After 4 nutrition certifications didn’t help me lose weight, I used the skills from my days as the FBI Chief of Staff for Counterintelligence to finally create sustainable weight loss for myself, and have helped hundreds of women do the same.

Today, I’m taking you inside my former world at the FBI and giving you 3 unexpected tactics that you can steal for your own weight loss journey.

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1. Create a Tactical Plan

I was not an agent in the field, but I was instrumental in developing the FBI’s post-9-11 National Security Operations. Remember, in the early 2000’s, the internet was still new, databases were clunky, agencies didn’t talk to each other, we barely talked to each other within the agencies, and the majority of the work was done manually.

After the 9-11 Commission Report and the WMD Commission Report were released, the FBI had a lot of restructuring to do. We needed to create efficiencies, both inside the organization, and with our partnering agencies.

When I was transferred from Quantico up to Headquarters, my first week there, my boss stormed into my cube, threw a 100-page document down on my desk and said, “Go downstairs and work with the AD (the Assistant Director) on getting the WMD Directorate stood up.”

I looked down at the document, and back up at her and asked, “What does WMD stand for again?”

That’s how it started. It wasn’t pretty. But we started with a plan. We didn’t just wing it with a new approach to national security.

I spent that year implementing, testing, and revising the plan. And, because of the work I did, that’s how I got the billet to be the GS-15 Chief of Staff of the Counterintelligence Program Management Office.

Ok, Holly, great story about your time at the FBI. What does this have to do with weight loss?

Everything.

Do you jump into the next diet or the next tip that the influencer says to do on Instagram, or do you actually create a plan that works for your actual life? And, by actual life, I mean the stress-filled, completely chaotic life. Not the one-day, someday future dream life, where you actually have 24 hours in a day to focus on losing weight.

Are you trying to jam the square peg of the diets and tips into the round hole of your life, especially when none of this has ever worked for you before? Or are you creating that perfect Venn Diagram intersection of changing what needs to change, so that you can lose weight and keep it off, even on your worst day?

What are the foods that nourish you, instead of starving you?

What is your plan to eat them on a consistent basis?

What is the exercise schedule that works WITH your life?

What is the sleep schedule that works WITH your life?

The question you’re currently asking yourself is, what tips and tricks are going to work to lose weight? The question you need to ask yourself is, what plan can I create that still survives my most stressful day?

One of the women inside of the Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE said, “I feel better that I have some kind of a framework to work with instead of just being out there floating in the air by myself.”

By the way, there are days that 100-page document thudding on the desk still lives rent free in my head.

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2. Stay Ahead of the Threat

I’m not sure about all of the other parts of the FBI, but when I was Chief of Staff in Counterintelligence, “stay ahead of the threat” was our mantra. I’m talking, we said it 10 times a day.

My team and I implemented a process to look at patterns of past threats to predict future threats. We sliced and diced the data, and presented our findings to the executives so they could make informed decisions for the division.

And, when I say implemented a process, we did this manually. We didn’t have a system or database in place. It ended up becoming the gold standard across the Bureau.

This was important work because it’s better when you can track the threat proactively, rather than investigate reactively. In other words, it’s better to prevent a crime, rather than investigate a crime after it happened.

We did this by implementing countermeasures. Ok, Holly, what the heck are countermeasures? In basic terms, countermeasures are deployed to help stay ahead of and prevent the crime or attack.

This is important for your weight loss journey because your day is packed with threats. You start your day with all of the good intentions of eating healthy and being good and getting your steps in. But then what happens?

You’re running late.

Your boss makes you stay late at work.

The dog poops on the carpet.

You get into an argument with your spouse.

And then what happens? It’s 9:00 at night and you’re eating everything in sight.

When you take the time to identify those threats and create tactical countermeasures to stay ahead of the threat, when that stuff happens, you are more likely to not let it affect you as much, and not devour the entire pantry.

You create your response before you need it.

In fact, there are 8 predictable failure points in every weight loss journey. When you have a plan to counter these 8 points, you are setting yourself up to achieve sustainable weight loss, rather than quitting every other day. This is the exact system you get inside of the Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE.

One of the women inside the MACHINE told me that she implemented the countermeasures and was surprised by what happened.

3. Expect the Mission to Go Sideways

Ask any FBI agent, or even my ex-husband, who was a Green Beret. The Special Operators will confirm this, too. Always expect the mission to go sideways. It rarely goes according to plan. And, when it does go sideways, they need to be in logical brain instead of their emotional brain, they need to get a little scrappy, they need to rely on their training, and they need to be resilient.

Weight loss is no different. Your mission will go sideways. Quitting is part of the process. Not to mention, you are much more likely to quit when life gets in the way.

Most diets teach this on-off approach. You’re either on the diet or you’re off the diet. You screw up, you start over on Monday.

Your resilience is the key to success or failure. When you can build resilience, you aren’t starting over every other day. You just pick back up where you left off.

One of the women inside the MACHINE had a rough two weeks. Instead of quitting and beating herself up, like she did in the past, she implemented exactly what she learned and she was able to jump right back in, like no time had passed. She didn’t get into her emotional brain with all of the boo hoos. She just picked up where she left off.

Sustainability isn’t about quitting 10 times. It’s quitting 10 times and getting back up 11.

Now that you know that sustainable weight loss is less about the diet and more about creating a tactical plan, staying ahead of the threat, and expecting the mission to go sideways, I hope that you aren’t going to file this as “good to know”. My goal for you is to actually steal and implement these 3 FBI tactics.

And, if you’re sitting there, wanting to jump into action, but you aren’t sure where to begin, this is exactly why I created the Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE. This is a back-to-basics system that builds the actions, patterns, and habits into your life, one step at a time, without another lame diet, or meal plan, or counting calories.

I created this program for the woman who wants to do this once and for all. The women who are already inside are women just like you. They have been overweight for decades. and seeing results I shared today are just like you. They are professional dieters who have been overweight for decades. They are trusting themselves for the first time, and they are watching their lives and their health change one day at a time.

When you’re ready to drop the nonsense about starving yourself, counting calories and macros, or weighing your food, and instead become a Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE...

This is your back-to-basics approach to achieve healthy and sustainable weight loss. We kick it old school, and we do it in a way that you build an environment and lifestyle that works for you to create that sustainability.

We do it in a way where you eat platefuls of satisfying and nutrient-dense food. We do it in a way where you enjoy moving your body. You learn what your body actually needs.

JOIN HERE

I’ll bet you’ve never seen FBI tactics deployed to counter binge eating. Let me show you how.

Be sure to subscribe to the Weight Loss Forensics Substack channel.

And if weekend binging is your thing... upgrade to the paid membership for just a few dollars a month, and you’ll get LIVE visualization and exercises every Friday morning to help you set your weekend up for success.

Subscribe now

I joke about eating failure and bacon for breakfast every morning.

I mean... it’s kinda true.

But for weeks, I kept staring at this dang tire in the gym.

I wanted to flip it.

But I didn’t know how.

I was scared of hurting myself.

I was too embarrassed to try.

I was too embarrassed to ask for help.

So for weeks, I just kept staring at it, hoping something would miraculously change.

Well... something did change.

I asked one of the trainers to show me what to do.

btw... 40kg = 88.185lb.

In this case, the only failure for me was not even trying.

I mean... the flips aren’t pretty... but I’m learning.

When you want to achieve a goal, there’s not one person on this planet who goes from A to B without failure in the middle.

But we have been sooooo programmed that there’s supposed to be an Easy Button.

We want the straightest path to success.

But we forget that failure is an ingredient. Failure is a HUGE part of the process.

So why the heckeroni are we so scared of failure?

Why do we get so wrapped around the axle in this “all-or-nothing” perfectionist mode, when WE KNOW we have to fail in order to succeed?

Failure is an ingredient to success.

When you can wake up, take a shower, brush your teeth, and then eat failure and bacon for breakfast every morning... you, my friend, are going to be unstoppable.

Because the more you fail, the more you will succeed.

Let’s Go.

I’ll bet you’ve never seen FBI tactics deployed to counter binge eating. Let me show you how.

Be sure to subscribe to the Weight Loss Forensics Substack channel.

And if weekend binging is your thing... upgrade to the paid membership for just a few dollars a month, and you’ll get LIVE visualization and exercises every Friday morning to help you set your weekend up for success.

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In this episode, I’m going to show you the pattern behind this 10-minute window, so you can finally break of what has been sabotaging you and keeping you in this danger zone of emotional eating.

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I’m going to share something I’ve never talked about before, and something I’ve never heard another weight loss coach talk about, because I don’t want to gate-keep this.

When we talk about emotional eating, most women say, “oh I eat when I’m stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, angry, bored or lonely”. You get the idea. You eat when you’re experiencing these big emotions and food is comfort. Food takes the edge off.

But there is one moment in everyone’s day that you probably do. This danger zone can trigger emotional eating, and it has nothing to do with numbing from big emotions or stress.

This danger zone is the in-between moment of your day. This can happen anytime you are in between tasks, or when you are out of the groove of your day. So this can even happen on weekends, or when you’re on travel.

And, the worst part is this type of eating is so automatic and ritualistic that you don’t even know you’re doing it.

Most people call it a time of transition. In psychology, it’s known as the liminal space. Interestingly, it is common for individuals with ADHD to struggle with this transition time even more than everyone else.

But if you go a few layers deeper, I’m actually going to call it an Identity Gap. Meaning, when you’re at work, you’re in a specific role and an identity. You’re the manager ,the CEO, the VP, or the employee. When you’re at home, you’re in another role and identity. Wife, spouse, mom.

I’m sure the wheels are spinning right about now, as you’re processing how this manifests in your own life.

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Here’s why this happens. In this in-between space of transition, there’s no identity to cling to. There’s no structure or direction. That liminal space does not have a rule book to follow. Your brain has been operating in structure for the last few hours and then suddenly, nothing. Your brain hates discomfort and uncertainty, so it does what it does best and it reaches for something to fill the gap.

The most prominent time is walking into the house after work. You drop your keys, kick off your heels, and the next thing you know, you’re standing in the pantry.

But it can also be when you finish a task and you’re not sure what’s next, so you reach for the reward snack. Or, when the kids are finally quiet at night, before you settle down, or even weekends, when the schedule is more lax.

Identity Gap emotional eating is about low-level discomfort, rather than feeding big emotions. And, while both are considered emotional eating, and both are automatic, you will find that you’re more aware of when you’re emotional eating, while Identity Gap eating happens when you’re zoning out or not quite fully aware.

So many people like to lump emotional eating, binge eating, or stress eating into this bucket of “I eat when I see my favorite treat and I can’t stop”. That awareness is helpful and it’s definitely the first step. In fact, I tell my clients and students all the time that awareness is the win, because I want them to focus on the process, instead of “I was bad and I ate the thing” or, “I was good and I didn’t eat the thing”.

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But real awareness isn’t, “oh I’m eating my feelings”. Back in my emotional eating days, I was fully aware that I would eat 3 pints of ice cream every single weekend. In fact, I had it planned out with military-grade precision. I was fully aware, but that wasn’t enough to stop me from diving face-first into salted caramel perfection.

