Tag: end the trend

May Step Challenge!

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So for the past few months I’ve done a Bikini Bootcamp, and for May I would like to do something a little different. Starting May 4th, one week from today, I am thinking of running a step competition. The warmer weather is starting to come around, so it will be easier for everyone to go on walks!

You’ll need to purchase a step counter to wear for the month to participate in this challenge. Every day, I will post a status in my FREE Health and Fitness group asking about your steps for the day. It will be your responsibility to make sure that you take a photo of your step counter at the end of the day and submit it on the thread to be counted toward your total.

I am going to leave this up to the participants, but someone in my April Bootcamp made a suggestion that I am considering for this challenge. Normally all of my challenges are free, and again, this is totally up to you guys – but depending on the amount of signups we have, we could do a small participation fee. Please know that I would NOT be keeping this money! The money would be tucked away, and then at the end of the month, the person with the highest total number of steps for the month would win a fitness program. This would provide a bit of extra incentive for everyone to do well. Like I said before, this all depends on the amount of signups that we get and the fee that we agree upon. Once we have the list of participants set and I’ve collected all of the money, I would then be able to come up with a list of all of the fitness programs that would be covered by the fee total. Ideally I would like to have enough of you participating that we’d only have to have a small fee like 5 or 10 dollars, and still come up with enough money to pay for any fitness program available – maybe even a challenge pack!

I highly recommend that you find a partner to do this with you. It can be a friend, family member, significant other, whatever the case may be. You could even partner up with someone else in the group! It just helps to have someone else to hold you accountable. If you find someone to do it with and they aren’t in the group, have them send me a message and I can get them added into the group to participate! If you currently aren’t a member of my group and would like to participate, click here to request to join.

Let me know what you guys think! I am fine with doing it either way, I just thought the prize might help motivate you all to do well. For those of you that have signed up, I encourage you to get your step counters as soon as possible so that you aren’t caught last minute without one. I also encourage you to start thinking about who may enjoy doing this with you, and to reach out to them and try to find a partner.

If you haven’t signed up yet – what are you waiting for?! This is going to be a lot of fun, and you may have a chance to win an awesome prize. Get in on the action while you can!

Make S.M.A.R.T. Goals

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There are five factors to smart goal setting that will make you much more likely to achieve success with your goals. The word SMART is actually an acronym, and it stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant/realistic, and timely.

First of all, your goals should be specific. Anyone can say “I want to lose weight”, but not follow through. If you say “I want to lose 30 pounds in the next 3 months by eating clean and workout out at least 5 days a week” you have a MUCH better chance of achieving your goal. To get specific, you should refer to your vision board and think about where you are versus where you want to be. You should start thinking about how you’re going to achieve your goal and come up with a specific plan to follow, and then think about the five w’s (where, what, when, why, and who – as in with whom will you be working with on this journey) It helps to have someone do this with you, so I highly recommend finding a partner.

Next your goals should be measurable. This means keeping track of things. I discussed above tracking nutrition and exercise, but you should also keep track of weight and measurements. Do your weight and measurements in the morning after you’ve been to the bathroom and before you’ve eaten food. This is the best time to get an accurate answer, while if you wait until later in the day your food and water intake may have bloated you out a bit and added a bit of extra weight to the scale that shouldn’t be there. Also keep track of your clothing size, because it will feel great to know where you started and where you ended up. Lastly, and arguably most importantly, TAKE PICTURES!! Weight and measurements can sometimes be super discouraging because your progress doesn’t always reflect in the numbers. This can happen as you put on muscle, which is denser than fat. This causes your body to shrink while your weight may seem to stay the same or only lower slightly. Pictures are my favorite way of tracking progress.

Sometimes people aim a bit too high, and that is why it is important that your goals are attainable. Have you ever made a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight, spent a couple of weeks working out almost every day and following through on your nutrition, and then phased out? A lot of people have, myself included. Where did we go wrong? We expected to see awesome results in a very short amount of time doing something that is not necessarily sustainable. Going from no exercise and diet to exercise daily and all diet is a huge transition. When you embark on a health and fitness journey, you need to realize that the weight wasn’t put on overnight, and it certainly is not going to come off overnight. It will take time and effort to achieve your goals, so you need to pick a workout plan and a nutrition plan that is going to be sustainable over time.

