Wellness Gets Way Easier With Systems That Support You

If you’ve found yourself saying “I’m too lazy to eat healthy and exercise!  I just don’t have the willpower.” you’re definitely not alone.  This is something I hear a lot from people, especially women.  As women, we’re juggling a lot throughout our daily lives: partners, work, cooking, grocery shopping, kids, cleaning, laundry and the list goes on.

Here’s the thing about saying you’re “too lazy to eat healthy and exercise,” it’s a story you’re telling yourself that’s not actually true.  In fact, it couldn’t be further than the truth.  You actually do have the willpower within yourself.  You just need to bring it to the surface by getting efficient habit systems in place.

Before I dive into how to find the willpower within yourself, I want to say that I get where you’re coming from by thinking you’re lazy.  I thought this about myself for years until I cracked the code on effective habit systems.

It’s easy to feel this way when:

• You struggle to stick to a healthy meal plan

• You have to drag yourself out of bed in the morning to workout

• You have a super busy schedule with work, family, and social events

• You just want to scroll through social media or binge watch a show after dinner

• You can’t resist the sweet treats in the break room at work

These are all valid reasons to make you think that you’re lazy.  The reality is these are simply obstacles that are getting in your way and you just need to find a way to overcome them to uncover the willpower that’s inside of you (trust me, it’s there!).

I realize this is easier said than done.  It might be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier.  I share this from personal experience.  Creating new habits is my superpower.  This is what I’m trained to do to help my clients create sustainable lifestyle habits that work for them and I’ve mastered this skill in my own life.  Creating habit systems in my life that are fun (for the most part) and fold into my life efficiently (and sometimes effortlessly) has made healthy lifestyle habits easy.

Okay, let’s dive right in!

Making your new habits easy for yourself is key in creating a habit system that works for you.  Having systems in place that you can do over and over again help you get the habit you want to implement ingrained in you.

When you’re creating a new habit, your brain is actually creating a new neural net so you can eventually do the new activity pretty much without thinking about it.  It takes time and energy to create these new neural nets in your brain which means you need to do something new over and over again to make it stick.  If you make it too complicated, you’ll be tempted to give up too easily and your brain won’t have enough time to put it on autopilot.

I learned this throughout my training as a health coach and from BJ Fogg’s book, Tiny Habits.  There are a lot of habit books out there and this one is definitely my favorite.  If you tend be more analytical, this habit book might be good for you.

So, what does a habit system look like?  Let’s take a look at different scenarios…

That cupcake calling your name in the break room? Yeah, that’s not just temptation — it’s part of your habit system doing its thing. Hitting snooze five times before dragging yourself into a half-hearted workout? Yep, that’s your current exercise habit system. And that nightly scroll-a-thon on the couch after dinner? You guessed it — another habit in action. The good news? Systems can be reworked, rewired, and made to actually work for you — not against you.

If you want to get different results such as healthier eating and exercise habits, something needs to change within your habit system.  Rather than thinking you have to do all this work to create a new habit, think of it as simply updating your habit systems to get the results you want.

As I mentioned earlier, the most important thing to do is to make your new habit super easy.  I personally don’t like complicated processes, at least not when I’m creating a new habit.

You decide to work with a health and fitness coach (a win for you!).  You’re ready to make changes, but then you’re handed a meal plan packed with ingredients you don’t buy and recipes that feel more like a cooking show than real life. You do your best, stick with it for a week, but pretty soon, it’s clear: this just doesn’t fit your life. You’re busy, the meals aren’t enjoyable, and you're only following it because someone told you it’s “healthy.” But here’s the truth — lasting change doesn’t come from forcing yourself to eat things you don’t love. It comes from building habits that actually fit you, your lifestyle, and your taste buds.

The next thing you know, you’re telling yourself that you can’t eat healthy because you’re lazy and don’t have the willpower.  Then your thoughts transform into “Why did I invest in a coach when I can’t be helped at all?”  This frustrating cycle continues until you get habit systems in place that actually work for you.

Here’s my philosophy as a coach: it doesn’t matter how healthy a meal plan or effective an exercise routine is if you’re not going to stick to it.

The reality is you need to figure out a healthy meal plan that you enjoy eating and is easy to prepare (30-minutes or less is my go-to during the week!) while at the same time is made up of nutrient-dense, whole food (meat, seafood, eggs, veggies, fruit, nuts, berries, etc.).  This can be done with a mini experiments and patience (sometimes a lot of patience!).

The same is true for an exercise routine.  When I’m programming workouts for my clients, one of the things I want to know is which type of exercise they really don’t enjoy doing.  I’m talking any movement they would really struggle to find the motivation to do.  And then I want to know what they do enjoy doing for exercise.  It doesn’t have to be a movement they actually love but at least tolerate (sometimes with a smile).

Speaking of exercise… an important part of your fitness habit system is getting ready for your workouts.  The small steps you need to take to get to your workout space (the gym, your living room, or your corporate wellness group fitness class) make a big difference in whether or not you get to your workout.

Packing your gym bag the night before can give you more time in the morning to get to the gym.  Putting your workout clothes and shoes near the front door so you can put them on right when you get home from work can make it easy for you to go for a walk before dinner.  Putting on your workout clothes right after waking up in the morning before you have your coffee can get you in the mindset to workout.

Now it’s time to take action!

What’s one tweak you can make to a habit system where you want to see different results?

Here are a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing:

• Remind yourself why you don’t want to eat the sweet treats on the table or avoid the temptation all together by not walking into the break room.

• Find a time of day to workout when you have the energy so you’re not dragging yourself out of bed when morning workouts don’t work for you.

• Go for a walk after dinner rather than picking up your phone or turning on the TV.

There really are so many different ways you can make tweaks to your habit systems to make them more efficient.  Every small step in your habit systems will help you find the motivation to take action and actually see the results you want and deserve.

Remember… You’re not lazy!  You just need habit systems in place that work for you.

10 Ways to Prioritize You—Because You Deserve It!

Self-care is a term that can mean different things to different people.  To some, it might mean going to a fancy spa and getting a luxurious massage or getting a mani-pedi.  To others (like myself), it might mean sitting in the sun for 10 minutes or sitting alone in a room for 5 minutes by myself.

Most people think you have to spend money on self-care when the reality is you actually don’t need to spend any money at all to treat yourself to a luxurious moment in your life.  There are a lot of ways you can take care of yourself that take minimal time and effort.

I’ve broken down 10 self-care ideas almost anyone can do no matter how busy life gets.  These are simple and easy (which is a combination that I love!) ways to show yourself some love and that you’re worthy and deserving of living your dream life.

Let’s get started with these ideas and how to implement them!

Focus on Positive Self-Talk

This one can be a game changer in all areas of your life.  Talking to yourself as if you’re your bestie is showing yourself that you’re worthy of respect.  I’m not talking about being a pollyanna and being positive 100% of the time (this is totally not realistic and actually unhealthy!).

When you make a mistake, give yourself grace and remind yourself that you’re human.  Limit your pity party to 5 minutes or less and then move on to what you learned from the mistake and how to fix it.  Then… move on with your life.  Repeating this process over and over creates resiliency.  Resiliency can make overcoming any obstacle (especially those related to weight loss) feel almost effortless in the long run.  This is easier said than done and something I’m constantly working on myself.

Take a Hot Bath

A hot bath with your favorite bubble bath or epsom salt (or both) can give your body what it needs to decompress from a stressful day.  The hot water and epsom salt relaxes your muscles and minimizes soreness from workouts.  It can also help ease those pesky menstrual cramps so you don’t have to suffer every month.

So, grab your bath pillow, favorite book or relaxing music, and glass of wine and slip into a nice hot tub of water.  Or just enjoy your bath in silence with your eyes closed.  You’ll emerge from your bath feeling better than you did when you got in.

Go on an Exercise Date With Your Partner

When my hubby and I started dating, several of our dates were Saturday morning meet ups at the sand dune or trailhead.  It was a great way for us to talk and get to know each other while being in the fresh air and sunshine.  It was an opportunity to get away from the screens and have meaningful conversations to see if we’re compatible.

We still do this almost every weekend after 13 years together.  Staying active is an important value we both have as individuals and as a couple.  It’s something that we bond over even after being together for over a decade.  Whether you’re in a new relationship or seasoned one, exercising together can help you get or stay healthy together as a team.

Get Out Your Crayons (or Colored Pencils) and Coloring Book

When I was kid I loved getting my color crayons (yes, I still call them color crayons) and coloring books out to sit and color.  I could do this for hours on end.  As an adult, we tend to get away from the simple activities we did as kids when we should really be moving towards them.  It gives us a much needed break from “adulting.”

If you go to a bookstore (yes, they still exist believe it or not!), there’s a wide variety of adult coloring books.  You can choose one that features National Parks, super heroes (I have a Wonder Woman book), nature, holidays, and so many more I can’t list them all.  I found a Barbie coloring book at Target a few weeks ago that took me back to my childhood.  I’m sure you can find one that piques your interest.  Coloring can be a relaxing way to unwind, tap into your creativity, and allow your mind to wander.

Enjoy a Cup of Coffee

My favorite morning routine is sipping on a freshly brewed cup of coffee.  While the caffeine boost gives me energy, the taste of coffee and the ritual of starting my day off in a relaxing way is part of my self-care routine.  To me it’s not just about sipping the coffee, though I do love the taste.  It’s about this entire process.  We make hand-brewed pour over coffee every morning and while it’s a bit of a process, it’s well worth the effort.

My hubby and I have certain days of the week when each of us make the coffee.  On Sunday mornings, I get to sleep in a little while my hubby gets out of bed before me and brings me coffee in bed.  Letting him do this is part of my coffee self-care routine.  Let your partner do the heavy lifting with your coffee routine so you can sleep in a little bit.

Watch a Few Episodes of Your Favorite TV Show

Sometimes we feel the need to escape from our current life momentarily and step into different reality.  Turning on your favorite TV show for a few laughs (or maybe some tears) can be a relaxing experience to help you unwind.  My top three favorite shows are Friends, The Big Band Theory, and The West Wing.  While The West Wing is obviously more of drama than a comedy, all three of these shows can make me laugh no matter what kind of mood I’m in.

Just to be clear, stepping into a different reality (especially a fictional one) isn’t a way to avoid any problems happening in your life.  It’s an opportunity to step back and take your mind off what’s happening for a short period of time.  Often times stepping away from a problem and doing something else can actually help you solve your problem.  So, having fictional friends that you can “hang out with” at Central Perk, the Comic Book Store, or in the Oval Office can help your brain go do it’s thing to find a solution while you sit back and relax.

Eat a Meal with Meat (or Seafood) and Veggies Only

You might be asking yourself why I included this one as self-care.  The answer is very simple: eating whole, nutrient-dense food is one of the most important self-care activities you can do for yourself.  This is something we often overlook when we think of self-care.  If you want to start small with your self-care routine, start by eating one meal a day that’s made up of chicken, beef, bison, seafood, or eggs and veggies.  This is treating your body with the respect it deserves so it can do what it needs to do to keep you getting great sleep, stay lean, and age gracefully.

Say No to a Social Event You Don’t Want to Go To

This can be a hard one if you’re a people pleaser like me and want to say yes to everyone to avoid any conflict.  What I’ve learned over the years of being a professional people pleaser is that I’m not actually avoiding conflict when I say yes when I actually want to say no.  After I say yes, there’s always regret bubbling up inside of me for committing to something I didn’t want to do.

Along with being a people pleaser, I tend to be a very loyal person so telling someone yes when I wanted to say no causes more conflict within me.  Saying no to a social event you don’t want to go to can feel incredibly liberating.  I just said no earlier this week to a social event that I almost said yes to only because I wanted to support my friend.  It felt really good to say no with zero guilt creeping up afterwards.  The older I get the more I want to protect my time.  Plus, I don’t like going out on a school night unless it’s something really fun like Taco Tuesday!

Improve Your Relationship with Money

This is one that I’ve been working on slowly over the years and have recently accelerated my efforts to level up.  We are all where are financially as the result of our money story and beliefs about money.

