Tag: healthy lifestyle

Health and Fitness Challenge

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Hey guys, I have an extra little challenge for all of you this week. You opened this blog article for a reason, whether you have a lot of weight to lose, a little weight to lose, or even if you just need to tone up with muscle definition. No matter what your current level may be, or what your goals may be, I have a challenge that I think can help each of you achieve your goals.

As Darren Hardy wrote, “the first step toward change is awareness. If you want to get from where you are to where you want to be, you have to start by becoming aware of the choices that lead you away from your desired destination. Become very conscious of every choice you make today so you can begin to make smarter choices moving forward.”

To accomplish this, I want you to picture where you are RIGHT NOW. Next, I want you to picture where you want to be. Then I want you all to start keeping a record of your daily activity, water intake, and the foods you eat. If you are SERIOUS about your goals, you WILL do this. My coach got me to do it when I was starting out, and now I want you guys to do it because it seriously helps. There is something about seeing that DQ blizzard listed on your daily food journal as it destroys your healthy goal for the day that suddenly makes you think “maybe I don’t need this after all”. When you track your physical activity on a chart, you’ll see empty spaces on days you didn’t work out and will start to want to fill them in – even if you just do a 10 minute workout.

I want you to write it all down, every single day, for a week. If you don’t find that it is helping you be more motivated, or helping you to stay on track, then you can cut out at the end of the week. No excuses! If you make this commitment for 7 days, I really think you’ll start to see improvements. I highly recommend that you try getting a friend to do it with you so that you can both keep each other on track and for accountability. If you start slacking off, that way you’ll have a friend to help pull you back in – and vice versa.

“The magic is not in the complexity of the task; the magic is in the doing of simple things repeatedly and long enough to ignite the miracle of the compound effect.” – Darren Hardy. What this is getting at is that even though the task that I have set before you might seem insignificant and simple, it can be the determining factor in whether or not you are successful in achieving your goals. It may seem like a waste of time at first glance, but as I’ve learned through this book, it is the smaller things repeated over time that make the biggest impact.

If you want to learn more about this for yourself, I highly recommend The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. I have the E-book, and it is a truly great read. It isn’t even about health, fitness, or weight loss – it is just about how you can improve and create success for yourself in any aspect of your life by employing simple methods.

Do it for YOU

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One thing that absolutely drives me insane is when people ask me why I work out, and frame it like “well who are you trying to look good for/impress”. This is absolutely ridiculous, because it implies that the only reason to exercise or eat healthy is to look good or impress people. Do those things help make you look better, lose weight, add muscle, etc? Sure they do. However, they also do a number of other things for your health and personal well-being that are much more important than simply the way you look.

I chose to get into fitness for myself, not to impress anyone else. I got into health and fitness to feel better about myself and improve my own quality of life. I was sick of being depressed and hating my own body, and I knew that I needed to make these changes if I ever wanted to get back to myself. I put on some makeup before I go and do a workout. Nobody sees me working out because I have a home gym, but once again, I don’t do it for anyone else – I DO IT FOR ME! It makes me feel better, more confident, and I find that I can hit my workout harder.

Stop worrying about what other people think, because there will always be people out there that want to discourage you from what you are doing. Chances are, if they are trying to discourage you, it is simply because they were too afraid to do it themselves and they want to get you to give up so that it validates their decision not to follow your lead. Instead of giving them the satisfaction of being right, PROVE THEM WRONG. Keep working for your goals, and be a positive role model for those around you. Maybe once your friends start to see that it is really working wonders for your life as a whole, they will finally decide to join you and start their own health and fitness journey.

Click Here if you are ready to start working on yourself, because you DESERVE to be happy and healthy!

Do you make excuses?

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I am in no position to judge others for making excuses, because before I got into Beachbody I came up with just about every excuse in the book not to work out and eat healthy. It is so easy to make excuses because we all have lives, and we all get tired after a long day at work. Some people I’ve spoken to are stay at home moms, some people work a lot, some people are strapped for money, some people lack energy, some people lack motivation, and the list goes on and on. These are all excuses that I’ve heard people use time and time again as reasons for why they can’t get into a fitness program.

