At first glance it might not seem like there’s much difference at all between the two, they both help you to lose weight and they both help to manage your diet and exercise routine. While it may seem similar in the beginning, the difference between a structured diet and a personal weight loss plan can easily be the difference between a successful and failed diet!

Structured Diets 

Structured diets can be flexible in some areas but are more or less “set in stone” or so to speak. It’s pretty much follow these rules and get the results. Don’t follow the rules and perish =).

These diets have set methods for losing weight whether that be cutting carbs, modifying caloric intake, or extreme exercise regimens.

The biggest weakness is that they assume that because their method works on the whole, that it will work for everyone.  How do I say this politely, it’s simply not true.

Personal Weight Loss

Personal weight loss plans on the other hand are plans that you are capable of following because you chose it.

These plans are great, but their biggest hurdle is coming up with them in the first place and this is where structured diets tend to pull ahead (at least at first).

If you’re not intimately familiar with nutrition or how to balance food and exercise, then putting together a plan personalized to you can be a daunting task, without some supprt.

Sure structured diets do that work for you, doing the hard work of balancing nutrition and planning meals.

Last and definitely not least, personalized meal plans feel more, well, personal! It’s something that you’ve worked hard on for yourself so you’re more likely to stick with it since you’re the one who worked to build it.

Structured diets can feel kind of hollow and easy to pick up or put down when you aren’t getting the results you think you should be getting. For some diets are like shopping for clothes , if it doesn’t fit well or feels uncomfortable you’re going to try on other one until you find one that fits.

Now if you’ve ever had anything tailored to fit yourself you’re going to want to keep trying and changing it until it fits just the way you want it to.

Structured diets can work well to start, but don’t let flashy promises distract you from your real goal of transitioning to a permanent, healthy lifestyle.

Lifestyle 45 

Lifestyle:45 is a ridiculously easy and effective way for you to learn how to live a healthy lifestyle. I wanted to create a program that was a simple and given to you in such a way that you would actually take daily action.  If this sounds like you, we start on Monday!!

The post DIET Do You Really Need It This Will Help You Decide appeared first on Kim Barnes Jefferson.

Hitting the gym, who knew I’d grow to love morning workouts. You’re making the best choices about everything skipping bread with dinner,
no late night snacking.

But then you step on the scale and WTF: It doesn’t budge OR goes OR says the same!!! You think to yourself something’s gotta give! It’s so easy to get discouraged when that is only your only measure of success.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the numbers. For years that’s what we have told to do. I’m all about small victories!!

I want to celebrate the heck out of some many things so I keep going. This is where my motivation will come!!

Just so you know the scale is bullshit!!! The scale only measures your relationship to gravity. It doesn’t measure your worthiness, how much your family loves you, if you are a good friend, good employee or good person.

Repeat after me regardless of what the scale says I’m and will always be ENOUGH!!

Meet Andrea.

She was obsessed about why the scale wasn’t moving. Not sure how many conversations we had about the scale. I challenged her to find non scale victories and daily reflect on her habits and choices.

When she STOPPED obsessing about the scale she was mentally FREE to focus on creating strong habits and started to feel grateful for what she has been able to accomplish.

She realized that the OBSESSIVE around the scale got her no place but frustrated.

If you this sounds like you let’s talk. That’s what my Lifestyle:45 program is all about. It will help you feel inspired, motivated, accountable and FINALLY get the results that you are looking for. If this sounds like something that you want, let’s talk. Shoto me an email fabfitsquad at gmail.com 

I encourage my clients to toss their scales and focus on non-scale victories. Here is where you can find success almost daily to keep moving and grooving.