Now, I won’t go into more detail about specifics since I’m not an expert on the topic but I will say this: while money doesn’t make you happy, it does give you choices.  You’ll have more choices to travel, invest in your health and wellness, buy all the food you need, or treat your family to a night out.  When you have a healthy relationship with money you don’t worry about it as much.  The less worry you have in your life, the more you channel your energy into focusing on what you want to do with your life.

Wash and Condition Your Hair

This may sound like a silly one but tell me, how great does it feel to get out of the shower, run a comb through freshly washed hair, and go on to either let it air dry or use a hair dryer?  I washed my hair last Sunday even though I could have waited until Monday morning because I love the shampoo and conditioner I use and how my hair feels when it’s clean.

Healthy hygiene is definitely up there on the self-care priority list.  Having clean hair helps me feel more confident in my own skin even when it’s just me and my hubby lying around watching movies on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Prioritize Your Self-Care Today

To wrap it up, when you take care of yourself first you not only improve your health, but your confidence increases, as well.  You feel more relaxed and energetic, ready to take on the world.  You’re body is able to burn fat efficiently, you experience more motivation than before, and you’re able to better take care of those around you.  By helping yourself first, you’re in-turn helping others at the same.  It truly is a win-win!

7 Reasons To Take Care Of YOU Right Now

When was the last time you did something for yourself?  I’m talking about something that was not influenced by your kids, spouse, friends, or anyone else in your life.  Something that was all about YOU.

If you can’t remember, it’s totally okay.  To be honest, you’re probably not alone.  So many women (myself included) find it challenging to carve out time for themselves.  As women, we’re taught to take care of everyone else around us first.  Now, I realize this isn’t true for all women but it’s a common theme among women who are married, have kids, or take care of elderly parents.

Let’s chat about why it’s important to take care of YOU right now.  Next week we’ll tackle self-care strategies and how to implement them into your life so be sure to tune in then.

Respecting Yourself

Take a minute to think about how you treat someone who you truly respect.  Would you talk to them with words of discouragement or encouragement?  (We’ll chat more about self-talk next week.)  Would you jump in and help them when they needed it?  When you treat yourself with the utmost respect that you would another human, you get to know yourself on a deeper level.  You gain clarity on what you really want and not what you think you want based on what others are telling you.  Living your life the way society tells you is the “right” way is not treating yourself with respect (unless it aligns with your values, of course).  I’m sure most of us have done this at some point in our life.  When you gain clarity on what you really want, you’re able to set your life up in a way that aligns with your values.  Which leads into the next reason for taking care of you.

Realistic Expectations

When you start showing yourself more respect and get super clear on what you want, you organically begin to set up realistic expectations for yourself.  Your focus shifts to the healthy habits you can fit into your life rather than rearranging your entire life to force habits into it because, well, that’s not fun.  This helps you set realistic expectations.  Now, you may need to make a few adjustments with your schedule to squeeze in 2-3 workouts during the week.  For example, if you can’t (or don’t want to) workout in the morning but you want to start exercising regularly, find times during your week that work for you.  Maybe you have 30-minutes when you get home from work where you can squeeze in a 20-minute at home workout.  Or go for a walk after dinner with your family rather than watching a show.  There are ways to get creative.

When you set up realistic expectations for your own life (and not anyone else’s) you’ll experience more success and learn how to celebrate your small wins.  For me, packing my gym bag the night before is something to celebrate because it makes my mornings so much more relaxed.  It gives me more time to read and enjoy my morning coffee, which is part of my self-care routine.

Respecting yourself proves that you’re worthy and deserving of the healthiest and happiest version of yourself.

Increased Confidence

When you start taking care of yourself, you organically begin to feel more confident in your own body.  The small wins I just mentioned?  Each and every one of these is going to give you a boost of confidence.  Some will be small and others will be big.  Each of these wins, no matter how big or small, will motivate you to keep moving forward.  You may not notice it in the moment but the motivation is there.  You just need to trust the process.

When your self-confidence is higher, you naturally feel like you deserve more.  You’re more likely to stick to what you define as healthy lifestyle habits: frequent movement, nutrient-dense foods, plenty of rest, and most importantly, indulging in life’s simple pleasures (chocolate and wine anyone?).

More Energy

There might be seasons in life when you feel exhausted all the time.  If you’ve just given birth, your adorable, tiny new roommate might be a challenge to get used to (it’s good thing she’s super cute!).  If you have a deadline at work, you might be working long hours to not only get a project done, but do it well.  If you’re planning a wedding, getting together all the details for your special day might feel like a part (or full) time job.  When you prioritize your self-care during these times, you’ll have the energy you need to power through this time in your life.

Even during the seasons in your life that are busy, but not crazy busy, you’ll experience more consistent energy levels when you focus on your self-care.  I’m not saying every day is going to be filled with energy levels that keep you moving like the Energizer® Bunny all day long but you can experience more days like this when you do than when you don’t.  Eating nutritious meals, drinking plenty of water, and laughing are all things that can help you feel alive and energetic.  This leads us to the next reason to prioritize your self-care…

Better Moods

Those times when your anxiety is at its peak, you’re snapping at your hubby (or kids) for no reason, or you feel like your world is crumbling around you can be few and far between when you make yourself a priority in your life.

As women, we can be very skilled at saying everything is good even though on the inside we’re about to lose our shit because we spilled a glass of water.  I know you’ve been there because I’ve been there, too.  When there’s a dumpster fire going on inside of you it’s okay to admit it.  This will help you let the emotions flow so you can move on.

Once you grab the fire extinguisher and put out the dumpster fire, it’s time to replace the “everything is good when it actually isn’t” skill with one that makes you an expert at carving out time for yourself on a daily basis.  We’ll dive into the nitty gritty about how to do this next week.  I promise you it can be done with time and a lot of patience (and maybe some wine or whiskey), which I know you have deep down inside (the patience, not the wine or whiskey).

Once you master the self-care skill, you’ll notice you’re in a better mood more often.  This will help you overcome challenges that come up and become more resilient.  You’ll find yourself bouncing back faster after a set back.  You’ll feel your anxiety melting away and become more optimistic about your future.  Your relationships will improve and you won’t need to apologize as often for yelling at your hubby because he didn’t put the toilet seat down.

Better moods naturally lead to our next reason…

Efficient Fat Loss

One skill to be mastered that often gets overlooked when you’re wanting to lose weight is managing your stress levels and keeping your cortisol in check.  This can be the missing link in your fat loss puzzle.

You’ll always have stressors in your life which this is actually a good thing.  Your body actually needs cortisol (your stress hormone) to thrive.  Cortisol in combination with serotonin helps your body wake up in the morning.  Plus, when you’re actually in a life threatening situation, cortisol protects you by helping you react effectively.  So, we want a healthy level of cortisol that keeps us alert but not too much to where we’re always feeling like we’re on edge.  When this happens your body automatically goes into protection mode and keeps any extra fat on you to make sure you’re good to go at any time.  It’s your body’s way of keeping you alive in moments of distress.

When your stress levels are at a healthy level, your body feels more relaxed and wants to let go of any excess fat it’s holding onto to keep you thriving and not just surviving.

Improve Your Overall Health

Taking care of yourself by doing all the things (eating whole foods, relaxing, taking a hot bath, sleeping, etc.) lowers your chances of heart disease, high blood pressure, and   other chronic diseases.  Creating lifestyle habits that focus on self-care before going through menopause is super important.  The hormone estrogen is important in protecting you from heart related issues.  Since your estrogen levels drop significantly during menopause, having self-care habits in place can help prevent heart disease post menopause.

What’s your number one reason for taking care of YOU?

If you’ve been part of my community for a while (or have worked with me one-on-one), you already know I’m a big fan getting clear on your Why.  So, if you wanted to make self-care a priority in your life today, what would be your motivation?

Health and Fitness Coaching: Unnecessary Expense or Smart Investment?

When was the last time you checked in with your money mindset?  I know you’re probably wondering why I’m talking about money mindset when I’m a health and fitness coach.  That’s fair!  There is method to my madness, I promise.

There’s a connection between how we spend our money and our values (what’s most important to us in our life).  Sometimes we think we know what we value most in our life but the reality is our words don’t always line up with our actions.  We’ll do a deep dive on this topic today.

We spend our money on the things that are important to us and that are needed.  We all need food to stay alive.  Life is much more enjoyable when we have a warm, comfortable, safe place to sleep.  We need some form of transportation to get us to the grocery store, work, school, and wherever else we want to go.

After all our basic necessities are paid for we have the choice to spend, save, or invest the leftover at the end of the month (if there is any which I’ll talk about as well).  These are three completely different actions.  While I’m not a financial advisor (nor do I want to be one), I’m going to share with you how each of these relate to your health and wellness values.

Spending

There’s always new health and fitness trends roaming around social media these days.    Let’s rewind for a sec.  In the 80’s, it was the Step Aerobics platform promoted by the original cardio queen, Jane Fonda.  Back in the 90’s, it was Suzanne Sommers’ thigh master, which was actually a very effective tool to firm up your thighs and there’s still versions available today.  Dance classes (Zumba anyone?) became a big hit in the early 2000’s as the go-to workout to do.

There’s not only fitness trends that become popular but nutrition trends, as well.  If you think about it, we’re always hearing about the latest “super-food” that you just have to eat because it will turn you into Wonder Woman and you’ll be able to fly your invisible plane and use your lasso of truth to make people tell you the truth.  Okay, maybe I’m being a little dramatic but, honestly, who doesn’t want to be Super Woman?  My point is that there’s not one food (or supplement for that matter) that’s going to make or break your health and wellness.  I’ll dive more into this in the investment section in a bit.

If you want to keep up with the latest health and fitness trends I’m all for it!  Just be sure it’s actually something you enjoy doing (or eating) and not something you’re doing  (or eating) just because social media influencers are telling you it’s good for you.  When you fall into this trap you might be adding an unnecessary expense to your spending habits.  You’re the only one who gets to decide what’s good for your health and wellness.  We’ll tap into this later on.

On the other hand, if you say you want to scale back on your processed food intake to eat healthier but say you can’t because it’s too expensive, I encourage you to take a look at your spending habits.  What can you take a break from buying and spend that money on meat, eggs, or veggies instead?  Every few months or so we’ll do a no-spend month where we don’t buy any extras.  We don’t eat out (or scale back on this) and only spend our money on the regular expenses that keep us alive and kicking (i.e. food) and the necessities (i.e. insurance).  It definitely opens our eyes to unnecessary spending that’s happening that we’re not aware of.

Saving

If you’re a saver like me (which, by the way, I wasn’t always), this can definitely benefit your health and well-being.  Having money in the bank in case any unexpected expenses come up such as a car repair can help you avoid diving into panic mode.  You know what I’m talking about.  The one that pops up during a routine maintenance check that adds an extra $500 to your bill.  This happened to us the week of Christmas and, while it wasn’t too expensive, we were really grateful we were able to pay for it no problem.

The constant stress about money can take a toll on your overall health.  When your cortisol (your stress hormone) levels are constantly high, this can create chaos with your hormones. When your hormones are out of whack sugar and salt cravings increase, anxiety levels go up, you have trouble sleeping, and you may feel less motivated to move your body.  Before you know it, you’ve eaten the entire box of cookies and it’s 1am and you’re still scrolling through social media.  These are just a few things that can inhibit your body from burning fat effortlessly.

Enjoying peace of mind when it comes to having a cushion in the bank can help you feel calm and collected even when surprise expenses come up.  When you feel relaxed and optimistic, you’re more likely to make food and movement choices that actually align with your health and fitness goals.  It will make creating sustainable lifestyle habits more enjoyable and feel effortless.  Which brings us to the last money topic.

Investing

Now we’re going to talk about the good stuff!  Investing in your health, in my opinion, is the best way to create lifestyle habits that are sustainable.  There’s something really satisfying to me when I hand over my money in exchange for something that I know is going to help me get great sleep, feel strong, have energy, and feel confident in my own skin (which is something I’ve struggled with all my life).

So, what does this look like?

