My Plan to Deal with Holiday Weight Gain
Every year, it's always the same... despite my best intentions at the beginning of the holiday season, I eventually give in and start stuffing my face with treats.
I'd like to say that this year was different because I have been taking tirzepatide (a GLP1 medication and I had lost 42 pounds prior to the start of the season. But, alas, it was not. I gained about 10 pounds AGAIN. I'm determined not to repeat this mistake next year, so I'm starting now. This video talks about my plans for making sure this never happens again.
Links to items and videos mentioned in this video
From My Shop:
-Grounding Bracelet: https://absolutelypositivelyme.com/products/grounding-bracelet
-Goal System Set: https://absolutelypositivelyme.com/products/butterfly-promise-goal-tracker-pack
Read & Do the Workbook with Me:
-Buy the Book: The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for CPTSD by Sheri Van Dijk on Amazon (paid link): https://amzn.to/3YZ8g7g
Support My Channel: -Buy Me a Hot Chocolate (I don't drink coffee)😁: https://buymeacoffee.com/absolutelypositivelyme
Related Videos:
-DBT for CPTSD Book Discussion: https://youtu.be/uUncg-W8TDM
Video Transcript
Hi, this is Karoline, and I’m back. If you—I mean many of you—have not watched my videos from before, so you don’t know that I’ve been gone, but I have been gone for the last month, maybe a month and a half. So today I’m going to be talking about, um, where I am and what I’ve been doing. I did mess up over this last month. I, um, ended up gaining about 10 pounds, maybe eight to 10 pounds, um, which was not—was—was supposed to happen. I was supposed to sail through the holidays without a problem.
I ended up with some major depression that I’ve been dealing with. I’m going to talk about a little bit more in detail about that in a second. But, um, anyway, I’m going to tell you my plan for dealing with the weight gain and how to get myself back on track, as well as get myself back on track mentally, um, with my emotions and getting this depression under control.
I also got involved with starting my own business. I’m kind of out of money. It’s a long, long story of why, um, I’m not able to work a regular job. If you’re interested in finding all of that out, um, what happened with my brain and the, you know, what’s still happening with my brain, um, then you can watch some of my other videos. I’ll put a link down below for you to reference. But the point is, is that because I’m not able to work a regular job, I am trying to start a new business, and I’m going to talk about that in a little bit.
Just as a little bit of an introduction to this brand new year—it’s 2026. Even if you’re watching this way into the future, right now it is the beginning of January, the sixth day of 2026. So welcome to the new year. I hope that you are as excited to have a new, a fresh new start like I am.
And, I’m trying to move past that depression. I’m still kind of in the middle of it actually, to be honest. I probably deal with depression most of the time. It just sometimes is worse than others. And, um, so I’m going to tell you—first of all, I want to tell you I’m doing this video without makeup because, um, you know, that’s actually how I live my life most of the time because I am so low on money. I’m trying to be very careful with what I spend. So I only put makeup on on Sundays when I go to church. Um, I just don’t want to scare my fellow churchgoers, which—I mean seriously—I’m making a video right now. So this is me getting used to just my face.
My son tells me often that, um, I’m pretty just the way I am without makeup. He’s anti-makeup. So I’m just going to embrace that truth. Um, it’s a lot less work to not deal with makeup anyway. I also kind of—my hair is growing out a little bit and, um, I tried to curl it but—or, you know, do the new way of curling it, um, and I am not really getting the hang of it. You have me like—you have me today, okay?
So where have I been? So like I said, I dipped really heavily into a depression. And the reason that I dipped into depression, I think—I’m pretty sure—is because I was starting this new business. It’s selling things online, um, and also kind of, um, blogging. Well, the blog goes with my YouTube videos, but, um, and I was working night and day. I was working night and day, night and day, night and day.
On top of the fact that I’m in the middle of taking, um, master’s—uh—working on a master’s degree to become a clinical mental health counselor. Um, I honest to goodness am not sure that I’m going to pursue that as a career at some time, but I felt very, very—come here, come here—I felt very, very compelled that this is the direction that I needed to go. And, um, sorry, hoping my doggo is not covering my face, but he’s cuter than I am anyway, so you can enjoy looking at him anyway.