Awareness is more than just knowing what you’re doing. It’s understanding and uncovering why you’re doing it. It’s getting to the root cause of what got you here in the first place. And, because emotional eating is a lot more nuanced than “I eat my feelings”, that process of understanding the patterns of your emotional eating, and when and why it shows up for you, is what will give you the edge you need.

That’s exactly what I help my private clients do and that’s exactly what you get to experience inside the Break Emotional Eating Accelerator. I walk you through step-by-step on how to understand your patterns, because emotional eating isn’t as simple as “I eat my feelings”. There are so many different patterns that might be showing up for you, without you even knowing it. And, when you understand the pattern, you can also begin to understand how to create a game plan for when you are in that gap.

If you’re ready to crawl inside your brain to understand why you emotionally eat, and how to actually stop those sabotage patterns, that’s exactly what you get to experience inside the Break Emotional Eating Accelerator.

LEARN MORE

And if you are the type of woman who wants to make the investment to go all in, you can apply for private coaching. I only work with 3-4 clients at a time, so spots are limited based on availability.

APPLY HERE

I’ll bet you’ve never seen FBI tactics deployed to counter binge eating. Let me show you how.

Be sure to subscribe to the Weight Loss Forensics Substack channel.

And if weekend binging is your thing... upgrade to the paid membership for just a few dollars a month, and you’ll get LIVE visualization and exercises every Friday morning to help you set your weekend up for success.

Subscribe now

😬

You’re probably like... of course not, Holly. I don’t worship it.

Yes.

But...

Are you putting food above other things in your life?

An idol is something that you put above God that captivates your heart and your mind.

That being said...

How much do you desire food?

How much do you think about food?

And, how much of that bandwidth is taking you away from what really matters in your life?

I know this because food was my idol.

I woke up thinking about it.

I went to bed thinking about it.

I spent all day thinking about my next meal and my next treat.

It CONSUMED me.

For decades.

Not only did I break the cycle of sabotage with brainwashing tactics I learned at the FBI...

I then sustained a 20-pound loss in the process.

And I’ve helped hundreds of clients do the same.

If you’re finally at the point where you understand it’s going to take a different approach when you want to stop emotional eating and/or lose weight... I want you to find a coach you really resonate with.

And, if that coach is me, what we do is completely different than meal plans, calories, macros, or weighing food.

When we work together, you will create a complete rewiring/installation and an entire identity shift to become the woman who can sustain these healthy habits.

This is where you release the trauma, stuck emotions, and sabotage patterns that have been keeping you in this lose-gain cycle, so that maintaining a healthy weight is a natural part of who you are.

This will only work if you are a woman who has impeccable word to yourself and your integrity is everything.

In this house, we don’t do excuses, because those women will never get results.

I’ve got 2 spots open for private 1-1 coaching, and because of the nature of this deep work, there is an application process to work with me.

And if you are the type of woman who wants to make the investment to go all in, you can apply for private coaching. I only work with 3-4 clients at a time, so spots are limited based on availability.

APPLY HERE

I’ll bet you’ve never seen FBI tactics deployed to counter binge eating. Let me show you how.

Be sure to subscribe to the Weight Loss Forensics Substack channel.

And if weekend binging is your thing... upgrade to the paid membership for just a few dollars a month, and you’ll get LIVE visualization and exercises every Friday morning to help you set your weekend up for success.

Subscribe now

Today, I’m sharing the 5 things that surprised them about their experience, and these 5 things surprised even me, too.

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But I’m getting a little ahead of myself, because this program was never meant to be a thing. Let me back up to give you some context.

I do private 1 on 1 coaching for a few select clients. But my primary focus is my signature program, the Break Emotional Eating Accelerator. It helps women break those sabotage patterns of emotional eating.

The women in the program were getting so much value out of it and they had broken their emotional eating patterns. I kept getting asked the same question… what’s next?

So I asked them the most logical question… what specifically do you want?

The answers were all the same.

I don’t just want to lose weight. I want to do this right. I want to do this where it’s gonna last. I want to do this sustainably.

I really had to sit with this because I wasn’t planning on creating a weight loss program, because I’m not a traditional weight loss coach. I’m not the coach that’s like… oh here is your meal plan and here’s your macros and track all of your food and check in with me every week.

I don’t do that.

I kept asking myself over and over again, what kind of program can I create for these women that will help them achieve sustainable weight loss?

What kind of program can I create to help these women achieve sustainable weight loss?

And, at some point, it finally hit me like a 2 x 4. Holly, you big dumb dumb. Sustainable weight loss. The focus is sustainable weight loss, which makes perfect sense because as a 20 year PMP I can make a project plan for anything.

So I took it back to the women I said… what if we incorporated a back to basics project plan to create sustainable weight loss?

The answer was unanimous.

The Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE was born in my head. I asked the ladies in my existing program if they wanted to be beta testers, and a lot of them said yes. Which surprised me, but shouldn’t have surprised me.

I set aside a certain number of seats for the ladies who are already in my program and a certain number of seats for the general public. Every single one of them paid to do this. They did not get in free. I was clear with them upfront that we are building the plane, as we’re flying it. They were walking into a lot of construction dust with a program that is being created in real time. I wanted their honest feedback and, in return, they got a group coaching call every other week. It was a pretty fair deal.

But what happened over the next three months surprised them and surprised me., because I went into this Beta Cohort thinking I was testing a weight loss program. What I ended up watching was 39 women completely change the way they approached weight loss.

Surprise #1: The Boring Stuff Works Better Than the Sexy Stuff

When they started, I kept telling them to expect to be bored and underwhelmed. I expected them to experience quite a bit of resistance because they were no longer chasing the scale.

The crazy part here was that because I called out the resistance, they were aware of it, and they knew it the second it showed up:

I already know this.

I’m not doing enough.

I’m not losing enough weight.

Because of this, they were able to shut it down, and that’s when things started shifting. They were jumping on the coaching calls and sharing comments like…

I’m walking every day.

I have much more energy and haven’t needed to nap in the afternoon.

My blood sugar has been down a lot, and fewer spikes.

I’m going to bed earlier and waking up earlier to walk.

I’m starting to feel like I actually have power. For the first time ever.

I keep reminding myself... you don’t have to be an A student... just do the best that you can.

I’m more intentional about eating more protein. I’ve cut way back on breads, sweets, alcohol, fried foods, and processed foods.

I’m really proud of myself, which is a change. I feel less bloated most of the time.

My food is easier to manage, and my mood and energy are more consistent.

I’m calmer. I’m more consistent. I can feel that I’m getting stronger. I’m more in control.

This might not seem like a big deal to you. But to me, what I noticed was that the women who stopped focusing on weight loss, and started focusing on doing solid C-level work every day, were the ones who were creating the momentum. They were the ones who were showing up with the NSV’s, or non-scale victories, as they are called. And, these NSV’s are leading indicators that their daily behaviors and habits are beginning to create sustainable weight loss.

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Surprise #2: Their Wins Showed Up Before the Scale Did

This is the perfect segue to surprise number 2. And Oh. My. Goodness. This was the biggest mind blown emoji moment for me, let alone the ladies in the Beta Cohort.

We, as women, have been programmed to step on a stupid piece of plastic and focus on a stupid number between our 2 big toes. One and only one metric. And don’t even get me started on how we place our value on that number. That’s a whole different conversation.

Your weight isn’t the only metric.

These are some of the other metrics and NSV’s that matter, and the last one is going to blow your mind as much as it did mine:

I can’t believe how much better I feel, even just changing what I eat and that I’m moving every day.

I’m falling in love with feeling my muscles. I feel stronger and it’s getting easier.

My clothes fit different and people are noticing.

I have more stamina.

My A1c went from 9.0 to 7.5 in 8 weeks. And my average blood sugar went from 180s to 120s.

What these women realized is that in all times past, they would put in several weeks or months of effort and not lose weight or only a few pounds, and they would convince themselves it’s not working and they quit. Whereas now, they are learning how to evaluate ALL OF THIS as evidence that it IS working. The scale wasn’t moving as quickly as they had hoped (because hello, the majority of them are over 40), but the veil was lifted and they can finally see how much their bodies are changing.

Surprise #3: “It’s Getting Easier” Became the Go-To Phrase

So, now, that they are seeing their bodies change, surprise #3 was something else I wasn’t expecting, and that was how many times I heard them say, “it’s getting easier. It’s not such a fight anymore.”

Remember, this is me and 39 women building the plane, as we’re flying it. This was when I knew we unlocked something pretty magical. And, this wasn’t because I’m hearing oh, “I lost 19 pounds” or, “I lost 4 pounds” or, “I lost 30 pounds" or, “I’m at my goal weight”. That’s great. But whoopiefreaking deal. These women are professional dieters. They know how to lose weight.

What got my attention was when they told me that they aren’t negotiating with themselves anymore. That is the biggest key to unlock the biggest door to sustainability. A running joke that I have with all of my clients and students is when they ask me, “Holly, what is this supposed to look like or feel like?”

My answer is, “nothing. It’s supposed to look like and feel like nothing.” Meaning, it’s now a part of you so much, that it’s what you naturally do. And, I hear this over and over again from my women, and that is that it’s usually several days, even a week before they realize that they were automatically doing something different. And they’re like… wait… when did that happen?!?!?

Here’s what these ladies said about this:

It’s getting easier and easier. I’m not making any more excuses. I’m just doing what I need to.

I’m sticking with it, and I can tell it’s starting to make a difference. I’m finally understanding what sustainability actually means.

It’s easier to make better food choices. Before it was such a fight.

Going to bed earlier and getting up earlier to walk every day is just now a part of my regular routine. And I actually really like getting up earlier.

I am watching TV with zero thoughts about eating.

I passed on the donuts after church. People asked if I was going to have one and I just said no. I’m learning I don’t have to explain to others why I’m not eating this.

I don’t have the food noise anymore, and that’s huge. I didn’t even realize it, it just stopped.

Surprise #4: The Biggest Changes Weren’t About Food

This one was more of a surprise for them than it was for me. I’ve had several hundred students go through my other program, the Break Emotional Eating Accelerator, and that is the core premise of that program.

Not to mention, when I went through my own weight loss journey, it was when I battled the internal dragons that I saw the most growth. And, the coolest part of this is that these internal changes will actually change everything else in your life. Like, you become this delicious version of yourself that you could never in a million years imagine you could be.

So, yes, I actually did expect them to see some pretty big internal shifts. But they were not ready for what they experienced.

I have more boundaries with people who constantly want things from me.

I said no to an obligation I didn’t want to do and that opened up the door for me to do what I actually wanted to do.

I feel really good about myself lately. I’m beginning to like the inside changes that I’m making.

I’m celebrating what I’m accomplishing, not negating what I didn’t do enough of.

I’m not blaming myself anymore. And I’m not angry at the world.

Who do you think is going to actually keep the weight off? The woman who continues to focus on the scale? Or is it going to be the woman who keeps promises to herself, the woman who protects her time and energy, and the woman who stops putting everyone else’s comfort above her own?

If you think about it, it’s almost like these women are becoming the best, healthiest, most confident version of themselves, and the weight loss is just a side effect.