Well, this looks different for everyone.  Now, I know I talk a lot about the benefits of health and fitness coaching.  I do this because I truly believe in the value of it, which is why I got into this industry.  This is why I’m committed to writing about women’s health every single week.  This is why I started the Wellness Abundance Podcast.  This is why I get out of bed every day and make it my daily mission to impress upon women like yourself that you can live in a healthy body while enjoying life’s simple pleasures like chocolate and wine.

Some women benefit from joining a gym and signing up for group fitness classes.  Other women prefer investing in fitness videos and workout equipment they can do in the comfort of their own home.  By the way, if you’re not on our Women’s Weekly Wellness email list, go here to join and you’ll receive our Guide to Fitness For Weight Loss that includes 27 on demand fitness videos you can do at any time in the comfort of your own home.

Okay, I digress.  Let’s get back on track.

Personally, I like to invest my money in grass-feed meat, wild caught seafood, pasture-raised eggs, and organic fruits and veggies whenever possible.  This aligns with one of my core values of eating as many nutrient dense foods as possible.  Of course, only the ones I actually enjoy eating.  You won’t catch me eating liver.  EVER!  I’ve tried it once and never again.  Yuck!

To be honest, it’s actually easy for me to choose nutrient dense food over processed food because it’s a core value of mine.  Same with my hubby which was actually one the qualities that attracted me to him.  Health and fitness being a priority was a “must-have” quality on my list I was looking for in a life partner.  In fact, it was at the top of my list.  Yes, I had a list of the qualities for a life partner.  That’s a fun story for another time.

One of the first things I want to learn about my clients is what they value most in their life.  What’s most important to them?  This conversation usually starts before we actually start working together because they come to me for help them align their actions with their values.

Just to give you some clarity on this, here are some examples of women who’ve enrolled in one of my programs:

• She’s having fertility challenges and wants to start a family

• Osteoporosis runs in her family and she wants to prevent it with a strength training routine but she doesn’t know where to start

• She wants to lose fat to be healthier because of a scary diagnosis

• She feels wants to take her health and fitness to a different level

At the very beginning of our coaching relationship, we chat about her values and why it’s important to her to create healthy lifestyle habits.  This then translates into a great conversation about what her life would look like if she implemented these changes and found success.

As we work together and collaborate on a healthy lifestyle strategy, we keep in mind her values and how they relate to her food, fitness, and rest choices.  This makes it easier for her to choose whole foods over processed foods, a workout over sitting around, and sleep over doom-scrolling or binge watching a show.  My ultimate goal as her coach is to help her get to a point where it’s almost effortless to make choices throughout her daily life that support her health and wellness intentions.  This is why my signature program is called 12-Weeks To Effortless Weight Loss.

Working with a health and wellness professional like myself is one of the best investments anyone can make in their future.  Just imagine how liberating and amazing it will feel waking up every single day knowing that you’re going to make the best choices for your body.  You’ll feel lighter, more energetic, and confident in your own body.  And you deserve to feel this way no matter what season of your life you’re in.

All or Nothing: Why This Approach Never Works For Weight Loss

Quick question for you… If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, would you consider yourself a perfectionist?

If you’re answer is yes, this article is definitely for you so keep reading.  If you’re answer is no, this article is definitely for you.  No, there wasn’t a typo in the last sentence.  Stay with me and I’ll explain later why this is an article every woman who’s been on a weight loss journey - that’s had so many ups and downs you stopped counting years ago when you realized you ran out of fingers and toes - should read.

When you think of perfectionism, what’s the first thing that pops into your head?

Type-A personality

Extremely successful person (I’m talking multi-millionaire status)

Needing everything in it’s place before you start

Going all in (We’ll chat about how to redefine this one)

Obsessive compulsive person

Never satisfied and always critical

These were the first things that came to mind when I started writing this.  Part of the definition of perfectionism according to Merriam-Webster is “a disposition to regard anything short of perfection as unacceptable.”

So, why am I talking about perfectionism as a health and fitness coach for women?  Well, I’m glad you asked because there’s a direct link between perfectionism and a woman’s ability to lose weight.  Yup, it’s true!  This is the number one hurdle that gets in the way of my clients creating sustainable, healthy lifestyle habits that work for them.  There’s a pattern I’ve observed over the years with my clients who don’t experience the weight loss results they expect.  I’ll share this pattern with you and what links perfectionism to weight loss.

Let’s dive deep and see what hidden gems this connection has to offer!

The link I’m talking about is what I like to call the all-or-nothing connection.  Simply put, the mindset here is that you have to do everything right all the time or you’ll never lose weight.  I get this mindset because I used to have it.  If something didn’t go my way, I would give up way too easily and just think that what I was doing didn’t work.

Let’s get into some specific examples that you might be able to relate to.

Too Invested in the Scale

This is a big one because we’ve been brainwashed to think the number on the scale defines our health and value as a woman when the reality is it’s actually just a number.  Here’s the thing about the scale: it’s not an accurate measurement of not only your weight, but your health.  There’s different variables that go into the number on the scale.  It doesn’t reflect any water weight you might be holding onto depending on what you ate for your previous meal or how much lean muscle mass you have.  Lean muscle mass is more dense than fat.  I go into a bit more detail about this in a previous blog post here and podcast episode here.

When you see the number on the scale stay the same (or go up), what’s your first thought?  A few things I hear from clients is that they think they’re not doing enough or what they’re doing isn’t working.  Whether or not one or both of these is true is not the most important thing to consider.  When this happens, the most effective first step in evaluating the situation is deciding whether or not you’ve set up realistic expectations for yourself.  This is the next part of the all-or-nothing connection…

Sets Unrealistic Expectations

Your body has a survival mechanism built into it to make sure you stay alive and kicking.  Your body knows exactly what it needs to do to keep you healthy and this may include keeping extra weight on you.  If you’ve still got your period, your body is basically always on standby, ready for the possibility of growing a tiny human at any moment. It’s like your body’s built-in safety net, making sure you don’t get too skinny, because if you’re not careful, your fertility could take a hit.  Your body’s got your back, even when you’re not planning on a baby just yet. This is just one of the amazing things our bodies do that we should celebrate!

Another thing many women don’t take into account is hormone fluctuations.  Your hormones fluctuate throughout the month (which is what they’re supposed to do) which means your body responds to food, exercise, and sleep a little differently depending on your hormone levels.  If you’re perimenopausal, your hormones might be fluctuating in a different way then before in ways you can’t predict which can be frustrating.  I know first hand how this feels and it’s not always fun.

When you don’t see the number on the scale go down or it’s not going down fast enough, it can be easy to just give up.  This just happens to be the third link in the all or nothing connection.

Gives Up Too Easily

In the moment, sometimes throwing in the towel and giving up seems like the easiest option.  Which it just might be unless you’re willing to keep moving forward.  The challenge here is that in today’s society, we’re given instant access to so many things that we’ve almost forgotten what it was like to have to wait for something.

We no longer need to wait a week to get photos developed.  We take pictures on our phones and can view them immediately.  No need drive around town searching for a 24-hour photo.  Ah, the good old days when you got photos back that didn’t turn out the way you envisioned it!

When I was growing up, if I missed a new episode of Friends, I had to wait for the rerun.    Back then, TBS wasn’t a constant stream of network TV show reruns like it is today so sometimes I would have to wait weeks or even months to catch the episode I missed.  If I knew I wasn’t going to be home, I could’ve put a VHS in the VCR (the 80’s and 90’s version of the DVR for the young folks) and program it to record the episode. But, to be honest, I didn’t really know how to program the VCR to record a show so there was no guarantee it would actually record the show.  My success level with this was pretty low.

These days, if we miss a new episode of a show the day it’s released on a streaming service, it will be patiently waiting for us to watch it at our convenience.  No patience needed on our end.

The thing is, your body doesn’t burn fat on command no matter how many whole food meals you eat, strength training sessions you do, or hours of sleep you get.  It’s all about patience and trust. Trusting the good habits you’ve got in place and getting back on track when needed will keep the momentum going, even when it feels like nothing’s happening. Perfection is totally overrated. No one’s got it all together. But consistency? That’s the magic sauce that’ll keep you moving forward, even when it feels like you're stuck in neutral.

To wrap it up, if you feel like you’ve experienced any or all of the above, you may have fallen into the all-or-nothing trap and just didn’t know it.  This is totally okay.  The great news is now that you’re aware of it, you can let go of the all-or-nothing mindset and go about your weight loss journey with confidence knowing that you have patience, willpower, and motivation to achieve your realistic weight loss goals.

A Woman's Super Power

For most of our time on Earth, women have been under appreciated and under estimated.  There have been times throughout history where women have been given more power just to have it taken away.  It wasn’t until 1919 when the United States Senate approved the 19th amendment which gives women the right to vote.  For about 150 years after our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, women did not have many rights, if they even had any at all depending on where they lived.  While we have many more rights today, there are situations where we have to work harder to be recognized and appreciated.  This, to me, is ridiculous considering we make up 51% of the population, grow humans inside of us, and manage a career and a household.

Now, just to be clear, I’m not a full on feminist but I do strongly believe men and women should be treated equally.  While I am an independent woman and can navigate life on my own, having a partner that I trust and can rely on makes life easier and more fun.  However, I realize this isn’t for everyone.  Not all women (or men) want a life partner and I get that.  When men and women learn how to use their unique super powers for good and not evil, life will be not only easier and efficient but so much more enjoyable.

One area where women are not seen and heard as much as we deserve is health and wellness.  Way too often women are treated as small men when it comes to how to eat, exercise, and rest because our bodies are not studied nearly as much as men’s.  The reality is we aren’t just small men.  Our “plumbing” is a bit more complicated than men’s and, on top of that, our hormonal cycles are completely different.  All of this can affect the way our bodies respond to food, exercise, and rest.  These are the Wellness Abundance Coaching Pillars that build a strong foundation for sustainable weight loss, fertility, mobility, consistent energy levels, and navigating hormonal changes at any age.  This is why women need to be seen and heard more and on a deeper level in all areas of health and wellness.

With that being said, there are other life factors that can affect your health and wellness indirectly.  I’ll dive into a few of these today.

In the meantime, let’s chat about how you can use your super power as a woman to become the healthiest version yourself today.  After all, as a woman you’re much more capable than you give yourself credit for.  It’s time to grab your toolbox, unpack your tools, and figure out how you can utilize them to use your super powers for good.

Ready?  Let’s go!

Advocate for Your Own Health and Wellness

Since the scientific community has left us behind (I’m not blaming them, just stating a fact) it’s time to do your own research.  A great starting point is to get in tune with your own body.  In the beginning, this can be a bit of a tedious process but well worth the effort.

When I started paying more attention to how I was feeling throughout my cycle, I was able to satisfy my sugar cravings by eating more potatoes or protein to put the kabash on them.  I also learned that when I start my cycle (FYI- your cycle starts the first day of your period) I’m going to be tired, crampy, and maybe cranky.  I know not to schedule intense workouts, get far more rest, and do my best to get my attitude in check so I don’t bite my husband’s head off.  No one wants to be around a cranky wife.

Knowing your body well is super helpful if your spidey senses are telling you something’s off.  If you feel like something might not be right, reach out to your healthcare provider right away.  If you know what’s normal with your body and something isn’t right, you’ll have the confidence to walk into your healthcare provider’s office and let them know exactly what’s happening so they can better help you.

Take Action to Get What You Want and Deserve

One thing I’ve struggled with throughout my life is asking for what I want with confidence.  Much of this stems from a story I tell myself that I know isn’t true: that I don’t deserve the success I dream of every day.  Maybe for you it’s the fear of rejection.  Or something completely different.

Overcoming mindset hurdles takes time and whole lot of patience.  Finding the courage within yourself to ask for what you want can make a huge impact on your physical health.  When we’re feeling confident in one area of our life we can translate it to another area in our life where we may not feel as confident.  Plus, when we’re experiencing fear and anxiety our stress levels tend to go up which increases food cravings, inhibits your ability to get great sleep, and can cause all sorts of health issues.

So, how do you build the confidence to ask for what you want?  Make a list of areas in your life where you feel you’re under appreciated and want to ask for more.  Start with something small such as customizing an order at a restaurant.  Before you ask for what you want, remind yourself that you deserve it and assume that you’re going to get it.  Ordering food at a restaurant is an easy one because most restaurants will allow you to customize your order to some degree.  Be prepared to share why you want to customize your order.  For example, I always ask for no cheese because my body does not respond well when I eat cheese.  I’m always prepared for any pushback by being open to sharing that I have a food sensitivity.

