152: Kate’s Health Transformation: Quitting Drinking and Weight Loss During Menopause

In this episode, I’m chatting with Kate, a long-time Dirty, about her truly life-changing experience inside Drop It Club.

Kate shares how the work went way beyond weight loss, including her decision to quit drinking and completely shift how she shows up in her life. We talk about habits, mindset, and how she used the coaching tools inside Drop It Club to create changes that stuck (without relying on willpower or perfection).

This conversation is raw, honest, and emotional—tissues are encouraged. Huge congrats to Kate on her sobriety and the powerful, ripple-effect changes she’s made in her life.

Helpful links

• Blog posts about quitting alcohol 
• Drop It Club, our plant-powered weight loss club

 Transcript, auto-generated, may have errors

Molly Patrick: Today I have a guest on with me. I am talking with Kate, who has been in our community for a really long time and who was in Drop It Club for some time. I really wanted to talk with you, Kate, because you went through Drop It Club and you experienced some pretty cool shifts and some pretty cool things that weren’t necessarily having to do with weight loss. I know that you did release some weight, but there were some other things that changed. I really wanted to talk with you about those things and just see what you experienced during this program and what shifted for you. I think that so much of what I teach is so much more than just releasing weight. I think so many people who go into this with that initial motivation of “I am here because I want to release weight”—that does happen. But it seems like for a lot of people over this past year, that has all of a sudden become secondary. It’s still there, but there’s this other stuff happening that might be even more interesting and more life-changing. I’m going to read to you—you sent this beautiful email and I want to talk about a few things from it. The first one was that you experienced a shift around drinking and drinking a lot less. Can we just start with that? Because I think that’s huge.

Kate: Absolutely. That was the hugest thing that has happened. When I joined Drop It, it was to drop weight. I had just put on a lot of weight at my age—menopause, all that. But I also needed help with drinking because I had been drinking daily and didn’t think much of it because it was just the world that I was in. Everybody around me was doing the same thing. I thought part of this program was to reduce my drinking, and what you were asking of me was very doable. I was like, “Okay, this is good. I can do this.” Then throughout all of your coaching that I watched—some of the videos you made and then the coaching—when you were helping people with a problem, somehow I could always relate to that, even if it wasn’t the exact same problem. Like midnight snacking, I could say “midnight drinking” or things like that. I used your techniques to help me eventually quit drinking. I’ve never said I quit drinking before in my life, and I’m three months with no alcohol at all. I feel great. It has been absolutely life-changing, so much more than dropping the weight, which is great also. It’s amazing.

Molly Patrick: Wow, that’s so cool. First, congrats, because three months is a big deal. That’s a significant amount of time to go when you’re a daily drinker. I know that because I was a daily drinker too. That first three months—I don’t know about you, but when I hit that, I was like, “I can’t believe I did that.” I was so surprised. I wanted to and I was working on it, but there was still something about it—I went a whole three months. Does it feel almost unbelievable to you in a way?

Kate: It feels like a giant weight has been lifted. It feels more unbelievable that I drank all the time and didn’t think too much of it, and really how much it affected me because of how I’m daily feeling better and better.

Molly Patrick: Okay, so that’s interesting. You went into it wanting to release a little bit of weight, but you really knew that you wanted to look at your drinking. You went into it with that intention. What’s interesting is—and you’ve heard it during the videos and also a lot in the coaching calls—what I say is you can take what I’m talking about and how I’m coaching people and the methods that I use and apply that to so many other areas of your life. You were really wise to spin that in a way that worked for your particular situation because it’s the same stuff, whether you’re trying to get off sugar or just stop snacking on ultra-processed foods or all of the many things that we do in Drop It Club. I should say that there are some things around alcohol in Drop It. In phase one, we say, “Okay, just cut your alcohol in half.” Then if you get to phase two, cut your alcohol in half again. It’s not like “don’t ever do it.” Did you do that? Did you cut it in half or did you just stop right away?

Kate: No, I cut it in half. It was very doable.

Molly Patrick: Okay. And so that felt like it was doable for you. You were able to wean yourself off in a way.

Kate: Yep. All along, again, using your techniques to change my mindset and change my thoughts, which changed my behavior. Eventually, it was a major shift to where I said, “I want to be done with this,” because I had never said that before. I said, “I want to cut back,” but I’ve never been done with it until that shift happened. I thank you; I owe that to you, really. Your coaching is remarkable and wonderful and life-changing, life-altering.

