Tag: advice

Here’s to New Beginnings in 2018

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It’s that time once again where we reminisce on the past year and everything that has (or has not) transpired. Everyone has a different reaction when it comes to this moment, and it is entirely dependent on the kind of experiences we’ve each faced. I’ve seen post after post on social media over the past few days with people either expressing gratitude for such a great 2017, or expressing their readiness for 2018 to begin in the hopes of a better experience in the new year.
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For me, 2017 was full of heartbreak, pain (both emotional and physical), and loss of a loved one. It was a time of transition, where I said goodbye to old friends and made some new ones. Over the past several months, it has also been the most time I’ve spent with my family outside of holidays or special occasions in a really long time. The highlight of my year happened on June 9th when I picked up my puppy Callie and brought her to her forever home.

Though I have a lot to be sad about this year, I have a lot to be thankful for. I have a great family, a wonderful puppy that has helped me through one of my toughest times by just being there, bringing me joy every day, and loving me unconditionally. I have a job that I really enjoy, with many coworkers that I consider friends. The quote above is my promise to myself. I am going to let go of all of the bad from this year and make way for a better year with everything and everyone that is good in my life. I won’t allow the bad taste of 2017 to act as an ominous black cloud threatening to rain over my 2018 parade.

If you followed my blog before my little hiatus, you may have noticed I stopped posting. This was for a lot of different reasons, but mainly I got overwhelmed. I  needed to focus on my temporary contract in hopes of coming on in my job full time, then I sprained my knee and lost the ability to do my workouts (and with it my motivation for most things), then I got a puppy that consumed my life with training and constant pee outings, then I lost my grandfather who I loved very very much, and then my focus became my family.

Well, I am back. I realized that there will always be excuses, regardless of how valid they may be. I may not post daily as I used to, but my goal this year is to maintain at minimum 1 post per week. Blogging is something that I enjoy doing, and I am going to use this new year as a fresh start to get back in the saddle.

So, you now have my first “resolution” of the new year.

  1. Business/Personal – Blogging a minimum of 1 post per week.
  2. Mindfulness – Daily journaling to help clear my mind and focus my goals, even if it is just a few sentences on some days.
  3. Health – Getting back into my normal activity routine as much as possible post-injury and maintaining a healthy diet
  4. Growth – Daily activity to better my mind in some way. This could mean reading for 10 minutes before bed, listening to an audio book or podcast, using my language app, etc.

This may seem like a lot, but I think it is important to maintain a healthy balance. I’ve always enjoyed blogging, learning, journaling, and my health and fitness practices – I have just struggled to do it all at once. I think 2018 is the year that I am going to set the goals in motion officially, and crush them.

What are your goals for 2018? I’d love to hear them!

For those of you venturing out to ring in the new year; be happy, but stay safe!

xo

Jess

Happy-New-Year

Can’t do tough exercises?

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This goes for fitness too! You’re going to find exercises that you can’t do, that is just a given. It is going to happen, and it happens to EVERYONE when they start something new. You can choose to be frustrated by that, and give up saying that it’s too hard;

OR

You can choose to keep working at it every single day until you can do it! You just have to learn to modify and make the moves a bit simpler until you work up the strength to accomplish the real thing. I master new things that I originally couldn’t do all the time, and you can do that too!

One thing that I love about our Beachbody fitness programs is that they always feature at least one person that is demonstrating modified versions of all of the moves. This makes it easier for beginners, or for people who struggle in certain areas of fitness, to get their bearings and work up to the full workout.

Choosing the modifier does not mean you are taking the easy way out… unless of course you’ve built up the strength to do it the right way, and you’re choose the modifier to be lazy :P That’s not good either haha! Just use the modifier as long as you need to, and every so often try the hard way. You’ll be able to see small improvements over time, and then one day, you’ll do it for real – and it is truly an awesome feeling to accomplish something for which you’ve been working so hard.

I hope you found this useful! Click here if you would like to make me your FREE Team Beachbody Coach. If you could benefit from a safe place to learn about health and fitness, and engage in regular fitness challenges – you are invited to join my FREE Health and Fitness group. I hope to see you there!

Are you a yo-yo dieter?