Once you start getting what you want with the small things, your confidence will continue to grow so you can start asking for the bigger things.  For example, if you want to ask your boss for a pay raise or increase your rates, use the same tactic as you did at the restaurant.  I’ve done this before with my personal training rates and at first it was super uncomfortable.  What I found was that most people were totally okay with a rate increase.  In fact, I’ve even had clients tell me they’re happy to pay more for my services because they get so much value from them.  This is always a huge confidence booster for me because it reminds me that what I do is very much appreciated by others.

Your boss may see the value you bring to your team and the company and be happy to increase your salary.  When you carry yourself with confidence and show the immense value you provide, a great leader will recognize it and acknowledge it.  If they say no, then maybe it’s time for you reevaluate your situation and go somewhere you’re truly appreciated.

Tap Into Your Strengths

Treat your strengths as though they’re your greatest asset because they are.  We tend to get so wrapped up in our weaknesses that we rarely recognize our strengths.  It’s super easy to focus on your weaknesses when you’re constantly comparing yourself to others.  This takes you down a road that does not get you to the life you want and deserve.

One thing that has helped me tap into my strengths over the years is to make a list of everything I’m good at.  How do I know if I’m good at something?  Most of the time these are things that I really enjoy doing.  With that being said, you can be good at something and not enjoy it.  For example, there are jobs I’ve had in the past that I was really good at, but after awhile it just wasn’t fun for me anymore.  I didn’t look forward to going to work.

Now I focus on my strengths of being an empathetic person, actually listening when I’m talking with someone, creating workouts that are effective and my clients enjoy, and maintaining healthy lifestyle habits that work for me.

There can be weaknesses you have that you want to move over to the strengths column.  This is a great example of a weakness that should be acknowledged so you can get better at it.  If one of your weaknesses is staying consistent with a workout routine, brainstorm ideas on how you can be better at it.  Begin by viewing it as one of your strengths.  This will help you flip the script as you’re making the changes needed to improve your skillset with sustaining a workout routine that works for you.

The bottom line is that we as women deserve to been seen, heard, and appreciated for the immense value we bring to the world.  It may not feel like it all the time but everything you do in your daily life is making an impact, even if it’s a small one.  The little daily actions add up and you never know who you’re going to inspire just by tapping into your super power as a woman.  Change happens when we band together to overcome obstacles and show the world what we’re made of.  You’re tougher, stronger, and more impactful than you think you are so it’s time to start acting like it.

Action Step: How can you tap into your super power as a woman today?  Get out there and do it!

Why You Need Your Gal Pal Inner Circle

When was the last time you had a girl date with your one of your friends?  As I’m writing this article, I can’t remember the last time I met up with a girlfriend for lunch or coffee.  Now, I see some of my girlfriends regularly but it’s not intentional.  It’s usually throughout my work day because we just happen to cross paths.

Creating your gal pal inner circle can be an incredibly powerful way to bond with women that you trust and can be totally transparent with.  I’m not saying every meet up needs to be like an episode of Sex and The City where you’re sipping cosmos and hearing about each other’s sex lives.  Unless, of course, you and your girlfriends want to channel your inner Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, or Samantha.

Reaching out to your gal pal inner circle regularly can help you better navigate the ups and downs of being a woman.  I talk about this all the time but it bears repeating: being a woman isn’t always easy. The intense period cramps, fatigue, mood swings, brain fog, etc., can be frustrating and hard to deal with at times.  Once perimenopause (followed by menopause) comes into play, it’s a whole different ball game.

Ease Your Anxiety

Creating a social connection with other women regularly can improve your mental health.  Having someone who understands what you’re going through can be a game changer with decreasing anxiety and depression. You won’t feel so alone in with the challenges you’re going through.

The men in your life might put a lot of effort into empathizing with you when you have a random mood swing driven by hormonal fluctuations but they can never fully understand the physical sensation that comes along with it.  You know what I’m talking about.  When you can literally feel the rage boiling within you and before you know it you’re raising your voice at your partner or kids or both.  Then you feel a wave of guilt for lashing out at them for no reason at all.

This is just one example of the emotional roller coaster we ride as women.  Opening up to someone who understands your experience may help you navigate it better the next time around.  Plus, you can exchange ideas about how to minimize the mood swings and get them in check.  Maybe your girlfriends have found a way that works for them that you can try.

Lose Weight Together

Exercising with your gal pals can empower you to create a consistent strength training routine that will help you burn fat.  It’s common for women to feel a little intimidated by the thought of pushing weight around in the gym, especially one that’s filled with men.  For decades, the fitness industry promoted cardio as the best way for women to get thin.  Jazzercise and Jane Fonda workouts were all the rage back in the 80’s and 90’s.  What research has taught us since then is that strength training is the way to go when it comes to fat loss.

Fun Fact: Jazzercise is still a thing and it’s been enhanced to include strength training.  No need to get rid of your head band, leotard, and leg warmers.  If Jazzercise is your jam, you can get your cardio and strength training on in one workout session.

For many women, pushing heavy weight around is unknown territory.  This is actually the most common reason my clients come to me for help.  Surrounding yourself with women who feel just as uncomfortable with strength training as you may actually help you feel comfortable lifting heavy things. The thing is women need to train differently than men to get results.  While there are some universal fundamentals of growing lean muscle and burning fat, there are some nuances between men and women when it comes to getting results.  I’ll get into those in another article.  Stay tuned!

Not only do women need to train a little differently, our nutritional requirements change depending on where we are in our cycle.  Some times we need more iron to make up for blood loss.  Other times we need to eat more starchy carbs to get our progesterone levels up so we can get great sleep and have more energy.

Create Healthy Habits Together

Gathering your gal pals and talking about the ins and outs of all the hormonal fluctuations, brain fog, fatigue, cramping, and entering the exciting new phase of mid-life can feel empowering.  Sharing how you’re handling a new perimenopause symptom such as hot flashes or brain fog can inspire your girlfriends to learn how to embrace this new phase of life.

There are lifestyle habits that you can implement to minimize all the fun symptoms of being a woman.  Nutrition, fitness, and rest are the lifestyle pillars (a.k.a. the Wellness Abundance Coaching Pillars) that are the foundation for a healthy, thriving body at any age.  You may not be able to get rid of brain fog, menstrual cramps, breast tenderness, and other symptoms all together but you can get to a point where they’re tolerable with a strong foundation.  If you’re experiencing debilitating cramps, brain fog that is interfering with with your life frequently, or any other really intense symptoms, please go see your health care provider just to be sure everything is all good.

Need some guidance on how to build a strong foundation for your nutrition, fitness, and rest that works for you?  You and your gal pals are welcome to join my semi-private 6-Week Healthy Habit Reset program that will give you the support you need to create nutrition, fitness, and rest habits that work for you.  You’ll learn about the hormones that are causing your sugar and salt cravings, fatigue, lack of motivation workout, and energy surges.  Having a better understanding of what’s happening in your body can help you make lifestyle choices, burn fat effortlessly, give you consistent energy levels, and navigate unexpected mood swings like the boss lady that you are.

While this is a program I only offer a few times a year to the public, you and 5 of your friends can join at any time to have your own private friend group coaching.  This means you can personalize this program to fit the needs of you and your gal pal inner circle.  So, grab your gal pals and book a call with me here so we can hash out all the details.

What’s the real reason you want to lose weight?

Weight loss, like anything else in life, can be a tricky road to navigate.  It can be exciting to see progress and frustrating when you think you’re doing everything “right" but hit a plateau.  Yes, you read the correctly.  I put the word right in quotation marks.  Sometimes there’s not necessarily a right or wrong way to do something.  There’s several ways to go about doing something and you just need to find the one that works for you.

Before you even begin your weight loss journey, one important question to ask yourself is: Does your weight loss goal align with your values and vision for your life?

Now, you might be wondering what in the world your values have to do with weight loss.  Or how the connection between weight loss and your vision for your life will help you burn more fat.  I get that it might not make much sense now, but don’t worry.  At the end of this article, you’ll have a better understanding of the importance of aligning your values and vision for your life with your health and fitness goals and how the two are connected through your Why.  By the way, this is the very first thing I tackle with my clients when we start working together and the conversation continues throughout the time we work together.  You’ll understand why this is first and foremost as you continue reading.

Ready?  Okay, here we go!

Makes It Easy

The first and probably most important reason is it’s going to make your life easier.  When you’re aware of what your values are you can create a strategy that aligns with what you believe in and how you want to live your life.

For example, it’s so easy to get caught up in following all the health and wellness influencers on social media who tell you how and what you “should” be eating to lose weight.  Or there’s a specific workout that’s going to help you burn more fat when you complete it at least 5 days a week.  Should you focus on eating mostly whole foods? Yes, of course.  But you have the freedom to choose which whole foods you want to eat.  Would it be beneficial for you to workout at least 5 days a week? Absolutely!  But is it realistic for your schedule?  Maybe not.

If you want to make time to help your kids with their homework at night, you can schedule your workouts around this even if it means starting with one day a week and building from there.  If you want to get more movement in on the weekends but value spending quality time with your family on Sundays, you can include them in some sort of physical activity.  My hubby and I love to go on hikes together on the weekends.  We get quality time and sunshine, fresh air, and movement.  This aligns with our values of staying connected as a couple and getting movement in on the weekends.

Keeps You Focused

Creating sustainable lifestyle habits that help you lose weight and keep it off isn’t always easy.  In fact, some days it can be really messy.  I actually just experienced this today.  I was short on time this morning for my workout because of a last minute work commitment for my hubby.  So, I had the choice to either skip my workout all together or squeeze in a 10 minute burpee workout.  While choosing to skip my workout all together would have been a great choice (I’ll touch on why in a moment), I chose to do some sort of movement within the 10 minutes I had available.  It was an easy choice for me to make once I talked through it with myself, and of course I felt awesome after my 10 minute workout.

Now, let’s chat about why choosing not to workout could have been a great choice.  Obstacles get in your way in life and there’s really no way to avoid them.  If I would have chosen to skip my workout and head straight for the shower, I would have been okay with that because I went through my options.  I could have just shifted the workout I had planned to later in the week.  In addition to being able to shift my workout, I’ve set realistic expectations for myself and am very aware that I’m not going to be perfect. Ever.  Perfection does not align with my value system.  In fact, I don’t even like using the word “perfect” with myself or with my clients.

Trust Your Body

Learning how to trust your body and give it what it needs is a skill that I teach in my programs.  I’ve said it over and over again and I’ll say it again right now: when you give your body the appropriate input, it will provide you with the optimal output.  Your body knows exactly what to do when you give what it wants.  I’ll be saying this for the rest of my life and it will probably be the last words I speak because it’s true.

Getting really good at listening to your body and feeding it when it needs to be fed, moving it when it wants to move, and giving it rest when it needs to rest can be a bit challenging in the beginning.  One of the reasons this can be challenging is you might need to unlearn some things.  For example, when you’re PMSing and you’re craving sweet stuff, you could be telling yourself that it’s okay to eat an entire cake because that’s what your body wants.

Yes, your body most likely craves more carbs during this time in your cycle.  There’s actually a biological reason for this being that your progesterone levels are low and your body is telling you to increase them.  One way to do this is with starchy carbs.  Rather than eating an entire cake, experiment with whole food carbs such as potatoes or even rice.  Just to be clear, I’m not saying you can never eat cake.  I love cake and I eat it!  I just don’t eat the entire cake because I know if I did I would feel really sick afterwards and it’s just not worth it to me.

Advocate For Yourself

Most of my clients are working with other health care professionals in one way or another.  Some are seeing therapists to work through trauma or life challenges while others are working with their physician to get a medical condition under control.  Having a clear understanding of your values and your vision for your life will help you advocate for yourself while working with health care professionals.  This includes working with me as your health and fitness coach.  I’ll explain how advocating for your self while working with me benefits you later on.