I’m not sure that it’s what I’m going to do in the long run, but I was feeling very compelled. I am a spiritual person. I rely, um, very heavily on my faith and my relationship with God, and I was feeling very prompted that I needed to start those classes, and I did, and I’m very grateful. I’ve learned a lot from it.
But I was in the middle of finishing my third consecutive class without any breaks, um, dealing with my brain trauma that is still there. Um, usually it presents itself only when, um, I am doing a lot of studying, a lot of reading, or I—I’m just—my brain gets exhausted after a long amount of time. Well, not even a long amount of time. You know, four to five hours’ worth of reading or studying, I start really feeling like I’m walking in a bubble. You know, like that feeling that you get when you’re taking cold medicine.
So not to go off on another topic, but it all kind of combines. I started working on this business, working night and day, and working through my course, um, that I was—it’s eight—they’re eight-week courses, so they’re kind of intense, a lot of work to do during those, um, courses. And I exhausted myself because my brain can’t keep up with that kind of pace.
Not to mention I’m older than I was when I was, you know, in my 20s or whatever, where I could, you know—I don’t know. I just didn’t get as tired as I do now when I’m older. So the combination, um, when I get excessively tired, I do tend to get a little weepy. And, um, somebody at that time said something to me that, um, it—it—it just exploded things for me. And—and it—it—it just caused me to start spiraling.
So I was working too hard. This comment was made, and that comment, um, just spiraled me, um, into a really bad depression. And I have—I’m not going to get teary. Um, I have been struggling with that, trying to not let my kids, um, have to feel that, especially during Christmas time.
So the last two weeks, I kind of took a step back from—of life especially. Didn’t do much work on my business because I just needed to take care of me. That’s where I have been.
Now, what is this business? I told you that I’m selling things online. Um, I have, um, problems with jumping from one thing to the next. I have problems with, um, being very excited about an idea and throwing myself into that. And then I—I switch gears. I start self-doubting. I start fearing. I start, um, having, like, just a lot of anxiety. And then I kind of backtrack and I come up with a new idea.
And so this time, I’m not trying to come up with new ideas. I’m trying to stay the course. But I did experience some of that getting off track during this time period.
So what happened was I came up with this amazing idea. Oh my gosh, I—I didn’t bring it. So I have to go and get it. So just give me one second. I’m going to show you what I came up with. Hold on a sec. Get down, bud. Get down, bud. Come on. Okay, I’ll be right back.
Okay, so hopefully—hopefully I’m still in the screen the right way. My pup wants to get back up. Come here. Come here, bud. Okay. So the idea—I call them grounding bracelets.
And if you are familiar—well, I deal with—I deal with mental health, um, issues. Whether or not I’m bipolar, I—to be honest—I don’t know. Um, I don’t, uh, go up and down quite as much as my mom, who struggles with bipolar disorder, but I regularly have mood swings. Okay?
I deal with depression. I deal with anxiety. I always have. It has just stopped my life in many, many ways. Well, anyway, in counseling, through therapy—finally, after several counselors—I—it either finally clicked for me or the information was presented—I don’t know—but I finally understood that my biggest issue is that I am, um, like my nervous system is severely dysfunctional—like disregulated is the word.
Okay, so, meaning just a lifetime of stressors. And I’m going to talk about more of that in a minute—what complex PTSD is. Um, but—and I’m—that’s not the focus of this video. I’m just trying to catch you up on where I’ve been, what I’ve been doing, and what I’m doing about it.
So I’m go—I’m going off all over the place, but okay. Because I deal with depression, because I deal with these things, um, and because I learned that my nervous system is dysregulated, um, I was exposed—or I have found—this technique that can be used to help, um, ground yourself or ground myself when I’m having, um, when I’m kind of spiral—spiraling in my thoughts or I’m having anxiety or I’m having some kind of panic. And it is called the 5-4-3-2-1 method. I guess I could go 5-4-3-2—you know, you get. Okay, so it’s the 5-4-3-2-1 technique, and it’s for grounding yourself.
