Finding Your Sweet Spot

Today’s topic is going to be a little let’s say triggering. The topic is all about moderation, and it is finding your sweet spot. And I know for a lot of people that’s the goal, the hope. They want to get to that golden zone; they want to get to that magical place where unicorns are flying around and there’s glitter and so forth. But for some people, they’re like, “Moderation is not for everyone. I’ve tried to get to moderation and somehow I find a way to fuck it up and then I’m back to that binge-restrict cycle, I’m back to my rules, and I got to keep my rules because my rules keep me safe.”

I live here in Boston; I have a really good friend who is a marathon coach. He coaches several teams to run the marathon from “you just decided you want to run a marathon” to “you’ve been running a marathon for as long as you can run a marathon”. I asked him – at the time I worked at the last mile of the marathon – I said, “John, how is it that these elite runners who have just run 25 miles and they’re sprinting, they are running like they’ve just started down the street'” I said, “How do they do it'” And he said, “It takes a bit, but they find their sweet spot, they find that pace that they can just do, it’s just, “I can run at this pace all day long.” And then when they get to roughly six miles out, which kind of makes me gag, six miles out someone is going to look at each other and they’re going to say, “We’re going to sprint this last X number of miles.” The idea of me sprinting, that’s what I do when I see the meter maid at my car, that’s my idea of sprinting. 

Rub The Lamp

If we think about our health and our fitness as a marathon, it’s a long journey, it’s not a sprint. And how do you get to that sweet spot’ How do you get to that golden zone’ How do you become your own magical unicorn’ Because I believe that everyone has a little magic in them, and it just takes a little bit of time to find it. I’m going to call this a fable, but correct me if I’m wrong, Aladdin, in that story a guy finds this old tarnished lamp, it looks like crap, people are picking over it and he’s like, “I think this is beautiful.” He rubs it, a genie comes out and all is changed in his world. That’s where I want you to think about. I want you to think about you’re that lamp. You’ve overlooked yourself for all these years. You’ve put yourself on the back burner. Now, here’s where we are going to start to rub that lamp, make it get pretty, make it get beautiful.

Put those eye-rolls on the shelf and let me tell you my story.

I struggled with this whole moderation thing. I was like, “Girl, that is just not for me, that’s for other people. But thank you for sharing that’s possible.” And I know that a few of you are like that. I felt that if I wasn’t following a plan or following a program to the T, I couldn’t live. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t trust myself not to look at, “What should I do today’ What’s on the good food list’ What’s on the bad food list'” I couldn’t trust myself, and the plan made me trust myself, the plan kept me safe. The plan kept me from running around like a sailor on shore leave.

The Yin And Yang of Moderation

I want you to think that it’s about finding that yin and that yang. If you think about the old school scales where you put something on one side and the other side goes up, and then you have to kind of fool around with how many marbles you take off and put back on so that it comes into balance. I know some of you will be like, “There’s no such thing as balance.”

I do believe there is balance, but balance looks different for every single person. There are some days that you are going to be running around like a chicken with your head cut off and there are going to be other days you’re going to be Netflix and chilling. You know that rhythm, and that’s what moderation is, it’s finding your rhythm, it’s finding your balance so that you’re not brought down to your knees because of a holiday and you lose your stuff and you can’t find a way to get back on track. Balance and moderation is not having these hard-fast rules that you can’t live up to day in and day out, and when you do open the lid it’s like champagne flowing out. I want you to think about that, how do you get a little bit of that self-trust back in’

One of the ways I started to find my moderation and kind of keep my A++ personality in check is I start with a weekly plan and it’s me sitting down every single Sunday and saying, “What does my week look like'” And us ladies of a certain age, most times stuff doesn’t just pop up, we know what we’re doing. There might be a vague something, but it’s penciled in, you kind of know what’s going to happen. It’s rare that someone is going to call you on a Tuesday and be like, “Let’s go out for drinks at [5:00]”, because for most us, once you get home and your bra comes off you’re not going back out, let’s just be honest about that. I want you to think about creating that weekly plan, and you’re sitting down and you’re looking at your calendar and you’re saying, “This is when I’m going to work out” realistically. I’m not asking anyone to work out seven days a week, that’s not what I’m asking. I’m saying my commitment to myself is I am going to work out at least three times, and I know I can do that. Usually I work out four/five times, but I know I can minimally hit three and definitely hit four, and five is my stretch goal. I want you to think about that. When I put down my week, it’s my good, better, my best, and so I want you to put down something that you know you can nail, because as you’re starting to get in the moderation groove you want to have these small wins, and small wins keep you wanting to do stuff, don’t they’ 

Reverse engineering your success

Or if you have a schedule that isn’t as stable as mine you can definitely start with a 24-hour plan. You sit down and you say, “It’s Tuesday, what does tomorrow look like’ Can I fit in a work out’ What does my food look like'” And just map it out. Maybe it starts with, “This is when I’m going to bed” and then you map it backwards. Or you put in the commitments that you have that day and then you fit your food and your work out around those particular commitments. And as I’ve said, I’ve come up with these non-negotiables, and that way I honor myself. Because if you think about it, we as women honor everybody else before ourselves. We’ll run kids to XYZ activity, birthday party, try out, whatever, we will contort ourselves to get them there on time. We’ll contort ourselves for our spouses, we’ll contort ourselves for our family, but when it comes to us, “I’m being selfish” or “Tomorrow” or “Next week”, and we always find a way to put ourselves in the backseat. So, this helps me to put myself in the driver’s seat, and I’m come up with three non-negotiables, and it helps me to say it’s okay for me to have Kim-time, and so this is me giving you permission you have you-time. 

The Law of 3

It’s three simple things that I know I can commit to week in and week out.

1. I work out at least three times a week. When I say work out that’s not me going to the gym and banging out for multiple hours, that’s me having 30 minutes. It could be anything, it could be going for a walk, it could be doing something in my home gym, it could be actually taking a class. But it’s three times for at least 30 minutes I have to move my body in a week.
2. I have a big ass salad with some protein item, and that way I can get a ton of veggies in. I know that I’m getting my veggies, I’m getting my fiber, and I like salads, and I know that I can go anywhere on the planet and get a salad.
3. My sleep because I know that when I don’t sleep, I am hungry and a bit of a bitch. That’s a simple way to test – I want you to track your sleep for a week, and when you track your sleep and you get less than seven hours of sleep I want to know at what point do you start getting those sugar, caffeine cravings to give you that extra bump to get you through the day. Because I know when I get less than six hours of sleep, me and my coffee makers are BFFs. I’m like, “Bring on the coffee.” And at 4:00 I’m like, “Hmm, what sugary treat could I have'” And let me tell you, it’s not me reaching for the cotton candy grapes. That’s why I know I prioritize my sleep. So, I want you to think about does that same scenario play through for you’

This was me changing three habits, just three. And I know everyone wants to change… “But I have “this many” habits that I need to change, and I need to change them right now.” Here is where you change that thinking, I want you to think about your bare minimum, it starts a good habit. Once you have good habits then you can build a routine. Once you have a great routine, you can build consistency, and it’s the consistency that gives you results. A lot of times I talk to my clients, they’re like, “Ugh, I ‘m not getting any results.” And they’re complaining and ask the question because WHY. It’s because “You don’t have consistency.” And they’re like, “But…” and they give me the litany of excuses, and I was like, “Let’s go back to habits, give me three habits that you would love to either create or break.”

Because it’s the habit that drives the routine, and it’s our routines that we work on autopilot. Think about it. Think about your routine of washing your face and brushing your teeth. What do you do first’ Do you brush your teeth first, or do you wash your face’ That’s a habit, that’s a routine, you just do it over and over again. When you have coffee in the morning, do you put in the cream before the sugar, or do you put the sugar in before the cream’ It’s what you do. So, I want you to really think about where can we create some great habits that can turn into some amazing routines that can turn into that consistency that can turn into results’

Patience breeds success

Results and consistency take time. It’s slow, I know. It’s slow. But I want you to think about the Grand Canyon. That giant ravine, I don’t know how many miles long it is, Google that, but that didn’t happen overnight. That was years and years of the river carving through rocks. That is how change happens; it happens over time. I know we all want change to be some type of action movie where I walk through a door and boom, bang, everything happens. No, my queens, not at all. It is a slow thing. And so, when I break things down into small bite-size chunks, you know how I am, I really like to check things off the box. So, the more I can give myself these mini goals, the more checkboxes I can have and the happier I am because it looks like I’m on my way somewhere. But when I’m always looking that I have to lose a thousand pounds, I have to lose 40 dress sizes, that’s a long freaking way.

Pace yourself

I started this show about marathons, and one of the things the marathon coach told me is that they take it a mile at a time. They’re like, “How do I do that mile’ How do I do that mile'” And they’re checking their watches to see, “What was my pace'” They’re checking in, “What’s my hydration'” They’re always checking in. And that’s what I want you to do, as you start going through your goal, what are the milestones’ Because that’s how you get to moderation, is that you’re checking in with yourself, seeing how things are going, and if things are going well, you’re like, “Yes, things are going good. I can continue down this path” and start to feel the groove, start to feel like this is what it feels like and feel amazing. Because so many of us, we’ve been dieting for so long we don’t know what it’s like just to be. And when you let the reigns off… I know that many of you feel like, “Aw snap. If I let the reigns off there’s no getting this horse back in that barn, because once I get a taste of something, I am free, I’m free.” But what if that wasn’t the case, what if that was just a story you told yourself’ What if someone did leave the barn door open and you just went out and you just graze and you felt okay, and when you were tired of grazing you went back in the barn and you went to sleep’ That’s possible. 

Why do we have to have in our mind the worst possible case’ “If I do not have it planned, if I don’t have any rules, I should just pull up to the old country buffet with some maternity pants on and just let it go down.” But what if instead you’re like, “You know what, I’m just going to eat till I’m full”, even if that means leaving some things on your plate. And I know that when I was a kid we didn’t need to clean our plates. I’m grateful to my mother for this. When she was a kid, she was raised you had to clean your plate. She would say she wasn’t hungry. She was raised in that family that took your plate and put it in the refrigerator and you ate it until you finished, and that was before the microwave, so it was cold. She decided that is not how I will raise my kids. So, I’ve never been someone who has been a member of the clean plate club. As soon as I’m done, I stop eating, as soon as I was full, I stop eating. I didn’t want to push food into my mouth. Some people say to me, “I don’t know when I’m full. If it’s in front of me I’m eating it till it’s done.” Here is where you need to start taking breaks when you are eating so that you can check in with yourself and ask are you hungry are you full’

Split Your Meal With Yourself

What I encourage my clients to do is eat half their meal, whatever you’re eating, eat half of it. And take a pause for two three minutes and just tune in and check in because the travel time up your nervous system between your tummy and your head, there is a little delay. Have you ever been on a Skype call or a Facebook call and you’re talking and then they just freeze and then you wait and then they catch up’ That’s how your brain is to your stomach. So, just take two/three minutes, check in, ask your question, “Am I full'” “Am I not full'” And it’s not wasteful – if you’re at a restaurant, doggy bag; if you’re at home, have it later, split up your meal in two. Maybe you had a bigger portion than you were hungry for that particular day. I hope that you’re picking up what I’m putting down here, because one of the ways I was able to break free of this whole perfectionism or the fact that my meal plan called to eat X number of carbs and X number of fats. I just had to break away and I had to start asking myself better questions. And one of the questions I asked myself was, “Was my quest for perfection costing me’ What was it costing me, this ‘I had to follow the plan to the T” What was it costing me'” And then was it pushing me further from my goal, because when I got frustrated, I would sabotage’ And was I using diet and exercise to control my life because I had things in my life that weren’t controllable’ 

Again, I told you I was type A++, and at the time, at the height of my diet mania I had a really hectic job and I had things that I couldn’t control. I had a hectic and chaotic boss, and so I couldn’t control that, but I could control food. And I see it play out sometimes with my clients. One of my clients, she is a new mom, she runs a business, trying to be a good wife, trying to be a good mom, rock her business, and she is literally picking her body apart because that’s the only thing she feels like she has control over. She hasn’t found her rhythm yet in this whole mommy hood. And one of the things I told her is that, “You have to take this giant step back and figure out what is your new life with your little nugget. How does your nugget play into everything else that you’re trying to do’ Because you might need to stop doing some things just because you have to take care of your kid. You might have to delegate some things because you have a kid now, and so maybe that free time that you had is now you’re being a mommy and then being okay and comfortable with that’s what has to happen.” So, that part of moderation comes with you doing an internal look to see are you trying to take on too much to prove to yourself “I can do it. I am woman, hear me roar”‘ Because if you’re burning yourself out, who’s going to hear you roar’ Or they’re going to hear you scream when you pass out on the floor. 

Do You Have Realistic Restrictions

I want you to really focus in on, “With the restrictions that I’m setting up for myself, is that creating a life that I can live in the long-term'” And if you can’t live that life long-term or you always find yourself cheating on said “plan” This client she’s always like, “This is what I’m doing this week.” I’m like, “Great, let’s do it.” And then the following week I’m like, “Hey, how did we do'” And she’s like, “Well, it was a really rough week, so the wine and the chocolate came out.” And that right there, I tell her, “The wine and the chocolate is your response to stress. And so, every time that wine and chocolate comes out, you have to look at what’s causing the wine and chocolate to come out.” If that sounds like you, it’s time for you to really evaluate what you’re doing in your life that needs to change, because if you want to see a change in your body and you keep reaching for wine and chocolate, moderation is going to be like pfft, it’s pretty much like traveling to Mars for you. And I don’t want that, I want moderation to be maybe for some of you driving across the country, some of you, traveling across town. Maybe some of you are already there or you are on the town line and you just need to make a few tweaks and you can stay in that magical golden zone. In order for me to get through to moderation I had to break up those rules. I had to break up those rules and start really listening to my body. I had to stop saying, “I needed to have X number of meals a day” and really just trust and eat how I felt. Now, I know that that takes time, and again, remember I said this is a marathon, not a sprint.

When it comes to food, one of my biggest breakthroughs when it comes to the moderation for food is that I had to balance satisfying versus satiating. Satisfying is up here – my brain sees something on my plate and it’s like, “Yeah, get in my belly.” And when I eat it, if I’m full, I feel fullness, that’s satiation. That’s all the blood vessels in the center of my stomach saying, “Alright girl, we’re full.” But I also have to have it up here, because if my brain looks at something on the plate and is like, “I’m not feeling this”, I’m going to be a bottomless pit. And so, I want you to think about how many foods are you eating that gives you that visual, that brain candy if you will’ And how many foods are you eating because it’s on the good food list’ And so that’s where I want you to really kind of tune into your body that says eating chicken, broccoli and brown rice, is it satisfying in your brain, or is it satisfying in your gut’ What’s happening’ Pay attention to that, because that’s when you really start to honor yourself and you start to eat differently and eat better foods that will keep you fuller longer. And the goal is to stay fuller longer so that I’m not constantly in seek mode, because usually when I get into that seek mode, I’m seeking foods that I really know that aren’t good for me. I’m going for the quick fixes of the junk food so that it’s, “How quickly can I get another dopamine hit up here in my brain for something that is satisfying versus satiating'”

Work Your Workouts

And then workouts – “I want to work out for at least 30 minutes.” Yes, 30 minutes! I know that it’s kind of scary to step away from those two-hour workouts, because trust me, I was that girl. I remember going to the gym with my husband and we would always walk in together, we would say, “How much time do you need'” For me, a good workout was 90 minutes.
If I couldn’t get a 90 minute-ish workout, and if he had to leave early, I remember I would be so mad, like how can we not work out for 90 minutes, seriously’ And I was just like, “Okay”, and meanwhile on the inside I’m like, “I’m mad. This workout should be 90 minutes or why do it.” If I had less than 60 minutes my mindset was, “I have no time to come back to the gym to finish my workout.” Fast forward to today, like, “Oh, sweet Jesus, how much time did I spend at the gym'” Now I’ve become way more efficient with my workouts that in literally 30 to 45 minutes I can kick my own booty and feel sore. So, I want you to really look at what you’re doing for your workout, and is it more of a mental thing than a physical thing’ Because, trust me, there are some crazy kick your booty workouts that can be done in 30 minutes. And so, for those of you guys who one of the reasons why you’re not able to find moderation, you’re not able to find the consistency,

especially when it comes to workout is because you think a workout has to be this marathon session at the gym, holla at your girl, because I can help you out.

On my Instagram I do every Friday a fat burning Friday (#fatburningfridday) and it’s probably no more than five exercises that are done either for time, done for rounds, and its body weight exercises or requires very little to no equipment. And it’s things you can do at home, so if you’re someone who is like, “I don’t have a gym membership or want to have a gym membership”, or maybe you have kids, you want to work out at home, it’s really simple. 

I have a good friend, Kerri, she has a two-year-old, and she sits him over in the corner and he’s playing with blocks or coloring and she pulls out a10-15-minute workout. And sometimes it’s a couple minutes during the day or sometimes it’s just 15 minutes, wherever her son’s tolerance is at that particular day. So, I really want you to start thinking about rounding out what does that type of moderation look like to you. But the big take away that I want you to take from this session is one, be flexible. Be flexible but be committed and finding time. Commit to yourself just like you commit to other people.

Here we are, we’re heading into the summer, and summer for a lot of us is busy. Well, life is busy, but mainly I feel the summer gets even busier because kids are out of school, the days are longer, and we’re trying to squeeze, at least I am, trying to squeeze as much outdoor activity as I possibly can in the 5 minutes of summer we get here in Boston. And one of the biggest ways that I’m able to save time is meal prepping.

What’s stopping you’

I asked this question on my Facebook page the litany of reasons why people do it and the reasons why people don’t, there were a lot of commonalities and a lot of different reasons why people don’t do it. For me, when I first started losing weight, I didn’t know anything about meal prepping, and when I started, the trainer I was working with at the time was  like, “You should prep at least your lunch.” I was like, “What are you talking about'”

I remember as a kid my mom would cook meals in the beginning of the week and she would freeze them or use a crock-pot because she was a working mom, the last thing she wanted to do is come home and cook dinner after a long day.  I always thought it was a time saver, but I wasn’t cooking for a family, most times I’m cooking for myself. And of course, you always throw together sometimes crappy meals, sometimes not the healthiest meals, or find any place that is willing to deliver it to you in 30 minutes or less, that’s what you’re eating.

I know that so many of you agonize over meal prep, and some of the things I heard was, “I can cook it on Saturday, the  thought of eating four-day-old chicken – yuck! Or, “I cook it, and by the time I get to whatever day I’m supposed to have it, I just don’t feel like having that anymore.” Honestly, I know that meal prep takes less time than you think. Most of us spend more time planning a vacation than we do what we’re going to eat, and then we spend more time regretting the choices that we made. Anyone ever make a meal and you just regret it’ Last night I was like, “Hm.” It was an okay dinner, but I traveled all weekend, I kind of quickly went to the grocery store, and I’m going to say I wouldn’t even give myself a C, it was like a D for dinner. Luckily my husband ate it, he didn’t complain about it so two snaps up and a tic-tac to you honey. 

Plan it out

The first thing when it comes to meal prepping is you have to make a menu. So that means you have to go to the grocery store. And trust me, I hate the grocery store. I’m not one of those people, you know you see those couples in the grocery store and I’m like, “How did you wrangle your man to come to the grocery store'” One person is pushing the cart and one is putting stuff into the cart, and I’m like, “Oh my god.” Me and my husband would be having one of those like knock-down drag-out fights because whenever we do go to the grocery store together, he’s like, “Why don’t we buy this’ Why don’t we buy that'” He’s a five-year-old, 🙄 At least I can yell at him at the store and people not call DSS on me 😉. So, grocery shopping for me, I have to be organized to go to the grocery store because I’m not those people who go up one aisle and down the other aisle.” I’m like Mario Andretti, I’m like, “How fast can I get in and out of this place'” And ideally, I want to be in and out of that store in 30 minutes, and so I’ve gotten to the point where I know when my store isn’t that crowded, like Sunday afternoon around 3:00, boom, slide in there. Go during Patriots season, go during the first quarter of the game, boom, in and out. I’m all about. “How can I quickly and easily get in and out'” But in order to do that you have to have a list. 

