Last year, I had one of those weeks that should have triggered massive binge eating. But it didn’t. This was one of the best weeks of 2025. But it was also one of the most challenging.
If you’ve had a stressful week, and the gains you’ve worked so hard to make have unraveled, I want you to steal my 5-step strategy at the end of this article.
The Stressful Week
I flew to Denver, CO, to be the Keynote Speaker at the PMI Mile Hi Women in Project Management Leadership Conference. As a 19-year PMP, it was a huge honor to keynote for PMI on the topic of The Weight of Leadership.
I’m used to traveling and speaking, but the stress from that week was more than anticipated, and “Old Holly” would have had a massive binge if this had happened a few years back.
Let me share what went on behind the scenes that week:
I live two hours from the closest airport, so it created an extra day of travel to plan for.
The government was shut down at the time, so there were TSA and flight delays to worry about.
There was a time zone difference. It was only two hours, but my body still rebelled.
My sleep was minimal. I was up at 1:00 AM every morning in Denver, wide awake and ready to rock and roll. I joked that I was fueled by adrenaline, caffeine, and Colorado vibes.
And if you’ve ever been to Denver, you know the altitude situation. My home is 600 feet. I was at 5200 feet. There were quite a few times I felt out of breath, especially on stage. This wasn’t a stand behind the podium kind of speech. I took up the entire stage for two hours.
On top of this, I put enormous pressure on myself to perform at my absolute best on stage for two hours straight.
Have you ever seen Instagram influencers with footage of them flying and speaking that looks professional and glamorous?
Me… not glamorous.
On the inside, I felt like a hot mess, and it was everything I could do to push that aside and show up as the most professional version of Holly Bertone. Which according to the reviews and feedback I got, I am pretty sure I did.
Old Holly would have been craving sugar treats and would have fallen into emotional eating. Old Holly would have convinced myself that I deserve the snack food to reward myself for such a stressful week. And Old Holly would have gone on a full binge after the keynote, when I was back in the hotel room.
Do you want to know what actually happened?
Nothing.
It was pretty uneventful.
After the keynote, I went back to the hotel room. I was still wired but needed to collapse. I remembered they gave out boutique chocolates in our goodie bag. I pulled out three truffles and said what Old Holly would have said… “I deserve a treat”. But here’s the difference. I ate the three little truffles, and that was it, because I knew how to stop. I didn’t go down to the lobby to raid their candy stash.
Fast forward to the next morning, I was up at 1AM again, got ready, and left for the airport. By the time I got to the airport and went through TSA, I went to Elway’s for a sit-down breakfast. While everyone else was at the bar drinking mimosas at 7:00 in the morning, I ate 2 bacon cheeseburgers for breakfast. Yes. Two bacon cheeseburgers. And I’ll tell you why below in steps four and five.
5 Steps I Took to Prevent the Binge (Steal This Strategy)
1. I planned ahead.
I’m a 19-year PMP, a project manager by training, and a keynote speaker at a PMI event. So yes, planning ahead was a necessity. I meal prepped ahead of time and packed food. I made sure the hotel had a fridge and microwave. I packed snacks to help with cravings. And I also made sure that my hotel was within walking distance of restaurants with real food. Emphasis on real food.
Number 2. The theme of the week was fat and protein.
I know that when I’m under stress, my body craves sugar and processed carbs, and I want to eat everything in sight. To counter this, I made sure I had plenty of fat and protein that week. I had access to a hearty breakfast every day, especially the day of the keynote. And honestly, I didn’t care what that looked like.
One morning, breakfast was a heaping plate of bacon, because I didn’t know what the lunch or dinner situation was going to be, and it kept me full and satisfied to the point where I didn’t even think about snacks.
Number 3. I acknowledged the reality of the week.
I was fully aware that the cravings I had were the result of increased stress and lack of sleep. I always tell my clients that awareness is the win.
Take a pause, be aware of what your body is feeling, and ask yourself, “Why am I craving this?” It sets you up for a chance to make a different decision than the one that’s automatic to eat the junk food.
This step is the big obvious, but it works.
Number 4. I checked in with myself.
Remember when I said I ate two bacon cheeseburgers for breakfast at the airport? On the day of the keynote, I had breakfast and a Prima Bar mid-morning, but that was it for the entire day. By the time I got to the airport the next morning, especially after waking up at 1 AM, I was in a sleep-deprived fog.
I realized… I’m starving. STARVING. I went to a real, sit-down restaurant because the food quality is going to be at least a little bit better.
Before I even ordered, I checked in with myself because the food cravings were extremely high.
Why am I starving like this?
Ohhh... It’s because I never eat when I speak, and I forgot to eat afterward. I hadn’t eaten anything in 24 hours, on top of a stressful day and lack of sleep.
I looked at the menu and knew exactly what I wanted for breakfast. A bacon cheeseburger with no bun, because gluten and I do not get along. At 7 AM.
No. Let me rephrase that.
I UNAPOLOGETICALLY ordered a bacon cheeseburger for breakfast. And it was soooo good.
After I ate the cheeseburger, and after I sat there for awhile, I realized that I was still hungry.
Number 5. I sat in discomfort.
I sat with the discomfort for 5-10 more minutes to digest and be fully present with all the feels I was feeling.
I asked myself, “Am I body hungry or brain hungry?” Definitely body hungry.
Exactly how hungry am I? I was only one small notch above where I was when I first sat down. My level of hunger was almost the same as before I ate the first cheeseburger.
So yes, I was hungry enough to UNAPOLOGETICALLY order a second bacon cheeseburger for breakfast. And I ate the entire thing.
I needed to fuel my body. I had not eaten in 24 hours, and I was getting on a 5-hour flight with a 2-hour drive home. Chances are, that was the only food I was going to have all day (and it was).
This is a real-world, real-life implementation. This is real-world survival. This is what it looks like to get messy and make the best decisions you can when you’re under stress and on travel.
In my normal day-to-day life, I work out of my home office. Life is comfortable, and I have my routine.
One of my favorite things to teach my clients, in addition to how to brainwash themselves, is to look at their week and strategically plan for what’s going to go wrong. Because it’s easy to keep up with healthy eating when you’re in your groove, but the second life throws you a curveball, all bets are off with emotional eating.
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.
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.
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.
