I ran into a friend of mine last week, and we were talking about how much harder it is to maintain, let alone lose body fat, as we age. It’s no joke. As we were talking, I was recalling the struggles that I was feeling before. Before now; when I realized that I needed to figure this whole thing out or I was going to still be obsessing over my weight on my deathbed. At the time, I was running an hour a day 3-4 times a week, and on days when I wasn’t running, I was either taking a kickboxing class, or a spin class. Then, about 4-5 days a week, I would go back to the gym later to spend another 40-60 minutes strength training. I knew it wasn’t sustainable. I knew that it wasn’t something that I could keep doing into my 60’s. And although I was telling myself that Read More . . .
My Stress, Anxiety and the fitbit
I’ve struggled with anxiety for the past year or so. It feels very strange to me to write about this so publicly, since I haven’t talked about it with anyone except a few close friends and clients. It’s not something that I’ve been hiding, or keeping a secret, but I wasn’t talking about it because I didn’t really have any answers. It’s something that came on with a vengeance, and I’ve been trying to make sense of it myself – wondering, is this something that is part of my life from here on out? And since I didn’t really have any explanation, or answers, I didn’t want to talk or write about something that I didn’t really have any perspective or a solution for. But now, I do. The Back Story: I am not a crier. It’s just not part of my personality and who I am. I have no judgement against Read More . . .
Does my 2 mile walk still count if I walked all the way to breakfast tacos?
I saw this post on Facebook the other day, and it gave me pause. It brought me back to a mindset that I had for, most of my dieting career. I remember when I believed that I had to earn my food. I had these rules around when I could and couldn’t eat. I could eat if and only if I knew that I could create enough of a calorie deficit by the end of the day to ‘work it off’. ‘It’ being the food that my body needed to live. Maybe it’s the calories in versus calories out approach, but diet and exercise are inextricably linked. And so it’s not a stretch to see how I could easily get caught in the trap of having to earn my calories – especially around the holidays when there are no shortage of memes that get passed around about how much you need to exercise to Read More . . .
But I don’t feel like it.
How often do we allow our feelings to dictate our actions? “I don’t feel like ___________fill in the blank________.” (exercising, eating my vegetables, paying my bills, getting up in the morning) In her book, the Willpower Instinct, Dr. Kelly McGonigal breaks willpower into three distinct types: ‘I won’t power’ willing yourself to abstain from certain behaviors, like quitting smoking, spending money, overeating, or biting your tongue; ‘I will power’, willing yourself to do something like eat vegetables, or exercising; ‘I want power’, the ability to go after a long-term goal in spite of obstacles and barriers. What immediate ‘want’ is most likely to distract you or tempt you away from this goal? Normally, when we think about willpower, we think of ‘I won’t power’ – things that we want to stop doing. We think of ‘I will power’ as motivation. I will go to the gym. OR I will pay my taxes on time. Read More . . .
How do you find balance?
It seems like balance is a never ending quest that we seek in our lives. Oftentimes, our lives feel ‘out of balance’. What does that mean to have a life that is out of balance? Spending too much time at work? Not enough time with your family? If one person feels like they have balance, if you spend the same amount of time in each of those areas as that other person, will you have balance too? Is balance a certain percentage of play, work, family/friends, health, creativity or spirituality? I think that balance is so elusive because it’s different for everyone. Introverts and extroverts would certainly be different in the amount of social time that they each need. Additionally, someone who is an entrepreneur, who is completely excited and energized by her growing business is going to feel very differently about spending 60-80 hours per week at work than the Read More . . .
Are fitness apps a waste of time & effort?
I’ve been reading a lot of news stories lately about the accuracy of fitness trackers, which has been debate in the fitness community ever since I started in fitness over 10 years ago. The calorie readouts on the treadmills, ellipticals, and heart rate monitors were all that were available, back then. Soon after I started personal training, the bodybugg was introduced (and if you’re a long time reader, you know that I loved my bodybugg sooooo much that I became a reseller). It was expensive, but it was a great tool, and I finally felt like it offered the missing side of the equation to my food logging; you can log your food all you want, but unless you know how many calories you’re burning, you don’t have the full picture. Even if you are logging your food, how do you know if you’re consuming too many? Or not enough? I Read More . . .
How to prevent your diet (or exercise routine) from derailing
Life gets in the way. Doesn’t it? How often do you plan to do something, but then, something else comes up? And then that thing that you wanted to do gets put on the back burner? I always kind-of laugh to myself when I make a big ‘life decision’ because it always seems like the universe conspires against me to make it not happen. What typically happens is that I’ll decide to make a change, and then 3 or 4 other events happen at the same time that make my situation that much more stressful. The best example of this I can give is when I moved from Chicago to Austin to live with my husband, Gary. Granted, moving across the country is already a HUGE, stressful event. But the reason I was moving was to be with my husband because we were in a long distance Read More . . .