So I started thinking about this. I had all of these beads from a previous, um, business that I was putting together, um, to do with goals. Um, I had all these beads, and I started thinking, you know, would be really, really awesome if there was some kind of tactile way to do the 5-4-3-2-1 method.
Okay, so this is what I came up with. I put the beads together so that there are five—well, let me find the five here. There’s five beads separated by these little spacers. And then there’s four. And then there’s three. And then there’s two. Then there’s one. So to make it a full bracelet, um, it needed to be two, three, four, and then back to the five.
So the purpose of this bracelet—and it’s explained on the card—is that, um, when somebody is doing the 5-4-3-2-1 method, and the instructions are in the back, okay, then you’re going to, um, stop and ground yourself, meaning that you get in touch with your surroundings and you become present with where you are.
And the first thing is five things that you see. So you can twist the beads or just touch the beads and just look around and touch each bead as you count off five things that you see. The next one is four things that you can touch. So as you’re touching, you know, the chair, um, your shirt, the desk in front of you, you can count those things as you’re touching the bead and counting down the four things.
Then the next one is, um, three things you can hear, and two things you smell, and one thing you taste. This is an amazing grounding technique. I’ve put it into a bracelet. If you’re interested, I’ll leave the link in the bottom so you can get one. I do have different colored beads. Um, this is my favorite. It’s amazonite. It’s kind of—has some blue colors, and blue is my thing. So, that’s the one I wanted to show you.
Okay. So I came up with this idea for the grounding bracelets. And then I came up with this idea. I was like, “Well, what if I made it a pack, like a relaxation pack?” And I came across—I feel like something’s in my mouth—I came across, um, lotion bars.
I was thinking bath bombs, you know, but I honestly never get in the bath. My bathtub is small and my butt is big, so the combination is not really good. Plus, I have a torn meniscus and my knee doesn’t want to work. So getting in and out of the bathtub would require, like, the fire department.
So bath bombs—I thought, no. I want something that I can use. I don’t want to sell things that I can’t even use myself. So, um, I thought—yeah—I came across the lotion bar. It’s so awesome. What a great idea.
And so I was figuring out the formula. Now, this is where I spun off on a tangent because, um, I tried the formulas that I found and it was never quite right. And it just—I got stuck. I don’t know if that happens to you where you’re doing something and you kind of just get sucked down the rabbit hole and you get distracted and get pulled into something.
So I got stuck on the lotion bars forever, trying to get the formulation that I wanted that actually helped my hands because I—I had the worst hands. And I live in Utah, so we have a dry climate, and the winter is honestly brutal on my hands.
So I thought this is a product that I could put with something that’s calming and relaxing in a box. I also came across, um, eye pillows. And you put, like, flax seeds, and you put lavender. And I also have one that’s with rose.
And so I have been sewing these little eye pillows, and I can share that stuff with you later. And I put it all in a little box. And I—I sell them separately, but I put it all in a little box.
That’s what I’ve been doing—getting excited about this. My problem is I work really hard on things, but then, like, putting it out there and having, um, you know, telling people about it—marketing—I don’t know anything about marketing, and I got stuck.
That’s when the comment was made. In the middle of doing all of this work, feeling upset with myself for having gotten sucked down a rabbit hole anyway—so when the comment was made, it just—it just brought up all of the ways that I beat myself up anyway. And so I, I just kind of got sucked into that dark hole. That is where I have been.
Christmas came. I did my best to make Christmas, um, amazing for my kids. We decided not to do gifts this year. So it was a gift-free Christmas, except for what some friends and things dropped off for us, um, which actually turned out really amazing.
I want to say that it was kind of like our best Christmas ever. I had no stress with getting gifts. I didn’t let myself feel guilty about not giving my kids gifts. I, um, I just wanted to focus on spending time with them, enjoying them.
And so we did some of the traditional things that we normally do—some of the little activities we do, like, um, a gingerbread house, and we do these little snowflakes. And, um, I can’t remember. There’s a couple other things that we did.