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Surprise #5: The Women Found What They Didn’t Know They Were Looking For

You know when you go to a concert and you love the entire experience, but you’re a little disappointed that they didn’t play your favorite song? The band finishes, the stage gets dark, and everyone starts yelling and putting their phone lights up. Then the band comes back on stage for the encore, it’s the fan favorite, and everyone’s just losing their minds.

This is that moment.

Because here’s the thing. These 39 women and I weren’t just building the plane as we were flying it. We kinda didn’t have a destination. I mean, yes, I knew the direction we were traveling. But I had no clue where we were going to land, and neither did they.

These women weren’t praising calories or macros or meal plans because there is none of that in the program. These women found something they didn’t even know they were looking for. They found a future. These women found themselves. These women got into an airplane, without wings and wheels, and they’ve got their welding equipment to piece it all together. They’re flying to an unknown destination and they land softly. In their own hearts.

They were the destination all along. It took some time, but they realized they have had this inside of them the entire time. So yeah, I mean, 3 cheers for losing weight. But what they found inside of them was that encore crowd going wild. Because THAT is the kind of transformation that builds the conviction that they will never, ever go back to their old selves ever again.

Here’s what some of the women said:

I can see myself being active 20 years from now, rather than just going downhill. I feel like I finally have a future.

I actually feel hopeful.

This change in me is such a fantastic feeling.

I’m humbled at what my body can do.

I know how to find solutions on my own.

If this was a few months ago, I would have found every way I could to cheat with soda and ice cream and do anything I could to eat what I wanted. But now, I’m choosing that I don’t even want these things. I’m choosing me.

These were the 5 biggest surprises, not just for the ladies in the Beta Cohort of the Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE, but for me. I mean, yes, I’ve coached hundreds of women before, but this was a brand new program, and I wasn’t sure what those 3 months were going to look like.

When I started this Beta Cohort, I wanted to know if the Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE would work in the real world, with real women who have spent decades losing and gaining back the same weight. Three months later, I got my answer.

1. What they DID changed.

2. What they considered PROGRESS changed.

3. What weight loss FELT LIKE changed.

4. Who THEY WERE changed.

5. What they believed was POSSIBLE changed.

That is how the Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE works.

My friend, no one gets the gooseys over macros, meal plans, or habit stacking. But these women are walking taller and taller every single day because of the dragons they have slayed over the past 3 months.

My job as a coach is to give you the tools and teach you how to use them, so that I can disappear from your life and you will be good to go. I can’t teach you how to choose yourself. Only you can do that. I am here to give you the framework and the space to make it happen.

And, because you’re still here, there is a part of you that knows you are meant to do this once and for all. That you are meant to be that woman who can actually lose, maintain, and sustain a healthy weight.

This is why I created the Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE. The MACHINE is designed to completely disrupt how you lose weight, so that you can finally graduate from being a professional dieter, just like these 39 women. This is a back-to-basics system that builds the actions, patterns, and habits into your life, one step at a time, without another lame diet, meal plan, or counting calories.

I created this program to be accessible for any woman who wants to do this once and for all. The women who are already inside and seeing results I shared today are just like you. They are professional dieters who have been overweight for decades. They are trusting themselves for the first time, and they are watching their lives and their health change one day at a time.

When you’re ready to drop the nonsense about starving yourself, counting calories and macros, or weighing your food, and instead become a Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE...

This is your back-to-basics approach to achieve healthy and sustainable weight loss. We kick it old school, and we do it in a way that you build an environment and lifestyle that works for you to create that sustainability.

We do it in a way where you eat platefuls of satisfying and nutrient-dense food. We do it in a way where you enjoy moving your body. You learn what your body actually needs.

JOIN HERE

I’ll bet you’ve never seen FBI tactics deployed to counter binge eating. Let me show you how.

Be sure to subscribe to the Weight Loss Forensics Substack channel.

And if weekend binging is your thing... upgrade to the paid membership for just a few dollars a month, and you’ll get LIVE visualization and exercises every Friday morning to help you set your weekend up for success.

Subscribe now

And you feel all fat and bloated and gross?

And, then, because you feel all fat and bloated and gross, you tell yourself that you ARE fat and gross?

Did you know that because you tell yourself that you are fat and gross, you now operate from this identity of someone who is fat and gross.

So you say things like...

I have to go on a diet.

I need to watch what I eat.

I’ve got to lose this weight.

I’m going to be good.

Or you’ll say things like...

Why bother? It’s never worked before.

When you have this inner dialogue, it then perpetuates that entire cycle of eating everything in sight and then feeling fat and bloated and gross.

This is why so many diets fail, because they only focus on what you’re supposed to eat.

They don’t address the cycle.

They don’t address how to change your environment and mindset to get out of the cycle.

The good news is that just as easy as it is to stay in the cycle, you can reverse the cycle.

I know this because I was an emotional eater for 40+ years, and I broke the cycle of sabotage with brainwashing tactics I learned at the FBI. I then sustained a 20-pound loss in the process. And I’ve helped hundreds of clients do the same.

That’s why I created the Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE.

This summer, I’ve got 38 women who are Beta Testers inside the program, co-creating it with me so that it is top-tier for you when doors open in September.

When you join the Priority List for this back-to-basics program (no obligation):

✔️ You’ll immediately get a 5-min fat-burning exercise that’s easy to do right in your kitchen... even if you are overweight or don’t exercise.

✔️ You’ll be first notified when doors open in September and I’ll throw in a couple of bonuses for you.

✔️ You’ll get an exclusive discount on the program that’s not available to the public.

Join the Priority List today. No obligation.

When you’re ready to drop the nonsense about starving yourself, counting calories and macros, or weighing your food, and instead become a Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE...

This is your back-to-basics approach to achieve healthy and sustainable weight loss. We kick it old school, and we do it in a way that you build an environment and lifestyle that works for you to create that sustainability.

We do it in a way where you eat platefuls of satisfying and nutrient-dense food. We do it in a way where you enjoy moving your body. You learn what your body actually needs.

JOIN HERE

I’ll bet you’ve never seen FBI tactics deployed to counter binge eating. Let me show you how.

Be sure to subscribe to the Weight Loss Forensics Substack channel.

And if weekend binging is your thing... upgrade to the paid membership for just a few dollars a month, and you’ll get LIVE visualization and exercises every Friday morning to help you set your weekend up for success.

Subscribe now

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In this episode, I’m going to show you the pattern behind this 10-minute window, so you can finally break what has been sabotaging you and keeping you in this danger zone of emotional eating.

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I’m going to share something I’ve never talked about before, and something I’ve never heard another weight loss coach talk about, because I don’t want to gate keep this.

When we talk about emotional eating, most women say, “oh, I eat when I’m stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, angry, bored, or lonely.” You get the idea. You eat when you’re experiencing these big emotions and food is comfort. Food takes the edge off.

But there is one moment in everyone’s day that you probably do. This danger zone can trigger emotional eating, and it has nothing to do with numbing from big emotions or stress.

This danger zone is the in-between moment of your day. This can happen anytime you are in between tasks or when you are out of the groove of your day, so even weekends or when you’re on travel. But the most common danger zone moment that causes emotional eating is the transition between work and home. And, the worst part is, this type of eating is so automatic and ritualistic that you don’t even know you’re doing it.

Most people call it a time of transition. In psychology, it’s known as the liminal space. Interestingly, it is common for individuals with ADHD to struggle with this transition time even more than everyone else.

But if you go a few layers deeper, I’m actually going to call it an Identity Gap. Meaning, when you’re at work, you’re in a specific role and an identity. You’re the manager, the CEO, the VP, or the employee. When you’re at home, you’re in another role and identity, such as wife, spouse, and/or mom.

I’m sure the wheels are spinning right about now, as you’re processing how this manifests in your own life.

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Here’s why this happens. In this in-between space of transition, there’s no identity to cling to. There’s no structure or direction. That liminal space does not have a rule book to follow. Your brain has been operating in structure for the last few hours and then, suddenly, nothing. Your brain hates discomfort and uncertainty. So it does what it does best and it reaches for something to fill the gap.

The most prominent time is walking into the house after work. You drop your keys, kick off your heels, and the next thing you know, you’re standing in the pantry.

But it can also be when you finish a task and you’re not sure what’s next, so you reach for the reward snack. Or when the kids are finally quiet at night, before you settle down, or even weekends, when the schedule is more lax.

Identity Gap emotional eating is about low-level discomfort rather than feeding big emotions. And, while both are considered emotional eating, and both are automatic, you will find that you’re more aware of when you’re emotional eating, while Identity Gap eating happens when you’re zoning out or not quite fully aware.

So many people like to lump emotional eating, binge eating, or stress eating into this bucket of “I eat when I see my favorite treat and I can’t stop.” That awareness is helpful and it’s definitely the first step. In fact, I tell my clients and students all of the time that awareness is the win, because I want them to focus on the process instead of “I was bad I ate the thing” or, “I was good I didn’t eat the thing.”

But real awareness isn’t, “oh I’m eating my feelings.”

In fact, I had it planned out with military-grade precision. I was fully aware, but that wasn’t enough to stop me from diving face-first into salted caramel perfection.

Awareness is more than just knowing what you’re doing. It’s understanding and uncovering why you’re doing it. It’s getting to the root cause of what got you here in the first place. And, because emotional eating is a lot more nuanced than, “I eat my feelings”, that process of understanding the patterns of your emotional eating, and when and why it shows up for you, will give you the edge you need.

That’s exactly what I help my private clients do and that’s exactly what you get to experience inside the Break Emotional Eating Accelerator. I walk you through step by step how to understand your patterns because emotional eating isn’t as simple as “I eat my feelings.” There are so many different patterns that might be showing up for you without you even knowing it. And, when you understand the pattern, you can also begin to understand how to create a game plan for when you are in that gap.

Inside the Break Emotional Eating Accelerator, and in just 10 days, you’re going to shut off the emotional eating patterns driving your cravings, so food stops controlling your life, healthier choices are automatic, and weight loss finally becomes sustainable.

If you’re ready to crawl inside your brain to understand why you emotionally eat, and how to actually stop those sabotage patterns, that’s exactly what you get to experience inside the Break Emotional Eating Accelerator.

LEARN MORE

And if you are the type of woman who wants to make the investment to go all in, you can apply for private coaching. I only work with 3-4 clients at a time, so spots are limited based on availability.

APPLY HERE

I’ll bet you’ve never seen FBI tactics deployed to counter binge eating. Let me show you how.

Be sure to subscribe to the Weight Loss Forensics Substack channel.

And if weekend binging is your thing... upgrade to the paid membership for just a few dollars a month, and you’ll get LIVE visualization and exercises every Friday morning to help you set your weekend up for success.

Subscribe now

What are the food products, junk food, fast food, diet products, and medications that you are going to continue to use because you didn’t change your habits?

Make a list of these products and companies.

Things like...

Panera Bread

Breyers Ice Cream

Coca-Cola

Chick-Fil-A

Or, even the company that has processed food in a box that says “high protein” on it.

Do you ACTUALLY have control over what you eat?

Or, are these companies controlling what you eat?

And, when you get really quiet and honest with yourself... that answer is NOT something that you are going to want to hear.

Now ask yourself.m “who profits when I change for good?”