3, 4 or 6 Meals a Day?
I grew up learning that we should be eating 3 ‘square’ meals per day. I remember being taught in Home Economics class (6th grade) that a square meal consisted of Meat, Vegetables, Dairy, and Grain. So basically, a cheeseburger could be considered a ‘square meal’; it contains meat, lettuce & tomato make up the veg, cheese would check the dairy box, and the bun is a grain. Huh. As I entered my 30s, we started to get a little more sophisticated with our food. The low-fat craze was in full blown effect, vegetarianism was becoming more mainstream, and the new advice was to eat 6 smaller meals per day – so that you could keep your metabolism ‘revved up’ throughout the day. The thinking was that if you ate often enough, you could use the Thermic Effect of Food to help you burn calories for you (although that’s true, it doesn’t quite Read More . . .
5 Ways to Mindlessly Eat Less
Here’s the scene: You’re out to dinner with friends. It’s been a lovely dinner; you’ve really enjoyed the evening and have gotten completely swept up in the conversation. The server comes over to start clearing the plates & dishes. As he approaches you, and asks whether you’re finished, you look down at your plate. What do you see? What do you say? Is there food still on your plate? Are you finished eating? I am reading this great book called Mindless Eating. The author, Brian Wansink, a food researcher at Cornell, says that if you asked folks, “How do you know when you’re done eating?” or, “How do you know when to eat?” you’d think that most would answer these two questions with ‘I eat when I’m hungry; and I stop when I’m satisfied.’ But that’s not the case. Far too often we eat for other reasons. In the book, he exposes Read More . . .
If some is Good, is more Better?
I teach a class at the ungodly hour of 6AM on Mondays. It’s an hour. Its pretty intense. My client, who I typically meet later in the day, arrived as class was ending, and said, “Oh! That’s what I need to be doing.” Me: “Why?” Client: “Well, it’s an hour instead of 30 minutes, and I need that.” Me: “Why do you think you need that?” Client: “Because it would be better for me, to do more.” And isn’t that so true about what we’ve been taught about exercise? If some is good, more is better. Move more, eat less. That might be true for some folks – folks who aren’t moving and who aren’t really paying attention to their food choices. But what happens, is that advice falls on deaf ears, and the ones who hear it, aren’t the ones who need to. Its like when you get an Read More . . .
What is your ‘Why’?
When I meet with clients for the first time, one of my first questions is always, “Why are you hiring me? Why now?” The range of answers is as diverse as my clients: some want to be able to play with their grandkids, some just want to be around to see their grandkids grow up, some have more aesthetic goals, like wanting to lose baby weight, or its spring (i.e.: bathing suit season), and some have an active vacation planned, where being in shape is definitely going to enhance their experience. None of these answers are better than another, BUUUUT…. Some motivations may create more lasting results than others. See, there are two different types of motivation: external and internal. External motivators are defined as behaviors that earn us a reward, or allow us to avoid punishment. Internal motivators are typically performed for the sake of doing them, or a Read More . . .
Should you eat breakfast ‘like a king’?
One of the things I love about going on vacation (other than the obvious) is that I get to talk to people who I’ve never met before: people who are completely different from me, who have different life experiences, and know totally different things! Of course, when they hear that I’m a Health Coach, they either they tell me how much they know about health and fitness, or they start confessing their diet and exercise sins as if I’m a health-priest, with the ability to absolve them of their fitness sins. Ha! But the other thing that I get is a TON of questions. Which I LOVE! Because A) I could talk about health and fitness all day long (just ask Gary) and B) There is SO MUCH misinformation ‘out there’ that I get to clear up – or at least, give folks another perspective. As I was talking to Read More . . .
You’re not a freakin’ child! Eat your damn Veggies!
Last week, I met this woman, socially. I don’t remember how we got on to the conversation, but she said, “I don’t like vegetables. I don’t eat them. I don’t eat fruit or seafood. I like meat and potatoes. And dessert! ” It’s not the first time I’ve heard an adult say ‘I don’t like veggies’. And sadly, I don’t think it will be the last. I usually don’t know how to respond to this. What I wanted to say is, “You’re freakin’ 60 years old! You’re not 5! Grow up & eat a freakin’ carrot! Pshaw!” It drives me nuts! Because, One – There are so many awesome, delicious veggies out there & so many ways to prepare them that are fantastic! And Two – How does this happen? How does a person grow into an adult and choose not to eat vegetables? They say that kids need exposure Read More . . .
What did I learn from a crazy kettlebell challenge?
