Self care is more than just a buzzword - it is essential to our overall good health.
Sunday, December 29, 2019
Self Care is More Than Just a Buzzword and 3 Simple Ways to Fit It In!
Friday, December 27, 2019
Three Things To Thrive Through Your Day with Energy!
Happy Friday everyone!! I hope you are having an amazing holiday season with your loved ones.
We made it to Cincinnati on Monday morning after a long night of flying. We were feeling little upside down, but after a couple sleeps we are feeling more like ourselves and have enjoyed visits with family & friends and exchanging gifts and all the holiday treats!
So, today I want to know, are you downing multiple cups of coffee or energy drinks to get through your day? Tell me how you get through your day in the comments.
If you are surviving on coffee or caffeinated energy drinks, there is a better way! Follow these tips to boost your daily energy levels.
1. Think about what you are eating - instead of choosing coffee, energy drinks or sugary drinks - grab foods that will boost your energy without leading to a crash later. Eat whole foods and get a balance of protein, fat and carbs. Some great foods to eat for energy include quinoa, tuna fish, beans, eggs, chia seeds, oranges, nuts, wild salmon, pumpkin seeds, apples, bananas, spinach, blueberries, dark chocolate, trail mix, and lean beef.
2. Stay hydrated - When you’re dehydrated it can lead to exhaustion and difficulty focusing. Make sure you are drinking plenty of water throughout the day. If it is challenge for you, find a way to track it.
3. Get moving - Make it a point to stay active during your day. Movement and exercise improve energy. When you keep your body active, it releases endorphins. This helps manage stress and greatly improves sleep quality. It also helps the heart work more efficiently, allowing it to deliver more oxygen to the brain and other organs.
If you focus on doing these three things, you can greatly improve your energy naturally and stop relying on caffeine and sugary energy drinks to make it through your day!
Let me know in the comments, what makes you feel energized for your day? I would also love to hear your questions or concerns on this topic, so send them my way.
And if you think someone else will find the information valuable, go ahead and share it. I would love for you to do that. I would be so thankful.
Have a great rest of your day!
Learn more about my next round of FASTer Way here -> click
Thursday, December 19, 2019
Why we need to hit pause sometimes!
Are you feeling a little holiday stress right now?
Stress can have negative effect on the body, so let's take some steps to reduce it!
Learn more about my next FASTer Way to Fat Loss group --> here!
Stress can have negative effect on the body, so let's take some steps to reduce it!
Friday, December 13, 2019
Why eating more helps you lose weight!
Happy Friday! I hope you have had an amazing week and an incredible December so far. It is simply flying by!
I got a really great question on Sunday when I spent the day at a local market chatting with people about the FASTer Way and I knew that I had to do a video about it because so many people are out there barely eating to try to lose weight and it’s not working or has stopped working.
What is probably happening is they are in a plateau because they are under-eating and/or over-exercising.
If this is you or if you have reduced your calories and felt miserable, tell me in the comments.
One pain point that I hear frequently is the same one I had…I am working out 6 days a week, all cardio, I only eat like 1100/1200 calories, but I cannot lose weight! It does not make sense!
I know that frustration! These ladies and these guys are doing what they all say to do…eat less and exercise more.
So why isn’t it working?
Here’s why…they are probably not eating enough. They are probably not fueling their bodies properly with the right macronutrients, so their body has stopped burning fat.
I want to explain the science behind what is going in the body but first, the question I got on Sunday that started this was, "I am only eating 1200 calories and not losing weight, how will I lose weight if I eat MORE?"
I had the same reaction! It just sounds backwards because that is what we have been told for so long. That in order to lose weight, we have to eat less and exercise more. So, I know it sounds crazy when I tell you that you should be eating A LOT more calories to lose weight.
Let me give you the science behind it.
When you are only eating 1100/1200 calories and you are working out, doing high intensity workouts 5 or more days a week, you are simply not fueling your body enough and it is running out of gas. That is simply not enough food and your body is rebelling against you.
When we under-eat, when we are not giving our bodies enough fuel, we are making our bodies choose what to do with the fuel that it is getting. Our bodies will be forced to choose essential functions over non-essential functions. This means that it STOPS burning fat and lowers our metabolism. It stops burning fat so that it can focus on the functions that just keep us alive: our heart, our digestion, our blood circulating, our brain!
When our body is under-fueled it will actually hold on to fat for future fuel because it stops trusting you to give it enough. Your body is in starvation mode. It's in survival mode at only 1200 calories! What is happening is that you are burning so much energy and you are not fueling the body enough so it is holding onto every single calorie that it can and storing it as fat.
Our bodies will burn through all of our glycogen first -> that’s our carbs, because that is our body's favorite source of energy. Once it burns through those carbs during your workout, it will go to stored fat for energy.
But when you are under-eating, the body is afraid to burn that stored fat for energy, because it thinks it needs that storage to run your essential body functions. It will hold onto your fat stores like it is life or death! Instead it will start to go after muscle.
The only way to prevent that is to eat the right amount of the right foods! When you do this, your body will shed FAT and build muscle -> that is our focus in the FASTer Way to Fat Loss.
You need to bump up the calories and in the FASTer Way, we don’t even worry about calories.
We focus on our macronutrients. We focus on eating the right amount of the right foods at the right time. We are very intentional about what we are eating and how we are eating it.
We use carb cycling to make sure that we are getting in our carbohydrates for fuel but maximizing fat loss.
We use intermittent fasting to make sure we get the full benefits of digestive rest for cellular repair. We’re going to heal our gut when we do that and feel a lot less bloated and uncomfortable after we eat.
You would be amazed by the number of times my clients have told me that they feel so much better after implementing intermittent fasting. They are not bloated anymore and they have so much more energy! I hear this in the first 2 weeks of the program.