Honestly though, no matter how true each of those things are, they ARE excuses. Before I get into any of those examples and cause an uproar with anyone who falls into any of those categories, let me give you my own example and show you what I mean. I used to say things like “I don’t have time to work out because I’m busy with school and work”, and it was true to an extent, but it was still an excuse. I WAS busy with school and work, but I also wasted A LOT of time surfing the internet, playing games, watching Netflix, etc.

Just like my example, the stay at home mom thing is also an excuse. I understand that being a mom can be tiring, and I understand that when you’re watching your kids all day long you may have a hard time finding the time to do a workout. However, even if you don’t want to do a Beachbody program, there are still plenty of simple exercises that you can do from home at night as you watch TV or even spaced out throughout the day when you have a spare minute here and there. My sister is a stay at home mom of a 1 year old, and he is a mama’s boy and likes to be held. She uses this excuse, so I told her to start doing squats as she holds my nephew. There are also Beachbody programs designed for those with little time to work with! Plenty of Beachbody coaches within my team are parents, some are stay at home parents while others have jobs in addition to parenting, but the common factor is that they find the time to do their workouts. It CAN be done, you just have to decide for yourself that it is a priority.

It is the same thing with the work example. A lot of people have full time jobs and work overtime to pay the bills, but plenty of people that do that are still getting their workouts in at some point. I know people that will get up at 4 or 5am just to get their workout in before leaving to start their day, or who will do their workout at 11pm or even 12am at the very end of the day despite how exhausted they may be feeling. Some people even work overnight shifts and come home and do their workout before going to bed! These are people that know their workouts are important, and have decided to make it a priority and not to let their work be an excuse.

I definitely understand the money factor can be a true factor for many people. However, more often than not, the people making that claim are losing money unnecessarily somewhere. For example, they have a drinking habit, they like to go clubbing every weekend, they like to go to Tim Horton’s or Starbucks for coffee everyday, they have a smoking habit, they like having fast food on a regular basis, etc. All of those things are examples of that which could be given up to provide the money needed to buy a fitness program. Again, it is simply a matter of whether or not you are willing to make your health and fitness a priority by giving up something that is unhealthy to provide you with something to help you BECOME healthy.

The energy thing is actually kind of ironic, because though working out does seem to decrease your energy in the short-term, it actually INCREASES your energy level long-term. When you are exercising regularly, you will actually start to find that you just naturally have more energy. This probably sounds crazy to anyone that hasn’t experienced it for themselves, but it is true. It just takes a bit of time for you to start seeing the effects, and many people give up before they reach that point.

Lastly, the motivation excuse, which is something that I prefer to call the Motivation Myth. Essentially what this means is that motivation often isn’t a factor when it comes to health and fitness. What really matters is that you are mentally prepared for the changes you are about to make, and that you want to reach your goals bad enough that you JUST DO IT. It kind of reminds me of how my mom used to talk about the challenge of quitting smoking. She has been smoke-free for three years now I think, and she always says that the reason all of her previous attempts to quit failed because she simply wasn’t mentally prepared to quit. As in, she didn’t want it bad enough. As she watched my grandfather’s health deteriorate, she knew that she had to quit or else she could wind up with the same health issues not too far down the road. Does she still crave cigarettes? YES. Does she give up and have one? NO. Why is that? Because her desire to be healthy long-term is more of a priority to her than simply giving in to temptation and curbing her craving in the short-term.

If you want to be successful with fitness and nutrition, you need to start thinking of it as something that you need to do if you want to reach your goals. If you keep waiting for motivation to come along and put you in action, you’re most likely going to let life pass you by never achieving your goals.

Click Here if you’re ready to take that step, because I’d love to help you get there!

Sick and tired of being sick and tired?

