As I read Day 13 of Make Cause Miracles this one was like a gut punch. It asked. What are my ego’s beliefs about my body?

Whew. This one hit me hard today.

My ego tells me: “No one will work with you because you have belly fat.”

WTF Is Happening to My Body? (And Why You’re Not Alone)

Yep, the mean girl in my head still gets loud some days. I’ll catch myself standing in front of the mirror thinking, “What the actual F is going on with my body?!”

There’s shame. There’s judgment. And this belief that my body has to look a certain way for anyone to trust me to believe that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to weight loss, fitness, or health.

That my worth as a coach somehow hinges on how me having 6 pack abs.

Yes, I know it’s BS, but some days, my inner mean girl comes in HOT. And today’s journaling prompt from May Cause Miracles cracked it wide open.

But here’s the thing those thoughts don’t drain my energy. They fuel it.

If anything, when I hear that voice? It makes me want to figure this out. For me. For you. For every woman standing in front of her mirror wondering the same damn thing: “Why isn’t this working anymore?”

It’s not a sign to give up. It’s a sign to get curious.

I know I’m not alone in this. I hear it every day:
“Why doesn’t what used to work… work anymore?”
“What am I doing wrong?”
“Do I need to do more? Less? Different?”

I’ve asked myself those same questions. For years, my reflex was always: “Go harder.” More workouts. Less food. More restriction. More pushing.

And when it didn’t work? I’d think maybe this is just how it is now.

But that’s not the truth.
Just because something hasn’t worked yet… doesn’t mean nothing will.

The Truth About Belly Fat After 40 (It’s Not What You Think)

Your body isn’t broken. It’s different. It needs a different strategy. One that works with your body — not against it.

That’s where I am now. Leaning into giving myself time. Trying new things. Ditching the old “go harder” mentality and instead asking: “What does my body actually need today?”

Because if I can crack this code? You can too.

And if you’ve been looking in the mirror thinking WTF is happening?! I recorded a free podcast just for you: 5 Ways to Crack the Belly Fat Code.

You’ll walk away knowing where to start — no more guessing, no more harder-and-harder. Just smarter.

Go listen now, comment below or shot me an email. I’d love to hear what lands for you.

The biggest enemy of any diet is boredom. People lose their motivation to stick to a diet and so they begin to cheat here and there. Before you know it, your diet is basically done with and you are back at square one. Sound familiar’ So, the key too sticking to a diet is to keep up the initial motivation that you have when you first start the diet. With this in mind, let’s discuss 4 tips that will keep you motivated for the entire diet.

Realize You Don’t Have to Be Perfect

A big problem people have is that the moment that they deviate from their diet, they feel like they’ve lost all their progress and that there’s no point in continuing with the diet. This is what people call a perfectionist mindset and it can be very difficult to overcome. If you’re one of the many people who have this mindset, then you need to get it into your head that the occasional mistake doesn’t set you back to square one. Just because you went out and overindulged one night doesn’t mean that you should give up on a diet.

I coach my clients to focus on the 80/20 rule. Out of your week if 80% of your meals are healthy and clean don’t sweat the other 20%. This is the main key of moderation. When we cut out the fun foods, the struggle becomes real!

With the 80/20 rule it helps you to blend in fun foods vs banning the outright. Say you love French fries, every time you go out and you gotta have French fries, but instead you tell yourself you are on a diet, so you have a salad instead. But those fries are on your brain.

What if instead you ordered the fries and didn’t have the bun on the burger or maybe you ordered the fries and didn’t dessert or a glass of wine. Do you see what I’m doing’ I’m making trades so that I can have the fries AND have clean food choices.

Make Sure That You Regularly Reward Yourself

Ideally, the knowledge that you’re becoming healthier would be motivation in of itself. But, that’s just not the case. So, from time to time you need to make sure that you’re rewarding yourself. It will give you something to look forward to, which will help with motivation, especially in rough patches. As for what the reward is, that’s entirely up to you.

I encourage my clients to have at least 2 treat meals/week. This could be a scheduled date night with your sweetie or movie nights with the kiddos, but it’s a meal where you have your fun foods. With that said, this isn’t the lose my shit at night. You will eat normal portions without the guilt. What are some of your favorite treat meals’

Set Realistic Goals

This is the crux of my REPS Formula . For the past 15 years I’ve seen so many women struggle with their goals because they reach for the stars and then get frustrated when the results aren’t coming as fast as they want them to.