10 Ways To Smash The Scale 

1. Grab a Fitbit and be able to easily crush 10,000 steps by 12 noon
2. Climbing multiple flights of steps become easy — especially if you have a young kid on your hip =)
3. You are down a dress size or 2!! Grab something in your closet that you haven’t worn in at least 2-3 years and let that be your guide
4. You don’t need “cheat days. Typically clients will ask me “how many” cheat meals. You know you are crushing it when you don’t need them weekly!!!
5. Sleeping through the night — amazing
6. You have more energy — you don’t fall asleep as soon as you come home
7. Your cravings have gone down significantly — you can’t remember the last time you craved sugar, alcohol or fatty foods
8. A reduction in your medications — because you are making better choices, you’ve seen a reduction in your cholesterol, blood pressure and insulin levels
9. Increased stamina
10. Clearer skin, less breakouts — blood sugar spikes raise our insulin and contributes to break outs.

What would you consider a non-scale victory’

The post Stop Obsessing About The Scale appeared first on Kim Barnes Jefferson.

Tip 1 – Listen To Your Body

If you‘ve followed me for any time, you know this is my number one rule! Your body has the ability to tell you everything that you need to know to understand how it is feeling at any given time. This means working to figure out what it needs and what it doesn’t need.

By paying close attention to it, you can ensure that it gets the right kind of nutrition to keep you in top shape and feeling well. Listen to your body when it tells you that it needs food, and when you hear it calling, don’t just reach for the nearest snack. This is where planning comes in big time. When you have healthy foods and snacks in the house so when you are hungry you have healthy options at your fingertips. Plus you let go of that potential crashing when relying on sugar and caffeine.

It’s just as important to listen to your body when it tells you that it is full. At the very moment when you know your body has had enough to eat, stop eating and don’t over-indulge. If you continue to eat even when your stomach is full, you will become bloated, lethargic and your body will struggle trying to digest all the extra food. Being mindful of your body will make sure that your body works for you instead of against you.

Tip 2 – Mindful Eating

Take your time to eat mindfully at every meal that you have. When you pay attention to the food that you eat, while you are eating it actually allows you to understand what the body needs and what it doesn’t.

When you slow down to eat it allows your body to function at its very best when it comes to digesting and absorbing food. Slowing down your eating will release more serotonin (this is the feel good drug our body produces).

It takes about twenty minutes from when you start eating for your brain to release that chemical telling your body to stop eating. Slowing down will help you hear that signal.

Tip 3 – Smaller Is Better

Start with smaller portions. Remember, if you are still hungry after eating the smaller meal, you can always go back and get a second serving, but if you pile the food up right from the start, you will be more tempted to eat the whole plate of food, even if you already feel full, simply because it is sitting right in front of you.

My husband makes fun of my but I can’t sit with food in front of me at home or at a restaurant it has to get out of my reach. I take my plate off the table, move it out of reach and the best one I’ve heard is that you put pepper all over the plate so you aren’t tempted to eat it.

Tip 4 – Five Small Meals Instead Three Big Meals

More and more people are beginning to experience the benefits of eating four – five small main meals throughout the day as opposed to five large ones.

Eating smaller meals lets your body to digest and absorb food more effectively and more efficiently.

I’m a fan of smaller meals because large meals can place stress on the internal organs and cause bloating.

Plus after eating big meals, do you feel energized or do you want to take a big ole nap!

Tip 5 – Effective Planning To Avoid Binge Eating

Plan your diet this holiday season. Take a look at your schedule and map good routine. It’s okay that your routine may be scaled back the key here is to not stop because of the holidays. Take the time now to start figureingout a healthy and balanced approach to your diet,

The easiest way to do this is to sit down and plan your week ahead, figuring out a holistic diet and while giving yourself wiggle room in your plan to have some treats. Life would suck without Italian cookies =) Having some fun foods and drink will help you from overindulging.

Follow these simple guidelines as best as you can and be sure to stay safe, have fun, and enjoy the time with friends and family. Happy Holidays!

Looking for a few more ways to enjoy the holidays without counting calories” Grab my 21 Ways To Crush Your Holiday Goals Without Counting Calories. 