But, um, you know, just spending time together on Christmas Day. We woke up late. The kids love that because they’re teenagers and they don’t want to get out of bed ever. And we enjoyed playing some games. And then we went and spent time with family.
It was honestly the most ideal Christmas ever. So, um, though we didn’t have money, and maybe when they go back to school they’re seeing and hearing all of the things that everybody else got, I honestly feel like it was the most ideal Christmas ever. And I really was working to separate myself from depression as much as possible. So now I’m back to work. I’m back, um, to making videos, and I am back to getting my business going.
In case you’re wondering, I have made some decisions about my channel. Um, years ago—or not years ago, what am I saying?—last year at the beginning of the year, maybe a little bit in December, um, uh, I started making videos, making YouTube videos.
I made a couple of videos, maybe three videos, about weight loss. And then I thought, you know, that’s too much pressure. I can’t put that pressure on myself. And I switched over to doing more mental health kinds of things.
I spent a lot of time scripting videos and a lot of time editing videos, and it just—it was hard. And I wasn’t getting a lot of traction. Um, and—but I did learn, and it was—it was picking up some speed.
I took a little break because I had started a medication during the summer, um, thinking that I might be bipolar, to stabilize my moods, and it just wrecked me. I mean, it just caused the biggest mess.
And so I was fighting incredible depression during the summer and took a break from YouTube, came back, and I decided, you know what? I just have to lose this weight. I have to lose this weight. I’ve got to be able to have the knee surgery that I need, and I can’t do that until I lose the weight.
So why not do videos about losing weight? I started Tzepide, which is like Zepbound or Monaro, at that time, and I started producing videos regarding that.
Most of my videos—I’ve been trying to kind of imitate the style of a lot of videos that, um, they give tips, you know, three things you can do for this or five ways to do that. And in making those videos, although all of the things that I was suggesting and all the things I was talking about are things that I’m incorporating into my own life and things that I’m learning myself, there’s just a part of me that feels kind of, um, insincere.
Just because they are not things that I have mastered, right? Like, they are things that I’m implementing and I was sharing those things, but—but I definitely was no kind of guru. And I felt like an impostor, that I didn’t have a right to give other people tips for living and being successful when I myself was clearly, clearly struggling with, um, with depression and with having success—especially with my weight—and, well, all kinds of areas of my life.
Okay, so, this time coming back, starting fresh—you know, I don’t know. I haven’t posted a video in forever, so who knows if anybody’s ever going to see this. But this is just me trying to get back online with making videos.
I have decided that I’m going to do both of those things. But I’m also going to do it in a little bit of a different way. So going forward, this kind of video—the one that I’m making right now—is going to talk about, um, weight loss. Um, I already shared that I gained weight, and I’m going to tell you in a minute what my plan is for that, how I’m going to address that.
So this video and the ones that follow like this will be kind of a vlog style. I don’t know if I’m going to be walking around. I mean, it’s cold outside, so I don’t really want to go outside, but we’ll see. Vlog meaning, like, I’m talking about my life, what I’m up to, what I’m doing, um, my successes with weight and struggles with weight, and not really giving tips.
I’m not going to be talking about, like, dieting, ’cause I hate that word. It freaks me out and I start wanting to eat. But, um, I’m not going to tell you what to eat. I’m not going to tell you how to eat. I’m not going to—none of that stuff.
My focus is on developing self-love, um, and healing the reasons why I eat in the first place. Because I don’t know about you, but my weight problem is largely tied to emotional, um, problems, right?
It is largely tied to how I feel about myself, and eating for comfort, and eating for—or seeking sugar—to calm my nervous system down.
I don’t know. I just firmly believe that anybody who falls into the, you know, morbidly obese category—like, there’s something going on other than just diet and exercise. Like, there’s just something more going on to allow ourselves to get so big, to get so uncomfortable, and to just struggle with life the way that we do being this overweight.
So if you relate—I mean, actually, it doesn’t have to be morbidly obese, right? Like, anybody who is emotionally eating, anybody who is struggling—you could be underweight and still this is an issue. That’s what these videos are going to be. Well, the other set of videos are going to be talking about the emotional side—healing the mental side of, um, of my life with regard to weight loss.