Maybe it’s things like...

Your local farmer

Your personal trainer

Your spouse

Your kids

Your bank account.

And then ask yourself, “who has control in THIS situation?”

If you answered yourself, congratulations, my friend.

You. Are. Ready.

That’s why I created the Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE.

Because it’s time to stop letting these companies profit from your weight.

Because it’s time to create an environment where you take back control.

Because it’s time for you to step into a sustainable lifestyle that you love and that benefits... YOU.

This summer, I’ve got 38 women who are Beta Testers inside the program, co-creating it with me so that it is top-tier for you when doors open in September.

When you join the Priority List for this back-to-basics program (no obligation):

✔️ You’ll immediately get a 5-min fat-burning exercise that’s easy to do right in your kitchen... even if you are overweight or don’t exercise.

When you’re ready to drop the nonsense about starving yourself, counting calories and macros, or weighing your food, and instead become a Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE...

This is your back-to-basics approach to achieve healthy and sustainable weight loss. We kick it old school, and we do it in a way that you build an environment and lifestyle that works for you to create that sustainability.

We do it in a way where you eat platefuls of satisfying and nutrient-dense food. We do it in a way where you enjoy moving your body. You learn what your body actually needs.

JOIN HERE

I’ll bet you’ve never seen FBI tactics deployed to counter binge eating. Let me show you how.

Be sure to subscribe to the Weight Loss Forensics Substack channel.

And if weekend binging is your thing... upgrade to the paid membership for just a few dollars a month, and you’ll get LIVE visualization and exercises every Friday morning to help you set your weekend up for success.

Subscribe now

True or false? Moving your body is better than sitting on the couch binging Netflix all day.

Congratulations, my friend! You don’t need another weight loss hack. You already know the basics of what to do. And, yes, it really is that simple. So if you already know what to do, why doesn’t it stick?

Today, you’re going to get the top 8 reasons why your weight loss isn’t sustainable. Because I’m guessing you’ve spent the last 10, 20, maybe even 30 years trying to lose weight by changing what you eat and, yet, that scale somehow ends up back where you started. You want to know why? It’s because you’re building it backwards. It’s time to stop managing your weight with an approach that keeps disappointing you.

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Sustainable weight loss has to be built from the bottom-up, with systems that make healthy choices consistent and predictable, even on your most chaotic days. When you build the right environment, healthy, sustainable weight loss becomes the result. This is where you make it sticky.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever put a piece of furniture together from Ikea or Target. And, if you don’t have your hand up, please explain yourself because this is a rite of passage for every adult.

What do you need to put furniture together? Nuts and bolts. What happens if you are missing one bolt? It doesn’t matter how talented you are, or how good the instructions are. When one bolt is missing, the entire piece is wobbly. And, the nuts, while seemingly inconsequential, keep the bolts in place.

Weight loss works the same way. Today, you’re going to get the 8 missing pieces that are keeping you in professional dieter status, and what’s holding you back from making weight loss sustainable. Knowing these 8 pieces is the easy part. That’s what you get today. Building them into your life is where the magic happens, and we’ll come back to that at the end.

1. You Jump In Without a Plan

Before I jump into this, I need to share something important with you.

When I surveyed the 39 women, who are in the Beta Cohort this summer for my brand new back-to-basics weight loss program, I asked them one very important question.

How old were you when you first tried to lose weight or go on a diet? Thirty-three percent said college, and eighteen percent said high school, which is expected. But what really got me was that 22% said they started their FIRST diet in elementary school.

The reason I’m sharing this with you is because these women are professional dieters, and have been their entire lives. This proves that you can’t lose weight because you need more experience or information. There’s something else at play here.

We have been programmed with this mentality to jump to the next diet without a plan. Your sister or your friend at work is trying the latest diet that they heard from some influencer on Instagram. They recruit you because misery loves company, and the next thing you know, you’re drinking dandelion tea and running to the bathroom, praying the incident doesn’t turn into disaster pants.

When you borrow someone else’s blueprint, you’re building what works for them, not what works for you. Every failed diet starts with food. But what if long-term success had nothing to do with food? What if you actually started with laying out all of the furniture pieces and followed the blueprint instead of making it up as you go?

Bolt #1 is Build the Foundation. This is when you stop the diet nonsense, put on your project manager hat, and actually build the foundation of sustainable health. This is when it stops being a diet. It’s not about what you eat, and instead, it’s creating a solid project plan of action for your life.

One of the students inside the Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE took this to heart. She said…

Because of this, in her first 2 weeks, she was able to stabilize her blood sugar for the first time, and she increased her energy so much, she stopped taking afternoon naps.

You will know you’ve built a solid foundation when you stop asking, “What diet should I try next” and you start asking, “How does this fit the life I want to live?” Or even better, “How does this fit the woman who I’m trying to become?”

2. You Don’t Set Your Environment Up For Success

Willpower is the worst strategy on the planet.

When your favorite cookies are on the counter, and your afternoon Reese’s Cup is in your desk drawer, it’s going to be business as usual. Because your brain’s default is business as usual.

When your pantry and fridge feel like a scavenger hunt to find something healthy, you’re going to grab what’s easy, convenient, and comforting. When the healthy choice is harder than the convenient choice, easy is always going to win.

When you don’t have water on your desk at work, it’s going to be harder to drink it.

You get the idea.

Leaving your day up to luck hasn’t worked for you yet.

Bolt #2 is Optimize Your Environment. This is where you stop relying on willpower and start relying on systems. You optimize your environment so the healthy choice becomes the easy choice. That’s when success becomes much more predictable.

What did this look like for one of the students inside the Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE? She is overweight and diabetic, and has quit every single diet because she was only focusing on the scale and nothing else. She shifted her focus to implementing these systems, and in two months, at her doctor’s checkup, her A1C had dropped from 9.0 to 7.5. Two months. Her doctor even told her, “Whatever it is you’re doing, keep doing it.”

You will know this is working when you stop relying on motivation and start relying on your systems.

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3. You Don’t Protect Your Boundaries

The third reason your weight loss isn’t sustainable is because you don’t protect your boundaries.

Does this scenario sound familiar?

Someone offers you seconds, or dessert, or their special homemade cookies. You politely say, “No, thank you.”

They respond with, “Oh, come on, live a little. One bite isn’t going to kill you.”

You try to justify your no thank you with a 5-minute over-explain complete with the entire backstory of why you’re on another diet and how much you really-really-really mean it this time.

They respond with, “Are you sure?”

And, with that, you give in and eat the thing.

Your body and your health are the castle and your boundaries are the fortress surrounding it. You need to lock it down and protect your world. This means protecting your boundaries with what you eat, from binging one more episode on Netflix, from doom-scrolling, from saying yes all of the time, from staying up late, from skipping the gym, and from being superwoman to save the day, when everyone around you is having an emergency.

Every time you give one of your boundaries away, external forces take control of your actions. This is like spending 6 hours building that Ikea dresser, and then instead of putting it in the bedroom where it belongs, you put it out by the curb where it’s at the mercy of being stolen or rained on.

Not to mention, you are training your brain that your goals and your integrity are completely negotiable.

But when you can lock-in and protect your boundaries, you are in control. If you do not protect what you build, it will disappear.

Bolt #3 is Lock-In. This is where you stop putting other people’s comfort above your health and well-being. This is stewardship of the vessel that God gave to you.

This is when inside the Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE I hear things like…

You will know this is working when your “No, thank you” actually lands, and it’s not a wrestling match to see who wins.

4. You Don’t Trust Yourself

The fourth reason your weight loss isn’t sustainable is because somewhere along the way, you stopped believing in yourself, and you don’t trust yourself.

I can’t tell you how many women I talk to have made it their full time job to be jumping into diets, programs, and coaches.

Always. Looking. For. The. Next. Best. Thing.

You’ve probably heard of external and internal locus of control. When you don’t trust yourself, you start outsourcing your confidence and your results. And when you do that, and when it doesn’t work, it’s much easier to blame the program or the coach rather than looking within. And, because you’re blaming the program or coach, you’re now looking for the next thing that promises you the big result. So what are you supposed to do?

When you learn how to trust yourself, you learn to trust your body. You learn to trust your hunger and satiety cues. You learn to trust your routines and boundaries and decisions. You take complete responsibility and accountability and ownership of you, and this is one of the most important shifts in achieving sustainable weight loss.

This is also when you develop resiliency. By that, I mean, there will be plenty of times during your journey when you backslide and go back to those old habits. Resiliency is when this is just a moment in time, and you jump right back into your new and evolving self, instead of burning everything down.

Our fourth and final bolt is Trust Yourself. This is when you stop looking for someone to save you and you finally become the woman you’ve been waiting for.

What this can look like is one of the students inside the Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE told me she felt like one of her supplements was making her tired. Instead of ignoring this, she knew the exact action to take. She listened to her body, stopped taking the supplement, and immediately felt better and had more energy. This isn’t about the supplement. This is about learning how to believe in yourself and trust yourself again.

You will know this is working when you stop looking for someone to tell you what to do, and start listening to your own wisdom.

Now that we’ve covered the 4 bolts:

• Build the Foundation

• Optimize Your Environment

• Lock-In

• Trust Yourself.

You’re probably realizing you do not need to become a better dieter. In fact, you’re probably realizing that you need to build the woman who never has to diet again.

And, now that you’ve used your 4 bolts to build the foundation for your MACHINE, you need the 4 nuts to hold everything in place and make sure it doesn’t fall apart. Losing weight is one thing. Keeping this up when life gets lifey and people get peopley, is a whole different ballgame.

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5. You Quit Over and Over Again

The fifth reason your weight loss isn’t sustainable is because you keep quitting. You quit every Thursday when the weekend is coming up. You quit every time the kids have some change in their school schedule. You quit every time things get busy at work. You quit every time you go on vacation. You quit every time you have a bad day. Congratulations, my friend. You are a professional dieter.

It’s almost like you’re waiting for the stars to perfectly align and somehow grant you the perfect, stress-free life, so that you can actually get serious about losing weight. Get brutally honest with yourself. How many days does life get lifey? Are we talking 7 days a week? Or maybe even 8? When was the last day that you actually “caught a break?” Thought so.

So what if, instead, you learn how to make weight loss sustainable, even during the hard days? Who cares if you can eat perfectly on your best day when you’re amped up and motivated? Anyone can stay on track when it’s easy. What creates real sustainability is when you can stay consistent on your worst day.

Your first nut is Neutralize Quitting. This is exactly why I created the I Quit Protocol inside the Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE. Because it’s not a matter of if you’re going to quit, it’s a matter of when. Why not stack the cards in your favor and learn how to work with your brain instead of against it?

That’s exactly what one of the students did. She had 2 really rough weeks, and instead of wallowing in the pit of despair, she learned how to climb out of it faster, and jumped back in to being consistent.

You’ll know this is working when one bad meal doesn’t turn into one bad month.

6. You Eat “Health” Foods That Aren’t Actually Healthy

The sixth reason your weight loss isn’t sustainable is that you eat “health” foods that aren’t actually healthy, and you’re wondering why nothing is working.