Molly Patrick: Well, thank you for those words. That means a lot. But my coaching wouldn’t do anything if you weren’t ready. You were at a point in your life where you were ready to look at this and you were open to being done with it, even if you didn’t walk into it thinking, “Okay, I’m going to do this so that I can quit drinking.” You were open.

Kate: That’s true. I just wanted to cut back.

Molly Patrick: Yeah. And what made you want to cut back? Were you just feeling it physically? Explain to me what prompted you to want to cut back.

Kate: Health reasons is really the only thing. Because of my social circle and my circumstances, it’s ingrained in there. I had many excuses why I can’t or why I have to, but I dealt with those through your program.

Molly Patrick: Wow. Two questions come to the top of my mind. One is: how long was it from the time you joined to the time that shift happened where you’re like, “I think I want to be done”?

Kate: Three months? About two or three. I’m having to go back because I’ve been quit for three months—when did I join?

Molly Patrick: Yeah, that’s pretty remarkable. And then the people in your life—because you say you were in your environment and there were people who were drinking as well—have they been supportive of you in this new journey of yours?

Kate: Yeah, I would say so.

Molly Patrick: Was that scary for you or was that hard for you to do this even though the people around you weren’t?

Kate: Yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard to go certain places. The first time was hard—to go back to a bar and have a soda. But that worked. It went fine. I made up the story in my head that it was going to be bad, and that’s not what happened.

Molly Patrick: I love that you say, “Yeah, I was scared.” I love it because you are owning that. You’re not saying that it was totally fine. There were emotions that came with that and it was okay, and you were able to do it. I talk about that a lot too in the coaching. It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to feel nervous. We should be feeling those things. Well, that’s amazing. I’m really, really happy for you. Do you feel like this is something that you want to continue on with and that you can see yourself just keep going in this direction? How nice is it to not wake up with a hangover?

Kate: Absolutely. It’s very nice. Although hangovers were rare, I didn’t drink a lot, but I drank every day. So I shouldn’t say they were rare; maybe I just didn’t notice that they were hangovers. I just thought it was normal. I get up a lot earlier now. I go to the gym, which I didn’t do before.

Molly Patrick: Let’s talk about that because one of the things was the drinking, and then the other thing that you mentioned is that you’ve lost 10 pounds and you continue to slowly lose, and that your mom and dad commented last weekend that you look really good. Then you said that you’re back to the gym two to three times a week and getting stronger. Was the gym something that you had done previously and then just dropped it and forgot that it existed, or just put it on the back burner?

Kate: Yep, I did it for a little while and then I dropped it. I got out of the habit of doing it and quite a while went by. But once I was in your program, that motivated me. Just hearing how people would start with just 10 minutes a day—I can do that. I can get back to 10 minutes a day. It just kept going from there because moving your body feels really good.

Molly Patrick: Yes, the body wants to move. I’m sneaky with that 10 minutes a day because anybody could say, “I can do that.” Nobody’s going to make an excuse about 10 minutes a day and not being able to do it. But then once you do that 10 minutes, your body’s like—once you’re already in it, so often it’s like, “Well, I could probably do another five or another 10.” You end up usually doing more than if I were to say, “Okay, work out for an hour.” So many people would be like, “I can’t do that,” and then they’re just not going to do it.

Kate: Exactly. And hearing other people’s success stories—reading about other people who said at the beginning of this, “I could only walk around the block,” and now they just did a five-mile hike—that’s very motivating.

Molly Patrick: It’s incredible. Doing new things like bike riding or swimming or getting into the gym and starting weightlifting classes—it is so inspiring to see people come alive in a new way. That does feed—I’m inspired by it when I hear people’s updates. As you know, we do scale victories or weight-releasing victories, and then we do the non-scale victories, which are my personal favorite. Whenever I see somebody starting to move again in a way that they haven’t in a while, it always inspires me to keep moving my body. I think we all really inspire each other. You said in your email that you used to feel kind of alone in this lifestyle because you had eaten a whole-food plant-based diet for a while and you’ve been in our community since 2017. So you are an original for sure. You had felt a kind of aloneness, and something shifted in Drop It. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Kate: I think it was actually the connection calls. I only did one buddy-up where I buddied up with somebody, but that helped a lot too. Just being able to relate to someone that you see again and again because you’re all in the same group—you know the names—it just made me feel like there were more people on my side instead of people saying, “Eat the chicken, eat this, eat that.”