For instance, if you’ve been experiencing heavy bleeding or insulin resistance with your PCOS diagnosis, your physician may want to put you on birth control.  If you really do not want to go on birth control because you had a bad experience with it, you have the freedom to say “no thank you” to the hormones and work with them to create a more holistic way of managing PCOS.  Now, I’m not a licensed medical doctor but I do know enough about PCOS to know that it can be managed with lifestyle habits such as food and exercise.

So, why is it important to be an advocate for yourself when you work with me?  My role as your health and fitness coach is not to tell you exactly what to do.  I’m here to help you find nutrition, fitness, and rest habits that align with your lifestyle, goals, values, and vision for your life.  Being able to clearly communicate with me will help you get to a deeper level so you can get results.  It’s what I’m trained to do and it’s actually the best strategy for you as my client to get results in the most efficient way possible.  I may be the women’s nutrition and fitness expert in our coach-client relationship but you’re the expert in your life and you know what’s best for you.

Now it’s time to take action!

Write out everything you value in life.  What’s really important to you?  If you were the healthiest version of yourself, what would your life look like?

Need help with this?  Go here to book a free call with me and we can work through this together.

3 Reasons Your Hubby’s Losing Weight Faster Than You

I think it’s fair to say we all love our husbands on some level yet there are those little things that annoy us about them.  This happens in any kind of partnership whether you’re in your in a relationship with a man or woman.  There’s always going to be little quirks that just get under your skin.

One big frustration for women who are in a relationship with a man is how easily they build muscle and lose fat.  It’s almost like they can just pick up a dumbbell, do some bicep curls, and they wake up the next morning and they have huge biceps.  Or you can literally see the fat melting away during a 60 second plank.

Okay, maybe this is a bit of an exaggeration, but it can feel like this at times.  I used to get so frustrated when my body was burning fat and growing muscle at a snails pace while my hubby was looking leaner within a few days of cutting out junk food.  I could not understand why it was so easy for him to build muscle and burn fat and it was more difficult for me until I started looking into the difference between my body and his.

Here’s the thing about fat loss: Each individual body has its own challenges it has to overcome.  For example, women have different hormonal fluctuations and each woman will experience a different cycle than other women.  I’ll touch on this later on so be sure to keep reading.  In addition to this fun fact, women are not just small men.  We have different nutritional, fitness, and rest requirements so our strategy isn’t the same as theirs.  Plus, there are some biological differences where our bodies want to hold onto extra fat.

Let’s dive into the top 3 reasons you’re not losing weight as fast as your hubby.

Women have a lower resting metabolic rate

Your resting metabolic rate is also known as your metabolism.  This is how much energy your body expends to keep you alive and kicking throughout the day.  Your body also uses energy to digest your food and make sure all the nutrients go where they need to go.  Since most women are smaller than men, we don’t have as much weight to carry around so we don’t need to burn as many calories to stay alive and we probably don’t eat as much as men.

One thing that can increase your metabolism is building more lean muscle mass.  Yup, getting your strength training on and toning up your body will help increase your metabolism.  You don’t need to spend hours a day throwing heavy weight around in the gym.  Bodyweight exercises are a great starting point if you’re new to strength training.  If you feel intimidated by strength training, check out my podcast episode 3 Tips To Get Comfortable With Strength Training.

Coaches Note: Your metabolism won’t increase significantly when you tone up but every little bit counts.  Plus, there’s several other benefits of building muscle we’ll get into in another blog post.

Women don’t bulk up as easily as men

So many women worry about getting big and bulky if they start lifting weights.  I have great news for you if you’re one of these women: it’s very difficult to get super bulk unless you’re “juicing” (taking performance enhancing drugs).  Women don’t naturally make enough testosterone to get super big and swole like men.  It takes our bodies longer to build lean muscle mass.

Don’t let this fact deter you from starting (or continuing) your strength training program.  You can build a good amount of lean muscle mass that’s appropriate to your body type when you eat enough protein and consider supplementing with creatine.  Before you think “Now I have to track my protein intake.  I don’t have time for that!” I can tell you right now you do not need to do this - unless, of course, you want to.  Protein intake is always a guesstimate and can fluctuate from day to day.  Since it takes time to get a feel for the amount of protein that’s right for you, I encourage you to do mini experiments as you’re navigating your weight loss journey.  This is something I can help you with when you enroll in one of my programs.

Use this fun fact as motivation to create a healthy, lean body that can effortlessly navigate any stage in life and age gracefully.  Tap into your femininity and use your woman super powers to live the life you dream of and, more importantly, deserve.

Women have different hormonal fluctuations

One important factor that may often get overlooked is that women have different hormonal cycles than men.  Your hubby doesn’t need to navigate PMS, bloating, mood swings, fatigue, and all the other fun things we experience being a woman.  Okay, maybe they have to deal with these things indirectly by listening to us complain about intense cramping and doing their best to be sympathetic when we bite their head off for no reason other than an unexpected mood swing.  So, yeah, men have to deal with PMS too.  Just in a different way.

Okay, back to the topic at hand.

There are different times of the month when you’re feeling energy surges where you feel like you can run a full marathon even though you’ve never run one before.  There are other times when you experience energy lulls and you feel like you want to curl up in bed with a box of cookies and fall asleep binge watching your favorite TV show (Friends anyone?).  It’s super important to take this into account on your weight loss journey if you want to learn how your body can lose fat almost effortlessly.

During these hormonal phases, it’s important to give your body the rest it needs or go hard with your workout and make the most of your energy surge.  If you feel hungrier right before your period, feed your body with more healthy proteins, fats, and carbs.  Give it what it wants.  Within reason, of course.  I’m not encouraging you to eat an entire box of cookies.  There are lots of healthier ways to satisfy your sugar cravings like one of my favorites: roasted potatoes.

If you’re not aligning your nutrition, fitness, and rest with your cycle you could be slowing down your fat loss.  The key is find what works best for you and your body and adjust as needed.  This process takes time and a lot of patience.  I speak from experience.

To put it simply, ladies, weight loss isn’t a race.  Remember to stay in your own lane and find a way that you and your hubby can support each other.  It’s about small steps, big victories, and treating yourself like the boss lady you are along the way.

The Key To Effortless Weight Loss

Today’s health and wellness brain teaser is one that many people get stumped on more often than not…

What’s one thing you have control over that can be the catalyst for effortless weight loss?

If you’re thinking exercise, it’s a good guess, but not the one I’m looking for.  Exercise is definitely an important part of a healthy lifestyle but it’s not the catalyst for sustainable weight loss.  So, you can stop exhausting yourself with intense cardio workouts every day and take a nap.  You deserve it.

The answer is (drumroll please)… the food you eat.

We always say in our home that you can’t exercise your way out of a bad diet (or what I like to call eating style). Without an eating style designed around whole foods, you’re unlikely to find success with losing weight and keeping it off.  I’m talking about genuine fat loss that helps you lean up and feel like a boss lady every day of your life.

The best way to design a weight loss eating strategy that works for you is to cook more meals at home.  I’m not talking about boxed Kraft mac-n-cheese or frozen meals with 5,000 ingredients in them that you can’t even pronounce.  I’m talking about meals made from whole foods: veggies, meat, eggs, seafood, spices, etc.  If this sounds overwhelming just thinking about it you’re definitely not alone, but hear me out.  It’s actually easier that it sounds.

I get that it can sometimes feel like a chore to go through the whole process of finding recipes, going to the store, cooking the meals, and then cleaning up all the dirty dishes.  I love to cook and some days it feels like a chore to me.  Sometimes grabbing takeout feels like it’s the most convenient way get food in your belly.  And sometimes it is the best way.

While takeout can be really convenient when you’re not in the mood to cook or clean, there is an easy way to create homemade meals without the overwhelm.  It doesn’t need to be complicated.  When you’re juggling a full-time job, kids, partners, laundry, and all the other fun adulting tasks, adding one more thing to your to-do list can feel like it’s too much.  Finding ways to make it easy for you and your schedule is the key to success with home cooked meals.  This is something I talk a lot about with my clients.

Plus, there are several benefits of making homemade meals, one of them being your ability to dial in your nutrition to actually work with your body and give it what it wants when it needs it.

Here are 5 reasons to cook at home more…

#1 You have complete control over the ingredients

There’s a lot of not-so-healthy ingredients that restaurants use when they prepare meals, most likely because they’re cheaper.  The same goes with processed food you find in the frozen food section at the grocery store and in the boxed meals on the shelves.  Nowadays, there are healthier frozen food options that are super convenient to just throw in the oven.  Those I’m totally onboard with.

When you cook at home you can choose higher quality meat such as grass-fed beef or pasture raised eggs.  With that being said, don’t get too caught up in grass-fed and pasture raised.  Just get the highest quality your budget allows or what’s available.

There’s a lot of frozen food and jarred sauces that have vegetable and soybean oil in them.  These are the oils that you want to avoid most of the time because they can wreak havoc in your body and cause all sorts of inflammation (and not the good kind).  If you’re in a pinch and you really want a sauce for your meal, don’t get too caught up in the ingredients.  Just be sure to add these sauces to your “occasional” food list.

#2 You can make more than enough and have leftovers for lunch (or dinner later in the week)

One thing I love about making dinner at home is that I can make more than I know we’re going to eat in one meal.  This means I have leftovers to eat for lunch the next day. Having cooked protein ready to add to any salad or pop in the microwave with some veggies is a super convenient way for me to have a nutritious lunch on a busy week day.  As a bonus, sometimes the meal tastes even better when it’s been marinating for a day or two in the fridge.

This is a game changer when I’m at the end of my cycle and PMS cravings are trying to get me to eat junk food (you know what I’m talking about!) when my body really wants nutrient-dense food, it’s easier to fight the cravings and make different food choices when I have whole foods readily available.

#3 You can make it super easy any day of the week

I don’t know about you but I don’t have time to make a meal that takes an hour or more to prepare and cook during the work week unless I want to eat at 8pm, which I don’t.  That’s the time I’m flossing and brushing my teeth, getting ready to get into bed and dive into the fiction book I’m reading.

I make a lot of meals that take 30-minutes or less during the week.  Taco bowls are super easy to make because all you need to do is cook up some ground meat (which takes about 15 minutes) and grab your favorite toppings.  We add taco seasoning, olives, salsa, and guacamole.  If I make homemade guacamole, I make it while the meat is cooking.  I always make two pounds of meat to make sure we have leftovers for salads, soups, or whatever spontaneous meals I decide to throw together.

We also buy grass-fed beef patties from Costco and turkey burger patties from Trader Joe’s that can be cooked from frozen.  You don’t even need to remember to take the meat out of the freezer the night before.  With my perimenopause brain fog that’s currently happening in my world this makes my life so much easier.

You can cook up some frozen veggies to enjoy alongside your meat and you have a delicious nutrient-dense, homemade meal in less than 30 minutes.

#4 You can add as much flavor or spice as you want to make it appetizing

Everyone has different taste preferences.  Some people prefer spicy while others not so much.  At home, you can season your food to your liking along with the rest of your family.  When we make taco bowls, we add our own amount of taco seasoning to our individual servings.

This is great if you have a family to feed and everyone has different taste preferences.  Your kids might like their food on the bland end of the flavor spectrum while your partner might like theirs on the full flavor end of the spectrum.  Everyone in the family can be happy with their meals, even the picky eaters.  You know who they are!

#5 You’re more likely to lose weight and keep it off

There’s a lot of temptation when you eat out which means you’re more likely to indulge in foods that might not align with your health and wellness goals.  If you’re avoiding bread because you just don’t like the way you feel after you eat it, it’s easy to say yes to the bun when you order a burger or fill up on the bread before your meal.  Freshly baked, warm sourdough bread with butter on it is one of my indulgences when eating out.  It’s super easy for me to over do it which is one of the reasons why I avoid eating at restaurants that serve it.

If one of my clients recognizes there’s too much temptation with certain foods when they’re right in front of them, we work together to create a strategy to make it harder for them to eat those foods.  It’s easy to minimize food related temptations when you prioritize making homemade meals.  At home, you can simply choose not to buy buns or any kind of bread.  If the bread isn’t readily available, you’re way less likely to give into the temptation when you’re is craving it.