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Are you feeling tired and sluggish all of the time? Are you getting a lot of sleep, but waking up and going through your day STILL feeling exhausted? If the answer to those questions is yes, I would like you to answer these questions honestly – even if you just admit it to yourself. Are you eating a lot of junk food or unhealthy foods? Are you exercising regularly? Are you sleeping more than 8 hours a night?

I know how it feels to be tired and sluggish day in and day out, because I’ve been there. What I have learned over my own health and fitness journey is that it comes primarily from your diet and lack of exercise.  I have found that eating a lot of junk food, failing to exercise, and sleeping more than 8 hours a night actually keeps your mind a bit foggy. It is a feeling that doesn’t really go away, kind of like trying to see through cobwebs. It doesn’t completely block your view (or in this case your mental capacity), but it does keep you tired and drowsy.

I honestly didn’t even realize how bad that fog was until I started eating better, working out, and not sleeping in until noon every day. It was only then that my mind got back to running normally, without those cobwebs keeping me from being my best. Exercise depletes your energy in the short-term, but what it actually does for you long-term is way worth it. When you work out, you are actually releasing endorphins into your body that I like to think of as mood enhancers! If I am mad or upset over something, all I have to do is throw in one of my high intensity interval training or kickboxing workouts and I feel so much better by the time I’m done.

I’m only human, so I have fallen off the wagon a couple of times and gone on binges where I ate a ton of junk food – usually on holidays or vacations. What happens when I do that though is the fog starts creeping back in. I’m not a scientist or a doctor, so I can’t say with any certainty that something in the junk food is causing this to happen, but I would bet money that it is!

Another instance where I feel this fog coming back is when I sleep too much. You need to get a decent amount of rest, especially if you are exercising because that is when your body heals itself from the strain and builds muscle. However, the longer you exceed 8 hours in sleep, the higher the chances are that you’re going to wake up feeling groggy. This happens to me sometimes because I work overnight shifts here and there that really mess up my sleep schedule. I will only get 4 or 5 hours of sleep for a few nights, and I’ll let myself sleep for like 10-12 hours on a day off to make up for it. On days that I have done that I just wake up feeling worse.

My point here is that if you want to get rid of this feeling, you need to start eating healthier, exercising regularly, and only sleeping as much as you have to. Once you start losing weight and you start feeling the positive effects of the exercise, chances are you’ll come to understand what I mean.

Click Here if you’re ready to make this commitment to change your life for the better.

What will YOU choose?

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You can choose to change nothing with respect to diet and exercise, and expect no positive change in your body. OR, you can choose to make good choices with respect to diet and exercise and start seeing progress in your body, strength, and overall health!

The first week is the hardest when it comes to diet. Once you find healthy meals and snacks that you like it becomes a whole lot easier! After you’ve been eating healthy for a bit and you get all of those chemicals and processed foods out of your system, your body won’t crave the junk food as much. Instead, you’ll find yourself craving your favorite healthy snacks.

Just try to always keep in mind that the time will pass regardless, so you might as well make the best of it!

Click Here if you are ready to get started!

Overcoming hurdles

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This quote could not be more true! Cardio and I have never been friends. It is something that I have struggled with since I was a child, and even into adulthood. I never would have thought that I would be able to do a Turbo Fire workout, and even as I started the program I still had my doubts. I remember the first time I tried Turbo Fire, and even the next couple of times, I honestly thought that I was going to keel over and die. I was sweating buckets, I had to pause the tape every few minutes to get a drink of water, and my heartrate was so high I was actually starting to worry about my safety.

I pushed through though, and I’m not going to say it got easier, but I will say that I GOT BETTER. People usually say that it gets easier, and in a way it does. By the same token though, it doesn’t necessarily get easier- because as you get better, you find yourself pushing harder, doing more, bringing it just that much more. You can jump higher, kick and punch harder, master moves you couldn’t do when you started, and even get through workouts without having to pause the disk.