So these kinds of videos are kind of updates on my weight loss, my progress, the things that I’m doing, and what’s going on in my life—kind of just chatting with you and hanging out with you.
And the other videos—I’m saying this all backwards—but the other videos are—okay. Again, I have something on my face. Hopefully it’s not weird. Anyway, the other videos are going to be mental health. It’s going to have a lot to do with my weight problems because literally all of the problems that I am experiencing in my life come down to, um, the fact that I suffer from complex PTSD.
I will talk about that in a future video. Um, in fact, I’ve already made that video and I’ve loaded that video, so check that one out next—introducing, um, the other kinds of videos that I’m going to be doing about mental health.
Mental health is so important to me. And—and—and I have learned that I’m just not going anywhere in life. And I have been working so hard at trying to get a grip on my mental health and feel better, and I have still been stuck.
So in those videos, I found this. I’m so excited about this. Um, I found this book. And, um, I had planned on actually—I had planned on using this other book. Um, I bought this one. It’s the ACT, CBT, and DBT.
If you’re familiar with mental health kinds of things, these are just all different modalities or, um, therapies that, um, that can be used. And these specific therapies I’ve been very, very interested in, and I wanted to do more research.
Well, I got this book and found out that it—it has all these skills that you can do. Um, it doesn’t talk a lot about, um—it doesn’t go into, like, the theory itself. It really just gives you a whole bunch of skills.
I will be using this book later, but because it wasn’t really quite what I wanted at the time, I kept looking.
And so in looking, I found this book. This one is perfect. I’m so excited about this, um, because it is the dialectical behavior therapy—uh—therapy, which is DBT, um, skills workbook for CPTSD, which is complex.
Some people call it, uh, chronic. Um, I’ve heard it also called childhood PTSD. Um, this—this is it in a nutshell.
I’ve been very interested in DBT. I have wanted to do more work with that. To find the combination of it specifically for CPTSD has been an answer to my prayers.
And so I’m going to go, um, kind of chapter by chapter, um, reading parts of the book, discussing parts of the book, working through the workbook because it is, um, a workbook format.
I’ve already actually started, um, and actually doing that workbook with you. So please check out that other video. I’ll leave links for, um, getting the book if you want to do the book along with me. Um, get the book and let’s do it together.
If you fall into the category of emotional eating, or if you also are struggling with different symptoms that come about because of trauma that is not resolved, um, I’m doing it, and I hope you can join me with that.
Now, the other thing that I have been doing is—I came up with something because I told you that I was going to do what I was going to do to address this, um, weight gain, right? Well, weight gain and getting myself back on track emotionally.
Um, and honestly, I don’t want to be a depressed person the rest of my life. Like, hopefully I have, you know, several more years of living, and I don’t want to struggle with, like, these things anymore.
The one thing—that I am doing is that the other product that I put together for my online store—and I’m super excited about this—is also using those beads.
And so in this box, it’s a set for doing goals. And, um, it also has a bracelet. These bracelets coordinate with the other ones. So I can wear them together, and I will start wearing those in my videos. Anyway, this bracelet has a butterfly on it. You can see the butterfly. I don’t know if you can see it or not, but there’s a butterfly there.
It walks through—there’s a whole bunch of goal tips, like creating goals and making them work for you so you can be successful. And there are little goal cards in here and instructions for how to use this little set.
So, the bracelet—the reason that there’s a bracelet—is because, um, it’s to be a reminder of my goals every single day. So I can put the bracelet on. I can wear this during the day, and every time I see my bracelet, I can remember the goal that I made and, um, remember to do it.
Because, like, I don’t know about you, but sometimes, like, I have good intentions, and I mean to do things, and I want to do things, but at the end of the day I’m pooped. Or—or I forget, honestly, because life is really busy. And I don’t get my goal done if it’s not, like, right in front of my face.