Back in the day, this was me to the max. I started my day with a green protein smoothie and a bowl of berries. I was vegan back then, and made sure that everything had the labels gluten free, organic, and vegan. I would walk out of the grocery store with a small handful of food that I paid $200 for and feeling all superior because, look at me with my bags and boxes of gluten free, organic, and vegan food.

I did not understand I wasn’t eating healthy food, I was eating processed junk food with healthy labels on them.

Not to mention, something that I did NOT learn in my 4 certifications in health and nutrition was that despite the fact that some foods are championed as healthy and superfoods, that doesn’t necessarily mean they agree with what your body needs. And they may actually cause an inflammatory response. So how are you supposed to know whether these foods are good for you? Especially because how your body reacts is going to be completely different from how someone else’s body reacts.

But the problem here is that traditional advice will tell you to eliminate everything from your diet or spend hundreds of dollars on testing. That might be necessary for some people. But for most, there’s a more efficient way.

This is exactly why the students inside the Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE learn a proprietary protocol called Intake 17. This simple, step-by step protocol helps you to efficiently identify the problem foods and take the appropriate action. This goes back to trusting your body’s feedback.

Your second nut is to Uncover Problem Foods, so that you are eating the foods that will nourish you and are truly healthy for you.

One woman I was working with was experiencing a lot of bloating and fatigue. When we reviewed what she was eating, I intuitively went right to what I thought the culprit was. She did the Intake 17 protocol to see if that was the food that was causing her the problems. She immediately felt a change in her energy, and she no longer had the bloated belly.

You’ll know this is working when healthy stops being a label on a package and starts being how you actually feel.

7. You Believe Eating Healthy is Expensive, So Why Bother?

One of the biggest complaints I hear from women who are trying to lose weight is that health food is expensive, so how can I afford to eat this way long term? I completely agree with that. And I completely disagree with that. Here’s why.

I agree with that because of what I shared just a minute ago. I would walk out of the grocery store with a handful of boxes and bags of “healthy food” with labels that said organic and gluten free and vegan. Yes, processed “health food” is exponentially more expensive. Yes, organic fruits and vegetables are more expensive. Yes, grass-fed, free range beef, chicken, and eggs are more expensive.

But when you know how to change your buying habits, you will be pleasantly surprised that eating healthier doesn’t cost as much as you think. This isn’t about couponing, because coupons don’t exist for these foods. This is about learning what to buy and where to buy it from. When you learn how to shop differently, you will become more efficient with your food, rather than wasteful.

Nut number three is Thrifty Nutrition. Because if your budget can’t sustain your nutrition, your nutrition isn’t going to sustain your weight loss. This is financial stewardship.

I’ll give you a personal example here. When I used to go out to dinner, I would order 1-2 glasses of wine, sometimes an appetizer, an entree, and dessert. Now, I just order the entree, and it’s typically their best steak. Even fancy restaurants can become more affordable.

The other change I noticed was my personal budget. My weekly food bill used to average around $200-$250 a week. Now it’s around $75-$100 most weeks. I live in a small town, so I know this doesn’t compare to city prices, but it gives you an apples-to-apples example of what this can look like.

You’ll know this is working when you can still shop within your budget and eating healthy doesn’t feel like a luxury.

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8. You Fall Back Into Old Patterns

The eighth and final reason your weight loss isn’t sustainable is that you fall back into your old patterns, specifically during social situations. This goes beyond boundaries. This is when you are around people you know and are comfortable with, and there’s a certain routine or tradition you share over food.

Maybe it’s going out for margs with your bestie, or cheese, crackers, and wine before dinner with your hubby. Not to mention, every single holiday. That’s what I’m talking about here. This is when your identity changes to match the environment. Like walking into your parent’s house and turning 16 again.

We humans love our routines and traditions. Tell me one family gathering that Meemaw does not bring her infamous Waldorf salad. I rest my case. The problem here is that despite “how good” you’ve been on your weight loss journey, these traditions tug on those nostalgia strings. And, before you know it, you’re asking for seconds.

The fourth and final nut is Social Survival. This one can feel the hardest, especially when you feel a sense of obligation, you don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, or the tradition creates an automatic response. So, instead, learn how to evolve in a way that honors your people and your new standards.

You’ll know this is working when you leave the party thinking about the conversations and connections, instead of obsessing over the food you ate.

So there you have it. These are 8 reasons your weight loss hasn’t been sustainable, and the 8 nuts and bolts to turn this around so you can become a Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE.

• Build the Foundation

• Optimize Your Environment

• Lock-In

• Trust Yourself

• Neutralize Quitting

• Uncover Problem Foods

• Thrifty Nutrition

• Social Survival

This is your CSI red yarn moment. Do you think that if weight loss was just about calorie in vs. calorie out that it’s going to be easy and effortless to sustain this for the rest of your life? I mean sure, if you still believe those sad little salads are still going to get you the results you want, keep on doing you. Or do you think if you learned the nuts and bolts of creating a healthy life you love, you might actually get it to stick?

I am not going to hand you a meal plan or tell you to track your calories. When you build the MACHINE, you create the systems that work for YOUR life. Because it’s not just about losing weight, it’s about creating a life where you can do this sustainably, even on your worst and most chaotic day.

There are some women still watching this, getting that warm and fuzzy in their brain, because they learned something really cool. And you know what they’re going to do? Bumptysquat. Because learning something new gives you a dopamine hit. You want to know the woman who will actually get results? She’s the one who has already made a commitment in her head, that she’s ready to build this from the ground up. The right way.

And because you’re still here, there is a part of you that knows you are meant to do this once and for all. That you are meant to be that woman who can actually lose, maintain, and sustain a healthy weight.

This is why I created the Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE. Because you’ve already spent years collecting weight loss information. The MACHINE interrupts every single failure point we talked about today. This is a back-to-basics system that builds the actions, patterns, and habits into your life, one step at a time, without another lame diet, meal plan, or counting calories.

I created this program to be accessible for any woman who wants to do this once and for all. The women who are already inside and seeing results are just like you. They are professional dieters who have been overweight for decades. They are trusting themselves for the first time, and they are watching their lives and their health change one day at a time.

When you’re ready to drop the nonsense about starving yourself, counting calories and macros, or weighing your food, and instead become a Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE...

This is your back-to-basics approach to achieve healthy and sustainable weight loss. We kick it old school, and we do it in a way that you build an environment and lifestyle that works for you to create that sustainability.

We do it in a way where you eat platefuls of satisfying and nutrient-dense food. We do it in a way where you enjoy moving your body. You learn what your body actually needs.

JOIN HERE

I’ll bet you’ve never seen FBI tactics deployed to counter binge eating. Let me show you how.

Be sure to subscribe to the Weight Loss Forensics Substack channel.

And if weekend binging is your thing... upgrade to the paid membership for just a few dollars a month, and you’ll get LIVE visualization and exercises every Friday morning to help you set your weekend up for success.

Subscribe now

Ok... ok... I know I’ve been celebrating this same birthday for 20 years.

Just go with it. I’m in my aging backwards phase.

And I’m kinda digging it. ✌️

But do you want to know the most epic mind-F that your brain does to you sometimes?

Especially on the other side of a weight loss journey?

The red dress photo was taken Friday night.

The workout photo was taken 2 days before.

Exact same weight - 111 lbs.

Gym photo... my mind = HECK YEAH!

Red dress photo... my mind = my face looks fat. 🥹🙈

My friend... I am not immune to this.

I am not immune to moments where I still see the fat girl in the mirror or in the photo.

I am not immune to judging every single “flaw”.

It’s called being human.

And it’s completely normal for any woman who has ever been on a weight loss journey.

The scars can remind you of battling the dragons.

Or the scars can remind you of the blood-stained warrior you’ve become.

I pray the same prayer every single morning.

“God... please be a lamp unto my feet and light my path today so I follow your path and only your path. And help me to shine my light so that I can help and inspire others.”

If you ever thought weight loss was just about calories, you’re missing the entire picture.

Because you have to get into the ring and battle your dragons.

It’s not what you do or what you eat.

It’s who you become.

That right there creates the “it factor”.

If you want to become her, you need the right systems in place, because they create more effortless daily habits and behaviors, which create consistency.

That consistency feeds the conviction inside of you that you’re never going back to your old ways.

And that, my friend, is how you break the cycle and make it sustainable.

This is sustainability maxxing. This is how it’s done.

When you’re ready to drop the nonsense about starving yourself, counting calories and macros, or weighing your food, and instead become a Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE...

This is your back-to-basics approach to achieve healthy and sustainable weight loss. We kick it old school, and we do it in a way that you build an environment and lifestyle that works for you to create that sustainability.

We do it in a way where you eat platefuls of satisfying and nutrient-dense food. We do it in a way where you enjoy moving your body. You learn what your body actually needs.

JOIN HERE

I’ll bet you’ve never seen FBI tactics deployed to counter binge eating. Let me show you how.

Be sure to subscribe to the Weight Loss Forensics Substack channel.

And if weekend binging is your thing... upgrade to the paid membership for just a few dollars a month, and you’ll get LIVE visualization and exercises every Friday morning to help you set your weekend up for success.

Subscribe now

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In today’s episode, I’m going to walk you through 7 specific criteria to help you choose the right weight loss coach and program, so you stop wasting time, money, and energy on things that don’t work.

And, if you’re already being skeptical and the first thing you’re thinking is that I’m just going to trash all the other coaches and give you some kind of sales pitch to work with you, I’m guessing it’s because that’s what you have experienced before.

I will tell you right now, I am not the coach for everyone. If you are not a good fit, I don’t want you as a private client, and I don’t want you in the group coaching container. This doesn’t mean I’m bad or you’re bad. It just means it’s not a fit, and that is entirely OK and not what this episode is about.

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7 Criteria to Evaluate a Potential Coach

Evaluate the Coach

1. Many women will hire a coach or join a program because they follow them on social media and genuinely vibe with the coach. That is 100% important. This is typically where I find the coaches and programs I join. You’re investing your time and money and you genuinely want to enjoy your time together and get results from the program.

I’m going to challenge you here to take it one step further, because what you see on social media is the social media version of them, not always the real person behind the scenes.

The first thing you can do is simply evaluate how they show up and if what they have, is something you want. Ask yourself some questions.

What are their values, and do their values align with mine? And, no, this isn’t about agreeing with them on every single thing.

What is their lifestyle? Are they flashy and bragging about material things, or do they have a more grounded lifestyle?

How do they present themselves? What do they actually look like? No, this isn’t a fat vs. thin conversation. What I’m talking about here is, do they look healthy and vibrant? Or do they look frazzled and like they just got run over by a train?

What is their own relationship with food? This is important with weight loss, but especially with emotional eating

Are they real and genuine and authentic? Or do they seem performative? I’ll even go as far as saying, does it feel like they are a thirst trap? Because there are some out there like that.

One of my clients recently asked for my help in evaluating working with a coach on something unrelated and outside of the scope of what I’m qualified to do. One of the first things she said was, “I’m getting really good results doing ABC. But he’s pushing me to do XYZ, which I am not sure about. Plus, he’s kind of pushy with getting me to buy his program.” We took about 10 minutes and objectively walked through this and, at the end, came up with a different game plan.