The post 5 Ways To Be Mindfully Eat Between Thanksgiving and New Years appeared first on Kim Barnes Jefferson.

I get you are eating healthy foods, but portions are just as important, well, correction I’m going to say that it’s the core part of any healthy lifestyle. Measuring your food intake and balancing that with exercise are the basics of living a balanced healthy lifestyle.

The easiest way to deal with portioning is to simply look at serving sizes on the packages of foods that you’re eating. Anything that comes out of a box or package already comes labelled with its own facts for each serving size portion you consume. Here is where most of you will say to me hey, what “plan” should I be following. Sure I can give you a baseline, but what I encourage you all to do is to start to pay attention the foods that you are eating. When you finish eating are you hungry, do you feel bloated, how long can you go between meals before you are hungry again’ Answering these questions will tell you that you are eating portions that are big enough to sustain your lifestyle. When you learn this you will NEVER diet again!!!

When you first starting dong portioning, weight and measure EVERYTHING! I know it’s a lot of work upfront but when you are building a house you want a build a strong foundation. Once you have this foundation, your eating will go on automatic. You will learn how to see what a ½ c looks like what 4 oz. of protein looks like and best thing LEARN how these portions effect your hunger, energy and do they bust your cravings. If all of those are in alignment you will begin to lose weight and once it ‘s gone you will be able to live a healthy sustainable life.

Once you have a good idea (and you can make it even easier by keeping a list or cheat sheet of common food facts in your kitchen!) of your portions and nutritional facts for the things you cook often then portioning becomes a snap! You can cook up a whole pot of soup and put it into portioned freezer containers to eat later for meals. The same goes for whole meals, just break them up into their individual portions during or after they’re cooked and freeze or refrigerate them until you’re ready to eat! Not only is this a great, healthy way to have your meals ready but it can save you a ton of cooking time, too!

Give this a try and let me know how you make out, by leaving me a comment below.

The post Learn How To Use Portion Size To Drop Weight! appeared first on Kim Barnes Jefferson.

Are you sabotaging your own weight loss’ Find out. #diet
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One of the biggest myths about dieting and weight loss is that it’s a temporary solution. Every one thinks you work hard for a short period of time and magically the weight will stay off. When you set out to lose weight by changing your diet, that should be something that you adopt permanently or, over time.  If you don’t do this the weight will slowly creep back on.

However, just making those changes might not be enough to keep the weight off because, as creatures of habit (and being prone to take the easy route) there are easy ways to slip and sabotage all of your hard work. Here’s some quick things you should be looking out for that could bring your weight loss progress to a screeching halt.

1. Falling back into old habits. Let’s start off by coming right out and saying that nobody’s perfect. We make mistakes, it’s all part of being a human being and that goes double for weight loss. Whether it’s a quick unhealthy snack or going head first into comfort food when you are stressed or going through some other drama. These kind of eating  behaviors can be damaging to your weight loss goals. Again, it’s not about perfection. Yes, you can allow yourself a few “treats”.  Willpower sucks and by allowing yourself to have these occasional treat meals will keep you from losing your sh*t. I advise all my clients to follow the 80/20. Where 80% of all your meals are clean and healthy and 20% are fun. I have them use this grid to help them better understand how they are eating. Here is where it get tough — when you get a case of the nibbles.  These treats go from occasional to habitual and, eventually, becoming normal. If you feel like you’re slipping a little more often than you’d like then try keeping a food diary and at the end of the week look at everything you’ve eaten. This diary doesn’t have to be fancy. You can put it on paper, what I want you to note is time, mood and portions. If you’d like me to take a look and give you feedback, write down 3 days and send me an email.
2. “Healthy” substitutions. A huge mistake that a lot of people make, especially if they’re new to dieting and weight loss, is trying to go for a healthy food choice over an unhealthy one that can be just as bad for you as what you’re switching out. One thing in particular is switching out fruit juice for sugary drinks like soda. We’ve been told all our lives that fruit is healthy, but if you’re not selective in your choices you could just be pumping yourself full of unhealthy sugars. Opt instead for something hydrating and equally delicious like herbal teas or (responsibly) flavored water. Here is a link to a list of foods that we think are healthy but they really not so much.
3. Twelve of one, dozen of the other. A big part of maintaining healthy weight loss is making sure you portion your foods properly. The problem with that is that the reigning mentality when it comes to food is, generally, that more is better.  It’s great to choose some light, air popped popcorn over salty, greasy chips but you should aim to be careful with your portioning so that you don’t end up eating just as much of your healthier snacks and foods just because they’re better for you than the alternative.

