mistake could be with your, with your family on Sunday at Sunday dinner, right? And they're like, what do you mean you don't want any chocolate cake? Like, you always eat the chocolate cake. And this is when you have to rehearse ahead of time, prepare yourself mentally, and say Thank you, but no thank you. I am committed to my weight loss goal, right? And so they may roll their eyes, they may give you a hug, I don't know, but you need to give yourself a hug and commit to yourself 100%. And that is being committed to yourself 100%. So don't worry about what somebody else is going to think about your food choices. Know that you are making the right decision for yourself. Okay, so that is your second strategy, is just to commit and rehearse ahead of time what you're going to say. I always like to teach— this is my favorite, uh, my favorite saying is like, and I teach my clients this as well, just say, you know what, thank you, but no thank you. I'm choosing my weight loss goal over this item of food. Thank you very much. And most people will respect that. Right, and then you take a drink, drink of your seltzer water, and you carry on with your day. And again, these social activities are not about— it's not about the food. You have to remember, it is about the social aspect of talking to people, laughing, and connecting. The human connection. It's not about the food. So that's a little mental mindset shift that you need to make. Okay, rolling into mistake number 3. If you guys have questions, even if you're watching the replay, you can go ahead and type them in and tag me and I'll come back and answer them. Mistake number 3 that we make on the weekends is that we eat based off of our emotions. So we eat because we're stressed out, we eat because we're overwhelmed, we eat because we're happy, we eat because Hell, it's Friday. Let's go out to eat. Right? And that is a mistake. That is eating purely from emotional hunger and not from actual physical hunger. And truth be told, 99.9% of my clients and the women that I do strategy calls with overeat because of their emotions. Right? We call it different things, call it what you want. But you're eating not because of physical hunger, you're eating because of some other type of hunger and you're looking for food to make you feel better. And all that does is help you to overconsume calories, right? So if you don't address the reasons why you're going to food to help you feel better, then guess what? You're going to continue to overeat. So people are like, well, I just like to eat. I just like food. Hey Rosetta, so nice to see you, honey. People are like, I just like to eat. I just like food. If food is there, I'm just going to eat it. I see food, I eat food. I get it. I totally understand. I was much more of a social eater, right? But I realized the reason why I enjoyed social eating so much is because I had a level of anxiety when I was out and about around other people, a level of anxiety about that. And so when there is food around and alcohol around, it made me feel better. It took the anxiousness away, took the edge off, right? And everybody loves to eat, so you have that thing in common. And I realized when I recognized that, it was like, oof, right? And so One time I actually challenged myself and went to an event, a networking event for business women by myself. They had open bar, free food, and I knew no one there, right? I walked in and I mentally prepared myself ahead of time and I was like, I am here to meet other women. I'm here to meet and network and build relationships and tell them what I do and make offers and they can tell me what what they do and all that good stuff. I am not here to eat or drink. So normally I would have walked into the space and like, oh, the bar, excuse me, I'm going straight over to the bar, right? And say, oh, let me see what they have to eat, and busied myself getting food on my plate. But I was like, nope, I'm not gonna do it. I, I actually like felt the feeling of anxiety and I was okay with it. I was like, all right, I'm going to go over here and introduce myself to someone and insert myself into a conversation. And I'm going to be like, hi, I'm Jada Peronda, like, nice to meet you. Right. But I'm not going to the bar to buffer with food and alcohol. And I did it and I stayed the whole event, met some really great people, and I didn't have a drop of alcohol and didn't have any of their food that was there. Right. So I went for the purpose of networking and not eating and drinking. Okay, so the third strategy that you need to do to mitigate the mistake of eating because of your emotions is simply understand why you're feeling that way and why you're looking to food to make you feel better. So just like I shared that story of me going into the networking event and me feeling the feeling of being anxious and be like, it's okay, like I'm a human being and I bet you there's like 80 other people in here who are just as anxious, if not more anxious than I am. And there were, and we just started talking to each other. It was so cool. Yeah, stress. So when you recognize that you're stressed, Rosetta, and you're feeling like you want to eat or you want to drink something to relax, you need to like just figure out a different way to manage that emotion. It could be as simple as like calling a friend. It could be— Rosetta, I know for you, you're like a workout queen. So maybe for you, it's just going for a workout, right? Getting on your, your bike and doing like 10 minutes of something. It could be as easy as pulling out a pad of paper and a pen and writing down what you're feeling and writing down, you know, what is bothering you, what's going on in your head. I teach my clients in the Stop Dieting Forever weight loss program a very specific way of addressing those needs or thoughts and figuring out like, why are they feeling this way and what is causing that thought and how they can shift it a little bit. So just take a minute, right? I teach the 20-minute pause. When you get the urge to like eat something or drink something and you're not physically hungry, just take a 20-minute pause. Set the timer on your watch, on your phone, look at the clock, take 20 minutes, be like, dang, you know what? Like, what is going on? Why am I jonesing for some chocolate right now? Why am I like looking in the refrigerator for something to put in my mouth? And clearly I'm not hungry, right? Just think about it. But it can be really difficult if you're not used to doing that. And this is a skill that you need to learn. And it takes time and it takes practice and it takes coaching. It takes support, right? It's not a very tangible thing because if it were easy to do, all of us would be doing it. So that is strategy number 3. Oh yeah, go get a massage. That's always a good thing to relax. Get your nails done, get your feet rubbed, something like that. So yes, Rosetta, good. She says, I'm so much better at this. 2 years of your coaching. Has it been 2 years, Rosetta? Aww, virtual hug. I love my clients. They're awesome. So if you guys have any questions about anything that I mentioned today, if you have any particular challenges that you are personally facing this weekend that you want support on, Showing off my little brassiere here. Feel free, type them in the chat and I'm happy to coach. And we're at 5:30. How about that? Happy half hour went by really, really quickly. And if this is something that you like and you would like to see me do more things like this, let me know. Let me know. Tell me if this was helpful for you. It was fun for me. And again, if you're watching the replay, the wonderful thing about Facebook is that you can type in your question and I'll come back and answer it later. You're welcome, Rosetta. You have a good weekend as well. So, 531, happy hap— Happy App Hour is officially over. Um, so hopefully that was helpful for you for the weekend success setup, and I want you all to have a lovely and luxe weekend. Bye-bye! Cheers!