So again, the question was how can I go from eating 1200 calories to eating MORE like you say, and lose weight? How will I lose weight by eating more?
Like I said, your body is in survival mode. It is holding on to as much fat as it can because it doesn’t think that it is being nourished enough. So it is going to hold onto every little bit that it gets, like it is life or death.
What we need to do is bump up those macros. we need to get you fueled properly for your every day life and for your workouts, so you have better workouts.
We need to get you doing strength training so you can build that lean calorie burning muscle
I hope this was helpful. That question comes up a lot as my ladies are getting started and I get it. It’s hard to imagine that you will not gain weight or it's easy to think that you will get “fat” if you eat more. Especially if you have been under-eating and following the eat less exercise more method for a long time.
But you just have to trust the process. I have ladies tell me all the time that they have never eaten so much food and been in such great shape! And hundreds of thousands of clients have gone through the FASTer Way and have amazing results. You can see it in the before and afters that I share on Instagram and the testimonials.
My next group start soon so you better grab your spot because you don’t want to miss out. So, if you want a spot, get signed up today! Learn more by clicking here.
I would love to hear your questions or concerns on this topic, so drop them in the comments below.
And if you think someone else will find the info valuable, go ahead and share it. I would love for you to do that. I would be so thankful.
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
It's time to get your groove back!
Happy Monday everyone!
We have made it through Halloween and Thanksgiving and now we are in the home stretch before the final end of the year holidays.
Some of you might have set goals for yourself that you were going to stay on track and DIAL IT IN or maybe you were going to DIAL IT BACK and focus on moderation while you indulged.
Maybe it didn’t go as planned or maybe you are having trouble ending the celebrating!
First of all, ditch the remorse. Never feel bad about enjoying your celebration or holiday and the food and drink that goes with it! And if you have been less than perfect, stop feeling bad about that too.
Instead of looking at it with a “what have I done” attitude, let’s think about “what you can do now” and move forward.
If you celebrated with a little bit too much food and drink or if you have continued to celebrate, don’t panic. Even if your pants are feeling tighter today, it’s easier than you think to get back on track.
It’s time to get your groove back!
Show yourself grace. Don’t spend the days beating yourself up. This will only make you feel stressed which can lead to cravings and making more poor choices. You can’t turn back the clock or erase what happened, but you can accept it and move on.
Get back to your normal routine. Definitely resume your regular eating schedule as soon as possible. Plan your meals, start tracking your food again if you do that and took a break. If you practice intermittent fasting, extend your fasting window by an hour or two to give your body a little more time at digestive rest. Then eat meals with a balance of carbs, fats and protein that help you hit your goals. Get back to your workouts - just don’t binge exercise to make up for binge eating. Over-exercising is a stressor on the body that leads to fat gain instead of fat loss.
Drink lots of water. Staying hydrated will help your metabolism and wash things down and out of your body. That heaviness you might be feeling is a combination of water retention, extra glycogen (stored from extra carbs) and waste in the digestive track. All of this “weight” will eventually be balanced out by drinking plenty of water and resuming your normal meals.
If you were following a healthy lifestyle before the end of the year holiday madness started, get back to what you were doing. Focus on moving forward.
If you want to learn healthy habits, you can join my next FASTer Way to Fat Loss group that will start on DEC 30. I would love to help you get your groove back and kick off 2020 chasing down your health and wellness goals! Learn more about my next group here.
Remember, don’t look back at what you could have, should have done. Focus on starting fresh today. You are always one choice, one day away from getting back on track.
What is one goal you have for yourself in 2020?
Wednesday, December 4, 2019
2019 Holiday Challenge
Back by request, I am hosting another merry little fit-mas challenge!
The way I see it, we could all use a little extra motivation during the busiest time of year. At least I know I can! It's just so easy to to put things off and turn the holidays into one giant long break from healthy habits.
So, if you have found it hard to make time for workouts since Thanksgiving, (maybe even Halloween!) or if you are just a sucker for challenges (like me), I am happy to announce the 2019 HOLIDAY CHALLENGE. This is my way of helping YOU overcome the challenge by giving you quick exercises that you can do anywhere and a community to encourage you to stick with it.
The goal of this challenge is stay motivated and keep moving through the busy holiday season with daily achievable and challenging exercises. At the end we will feel amazing heading to our holiday events!
The way I see it, we could all use a little extra motivation during the busiest time of year. At least I know I can! It's just so easy to to put things off and turn the holidays into one giant long break from healthy habits.
So, if you have found it hard to make time for workouts since Thanksgiving, (maybe even Halloween!) or if you are just a sucker for challenges (like me), I am happy to announce the 2019 HOLIDAY CHALLENGE. This is my way of helping YOU overcome the challenge by giving you quick exercises that you can do anywhere and a community to encourage you to stick with it.
The goal of this challenge is stay motivated and keep moving through the busy holiday season with daily achievable and challenging exercises. At the end we will feel amazing heading to our holiday events!
Here's how the Holiday Challenge works:
Monday through Friday until Christmas Eve, we will be completing 50 reps of different bodyweight exercises. Each day I will post the exercise for the day (with video) in the Holiday Challenge private Facebook group. On the weekend, you can choose your favorite exercise from challenge so far to repeat.
In addition, you will receive a FREE Macros to Muscles guide, mindset tips, holiday recipes and tips for eating smart on the holiday!
If you want to have yourself a Merry Little Fit-mas, then I've got you covered. My challenge will help you keep your head in the game and give you the accountability and motivation you need to stay on track or get back to it during the holiday season!
To join the Holiday Challenge, simple click here to join the private Facebook group and get ready because the fun begins December 9th!
Have a question? Leave a comment below or send me an email!
Are you joining me for the 2019 Holiday Challenge?
Let me know in the comments below!
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