Will you join me for my next master class’ If you are done starting a new diet on Monday and then quitting it by Wednesday join me for my next master class — Effortless Eliminate Self Sabotage While Living A Real Life 

The post Eating Habits that Sabotage Your Weight Loss appeared first on Kim Barnes Jefferson.

Are you sabotaging your own weight loss’ Find out. #diet
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One of the biggest myths about dieting and weight loss is that it’s a temporary solution. When you set out to lose weight by changing your diet, that should be something that you adopt permanently or, over time, you’re simply going to see the same problems begin to arise all over again. However, just making those changes might not be enough to keep the weight off because, as creatures of habit (and being prone to take the easy route) there are easy ways to slip and sabotage all of your hard work. Here’s some quick things you should be looking out for that could bring your weight loss progress to a screeching halt.

1. Falling back into old habits. Let’s start off by coming right out and saying that nobody’s perfect. We make mistakes, it’s all part of being a human being and that goes double for weight loss. Whether it’s a quick unhealthy snack or leaning on some comfort food during a stressful time this kind of eating can be damaging to your weight loss goals. That’s not to say that slipping occasionally or allowing yourself a few treats every once in a while is bad. Just the opposite, unless your dietary restrictions are for medical reasons an occasional treat can help stick with your healthy in the long run. Let’s be honest, willpower can only take you so far. This is why I encourage all of my clients to have 2 treat meals built into their plans. This keeps them from losing their stuff and going on a bender. If you feel like you’re slipping a little more often than you’d like then try keeping a food diary and at the end of the week look at everything you’ve eaten. It doesn’t need to be fancy. A food journal is very telling and can help you see where you maybe over doing it.

2. “Healthy” substitutions.  A huge mistake that a lot of people make, especially if they’re new to dieting and weight loss, is trying to go for a healthy food choice over an unhealthy one that can be just as bad for you as what you’re switching out. One thing in particular is switching out fruit juice for sugary drinks like soda. We’ve been told all our lives that fruit is healthy, but if you’re not selective in your choices you could just be pumping yourself full of unhealthy sugars. Opt instead for something hydrating and equally delicious like herbal teas or (responsibly) flavored water. There plenty of “faux” health foods that make you think it’s better than the real thing. Here are a few examples.
   • Example one
   • Example two 
   • Example three — just in case I haven’t convinced you.

3. Twelve of one, dozen of the other.  A big part of maintaining healthy weight loss is making sure you portion your foods properly. The problem with that is that the reigning mentality when it comes to food is, generally, that more is better. When setting new portions you should try to avoid the pitfall of eating too much. Although it may be healthy we still want to make sure that you aren’t over eating.

If you have struggled with losing weight and are tried of counting steps, points and everything else. I encourage you to learn more about my Lean and Sexy program. During our time together I will teach you how to:

• bust through stalled weight loss
• time management
• how to eat without feeling deprived
• how to tame your cravings
• and how to live a healthy overall life

To get on the waiting list for more information click here. Program starts again on Monday, May 24th.

The post Eating Habits that Sabotage Your Weight Loss appeared first on Kim Barnes Jefferson.