Here’s the thing. ALL coaches have a program we sell. It’s our business and livelihood, and how we put a roof over our head and food on the table. Just like your favorite restaurant, or the coffee shop owner, or the electrician, this is our business. We need sales and customers to sustain our business. But how are they approaching that sales process with you?

Also, keep in mind, social media size does not equate to whether a coach is ethical or unethical, or an effective coach or not. There are some big names out there who I, personally, believe are extremely harmful to the industry. And there are some phenomenal coaches with under 1000 followers.

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2. Many women evaluate, based on the information they get from the coach on social media. The better question to ask is, are they confident or condescending?

This one is my biggest pet peeves in the industry, because I do not tolerate bullies. There is a HUGE difference between differences in professional opinions (because we all have differences, and that’s how it’s supposed to be) and shredding other coaches for what they stand for, just because it’s different than how and what you coach. Unfortunately, I can name at least 5 of these coaches right off the bat, who have upwards of 250-500k followers and do this. Here’s my perspective. All of us coaches have our own platform. Say what you want and fight for the hill you will die on. Totally cool.

But, my friend, this is when you can ask yourself, is this coach standing up for what they believe or are they bullying other coaches who think differently from them? And do they speak with confidence or are they condescending? Are they speaking down to me?

The pattern that I see over and over again, is that insecure people are the only people who tear others down to feel good about themselves. On the flip side, the confident coaches are the ones who are supporting other coaches, and the confident coaches are the ones who will ultimately be cheering for your success.

At the end of the day, you don’t want a coach who makes you feel small. You want a coach who will challenge you to think bigger.

3. Many women are drawn to the coaches who are friendly and approachable. But the better question to ask is, are they challenging me?

If you have tried coaches, programs, and plans in the past, and they haven’t worked, this one is critical. Is this coach telling me what I want to hear, or is this coach giving me the uncomfortable truth about how I need to change?

And, my friend, that uncomfortable truth is hard to hear. You aren’t hiring your coach to be your friend. You are hiring your coach to help you undo what got you here in the first place, and help you build in what you need to make those changes sustainable.

One of the first things I tell my private clients and any of the students in my program is, this is NOT the Holly Bertone show. I do not want you walking around saying you’re in this new program and Holly said to do this and Holly said to do that. What I want is for you to take complete responsibility and ownership that you are doing what you are doing because you want to do it, not because I said so.

Think about how many diets you’ve gone on and how many times you’ve told people about the rules you have to follow, because that’s what you’ve been told to do. If your results are dependent on you following someone else’s rules, what happens when that someone else is no longer there to support you?

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Evaluate the Program

4. Many women ask, does this coach/program sound interesting?

The better question to ask is, does this coach solve the specific problem that I want to solve?

It’s so easy to get lured into shiny objects, but how often do those shiny objects actually deliver? What you want to do, instead, is to look at their methodology. Do they have a framework? Do they have a success path mapped out? What does that look like and does it align with what you want to accomplish?

Are they talking about just how to lose weight or are they talking about sustainability? Neither is wrong, it’s just a matter of what you are specifically looking for.

Also, does this coach make me rely on them, or are they teaching me the skills to do this on my own?

When I work with my 1-1 clients, we start with a 3-month container. My goal in those 3 months is to help her fly on her own. After the 3 months are over, we evaluate if she wants to continue on a full coaching or partial checking in capacity, or if she is ready to do this on her own. Also, keep in mind, we are talking about SUSTAINABLE weight loss, so you want to be looking at a year to year and a half for you personally to be on the “other side” of the transformation, whether you work with a coach or not.

I love graduation day with my clients, because that means I did my job. And I’m so freaking proud of how my clients show up and do the work. All that being said, this is your chance to stop chasing the outcome, and start becoming the woman who is committed to the process. This is about developing the identity, skills, and habits so that you can make this sustainable for the long run.

5. A question that rarely gets asked that should is, what are the characteristics of your top clients? What do they all have in common that get the results compared to the women in your container who continue to struggle?

This is probably one of the most important questions you can ask when considering working with a coach, because this question is going to hold a mirror as to how you are going to show up and what kind of results you can expect.

Meaning, your coach is there to give you the systems, the framework, the tools, and the methodology. Your job is to do the work. Plain and simple.

And then ask yourself, am I the woman who shows up with the characteristics to succeed? And, if not, how can I find that conviction in myself?

6. Many women ask, what is the success rate?

This is a great question, but the problem with this is how exactly do you define success in weight loss? People equate “success” as a before and after photo, when oftentimes, it’s actually just marketing. “Success” meant it worked for someone else. It doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you.

The better question to ask (and, especially, if looking into a group environment) is, what type of results do women like me get? How long is it before they are seeing results and what do those results look like?

This will give you a better indicator of what that coaching container is going to look like for you and your success.

To give you an example of what private clients can expect with me, in those first few months, we don’t focus on weight loss, we focus on removing the self-sabotage and dismantle the patterns that have been keeping you stuck. We build the identity, conviction, and behaviors of the woman who can do this forever. If your goal is to just lose 20 pounds in the next 2 months, I’m not the coach for you. But if you want to learn how to brainwash yourself, if you want to rewire how you think and show up, so that this does become effortless, and hey, even lose 5-10 pounds along the way, that’s exactly what we do.

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7. Many women ask the coach, how are you going to keep me accountable? When the better question to ask is, how are you going to help me become accountable to myself?

Your coach is not going to be there 24/7 in your pocket. Your coach is not standing in the pantry with you at 9pm every night. Your coach is not sitting at the restaurant with you when the dessert tray comes out. Your coach is not at work with you when it’s the birthday celebration with the sheet cake. Your coach is not in bed with you at 2 o’clock in the morning when you’re spiraling about everything in your life.

You should never, ever have to rely on your coach to achieve your results. You want to ask your coach, how are you going to help me stand on my own 2 feet?

This right here is why I graduate many of my clients in 3 months. Their journey isn’t over, but they have the skills they need to do continue this on their own. And the best part is, they are confident in those skills. My premium clients actually pay me to have Holly in their pocket throughout the week, in addition to our weekly coaching session. They have access to me on either WhatsApp or Voxer. But even then, I have boundaries of when I answer them.

This should not be about how your coach is holding you accountable. This should be about how your coach is helping you to figure it out. Helping you to find that agency and ownership and sovereignty within, so you never have to outsource this part of you.

We didn’t really touch on this, so I’ll throw this in as a bonus as we wrap up. But are you the type of woman who wants a DIY approach, meaning, you know you have the discipline and integrity with yourself to complete an online program? Or, are you the type of woman who wants to be in a group environment with other people for coaching? Or, are you ready to invest the time and money into a 1-1 premium coaching container?

All 3 of these options are effective, it’s a matter of where you are at on your journey, and what you are willing to invest.

I hope this was helpful to give you criteria to think about when working with a coach or program, so you can find the best fit for you. That evaluation should be more than just evaluating a coach on the recipes or macros, or how much you vibe on social media.

If you’re ready to crawl inside your brain to understand why you emotionally eat, and how to actually stop those sabotage patterns, that’s exactly what you get to experience inside the Break Emotional Eating Accelerator.

LEARN MORE

And if you are the type of woman who wants to make the investment to go all in, you can apply for private coaching. I only work with 3-4 clients at a time, so spots are limited based on availability.

APPLY HERE

I’ll bet you’ve never seen FBI tactics deployed to counter binge eating. Let me show you how.

Be sure to subscribe to the Weight Loss Forensics Substack channel.

And if weekend binging is your thing... upgrade to the paid membership for just a few dollars a month, and you’ll get LIVE visualization and exercises every Friday morning to help you set your weekend up for success.

Subscribe now

The reason? I was showing an inch of a “stomach belt,” and that violated their dress code policy.

Tank tops or booty shorts, totally fine. But an inch of stomach and it’s the end of the world.

There’s been a lot of conversation online these days about what women wear to the gym.

Are some of these “skimpy” outfits appropriate or not?

The new gym I go to does not have that type of dress code.

I’m there early in the morning to get my workout in and go home.

I’m dressed like I’m homeless, in a baggy t-shirt and sweatpants.

On the days I film content, I film with a cute sports bra and then put my shirt right back on.

I lean more towards the modest side, which honestly, is difficult in the weight loss space.

As a weight loss coach, having a body that other women aspire to is part of the brand.

And I totally cringe when I write that.

I have so many friends who are coaches in this space and they have beautiful, strong, lean bodies, and they make content in the cutest workout outfits.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

I honestly don’t know if my modesty is because I’m genuinely modest, or that there are days I still look at myself in the mirror and see myself as a fat girl.

I honestly don’t know. Maybe a little of both.

Plus, I’m attempting to date. Which brings up a whole new tornado of thoughts around how I present myself online.

What is that balance between showing you as a woman, an inspirational (and very real) body to encourage you on your weight loss journey, and keeping certain things sacred for a potential partner?

I don’t have the answer to any of this.

I’m just sharing my real thoughts with you in real time.

I’ll bet you’ve never seen FBI tactics deployed to counter binge eating. Let me show you how.

Be sure to subscribe to the Weight Loss Forensics Substack channel.

And if weekend binging is your thing... upgrade to the paid membership for just a few dollars a month, and you’ll get LIVE visualization and exercises every Friday morning to help you set your weekend up for success.

Subscribe now

And, your brain probably just got whiplash, because every therapist and weight loss coach has told you that all-or-nothing thinking is toxic. But if moderation and intuitive eating actually worked, you wouldn’t be reading this article right now. These approaches aren’t wrong for everyone. But they might be wrong for you.

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The all-or-nothing approach is how I got through my plateaus and this is also how many of my clients are seeing phenomenal results.

What We Will Cover:

• Who it works for.

• Why it works.

• How long should you do this?

• And, the cautionary tale to be aware of.

Who does this work for?

There are two types of women the all-or-nothing approach works best for.

The first personality type is the overachiever. The perfectionist. The Type-A personality. It works for the honor students, first chair musicians, and captains of the sports teams.

The second personality type is the rule follower. You THRIVE on routine and order, and you are completely allergic to chaos. You live by this code that you plan for the plan, and you don’t understand why other people can’t follow the plan. You alphabetize your spices and you add something to your to-do list after you complete it, even if it wasn’t on the list, just so it’s on the list and you can cross it off. You know who you are.

Why does this work for you?

Contrast creates clarity. First, let’s identify what has not worked in the past.

You’ve tried mindful eating. You’ve tried intuitive eating. You’ve tried to eat slow and intentionally. You’ve tried everything in moderation. You’ve tried just one bite. You’ve tried eating healthy with the 80/20 rule. You have tried it all. But nothing has worked.

Why does this work?

Our brain operates in predictive patterns. Half of these predictive patterns are hardwired based on how we, as humans, have operated for centuries. Half of these predictive patterns are soft-coded, based on the lived experiences of our entire life.

We all have patterns of negotiation in our brain. Our brain is the toddler who is negotiating for you to buy the toy at Target, and then take them out for ice cream. Our brain is the teenager who is negotiating for one more hour before bedtime, or one more hour before curfew.

When we give our brain an inch, our brain will take the entire mile.