Eat first. Then shop. 

Always Have Your Must Haves

When I go, I make sure that I eat before I go so, I’m not shopping hungry, and I have my list. I create a list throughout the week. When I do run out of the staple foods that I always have in the house I just put it on the list, so Half and Half, life is not good without Half and Half in my house, so it’s like my base level staples. And we all have those base level staples of things that you just enjoy to always have in your house. For myself it’s always having Half and Half, always having cottage cheese, always having one or two fruits in my house, always having one or two vegetables in my house, always having one or two good fats that aren’t peanut butter in my house, always having some type of brown rice, quinoa, barley, cans of beans, something so that if I’m in one of those times where I went away for the weekend and I didn’t get a chance to go to the grocery store I can quickly and easily throw together a meal but it’s not perishable. That’s the first step, you’ve got to hit the grocery store.

Build your staple stash

And then when I prep, it takes away the stress of, “What am I going to eat'” The stress of that is gone, it takes less of that mental energy. Today I was grocery store, I didn’t go with a list and I didn’t go with an idea, so I spent probably 10 more minutes trying to figure out, “What the heck am I going to eat tonight for dinner'” And then I just stumbled across taco shells on the end cap, and I was like, “Tacos.” I went to grab some ground turkey and grab some shredded cabbage off of the salad bar, and we’re having tacos tonight for dinner. I want you to start thinking about when you have a list versus when you don’t have a list, you get in that, “Wait. Uh, what do I do'” kind of situation. And it makes shopping faster, easier and you spend less money because you go in with a plan versus these hits or miss things. When you go hit or miss, how many times have you bought something that, one, you’ve never used it, or you bought it and it’s a perishable and five days later you’re tossing it in the trash’ So, I want you to think about what are your basics and your staples that you always just want to have in the house.

Build around family favorites

And then decide your meals. One of the best things that I do is we all have those staple meals that your family likes. I’m laughing because we’re having tacos and it is Tuesday; Taco Tuesday. You have those staple meals that your family like, so build on what your family likes. If your family likes chili, if your family likes tacos, if you’re family likes Italian, just figure out those meals that your family likes and start to incorporate that regularly into your diet. I remember as a kid Friday was pizza night, so maybe you still stick with that Friday is pizza night. Maybe now that the weather is nicer out, you’re grilling outside more often. Figure out what do you have in your house as I’m planning so that way as I’m writing out my list I’m not duplicating and I’m not running out to store multiple times a week. I go to the grocery store one time a week, and if I didn’t get it in that week, guess what’ I’m not getting it. It takes a pretty big thing to get me to go the grocery store more than one time a week. I don’t like the grocery store so much.

Let someone else do it

And for those people who are like, “I don’t like the grocery store” nowadays in most major cities you can either easily get a home delivery from several sources. I know here in the Boston area there are three places, Peapod, Instacart and then actual individual grocery stores will deliver within a certain mile radius of the store. There are several grocery stores, at least here in the Boston area, that you can order online but pick it up there, so at least all you’re doing is throwing the packages into your car. For those people who you have young kids and there are the five-year-old who are like, “How come we can’t have sugar pops, and how come we can’t have ice cream'” you can do that, grocery shopping that way, and that way you’re not worried about unbuckling and strapping in and all of that good stuff. It keeps the kids strapped in the car, throw the groceries in the trunk and off to the races you go. Or don’t even bother with getting them in the car and they all just arrive magically with elves at your front door. 

Look to the week ahead.

First of all, you have to go to the grocery store, you have to decide what are the meals that you’re going to have. And then create a calendar. I take a look at my week. Every Saturday I sit down, I take a look at my calendar and I’m like, “Does my husband have a business meeting’ Do I have a business meeting’ Is there travel'” So, I know how many meals I am actually going to make for that particular week. Then I also will decide, “What am I going to have'”

My main thing I prep is lunch, so I look at it and I say, “What do I want to have for lunch'” And primarily I rotate through either I’m having a big-ass salad, which is all the veggies and I grill some protein, or I’ll be having leftovers. So, I’ll grill breast of chicken and then I know that I’ll have a couple of things left over that I’ll be able to eat and have a salad on the side. I know that a lot of people say to me, “Oh, I don’t know what I want to eat.” Or, “If I cook it on Sunday, I don’t want to eat X number of day-old chicken.” And I get you, I hear you. So, if you like it quasi fresh, I’m a big proponent of you double cooking, so I would cook my dinner and I would have it for my lunch. Or you could cook two dinners in one and that way the next day you’re coming home and all you’re doing is heating up the leftovers so that you’re only cooking a handful of times a week versus cooking every single day. 

Variety is the spice of life (and meal prepping)

There are little tricks and hacks that you can do to alleviate your time in the kitchen. I’m not that person who is lining up the Tupperware things and putting all the same meals in it, I don’t do that because I’m with you, I like variety and so for me my variety comes in I double cook. I have dinner and I make it into my lunch for the next day. The other thing I like to do is I’ll make two different proteins, I’ll make two different starches, I’ll make two different vegetables and I’ll just mix and match that way, and that way for me it gives me enough of that variety that I need so that I don’t feel like I’m eating the same thing day after day after day. Now, I know that plenty of you will be like, “What’s wrong with you eating the same thing’ I could do it all the time.” I hear you; I get it. That’s you. When I eat the same thing over and over again, I feel like I’m in a prison. I feel like I am a prisoner of war of my own making, and so I need as much variety as I possibly can. 

Prepping hacks to reduce time

There are also several themes. Pinterest is my bestie, and a lot of people say, “I don’t know how to cook,” or “I don’t like to cook.” I’m no Martha Stewart. I have no aspirations to go out back and pull a sprig of thyme off of my home-cooked herb garden and go out to my chicken coop and grab freshly hatched eggs. I have no desire to do that. All of that happens for me at the grocery store, it’s magic, magic gets to the grocery store. I know there are farmers, I know all that stuff, but it’s like sausage, do you want to know what’s inside’ I don’t. You just go. I enjoy the smell.

If you go on Pinterest type in “easy chicken” and a plethora of recipes will pop up. And for me I’m not one of those people who spend hours in the kitchen. I’m like, “If it has more than five ingredients, it’s not for me, it’s just not for me.” If it takes more than an hour, it’s not for me. I’m like, “How can I be in and out'” As it is now, I struggle, I struggle. I work from home and I struggle to get food on the table by 8:00. I got no excuses, but I’m all about, “How quickly can I get my food done'” And if you have all the time in the world, rock on with your bad-self sister girl, but I don’t. I don’t want to spend all that time in the kitchen. And when I used to have my old house, I didn’t have air conditioning, so I needed to be in and out of that kitchen as fast as possible because it was hot as (insert your favorite hot vocabulary word). 🥵

Theme cooking

When I was doing my research for the show, I said let me just toss out some themes because I’m not a theme person, I just will punch in the protein that I want to cook for that week. Sometimes I haven’t had fish in a while, so I’ll go on a fish run or I’ll go on a shrimp run. They have Meatless Mondays so you can type in “Meatless Monday” and come up with a number of plant-based meals. What I find is my husband is definitely a carnivore and he’s like, “You go meatless, but where is the protein in this'” He’s that shy about asking about that. He’s like, “It’s good, but I’m still looking for the protein.” So, you can go Meatless Mondays, Taco Tuesday, we’re doing that tonight. You could do Wellness Wednesdays where it’s like if you’re trying to get your family to start to eat healthy maybe you can incorporate some salads on Wednesdays. Also, it’s summertime, so I know I eat a ton of salad. I was in Miami this past weekend and I had three salads that had the most common ingredients, but I never thought to put them together. It was quinoa, corn, tomatoes, and shrimp, and some mixed greens; heavenly. I got to recreate that at home. It was heavenly, and I was like, “Why don’t I have quinoa more often'” It was heavenly. But I digress.

You could do stir fries, you could have a day that you just have sandwiches, you could have stew night. My crock-pot is my best friend. I know everyone is into this Instapot. I haven’t tried it, but same dip, crock-pot, throw all your stuff in in the morning. Nowadays they’re fancy. You can set a timer and then it’ll just put itself on warm until you get home. Instapot, I think it cooks things in like 3.3 seconds; it’s like the microwave of crock pots if you will. 

Themes also keep you on task. So, for those people who are like, “Oh, I don’t know if I’m going to like what I decide”, if I haven’t pre cooked it and I just have the ingredients it gives me that flexibility to be like, “I feel like Italian tonight.” And you can make whatever it is for Italian, so you get that flexibility, you get that spontaneity. But again, you also can say, “I’m just going to double the recipe so I’ll either have dinner for the next night or I’ve lunch.” And that way, again, the flexibility, the spontaneity is still in there.

As you are going down this path start to collect recipes that your family and likes. I have a whole drawer full of recipes that have been the two thumbs up. So, when I’m getting organized on Saturday I kind of go through my recipes and I’m like, “This was good.” I do have cookbooks; I have a gazillion cookbooks. But now with Pinterest I just go through my pins of healthy recipes and I have notes of what were hits, what were misses, and go through there and just cook that way.  

You could also focus on what is in season. Here in Boston we have several farmers markets, but it’s on Friday, so every Friday I go down to the farmers market and I’m like, “Okay, what’s here'” And I buy some fresh vegetables, and then I go to my Pinterest and say, “What the heck do I do with this now'” But I don’t over-buy, I only buy a couple of things so that way I’m not wasting it because it’s fresh, fresh stuff, so the shelf life ain’t all that long, so I just want to make sure that I’m using it within a couple days. 

Don’t Wing It!

My calendar is my saving grace. I want that to be the theme. I know right now you’re like, “It just seems like too much work.” But I’ll tell you, how much energy do you spend asking yourself, “What the heck am I going to eat'” And then how much energy do you spend when you beat yourself up because you went out and you ordered not so healthy takeout. So, if I just sit down for maybe 30 minutes and say, “Okay, what does this week look like’ What do I want to eat’ How many meals do we need'” Boom! Go through my cabinets, what do we have in the house’ What do I need to get’ And once you start to get into the rhythm of it, it becomes a habit, and then you have a nice routine of this is how we create our meals for the week. Now it’s a routine. And it’s the habits that create the routines that create the consistency that creates the results.

The number one reason why so many people say to me they fall off the wagon is because they wing it. And trust me, I’m really good at winging a lot of stuff, but I found that I can’t wing health. I need to make a decision that if I want to be healthy, I have to do these things so that I can fit into my pants, that’s my goal, I just want to fit into my pants. So, if that’s one of your goals, you want to fit into your pants, you want to look in the mirror and be like, “How you doing'” You want to be able to go on vacation and not freak out that you have to lose 400 pounds in order to go on vacation, and oh my gosh, you’re pulling and prodding all over your different body parts. This is the way, spending 30 minutes to plan out your week of food is going to go a long way with take taking off the unwanted pounds and keeping you feeling healthy and happy at the end of the day.

Like I said, more people spend more time on where we’re going to go on vacation than what am I going to eat. I don’t know if you’ve seen the TV show, it’s called Camping with Jennifer Garner. It’s her and a bunch of friends on camping, and she was like the quintessential organizer, she had a binder for a binder for a binder. I’m not asking for that level of detail. I’m literally like a pad of paper and just write out what you are going to do, that’s all I’m asking for. And these are just quick hacks, figure out what day of the week you’re going to go to the grocery store, decide what the heck it is that you’re going to eat, plan in there for any potential snacks. I buy everything pre-chopped, sliced, diced – I don’t chop a vegetable at all – and cook double.

Love to hear some of your best meal prep tips.

I always think to myself, “What do my readers need to hear’  What are the things that I’m hearing from you'” And I think at the end of the day we all just want to live a really good life; we all want to live a fabulous life. You know I want to live the Flip Flop life, and hopefully you want to live the Flip Flop Life too. I created a manifesto of what does that really mean. So, if you ever want to get a copy of my Flip flop Life manifesto, do me a favor, hit me up on the socials or you can email me at squadleader at kimbarnesjefferson.com, and just put “Flip flop Life manifesto” in the subject line and send it to me and I will happily send you a copy of the manifesto.

I was thinking about who am I to come up with a manifesto’ I came up with a manifesto because I was like, “How do I want to live my life'” And that’s where I want you to think about yourself. If you were starting a business you’d be like, “What kind of business do I want to start'” And then you would say, The business is going to sell magic beans and the beans are going to come in these wonderful containers, and then the wall colors are going to be this color, and then when people come in this door we’re going to greet them in such a way.” You plan a kid’s birthday party, you plan anyone’s party, you figure out all the minute details and you take it from soup to nuts. Yet you don’t do the same thing with your life and you kind of bump along, for lack of a better term. And then you wake up and you’re just like, “Hell, how did X number of years pass by and I told myself when I was a little kid that I was going to be_________”

Were you going to run away and join the circus’
Were you going to be a French clown’ I don’t know. Whatever it was that you told yourself you’re going to be your kind of like, “DAMN life has just passed me by.” 

I’d Thought I’d Be More Successful By Now

This came up to me because I’m in the process of running this five-day masterclass and it’s all about those people who fall on and off the fitness wagon. And some of the themes have come up from these women, and I wanted to really kind of explore it a little bit more here with you.

It came to me as one of my private clients, told me that she feel as though she would be so much more successful.” My response, “What is success to you’ How do you define success’ And then how are you measuring it'”

How Do You Define Success’

Because the best thing I ever heard about when it comes to success is that when I aim at nothing, I always hit it. That was like a coconut to the head. And when I asked her this question, she kind of gave me this blank stare. The question I pose back to you is “Are you comparing yourself to somebody else’ What do YOU want to be successful at’ What do YOU want to be known for’ What is that legacy you want to live'” Because before I start looking out the window and saying, “So and so has this, and so and so has that” and try to keep up with the Joneses, I got to know what I want. You know how I feel, and I’m going to get a little woo woo up in here. But if you don’t clearly declare what you want, there’s no way the universe can conspire to bring it to you. If one day you want an orange and one day you want an apple and one day you want a banana, there’s no way the universe is going to be like, “Girl, I’m just going to sit over here in the corner, I’m going to wait for you to get your shit together. And when you get your shit together then I’m going to kind of see if you really want it or you’re going to change your mind and lead your own little wild goose chase.”

So, I want you to really say if you tell yourself, “I have not been successful”, what is success’ Define it, just like a word. If I were to say, “iPhone.” “Oh, I know exactly what an iPhone is.” And then you would take it to the next level. “What model iPhone do you have'” That’s the same thing that happens with goals and success. You can’t say, “Successful to me is really getting back to working out.” How many days a week are you working out’ What are you doing for those workouts’ It’s taking that one idea and then flushing it out. It’s like, “I’m going to build a house.” What kind of house’ Ranch’ Split ranch’ (I know nothing about architecture, but are you picking up what I’m putting down’)

You define what you’re going for, because if you’re not clear on what you’re going for, how do you know you got there’ How do you know that you’re not successful’

I’m all about having big audacious goals, I’m totally for that. But you have to clearly articulate what the goal is, and you have to give it a deadline, because it’s really easy to let things slide.

Think of it like a house project – have you ever remodeled your kitchen’ And it starts with, “I’m just going to do the cabinets.” And then they take the cabinet’s off the wall and then they discover you have mold, or they discover that the wall wasn’t set up the right way, or they have to do something different to the cabinet. And all of a sudden what was one price slowly starts to creep up. And that’s what people do with their goals when they don’t put a concrete end date, they’re like, “Well, (say we’re going for weight) I was two pounds less, so I totally failed.” No, you didn’t fail. So, then I’m going to extend the date, and then I’m going to make it harder, I’m going to restrict, I’m going to work out 2x/day and I’m going to make sure that I don’t have any more than x number of calories and NO cheats.  Uggh…I’m sorry that shit never works, try this instead.

I challenge you to write down 10 things that make you feel successful. And it doesn’t have to be these big things. I’m going to share with you what I wrote down. Keeps things simple, I like simple because life is already complicated enough without me complicating my own life or me complicating someone else’s life. And also keeps you from chasing rabbits because it helps you to figure out if what you’re doing is in alignment with what you want most. For me, I said what success is for me is

✅ I don’t want to set an alarm clock, I just want to get up when I get up, and that’s every day.

✅ I want every day to feel like a Saturday, that’s what I want.

✅ Success for me is when my clients email me back, text me back, communicate back to me that I’ve inspired them to take action, that I’ve done something that has changed their life. No matter how small or insignificant that it is, I want to know that I had an influence over someone’s life.

✅ I also love it when my own mindset shifts, that something that I was once struggling with I now am like, “Huh.” X number of months ago, years ago I would have been shut down, now I have the tools to handle that.

✅ I’d like to be able to travel every three months, just pick up and go somewhere every three months.

✅ My thyroid and hormones have finally come back into balance

That is on my list of what success looks like for me. So, you take the time, write down 10 things, just what makes you feel successful, what makes you feel happy. It could be I want to get a dog, whatever, I want to get a cat, goldfish. Go for it.

Give Yourself Grace

I see so many people beating the tar out of themselves over just past shit that just doesn’t even matter anymore. It doesn’t matter to anyone but you, but you keep playing that song over and over again. Do you know those movies that you’ve seen five zillion times’ You know what is in the middle of the movie, you know what’s at the end of the movie, you know what’s at the beginning of the movie, yet you still park your ass down and you’ll watch, you say the words along with it, especially if it’s one of those sad movies like The Notebook, you know exactly what’s going to happen, but you watch. Or I just re-watched Message In a Bottle,  sorry spoiler alert – the ending is not going to change, it’s still going to be a tear-jerking moment and you still watch it.

My husband is like, “Why do you do that'” I’m like, “I don’t know.” But I still do it. So, I want you to start to give yourself some grace. Stop being so hard on yourself. Yes, who doesn’t make a mistake’ If you can point out someone who has not made a mistake, they’re not alive. And especially when it comes to health and fitness, there are no fatal mistakes. If you didn’t die, you’re good, you just learned a way that doesn’t work. Having a brownie is not going to kill you, having an extra glass of wine is not going to kill you. 

The Kindness Of A Kid

Give yourself the same kindness that you would give your kid. Your kid paints on your living room wall. Of course, initially you’re pissed off, but you say  “Oh Charlie, let’s clean this up together.” The initial ugh and anger turns into, “I’m not going to just go full crazy town on my kid.” I want you to have that same kindness that you would express to a kid that you would express to yourself, because think about it, when you beat the shit out of yourself, is that motivation’ Does that make you want to try even more’

It’s Okay To Be A Beginner

No, you’re like, “fuck it”, and you move on, and you’re just like, “It’s time to go two feet in on just crazy behavior.” The big thing is to accept where you are and make a plan. Now, I know everyone wants to jump in and be the expert, but we all can’t come in at the expert level. We all can’t come in and be the know-it-all. I know that we want to be the know-it-all, but that’s not the case.

The other day I was listening to a podcast, and this woman is a consultant to really rich parents trying to get their kids into preschool, and she helps them craft the essays and all this good stuff to get some kids that are between three and five years old into preschool. And some of the parents come in, and what mother or father doesn’t think little Johnny isn’t a genius’ Little Johnny can be the next president, little Johnny could be the next whatever, and they’ve included those kinds of things in their essay. The woman who is the consultant, she just tells it like it is, she doesn’t hold a punch. And she goes, “If you tell me your 18-month-old is a genius, your 18-month-old is fluent in any language, I’m ripping it up and throwing it in your face.”