Molly Patrick: Absolutely. It’s like you’re around people who get it because they’re going through it. It’s such a supportive group. We’re all cheering each other on. I think getting that support from people who you didn’t know previously and also that you feel genuinely excited for when you hear updates from as well—there’s something that’s just so warming and satisfying about that. I know we have a “Droplet” who got married recently, right? I was really looking forward to seeing a picture from her wedding day. There’s somebody who went through a mouse problem in her house and we’re all invested in the mouse story and how it’s going. I think it is to say it is a fairly small group, so it feels pretty intimate. I think that’s helpful as well. Well, that’s great. So then I guess it’s safe to say that you’re kind of the only person in your circle or your group who lives this way. Is that right?

Kate: Well, my brother and sister-in-law do, so I do have them, but otherwise it’s just me. My husband is very much a carnivore. So we’re a split family. He has his food in the refrigerator and I have mine. We make it work, though, but we don’t always eat the same thing, of course.

Molly Patrick: It’s interesting to hear that because there are so many people who are in similar situations and their partners just aren’t interested and aren’t going to do it. How do you make that work? Logistically, do you cook his food or do you do separate things in the kitchen? And how do you feel about being in a kitchen with meat if you’re not eating it? I know there are a lot of people who struggle with that, so I’d love to hear your view.

Kate: Well, he cooks his own food and I cook my own food, so that makes it easy. Sometimes we have completely different meals. Sometimes if he’s grilling burgers on the grill, I do the veggie burgers. There are quite a few meals—he really likes the pasta meals that I make, your recipes, so he’ll eat those. But it works, it really does. I was worried about that and I felt guilty about that also. I felt I had to deal with that feeling like I should be making his food or that we should be eating the same thing. Again, we worked it out. It works out. When you really want to do something and for reasons that are really important, it’ll work. It’s very doable.

Molly Patrick: There’s always a way to figure it out. I think you hit it: if it’s important enough to you, you’re going to figure out a way. Most people’s partners are not assholes, right? Most people understand. I think it takes communication. It takes opening up and sharing, “Hey, this is important to me and here’s why, and this is something that I really want.” If you open up in that way—and that requires a little bit of vulnerability—communicating and just really having the other person understand why this is important to you, they can get a better sense and maybe are more likely to be supportive.

Kate: Yes, definitely. And it doesn’t bother me to—he’s a meat eater. It doesn’t bother me to have it in the house. I don’t have to do anything with it. But that’s his choice. That’s how he wants to eat, and that’s okay too. I can’t make him eat my way, even though I think he should.

Molly Patrick: Exactly. We all want them to and we think that they should. That is true. I talk about that all the time too. We’ve got to focus on ourselves and be an example. If he is ever curious or has a desire to do that, he’ll know exactly where to go.

Kate: Absolutely. And like I said, there are plenty of meals I could make that he really enjoys.

Molly Patrick: And he enjoys them because they’re delicious, right? Not because they’re plant-based, but just because they taste so good. Our food is just very tasty. Okay, so a few other things that you said: you’re batch cooking more. Isn’t that a game changer when you really commit to doing that?

Kate: Absolutely. When I can open the refrigerator and pull out my protein, my soy curls, and then my vegetables and delicious sauces that are from your recipes, I can make so many different things. I just make components a lot of times also. That’s what I just did. I call it my batching, but it is batching.

Molly Patrick: It is. That’s what I do a lot of times too if I’m not following a meal plan. It’s a sauce, dressing, soup, grains, beans—making sure you have plenty of veggies. Then you have these things in your kitchen that you can just make magic with when you get hungry. It’s such a game changer. So good. Well, you’re getting back into doing that. Such an important thing. And then you also said that you give yourself more love and patience. Can you talk about that a little bit and what that looks like?