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I was one of those people who started and stopped repeatedly before something finally clicked in my head and I actually stuck with it . There comes a time when you realize that you just have to suck it up and work your butt off for what you want! For me, that time came when I was finishing my third year of university. I realized that I was about to enter into another graduating year. and I was quite a bit heavier than I had been in high school. I was miserable the year I graduated high school, and I spent much of the year by myself because I was too self-conscious about my weight to actually go to any of the events. I did not want to go through that again, so I decided to put my foot down and make a change.

Changing your habits isn’t easy, and I am not going to lie to you and tell you that it is. It is hard work physically, it is hard work in the kitchen, and it is hard work mentally and emotionally. You need to exercise regularly, eat clean 90% of the time, and deal with the mental battles you will face when it comes to temptation. You will also need to deal with the emotional ups and downs that comes along with a fitness journey. You are going to give in to temptation at some point, and you’ll feel guilty. You’re going to see progress and feel great. You’re also likely going to hit a plateau at some point or maybe even gain a few pounds back, and you’ll have to deal with the negative emotions that come along with that.

The important thing is not how many times you slip up or make a mistake, but in how many times to get back up and keep fighting. One bad day is not going to destroy your progress, but one good day is not going to help you achieve your goals. You just need to keep fighting the mental and emotional battles, keep on track with your nutrition 90% of the time, and keep working out regularly.

Slow progress is progress, so don’t give up! Each time you give up, you will just put the weight that you lost right back on. Then when you decide to get started again, you’ll have even more weight to lose. You need to remember that the time is going to pass regardless, so you may as well keep pushing toward your goals.

If you are ready to make the commitment to yourself and a healthier future, we should talk. Send me an email to hfmxj@stu.ca with the subject line “I’m ready to transform” to discuss the opportunity to be a part of a challenge group of individuals going through the same process!

Are you addicted to junk food?

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I saw a post from one of my challengers in my free Health and Fitness group yesterday, and I decided to make this blog post about it because I feel as though it is important. Anyone who has ever struggled with food addiction will understand this, and anyone who hasn’t, probably won’t. Some people may even find this notion completely ridiculous, but if you haven’t been through it, it would be hard to grasp. So, what is addiction anyway?

“A physical or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, such as a drug or alcohol” Dictionary.com

The idea here is that food can be an addiction much like alcohol, drugs, tobacco, gambling, etc. If you struggle with food addiction, chances are you have formed a habit of eating snacks as you watch television or movies. It can be so drilled into your mind that it is actually hard for you to sit through an entire show or movie without getting a snack of some sort. I struggled with this bigtime when I started my fitness journey, and I had to ease my way into eating healthy by still snacking at night with healthier options. It is not easy to change these habits, but just like any other addiction that is damaging to your health, you have to work at it to break these habits.

Maybe this kind of addiction isn’t as obvious or extreme as some of the others out there, but it is still detrimental to your health in the long run. From what I’ve read, it seems there are differing opinions on this topic from health professionals. However, having been through it, I strongly believe that eating can be a psychological addiction.

“A strong or harmful need to regularly have something (such as a drug) or do something (such as gamble)” Merriam Webster

In this case, the strong and harmful need factor would be applied to junk food, and the act would be considered eating. What a lot of people don’t seem to understand is that for many people struggling with weight issues, eating is more than fuel for our bodies. For some of us, eating is a form of comfort. We get sad, depressed, angry, frustrated, stressed out, et cetera, and we immediately head for the junk food. Sometimes this is completely subconscious behaviour, but we do it anyway. This ends up being a NEVER-ENDING cycle! You eat to make yourself feel better for negative emotions, and then you gain weight. The weight gain makes you feel even worse, so you go for the junk food again to feel better. You then gain more weight, eat more junk, and the cycle goes on and on and on until you put a stop to it.

“… most addictive behavior is not related to either physical tolerance or exposure to cues. People compulsively use drugs, gamble, or shop nearly always in reaction to being emotionally stressed, whether or not they have a physical addiction. Since these psychologically based addictions are not based on drug or brain effects, they can account for why people frequently switch addictive actions from one drug to a completely different kind of drug, or even to a non-drug behavior. The focus of the addiction isn’t what matters; it’s the need to take action under certain kinds of stress.” Psychology Today

What does this mean? Well, what this means to me is that it is possible for you to shift your “addiction” from food to fitness. It honestly worked for me, and I think it can work for everyone else too. Exercise releases endorphins into your brain, which ultimately makes you feel better overall! When I finish an intense workout, I usually feel refreshed. There have been many times when I’ve been upset or angry when I went down to do an intense cardio workout like Turbo Fire or Combat, and by the end of the workout, I felt a million times better than when I started.