I want you to think about that. These parents at 18 months are putting so much pressure on their kids so that they can get into PRESCHOOL. I want you to think to yourself that if you’re 18 months old, would you be an expert at anything’ You might be an expert colorer,  🤷🏽‍♀️ you might be an expert at shoving a grilled cheese into the VCR, but what else can you be an expert at’
I want you to let yourself off the hook and say, “Some things I know, and some things I don’t know, and it’s okay for me to not know it all.” And that’s why people hire a coach, that’s why people write books to tell you how to do something a little bit faster. Because how many times can you spin your wheels before you take that next leap’

Transformation Is The Way

We love transformation shows; why do we watch The Biggest Loser‘ You like to see these people go from unfit to fit, and we watch the transformation. And during the show, the transformation seams, seamless’ Is it like one minute they’re overweight and then one minute they’re down 100 pounds’ No. There are trials, there are tribulations, and we tune in to that because we want to see the journey. And that’s where I want you to get back to it being in that journey because that’s where the grit is built, that’s where you learn who you are, that’s where you also learn what works and what doesn’t for you. Because so many people are out there looking for the magic plan; sorry, my queens there is no magic plan.

Seriously, I want there to be a magic plan too, that would make my life so much easier like, “Here’s the magic you’ve been looking for, rock on.” But there is no magic. So, what I want you to think about is through my transformation is my learning, through my transformation that is where the magic is. Your transformation is your own magic, and you pick the spells you make my own personal magic.

Think about this – it’s not a linear process. Biggest Loser, they have their ups and their downs, they all kind of cross their fingers when it comes to the weigh-in; same process. I want you to think about how many frogs’ princes and princesses kissed in fairy tales before they got to the prince. It’s the same thing. It’s not about I’m on this diet so I’m going to get all these amazing results. It might be I’m going to take a little piece of this, a little piece of Keto, a little piece of Whole30, a little piece of Weight Watchers, a little piece of Atkins and then make it the Kim Diet. And when I beat myself up, I’m probably not sleeping, I’m probably stressed like nobody’s business, I’m probably drinking a little bit more than I should, and I probably have a little bit more anxiety. So, when I start to peel away and just let myself off the hook, I might start sleeping better, I might stop drinking as much, I might reduce my stress. So, do you see that there is this nice cause and effect when I start to really kind of let myself go’

Set Boundaries

And the best way to let yourself go is to set these boundaries. If you are a people pleaser, raise your hand, where are my people pleasers’ I see it all the time, especially with my clients who are people pleasers because to sneak away from work they’re like, “I’m sneaking away from work and that means that so and so might have to pick up the slack.” Or, “My kids don’t like the daycare, so I really don’t want to put them in daycare at the gym.” Or, “I’m already at work all day, I really can’t spend another hour at the gym.” It’s those kinds of things where I need you to figure out what do you want, and can you find a way to bring yourself into shorter periods’ If you want to workout, can you find a way to workout at home’ Can you find peace in an extra 30 minutes in the day so that you’re not doing it at the end of the day to take time away from your kids’

I want you to start to get creative with how you can make taking some time for yourself.  I will tell you that the best way to practice boundaries is self-care. And it is for your own well-being, because when you feel good you project that out to the people that you care about, and when you feel like crap you project that out to the people you care about as well. And boundaries are healthy, boundaries also help, again, reduce that stress, because one of the biggest things, and I talk to my clients about this is if you can’t go workout, the two things I always say are the not the simplest, but the two things that are the easiest thing that doesn’t require a gym membership is to minimize your stress and get some sleep.

When I set my boundaries those are two things that immediately go up because one of my boundaries is, I set work hours and I stick to them. I set a bedtime and I stick to it. And so, when I start to create boundaries just for myself personally, and I honor myself, then I proved to myself I’m worthy of me. So, if I’m worthy of me, that gives me more confidence to start making those boundaries to other people. 

I know that it’s tough when you’re a people pleaser. I have a client who she has a sick aunt and her aunt is like a mom to her, and she’s like, “How could I take the time off to go to the gym when she’s sick'” My response, “Well, what are you going to do, stare at her'” If you are away from her for one hour, what’s going to happen’ It’s one hour. And you’re going to come back more refreshed and more recharged to really help her and serve her, and she’ll feel better that you’re doing something for yourself versus always waiting on her hand and foot.

Just start to think of those things as simple things to get away. And don’t be afraid to ask for what you need. So, many people can come to you and say, “Hey I need you to do this, and I need you to do that.” Here is your permission slip, it’s okay for you 1) to say no and 2) to ask for what you need.

What Happens When You Have No Discipline’

Lastly, so many of you come to me saying, “I don’t have the discipline. I really need the discipline.” And it’s not discipline that you need, it’s habit, because habits are how we achieve great things. Habits turn into discipline, so that’s your vocabulary lesson for the evening. Habits are decisions, habits are decisions that you make on a daily basis. I want you to think about from the moment you wake up in the morning. For me, I’ll tell you my habits. My habit is I set my alarm 15 minutes before I want to get up.

I snooze three times, that’s my thing, 🤷🏽‍♀️ it makes my husband nuts, but that’s what I do. Then I get up, I brush my teeth, I wash my face, put on my gym clothes, then I go downstairs, I make some coffee, I make my pre-workout drink, I foam roll and then I head out the door. That’s my habit, that’s my routine. It took a bit to get to that routine, but I want you to think about that. That’s what I do. Before I go to bed, I set my clothes up the night before so that I’m just ready to go. What does your morning look like’

Habits can hold you back, habits can be good or bad. “I’m always going to start again on Monday”, that’s a habit, it’s a routine, it’s ingrained in you now that, “I messed up, so I just get a fresh start on Monday. Do fresh starts only happen on Monday.” Why’ Is that a rule’ Show me, please show me that book that says that’s the rule.

Habits can put you into this holding pattern. Habits take practice so that they eventually become a routine, and then once you start getting that routine that’s where you get the consistency. And once you have that consistency, that’s where you get the results. People will say, “I want that fit girl magic, I want to live in that golden zone.” Well, that’s the formula right there, it’s establishing great habits that build on to great routines that establish consistency that give you the results.

The Power Of One Simple Habit

I always challenge people, what’s one simple habit that you can start’ And then I get this whole list. Pump your breaks girlfriend, I’m looking for one simple habit. I’ll tell you my one simple habit. Drink more water – it’s already ingrained in me to drink coffee in the morning. If you try to take away my morning coffee I will fistfight you. So, instead what I do is I have my first cup of coffee then I have a glass of water, and then I have my second cup of coffee. And I can’t have that second cup of coffee unless I have that glass of water. That’s how I drink more water. Makes sense, right’

Then I teach group fitness classes, so I have to before I finish teaching class, I have to drink the entire bottle of water that I bring with me to class. If I don’t drink it all during class, I have to drink it on the way home, but in that time I’m away from my home I’ve got to drink that bottle of water. 

Lastly, usually around seven-ish while I’m cooking dinner, I have another bottle of water that I have to finish that. Typically, I’m drinking throughout the day, but I’ve established these three kinds of way-points throughout the day, but I’ve linked it to something else that I’m already doing so that it’s my trigger. So, I get the trigger of I’ve had my morning cup of coffee, I get the trigger that I’m teaching a class, I get the trigger that I’m making dinner. So, now I have three guaranteed times during the day that I’m drinking water. Does that make sense’ What would your one habit be’

I want you to think about, “What’s my one habit, and what is a trigger or several triggers that might get me to remember this is time to do this, this is time to do that'”

I want to talk about rebirth. Here in New England we’ve had a pretty tough spring and it’s been raining, and you know that old saying that April showers bring May flowers, well we’ve had some April and May rain and now the flowers are blooming and it’s taking that time to kind of rebirth the summer. I know that most of us on January first, we think that’s the rebirth. Starting kind of at the end of December we’re all like, “Hey, the next year, it’s going to be my year, I’m going to be the biggest, the best, the awesomest”, the whatever-est person on the planet. And then March comes around, then April comes around, and then, “Should I try’ Should I even bother’ Is it worth it'” Here is where I say we all get a chance to press the reboot button, and probably the last several years I’ve started this whole thing of July is the new January, because if you think about it we’re six months into the year, so there’s still plenty of time to get stuff done. There’s still plenty of time for you to look back at what you said on January first when you had all that vim and vigor to say, “I got this, I can do it.” 

Pack Your Patience

I want to talk about how do you press the reboot button and not feel like this big old failure, how do you press the reboot button and NOT bite off more than you can chew. One of the biggest things I see all the time is that we all underestimate how long something is going to take. In your head you’re like, “I’m going to lose 30 pounds, it’s really going to take me like 30 days because I’m going to lose a little pound a day, yeah that’s what’s going to happen.” And logically we know that ain’t the case, but emotionally we’re like, “I want these 30 pounds gone, and I want them gone right freaking now.”

I’m the same way. I have the patience of a gnat, and I always tell my clients, “Hey, I’m telling you this right now that you’re going to have to pack your patience.” And I know that is hard, that’s harder than climbing Everest and I know what that feeling is like because I have zero patience. You decide what you want, and you want it tomorrow. 🤷🏽‍♀️ You might wait till the end of the week but come on. 

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I’m sure you’ve heard me say this before, our bodies and fitness aren’t like Amazon Prime.
I love me some Amazon Prime, but it has spoiled us because we think that if I order something on Monday, by Friday it’s going to be on my doorstep. And that’s not the case, and it’s really challenging for you to just put out the faith, put out belief that you’ve decided that “I want to get healthier, I want to get fitter, and I have to decide that I’m willing to wait for it.”

The best way I can describe it is we all want certainty, that’s one of the most basic human emotions, certainty. If I were to stand up, I am certain that gravity is going to keep me from flying off the face of the earth. And when it comes to getting healthy and fit, unfortunately there is no certainty. I know that if you eat less food, if you move your body, if you sleep right you have less stress, you are going to be well down the road to being healthy and fit,
I know that. Now, what I don’t know is that exact date. I can’t tell you on June 10th how much you’re going to weigh. I can’t tell you on June 10th you’re going to be a size whatever.
I can’t tell you on June 10th that you’re going to have six pack abs. That’s the certainty that I don’t know. But the certainty I do know is that there are certain steps if you take them you will be on the path to getting the results that you want, and that’s what I know. 

Everything is a choice

And so, during that rebirth, that reboot, one of the biggest things I always challenge my clients is that it has to start with your mindset, and that mindset starts with your choices. And everything is a choice – you’re either going towards your goals or you’re going against your goals.

I’m not that coach who hands you a list of, your good foods list, and here are your bad foods list. I want this to be a lifestyle because there are going to be times when – this is how I roll, and then there are times that you’re going to go to a certain place and they make a certain thing that you’re like, “You know what’ This is the best whatever, and I’m having it.”

Wegmans! I don’t go to Wegman’s every week. I maybe go every four or five months, but they make the most amazing snickerdoodles; I got to have me one. A snickerdoodle is never going to be on the good foods list, but it’s something I enjoy, it’s something I could have more than three bites of and I could be like, “Yum, yum, give me some MORE.” And it’s a choice, it’s a choice I make. I only go to Wegman’s a handful times a year, I’m going go and I’m going to have a snickerdoodle, and guess what’ I’m having two snickerdoodles, and that’s what it is, it’s my choice. 

Resist Restrictions

Now, some people feel the choice has to be restriction, and that restriction just keeps them so bound up, it keeps them always chasing fitness and health. Do you know when someone tells you, you can’t do something’ Doesn’t it make you want to do it more’ Is that just me’  

In the past the more I restricted, the more I put myself into this box, the more I want to escape, and when I did escape, I went buck wild. I was a single sailor on shore leave. I am just going to be running wild because I’ve told myself for however long I’ve been able to use my willpower, that I can’t have whatever it is that I want. So, I want you to say, “I own my choices.” And then I also want you to say that you own your habits and you own your patterns.

When it comes to this reboot, there’s three things that we’re going to work on working on owning our choices without guilt. When I have that cookie my first thought isn’t “Because
I had that cookie or those two cookies that means I’ve lost it and I might as well just start again on Monday.” No. It’s me saying, “I had these two cookies, and the next meal I will go right back to my plan. I don’t let that one choice define the rest of my day or the rest of my week, or heck, the rest of my month. It was that choice in the moment, I owned it, and then
I moved on. 

And that’s where a lot of people get wrapped around the axle, my brain immediately shouts!, “Oh my God, I had those two cookies, so that means I might as well go to McDonald’s and then that means I might as well skip my spin class, and that means I might as well as my client Jessica says release the food hounds!  

If you make one off step, one misstep, it doesn’t mean that the rest of day, week or month etc has to be a misstep. Think about if you were walking down the street and you tripped, would you be like, “I tripped” and lay there on the ground wallowing around and say, “Call 911″‘ No. You would get up because you’re embarrassed, you would look around and you would start walking. And that’s exactly what happens when you have those two cookies, or you have that ice cream, or you have whatever it is that you have, that’s what you do, you dust yourself off and you get up and you move on. And so, the same thing comes with your habits and patterns.

Is it worth it’

I have a client who just started with me and she’s like, “I’ve always had cookies before I go to bed”, and I was like, “Okay. Do you think those cookies are helping you towards the goals that you told me'” And she’s like, “No, but it’s a habit.” “Smoking is a habit and you know smoking causes cancer. So, you can decide that you want to continue to smoke and risk it, and maybe you’re one of the few who don’t get cancer. Or you want to continue to have cookies and when you keep asking me, “Hey, I’m not seeing any results”, I’m going to say, “Well, how attached are you to these cookies'”

Now, I’m not ever saying that you can’t have something, but I’m asking you to make educated choices, I’m asking you to take a look at your habits, and are your habits holding you back’ Now, am I going to ever say you can’t have cookies’ No. But I know that if you have cookies every day, your goal is going to leave you in the dust.  It’s like a bucket with a hole in it; the water is just going to keep leaking out and you’re just going to be like, “Why can’t it ever fill my bucket'”, because you keep having darn cookies. 

The question I had for her, “Is this a habit'” and she said yes. I said, “Now the key is we need to figure out how to replace this habit, how to break this habit so that you can get out of your own damn way, how to change the pattern of before you go to bed you need a sweet treat.” So, we’re exploring and brainstorming different options for her. I was like,
“Do you like tea'” Because there plenty of teas that can give you that sweet sensation.
I was like, “Do you like fruit'” Different healthier options to satisfy that habit until that habit passes. So, I want you to think about those habits and patterns that you might have that aren’t serving you.

Bottom line, if you want to lose weight, if you want to get healthier, you have to eat healthier and you have to exercise, bottom line. And I know there are so many people out there that tell you, “If you do this particular diet, you’ll never have to exercise”, or “If you do this particular exercise, you’ll never have to diet.” Well, let me just tell you, when you combine exercise and fitness together, you’ll get to your goal a lot faster than if you try to do one without the other.

If the queen isn’t happy…

Jack LaLanne, he’s the king of modern fitness, his motto and it’s true: fitness is king, nutrition is queen. Now, we all know the saying, “If the queen is not happy, the house isn’t happy.” So, if your nutrition isn’t happy, your body is not happy. And you know firsthand when you eat something that your body doesn’t like it feel like crap, and you sleep like crap and you just know when your body is just not getting what it needs, you’re dragging around like a fricking tire. Your health is like an albatross around your neck and you’re just like you’ve got to get out of this death spiral.

It’s all starts with the way you think. If you think that you have to give stuff up, then guess what, it’s always going to be a slog, and I don’t want it to be a slog. And that’s the first thing is that we always think, “I’m going on a diet, so here is the list of don’ts.” What if you flipped it around and you said, “What are the list of dos’'”

The first thing I do when you work with me is that I look at your nutrition, and I’ll tell you the two things I see always missing from people. If you started with these two things versus all the things you want to cut, imagine you might feel a little happier. You might feel a little more accomplished because I want you to feel accomplished.

I’m a geek, and I am one of those geeks that I write down my to-do list every single day, and I love it when I get to check boxes, boom, boom, boom, and the more boxes I check the more I’m like 🙌🏽 it’s awesome, I’m ecstatic.

That’s what I want you to do with fitness. For me, I work out in the morning, and that’s one box that I can check off in the morning and by 8:00am I’m like, “You know what, the day can do whatever it wants to do to me today, I’ve done one thing for myself, check the box, I win.” That’s the feeling I want for you, and it’s those little box checks that add up and make your day and makes you motivated, makes you excited to want to do it again so you get more box checks. 

Don’t break the chain

And I’ve told you the story and I’m going to continue to tell you the story because it is so motivating. So many people tell me, “I don’t have motivation.” I say bullshit. Jerry Seinfeld, he’s a comedian, and so when he first started out as a comedian, he knew that in order to go to all these different open mic nights he had to have a whole catalog of jokes. He challenged himself that every single day he’d write a joke, every day. Back then there was no iPhone, so he bought a calendar and a big red marker, and every day he wrote a joke he put a giant X, every day. He made this mantra to himself, “Don’t break the chain.” And every day he put that big X, and the days that he didn’t write a joke he saw that glaring hole of where he didn’t write a joke. And it was a couple days he had that string, but then he also started to get momentum, the more he did it, the more it felt comfortable, the easier it became and the more the jokes flowed out. And then next thing you know, he had this whole catalog of joke so that no matter where he went, he could go out and have enough jokes. I don’t know how long a comedy set is, but he’d have enough jokes. And he also had enough jokes to move things around so that if a joke didn’t work the way he wanted it to work he could put it in the hopper to rewrite.

Consistency is key

Back in January, I took that principle for myself and I started logging my food. And every day I would log my food, and I use this app called The Today app. Everyday I tracked my food you see a green mark, and every time that I didn’t track my food you see a white mark. For me this is super motivating. I had a good streak going a couple weeks ago, and then I kind of fell on my sword, but it shows me the power of consistency. I talk to a lot of people they always are like, “How do I get results’ How do I get results'” Lean in, here is the secret, it’s consistency. And this app on my phone is really helpful for that consistency because when I see those holes in it, “I’m like you know what, I could’ve done better that day”, and it’s not in a ‘beat the shit out of myself’ kind of way, it’s more in a what was it about that day that I couldn’t track, that for two days in a row I couldn’t track, what was it that happened’ And then I can play CSI, and ask where could I have made better choices.  I encourage all of my clients to create a weekly plan or at a minimum of a 24 hour plan, this way you go into the day with a sense of control.

Work the middle

This keeps my mindset from saying “I stink”, now I ask myself, “How can I be better’ How can I improve'” And that’s where I want you guys to start putting your mind, I want you to start thinking, “How do I improve’ How do I get better’ How do I take myself to the next level'” I’m not asking you to be perfect, I’m not asking to be four levels up in one week; I’m asking you to say if you’re here, how do you take it to the next step’ And then once you’ve mastered that step, how to take it to the next step, because what I see is a lot of you miss the middle.

The middle is mushy, the middle is gross, the middle is sloggy, the middle can feel like quicksand. But it’s the middle that gives you fortitude, it’s the middle that shows you what you’re made of, it’s the middle that tests the heck out of your patience, it tests the heck out of your desire, and it tests the heck out of your gumption, your gript, whatever you want to call it. That’s the good stuff right there, the middle.

When you’re just kind of going through the forest without any light, that is where you know what you’re made of. I want you to ask what motivates you, because it’s taking those actions, and for me, I found today app makes me take those actions because I want to get that check-mark, and no one else sees that check-mark but me. 