Every time you tell yourself that you’re gonna eat slow, or mindfully, or everything in moderation, you’re still negotiating with yourself to eat the thing. These moderation modalities have trained you to negotiate and to eat the thing.

And, because you continue to eat the thing and eat more things, this is one of the biggest reasons you’ve put on weight in the first place, and you can’t take it off.

The other thing to consider is that many of my clients are life-long emotional eaters. One bite will open up pandoras box for them to devour everything in sight. Their brain can’t turn it off.

What has worked for me, and what has worked extremely well for my fellow high achievers and rule followers, is this all-or-nothing approach.

This is when you make that commitment to yourself for the next 30 days to consume no sugar, for the next 60 days to consume no alcohol, or for the next 45 days to consume no processed or fast food. It is a specific thing or things and it is for a specific time.

When you give your brain an assignment, your brain goes to work. Your brain understands the mission and your brain will execute.

These are the bumpers when you go bowling so that when you roll the ball down the lane, it doesn’t go into the gutter. You have set up bumpers in your brain.

It’s when someone offers you their homemade cookies, or when it’s birthday day at the office and they’re passing around the Costco sheet cake. It’s when you’re out with family or friends at dinner and the dessert tray comes out. You are going to be a lot more convicted that your “no, thank you” actually means no thank you.

This is how the rewiring process works.

Your brain understands this is what we are doing and your brain is going to fight for you to stay in integrity with yourself. Not to mention, every decision your brain doesn’t have to make, you’ve now reduced your decision fatigue.

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How long should you do this?

If you were to tell yourself that this is something you are going to do for an entire year, your brain will instantly rebel. A year feels too long. Give yourself a time frame that feels challenging and achievable. A good place to start is 30 days, 45 days, or 60 days. Think of this like training wheels. The goal is to develop the confidence and skill to do this on your own.

At the end of that time, you can always reevaluate you can always add another 30 or 60 days. The goal here is to just get started.

When I was first going through my emotional eating and weight loss journey, I cut out sugar and ice cream for two years. It was NEVER supposed to be two years. I just told myself that I am cutting it out until I am in a better headspace around food. At that time, I did not give myself a timeframe.

When my clients have done this, I do encourage them to put a timeframe on it, which has been extremely helpful for them, and then they can reevaluate at the end of that window. The way that they talk to me during the time that they are locked in is like night and day, compared to before they do this.

When they are at the beginning of their journey, they negotiate everything because they want the change, but they also want to keep their old food and habits and routines. They want both. They want it all. But if you want to change, you can’t have it all, at least for right now. This is when your brain is going to want to negotiate the hardest, because it wants to keep the food and habits and routines that it’s used to. These are like your brain’s comfort blanket.

In contrast, when my clients are locked in with this all-or-nothing approach, they have so much conviction. They show up from a place of “this is who I am and this is what I do”.

It’s the difference between negotiating your way to failure and actually seeing success.

The Cautionary Tale

Which brings us to the cautionary tale.

The all-or-nothing approach is not identity work, but it will help you get there. Let me explain.

If you were to offer someone who does not smoke a cigarette, they will say no thank you 1000% of the time, without any second thought. Not smoking is so much a part of who they are, they don’t even think about it. They don’t wake up every single day convincing themselves they aren’t going to smoke a cigarette today. That is the kind of conviction I’m talking about when I say identity work.

When you’re just starting out on your weight loss journey, the healthy woman identity is not ingrained in you yet. The cautionary tale is that your brain is that “yes”, your brain is locked into all-or-nothing, but your brain also knows that you have an exit ramp when it’s over.

During this time, you need to be doing the inner work. You need to create safety in your body to lose weight. You need to become the woman who is the healthy weight woman instead of the fat woman who has to go on a diet. And you need to develop those behaviors, habits, and actions that match that identity. This level of identity work takes a lot longer than 30 or 45 days.

When you do this, make sure that you have a plan at the end. That plan should continue for another set period of time. So, let’s say you started at 30 days. The next time do 45 days.

Sustainable weight loss has to be a bottom-up approach, and sometimes you need some reinforcements along the way. This all-or-nothing approach is that type of reinforcement.

What does this look like for some of the ladies who are building their Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE, which is my brand new back-to-basics weight loss program?

One woman is doing no sugar for 30 days, and lost 4 pounds in her first two weeks. One woman was walking every day for 37 days, and a month after that ended, she is still walking every day and has gone from walking 1 mile in 30 minutes, to now 2 miles in almost 30 minutes. One woman is working through an elimination diet to figure out what foods are inflammatory, and she’s lost 19 pounds in 2 months. One woman is not drinking alcohol and not going to the bars with her friends, and she’s lost 30 pounds over the past few months.

This is your CSI red yarn moment. Do you think that if weight loss was just about calorie in vs. calorie out that it’s going to be easy and effortless to sustain this for the rest of your life? Or, do you think if you learned how to eliminate the negotiation in your head, you might actually get it to stick?

My goal isn’t to hand you a meal plan or tell you to track your calories. My goal is to help you create the systems, so you can embrace what is best for your life. Because it’s not just about losing weight, it’s about creating a life where you can do this sustainability, even on your worst and most chaotic day.

When you’re ready to drop the nonsense about starving yourself, counting calories and macros, or weighing your food, and instead become a Sustainable Weight Loss MACHINE...

This is your back-to-basics approach to achieve healthy and sustainable weight loss. We kick it old school, and we do it in a way that you build an environment and lifestyle that works for you to create that sustainability.

We do it in a way where you eat platefuls of satisfying and nutrient-dense food. We do it in a way where you enjoy moving your body. You learn what your body actually needs.

JOIN HERE

I’ll bet you’ve never seen FBI tactics deployed to counter binge eating. Let me show you how.

Be sure to subscribe to the Weight Loss Forensics Substack channel.

And if weekend binging is your thing... upgrade to the paid membership for just a few dollars a month, and you’ll get LIVE visualization and exercises every Friday morning to help you set your weekend up for success.

Subscribe now

You might be thinking, “hey that’s cool, congrats.”

You might be thinking, “who cares?”

Keep reading, because this is an important concept I want you to embody, and I want you to read this through the lens of your weight loss journey.

Two years ago, I shut down an old Instagram account with 24k followers. It was old and stale, and I changed.

I created holly.bertone on Instagram, quickly hit my first 2k followers, and then sat at 2k followers for 2 years.

2 years.

Zero growth.

In October 2025, things started to change.

Ten months later, I’m at 7,300 followers and counting.

And I woke up this morning to my first million-view reel.

It was a pretty cool milestone.

This growth happened because I stopped trying to control the outcome that I had no control over.

I was committed to the process of posting every day.

I was committed to being a little cringe.

I was committed to analyzing the data to see what was working.

More importantly, I was committed to me.

I was committed to showing up every single day as the best version of me.

The most authentic and genuine version of me.

Because I know that when I remove all of the layers of armor, that’s when I connect with you the best.

That’s how it’s done.

On Instagram. And with weight loss.

I’m insanely grateful.

But I did not get my hopes up, and I was not going to be disappointed if it stopped at 999k.

BECAUSE SHOWING UP WAS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE RESULT.

There were zero cartwheels this morning of celebration.

BECAUSE IT FELT NORMAL.

That’s how your weight loss journey should be.

We have been programmed and brainwashed that the only thing that matters is the number on the scale.

But no one talks about how long this journey can be. The weight loss coaches worth their salt all say 1-2 years.

That seems like an eternity.

Do you want to lose weight?

Or do you want to actually keep it off and make it a sustainable part of your life?

There’s a HUGE difference.

One focuses on the scale.

The other focuses on creating the identity of you as a healthy weight woman.

The other focuses on building those daily actions and behaviors that create the healthy weight woman.

And when you do this, it’s going to feel normal.

Yes, of course you should celebrate your milestones and wins.

But when this is normal, it’s a part of you. It becomes sticky.

THAT is the end goal.

That’s what my elite-level private 1-1 coaching is for.

This is only for you if you want to create an environment for long-term, sustainable, healthy weight loss.

We make weight loss sticky.

You will perform a complete rewiring/installation and identity shift to create the predictable actions, behaviors, and habits so that weight loss can FINALLY become a natural, sustainable, and healthy part of your life.

But it’s only for a very specific woman.

Read on to see if you qualify with ALL 6 of the following criteria:

1. You MUST be a woman who has impeccable word to herself. Your integrity is everything.

2. You don’t make excuses. When you commit to something, you follow through and do it.

3. You are committed to the process. You are all-in when you show up for yourself.

4. You’re not afraid to jump in and do the deep work. This includes but is not limited to releasing stuck emotions and sabotage patterns.

5. You understand the real work is done under the surface. This isn’t what you do (eg diets, counting calories), it’s who you become.

6. You must be ok with eating meat.

I’ve got 2 spots open beginning August 10.

If you meet ALL 6 of the criteria...

And if you are the type of woman who wants to make the investment to go all in, you can apply for private coaching. I only work with 3-4 clients at a time, so spots are limited based on availability.

APPLY HERE

I’ll bet you’ve never seen FBI tactics deployed to counter binge eating. Let me show you how.

Be sure to subscribe to the Weight Loss Forensics Substack channel.

And if weekend binging is your thing... upgrade to the paid membership for just a few dollars a month, and you’ll get LIVE visualization and exercises every Friday morning to help you set your weekend up for success.

Subscribe now

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Many high-achieving, career-driven, Type-A women struggle with the diet roller coaster because we have this view of the world that if we work hard and follow the rules, we’re going to get results. This worked for us quite well in our professional lives and in our personal lives. So why don’t the same rules apply when it comes to not just losing weight, but actually keeping it off?

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You can think back to one of the worst times where you just LOST IT, and then devoured everything in sight.

It’s one of those times where it doesn’t matter how successful you are, that food binge just crushes your spirit. It’s this flood of shame and guilt, and maybe even some tears, because you feel like you aren’t enough.

It’s one of those experiences that makes you question yourself and blame yourself. What is wrong with me? Why do I keep doing this even when I know better?

I’m not saying this to be mean. I’m saying this because this was my life on repeat for years.

You’re about to get the step-by-step process to shut off those nighttime cravings in 10 days without another diet, without willpower, and without counting a single calorie.

I can tell you this. Your brain doesn’t speak diet. This IS fixable. But you cannot fix an emotional eating problem with a logical, diet-based solution. And, by the end of this article, you’ll know exactly how to activate your brain in a very specific sequence, so you can shut off the nighttime and weekend emotional eating.

This is why you feel like you’re living a double life. You can “eat healthy” all day, but then at night, after dinner, it’s like someone flips a switch and the obsessive eating starts and you devour everything in sight. This is why willpower works, until it doesn’t. It’s because the outdated diet model is not designed to produce a sustainable result. The sequence is backwards, and until the order changes, the outcome never will.

It’s how I helped an HR Manager, who used to be embarrassed at the office parties because she ate everything in sight, walk into the office party, eat 2 cheese and crackers and then socialize the rest of the time, in just 5 days. It’s how I helped a health coach, who has the formal education, but felt like a fraud because she had zero control over her sweet tooth, cut her snacking dramatically, in just 10 days. It’s how I helped a marketing manager, who devoured the pantry after dinner, completely stop snacking at night, in just 21 days.