Next is to ensure that your goal is relevant/realistic, and this is where you really need to evaluate your goal to find out if this is something that is really important to you. If you determine that it is, you need to think about the reason behind it – because that will come in handy later if you start to feel yourself slipping and losing motivation. You need to figure out the root of the reason you want this if you’re going to stick with it, otherwise you won’t mentally associate it as being a priority. Once you realize that this is important to you and you figure out the primary reason that is driving you to do this in the first place, your next step is to assess that specific goal plan that you created to determine if it can help get you to where you want to be with respect to health and fitness. Your goal also has to be realistic. You can’t set a goal to lose 100 pounds in one month, because that would be setting yourself up for failure. Choose a goal that is realistic and attainable, and it will give you motivation to keep pushing. Too many people set goals they can’t achieve, and then they give up because they get frustrated. You can avoid that from the beginning simply by setting realistic goals.

Lastly, your goal should be timely. Deadlines are great for getting people to move their butts into action, and you should definitely use that to your advantage. If your goal is to lose 30 pounds in 3 months, you can break that up into smaller increments and set a goal to lose 10 pounds each month. You could even break it up further and set a goal to lose 5 pounds every 2 weeks. This helps you to focus on small goals little by little. Each time you hit one of your smaller goals, you’ll be excited to be inching closer to your larger goal, and it will give you motivation to keep moving forward.

I hope you found this article on goal setting to be useful, but if you have any questions, feel free to send them my way! If you have been considering making some positive changes with respect to health and fitness and you just aren’t sure where to start, you are invited to join my FREE Health and Fitness group.

Hump Day Humor

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Lol here is some hump day humor for my followers!

I think it is important to note that this can be very serious too though. If you eat a lot of junk food you may find yourself suffering from diabetes in the future. A majority of my older family members are all suffering from diabetes, and they are forced to use insulin and/or check their sugars on a daily basis.

You don’t have to choose that path! If you start changing your habits little by little, you will be amazed by the changes in your body and your health a year from now.

I challenge you to do something today that will create a brighter future for yourself and your family. 

Feel free to email me at hfmxj@stu.ca with the subject line “Transform my body” if you would like to make some changes, and you just aren’t sure where to start. I would love to work out a long term plan with you that can help you achieve your health and fitness goals.

You are also invited to join my FREE Health and Fitness group! 

Couch to 5K

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I don’t know about anyone else, but I always thought that I just didn’t have it in me to be a runner. It didn’t happen often, but once in a while I’d be having a good day and I’d be full of energy, so I’d decide to go for a run. One time I was so hopped up on energy after a kickboxing workout that I ran almost all the way to the bottom of my street (and my street is actually pretty long lol), only to turn around and realize that the only reason I made it all the way to the bottom without stopping was because it was all downhill. Let’s just say the trek back up took twice as long, and most of it was NOT spent running lol.

I also have this issue where sometimes cardio would cause me so much trouble with my breathing that my throat would get this burning sensation and it would feel as though my throat was closing off. Because of bad experiences like the one above, and the breathing difficulties, I decided that I just sucked at running and I focused my efforts on other forms of exercise. After working out for a while with my Beachbody programs, I decided to give running another shot. What I discovered was that I actually CAN run, it was just that I was out of shape before. I am guessing that this is the case for the vast majority of people out there that say they could never run!

I have decided to start the Couch to 5K program because I would really love to improve upon my running skills. Today marked the start of my 7 week program, and I would love to invite all of you out there reading this to join me. Even if you think “well, I’d like to… but, I don’t think I could do it”, I want you to give it a shot. You only have to commit to three workouts a week, and for the first few weeks it is just 20 minute workouts! It is not all running either! To condition your body for running, you actually would be doing walking and jogging intervals to build yourself up for longer runs. Over time the runs will get longer, and the walking intervals will get shorter.

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Click Here if you are interested in joining me on this journey, and request to join my FREE Health and Fitness group. This is where we will be discussing all things related to the challenge, plus it is where you’ll find access to a wide range of health and fitness information. I hope to see you in the group!

Please don’t pass up on this out of fear – because I truly believe that you can do it.

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Why should you buy through a Team Beachbody Coach?

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Right now we are facing a huge issue when it comes to people being overweight or obese in North America. This is a problem that needs to be addressed now to prevent further generations from falling into the same food trap.

We are surrounded by fast food, and we are constantly faced with advertising for junk food. It doesn’t help matters that the product marketers are evolving with the times and catching on to the health-conscious shift. They realize that a significant amount of people are trying to make healthier choices, and are now finding new ways to dupe customers into believing that their JUNK products are actually healthy. This leads to confusion and frustration among many people new to health and fitness. They try to buy what they believe to be healthy foods and avoid the obvious junk foods, but they still are unable to achieve the results that they were hoping for.

One of the primary reasons that it is important for people buying Beachbody fitness programs and/or products to purchase through a coach is that you receive their guidance. Team Beachbody coaches are FREE to customers. You do not pay for the support of your Team Beachbody coach. When you order through a coach, it means that you will gain access to their knowledge about Beachbody programs and products, as well as health and fitness in general. You always have someone at your disposal to contact if you are struggling with something, or if you have any questions.