The Motivation Switch

I hear all the time I’m not motivated; I’ll be very honest with you part of your motivation needs to come from inside. You need to find the internal switch that’s what’s really going to keep you going.  That’s why people hire coaches. I am someone who is very externally accountable. If I know I have to show my work to somebody, I am more likely to do it, and some people, they can do that on their own, but if I know that at the end of the day I got to show you it, I want to make sure that I do it because I want to honor my commitments, that’s one of my core values. And maybe that’s one of your core values, and that’s why you hire a coach. A coach isn’t about “do this” kind of thing; a coach is more about giving you that checks and balances piece that you might not have on your own. And without any type of change there is no success.

A lot of times when I’m feeling like I’m in my comfort zone, I always say to myself, “If there is no change, there is no change.” What that means is if I want to make a change in my life, I have to make some other type of change. I can’t sit back in my comfort zone, I can’t continue to do the same thing over and over again and expect to get a different result. I can’t expect to keep walking into that wall and expect that wall to magically dissolve into a door. And that’s what a lot of people will do. One of the things when I kind of feel like I’m stuck is I say to myself, “I have to make a change if I want to see a change.” What change would you have to make’

Now, this change doesn’t have to be huge. I’m not asking you to leap a tall building in a single bound. I’m saying, what is the change’ And remember I told you there are two things I always see when I look at food: protein and the vegetables. Those are the two things I always see. Can you increase your protein intake’ Can you increase your vegetable intake’ They both don’t have to be done at the same time but pick your battles.

The second piece this movement. Now, I’m not saying go and join a bootcamp class and go out and do CrossFit. No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying movement, so do you have a Fitbit‘ Do you have something in your phone’ Can you get in at least 10,000 steps a day’

Can you sleep’ Can you make it a priority to set a bedtime’ Those are the things I’m talking about. Can you make it a priority to not be a stress ball’ Those are all contributing factors to losing weight. And at any point did I say, “This is what you can eat, and this is what you can eat”‘ No. I want you to kind of change that mindset and say, “What are some of the subtle changes I can make that will have long-term impact on my life'” 

And the big thing is finding someone who will support you. It can be a coach, it could be a really good friend, it could be a spouse, it could be a partner, it could be your mom, it could be anybody, but find someone who’s in your corner. Find someone who is going to support you, find someone who is going to help hold your feet to the fire when you have one of those days. Today is a rainy day and you could be like, “I don’t feel like it.” Have that person that is going to be like, “Well, how many days are you going to not feel like that girl'” Because you want that person to be that friend. I have that friend, we text each other, I’ve talked about it, every Monday we text each other, “This is what I’m doing this week” and every Wednesday we’re like, “What’s up'” I want you to have that person in your life, and if you don’t have that person in your life, hit me up, I have no problem being that person in your life.

Environmental Motivators

Look at the environment that you’re in. Are you in an environment where you might be on social media and you’re following all these people who don’t make you feel good about yourself’ Unfollow, delete, gone. What about TV, are you always watching shows that don’t make you feel good about yourself or that aren’t aspirational, that make you just feel like, “My life stinks”‘

I want you to find things that fill you up emotionally, spiritually, make you laugh. I don’t want you to look at things that make you feel like crap because you’ve got enough of that in your life. And that’s all part of changing that mindset, that’s all part of letting go of that control and just letting more flow, honoring where you are, because that’s where the change begins. If I honor where I am, if I say to myself, “I’m a beginner, it is what it is, and in order to get to advance (because again, we talked about that messy middle) it’s okay to be a beginner.”

Everyone has to begin somewhere, and I want you to find someone who you aspire to be, but do not let where they are influence where you are. I can’t remember who said this (but it wasn’t me) but it says success leaves clues. For my clients my goal is to be inspirational, not aspirational. I want them to say, “Kim takes these steps, out of the 10 steps she takes, right now I can only do these three steps, and I’m going to be comfortable and confident in these three steps. And once I’m good at these three steps, then I can think about taking more steps.” Like I said, I want to go back, and I want to check off those boxes, I want to feel awesome about myself. And I want you to know that yes, there are going to be struggles, there are going to be setbacks, but at the end of the day if I keep chipping away these little small marks, I will eventually hit my goals. And it’s completely possible, it’s completely possible for you to do that.

Stay tuned I have a new podcast coming out and I can’t wait to share with you even more goodies, get on the waitlist here

It’s daylight savings time and I pretty much skipped here because it’s light out. This time of year, a lot of people are starting to think about summer. The nights are getting longer and we’re starting to get a little bit warmer. I don’t want to jinx it, I don’t want to talk too loudly because Mother Nature might be like, “Hey, you’re getting a snowstorm in two weeks.” So, I don’t want to jinx it, I just want to say that I didn’t feel the coldness that I normally feel when I’m outside.

Fit For Summer’

While yes you are looking forward to summer you are thinking to yourself, “Can I get fit in time for summer'” And today is exactly 100 days to summer. Now, I’m counting summer as being June 21st. I think it’s like the astronomical summer, I think that’s the technical name for it. Some people think of summer as Memorial Day; I’m thinking of summer as June 21st, because at least here in New England it doesn’t start to really get warm till around June. 

This summer I want you to feel fit and confident and comfortable in your body and with a hundred days you’ve got time. You really do have time. And I’m talking about there’s no deprivation, I’m talking about that you’re not going to be like that poor girl who’s having carrots and water while everyone else is enjoying things. I want you to be able to glide into summer, enjoy your summer and come out on the other side of summer and not feel like, “Oh crap, I got to diet because I had too much barbecue.”

I want you to really learn what it takes to have sustainable weight loss. I want you  to know what it takes to have a sustainable, healthy lifestyle without always feeling like you have these big highs and lows where you have to diet before your big vacation and then lose your stuff on vacation, then have to diet again to get ready for the next big thing, then lose your stuff again. If you are over that keep listening,

Keep It Simple

Right now some of you visualize summer and you’re just like, “Sweet Georgia Brown.” You are thinking ‘there’s no way my thighs with the cottage cheese on them are ready for prime time, there’s no way that’s ever going to happen, and thigh gap, I haven’t had that since I was 13’. And if you’re saying you’re not ready, keep reading because I’m going to help get you ready. It’s not going to be anything drastic or crazy like that. The biggest thing I always tell people is keep it simple, simple.

Women like to over-complicate stuff, ad nauseam, we like to take something simple and add 500 layers on top of it so that it’s so complicated that we’re like “Wah'” It’s worse than trying to put it together IKEA furniture, that’s how complicated we make stuff. So, I want you to keep it simple. I want you in your mind’s eye to think about what is going well today. What are you doing well, so that we can start to build upon it’

Are you going to the gym’ Awesome! How many times do you go into the gym’ What’s the duration of the time that you’re at the gym’ What are you doing at the gym’ And what tweaks can we make to what is already going well’

If you’re going to the gym and maybe you’re only going for 30 minutes and you’re walking on the treadmill, great. Could you take 15 minutes of that 30-minute time block and put in some strength training’ Could you add an extra 15 minutes’ Could that walk become a jog and a walk’ Could that 30 minutes turn into maybe a HIIT workout’ What can I take from that 30 minutes of time and how can I build upon it’

The same thing with your food – maybe you’re doing great with your food, awesome. When was the last time you changed something in your diet’ And by change, I mean I know there are some people who actually eat the same thing over and over and over again. Maybe instead of reaching for the sweet potato when you go to the grocery store, you reach for the beets; maybe you reach for a butternut squash. Instead of reaching for the brown rice, maybe you’ve reached for the quinoa or some chickpeas. It’s those little subtle tweaks I’m looking for. Maybe instead of always having broccoli you’ve reached for another green vegetable. Little tweaks that you can build on but still keeping it really simple. Because the more complicated you make it, the less likely you are to continue, and I want you to continue.

I like simple things. I did a Facebook Live in my group, Reality Diet, a few days ago and we talked about meal prep. I’m a simple girl, any vegetable that comes in a bag that someone has chopped, shredded, zoodled, it’s for me, those are the vegetables I will always buy. Someone asks, “How do you cook beets'” Well, I don’t cook beets because there’s this place called Love Beets and they make them, and all I have to do is open up the package and slice them and then I’m done; no need to cook the beets. So, I want you to think about that, what’s already working. What are some tweaks you can make to what’s already working’

Movement challenge

And I also want you to focus on movement. Now, that’s not sexy, I know, but what is movement’ Movement is acts of daily living. I’ve talked about this on previous shows. We don’t move a lot in our lives anymore, we’re very sedentary, like we go for a workout and then we sit all day working and not moving a whole heck of a lot.

So, I challenge you, if it’s not a Fitbit, use your Apple watch or whatever and get in at least 10,000 steps a day. Just focus on having those acts of daily living. Take the dog for an extra 10 minutes on the walk, grab your kids and go for a walk around the block after dinner now that it’s a little lighter outside and a little bit warmer outside. But keep those thoughts.

Be Consistent

Ask yourself, “Is this something that I can do for the next one to two months’ Is it something I can do for the next one to two years'” Because if it is, guess what’ That’s called consistency, and you know how I feel – I create good habits, I get good results, and my results lead to consistency, and that’s how you win. It’s not this magic meal plan, it’s not this magic super food, or this list of inflammatory foods, it’s literally, “What can we do on a consistent daily basis'”

Sustainable and healthy goal’

The second piece is what is your overall goal’ And I ask that because I find that most people aren’t clear about what their goal is, and then the second piece is that they’re not realistic about what it takes to get there. So, six-pack abs — everyone is like, “Six-pack abs, I want to have six-pack abs.” Well, in order to get to six-pack abs, one, it has to be genetically possible for you. Not everyone is genetically predisposed to six-pack abs. You’re predisposed to have a flat stomach, but to get the six-pack abs I need to have a certain percent body fat. In order to get to that certain percent body fat, I don’t have a lot of wiggle room in my nutrition, I don’t have a lot of wiggle room in my workout, so if I want that six-pack abs, I’ve got to work my tushy off. I got to work my tushy off in order to get that. Take a listen to a FB Live I did on this subject.

Now, I want you to ask, “Is working my tushy off to get the six-pack abs sustainable'” Because I work with fitness and figure competitors and for a lot of those girls, abs are like an honored guest.  They show up the day of the show and they’re the first to go because as soon as I start to put in some water back into my system, as soon as I start to put some sugar, as soon as I start to increase my carbs, increase my protein, my abs are like, “See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya!” So, I really want you as you’re doing this to be crystal clear about what you want, like punching it into a GPS, it’s 123 Main Street, not just punching in Main Street. 

And then I want you say, “Is my goal realistic for what I’m willing to do’ What am I willing to do to get this goal'” And when I say willing, I’m not talking 90 days, I’m talking 900 days. Could you do this for 900 days’ And if you could do for 900 days, is it healthy’ Because I know that some of out there is like, “Girl if it’s a six-pack abs, I can do anything for 900 days.” Then it’s like but would that turn into something detrimental to your long-term health’ Because at the end of the day I want everyone who works with me to be healthy. I want everyone who works with me to say, “That was a great experience.” Not like, “Ugh. Girl, I worked with her and she killed me. I felt hungry. I felt angry. I just literally thought I could kill people because I just didn’t feel that I had enough substance in my body.” So, if you’re picking up when I’m putting down, that’s what I’m talking about. So, I want you to think about what could be achieved in this next hundred days. 

Do sprints

And I like to take my hundred days and break them down into five 20-day sprints so that each time I can say, “This is my long-range goal, and then in order to get to my long-range goal here’s step one, two, three, four and five.” And that way I’m starting to feel successful, I’m starting to get some wins under my belt, I’m starting to get that motivation, I’m starting to be like, “Yeah, I got this, I can do this.” And the mini goals could be changing up your food, setting a bedtime and actually getting six-plus hours of good sleep a night.

Maybe you decide you want to work out in the morning, or maybe you just want to say, “I’m going to consistently get in three to four workouts no matter what.” And maybe throwing in a little meditation. Whatever it is you’re just like, “I’m making me a priority, and I’m setting me as a goal.”

Process It

The next phase is creating a process. If you ever go to any store there’s a process that if you return something here are the steps that the cashier has to take in order to return your merchandise. Or if you buy something, here are the steps, this is how they have to punch it into the computer in order to take your money.

I want you to think about that as you go through what you’re trying to do. How do you make this into a process so that you’re not jumping from one thing to the next thing to the next thing’ I see it all the time. People start over here and they’re like, “Oh, I’m totally doing Keto.” And then they can’t stick with Keto because it’s too challenging, it’s too much for them. So, then they jump to, “Oh, I’m going to do Paleo.” Or, “Oh, I’m going to do this.” Or, “I’m going to do this.” And they jump around like a Mexican jumping bean and instead of saying, “My destination is 123 Main Street and the GPS coordinates says I have to stay on this road for a mile. I challenge you to stay on the road for a mile, and when you get to that mile then make a determination. Is there traffic on the road’ Is there an obstacle on the road’ Or are things flowing smoothly that I can take the next step’ And that’s where those 20-day sprints come in so that way you stay firm on the goal but flexible to the approach, if that makes sense.

Then, I want you to keep on whatever goal you set, just keep chipping away at it so that you can look back and say, “This is what I did, I started tracking my food and that was really telling, so then I could see where I was doing amazing, or what kind of sent me off the rails and what was what was triggering me when I went on a bender, if I didn’t sleep.” That way I’m able to kind of start seeing what’s going on and I can start to create this process.

The other way to help create a process is when you work with someone that they can be a second set of eyes. We are very close to ourselves and sometimes we don’t see the trees for the forest, and so you need that person who kind of looks over your shoulder and can point out, “Oh, did you notice that when you sleep less than six hours, you drink 400 cups of coffee and you mainline M&Ms'” You might not see that correlation but someone else looking over your shoulder might be able to see that correlation for you. Maybe you are like me, you are eating clean foods, but you are

Set up  boundaries

Review your obstacles. As you’re going down your roads there might be construction, there might be a giant pothole. (This time of year, we’ve got potholes for days around here.) There might be a pothole, there might be a person crossing the street, you might get a flat tire. Take a look at anything in the past that may have stopped you and do your best to foresee that so that you can say, “There are times that I might have to work late, there are times that I might not have childcare, there are times that I just might be dead dog tired. There are times that I might…” I don’t know, think of a reason excuse. But I want you to really think about every time that you’ve kind of zigged when you wanted to zag. What has been that obstacle’ That way you can foresee it.

For me when I was working in corporate, my boss would literally come at 5:00pm and dump a pile of junk on my desk, and of course it had to be done by 10:00 a.m. the next morning. So, of course, being the good worker, I would stay doing all of my work and then forgo going to the gym or forego going to meet friends. And so, I had to set my boundaries. I finally had to create a boundary.  I found a class that I absolutely loved and it was on a class pass – you buy a certain number of classes and you got a go or you lose your money. And so, I sat down with my boss I said, “Hey, I’m really going to start exercising, I just feel like crap and I know when I exercise, I feel much better, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have to leave at [5:00].” And I was scared, my knees were knocking, but it was what I needed for my mental sanity.

Maybe that’s something you need to do. Maybe you need to have a discussion with your partner or with your boss that I need this time for me. Since then I’ve shifted to working out in the morning and for me it just sets the tone for my day. Yes, getting up sucks, but I know that by 7:30am  I’ve done Kim stuff and the rest of the day can happen and I don’t feel like I’m going to miss out on my workout, because when I do miss out on my workout, if my day sucks the life out of me.

Get Support

Then the last piece is support; we all need support. Some days you are just like, “I can do it all.” You’re standing on the top of the mountain; your cape is flying behind you. And then other days you just feel like crap, and you’re just like, “I ain’t got this.” And you just want to go to your bed and just put the covers up over your head. It happens, we all have those days.

Like this morning I wanted to put the cover up over my head because I was exhausted. I’m probably going to go to bed again at 9:30pm, like I’m five years old.  Who’s in your corner’ Who’s going to be that person who’s going to check in on you’ When you said, “I’m going to the gym three or four days a week”, who’s going to be that person’s going to be like, “Hey girl, what did you do'” And it can’t be someone who’s going to let you off the hook, it has to be that person that’s going to be like, “Hey girl, what did you do’ Why not’ How come'” And call you on your shit, because sometimes we need to be called on our shit. And who are you going to tell your why’ Because your why is what gets you out of bed when it’s dark outside, it’s snowing outside, it’s cold and you just want to crawl back in.

When I was competing, and I didn’t want to get out of bed I would think about people who had kids. I don’t have any children, and I would think about there’s some mom who is leaving her kids and she got up at 4:00am so she could be back to send her kids to school, and I got nothing. I don’t have anybody to send off to school, I just got me to get my tush to work and that’s it, and I would get myself out of bed. 

Now, I just think about what my goal is. In less than a month I’m going to Hawaii on vacation, and I will want to look awesome. So, as I lay in bed, I’m like, “You know what, lying in bed ain’t going to get me looking awesome on the beach, so get your booty out of bed Kim.” And I get my booty out of bed.

I want you to think about what is that for you so that when you’re lying there saying, “I don’t want to”, what’s that thought process that you’re going to go through that’s going to just say, “Alright, I’m up and at ’em”‘

And that just made me think about when I was a little kid, when my sister and I just did not want to get out of bed, my mom would open up the door and she would be like, “Up and at ’em” all the time, and that was her kind of second stage of if we don’t get out of the out of bed she was going to lose her stuff. So, think about it.

Be Accountable

Accountability is a big thing. I have a good friend and we’ve been doing this for years, every Sunday I text, “Here are the days I’m going to the gym.” And if she doesn’t hear from me by Wednesday about what I’ve done from Sunday to Wednesday she’s like, “What’s up'” And then I do the same thing for her, and it’s just us checking in on each other.

And it could be something as loose as that, or it can be something really formal as over the past several years I’ve had coaches for pretty much everything, for my business, for my body, and when I have had coaches for my body I’ve had to detail every single thing I’ve put in my mouth -6:00 a.m. I woke up and I had a cup of coffee. 7:00 a.m. I did this. And they’re looking over my shoulder to give me that guidance, to give me that feedback. So, I want you to think about who’s got that, who’s got that for you, and who can help you out with that. And if that’s something you want to talk about, please let me know.

We have a hundred days until summer, everything I gave you is doable, everything I gave you isn’t this hard thing. We make it hard. So, I challenge you to just figure out what it is that you want, what are the slight tweaks that you can make, how do you make that into a process. Don’t make this a complicated process, just make it really simple, like can I sit down on Sundays and map out my week’ Can I sit down on Saturday, make a grocery list and get my booty to the grocery store or have Instacart come drop groceries off to me’ Can I think about anything that’s going to pop up and get in my way’

And lastly, who’s going to be the person who… I make this master awesome plan, who’s going to be that person who’s going to be like, “Are you doing it'” And the main thing is what’s your why’ So, if that all sounds awesome to you, let me know. 

Grab Your Blueprint

I’ve created a Four Alternatives to Dieting, and basically what I’ve just said is summed up in a document.. Use this as a blueprint so that you can glide into summer and rock that swimsuit and feel comfortable confident as you walk down the beach this summer.

Last week I was listening to a podcast and it was talking about how as women we have lost touch with what gives us pleasure.

The guest asked the host what gives her pleasure and she was stumped.

Guess what — so was I …. I literally was like WTF makes me happy!

As I sit here in living the Flip Flop Life — with my toes literally in the sand, I came up with this list.

So… in no order, here are 50 things that bring me pleasure. 😍 I’d love to hear what gives you pleasure — leave me a comment below.