Binge eating isn’t healthy – physically or mentally. Here are tips to help. #bingeeatting
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The key to finding a balanced and healthy weight loss plan is properly managing what you eat. That means carefully monitoring the nutritional values of the foods that you’re putting into your body and making sure that you don’t slip up and go overboard by eating way more than you should. A few slips here and there won’t break up all the hard work you’ve put into your diet, but an absolute diet killer is binge eating. One of the biggest problems with binge eating is that, often, you won’t even realize that you’re doing it. If you worry you’re at risk for binge eating or just want to stay extra vigilant against it, here are a few tips.

• First things first, don’t give yourself access to binge foods. For a lot of people this is mindless eating. You know those foods that you can eat a ton of without really noticing it. The big offenders here are chips, crackers, candies… just about anything that comes in “bag” size. If you’re really serious about staying away from binge eating and keeping with your diet then just don’t allow yourself access to these kinds of foods or keep them in your home. You can’t eat what you don’t have, right’
• If you don’t live in a space where you can control your access to binge foods (roommates, etc.) then you should shift your focus towards good portioning habits. Portioning is one of the key points of good diet management and this goes double for snacks. If you want to have a snack that you know can be unhealthy if it gets out of control, just portion it into single serving baggies based on the nutrition facts on the package. Just make sure not to go overboard and have more than one “snack serving” at a time.
• The greatest protection against binge eating is remaining vigilant against it. Like I said before, bingeing is also referred to as mindless snacking which can’t happen if you’re paying close attention to the foods you’re buying and eating. You can’t accidentally eat a whole bag of chips or box of donuts if you’re making sure to monitor and track all the things you’re eating. Your own level of focus is the best guard you have against the dangers of binge eating.

At the end of the day, more important than any of these tips is persistence in your drive to reach your weight loss goals. Even if you find yourself slipping or notice that you’ve binged on snacks that doesn’t mean your diet is over and you should give up. All it means is you made a small slip-up and you have to be more careful next time, something you’ll be sure to do after you’ve recognized what lead to your binge eating in the first place.

The post Avoiding Binge Eating appeared first on Kim Barnes Jefferson.

You are missing a big market. The women’s fitness market. My fitness league of ladies and I have one simple need.  We need to be able to buy pants to that FIT!!!  Yes, most days I wear sweatpants and sneakers, but on the days I do need to dress up I’m left stranded. These days I walk into most women’s clothing stores and yes I see different cuts, but 80% of them are straight through hip and thigh, skinny though hip. I’m grateful they have different cuts, but 90% of the inventory is not “curvy” they assume most of us are cardio queens and don’t hit the iron!!

Us fitness ladies, we need pants that cover our J.LOs without leaving a gap in the back and pant legs wide enough to fit our quad sweeps. Are we asking for the world’ I thought working hard in the gym would leave me cheering me in the dressing room, but with limited pants choices I’m reduced to tears and frustration in the dressing room.

Instead of making just pointing at the poop on the carpet I’m going to give you some suggestions. Men have athletic cuts, but nothing for us ladies. The designer who can answer this missed market, would make a fortune. Fitness women need pant legs that supports us dead lifting or squatting a small child.  So.. the label should read generous through hip and butt area.  I’d also put some stretch into those pants this would really make us fitness girls feel sexy and sporty at the same time.

Here is where I press my luck.  I’d also like to see an athletic cut shirt. Many of you see fitness girls wearing tank tops. It’s not because we hot or showing off. It’s because we can’t find shirts to fit our shoulders or biceps without looking like the hulk busting out of his clothes.  Just like men, ladies need athletic cut shirts to give us a little breathing room in those areas.

I can’t be the only fitness minded women who thinks like this. If you are struggling like I am, leave me a comment below. If you’ve found a designer who’s clothing takes fitness bodies in mind please leave me a comment below. I’d also love to hear from a designer. Is what I’m asking for really difficult’ Is the market not big enough’

The post No more skinny jeans!! appeared first on Kim Barnes Jefferson.