These women started where you are. They crushed it all day at work, but came home and couldn’t turn off the emotional eating. On the outside, they had it all together, but on the inside, they were eating in secret and promising themselves they were going to stop as soon as the project at work is over. And, now, those obsessive cravings don’t even exist.

In full transparency, I can’t guarantee you will get the same results. But what I can tell you is, when you follow the right process in the right sequence, this becomes a skill your brain learns. That’s why my clients see incredible results in days and weeks, and then continue reinforcing that skill over time to make it automatic and sustainable.

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Problem/Pain

A lot of women think about food 24/7 and can’t stop eating. But let’s get right to the heart of what’s actually going on. I’ve experienced all of this, so no judgment, ok?

You probably have a friend or coworker who is like this; they are always talking about the designer bag they want to buy, and it’s this feeling of, “when I get this bag, then people will treat me better”. You and I both know, how people treat this person has nothing to do with the designer bag. So she gets the bag and she’s still miserable, so now she’s got her eye on a new outfit.

Just like that designer bag, so many women chase a number on the scale and think that when they hit this certain weight, then they’ll be happy. Then they’ll have more confidence. Then people will treat them better.

But when they lose a few pounds, it still feels hollow, because it’s not actually what they are chasing. So what happens?

They eat that sad little salad for lunch, and then they come home and eat everything in sight. But if they get honest with themselves, the source of disappointment is because they are eroding their integrity. Their entire career was built on taking charge and being competent. But put a plate of cookies in front of her and bam, they’re gone.

For the women I work with, failure is not in their vocabulary, but they’ve been programmed to think that diet failure is normal. So what do they do? They convince themselves it’s just easier to deal with the consequences of being overweight.

Every time this happens, you’re reminded about how much you’ve let yourself go, how you are aren’t getting any younger, and you’re worried about gaining more weight. You’ve been wanting to fix this for years, but something always comes up.

Now that you see what’s actually going on, let me show you the only model that I’ve ever seen that solves this, because it’s about explaining the pattern. And once you see this pattern, you can’t unsee it.

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So why don’t diets work?

Your brain operates from 2 systems. System 1 is the limbic system. It’s the fast, emotional, and automatic part of your brain. System 2 is your pre-frontal cortex. This is your slow, logical, and strategic part of the brain.

Let’s say you’re driving through a neighborhood, at 25 mph, and you see a soccer ball roll out into the road. What’s the first thing you do? You hit the brakes. Is that System 1 or System 2? It’s system 1, because you automatically go for the brakes.

After you take a breath, what’s the next thing you do? A soccer ball rolling out into the road usually means there’s a kid nearby who kicked it. So you look for the kid. Is that System 1 or System 2? It’s system 2, because you’re logically looking for what may follow the soccer ball.

In those patterns of eating when you are stressed, bored, overwhelmed, lonely, or exhausted, do they operate from System 1 or System 2? Emotional eating is a System 1 function.

What about diets and counting calories and macros? System 1 or System 2? These are all System 2 solutions.

The weight loss industry pushes a System 2 solution because that is the cookie cutter advice. It’s exactly what I learned in my certifications. But the problem is that you’re trying to fix an emotional problem with a logical solution. You are trying to solve a System 1 problem with a System 2 solution. It literally can not work. Your brain automatically slams on the brakes before looking for the kid. Your brain will never work the opposite way. If you want to solve this problem, it HAS to be in the right order for it to work.

If you only focus on the diet, calories, macros, or what to eat, or if you only focus on changing your behavior, you’re operating from your System 2 logical brain.

How many times has this playbook failed you? Probably too many times to count. And when do you typically give up and go back to your old ways?

This is the pattern that I’ve unlocked. You’re here and you have this goal that you want to lose weight. You put it on this pedestal and then it feels like you’re pushing a boulder up the hill because of the diets, restrictions, and starving yourself with sad little salads, and you end up raiding the pantry at night. And you hate it. It doesn’t work. So you quit. You are emotional eating with a System 1 brain, trying to solve it with a System 2 strategy.

Remember the soccer ball?

With the Emotional Eating Forensics Framework and inside the Break Emotional Eating Accelerator, we use a System 1 strategy to go after the primitive part of your brain. Instead of you and the weight loss being so far apart, it brings it to a level playing field.

Here’s what you’re up against.

Life is always going to happen. You’re going to lose your keys, fight with your spouse, or have a tough day at work. Even positive things, like the holidays or vacation, can have an impact. When this stuff happens, do you normally throw the healthy eating out the window and say I’ll start over on Monday or when life slows down? How many times have you tried that and how many times has that worked? And how many days of the week does life get life-ey?

But what if you could implement a strategy to make weight loss more effortless and a sustainable part of not just your lifestyle, but it’s who you actually are? Do you think it would be easier to get results that way?

Are you starting to connect the dots?

When you execute the Emotional Eating Forensics Framework in the right order, this system will keep you consistent, even when life throws you curveballs.

This is my signature 3-step strategy - See It, Stop It, Shift It, for breaking emotional eating at the source.

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Step 1: See It - Planning Phase

Here, you will find your emotional triggers using pattern analysis.

First, we uncover the invisible patterns driving your cravings, using FBI-inspired pattern analysis. You’ll unlock the connection between stress, emotions, habits, and nighttime/weekend binge eating. Because here’s what most people don’t understand; if it’s invisible, you’re powerless to stop it.

What this looks like is being able to see the patterns so vividly, that you literally can’t unsee it. And when this happens, your brain jumps into action to fix it.

This is how my clients go from feeling out of control to saying, “holy crap, I can’t believe I never saw this before.”

Now that you know that uncovering these patterns is the first step, you might be sitting there wondering how to actually stop the cravings.

Step 2: Stop It - Controlling Phase

This is where you interrupt the craving before the dopamine takes over.

The second step is where you’ll stop the food craving before it spirals, so you don’t dive face-first into a bag of cookies every time you have a bad day.

Here’s what most people don’t understand. The moment a craving hits, your brain has already made a decision in half a second, to eat everything in sight. That’s what researchers at MIT found in a groundbreaking study. Once the craving hits, there are no other options on the table.

In Step 2, think about that dopamine hit like a fork in the road. This is where we create and interrupt BEFORE the dopamine response, so your System 1 brain becomes trained to not have those cravings.

So, instead of seeing cupcakes on the counter and eating 3 of them before you can say the word cupcake, you just walk away without any kind of willpower battle. This is when my clients start to actually feel in control around food.

As strange as this sounds, that’s exactly what my team did at the FBI, and that’s exactly what you get to do inside the Break Emotional Eating Accelerator.

Step 3: Shift It - Continuous Improvement Phase

This is where we rewire the automatic response so cravings stop existing.

We rewire your brain’s automatic response, so healthier choices happen naturally. This is where emotional eating stops feeling like a fight, and healthier choices are automatic and predictable, even when life is upside down, work is crazy, or you’re on vacation.

This is when the urge to eat everything in sight is actually non-existent. This is the catalyst so you can FINALLY make weight loss sustainable. What this looks like is nothing. The obsessive cravings are gone. One of my clients shared that for the first time in decades, she woke up and she did not think about food and all of the treats she was going to eat. It didn’t even cross her mind.

When you master all 3 steps (See It, Stop It, Shift it), you’re creating control and freedom around food. This is behavior reconditioning based on how elite operatives are trained to resist high-pressure environments. This is where we weaponize your brain to win automatically.

So let’s recap what you’ve learned:

• Diets fail because they’re a System 2 solution to a System 1 problem.

• You don’t decide to emotionally eat - your brain decides in half a second.

• The only way to stop this is to interrupt the pattern BEFORE the craving takes over.

Now, here’s the problem. You can understand all of this intellectually and STILL come home tonight and eat everything in sight, because understanding doesn’t rewire your brain. Information gathering isn’t helping you to get results, and it doesn’t give you power. It only turns you into someone who is well-informed.

The fastest way for you to get results is to follow the sequence and the repetition. It’s just like potty training a puppy.

And that’s exactly what you get inside the Break Emotional Eating Accelerator.

I want you to imagine what it feels like to be fully in control around food, so that sustainable weight loss is the natural next step.

If you want to walk by your favorite trigger food and no longer have that obsessive pull to eat everything in sight…

If you want to eat one or two bites of your favorite treat and put the fork down because you’re satisfied…

You have one of two choices to make.

Choice 1: Close this article, promise yourself you’ll start being ‘good’ tomorrow, and wake up 6 months from now having gained another 5 pounds and feeling even MORE out of control.

Choice 2: Click the button below, where you can join the Break Emotional Eating Accelerator today, and finally break the emotional eating cycle that’s been running your life for decades.

Most women reading this will do nothing. They’ll stay stuck, because taking action feels scarier than staying comfortable in their shame.

But because you’re still here with me, I know you’re not most women. You didn’t get to where you are in your career by playing small. And, chances are, you’re already mentally taking that next step.

If you’re ready to crawl inside your brain to understand why you emotionally eat, and how to actually stop those sabotage patterns, that’s exactly what you get to experience inside the Break Emotional Eating Accelerator.

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And if you are the type of woman who wants to make the investment to go all in, you can apply for private coaching. I only work with 3-4 clients at a time, so spots are limited based on availability.

APPLY HERE

I’ll bet you’ve never seen FBI tactics deployed to counter binge eating. Let me show you how.

Be sure to subscribe to the Weight Loss Forensics Substack channel.

And if weekend binging is your thing... upgrade to the paid membership for just a few dollars a month, and you’ll get LIVE visualization and exercises every Friday morning to help you set your weekend up for success.

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So I did the same thing that I teach my clients to do.

Psst... you can do this too!

I had driven over an hour early yesterday morning to West Virginia. I had an in-person studio podcast interview ahead of my speaking at the Tri-State Leadership Summit this fall.

Between the drive and the 90-minute interview, it was a long morning.

By the time I got back into my car, it was 10:00.

And I was hungry.

At least I thought I was.

I had snacks in my purse, but before reaching for them, I paused and asked myself...

“Am I really hungry? Could I eat lunch right now, or is this me just wanting a reward for finishing up a really long morning?”

And then I got quiet with myself and listened to my body.

The answer may surprise you...

It was both.

I did want a reward for getting through a very long morning, but I was also genuinely hungry.

The second piece of this is something I want you to take home with you.

Those snacks in my purse were calling my name.

But instead of diving right in, I asked myself...

“Do I really need that snack right now, or can I wait an hour and a half until I get home for lunch?”

The answer was...

I’m good. Yes, I’m a little hungry, but I can wait, and the snacks are there if needed.

Guess what?

I didn’t need the snacks. I just ate lunch when I got home.

Incorporate this See It, Stop It, Shift It technique the next time you feel a craving and let me know how it goes!

I’ll bet you’ve never seen FBI tactics deployed to counter binge eating. Let me show you how.

Be sure to subscribe to the Weight Loss Forensics Substack channel.

And if weekend binging is your thing... upgrade to the paid membership for just a few dollars a month, and you’ll get LIVE visualization and exercises every Friday morning to help you set your weekend up for success.

Subscribe now