Just last week I challenged myself to do an ungodly number of kettlebell swings for 8 straight days. Why on earth would I want to do that, and what would I learn? I don’t even think I was thinking about what I would learn. I was only wondering, ‘Can I do that?’ But I learned a LOT! I learned about my strength, how my body works, and also how a small shift in mindset can make a HUGE difference in my motivation. Why It all started innocently enough, I guess. I was getting up from the kitchen table quickly. I wasn’t watching where I was moving, and I kicked the kitchen table with my little toe. OUCH! But I brushed it off – how many times have you jammed your toe into something without consequence? Not that I’m totally clumsy, but it happens, and it hurts, and I forget Read More . . .
Get Over Your Motivation Problems – 3 steps
Yesterday when I woke, I drank my liquid wake up potion, and headed to my workout room to get that started. It was supposed to be a simple workout – one that I had done before & it would be over in 30 minutes. But yesterday the weight felt heavier than it usually does. My body didn’t move as well as it usually does. My push-ups and planks were harder. Everything just seemed so difficult. For some, this could have been permission to stop because I just didn’t ‘feel it’. I think that most people believe that we have to be motivated to exercise. Like every day I get up, jump out of bed with a smile on my face, and greet the day with a Tony the Tiger, “I Feel GGGRRRRRREEEAAT! I’m going to do lift weights with my TEETH!” Yeah – no. That doesn’t happen. I don’t even know Read More . . .
Is doing something better than doing nothing?
I don’t have time to do a full workout, so I’m just going to skip it. Does this sound familiar? I know that there was a time in my exercising life that I had this mindset: “Well, I can’t do the workout that I’m supposed to do, so why do it at all?” And so I get it. You want to be all in. If you don’t have the time to dedicate to doing it, it’s not worth doing. But here’s the thing: This mindset is holding you back. Because exercise doesn’t work that way. Health doesn’t work that way. Consistency is the true contributor to progress when it comes to exercise, eating, and your goals. I posted this on FaceBook the other day: Many folks feel that they need to be ‘on’ all the time, or follow their plan perfectly to get results. Yes, you do need to be ‘on’, Read More . . .
5 ways to maximize your personal training investment
Personal training is expensive. As a trainer, I have the utmost respect for my clients, both past and present, who choose to invest hundreds of dollars a month on their health by hiring me. So, it really bums me out when I see someone doing something that is wasting the money that they’re spending. Recently, I came across an article that I had previously shared, titled “.6 percent“. It really resonated with me as a trainer, and the frustration I feel when a client isn’t invested in what they’ve hired me to do. See, I want all of my clients to be ambassadors of my work. But I also don’t want my clients to waste their money. Although I don’t think any trainer wants their client to cancel a session, some just shrug their shoulders, and say, “Well, because it was a last-minute cancellation, I’m getting paid anyway!” The biggest determination Read More . . .
Your Health isn’t a Priority? That’s OK.
You’ve seen the memes on the Internet, or heard the phrases: “What’s your excuse?” Or heard the phrase, “if it’s important to you, you’ll find a way. If not, you’ll find an excuse.” I actually like this second quote – and not because of the judgement that’s implied with it, but rather the truth that it conveys. We all have priorities. A list from 1-100. And we can’t do everything. On our list of priorities, we all have the same things: family, partner relationship, travel, money, career, health, and self-care, to name a few. They’re just in different orders. My list is in a different order than your list. Only one thing can occupy that top spot. Only one thing can occupy the second, and so on. As a health coach, I would love for everyone’s list to have ‘health’ as their #1 priority. But the truth is that it Read More . . .
Why the rules are bullsh*t
Do you have rules around your eating habits? They might be something like, “I can only eat sugar on the weekend.” Or “Bananas are loaded with calories and starch. So, I can’t eat bananas.” Whatever they are, do they help you? Or do they hinder you? I think most people create these rules because the grey area of our food can become so… GREY. H*ll! I don’t even know if there IS any black or white when it comes to food anymore! With all the media hype, and misinterpreted studies, something that you would think should be intuitive is now confusing. There’s so much fear and uncertainty when it comes to our food. What’s good for us? What’s not? And once we’re in that grey zone of ‘Eat these foods in moderation’, how do we know where we are in that moderation scale? How do we know when we’re slipping? If Read More . . .
What’s in Your Perfect Day?
One of the exercises that I have my Health Coaching clients do in their first habit is to describe their perfect day. I love hearing what folks love to do: spend time with their families (or not ;), pampering, what their favorite meal is, activities, what makes them feel good, and what their priorities are. And it got me thinking about what elements I would need to have a perfect day everyday. Sure! There are always things that we don’t want to do: chores, conflict, maybe errands, and things like that. But what key elements would be present in order for the day to be pretty close to perfect? How can you construct your life so that it’s pretty darn close to perfect? I came up with four elements that I can add in to any day to have a pretty awesome experience. I’ve tagged it #TAGY Treats – Everyday needs to have a treat in it. Read More . . .