Freshly washed sheets
The smell of swifter wipes 
Bananas that are not to ripe and not to sweet — yes it can have brown spots =) 🍌
True crime 
COFFEE with cream and sugar! ☕️
Sunsets 🌅
Walks on the beach 🏖
Flip flops 👣
A cold glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc 🍷
Traveling ✈️
A good workout 🏋️‍♀️
Ice cream 🍦
Warm apple pie 🥧
Warm sun on my face 😎
Infrared saunas 
Morning journaling 
Hearing my feet crunching on snow 
Good conversations
Teaching classes 
Coaching my clients 
Checking stuff off my to do list 
Doing something that I didn’t think I could 
The smell of cut grass 
A shower after a sweaty workout 🚿
Watching a funny movie 📽
Making others laugh 😂
My morning walks along the Charles River 
Conversations with my husband ❤️
Finding money 💰
Hearing one of my favorite songs out of the blue 🎧
A great parking spot (I live in the city) 
People watching 
Drying off with a warm towel 
Sitting on a deck over looking to water 
Old school hip hop 
Finishing what I started
Laying in bed 🛌
Fall colors 🍂
Pumpkin spice ANYTHING 🎃
Hallmark Christmas movies 🎄
Lazy weekend days 
Hanging with old friends you haven’t seen in a while
Fresh popped corn
The smell of a bbq 
Cuddling 
When a pair of jeans you haven’t worn fit!
Tootsie rolls 
Good chocolate 
Warm cookies 
Looking at the stars 
A massage

As I wrote this list I realized the pleasure is a muscle that doesn’t get worked.It’s a habit that we’d love to ignore to stay busy!

Is pleasure a habit you’d like to bring into your life’

I’m hosting a 5-day Habit challenge that will be starting on April 22nd – want in’ join Here.

I am Kim Barnes Jefferson and I am your host of FabFitTv. I help women to break free of a doubt-free and rule-free life so they can live a life of infinite possibilities.

Today I want to keep on the theme of how do we diet in 2019, how do we get the results that we are looking for’ So, I want to talk about the dreaded plateau. We’ve all faced it, we’ve all had it, and we’ve all just been like, “What can we do'” And what I see time and time again is that when you hit that wall where the scales are not budging, you’re not seeing any change in the scale, you’re not seeing any change in your physique, you’re like, “Time to up that cardio, strap myself to that treadmill, and I’m just going to live off of diet coke and rice cakes.” Anyone’ Been there, done that, and I’ve got the multiple t-shirts for that.

I want you to think about how you feel when you increase all this exercise and you decrease all your calories. You are craving like a mofo. You might be a little bitchy, and you’re just trying to figure it out and you’re going nutso. And you’re clicking and scrolling. You’re asking everyone, and they’re all telling you to do these things. I’ll tell you that for a bit, dropping my calories and increasing my exercise is going to work. Until it doesn’t.

Your body is having a tantrum

Everyone talks about our metabolism — my metabolism is fast, my metabolism is slow, my metabolism is out to lunch, whatever is. But I want you to think about when someone pushed you to your limit and you just either lost your shit, or you dug in your heels and decided you’re not going to budge. That is what our body does when we try to force it into submission.

It’s just like, “No, I’m not going to do it. I don’t care how much you starve me, I don’t care how many hours of cardio you do, I don’t care how many hours you’re at the gym, I’m not moving.” It is like a stubborn two-year-old, it’s that kid that’s laid out on the floor and you’re just like, “I want to walk away right now and give this kid to the circus.” In order to get that kid up off the floor you’re going to do anything, right’ You’re like, “What can I do'” You’re just mortified, but then you’re also like, “But this is my kid, I can’t just walk away, can I'” That’s how your body is, so let’s pick your body up off the floor.

Do the unthinkable

And now I’m going to tell you to do something that you’re going to be like record scratch, like the earth has stopped spinning on its axis kind of thing. I’m going to tell you to eat less and exercise less. Yes, you heard me right. You’re going to eat less, and you’re going to exercise less. Now, you’re already into the eat less, you’re like, “Yeah, I got that. What are you talking about’ It’s all me, I can do that. But the exercise less, girl, you’re crazy.”

Now, hear me out. The strategy behind that is that our metabolism. Our body has just been beaten into submission. Do you know what it’s like when you’ve just had a week and you’re just dead on your feet and you can’t wait for the weekend and the whole weekend you’re like, “I am not leaving my couch, I am not getting out of my pajamas, I just want to chill and watch everything on Netflix until I have to call Netflix and say ‘You need more stuff because I just watched it all.'” Have you ever been in that state’ That’s the state your body gets when you have just been beating it into submission, it’s just like, “Uncle, I surrender, I can’t give you anymore, I need a break.” And when you go into the eat less, exercise less, that’s exactly what you’re doing, you’re giving your body this break. You are basically putting your body on the DL, you’re letting it rehab and recover.

It’s nice to make your acquaintance.

It’s letting you repair that metabolic damage, it’s letting you start to get reacquainted with your body.

• Reacquaint it with what hunger feels like.
• Reacquaint it with what rest feels like.
• Reacquaint it with how your body is supposed to function when you’re not trying to push it into a place it doesn’t want to be.

And so, when I’m able to give my body this rest my body, my hormones start to balance out, my mood starts to balance out, my sleep starts to increase. I am now a person that people want to be around. I am not feeling like I’m that girl with the rice cakes and the diet coke who’s on a diet and I can’t do a darn thing until my diet gives me the 30 pounds, or whatever you’re looking for.

Reset your expectations

I know for a lot of people this is like, “What’ What are you talking about'” But trust me, one of the things I’ll tell you is that it helps to reset your expectations of what your body is capable of. It helps you to chill out, it helps you to ease into, “I am where I am, and I can’t force change.”

Think of it like this – if you’ve ever saved for something, you’ve saved for a house, you’ve saved for a vacation, whatever it is, your paycheck is only as big as your paycheck is, and you can only allocate but so many dollars towards this vacation or towards this house. And when you want to save for a house, and you can only save say $100 a week, I don’t ever hear anyone marching into your boss’s office saying, “I need more money because I need to save for a house” and your boss is like, “Sure, here you go.” That doesn’t really ever happen. 

But that’s what you do to your body when your body doesn’t give you what it wants. You literally march down the office and you’re like, “You need to give me more results, and if you don’t give me more results, I’m going to do more stuff to force you to give me more results.” It’s like picketing your body, but you’re literally exercising your body into submission, and shockingly it doesn’t want to give it to you.

Give it a rest

So, with this eat less, exercise less, it’s giving your body a much-needed break. How does this work’ So, when you were growing up and you probably had three square meals a day: you had breakfast, you had lunch and you had dinner. And you had big spaces of time between each meal, and the big spaces of time between each meal give your digestive tract time to rest. It’s not always digesting – you eat, it digests, it has some rest, you eat, it digests, you have some rest time.

And so, I want you to pick a time that you’re going to stop eating in the evening. Now this isn’t about, “If I eat calories after [6:00] it’s going to go right to my butt.” Malarkey. I’m saying if I have dinner every night at [8:00], I try my best to get dinner on the table before [8:00], it just doesn’t happen. So, I eat at [8:00] and I don’t eat again until anywhere between [12:00] and [1:00] in the afternoon. So, I give myself a good 12 hours of my digestive tract just chilling out, but eight hours of those I’m sleeping, so it’s really only four hours that I’m not eating. And it’s literally just taking my digestive system and just giving it a big old rest. And I was that person, I ate five to six meals a day and I never really gave my metabolism or my digestive system a chance to rest and recover, only when I was sleeping. So, this is another way to kind of help reboot my system.

Then with the workouts. I know for a lot of people who like to work out this is going to be like, “Whoa.” And it was totally whoa for me. The workouts are going to be two to three times a week, that’s it. The rest of the time you’re going to just focus on movement. In last week’s episode I talked all about what movement is, in a nutshell if you’ve got a Fitbit trying to hit those 10,000 steps a day and just moving, active daily living. I go into greater detail, and I’ll put the link in the show notes so you guys can reference it. But it’s movement.

Rest and Restore

Then the other part is just really focusing on rest and restoration, and that is besides the leisure walk, getting your 10,000 steps walking at a leisurely pace, it’s doing infrared saunas, it’s doing cryotherapy. I know it’s winter and the thought of you going from a freezing cold outside to a freezing cold inside you’re like, “Why would I sign up for that'” Trust me, I’ve done it. Believe it or not, three minutes goes by pretty fast. And I’d say I’m cold, like my knees and my ankles get cold by like two minutes in and then I have like a minute, you can do anything for a minute, so I just power through.

The sauna on the other hand, I feel like I’m drunk when I get out of that. I’m just so chill 5,000 when I come out of the sauna. It’s a great experience, just 100% stress reduction. Rest and restoration is taking naps, being more mindful, loving your pets, loving your partner yup read between the lines (s-e-x), watching TV —  whatever you do to relax. Whatever it is, it’s all about how do I just rest and recover your body’ That’s the main focus during this period where you’re eating less and you’re exercising less. 

And this period will last for four weeks, so for four solid weeks you’re getting in two to three workouts a week and you are eating three meals a day. And these workouts, they’re not like, “I only have three workouts, I need to hit it hard.” Yes, I want you to lift. I want there to be a little metabolic work in there, but it’s not like I’m going to the gym for two hours and I’m killing it. That’s not what it is about.

You are working out so that you maintain your muscle mass, so that you’re not just sitting around like veal. Read the Year of Yes, Shonda Rimes has a great story about that in her book. You are still lifting heavy weights to maintain that muscle mass so that when we get to the next phase (eat more, exercise more) you haven’t taken a few steps back. You’ve maintained the strength that you’ve had and now in this eat more/exercise more phase we’re able to start focusing on the muscle build. 

During the eat less/exercise less phase, the focus is on tapping into your body’s stored fat. By spacing out meals leptin levels reset,  hormone that tells your body that you’re full, reset ghrelin levels, the hormone that tells your  body is hungry, and lastly works to reset insulin receptors. When you have too much insulin hanging around all the time your body becomes less sensitive to it.  

The Next Phase

Now, in this eat more/exercise more phase, my focus is now let’s again keep the body guessing. This phase you are back to working out a little bit more. You’ll put a little bit more food into your system four meals equally spaced.

For your food think soups, scrambles, stir fries, and shakes. Your meals start with protein and vegetables as the first two components of your meal.

Then add fat, good fats. People are like, “Oh, I cook in my fat.” For this time, I don’t want you to cook in fat for your stir fries. Use chicken broth for your stir fries, and then afterwards, after you’ve cooked the vegetables then you can throw in some of your good fat in once the vegetables have cooked or once the meat has cooked. Focus on protein and vegetables, fibrous vegetables. Fibrous vegetables are like broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, those that kind of have that hearty-sticking-with-you type vegetable. There’s no vegetable that’s off-limits to you. 

Then I’m going to move to my good fats, focus on oils versus the nuts and the nut butters. Use olive oil sparingly; olive oil is great but has a lot of omega-6, and in our diet we already get a lot of omega 6s. If you go to any grocery store, you’ll see a plethora of oils. Pick any oil with the exception of corn, vegetable, soy, and peanut.

Next, you can start bringing in some of your starchy vegetables. These would be beets, butternut squash, acorn squash, spaghetti squash, those kinds of things. I want you to focus on the protein and the vegetables first. Then pay attention to your hunger and your energy. They will tell you what to do with fat and what to do with starch.

And then the same premise holds true for the eat less/ exercise less, but with the eat more/exercise more I want you to make sure that because we’re exercising, you’re really paying attention to when you have that starchy vegetable. It should be in the morning and around your workout time.

I know for years you’ve been told to ‘avoid carbs’ it’s the “carbs” that helps start the chemical process get the energy in your body, and the protein helps after exercise when your muscle bellies are open for about 20 to 30 minutes post exercise for it to absorb the proteins that help you build and repair. 

You also want to pay attention to your hunger, your energy, and craving because that’s what’s going to dictate whether you add a little bit more food or you pull back a little on the exercise, because if you try to push your exercise and not do anything with your food, you’re going to be back in that craving cyclone, and that that craving cyclone sucks.

Increase how you workout

In the eat more/exercise more you’re going to go to four workouts. These are metabolic workouts; they’re strength workouts. But you’re also building in a little bit of plyometric work so that you’re lifting heavy weights. During your workout you should be breathing heavy and sweating. It’s not about I need to PR this workout, no, it’s just like I want to leave and just say, “I had a great workout” and leave the room.

While I’m increasing my exercise and I’m still keeping up with my movement. I still want to make sure I’m getting in those 10,000 steps every day. I still want to make sure that I’m managing my stress. I still want to make sure that I’m managing my sleep. Because I’ll tell you, regardless of what protocol you follow, if you’re not getting great sleep and you’re a stress ball, everything goes out the window. Your body does not do well with prolonged stress and prolonged lack of sleep. Your body is just like, “I don’t like it.” Sleep and stress are always going to be a focus because regardless of what else you do, if that’s not right, you’re not going to get the results.

It’s a process

And so, remember, as you go through these processes, the first phase: exercise less/eat less, is four solid weeks. And then you’re going to do two weeks of eat more/exercise more. Then you’re going to go to two weeks eat less/exercise less until you’ve reached your desired physique goals. And you’re just literally going back and forth, and the goal here is to keep your body going, “What is she doing’ What’s happening here’ I don’t know.”

Your body is very adaptive, and as soon as it figures out that we’re dieting it’s going to be like, “Oh girl, we’ve been here, I’m not giving you what you want. I’m just going to sit here on the side of the road and I’m going to smoke my cigarette and have a scotch and watch you run around the gym like a crazy person, and I’m not going to do a darn thing because you’ve put me through hell and I’m done being in hell.” That’s how your body talks to you. Your body is like an 80-year-old woman drinking Dubonnet and smoking like Pall Malls! So, you have to keep your body guessing.

I’m not that person who ever believes that a food group is off limits. I’m more about at certain times, based on your goal, your choices change. But all food groups always will have a place in your diet.

Find your buffer

For me, I need to have fruit. It’s like a buffer food for me. Fruit keeps me from eating just junk and candy. So, if I have some blueberries in my house, if I have a banana in my house, I can eat that, and it takes the edge off of me seeking out know Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups or M&Ms or jelly beans. If I have a handful of blueberries or I have a banana with some nut butter on it, I’m good. It takes away the craving monkey and I’m able to move forward.

But again, during this period is when you really start to become the investigator. I want you to think about CSI. They look at the chalk outline and they’re like, “The guy must have broken in through the window, and then he did this, then he did that.” That’s what I want you to think about when you’re going through the process. Remember that we’re focusing on repairing or rebuilding our metabolism so that our metabolism has that flexibility and we don’t ever hit these plateaus anymore. Or when we see ourselves getting into that plateau, we’re like, “I see the plateau ahead and I know how to make this left turn in order to avoid that plateau. I see another plateau, I know how to make a right turn.” And so, that’s where I want you to start thinking about. The more I can get in-tuned with my body, the more I can avoid plateaus in the first place.

When I work with my clients through this cycle, it’s not about the number on the scale. I want you to think about what does your physique look like’

Are you looking to reduce the size of your thighs’

Are you looking to reduce some belly fat’

Are you looking to get some more shape in your body’

And by shape, that’s where you build muscle.

Fat makes you fluffy, where muscle kind of like shrinks you in.

For a lot of my people, when they get to the exercise more/eat more, I want them really focusing on quality workout, so that the last few reps of the exercise they’re doing feels challenging with great form, so that as we go through these cycles, you’re starting to see maybe that hourglass is starting to uncover. Maybe you’re starting to see a little bit of a shoulder cap. Maybe you’re starting to see a little tighter tush. Sometimes, you’re able to see the results of your effort versus looking down at the scale and then being like, “It’s not adding up.” Or you’re losing a pound here and a pound there; take that away.

Judge it by measurements.

Judge it by how your clothes feel.

Judge it by how your hunger is, by your energy, and by your sleep. Those are the markers that are going to really give you the biggest bang for your buck.

That’s all I got for you today! So, it’s really how do you go about busting that plateau. It’s really turning what you think upside down, inside out, and left and right.

Definitely if you have any questions or comments about this, I’d love to talk it through with you to see how this could possibly benefit you.

Last Week’s Show: The New Rules of Weight Loss

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In today’s hectic world it’s so easy to let yourself get lost in the process and forget to take care of yourself. Maybe you’ve been so busy worrying about other people you don’t even know what taking care of yourself looks like.

If that sounds like you, I’d like to share with you some ways to reduce stress and get back some “me” time.

But before I do anything else, let’s first define what self-care really is: “
Any intentional activity that you do that in some way contributes to your emotional, physical, mental health and well-being.”

So simplistically, it is any activity that soothes and satisfies your soul.  

Let me repeat, it’s not getting spa treatments, it’s anything that makes you feel good and feel like a human again.

If you aren’t the touchy feely type, let me break it down in machine terms. Every piece of machinery needs some periodic scheduled maintenance to keep it working correctly – think oil change! If not, over time that piece of machinery will fail to perform its function. Your car will leave you on the side of the road!

You need that same type of scheduled maintenance too (or you will eventually fail) it’s called SELF CARE!

I hear you with all the other priorities you have in your life right now scheduling in time for self-care can feel like an obligation. Flip the script and think of self-care as one of your non-negotiables and for the love of God make it something that you enjoy!

Different things work for different people. You have to find what works for you. 

I work from home running an online business and I know how hard it is to break free from the hustle. I love what I do and want to keeping working. It can be tough to find that balance.

I know that when I don’t have the balance I’m junk, I can’t keep “hustling”.

If you are already maxed out on time, you may have to give up something to have time to add in self-care. Do you really need to spend a half-hour a day on social media to see what others are doing’ Instead, take that half-hour for yourself occasionally and spend it on self-care. Maybe it’s taking an extra 5 minutes in the shower and applying a bath oil with essential oils. Maybe it’s waking up 10 minutes earlier and enjoying your cup of coffee or tea vs taking it to go.

Setting Boundaries at Work If Necessary

If you are coming home from work drained every night, or bringing work home with you, maybe it is time to set some boundaries. This one was huge for me when I worked in corporate. I found a kickboxing class that I LOVED, and it forced me to stop working exactly at 5pm so that I could make the class on time.

Sit down and look at what you must do and things you could give up, trust me you have something that you can give up. Maybe you have some responsibilities that can be shifted to a co-worker that isn’t as overloaded as you. The important thing here is if you do not initiate a change, everything will stay the same … and you will still come home drained every night. Grab the bull by the horns and make change happen.

Feeling Happier with Your Life

Good mental health – one of the keys to happiness – starts in part with good physical health. By taking care of your body, you will get in better shape, which in turn will improve your self-confidence and how you view yourself. Feeling good about yourself will always improve your mental mood!

Exercise

You don’t have to run a marathon to reap the benefits from exercising. Lord knows I only run when chased! Even something as simple as a 20-minute walk during your lunch hour will not only help you manage you weight, but will improve your mood by the release of endorphins in your brain

Eating right

Focus on eating healthy nutritional food in the right portions … like a colorful small plate of fresh fruits and vegetables. Add in some whole grain and lean protein, while avoiding sweets and processed foods, and you will be well on your way to looking good, feeling good and bursting with energy.

Sleep

Set a bedtime so that you can do your best to get 7+ hours of sleep. Maybe you spend 5 minutes writing down 3 things you are grateful for. This one of my favorite ways to do that, the 5 Minute Journal. Maybe you diffuse some lavender to help you sleep a little better.

None of the above lights your heart. Here are a few other ideas.

Warm bubble bath

Massage – Groupon is my jam for these

Reading for pleasure

Walking in nature

Playing with animals

Playing with children

Spa Treatments

Dance it out

Knit

Journaling

Meditation

Deep breaths

Don’t Forget to Schedule Self-Care

So many want to focus on diet and exercise as the only way to get healthy and fit. Yes, that’s important, BUT if you aren’t taking care of your mental health, you won’t be able to get the most out of your balanced work and personal life.