Now it’s time to take action!

What’s one step you can take towards cooking more meals at home?

Are you the leading lady in your life?

Life is full of challenges.  It may feel like you’re having to climb to the top of Everest to overcome some challenges while others might be a breeze to overcome.  This is the reality of adulting and life in general.  It’s not always fun and at times it feels like one challenge after another is coming at you like a cheetah running as fast as possible in your direction.  You have to do your best to tame the cheetah by giving it an edible or shot of whisky to calm it down (unless cheetahs are angry drunks. I’m not sure since I haven’t met any drunk cheetahs…yet.)

As women, not only do we have day-to-day challenges of work, kids, and partners (having a husband can be a lot like having a kid) to navigate but also health related challenges that come up thanks to the hormonal changes we experience throughout the days, months, and years.  Our hormones can be a bitch to deal with especially during PMS or perimenopause (can you say sugar cravings and crying fits!) and not always easy on our partners, either.  I’m sure my hubby would lovingly agree with this statement. [SMILE]

Are these challenges that than can be avoided?  Maybe. With a few small changes to your nutrition and fitness they can at least be minimized.  Here’s the catch, making these small changes comes with another set of challenges: new habit creation.

Creating new habits and letting go of old ones takes time, patience, and most importantly, effort.  When you’ve been doing the same thing for several years, you’re on autopilot.

Your autopilot:

• takes you to the drive-through to pick up dinner.

• keeps you scrolling through social media when you could be sleeping.

• presses snooze instead of getting out of bed to workout.

Any of this sound familiar?

You may feel super comfortable while being on autopilot and think you’re taking the easy way out but you may just be creating more challenges for you in the future.  One day you may wake up overweight, exhausted, and moody asking yourself “What just happened?  How did I end up here?”

Whether you’ve experienced this moment or not, there’s still time to change the script and write a new health and wellness future for you.  The very first module in my signature program talks about how you’re the leading lady of your own life and now is the time to start acting like it.  The first step is to ask yourself: what do you want your life to look like?

• Do you want the challenge of taking medication for diabetes and experience all the fun (not-so-fun) side effects that come with it or learning how to eat to train your body to be a fat burner?

• Do you want the challenge of not being able to get out of bed very easily or creating an exercise routine that you’re willing to do?

• Do you want the challenge of being overweight or learning how to give your body the nutrition it wants when it needs it?

• Do you want the challenge of feeling tired all the time or creating morning and nighttime routines that help you get awesome sleep?

You always have the freedom to choose your challenges.  Even if a challenge is out of your control, you have the choice to change your mindset about it.  Is it easy to do?  Not always!  Mindset is something I’ve struggled with most of my life and still do to some extent today.  I’ve learned over the years how to overcome any mindset challenges that come up for me by putting in the work.  Getting my mindset in check is definitely one of the most important skill sets I’ve learned over the years.

This has helped me create sustainable nutrition, fitness, and sleep habits that help me maintain a healthy weight, experience consistent energy levels, and minimize any perimenopause symptoms up to this point in my life.  I’ve become the leading lady in my life and I challenge you to do the same.

What’s one health and wellness challenge that you want to eliminate from your life right now?  What are you willing to do to overcome this challenge to become the leading lady in your life?

3 Reasons to Ditch Your Scale (And What To Do Instead)

If you’re someone who gets obsessed with the number of the scale, I invite you to join my new Obsessed With The Scale Club.  I already have thousands of women on the waitlist to join this exclusive club.

If you’ve ever felt frustrated that the number on the scale was either not budging or going up, weighed yourself every day (sometimes multiple times a day), or increased your intense cardio workouts from 5 to 7 days a week to get that number down, you’re a prime candidate for my new club.

What will we talk about in our club meetings?  Well, I’m glad you asked.

First, we’ll begin by talking about why the number on the scale is so important to us.  My gut is telling me there will be a consensus that this number defines where we are on the hotness scale.  The higher up we get on the scale, the more confident we’ll be according to society.  Who doesn’t want to be a confident bad ass woman? A She-E-Oh of life?

Next, we’ll talk about how many times we go crazy about the number going down one day and going up the next day.  This will be a great segue to into our next conversation about how we can decrease the number of calories we eat in a day and increase our cardio workouts from 5 days a week to 7.  We’ll come up with all sorts of “great” ideas that seem totally logical at the time but in the end will lead to chronic fatigue, insomnia, intense PMS, mood swings, hormonal imbalances, sugar and salt cravings, and, ironically, weight gain.

The cycle will start all over again from the beginning and it will go on for the rest of our lives.  If you feel the need to let your inner rage woman out, please so do now.  Just be sure to do this without harming others or yourself.

Okay, I really haven’t started a Obsessed With The Scale Club.  I think you’ve already picked up on the fact that this is club is tongue-in-cheek.  I’ve worked with many clients (including some men) whose primary focus is the number on the scale.  This is totally understandable.  As women, we’ve been conditioned to weigh a certain amount in order to be seen as hot, beautiful, or gorgeous.  This is a mindset I’m on a mission to help women change.

Here are 3 reasons why you should ditch your scale and what to do instead.

Reason #1: Minimize Confusion, Frustration, and Disappointment

Focusing too much time on the number on the scale can cause a lot of confusion that naturally leads to frustration and brings feelings of disappointment to the surface.  You think you’re doing everything right: one hour of cardio a day, counting calories or carbs or both, strength training sessions five days a week, and working out no matter how you feel, even if you’re tired, hungry, and crampy.

Your body can be predictable if you actually take the time to get to know it.  I say this over and over again and I’ll say it again: your body wants you be healthy and it’s designed to help you thrive when you give it what it wants. You just need to know what to give it and when.

One great way to get to know your body is to track your menstrual cycle.  Think back to the first day of your last period.  This is day one of your cycle.  If you can’t remember when you started, wait until you start again and make a note of this day.

Once you know where you are in your cycle, you can start taking note of your energy levels, sleep patterns, hunger levels, mood swings, and anything else that you’re inspired to write down.  You may notice that in the first few days of your cycle, you’re not in the mood to workout or just don’t have the energy to.  This is actually to be expected.   I do a deeper dive into all of this in my signature program you can check out here.

Once you get a few weeks into your cycle and you’re at the point when you’re ovulating, you may feel like you have a surge of energy and want to go hard during your workouts.  Go for it!  Just proceed with caution because along with high energy levels and better moods, your chances of injury go up.  Fight the urge to overdo it.

After you get close to the end of your cycle, you may notice your hunger levels increasing to the point where you eat your first meal of the day full of protein and healthy fats and an hour later you’re hungry again.  This is how I feel during this phase of my cycle.  I feel like I could eat all the food in our fridge, freezer, and pantry within 24 hours.  Even during this phase when I eat more I still don’t gain weight because I know how my body operates.  It needs the extra nutrition.

Coaches Note: When your hunger increases, this is not the time to indulge in junk food.  Focus on whole, nutrient-dense food that your body thrives on.

Reason #2: There’s Other Ways To Measure Progress More Effectively

Here’s the hard truth about the scale: the number on the scale doesn’t always reflect your progress accurately.  There I said it.  Now that the truth is out there, let’s talk about it.

Fun Fact: Muscle is denser than fat. Yup, it’s true!

If you take a fistful of fat and fistful of muscle and place them each on their own scale, the number on the scale with the muscle will be higher.  So, if you’ve been getting your strength training on for several weeks or months, you’re most likely gaining lean muscle mass which will make the number on the scale either stay the same or even go up a little.

A more effective and accurate way to measure your progress is to go by how your clothes fit.  If you have a pair of jeans that are just a bit snug and then one day you slip them on and they feel a little loose, this is a sign of weight loss, most likely fat loss.  This means you’re most likely leaning up and building muscle mass to mitigate osteoporosis, support your joints, and be able to defend yourself at any time.

Taking measurements of your arms, hips, thighs, and stomach with a fabric roll tape measure is another accurate way to measure your progress.  This bad boy will give you a good baseline to measure your progress for whether or not you’re burning fat and gaining lean muscle.

Reason #3: Sustainable Fat Loss Results Take Time and Patience

Wouldn’t it be so much easier if you started eating better and moving your body more and the fat just melted away until you got down to the weight you want?  The reality is your body doesn’t work this way.  You may notice that you lose weight in the beginning of your weight loss journey effortlessly and think “Cool!  This is actually working!” However, this may just be water weight and not necessarily fat.  This is actually your body adjusting to your new eating style, movement routine, or both.

To burn fat and keep it off in a sustainable way, your body does this slowly.  Sometimes so slow it can be incredibly frustrating but it’s actually a good thing.  You most likely gained the weight slowly over time and now your body wants to slowly burn the extra fat slowly to keep it healthy.

I say this over and over again in my programs and I’m going to say it again right now.  Your body wants you to be healthy and this is always its number one priority.  The challenge is there’s sometimes a disconnect with your timeline and your body’s timeline to get to a healthy weight and they don’t always line up.

Rather than focusing on the number on the scale, start celebrating the action you’re taking every day to get to your healthy weight.  Did you eat more protein at breakfast?  Give yourself a high-five!  Did you do a strength workout after work?  Do a happy dance!  Did you get a full night’s rest and wake up feeling awesome?  Be grateful for your efforts to get to bed on time!

Shifting your focus from the number on the scale to your daily wins will shift your mindset to the things you can control: your efforts and actions.

So, how do you gently tell your scale you need your space?

Now, you don’t need to break up with your scale completely.  Taking small steps to simply scale back (pun intended) the number of times you hop on the scale to check your weight might be a good starting point for you.  If you currently get on your scale once a day, maybe get on it every other day or once a week, instead.

Before you get on the scale next time, remind yourself that you are a bad ass confident woman no matter what the scale says.  It doesn’t define who you are as a woman.  Your effort, commitment, and trust in your body are what makes you the bad ass confident woman that’s going to get you to a healthy weight for YOU.

Want to brainstorm ideas on how you can move away from the scale? Go here to book a free call with me and we’ll chat about what might work best for you!

What’s the threshold when you want to give up?

We’re just about to wrap up the second full week of 2025 which probably means you’ve been working towards your New Year’s resolutions for a few weeks now.  Maybe the newness and excitement of a new health and fitness journey is starting to wear off.  Or things just aren’t going the way you planned so far.  This was me the last few weeks.

We live in Southern California and thankfully the fires are not close enough to us that we’re in danger, however, we’ve experienced power outages and super strong winds that got in the way of my personal and professional goals.  It was not the way I imagined kicking off 2025 and definitely threw me for a loop.

It got me thinking about New Year’s resolutions and how to navigate challenges when they come up right at the beginning of the year.  Many studies show that most people never follow through with their New Year’s resolutions.  Yup, that’s right!  I typed NEVER.  By the time February rolls around, they’ve thrown in the towel and gone back to their old habits.

To be honest, this doesn’t surprise me at all because habit change is hard.  It’s hard for me and I’m a trained health and wellness coach who teaches people how to create lifestyle habits that stick.  So, if this you and you find yourself saying, "I can’t do this s#%t anymore!” within the first six weeks of the year, I get it.

Challenges are inevitable and a part of life regardless of what you’re working towards.  I’ve worked with several clients over the years and noticed a pattern when it comes to creating nutrition and fitness habits that are sustainable.  The bottom line is it’s not a linear path, especially if your goal is weight loss.  There’s ups and downs along the way no matter how motivated and committed you are to achieving your goal.

Fun fact: I recorded a podcast episode last year about this pattern.  If you want to learn more about the Wellness Abundance Coaching 5 Stages of Habit Creation, go here to check it out.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming…

One thing that I believe is super important to know about yourself is, at what point do you seriously think about giving up?  I’m talking about the “cracking open that bottle of wine and throwing away the cork because you know you won’t be needing it” phase.  Or the “eating an entire box of cookies in one sitting” phase.  Or the "sulking on the couch letting all the negative chit chat in your head tell you all the reasons you can’t make it happen” phase.