When you are setting goals I ask my clients to work through their REPS
Your goal is it REALISTIC’ For example, it’s not realistic to lose 30 pounds in 30 days despite what you’ve read on Facebook 12 Something more realistic would be to focus on losing 1 pound a week.
Are you EXCITED about your goal’ In order to reach your goals do you need give up your fun foods’ Do you need to spend hours at the gym’ If that doesn’t excite you then you will not stick with it long term.
Can you make a PLAN for it in your life’ Can you make this work in your current lifestyle without a lot of gymnastics’
Lastly is your goals SUSTAINABLE for the long term’ Can you see yourself doing this for the next 30 day, 1 year or 5 years’

If this interests you, take a listen to this podcast where I go into greater detail.

Don’t Weigh Regularly

I get it. You want to lose the weight and you want to lose the weight right fucking now!! Repeat after me this is a long-term goal! You will need to pack your patience. You will see basically no progress when you first start. A lot of people make the mistake of weighing daily. This will kill your motivation because you’re going to have days and weeks where the scale barely moves if it moves at all. Weigh once at the start of the diet to set a baseline, then don’t weigh for at least a month, if not longer.

There are so many factors that go into your scale weight.
Many you haven’t pooped, you drank a lot of water, ate a lot of salt, you are getting your period. So instead of just using the scale, find some other non-scale victories.

Think physical
Less heartburn
Increased sleep Less pain
You get sick less often
Increased mood
Less cravings

What’s a non-scale victory that would work for you’

5 Days Effortless Weight loss.My signature weight loss mini course that teaches you the 4 disciple changers that will leave you feeling better, stronger and more confident. This time you’re guaranteed not to fail. 

Do you exercise’ If you do, that’s great. Most people don’t. With the “busyness” of life we are more sedentary and less physically active than at probably any other time in history. Given what know about the Corona virus, we see it playing out on many who have higher rates of obesity and other metabolic disorders. Now more than any other time in history we need to focus on working out, exercising, staying physically active and working to lose and/or maintain our weight, good for you.

How often do you exercise’

I know you’ve read or seen some social media influencer tell you that you need to workout everyday and you must be SORE! That seems a little overwhelming when you have so many other things on your plate.

For my clients I recommend that you lift 3-5 days. Put those days in your calendar and treat it light an appointment that you can miss.

Now let’s look at how many meals you eat every day.

The average person eats either 2 or 3 major meals each day. Many people enjoy a snack or two daily as well. The human body craves hydration more than it does food, so throughout the day make sure that you are drinking water. . Did you know that the human body can go more than 30 days without food, but only about 3 days without water’ Make sure you are hydrating frequently.

How many meals should you eat’

Focus on eating when you are hungry. I was of the school that you had to have 5-6 meals/day or you wouldn’t build any muscle. When you start to feel hungry ask yourself are you even hungry give yourself 30 minutes and if you are eat, if you aren’t ride it out a bit longer.

What should you eat’

Why yes you need a caloric deficit to lose weight. HOWEVER you need to figure YOUR caloric deficit vs blinding following someone else “plan”. Yes, this takes a bit of fine tuning but once you do it! Man, you will be very happy you did. No more struggling or suffering!

On your plate focus on having 30 grams of protein and at least 400 grams of fruit and veggies.

Nutrition alone accounts for as much as 60% to 70% of your fitness level.

I am not saying exercise is bad, but as the late great Jack Lalane said, nutrition is queen and fitness is king. We all know if the queen is not happy, then no one is happy.

Have you fully considered that losing weight is a 2 prong approach’ I’m a big fan of the show CSI. When you watch CSI they enter a crime scene and do an analysis. The same can be said for your nutrition. Take a look at your results up till now. If you haven’t reached the weight loss and fitness goals you desire so far, but you exercise all the time, you may not be giving nutrition the best opportunity to help you get where you want to be.

Would you like a lifestyle assessment to see where you can fine tune your current program’ Schedule right here 

Together we will take a look at your current routines so that we can see where refinements can be made. I will walk you through my 4 pillars of wellness so that you can determine where is the best place to start. Then we’ll walk you through my REPS formula so that you are guaranteed to not fail.