Self-care keeps you sane. Keeps you from running around like a wild woman!

As the saying goes, you need to put on your oxygen mask first before you check on the other person.

Of the list above what looks like something that can start doing today’

It’s 2019 and everyone wakes up on January 1st and they’re like, “This is the year I’m going to be the best person I can be. This is the year I lose 400 pounds.” “This is the year I become a millionaire.” “This is the year I divorce my husband.” “This is the year I get a husband.” 🤷🏽‍♀️

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A New Approach to Weight Loss

We all have our own approaches to what the new year is going to bring us. So, what I wanted to talk about is what if we turn dieting on its head’ You’ve seen all the commercials just as much as I have, you’ve heard all the commercials, and it’s all about “give up”, “drop this”, “do that.” What if we stop focusing first on dramatically dropping our calories and dramatically upping our workouts’

For some people dropping calories and upping workouts, keeps people in that perpetual cycle of chasing skinny. You give up all the “bad” food you rely on willpower and then your willpower gives up, your motivation runs away and you find yourself on the couch with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Dublin Mudslide with a side of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Once you get out of your sugar coma you promise yourself that you will get back on to the “wagon” again. You’re going to go to the gym every day and hit up every class that so-and-so told you, will give you a tight butt. “The class that will give you six-pack abs.”  You are going hard, but you can’t sustain it because that’s not who you are, it’s too hard and you go back into that cycle. I’ve been in the fitness industry for over 15 years and I see it time and time again.  

The first Monday in January everyone comes in, ready to rock! I’ll tell you that by March 31st 20% of the those with fitness goals stick. The other  80%, I’m going to see them again NEXT January.

I don’t want that to be you.

No cold turkey

What if we took the two things that everyone says they need to start with – diet and exercise – and we put them on the back burner and “Instead of chasing skinny I want to chase lasting results.” And I know for many people lasting results come from having great habits, because if you’re not in the habit of working out, if you’re not in the habit of eating right that’s like trying to force someone who is a smoker to stop smoking cold turkey. Why would they have the patch and these other things if quitting smoking was just like, “Hey, I’m not going to smoke anymore” and they’re done’ That’s what you’re trying to do when it comes to diet and exercise.  You’re like, “I was having Big Macs and margaritas yesterday, and now I’m not going to salads and water.” 

Reboot your mind

What I want to say is if you’re tired of that reboot button, what if we started to focus on your mindset first’ Now, it isn’t sexy, not by any stroke of the imagination. But what I know is that when I

✅ clear out the cobwebs up in my head,

✅ clear out all of the negative self-talk,

✅ clear out all of the judgments that I have on myself,

✅ clear out all of the comparisons,

that’s when I’m going to start making some serious changes because I can’t outrun my mind.

But I know I can outrun the next person on the treadmill 😉, I can probably out-diet somebody, but I can’t outrun the coo-coo that lives in my head. And we all have that coo-coo that lives in our head it only seems to comes out when you’re trying to do something different. It’s that voice that say you shouldn’t even try. You suck, you’ve been done this road before and failed why try!

I always challenge my clients, and I tell them if I focus on my mindset the body is going to follow.

What happens is when you start with diet and exercise and you’re like, “This is great! This is awesome! I’m doing amazing!” But there is always going to be a roadblock, there is going to be a challenge that comes up and your mind is going to tell you, “You know girl, how many times are you going to go down this road’ How many times are you going to try’ How many times are you going to fail’ How many times are you going to make this perfect when it’s not perfect’ How many times are you going to be let down and disappointed'” That inner voice starts talking louder and louder. And even though you feel great you’re making progress, your mind can find a way to knock you down just like that.

The challenge: Start where you are

I want you to get away from the focus of how fast things are coming, because that’s one of the first things that always knocks people off track.

When it comes to starting down the path of mindset, please know that mindset isn’t one of these things like, “Oh, in 30 days I’m going to have a brand-new mindset.” that’s not how it works. Working with my clients I use the Arthur Ashe quote as my framework “Start where you are.”

Arthur Ashe Questions

I want you to sit down and just say, where am I’ When you start down the diet road, what are the obstacles that jump out at you first’ What are the excuses that you say about yourself’ How far down the path do you get before you get squirrely’ And by ‘squirrly’ I mean are you four weeks in before you start questioning, “Is this working’ Am I getting results'” When do you start to press the freak out button and start feeling like, “I’m not getting the results from my efforts”‘ At what point have you experienced that in the past’

These are the obstacles I want you to focus on.  “Here are my known obstacles, here are my known excuses” so that when they pop up you can start to build the toolkit to bust through all of the lies, all that malarkey and just be able to say, “You know what, it’s my mind trying to stop me from taking things to the next level. It’s my mind trying to keep me safe.” 

As humans we like certainty. We want to know that when I close my eyes at night the sun is going to rise. You want to know that there are 24 hours in a day.  As you go through each step of getting healthy and fit you want to know. “How am I going to react on each step'” This is where the work comes. And that’s why most people don’t want to do it; IT’S WORK. It’s not this “take this pill wake up in three days and you’re going to be down 40 pounds.”

Do the work

Trust me, my life would be so much easier if I said, “Take two of these and call me on Friday.” I wish, but that’s just not how it’s going to be. Here is where that inner work comes, and that’s where most of us slip up. It’s our society, we want to snap our fingers versus have to ride through the uncomfortable parts, the feeling of the unknown. But if you’re able to do that, trust me, on the other side is going to be the results that you want. It’s going to be what you want. It is going to be that blue sky. But you’ve got to go through the dark forest first in order to get to that blue sky.

Define your sustainable success

I want you to think about how you define success, I want you to break free of your past self. I don’t want you to be like, “Back in high school I weighed 138 pounds” and you’re now 40. It might happen, but let’s just break up with old high school you. Instead let’s say, “In the last five years I’ve weighed this.” Or, heck, throw the scale out and just say, “In the last five years I’ve been a size blah, and I want to go back to being that size.” Then, I want you to take it to the next level – in order to be that size, what are you willing to do long-term’

If you want to get down to a size 10, size 8, what am I willing to do’ Am I willing to do it for the next five years in order to get there’ Because a lot of times people get to that size and then they’re like, “I can do whatever I want now.” And then gradually they creep back up. I want you to think about whatever you chose it has to be sustainable, and that sustainability starts in your mind.

We are always going to be working on our mindset. As you knock down one barrier, another barrier is going to pop itself up. It’s just a constant building of that toolbox in order to get that bulletproof mindset that instead of wallowing for a couple of days you might wallow for a couple of hours or what used to take you out for days isn’t even a blimp on the radar anymore. I don’t want you to think that all of a sudden, you’re this bullet proof Wonder Woman, deflecting all of your obstacles and challenges. 

You’ve got to move

The second piece is MOVEMENT. Now, I’m not talking balls to the wall kind of workouts. I’m just talking moving your body. And if we think about it, in our society we don’t move as much as we used to move. 20 years ago – which was a short period of time – we walked a lot more. There weren’t remote controls, you cranked your window by hand – it was a luxury, an option that sometimes you decide you didn’t want to pay for to have power windows, so you cranked your windows.

And when you hear people say these little things like – “get more movement in your day, take the stairs. If you work in a corporate environment go to the bathroom the furthest from your desk.” All those little things add up, those are active daily living. Why do you think the Fitbits and the activity trackers are so popular’ It’s not because the Fitbit https://amzn.to/2AJxRqh is pretty; it’s because we don’t move.

I do a lot of work in corporate environments. I go in and teach group fitness classes in companies, and a lot of the companies over the last few years have adopted more standing desks because fidgeting, that’s movement, or pacing, that’s movement. While you are the standing desk, you’ll do more fidgeting than you would sitting in a chair.   Fidgeting burns 29% and 38% more calories than just sitting in a chair. Those little acts of daily living add up.

If you have a dog, you’re definitely going to be out at least two times a day with the dog. If it’s a puppy you’re out way more if you’re trying to potty train it. Little things that add up and you will get a lot of bang for your buck. 

Are you getting 10,000 steps’ And if you aren’t, what can you do to get those 10,000 steps’ I’m at 12,000 steps today, and some days I can hit 30,000 steps and some days I can hit 5,000 steps. It’s very telling about what kind of day I had with those two types of steps.

Enjoyment and satisfaction

After you get mindset and movement down THEN we can focus on food, and I know you want me or any fitness professional to hand you over a magic fat-burning, calorie-torching food list. Here’s the thing – when you work with me, I’m not that type of coach that says, “Okay Susie, here is the ‘don’t eat this’ list and here is your meal plan for this week, and here are the foods you can have.” I don’t do that because this is what I know – you are a grown ass woman and you know what to eat. You know that super sizing it out at McDonald’s isn’t exactly the best thing for you. You all know that. It’s just a matter of helping you to figure out what’s the best thing for you.

I call 3 Meal Planning — satiation, satisfaction, satiety

The first thing I always say to people is we have to focus on the type of meal that you’re eating. And so, what that means is, do you have satiation with that meal’ A big word to say do you feel full’ Do you feel like you’ve had enough’ Do you feel like you don’t need anymore’

Was your meal satisfying’ Did you enjoy it’ Enjoyment piece is not a physical thing,  my brain will tell me if what I just ate was satisfying.  My stomach can be stuffed, but my brain can say, “You know what, there are some cupcakes over there and I want one of those. I’m having one of those. It’s going down.” 

Eyes vs. Belly

And trust me, you’ve all been there. Think about it – you’re out to dinner and you’re like, “I’m so full, it was a great meal.” And then the waiter comes by, and restaurants knows that you eat with your eyes, they have a dessert tray that physically shows you a sample of dessert is versus handing you a piece of paper. Restaurants are smart.  I worked at a restaurant and we used to hand out a piece of paper. Then, we used to have one piece of the desserts on the cart, as soon as we started doing that I sold way more desserts than before. We get satisfied with our eyes even though our belly is like, “Oh girl, I can’t have no more”.

What I want you to focus on, as you’re putting together meals, I want your meals to feel satisfying and I want them to physically look satisfying. Why do you think restaurants spend so much time on the presentation of the meal’ Because if it looks pleasing to my eyes it’s going to feel pleasing to my belly. So, I want you to think about, “I want something that gives me that quick hit of fullness, then I want that fullness to last and not just a few moments.  I want that fullness to last a couple hours so that I don’t feel like I’m always eating or always seeking food.

Maximize your nutrition

After that then I’m going to focus on caloric intake because I want to have maximum food from minimum calories, if that makes sense, I focusing on food QUALITY and not just  “This has X number of calories.” Then I’m going to say, “Does it satisfy me'” Because I know when you focus on X number of calories or X number of macros and you eat it and it’s not as satisfying, it doesn’t leave you full, guess what’ You’re off looking for the next thing, and that sucks.

Beware of trigger foods. They are foods that trigger you to eat keep eating it’s food that you just can’t get enough of, it just hits all the taste buds in the right spot and lights up your brain like Christmas day. Pay attention those foods and do your best to not have them in your house.

When you’re building your menu focus on the foods that you’re going to eat. I want you to sit down and really think about what foods you find satisfying but are also filling. It’s like broccoli – minimum calories, but if you can eat more than a cup of broccoli…(I’m going to look at you funny because clearly there is something is wrong with you.)

Their is so much fiber in broccoli that most people can’t eat more than a cup of broccoli in a sitting. You might be able to eat several cups over the course of the day, but in NOT one sitting“. It’s satisfying, minimum calories, and with all that fiber in it, it’s going to stick with you for a while. So, I want to think about things in terms of that.

Create a meal daisy chain

As you go through your day those are the types of meals you want. But I also want you to think about meals being daisy-chained together. The first meal of the day can affect the rest of your day. Let me just backup and explain what that means. My first meal, if it doesn’t hit on all those buttons, (satiation, satisfaction, satiety)

If you don’t feel full, satisfied or if your hunger comes quickly back.  That’s going to set you down this avalanche of seeking and nibbling.

I know for me, it’s eggs – sometimes if I’m traveling and I’m not in my normal environment sometimes the only choice I have is eggs. And eggs for me, they are not very satiating. I can eat three to four eggs and probably within an hour or two I’m like, “What’s next'” I’ve done it all, I’ve put in vegetables, I put toast, I do all the things to make that meal way more filling and way more satisfying, and it doesn’t do it for me. So, when I have eggs first thing in the morning it sets me down the snowball of, I can’t eat enough of other foods. And so, you might have foods like that, or now I’ve raised your awareness may start thinking about, “Do I have foods that do that for me'”

That first meal of the day doesn’t have to be breakfast. I know that some people are into the intermittent fasting and all that other stuff, that’s fine. But whatever that first meal of the new day is, I want you to make sure it hits on all three Ss

• Does it make you feel full’
• Does it stick with you’
• Is it satisfying to the brain’

Let’s make sure we are not maxing out on our calories. If you think about it, it’s like Denny’s or Applebees, they’re all over the internet like, “If you eat this breakfast, you’ve eaten breakfast for five people.” I don’t want those kinds of breakfast if you feel me. 😉

Plan your success

That’s where the meals come in. It flips meal planning on its head a little bit so that your focus more is making sure you are full versus, “I need this many calories or this many macros of carbs and this many macros of protein.” It’s focusing on making sure by the end of that meal you are not hungry, you are not craving, and your energy isn’t in the toilet. Makes sense’

Work it out

The last piece is the workout. So many people want to solve the eating problem with the workout. It makes me crazy when I hear people say, “Last night was a bad night. I’m just going to sweat it out on the Stair Master. Or I’m going to not eat today” 🤦🏽‍♀️It makes me crazy when I hear that. You can’t outrun a bad diet. If you ate it, you own it, the end. You ate. You own it. Move on. I hope you enjoyed it, next.

Working out is not about, “I need to kill myself. I need to work so hard that I feel like my heart is going to pop out of chest. I need to work so hard that the next day getting off the toilet is hard for me.” No. I want you to focus on quality. I want you to say, “If I could get in three to four awesome workouts I’m winning.” Now, when I say awesome, it’s awesome for that day, because some days you feel like you could lift a Buick, other days scanning your card at the front desk is all that you can do. Each day you work out check in with your body and go with how your body feels on that given day.

And that’s how we’re going to flip dieting upside down. That’s how you’re going to break free of chasing skinny. That’s how you’re going to say, “I can live a happy life with an occasional cocktail and have cream in my coffee.” 🥰 It starts with having good habits, creating these small little habitual wins that are going to help you create routines. Having a great routine gives you the courage to keep going so that eventually you’re able to get this consistency.  And it’s the consistency that’s going to get you the results. It’s not these hit or miss endeavors that you do here and there and every once and a while it’s like, “What can I do on a day-in and day-out basis for the next five years for the rest of my life'”

Opening The Hood on 2018

So, here we, are we’re knocking on the door 2019. I just can’t believe it, like where did the year go’ I wanted to create a lifestyle audit, this is the time of year where we look back and ahead. Let’s check in to see if you’re looking at the right things. It’s time to do an audit, no one ever wants to be audited by the IRS, but the audit basically is the IRS’ way of saying, “You’re telling us you make a dollar, yet you’re living in a mansion, those things don’t line up. So, clearly there’s more going on, so we need to open up the hood and see what’s up.”

The first place to start when you conduct an audit is do you want, that’s the biggest step. I remember years ago when I was working with a coach and I was trying to create my business and be this awesome person, and her first question to me was, “What do you want'” And I was like, “What'” That question stopped me in the tracks. She quickly followed up with another gut punching question “How do you define success'”  “Wow, those are two really powerful questions.” 

Define Your Own Success

I find that most people don’t ask themselves those questions. They think about all the things that they want but not to this level that it says, “This is what I really want.” Some people think of, “This is what I should want.” We should want to grow up, get married, buy a house, 2.2 kids, a cat, a dog and a squirrel. But what if that’s not what you really want’ I remember when I was younger, I never really wanted to have children, it just never was like a thought for me. And I remember I would tell people this, and they would look at me like I said I worshiped the devil. It just wasn’t what I wanted.  How many people sleep walk through their life, going towards things they don’t want’ It doesn’t have to necessarily be kids, but it could be your dad told you to be a doctor, so you’re a doctor and you freaking hate it, or someone told you to be whatever and you hate it. I want you to take the time and say, “What it is that I want'” 

This is probably not be an overnight thing. Give it some serious thought.  You may have never took the time to sit down and think is this is what I want out of my life.” Because guess what’ We only get one turn around the planet before we’re done. Now, some of you might be like, “Oh, I got past lives.” That’s great, wonderful, rock out with your bad self. What are you doing with your current life now’

What are you doing with this life’ I’ve recently started following a guy named, Jesse Itzler. His claim to fame he owns the Atlanta Hawks now. He was talking on a podcast and he just turned 50. He told the interviewer , “I only have X amount of time left on this earth, and I want to make it count.” Now, some people might think about that as being morbid, or some people might look at that and go like, “It’s time to get to work, start to get some stuff done.” 

So that’s why you should take this lifestyle audit. I want you to like think to yourself, “The past is the past, the future is now, and it’s time for me to start taking some inventory so that I can live my best life versus just sleepwalking, trudging through my life.”

What’s Working’

First question, “What’s working'” What’s working in your life’ What’s working in your health’ What’s working in your work life’ What’s working with your relationships’ What’s working in your spirituality’ What’s working with your money’ Think about the big buckets in your life and just say, “What’s working'”

My husband and I were talking about the five love languages, (here is the link https://amzn.to/2S7oSpq) and I kind of straddle two love languages and one of mine is tokens of appreciation. If that man unloads the dishwasher, giddy as a schoolgirl. And so, I want you to think, even if it’s stuff like that, the little things, I want you to think of every little thing in those buckets that is going well. My husband knows that it makes me happy when he unloads the dishwasher, so he does it. And if I get him to go to the grocery store, he would be like a picture in the dictionary of good marriage, but I digress. So, what’s going right’ 

Of all the things that are going right, is there anything that can be modified’ Is there something that you could add a little tweak to’ Think of it like this – if you’re already eating really well, take a quick review and ask yourself  “could probably eat a little bit more protein.” So, that’s what I’m talking about for modification. Or if you’re going to the gym you might be like, “You know what needs to be modified’ Could you add in a 15-minute stretch at the end of your workouts.” Do you see what where I’m going with this’ So, the modifications aren’t these huge, big sweeping things, they’re just a little turns of the dial, little tweaks of what’s currently working well in your life.

It’s An Inside Job

Now you have your lists of things that need to be tweaked. The next step is “Why do I want it'” And I’ve talked about this several times, why’ Because when you know why, that’s your motivation. Because so many people say to me, “Oh, I’m waiting to be motivated, I’m waiting to be motivated.” Well, you have a better shot of the number one bus driving by than the motivation bus. That motivation bus and the willpower bus, they’re on the same track, they ain’t coming or at least not on a frequent schedule. So, I find that when you define what your why is, that’s your motivation, that’s what’s going to get you up and over any obstacle, any hurdle when you’re not feeling motivated. 

Dream Big

So, I want you to think about why do you want it and what needs to happen in order for you to make this change. This is it where I’d say don’t beat yourself, no telling yourself, “Oh I got to be a better person.” “Oh, I got to stop stuffing my face.” “Oh, I got to stop doing this.” No. This is where you do a brainstorm. If you’ve ever been in a corporate environment and you try to come up with new products or new ideas, it’s silly idea time and you just starting throwing out random things out, nothing is off-limits. It could be like, “Hey, I need a personal chef.” “Hey, I need a personal trainer to come to my house every day.” It could be all of that, silly idea time, just throw it out there, don’t worry about the feasibility of it just yet, we’re just trying to get our mind just empty of what’s possible to make this happen. Do you need a gym membership’ Do you need a peloton bike’ What do you need in order to make this happen’ Do you need a new planner’ Do you need to learn to cook’ Do you need to sleep more’ What are the things you need’

And once you exhaust your brain of all the things you need, then I want you to kind of break it down into A, B and C, where A, “This is totally possible, this is totally doable.” B, “This could be a stretch, but possible.” C, “It’s far-fetched. I need a unicorn to show up on my doorstep, and I’m going to ride that unicorn to the gym.” That’s C. But still put it down there because what I find is that sometimes even the craziest things get your brain thinking about ways to make it possible. I don’t know about the unicorn, but hey, if you see one take a picture, holla at your girl. 