Furthermore, purchasing through a coach solidifies your spot in a challenge group! What is a challenge group? Challenge groups are private Facebook groups for coaches and clients of coaches to interact on a daily basis. This was absolutely instrumental to my success when I first began this fitness journey, and it is a CRUCIAL element to any weight loss journey that is often overlooked. These groups provide you with a support system of individuals going through the same process as you and who understand the struggles that accompany this journey. You can post about your progress there and find encouragement and praise from others, or you can sit on the sidelines until you become more comfortable and simply use the others’ posts as motivation to keep on track with your own journey.

In addition, when you purchase directly through a Team Beachbody coach there will be a record of your purchase. This means that if, for any reason, you need a replacement DVD for a program or you have some kind of issue that needs solved by support, it will be far more easier to rectify with a valid record of the purchase. Beachbody is very good with doling out replacement disks when they get stolen or broken, but only when they are able to verify the purchase. Otherwise, people could take advantage of their generosity and simply pretend they purchased the program in an attempt to get a few free disks.

Can you get a number of Beachbody fitness programs online via Ebay or other similar websites? Sure. Can you get them from Wal Mart and other third party stores? Of course. Can you download them for free online via pirating websites? Absolutely!

This is why you SHOULDN’T:

  • You do not get the support of a Team Beachbody coach to answer any questions that you may have about the programs that you are about to do, any nutritional questions that may come up, any tips you may require to help you master the workouts, et cetera.
  • You do not get the support of a team Challenge Group and all of the motivation and accountability that they can provide. You also miss out on a wonderful sense of community with a group of like-minded individuals embarking on the same type of fitness journey as yourself.
  • You do not have the benefit of receiving replacement disks for any lost or damaged items.
  • You will not have a Team Beachbody Coach to consult in the future if you consider getting another program, which may end up costing you more money. As coaches part of what we do is directing our clients to the best value AND price to suit their individual goals and needs. Without the guidance of a coach that understands the company and current promotions, you may end up missing out on some savings by being uninformed about current specials.
  • You miss out on the FREE Bonus workout that typically comes with any fitness program purchased through a Team Beachbody coach!

It definitely makes a difference to have a coach, and I can say that from personal experience. I started with Team Beachbody as a customer almost two years ago now, but that was NOT my first attempt. I had tried P90X many times before, and I could never manage to make it past the first three weeks. By a stroke of pure luck, I came across a coach on Twitter in the beginning stages of this latest attempt. I connected with him, made the switch, and I immediately felt the difference.

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Fitness + Nutrition + Support = Success

When you buy Beachbody fitness programs you get the fitness and nutrition areas of that equation covered. You get the full fitness program on DVD’s or On Demand, plus a nutrition guide and meal plan equipped with recipes and all of the information that you need to make smart and informed decisions in the kitchen. The only missing element is the support, and that is exactly what you get with a Team Beachbody Coach.

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I became a coach because these fitness programs and products have helped me to lose 60 pounds, and I would love to watch them do the same for you. Click Here to make me your Team Beachbody Coach, and I will work with you to find the perfect program to suit your individual goals and needs.

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I look forward to coaching you, and seeing your epic transformation!

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!

Do your relationships hamper your progress?

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Don’t let other people tear you down. There are going to be people out there that are going to try to discourage you from making positive life changes and/or tell you that you can’t do it. This may even come from someone close to you, like a friend or family member. This hurts, but you can’t let them beat you down to their level.

If you’ve watched Extreme Weight Loss with Chris Powell over the years like I have, you’ll have learned that sometimes the people closest to us will try to prevent us from being successful on our journey simply because they aren’t ready to make those changes themselves. Sometimes they do it without even realizing it, and though they would never intentionally do something to hurt you, their subconscious wins the battle and they say or do things that can set you back.

Making the shift from junk food to healthy food and from inactivity to activity on a regular basis is not easy. It takes hard work and dedication. This process is made much more difficult if you don’t have a support system to lean on. For example, if you live with a spouse or significant other that doesn’t want to make healthier choices, or if your friends constantly invite you out to places where you’ll be tempted to eat poorly.

What I would recommend that you do moving forward is to start analyzing the people in your life. Think about the people that mean the most to you, and the people you spend the most time with. Once you’ve figured that out, you should then have an open and honest conversation with each of those people. Say, “listen, I have decided to start eating better and working out because it is very important to me that I get healthy and/or lose weight. As my family member/friend, I was really hoping that you would support me on this journey.”