Now, I’m not trying to say there isn’t a time and a place for drinking wine straight from the bottle and bypassing the wine glass.  Believe me, it’s something I’ve considered many times and I know you have too (no shame in this!).  Sometimes it’s a necessary part of the process to get to where you want to go.  So, I’m here to encourage you to do what you need to do during this time.  Just be sure to truly enjoy every single sip from that bottle of wine and savor every single bite of every cookie you eat.

After you’re done, you can just give up OR shake it off, put on your big girl panties, and move on to the next step.   

The important thing is to recognize that this might be your “giving up” threshold, which is actually really exciting!  It may not feel exciting at the time BUT it’s the first step in the next phase.  You’re coming out of the “I just can’t do this!” phase and moving into the “I’ve totally got this!” phase.  At the beginning of the “I’ve totally got this!” phase, you may need to just keep doing what you’re doing and develop more patience or channel your inner Ross Gellar and pivot.

Working with a health and fitness coach like myself can help you navigate this territory.  Let’s be real and admit that we can’t be successful on our own.  Do you have the ability to make a lot of progress tapping into your own resources? Yes, of course you do!  However, I guarantee no one who has ever been successful at creating new lifestyle habits has done this without help.  I know I can’t do it on my own.

The ideal time for you to reach out for help is actually before you hit your giving up threshold.  If you get ahead of it and brainstorm ideas on ways you can overcome any obstacles that get in your way, by the time you get there you already have a list of ideas ready to go.

If you’ve already reached that threshold and you actually don’t want to give up but don’t know what to do, I can help.  If you’re willing to put in the work on your end, I’ll do the same on my end.  I’m confident I can help you get past your giving up threshold and get to your destination.

As much fun as it sounds, sitting around sulking with your bottle of wine and box of cookies probably won’t give you a body that ages gracefully, is full of energy, and stays lean and strong.  There’s no magic formula (if there was one and I knew it, I would share with you in a heartbeat!) to overcome the hurdles.  You just have to go at them head on, whatever that looks like for you.

So, go here right now to book a free call with me so we can chat about your “I just can’t do this!” threshold and create a strategy to help you get past it.  Set yourself up to be on the “I followed through with my New Year’s resolution(s)!” trolly.  You’ll look back at this time with a smile and feel a wave of gratitude that you didn’t give up.

The Fertility Trifecta

Have you or anyone you know struggled with fertility challenges?  If you’re going through this right now, I empathize with you.  While I haven’t been through it myself I have plenty of friends who have struggled to get pregnant over the years.  I’ve seen first hand how stressful and emotional the entire fertility process can be not just for women but in men as well.  Fertility can be a journey that can feel lonely and confusing and be challenging on relationships.

While there are several different paths to fertility, the one I would begin with if I was experiencing infertility is lifestyle habits.  Specifically, what I like to call the Fertility Trifecta (i.e. the Wellness Abundance Trifecta).

If you’re not looking to get pregnant, don’t stop reading now.  There’s lots of good stuff here that will help improve your overall health.  So, keep reading…

Your body’s ability to grow a human inside of it at any time is actually a sign of a healthy, thriving body.  Even if you’re like me and not looking to bring another human into the world, being fertile is something to strive to in your reproductive years.  Plus, the lifestyle habits you create now to boost your fertility will help you navigate perimenopause and menopause almost effortlessly.  And, let’s be real, I think every woman wants to age gracefully and breeze through the inevitable changes our bodies go through later in life.

So, what is this Fertility Trifecta of which I speak?  Well, it’s actually very simple (yet not always easy to implement): whole food nutrition, frequent movement, and good quality rest.

Ready to dive into all the juicy details?  Let’s do this!

Whole Food Nutrition

Now, with nutrition it’s super easy to go down the rabbit hole of supplements especially if you’re working with a fertility practitioner.  Often times practitioners will create a protocol to help with any nutrient deficiencies that includes supplements.

Here’s the thing about supplements: they’re meant to be taken if you don’t eat enough whole foods with the nutrients you’re deficient in, or if your body doesn’t absorb those nutrients properly.  In my professional opinion, the first line of defense for nutrient deficiencies should be whole foods.  If there’s any nutrients you’re deficient in and you don’t like any whole foods with those nutrients, then supplements are great.

Two supplements that I take daily are magnesium and collagen.  These are nutrients that are difficult for me to get enough of through my whole food eating style.

Now, let’s chat about whole foods.  I think it’s pretty obvious that your body thrives on whole, real foods such as veggies, fruit, meat (especially red meat), seafood, eggs, and nuts.  Creating an eating style that focuses more on whole foods is a great way to build a foundation for a nutrient-dense eating style for when you’re pregnant and passing nutrients on to your developing baby.  And it can be super helpful after your little one comes into the world with your recovery from pregnancy.

The challenge is moving away from processed foods and incorporating more whole foods.  Being super strict right out of the gate can be difficult and isn’t always the best strategy for most people.  I did this when I was training for my first half marathon.  I was super motivated to dial in my nutrition to support my training efforts.  If you can find the motivation within yourself to be strict in the beginning, go for it.  Just be sure you have a solid strategy in place to help you stick to it.

For most people, slowly moving away from highly processed food and focusing more on whole, nutrient dense foods that you enjoy is a better strategy.  Once you slowly start to add more whole foods into your eating style, you’ll have more consistent energy levels, sleep better, your mood will improve, and you’ll simply feel better overall.  Focus on how you’re feeling after eating a nutrient-dense meal and use this as your motivation to keep moving forward.

Frequent Movement

I think it’s safe to say we all understand that frequent movement is a key component of a healthy body.  With that being said, too much intense physical activity can inhibit weight loss, decrease fertility, and put too much stress on your heart muscle and the rest of your body.  Finding the sweet spot for your lifestyle and fitness level is key to creating an exercise routine that you can stick to and that’s effective.

When someone asks me what the best exercise routine is my answer is always the same: the one that you enjoy doing that includes cardio, strength training, and recovery.  One of my favorite aspects of being a fitness coach is helping my clients personalize their exercise routine.  I even do this with my group fitness classes.  If you’re struggling to find the motivation to exercise, you’re most likely choosing workouts that you don’t enjoy.

If you feel anxious or unsure about exercising, work with a professional to make sure your form is on par to avoid injury and get the most out of your workouts.  This is the  number one reason my clients come to me for help.  It’s super important to make sure you’re doing the movements correctly to not just avoid injury but to get the most out of the movement.

Good Quality Rest

We all have some form of stress in our lives.  Your fertility challenges can be causing a strain on your relationship with your partner.  You could feel a little (or a lot of) jealousy when a friend or family member shares that she’s pregnant.  You could feel pressure from people in your life to have a baby when they don’t know you’re trying and it’s not working out at this time.  Even when your little one arrives, you’ll experience different stressors in your life.  These are just some of the mental stressors that you may experience.

Then there’s the physical stressors from workouts.  When you do a strength training workout whether it’s with your own bodyweight or lifting weights, your muscles get micro tears in them.  These tears need time to heal and repair to grow more lean muscle mass.

Sleep is one of the best ways to recover from any stressors in your life.  This is the time when your body’s recovery systems kick into high gear and goes to work to realign any systems that aren’t working properly.  For example, if you’re struggling with insulin resistance (your body’s ability to process carbs efficiently) your body will make sure your stress hormones (cortisol) drops to a healthy level to enable your body to process carbs more efficiently.  This will also help you squash any sugar cravings before they start so you reach for whole, nutrient-dense foods rather than the ones filled with sugar.

While sleep is definitely super important, there are several other ways you can rest and recover from daily stresses.  Going for a walk, journaling, meditating, stretching, having coffee or lunch with a friend, intimate time with your partner, and reading a good book are all ways you can relax.

This is a topic that comes up a lot with my coaching clients.  As women, we tend to put other people’s needs before our own.  It’s in our nature to be the nurturing one.  The problem with this is we take on too much and, before we know it, we’re experiencing mood swings, weight gain, and the fluctuation of our energy levels throughout the day; it feels like we’re on roller coaster.  It doesn’t have to be this way.

When you implement the Fertility Trifecta (a.k.a. Wellness Abundance Trifecta), you’re investing in yourself and creating a healthy baby-making body.  When you invest in yourself you’ll be a better parent and partner.  This in and of itself will help you create abundance in other areas of your life.

Check out our podcast episode on this topic here.

How to Make 2025 Your Healthiest Year Yet

A brand new year is a great time to create a fresh start. It’s an opportunity to work with a clean slate while still taking into account where you’ve been and where you are in this moment. It’s an exciting time to get ready for the positive changes up ahead.

Now, I realize any time is a great time to create a fresh start, however, there’s just something about a new year that ignites hope and motivation within people. Maybe it’s because the holiday season is over and it’s time for a new beginning. Or the previous year was so stressful and chaotic that you simply want to move on to a new season in your life and a brand new year helps with the moving on process.

Whatever the reason may be for you, now is an opportunity figure out if you want to continue to move in the same direction or make a few tweaks to get to a new destination.  

 “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” Lao Tzu

If you feel like your health and wellness is heading down a path that’s causing too much stress, confusion, and creating unnecessary challenges, asking yourself the following 4 questions will help you get clear on what you want to accomplish in 2025 and how you’re going to make it happen. Just to be clear, you can think of this as a template to help you get started. Nothing is set in stone. You’re not married to this plan. If you find it doesn’t work for you, you’ll figure out what will work for you. 

How do you want to feel at the end of 2025?  

First, fast forward to December 2025 and imagine what your life will look like after you’ve taken control of your health for a full year. Maybe you’ll feel confident that you can stick to an exercise routine that works for you. Maybe you’ll be more aware of what your hormones are doing throughout the month so you can make nutrition, fitness, and rest choices that align with your body. Maybe you’ll treat yourself with more respect like you would a friend when you eat five cookies and not just one. Maybe you’ll know how to say “no” to indulgences more often than the beginning of the year. Imagine yourself slipping into the pair of pants you never thought you’d be able to fit into again.

Give yourself permission to really visualize what you want your life to look like at the end of 2025. This first question will help you begin stepping into the woman you’ll transform into over the next 12 months.

What health and fitness challenges do you want to overcome during 2025?

Write out every single health challenge you’re experiencing right now. This includes fertility issues, extra weight that just won’t come off, creating an exercise routine that you can stick with and you actually enjoy, navigating the unknown territory of perimenopause, managing your PCOS symptoms, and anything else that comes up for you.

Creating lifestyle habits around the Wellness Abundance trifecta (nutrition, fitness, and rest) can make all of these challenges so much easier to overcome. The best part about creating lifestyle habits around this trifecta is that they can call be personalized to fit into your life, align with your tastebuds, and your fitness ability.  

What tools do you have in your toolbox right now to start taking action on your 2025 health and fitness goals?  

You already have at least some of the resources within your reach to get started today.You may not be able to see results immediately with these resources but it will put you on the right path to get you to your end of the year destination.  

Here are a list of tools you may already have in your toolbox:

• A strong Why to keep you moving towards your goals (if you don’t have this yet, I’ll help you get clear on this when you join one of my programs)

• Shoes and comfy clothes to exercise in

• A kitchen to prepare nutrient-dense homemade meals

• A health and fitness coach you know and trust to help you along the way (my superpower is guiding women just like you towards their health and fitness destination, just in case you didn’t know)

• The ability to begin a workout program in the comfort of your own home with just your bodyweight 

• A comfy bed to get a solid nights sleep 

There’s probably tools that you don’t have available to you at the time that will help you get to your destination that you may not need right now. Keep an ongoing list of these tools for the future and acquire them down the road.  

What’s one step you’re going to take in the next 24 hours to jump start your 2025 health and fitness goals?

Now, this is my favorite question to ask because it gets you into the “action phase” of your health and fitness journey.Without action nothing happens and you might just end up overwhelming yourself with a long list of reasons (which are probably actually excuses) not to do anything right now.  

Make a list of every step you can take within the next 24 hours to get you on your 2025 health and fitness path. After you make your list, choose one thing that’s the most doable and figure out how you’re going to do it. If you want to go for a walk in the morning after you wake up, get your workout clothes and shoes ready the night before. Be sure to set your alarm to get up in time if needed. 

 Want to schedule a free wellness strategy session with me? Go here right now to find a time that works best for you. If you can’t find a time that works for you, email me at melissa@wellnessabundancecoaching.com and we’ll make it work.  