Get Specific

And then now that we’ve kind of put it in a basket of, “This is what we want, this is what’s possible”, then ask yourself what do you want to achieve in the next 12 months’ What is it’ Take the time to be as specific as possible so that – I’m going to get a little woo-woo right here – the universe likes specificity, the universe wants you to slap it upside the head and say, “I want it to be a purple unicorn coming down the street.” It wants you to be specific so that way you start to visualize, you start to see it happening and unfolding in your mind and so that you’re bringing and drawing these options into your world. Now, I know for some people you’re like, “Girl.” Trust me, three years ago if you would have said the same thing to me, I would have said, “So you have a medical marijuana card, don’t you'” I totally get it.

Universal Experiments

I’m going to give you an example of how my mind went in a complete 360 and I started really believing in this. My mindset was in the crapper three/four years ago. I was working with a coach and she was helping me to adjust my mindset. And so, she had me read this book, called E-Cubed, (here is the link to the book https://amzn.to/2EzTQn4) In the book it gives you little examples of how to test that what you think about you can bring it to your existence. 

So, it’s February and I’m reading the book and it says, “Over the next several days I want you to focus on seeing cars the color of the sun, and purple feathers and butterflies.” As I’m reading it I’m rolling my eyes.  Cars the color of the sun, I got that.” But I’m like, “Butterflies’ It’s February in Boston; good luck with that.” So, I’m like, “All right, I’m going to put it out there.” I’m looking for butterflies, I’m looking for cars the color of the sun and I’m looking for purple feathers.” I’m going on with my days and not giving much thought to this mindset test. About four days later I’m watching TV, and what floats across the screen in a movie that I’m watching’ BUTTERFLIES. I was speechless, and to get me to be speechless, that’s a lot.   

I let go of the how. I was expecting to see a physical butterfly fly in front of my face, but what I did see was a butterfly on TV. So, I was specific, I needed to see a butterfly, so it happened. I tell you this story because I want you to be open to that type of possibility.

Break It Down

One big take away from that book is what you think about you can bring about. Yes, at times it can feel daunting, so can runing a marathon you’re like, “Oh my god, 26.2 miles, 26.2 miles is so far, that’s so far. Instead of thinking about the full marathon, break it down mile by mile by mile. If I want to run a marathon in six months, I’m going to take my mileage and I’m going to back it up, and so each month I’m going to increase my mileage till I’m at the point where I’m going to be running 26 miles.” So, let’s just say the first month I want to get to a point where I’m running five miles, and then I’m running 10 miles. So, the first month I’m running a total of five miles, that five miles will be my longest run. Then the following month I’m working up to running 10 miles, then the following month I’m working up to running 15 miles. And then following month I’m working up to running 20 miles. So, you see, I’m doing incremental work, but I’ve broken down my goal into six phases of running. And so, then from there I’m like if it’s five miles, then I take that five miles and say, “What do I need to do each week'” And I just focus on the week, and then just say, “This is my goal for the week.”

Approaching your goals like this gives you small wins. Small wins make me feel so motivated. Here is the motivation that we just talked about. You’re waiting for this big bucket of motivation to fall on you like the ice bucket challenge. Motivation, I want you to think of it as an annoying leak that just keeps drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. You don’t know where it’s coming from, you just hear it all the time, that’s what I want motivation to be, because I want you to think about motivation as a layer, it just layers and it just keeps building, keeps building, keeps building upon itself. And then the more you win, the more you’ll want to try new things, so that you get in the game and stay in the game. 

Specific Is Key

You want your goals to be very specific. What I said is a marathon, we know a marathon is 26.2 miles. A lot of times I find clients, they’ll set these wishy-washy goals, and they’ll say, “I want to be toned.” Well, I don’t know what toned is, toned is soap from the 80’s, that’s all I know of toned. I don’t know what toned looks like. When you set a goal, I want it to be so specific that any random person walking down the street says, “Oh, that’s exactly what you want to do’ I know what that is.” I want you think of it as if I was driving somewhere, I wouldn’t say, “Oh I’m heading to Boston.” Boston is a big flipping city. I want to drop a pin on Boylston Street in front of the Apple store on Boylston Street, that’s where I’m going. That’s what I want you to think about, that’s where I’m going. How do you know how far you are going’ And how do you know how far you’ve come’ I want you to look back sometimes at how far you’ve come as a way to say to yourself, “Holy, moly, I’m doing this, I’m getting some stuff done up in here.” And I also want you to have that pin to know how far you have to go as a way determine if you may need to adjust your goal, but sometimes you might have to look at yourself and say, “Do I got a little bit more gas in the tank'” And then you can either stomp on the gas or reassess where you are.

Don’t Quit

I’m okay with making adjustments. Adjustments are necessary, but what I don’t like is this imaginary measuring stick of feeling that you’re behind. I don’t know how many times I hear people say, “I’m behind.” And I’m like, “Behind what’ Who are you racing'” If you’re in a marathon maybe you’re racing somebody, maybe you’re racing yourself, I don’t know. But in life who are you racing’ Who are you racing in life that makes you say you’re behind’

I go to spin class at Flywheel. I’ve been taking the class for five years, and for five years I go, and they have what they call the torque board. Basically, everyone in the class, if you choose to participate, you go up on this board and it shows how you’re doing compared to everyone else in the class. And I don’t use that board as comparison, I use that board as my personal benchmarks. Over the last five years I haven’t made it on the board very much. Riding a bike is just not my thing. I go because my husband enjoys it and it’s one of our things we do together, it’s like one of our dates, so we spin. We ride next to each other, we don’t talk to each other, that’s a date. So, last week I go, and I don’t know, perhaps you should have tested my pee, I don’t know, but I was like lights out on that day. I was top eight in the overall class of 30 bikes including men and women, and I won six out of the seven races, like who am I’

Five years ago, if I would have said to myself, “I suck at spinning, I’m never coming to class” and I put out my crazy imaginary measuring stick, I would have totally taken myself out of the game. But I just kept trying, I kept going. Eventually I saw that even though I’m not on the board regularly, I’ve seen how my consistency in showing up has helped to improve  my spinning.

It reminds me that had I put up that imaginary measuring stick that says, “Oh my god,  I don’t get 500 points every class, so I shouldn’t even go.” Or, “Hey, I’m going to go but I’m not even going to go on the board.” 

Most people will take themselves out of the game before they even get a shot at the play. 

And I think it’s Michael Jordan that says, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” So, if you don’t know anything about sports, I know you know who Michael Jordan is. He’s one of the greatest; he’s going to go down as probably in the top five of basketball players of all time. He claims the reason why he was so successful, he just took the shot his mindset was I can’t score unless I shoot the ball.

Please break free of that imaginary measuring stick that you’re behind. You’re only behind if you don’t go, you’re only behind if you don’t try, you’re only behind if you stop. So, keep going my loves, keep going.

Routine Matters

What does your routine look like’ So, we’ve come through, we’ve got all these goals, we’ve got everything that we want. What does the routine look like’ And the big thing is – and I will say this until I’m blue in the face – routines create habits, habits create consistency, consistency creates results. Now, I’m going to say that again: routines create habits, habits create consistency, consistency creates results. Now, through that equation, did you see anything about perfection’ No. It was routine. So, I want you when you’re going through, what can (you I’m going to make this word up) routinize’ What can you turn into a routine’

For me, getting up in the morning, I need to work out in the morning, that’s just what I need to do, it needs to happen in the morning before I get derailed with my day. But in order for me to work out in the morning, I have to lay out my clothes the night before.  When I was a kid my mom used to make me lay out my clothes every night before I went to bed, and I HATED IT. Now, that’s what I do so I can get up and out.

If you’re getting up at 5:00am the last thing on your mind is wanting to pick out what you’re going to wear to go to the gym. I pick out my clothes, down to my underwear so, that all I need to do in the morning is just focus on brushing my teeth, washing my face and putting those clothes on. I’ve heard of some folks actually sleeping in their clothes in order to get to the gym on time, it’s totally up to you, I’m going to leave that in your hands.

Acknowledge The Obstacles

I’m going to leave you with, “What is your biggest obstacle'”

Routines’

What’s some thing that could jam you up, trip you up’ Because here is where I want you to start to think about your plan B’s, maybe even your plan C’s. So, how are you going to go over, under or push right through those obstacles’

Shit is going to happen, so I’d rather be forearmed for that.  So, think about the Boy Scouts, always be prepared. And then who is going to support you’ 

I help women to have the courage to break free of the rules that keep them from living the life of infinite possibilities.  These are the types of strategies I share in my Facebook Group.

At this time of year everywhere you turn you see lose weight by doing this, and burn more fat by doing this and do forget you need to up your cardio with this new gadget that can be yours for three easy payments.  I’ve been listening to a lot of different podcasts and reading a lot of different things and getting all kinds of fired up!

Bogus Fear Factor

We’ve just finished the weekend of Black Friday into Cyber Monday. A lot of folks are selling you diets and weight loss and these all have this fear factor. And it just made me think of that TV show Fear Factor except for you don’t win any money.

Are you someone who hopes and pray that something different will happen in your body overnight. You look at other people on Instagram, Facebook, all the socials and you’re like, “How come so and so can do this but I can’t'” You internalize it and it makes you feel like a loser. And I don’t say this to junk punch you; I say this because as soon as you recognize that, you can change it. 

And I know for me how long could I feel frustrated before I make a change. I say this because five years ago I felt like I was getting fatter and despite how clean I ate, despite how hard I worked out nothing changed. I go to my doctor and she’s like, “Well girl, you can’t have the body of a 25 year old.” That almost made me want to throttle her, but I didn’t want to be on the news, because I know that my husband would not bail me out.

So, I get you, I know what it’s like to look in the mirror and think, “I’m at my wit’s end, I have no idea what else to do.” And it’s even more frustrating for me because I’m a fitness professional and I’m pulling “all the levers I pull with my clients and they’re getting freaking amazing results, and here’s me, with nothing so show for me efforts so how do I have any credibility’”

How do you look at me and be like, “How is she going to help me'”

Magic Numbers

The other challenge that I see with clients is that they want to hit this magical goal weight. When they hit – insert your magical goal weight – I don’t know, dogs are going to fly from the sky, monkeys are going to fly. It is just going to be like manna from heaven, life is just going to just open up for you! When you walk by ATMs they’re just going to spit out hundreds. Well, I got to tell you, so many people fist fight to get to this particular weight that they just made up in their head.

I have a client who for years (years!) She’s like, “Hey girl, 138, I’ve got to hit 138.” Or, “I just need to hit 138.” And I always ask, “Why’ What’s at 138′” And she’s like, “Well, I just want to feel my best.” And I asked, “When was the last time you were at 138′” And she’s like, “Well, college.”

She’s 40 now, I’m sorry, college was a long time ago, college was 20 years ago, why are you chasing a 20-year-old goal’ It’s like if I were an Olympian, would I be chasing a 20-year-old record, or would I be chasing the most current record’

I’m going to chase the most current record! 

To give you a little background she was a client on and off for several years. Each time she didn’t hit that 138 goal in a few months, she’d get frustrated and quit and then come back saying this time she was ready to commit. Does this sound like you’

Back in the day…

I challenge you to break up with the “back in college” or “before my last kid” (and your kids now in college), “I weighed X”, because the scale only measures your relationship to gravity — that’s it! There are so many other factors that go into the scale weight and weight loss. It’s not about the calories in and calories out. Take the step back and say, “I have to honor where I am, then I can move forward.”

Trust me, I have the patience of a gnat; I want what I want. And I want it right FUCKING now! But I’ve had to temper it, and really get methodical about my approach because the haphazard approach doesn’t work. I see it all the time:  January first, millions of people flock to the gyms.
I also see all the hundreds of people who flock to my class before – insert the vacation, insert the long weekend.

And then they’re like a bad penny, nothing changes, it’s like a revolving door.

“Hey girl, I got to get fit in the next four weeks.”  Good luck with that!

“Hey girl, I got to get fit for this upcoming weekend.” Good luck with that!

I don’t say this to be rude. I say this because your body isn’t like a cake, like, “Hey, there’s a birthday, I’m going to make a quick cake.” That’s not how your body works. Your body is like… have you ever seen those giant container ships filled with all the containers with a variety of goods heading to market’ And in order to make that ship turn I just can’t whip the wheel, I have to slowly, slowly turn the wheel so that I don’t have all those containers fall off. I don’t get to top-heavy and have the whole ship capsized. There has to be in a methodical approach. And the same thing comes to when you’re going from fat to fit, it is a methodical approach. Because how many times are you going to go down this road’

Disney is just a dream

Going from fat to fit isn’t like going to Disney where you have people who go every year. I don’t know about you, but I only want to travel down that road once. You have to suck it up and realize that there are going to be some good days, there are going to be some bad days, and there are going to be some days that you’re just kicking the wall screaming profanities. And that’s okay, because it’s a learning process. The more you learn, the more you’re able to make it a lifestyle. The more you’re able to make it a lifestyle, the more you’re breaking up with the whole idea of being a dieter. If we were just using pure vocabulary, “Diet is what I eat” — the end.

It’s not your worth.

It’s not about your weight.

It’s not about how much your partner loves or doesn’t love you and not how much your kids love you.

It’s not about if you’re good at your job. It has nothing to do with that.

A diet is what you eat.

Here is where we start. I help my clients break it down to the simple things, take all the emotions out of it, take all the feelings out of it, and focus on where you where you want to go.

Get out of the zone

A good coach helps you to take the emotion out of your goals. Because trust me, I’m emotional about me. I think I am the bee’s knees. You think you’re the bee’s knees. And when it comes to making changes and getting out of my comfort zone and doing things differently, I’m going to protect my comfort zone like a pit bull protects its master. I don’t want to make those changes. But I also have to look down the road and say, “If I don’t change, nothing changes.”

That’s the mantra that I keep saying, because you can’t feel like a prisoner in your own body anymore, you’ve got to work between your ears harder than you work your body, because it is the stuff between your ears that’s going to drive what you do with your body and how you eat. Because we don’t eat with our body, we eat with our brain.

Right now I’m sitting in a café that is right across the street from McDonald’s. McDonald’s — their French fries! Tell me, do they not smell like, “OMG, I need to go in there and I need to get them supersized. I remember the taste of the French fries, the salt, the right salt-to-fat ratio, and, “Oh my god! Do I want ketchup, or do I want sweet and sour sauce'” So, all of a sudden I’m romanticizing French fries.

But I know that those French fries go right to my ass, so I need to like pull up. My logical brain is a little slow on the go and starts talking saying “Hey girl, you know you’re trying to get yourself to Hawaii in April and that’s not really going to get you there.” Sometimes people just mute that voice of reason and run right in and grab those fries and maybe a milk shake.

Make Shift Happen

How do you start to make this mindset shift. Let me be very clear, it’s not overnight thing, it will take work. I wish it was like a light switch that I could be like, “You’re going to read this blog post, and you’re going to ride off into the sunset and everything is going to be like the end of a fairy tale.” I would be lying to you if I told you that.

As I read through these tips and tricks and hacks I want you to pick one that feels easy, I want you to be a winner. I don’t want you to pick something that’s going to make you feel hard and sets up you up to fail.  

The biggest thing is the food rules. Every single time I start working with someone or I see them on Facebook or somewhere it’s like nails on a chalkboard to me. “What’s the good food list'”

Well, you all know what the good foods are. You know it. So why do I have to give you a list’ You know that those McDonald’s French fries are not going to be on that list. You know ice cream is not going to be on that list. You know those sugary coffee drinks are not going to be on that list.

So why do you need a list’ 

Instead, come up with what your non-negotiables are going to be. I don’t think anyone should feel deprived. So what are the one to three things that you want to have. For me it’s my coffee!! Even if it goes on the bad food list I’m still going to have coffee. And I always say to my clients, It’s my non-negotiable. I’m not going to give up coffee. I drink coffee every day with cream and sugar. I don’t drink it all day, I have my two cups of coffee everyday guilt free.

I’ve learned that when you make those food rules too tight you want to cheat on them. And trust me, I lived in this box for a really long time, and when I opened up the box it was like freaking Pandora’s box, I went nutso. And so, now that I’ve put some structured flexibility around my food, I don’t lose my shit around cake, I don’t lose my shit around sugary things. It’s like I’ll have a couple bites and I’m okay. But when I put certain foods on the “naughty” list, I lost my shit.  So, you have to know where your head is at. Are you one of those people who could have a few and be okay’ Are you those people who like you restrict and then you open the lid, you boil over and you go cuckoo’ 

Pareto’s (Food) Principle

My ultimate goal for everyone women is to have them making eating healthy a lifestyle, and if you’ve been following me for a while, I’m a big 80/20 proponent, like that’s my jam. 80% of everything I eat is clean, it’s unprocessed; 20% are fun foods.

And let’s be honest, at my age no one is going to call me right now at 10pm and be like, “Hey girl, do you want to go out'” Because if you call me after 6:00 pm on most days my bra is off and I’m in my PJ’s, so you better be bleeding from the eye to get me out of my house after 6:00pm. So, for the most part I know when my fun is going to happen, and I can make a plan for it. 

Today is my husband’s birthday, we’re going to have cake. Saturday we’re actually going out to celebrate his birthday, that’s another time I’m going to have a treat meal, everything else is going to be a normal week.

Plan for success

Each week I go into it with a plan. It’s really funny because most people think of me as a planner, in fact there are many parts of my life where I am a straight up winger.

I don’t even know if that’s a word. Is that a word’ I don’t know, we’re using it. I was a winger for my food, and I just let it happen. And when you let food happen that’s when you run across the street and get those French fries, that’s when you run across the street and you get that muffin and then a few hours later you’re like, “Why am I so hungry'” and you start eating more and more crap.

When you plan your meals, I’m not saying you have to be Martha Stewart. I’m not saying you have to be this anal-retentive freak. I sit down on every Saturday before I go to the grocery store and flip through Pinterest, and I make things simple. I’m a big crock-pot girl, it can be an instapot, whatever, but I just like to set it and forget it. And at least a couple times a week I throw in something in it, and what I like to do is take half of it and we eat it, and the other half I throw in the freezer so that a week that I don’t have the time to cook, there’s something waiting for me and my husband.

This month I’m traveling a lot. I won’t have as much flexibility as I normally do, so I’m going to crock a lot of things in the next few days and half of it is going to go in the freezer so that all I have to do is take that bag out and thaw it, throw it in the microwave and we have dinner.

I want to make things as quick and simple and easy as possible, because I know what it’s like to come home after working and eight-plus hour job, plus the commute and having to come home, open the fridge and be like, “What, are we going to eat'” And then being so hungry that anything that’s not nailed down you’re eating while you cook dinner. When I have a plan, I know what food I’m going to come home to, what’s going to go in the oven, this is what’s going to go on the stove and presto, change-o 30/45 minutes later I have dinner on the table.

Prep for Success

I’m a big proponent of those home meal prep kits, even if you do it a couple times a week. If you hate going to the grocery store it’s right there, they’ve pre-measured, they’ve pre-done everything for you. Depending on your level of cooking you could find ones that you don’t even have to chop stuff. You just open up the bag, throw it in the oven or throw it in a pot, or whatever.