If they are the type of person that says or does things that bring you down and work against your health and fitness goals, you can add something like “You are very important to me, and I don’t want to damage our relationship. However, I feel like you sometimes say and/or do things that make it more difficult for me to stick with my positive life choices. I would love for you to join me on this journey, but if you aren’t ready, I at least need that discouraging behaviour to stop. Otherwise I might have to take some time away from you for a while until these new life choices have had the chance to become habits”

This isn’t always an easy conversation to have, but it is important if you want to be successful. If you’re open and honest with them about what you want and how you are feeling, they will likely be open and honest with you in return. It may be just the push they need to agree to these changes themselves, and it could really strengthen your relationship. However, if they refuse to join you and they continue the negative behaviour, you really should consider taking some time away from that person to work on yourself. You need to surround yourself with positive people that support you and your health and fitness goals, otherwise your chances of being successful tend to dwindle.

As for household relationships, like children and/or spouses, think about who does the grocery shopping. Is it you? If so, just gradually start reducing the amount of junk food you have in the house! Your family might not like it at first, but if you replace the junk foods that they enjoy with some healthier options, they will get used to it over time.

You need to be a positive role model for your friends and family. SHOW them that it is possible to make these life choices and what kind of results can come from making those choices. Invite them to join you on your workouts. Talk to them about how you are feeling now that you have started this awesome journey, and make them want to join in.

If you have children, this is more important than ever, because children will model after you when it comes to food choice in most cases. If you constantly eat junk food and allow them to eat junk food, they are going to learn that junk food is good. If you don’t eat junk food regularly and you don’t keep junk food in the house or allow your kids to eat it regularly, they will learn that junk food is not good for you and that they can only have it as a treat once in a while. The problem is that many people are eating junk food ALL DAY every day. For example kids get sent to school with chips, cookies, fruit roll ups, lunchables, gummies, etc. Instead, send your kids to school with healthier snacks like fruit and veggies.

If you teach your children healthy habits early in their lives, they are less likely to become overweight or obese going into adulthood. I wish that I had been forced to learn healthy habits when I was a child, because I could have avoided all of the years that I spent depressed and in self-imposed isolation because of my weight.

Send me an email to hfmxj@stu.ca with the subject line “I’m ready to transform” if you would like to make me your free Beachbody Coach. I look forward to speaking with you, and I can’t wait to watch your mind and body transform over the course of your health and fitness journey.

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!

My Insanity fit test results are in!

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I have been looking forward to trying Insanity for a long time now, and I finally got the chance to do it! I threw the fit test in today because I was curious to see how I would make out. I was actually pleasantly surprised at my results, which were pretty dang good considering I am not a huge fan of cardio!

Here are my results for the 1 minute intervals (after the warmup of course!)

115 Switch kicks (57 ish each leg)
53 Power jacks
90 Power knees
30 Power jumps
10 Globe jumps
15 Suicide jumps
17 Pushup jacks
60 Low plank obliques (30 each side)

I challenge anyone reading this blog post to complete this fit test! You can follow along with this Australian fitness instructor on Youtube so that you can see what to do. Comment below with your results (if you’re comfortable with that, if not, just let me know you did it) when you’ve finished!

Remember that I’ve been working out for almost 2 years, so I don’t expect you to get the same numbers that I did if you are relatively new to fitness. All I want is for you to do the best YOU can, not the best I can!

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If you enjoyed this fit test, feel free to email me at hfmxj@stu.ca with the subject line “Insanity” for more details on the full fitness program. You should also know that this is one of the programs now available via Beachbody On Demand for streaming!

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RESULTS DON’T LIE!

These are real people, getting REAL results. Are you going to join them in their success?

What a coach should do

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I always felt out of place at the gym before I started this fitness journey. I always felt like everyone was staring at me and making fun of me behind my back for being so overweight. I couldn’t stand to go to the gym, because the whole time I was there, I was more focused on watching the other people to make sure they weren’t staring at me. It seems silly to people who never experience this, but you’ll most likely understand to an extent if you are overweight.

The fact of the matter is, chances are they aren’t actually paying any attention to you. Even if they are, their opinion doesn’t matter! I think a majority of people would look at someone overweight in a gym and think “Good for them, they are doing something about it and working towards being healthier and happier!” Everyone has to start somewhere, and anyone who really matters will be proud that you are making that effort to better yourself.

You shouldn’t have to worry about people putting you down for your weight to try to “fat-shame” you into working it off. Getting down on yourself and feeling like crap about your body the way it is now is NOT going to help you get results. What will help you get results is being motivated and encouraged by a positive force. Someone who will help you learn how to love and appreciate the small steps forward, and who will help you through the small steps backward without judging you for them.

That is what I had when I started my fitness journey almost 2 years ago, and it is a big factor in my becoming a coach. I would LOVE to be that person for you!

Click Here if you are ready to start working on your own health and happiness :)