Believe in yourself, because you CAN do it. It doesn’t matter if you have to pause the dvd a hundred times to calm your heart rate and get a drink of water. It doesn’t matter if you have to skip moves because you genuinely don’t have the strength to do them. It  doesn’t matter if you have to follow the modified version of moves. All that matters is that you TRY, because the next time you try the workout you could be strong enough to do it. As long as you are trying, you are still burning calories! Push through it, and over time you will be amazed at what you have overcome.

Click Here if you are ready to start overcoming hurdles!

Pre-Diet junk food binge

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Does this sound familiar?! This used to be an annual thing in our house haha, but it is no good! All this does is cause you to gain extra weight that you will have to work off during your diet and/or new fitness routine. It does not make any sense for you to eat a bunch of junk food just to get rid of it,  because it is only going to hurt you in the end.

It is better to give it to a friend or family member than to gorge on it right before you start a new diet. It may taste good, but all it is going to do is make you feel pretty crappy and gain weight. Would you rather not “waste” the money it cost you to get the junk food in the first place and deal with the consequences, or get rid of the junk food and get off to a good start with your diet? Personally, I would go for that second option.

If you gorge on junk food before a diet, you are just setting yourself up for failure. You need to change your mentality surrounding the word “diet”, because getting fit and healthy isn’t a short-term thing – it is a lifestyle change. What you need to do is find foods like mimic the meals you typically enjoy, but that are much healthier for you. You don’t have to restrict yourself 100% of the time, but you should try to aim for 80-90%. If you want something that isn’t healthy, just work it into your calorie and macro limits for the day! It is possible to live a healthy lifestyle while still occasionally enjoying junk food, you just have to want it bad enough to keep yourself from junk food on a regular basis. Instead, use it as a treat for progress at the end of the month or something.

Click Here if you would like to take the first step toward a healthier life!

Hunger VS Boredom

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This was a huge thing for me! I am a big time night snacker, and I loved snacking while I watched tv. Watching movies or shows without food just felt foreign to me. What this is though is habit and comfort, it isn’t hunger.

When you catch yourself heading for a snack, I want you to think to yourself: “Am I really hungry, or is this just habit?” If you are hungry, try drinking a big glass of water to hold you over until your next meal. Believe it or not, water can actually curb your appetite short-term. If that doesn’t work and you’re still hungry, go for some of healthy snacks! Celery is a great snack choice, especially if your goal is weight loss. If you are snacking at night, try to stay away from fruit because of the natural sugars. It is better to consume fruit earlier in your day.

Click Here if you would like to gain FREE access to information regarding health and fitness, including recipes for healthy snacks and meals!

It’s never too late

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As a Beachbody coach, I have come across plenty of people in their 40’s and 50’s or above who are trying to lose weight and get healthy. Your age shouldn’t be a limitation. In fact, we gave my grandmother a Beachbody fitness program for Christmas this year! If you can move around, you can exercise at any age. Just modify the moves, it is as simple as that! Only do what you can, only go as low as you can, and start by using light weights in the beginning of your journey and work your way up.

Just ask the many people who start in their 40’s or 50’s or sometimes even later than that, or the many people who were obese when they started their journey. These people may have thought that they were too far gone to ever lose the weight again! In my opinion, the hardest part is the first few weeks to a month. During that initial timeframe, it is almost more of a mental challenge than a physical one. Of course your body will be challenge, but you have to get over the “I can’t do this” mentality before you can be successful.

Like I mentioned above, you just have to modify the moves and do what you are capable of doing. When I started there were certain exercises I simply had to skip because I lacked the strength to do them safely. There were many exercises that I had to complete using the modified version. Plus, I would have to pause the workout a BUNCH to get a drink and calm my heart rate down a bit. It was a struggle, but I just told myself that I could do it, and so I did. Over time I got better and better, I could do more exercises the regular way, I could finally do the moves I previously had skipped, and I found I didn’t have to pause the workout nearly as often.

I am not saying it will be easy to change your mental mindset, because it won’t. It will be a challenge, but what doesn’t challenge you, doesn’t change you! You won’t regret the changes that take place once you make these life changes, but you may regret it if you don’t.

Click Here if you are ready to make these changes now.

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.