Kate: Yeah, that looks like not feeling like I have to be perfect with following this way of eating. If I want an exception meal, it’s okay. Just have it and move on. Instead of berating myself—”Why did you do that?”—and letting it spiral—”I might as well just have some cookies then with it”—just saying, “It’s okay.” It doesn’t have to be perfect because you preach that a lot. It’s not perfection, but progress. Progress over perfection. And that’s huge.

Molly Patrick: Isn’t it funny how some people need to hear that more times than others, which is why I’m always talking about it? I’m like, maybe this person is going to need to hear it 70 times before something can start to shift. We’re all at different places with that. But it’s interesting how once you kind of hear it and you’re like, “Okay, maybe I can give this a try. Maybe I don’t need to beat myself up. Maybe I can not follow a guideline or eat something that isn’t on plan and be okay with it.” Doing that enough times does eventually translate into more love and patience for yourself. It’s like that’s the groundwork for developing this new, more loving relationship with yourself. I think it’s more accessible to do it that way than if I were to say, “Okay, just love yourself,” because I think a lot of people are like, “Well, how? What does that mean?” Whereas if you can find an action—”Okay, I’m going to allow myself to be imperfect and not beat myself up”—that’s more tangible. Through practicing that, it does foster more patience and more love. Can you explain how that feels for you versus what you might have been doing before, which was berating yourself and spiraling?

Kate: It feels lighter, if that makes sense. I don’t feel like I’m carrying so much weight around because I think that stuff just piles up and drags you down. All those little things that we say to ourselves—that’s another thing that you talk about a lot: nothing is bad. So it feels lighter, it feels better.

Molly Patrick: Absolutely it is, if that’s what you’re experiencing. I agree that it is lighter because you literally aren’t dragging that stuff around with you anymore. I wanted to call this “Drop It Club” for many reasons, and that’s one of them. Part of what we do in there is we drop shit that’s no longer serving us. It’s not just the actual weight that becomes released, but it’s all of those stories. It’s all of the baggage. It’s all of that negative self-talk. We are literally dropping this stuff that is no longer serving us in order for us to be lighter. Lighter can be just in how we feel in our head as we’re going through our day. There are many different ways to feel lighter. I think that you stated that in a really beautiful way because when you drop that stuff that holds you down, it is like we are releasing something from our lives. Well, thank you for sharing that. Okay, let’s see. Then you have your non-negotiables, you don’t feel guilty. You said you’ve been in our community since 2017, never a perfect plant-based eater, but plants made up the majority of your diet. You always felt alone in your plant-based journey and Drop It somehow made you feel like you wasn’t alone. That’s so great. I really wanted to talk with you because when I was developing this program, everything that you said in your email and that we’re talking about here was what I had hoped for. I had really, really hoped for that because diet culture can be really toxic and predatory and manipulative and not nice. I had hesitated starting something like this for many years because I didn’t want to add to that. I didn’t want to be part of that. But the more that I thought about it, the more I’m like, there’s so much more to it than the weight. If I can have some small part in helping people love themselves more and developing a more positive relationship with their body and dropping some of the habits and negative thinking that no longer serves them, then I think it’ll be worth doing. I really went into this not just about weight, but understanding that there were a lot more possibilities for people to make their overall life easier and more loving for themselves. When I get this feedback, it just really brings so much joy to me because that’s why I wanted to do it. I really thank you for sharing all of the ways that you had benefited from it. Like you said, you released 10 pounds—11 now, right?—and it’s still going in that way, but it’s not just about that.

Kate: 11 now. No, it’s about so much more. Again, thank you so much. This program is wonderful. I hope everybody can take advantage of it. It’s life-changing. It really has been for me.

Molly Patrick: Well, thank you so much. I’m so happy and I’m so happy that you trusted me and that you said yes to yourself. Being an ex-drinker, whenever I hear somebody say, “Okay, I was ready and I did it,” I’m so happy for them because I know that even with that, life is a lot lighter and life is a lot easier. There are so many ripple effects from that, right? Just how you’re feeling. Then when you start to go to the gym, you’re going to have more energy. When you have more energy, you are going to be batch cooking more. When you batch cook more, you are going to be eating healthier. When you eat healthier, you’re going to have more energy. All of these changes are just this beautiful domino effect in the most positive way. It has so much possibility. I’m thrilled for you and I hope that you keep us updated and keep us posted. I wish you all the best. Thank you, Kate.

Kate: Thank you. Thank you.