If you start gradually decreasing your bad food habits and exercising on a regular basis, you WILL start to see results. You’ll start to feel better about yourself, you’ll sense the brain fog from all of the junk food start to lift, and you’ll start regaining your confidence as you lose weight from your positive life choices.

Are you ready to start working toward a happier and healthier life for yourself and your loved ones? If so, send me an email to hfmxj@stu.ca with the subject line “I’m ready to transform”.

I can’t wait to help you along your journey as your free coach, and I look forward to watching you transform!

Are fad diets any good?

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Doing super restrictive diets, like many of the fad diets out there claiming to help you lose weight fast, is not a good idea at all! Sure, you will most likely lose some weight, but chances are as soon as you go back to eating normally you will gain it all back. What you lose with fad diets is the water weight, which comes back as soon as you get back to your normal eating habits. You WILL NOT maintain that weight loss, so what is the point in picking a diet that is not sustainable long-term? What is even more important to note is that it is simply NOT HEALTHY.

Instead, find a variety of healthy foods and meals that you enjoy, and then create a new healthy lifestyle around those foods! Eating healthy doesn’t have to mean depriving yourself of junk food 100% of the time either. It is important to have a cheat meal every once in a while to not only help you stay on track, but also because it revs up your metabolism. As long as you don’t completely pig out and you eat in moderation, one cheat meal is not going to hurt you every now and then – it can actually be beneficial! If you deprive yourself entirely of things you crave for a long time, there is a higher risk of going on a binge at some point. If you plan out your cheat meal and use it as a reward for progress, you will curb those cravings for a while and help yourself continue moving forward. 

Furthermore, you can still have “cheat” meals without it entirely being a cheat. For example, when I crave junk sometimes I will have a plate of nachos made with organic nachos, salsa, and cheese. If your kryptonite is chips, try cooking some homemade popcorn and just melting a bit of real butter to put on top with some sea salt. I also like having homemade pizza every now and then, and I just measure out my toppings so that I know how many calories I am consuming and I can organize the rest of my day around it. 

You need to remember that one bad day is not going to make you gain a bunch of weight. That works both ways though, because one GOOD day is also not going to make you LOSE a bunch of weight. Results will come over time, and with effort.

Click Here if you would like to be coached by me, and added to my private Health and Fitness group.

Food VS Body

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Lol I totally agree, and I bet I am not alone in this! The cravings subside most of the time, but every now and then I do crave stuff like pizza, chocolate, ice cream, or my kryptonite, ROOTBEER!

Just because you have those cravings, doesn’t mean you have to indulge all the time.You should never completely restrict yourself from having things like this long term because it can actually be counter-productive. If you try too hard to NOT eat something, eventually you are going to get caught on a rough day and you are going to go on a binge.

Make the choice to treat yourself once a week, and try to pick cheat meals that are still relatively healthy. You can do this by make meals that mimic the foods that you love. For example, with Shakeology I mimic my love of ice cream by making it neapolitan flavored! My personal favorite cheat meals are homemade nachos and homemade pizza. We use organic nacho chips, we measure out the salsa and the tex mex cheese, and we throw it in the microwave. For the pizza, we use a healthier brand of thin crust and measure out some sauce, pineapple, pepperoni slices, and cheese. These meals are delicious, and I am able to eat them completely guilt free!

Click Here to make a free account on Team Beachbody so that you can gain access to some healthy recipes.

Great Read!

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The Compound Effect is such a great book for self improvement in ALL aspects of your life!

This book is definitely something that I would recommend to anyone struggling, whether it be with weight, finances, marriage/relationships, etc.Darren Hardy gives some great tips on what to do in many scenarios, how to behave, and how to modify your own thinking so that you can be successful. The whole book is evidence that hard work DOES pay off, and you just have to believe in yourself and never give up!

“Mentoring is your true legacy. It is the greatest inheritance you can give to others. And it should never end. It is why you get up every day. To teach and be taught.” – John Wooden ; featured in The Compound Effect.

If you are struggling in any of these areas I strongly suggest investing in this book!