Well, this is how I figured out to put it right in front of my face in a pretty way, right? So this is the reminder part of the set. So the next part of the set—let me take this fluffy stuff out of here—is, um, there is a little jar. And the jar also has the butterfly that matches the bracelet. And this is for holding, um, little beads for marking off when I get my goal done.
So that is down here at the bottom of the box. Okay, let me get this stuff out of the way. So this—I’m so excited about this. This also has a butterfly on it. There’s a quote from Maya Angelou. It says, um, “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
I love this quote because it’s—it’s so perfect. Because change is just not—it’s not—it’s not easy. It’s not easy to have a lifetime of a habit and—and then just because I want to change it, it—it goes and it happens overnight and it’s all good. No. There are things that I’ve been working on my entire life. So making a change, changing how I live my life, changing the way I do things takes work.
And so that’s why I really, really love this quote. And so these beads that are here are actually stuck on there, and they are removable. So when I complete a goal—I’m going to show you this other one. I haven’t put the little butterfly on yet, but, um, I decided I wanted to do two goals at once.
The first goal is going to be, um, exercise because I need to get that back into my schedule. I dropped it off, and, um, it’s just so important for my mental health. I have to exercise along with my health, but, you know, number one reason is when I don’t exercise, I don’t feel well emotionally. Okay? So I’ve got to get that, um, back in place.
And I also want to work on my book, and I want to make sure that I’m doing that every day. So those are two goals.
So when I complete my goal—oh, it’s kind of awkward sitting here like this—but I can take this off. Um, it doesn’t leave anything. I got the kind of sticky stuff that doesn’t leave anything. And I can put it in the jar to indicate that I have finished it.
And because this morning I already did exercise, so that bead goes in there. And I also already worked on my mental health. I already did some work in my mental health book. So I can put my little bead in here also.
So the little beads and the big beads—there’s 30 of them all combined—to fill this little jar. It’s pretty. It has the butterfly that coordinates with this butterfly that coordinates with the butterfly that’s on here.
So it’s a whole system to remind me, to encourage me, to celebrate when I accomplish my goals, and to keep me motivated to keep going, keep going, keep going.
Because, you know, like, a big part of goals is I—after the first—I don’t know—sometimes it’s a couple of days, sometimes it’s a week, sometimes it’s a couple of weeks—but I always—I don’t know—I poop out. And I stop doing it.
And I don’t know if it’s because of busyness or, like, you know, the sexy part of starting a goal—the exciting part, the fun part of starting a goal—kind of wears off. And, um, anyway, this helps to keep me on track.
Years ago, I used to keep this giant calendar, and I used to mark off, um, days. And then I also started using little stickers and putting little stickers on those, and it worked like magic. So helpful to keep me on track and keep me motivated. This is a prettier way of doing it.
So if you’re interested in using this little system that I’ve developed, I will put a link in the, um, in the description too. Um, I’m super proud of it. I think it’s—I think it’s so awesome. And you will see me working this. I got something on my—oh no, I got something on here. Oh, I’ll clean it later.
Okay. So that is what I’ve been working on. There are also different colors for that. That is how I’m going to keep myself on track. That is what I’m working on for this new year.
I am so excited to get some things straightened out in my life and to straighten out my finances, to work on, you know, the things that I have going on—the stress that I feel about relationships.
I’m not in a relationship. I would like to one day be in a relationship. Um, just so many areas of my life that come down to the one thing, um, including weight, and that is my emotional well-being.
And as I’ve gotten harder—or older—it has gotten harder. And it’s time. I have to deal with these things.It’s not like I haven’t been working on them. It’s not like I haven’t been trying. But I feel like all these pieces are coming together finally for me. And I’m excited to work on that.
And I hope that you will join me. I hope that you’ll subscribe and that if you’re interested in just weight loss and working through that with me and having some support in that way, check out the videos that will be about that. If you’re interested in, mental health or and/or weight loss, check out those videos. I really feel like there’s power when we do things together. I feel like we gain from each other strength and support and, just encouragement to keep going for the things that we’re working on. So, you know, share this video with somebody that could also—that would like to participate with this with me.
Take care and stay positive!