So, I challenge you to at least come up with a menu. I’m not saying that you have to meal prep, I’m not saying any of that. I’m saying baby steps. The first thing is figure out what it is that you’re going to eat, because food is the easiest thing for you to manage. If you’ve noticed, I haven’t talked about going to the gym. I haven’t talked about what to eat. I haven’t talked about anything. I’m talking about how you set yourself up for success.

Quality over quantity

And the biggest thing I’ve also found is that this whole calorie counting or macro counting. I did the macro thing, it made me bonkers. I’m surprised I’m not in the fetal position; I hated it. And I also saw, how obsessive those numbers have made some people get.

I remember I had a client when I used to give macros to my clients, and she had it balanced to the penny. She would have like 1/16 of a piece of asparagus in order to get her carbs to hit the number. I was like, “That’s just too much, it’s just too much.”

It’s the same thing with calories. Now, I’m not saying calories don’t have a place, that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is it makes me crazy when you go to your medical doctor and you tell them that you want to lose weight and they give you a piece of paper and say, “Hey Suzy, you need to follow a X thousand calorie plan.” Our body isn’t a math equation, it’s not like X plus Y gives you Z. It is like a solving an Einstein-type equation.

Yes, calories matter, but it’s what’s in the calorie, because 100 calories of cookies is not the same as 100 calories of chicken. So that’s where I struggle with the calorie thing. Focusing on counting calories breaks it down, making it seem like every calorie you take in is being processed by your body in the same fashion. So, I always tell people to look at the quality of the food first then look at the calories.

If you’re eating quality food… no one ever got fat eating thousands of calories of broccoli. I challenge you to eat thousands of calories of broccoli, you’ll probably explode from all the fiber, but I’ve never heard anyone overeat kale, broccoli, or green beans. You could overeat cookies way easier than you could overeat any of those things.

I challenge you to expand beyond calories and look at what are making up those calories and break free of trying to do a math equation, because especially for us ladies there’s so many other processes that go into us gaining or losing the weight.

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau

And the last thing I really want to stress as you kind of start to make this turn in your mindset is instant success, instant results. I always like to use this example – have you ever saved for a home or vacation’ Or you saved money for a while and every week a little here, a little there and eventually you enough for what you were saving for. It took time.

But we expect to lose 20 pounds in at least 30 days. I challenge that thinking because how long did it take you to put on the 20 pounds’ It didn’t happen overnight, it was a gradual process. And what comes off gradually, stays off; what comes off quickly comes back and they bring some friends with them. 

It’s time for a break up!

So, how do you break up with this quick fix’ I want you to give yourself a longer range, because the longer range I give you or you give yourself, the more likely you are to have success. And so, I challenge you to say yourself, “Do I want success’ Do I want long-term success'” And I’m sick and tired of being this revolving door of weight-loss that you have multiple sizes of clothes in your closet because depending on the time of year what you can fit into. Wouldn’t you rather be size stable and only have one set of clothes, you don’t have fat clothes, you don’t have skinny clothes, you don’t have in-between clothes, you have clothes in your closet. And that way you know you could open up that closet and be like, “I can go to any section of my closet and not just focus on the fat section, just focus on the skinny section.” Come on, please tell me some of you have those same sections in your closet.

And if you do have that skinny section, I want you to be honest with yourself. Are you ever going to be back down to a size two’ Now, I say this not to say that it’s not possible, I say this because if you were a size two back in college and you’re 50, it might not happen for you. I recommend just getting rid of that, because that is another mental mind game that’s just going to make you cuckoo. I’d rather you focus on something that’s attainable.

If you’re a size 12 right now, let’s focus on getting down to a size eight. If you can hit a size eight and live there and be comfortable without deprivation, then we can start to move down the food chain. But just always going in the closet looking at your size 12’s and looking at your size two, that just punches you in the face, and why do you want to just punch yourself in the face’ 

To wrap up, the biggest thing I want you to leave here with is, what’s going to give you

consistency’ And I did a whole show on consistency, but I think its time to dust that off and bring it back.

Long-term change takes time; it is what it is. But what I know is that you have to make it a priority. You can’t put yourself on a shelf for the holidays because it’s a busy time. You can’t put yourself on the shelf then expect to pick up right where you left off, because your body doesn’t work that way.

What I do know is that it takes great routines. Routines build habits, habits build consistency, and consistency builds results; that’s what I know. And I know that it starts with having a great resolve, so what I challenge you to do is to look at your routines.

If you’re sick of looking in the mirror and not liking what you see, I challenge you to look at the routines. I challenge you to pick one to three routines that you don’t need to change, or you can add between now and the end of the year, so that when 2019 rolls around you have already started to hit the ground running, you’re not taking the next four-ish weeks off and just saying, “2019, it’s magical, I’m just going to start all over again.” I call BS, because you’re not just going to magically wake up on January 1st and your life is going to be different; you need to start that ball rolling right now. 

So, if you’re over 40 and you need a little kick start or a guide, go to bit.ly/over40guide, and I give you some great tips and hacks.

Stop the pressure on yourself

Right now everyone is talking holidays, everyone is talking about how to survive. This is what I want to know. Why do we put so much pressure on ourselves during this time of year’ What happens to the other periods of time where there is always a holiday, there is food and so forth’

So, I wanted to give you 40 tips that can go across the entire year, 40 tips that you could do a tip a week and get you through the year. And as always, when I share tips with you it’s not for you to say, “Oh my god, I gotta do it all, and I can’t.”

Watch the replay right here. 

It’s time to get started

And I want you to think about this – as I go through the tips say to yourself, “That sounds like something I can do right now.” And as you go through it and you get a few of them, and I’m hoping that out of the 40, you get several that you’re like, “Yes, I can do that.” Once you have that “I can do that” list, I want you to say, “What can I do starting now'”

Most people are, “I’m going to wait till Monday.” Well, stop that, why don’t we wait till then’ With the 40 tips I’m giving you there is something that you can start doing TODAY. The beauty of all of these tips are that, a lot of the things that I’m giving you are not rocket science. I also come at it a couple of different ways for you to make it kind of simpler and easier.

Stop Eating the Same Foods

The first thing is rethink your nutrition. And I know that can be a challenge for some people because we are creatures of comfort; we like what we like. Some of the things we have been eating for so many years we don’t know how not to eat it. And to make that shift would just be a lot for us. And I get it.

There are a lot of my clients that when we hit a certain age your body just starts to reject, or maybe your body has been rejecting it for a really long time and you just didn’t know that your body was rejecting it. You just thought that everyone gets bloated after they have dairy, or everyone gets bloated after they have Nightshade.

So, I always challenge my clients, “Let’s do some experimentation, let’s get some variety into your food.” Because then you will be able to know when you have some food sensitivities without having to spend globs of money on those tests. So, the first thing I want you to think about is rethink your nutrition.

This time of the year I know it’s a little bit more challenging because not as many fruits and vegetables are coming in season. We’re kind of at the tail end of the harvest, but I challenge you to go in and try something new. And there are a lot of great new squashes that you maybe have not had. Go in there, try a new squash, try a new vegetable, try a new fruit, try something. Because if you go to the grocery store and all you eat are blueberries, or all you eat are apples you are not getting any biodiversity (a big word to say variety) in your food. So, I challenge you to go in and try one new thing every single week when you go to the grocery store.

It Is Easy Being Green

The second big thing is green vegetables. The beautiful thing about green vegetables, especially for us ladies, is that it helps us the balance our hormones. They help us to excrete the excess estrogen. And for most of us, that excess estrogen is what causes us to get that kind of 40-belly, that puffiness, that extra fluff that a lot of us feel that we have on us. And so, I challenge you to fill half your plate, at least 2/3 of meals with green vegetables.

It could be spinach, broccoli, Swiss chard, kale. Kale is not the end-all-be-all, and if you are like, “I hate me some kale”, it doesn’t have to be kale – Swiss chard, a myriad of lettuces, collard greens, turnip greens, beet greens, they’re out there, and just dive head-first into them.

Don’t Ditch (All) The Fats

The other thing is good fats. For those women of 40, back in the late ’80s, early ’90s you ran from fat like it was the Devil. Now we have realized that it’s not all fats, it is just a handful of fats that cause artery-clogging issues. And it’s not just peanut butter, it’s not just olive oil, it’s not just almonds. So just like number one, I challenge you to add variety to your good fat oils.

I want you to go into any quality grocery store and go into the oil aisle and there are just rows and rows and rows of oil. And I want you to pick any oil, with the exception of corn, soy, vegetable, canola. Those are the four that I don’t want you to try. Every other oil I want you to grab it, and I want you to try to bathe in that thing. (I’m kidding about the bathing.) 

The thing about good fats

As we age, we start to lose the collagen production in our skin and our skin becomes dryer, especially this time of year if you live in a northern climate. The moisture is just sucked right out of the air. So, for us ladies of a certain age, the more moisture we have in our skin we look ageless, we have great skin complexion, makeup goes on nice and smoothly, our hands don’t look like old ladies’ hands, we have nice smooth, supple skin. And when you have nice, smooth, supple skin, you don’t look old.

And who wants to look like an old lady’ No one does!

Be selective about your treats

I love treats. I love wine. But I need to be selective. And I have a 3-bite rule – after three bites if it doesn’t blow my hair back, it’s not for me. Especially at this time of year because, if you work in a corporate environment, I feel like every vendor on the planet says, “Hey, I’m going to send every office on the planet a tub of whatever fattening food.” And then it stays out on someone’s desk and as you go by you grab a handful, you grab a handful, you grab a handful, and then you don’t even realize whether you’ve had 40 handfuls or if you had four handfuls.

So, I want you to just be selective. I want you to be mindful of what you’re eating for your treats and schedule them out. Let’s be honest, most of us already know what our weeks look like. Most of us know primarily what our months look like. So, I want you to say, “Thanksgiving is coming so that’s going to be a cheat day. Not a gluttonous day, but I’m going to have some treats and it’s going to be okay and we are going to wake up the next day and it’s not going to be about “burning it off.”

It’s just going to be about ‘Hey, I enjoyed some great conversations with my family’ or ‘Hey, my family didn’t make me so crazy, they didn’t make me so nutzo.'” So, I want you to think about those kinds of things, focus on the event versus making the food the main event.

Move your body at least 30 minutes

Now, so many people get caught up with exercise thinking that every workout has to be kick ass workout, “If I can’t lift my arms to wash my hair the next day then I failed. And I need to get to CrossFit 40 times a week, and I got to do this, this and this.” And we make this laundry list of must dos in order to consider myself healthy and fit.

For a lot of my clients I challenge them just to get up and walk out their front door for 30 minutes, because sometimes that’s all you’ve got. And if you’re not feeling that walk, or if it’s cold out or if it’s raining outside, throw on a YouTube video. There are dozens of them on demand, a million ways that you can work out at home. And trust me, I used to be one of those people that thought I had to go to the gym in order to get a good workout, and if my workout wasn’t two hours then why workout’ Yes, I had that craziness going on.

Four years ago, we had a really bad winter and it snowed pretty much every other day. In order for me to go to the gym I was literally shoveling out my car to go to the gym, shoveling out my car when I was at a gym, shoveling out my car to go to work, and that was just way too much shoveling. So, I started working out at home and I found that I really enjoyed it. It was a way for me to just roll out of bed, put on some workout clothes and not care how I looked, walk down in my basement and I could get in a 30-minute quick, fast workout without much muss or fuss.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way

So, I challenge you to find something that you like. If you like going to the gym and you need that motivation, go to the gym. But if there are days that you just can’t do it, there are plenty of things that you can do at home without much equipment and just get stuff done. I always encourage my clients if you can go to Marshalls or Target or one of those stores and buy just two dumbbells and a kettlebell and a jump rope, my goodness, you can just have yourself a good sweaty old mess of a time. So, just think about what are ways that you like to move your body’ Is it yoga’ What is it’

Know your triggers

Be aware of trigger foods. I like treats and we’ve talked about that, but sometimes we pick treats that make us lose our stuff. If I buy ice cream for home, I know that I’m not going to be like, “I’m just going to have two bites and I’m good.” I’m going to have the whole whatever it is, gallon, pint. Whatever size I buy, the more I buy, the more I’m going to eat. And I’m going to be like a goldfish, I’m going to eat until I explode. And so, what I found is any of those foods, peanuts or any nut, if I have it in my house it’s like I can’t stop eating it.

So, I challenge you if you have those food that you can’t stop eating, sister girl, there is not enough willpower on the planet, so stop relying on willpower because willpower will slap you upside the head and leave you on the side of the road. I challenge you to say, “You know what, I don’t even want to tap into my willpower, I’m just going to leave that on the shelf.” And if there are foods that are brought into your house, they must go. When people come to my house for say Thanksgiving or Christmas, I send people home with food, I’m just like, “Hey, it just can’t be here. I don’t need this in our house, here you go, rock on with your bad self.” And I just get it out of my house, and that way there’s no temptation, there’s no me trying to have willpower, there’s no me having guilt. I have too much going on up in my head to think about guilt and the would-haves, the could-haves, and the should-haves.

Watch and learn

And I know this next one is tough for a lot of people, it’s tough for me too, but food log. If you keep a food log it keeps you honest.  and also if you’re working with a coach it also is a way for the coach to be able to say… If you find yourself hungry or craving, it’s a way for us (a coach) to play detective so that I can go through your food log and I can see particular foods that might not be satisfying that. Or maybe you’re eating a little too much of something that is triggering your cravings, and so I could easily be able to I like where you should change things up.

The other thing is that it makes you own your stuff. It makes you look back at the ugly truth or the pretty truth and own up and fess up like, “I had too much of those handful of popcorn walking past the receptionist desk, too much of that peppermint bark.” That food log keeps you honest, it shows you what’s going on.

I don’t want people to look at the food log as a way to beat themselves up, that food log is a way for you to just own your shit, a way for you to look back and say, “Every day at 4:00pm, I find myself at that dang vending machine, and every day I punch in A4, and I don’t know, how those peanut M&Ms just happen to jump out into my hand.” Then we can trace back and say maybe you’re not eating enough food so that at 4:00pm the Hungry Henrietta comes out. Or maybe at 4:00pm you have a meeting with someone you don’t like, so this is your way of coping.

A food log helps a myriad of things, it’s just more telling, it helps to create the story. I love CSI, and if you think about it, they would walk into the crime scene and they would figure out who killed Colonel Mustard with the knife, and that’s what a food log does, it helps you to kind of go back and kind of dissect what’s happening in and around your world.

Stress-free, guilt-free

The other thing is to reduce the stress in your life. Whenever I hear people say, “That’s just how my life is; my life is just stress”, I just say, “Girl, I feel for you, that’s sad if you think that your life is meant to be a stress ball.” And I challenge my clients to find ways to reduce their stress.

One of the first ways I challenge my clients to reduce their stress is to say no. Especially at this time of the year it’s really easy to overcome it, it’s really easy to be the Yes Man, it’s really easy to try to be that Perfect Pam who can do it all – you’re breastfeeding your kid, making dinner while balancing your budget and being a rock star at work. I know that’s how we were raised, that we could do it all and be it all, but sometimes you just got to say no. Sometimes you’ve got to say. “You know what, I’ve got too many balls up in the air, I can’t” and not feel guilty about it. 

Delegate your stressors

One of my mentors says no is a complete sentence. And when she said that it was so freeing because I was that person who tried to do 500 things and if I couldn’t do 500 things in a day I was like, “So many other people can do it, how come I can’t do it'” And that “no” really helped me to just reign in what was in my wheelhouse, what was my strength, and what wasn’t my strength, what I should delegate.

It can be something as simple as if you are supposed to bake cookies for the bake sale. Nobody said you’ve got to make them from scratch, you can go pick them up at the bakery. That saves you, I don’t know, an hour. And I want you to think about those little things – grocery shopping, do you physically have to go to the grocery store’ Or can you make it simple, can you use some type of online delivery service’ And I know the online delivery service that I use here in Boston is awesome. I can just schedule it for when I want them to show up, and they show up at my house, bring it up the stairs into my kitchen, the only thing they don’t do is put away the groceries. And if they did that, I would probably have them move in and see if they would cook for me.

Take a hike (or just go for a stroll)

Add walks into your life. And not power walking, these are just nice long, leisurely walks. Nice, long leisurely walks help to bring our sympathetic nervous system online, it helps to tell our body that it’s okay to chill out. And despite as much evolution as we have, certain systems in our body – especially that fight or flight response – still think that we are living in the caves. And the stress of getting an unexpected car bill or the stress of your boss dumping work on you, our body goes into that fight or flight. And when you go into walks of nature it tells your body that “Hey, we can chill out, we don’t need to be waiting for that saber tooth tiger, we’re not going to be sprinting to save our lives, and let’s just deep breath, let it in, let it out.”

Increase your fiber

If you’ve heard all the commercials, we need to increase our fiber. One, we should regularly go to the bathroom and this is probably something that people don’t openly talk about, but we’re going there. You should regularly go to the bathroom, and when I say go to the bathroom, I’m talking poop, you should at least once a day. And if you’re not, then I want you to check two things,

1) the amount of water that you’re drinking, because if you’re dehydrated, you’re 90% likely to be constipated, and when you’re constipated it’s like cement, it’s not coming out.

2) increase the amount of fiber that you have.

So, I challenge you that if you’re constipated to increase your water and fiber. Those off-the-shelf products have a place and a time, but I challenge you not to use them on a regular basis in order to make you go. If you’re not going on a regular basis there is some type of digestive issue that’s happening, and I challenge you to start to get to the root cause of that digestive issue. The reason why I talk about the root cause being digestive issues is that so many of our hormones, our immune system, are all made in our guts, and when we don’t explore our gut health it’s just like a domino. Kind of like that song – “the shin bone is connected to the knee bone, the knee bone is connected to the hip.” It’s totally that.

So, if we don’t have a good gut health and we’re not expelling the waste, that’s how we get rid of a lot of the excess hormones in our body, that’s how we get rid of our excess dead cells, so we have a lot of waste products floating around. And when we have a lot of excess waste products floating around, we get inflammation, and that inflammation makes us look puffy, and we all know that puffiness is not a good thing.

I’ve got one more for you, and again, I’ve put the rest of the tips on my website just to make it easier for you guys. You can go to bit.ly/40tipsover40.

One of my favorite over the counter Fiber products.

HIIT it!

The last one is HIIT exercise. We were raised in the aerobics age where you just like went as hard as you could for 60+ minutes, or you went out for a run, or you hopped on the elliptical for 40 minutes.

I challenge you to do shorter intense duration of exercise, so that you’re pushing hard for maybe one to two minutes and catching your breath, pushing hard one to two minutes, catching your breath, pushing hard one to two minutes, catching your breath.

That has been found to be the most effective exercise for us ladies. That can be done on any piece of cardio equipment, with kettlebells, or battle ropes. You can do a variety a great metabolic HIIT exercises without a lot of equipment.

I know that a lot of you hear that when you hit a certain age and your body just basically gives you the finger, that you’re supposed to settle. Well, I’m not a girl who settles, and I had that very same thing happened to me.

My doctor told me that that’s just how it is, and I should eat less carbs. Well, that’s a piece of the puzzle, but there is more to it when you hit 40. There are some tweaks, there are some changes that need to be made, but they don’t need to be drastic changes.

It requires you to be a little bit more mindful in your food choices, a little bit more mindful in your workouts.

The first two big things I challenge everyone is sleep and stress. I have four other principals in my Reality Diet Method that I work my clients through, and it is a flip on how to get the best results and make it a lifestyle. I am not one of those people who are like, “Don’t eat that, don’t eat this” kind of person. I spent a lot of years doing that, and that’s painful.