How to Squash Your Sugar Cravings Before They Start

Do you ever feel like your body craves sugar? It just needs that little bit of sweetness to make it happy. The next thing you know, you’re looking at 5 empty candy wrappers or half a box of cookies that was brand new 10 minutes ago.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever experienced this. I’m definitely raising my hand! If you’re hand is up, you’re human. I’m here to share with you that it’s not your fault and you can take control of your sugar cravings before they start. And, it’s actually pretty simple. It may not be easy at first but once it happens, you’ll feel like you can overcome any hurdle in your life.

Before I share how to squash your sugar cravings (and it’s not about willpower), let’s dive into why you feel like your body needs sugar.

Sugar is in a majority of processed food on the market: sauces, condiments, baked goods, crackers, protein bars, and the list goes on. According to Grand View Research, the market size of sugar in 2023 was $66.39 billion. That’s incredibly high considering there’s zero nutrients in it and it’s an ingredient that causes chronic disease in millions of people in the U.S. and billions around the world.

In the Simpson’s episode Sweets and Sour Marge that paints a great picture of how dependent we are on sugar. Springfield, the home of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie, is declared the fattest city in America and Marge is not happy about this. She goes to work to get the residents of Springfield to sign a petition to ban sugar in Springfield.

As she’s going around town collecting signatures, Chief Wiggum says that sugar is the reason his son Ralph is happy and angry at the same time. She stops by the house of Springfield’s resident hillbilly, Cletus, and he signs the petition because sugar is the reason his sister is obese and has diabetes. The show cuts Cletus’ sister using an ab roller and eating a bite of cake as a “reward” for her fitness efforts. Rewarding yourself with sweet treats (or any other indulgence) is an entirely different conversation. We’ll tackle that another day.

Marge gets enough signatures and Marge’s Law is passed. All the food with sugar in it is burned in a pile. Except for the Butterfingers candy bars that the fire spits right back out because, according to Chief Wiggum, “Even the fire doesn’t want them.” After all the sugar is burned in a big bond-fire there’s very little food left in Springfield. Homer walks in to Apu’s Kwik-E-Mart and the shelves are pretty much empty. This is actually a little scary because it’s the reality that we would experience if sugar was banned. A whole lot of food would disappear off the shelves.

When you go to the grocery store, a majority of the food on the shelves is processed foods. To be clear, there are some packaged processed foods that are made with whole food ingredients that are on the healthier end of the packaged food spectrum. However, most of the processed foods, in my opinion, are highly-processed. This means they have more chemical ingredients in them than real ingredients.

If you’re eating a lot of this processed food (cereal, condiments, baked goods, chips, crackers, pasta, etc.) your body doesn’t really know how to burn all these calories off for energy. Amongst the confusion with what to do with extra energy floating around in your bloodstream, your body stores it as fat for later use. This is also when you feel the ups and downs of energy levels. When you feel low energy, your body tells you to reach for the sugar even though it has more than enough.

So, how do you squash your sugar cravings before they start? Let’s dive into the one simple thing you can do to help you feel confident going about your day without even considering eating a sugar filled treat.

Eating enough protein throughout your day will train your body not to crave sugar. Here’s the thing about protein: it helps keep you feeling satisfied longer and it’s hard to eat too much of it.

When your body feels like it’s had enough to eat to power all the systems in your body it needs to survive, your hormones are telling your brain “We’re good. We don’t need any more calories of any kind to continue functioning efficiently. You’re free to go about your day and do what you want without having to worry about eating for now.”

Now, I realize in theory this solution sounds simple but it might not be easy, at least at first. I’ll walk you through a process that works for me (and that I share with clients) to help you get your protein intake dialed in.

Make sure you’re eating a good amount of protein with every meal, especially your first meal of the day. In the morning, I’ll eat 2-4 eggs, hard boiled, fried, or scrambled, whatever I’m feeling or have time to prepare. Sometimes I’ll throw in some uncured bacon or breakfast sausage. I’ll often have a collagen protein shake as well. Just a quick note on collagen: it’s not a complete protein so I wouldn’t recommend adding it to your protein intake tally. It’s an awesome supplement to keep your skin, hair, nails, and joints super healthy.

Any kind of animal protein is great at any time of the day. I ate leftover fish for breakfast one day this week and it was delicious! Think outside the cereal box in the morning and get creative with your protein packed breakfast.

Build the rest of your meals throughout the day around protein. For example, if I feel like having chicken, I’ll cook up some chicken with mushrooms and onions and add some bone broth or veggie broth based soup (without sugar) to the mix and within 30 minutes or less I have a nutritious, delicious, satisfying meal ready to eat for dinner.

Eating enough protein, especially for women, can be a bit challenging. Slowly increase the amount of protein you eat each day or week and you’ll get to a point where you naturally don’t crave sugar any more. If you’re not sure whether or not you’re eating enough protein, go here to check out a Wellness Abundance Podcast episode on the topic.

Enjoy your protein-packed meals!

3 Reasons You’re Not Losing Weight

Do you ever feel like you’re spinning your wheels trying to get the extra weight off your body? I’ve been there myself and it can be incredibly frustrating.

Whether you’ve been advised by your doctor to shave a few pounds off the number on the scale or you’ve noticed your pants feeling a little snug, losing weight can be a complex process. Often times when women tell me they’re doing everything right yet they’re not losing weight (or they’re gaining it), that’s a red flag that there’s a missing link (or two) in their weight loss action plan.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to weight loss, which is actually great news for you. Because who wants to feel like they have to eat a giant salad for lunch every single day just to drop a few pounds to fit into your favorite pair of jeans. If you want to eat a giant salad for lunch every day, go for it! I used to eat giant salads all the time filled with protein and healthy fats until I started getting a little bored with them. Now I switch it up and am able to maintain a healthy weight.

Creating a personalized weight loss action plan is an opportunity to make this journey an enjoyable one for you. It may be challenging in the beginning when you start making changes but with the Wellness Abundance Fat Loss method you’ll create a way of life that keeps extra weight off for good.

Okay, let’s get into the nitty gritty of why you may not be losing weight and what small changes you can make to slip into your favorite pair of jeans effortlessly.

Reason #1: Not enough strength training

I’m dating myself here, but remember back in 80’s when Jane Fonda workouts were all the rage. Jazzersize and leg warmers were a must if you wanted to get skinny back in the day. Or so we thought…

What we’ve learned over the last three decades is that strength training is the way to go if you want to lose fat and not just weight. Here’s the thing about weight loss: you really want to lose fat and not just weight in general that can include muscle mass and bone density.

If you’re doing enough strength training, you’re most likely building - or maintaining - muscle and burning fat. The number on the scale may not go down much BUT you’re body is shedding any fat that’s no longer needed. The best way to measure this is by how your clothes fit.

If you’re doing too much cardio and not enough strength training, you could potentially lose muscle mass. The thing about muscles is you need to use them regularly for them to stay strong. Plus, strong muscles help support healthy bones. As we age, our risk for osteoporosis increases significantly which is definitely something you don’t want.

Doing at least two 30-minute strength training sessions a week lifting heavy things should do the trick. If you’re new to strength training, go here to watch my podcast episode where I share 3 Tips To Get Comfortable With Strength Training.

Plus, too much cardio can increase your stress hormones which causes your body to go into protection mode. This means your body is going to keep any stored fat on you just in case it needs it in the future. I’m telling you, your body is smarter than you think it is. It knows what it’s doing. Trust it.

So, slip on your leg warmers, grab your Thigh Master®, step aerobics equipment, and get your strength training on.

Reason #2: Not eating according to your cycle

Yes, you read that right. Eating according to your cycle actually is a thing. At least it is in my program. I’ve been doing this for a few years now and it’s been a game changer.

Since your hormones fluctuate throughout the month, why not switch up your food along with it? Once you get the hang of it and get to know your body it becomes second nature.

When your hormones are higher during the first half of your cycle, your body is able to process the starchy carbs like rice, potatoes, and bread a little more efficiently. This means when you eat these foods your body most likely won’t be storing it as fat.

On the other hand, during the second half of your cycle your body is not really a fan of processing these starchy carbs and wants to resist burning them for energy. Your body retaliates against you for eating them and stores them as fat.

This can be a really challenging time because this is when your PMS cravings kick in and you could be more hungry than usual. Your brain is telling you to order a cheeseburger, fries, and a shake from In-n-Out. (Seriously, this was one of my go-to orders back in the day.) You justify it because you’re “listening” to your body when this actually isn’t what your body wants.

This is just your hormones confusing you about what your body actually wants and needs during this time. When you train your brain to say “No thank you!” to these foods it’s easier to make food choices that your body actually needs: whole, nutrient-dense foods.

My point is that making conscious food choices to work with your body rather than against it will make eating nutrient-dense foods most of the time so much easier. You can indulge occasionally. Just know your limits.

Wellness Abundance Coaching Tip: Track your cycle so you can make conscious choices about what you eat to work with your body. This may vary from month to month and as you you get older. This is where working with a health and wellness coach in addition to your healthcare provider can help.

Reason #3: Not getting enough sleep

Ah, sleep… One of my favorite things to do. It’s the time when your body’s recovery systems kick into high gear and help you recuperate from the stresses of the day, both physically and mentally.

Sleeplessness can cause your hormones to go into all sorts of chaos within your body. Not getting enough quality sleep can cause your stress hormones to go sky high. You already learned earlier that chronically high stress levels promotes your body to store more fat. This is obviously not what you want when you’re wanting to burn more fat.

Not only does your stress hormone increase, your hunger hormone overrides the hormone that tells you when you’ve had enough to eat. When this happens, you tend to eat more and have more cravings for junk food. We all know what this leads to, right? Eating more processed food that doesn’t support your weight loss efforts.

In addition to your junk food cravings coming out of nowhere, if you’re a stress drinker you’re probably going to pop open a bottle of wine, skip the glass, and drink right from the bottle. After all, you’re drinking from a glass, right?

Reaching for the wine when you’re stressed probably isn’t the best way to cope with your emotions, plus your body is simply going to just store more fat as you drink and eat, regardless of what you eat.

So, the bottom line is do your best to move mountains to get great sleep. If you need to, rearrange your night time routine to make sure you get to bed at a reasonable time, put down the electronic devices, and do something relaxing to calm your mind within two hours before bedtime.

So, out all three of these reasons, which one do you feel you can work on improving in the next 24-48 hours? It only takes one step move you closer to your weight loss goal, whatever that looks like for you.

Unhealthy Habits Disguised as Wellness

Have you ever considered that your “healthy” habits are inhibiting your weight loss? I know, it’s kind of a loaded question. There’s a reason (and it’s a good one) I’m asking you to think about this for a minute.

Our brains are flooded with information about what we “should” be doing to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight. There’s always articles sharing studies that prove that specific habits are helping you burn more calories. Some of them are accurate and valid while other articles have cherry-picked data to make specific habits look good.

The challenge comes in what to believe and not to believe. This can be a struggle and something I help my clients overcome. By the way, once you implement the Wellness Abundance fat loss method, it’s easy to overcome these challenges and lose weight effortlessly.

Here are 3 habits that are disguised as wellness that might be inhibiting your fat loss efforts:

• Eating three square meals a day with snacks in between

• Doing an hour of high intensity cardio 5 days a week

• Drinking a protein shake filled with all sorts of fruit (Jamba Juice, anyone?)

If you’re doing any of the above, it’s okay. You’ve made these choices based on what you were told was the best way to lose weight. This is what the professionals are telling you works.

The tricky thing about the human body is that we’re constantly learning new information about how it works. This is one of the reasons I became a health and fitness coach. I love learning about how our bodies can help us not just survive but thrive.

Your body is an amazing being and knows exactly what to do to help you burn fat effortlessly if you give it what it wants and needs. The best part is, this is actually not that complicated.

Let dive into these habits…

Eating three square meals a day with snacks in between

Learning to be in tune with your actual hunger cues is why you don’t need to eat three square meals a day with snacks in between. Unless you’re a professional athlete or training for the Boston marathon, there’s no need to eat as frequently as you’ve been taught. You should absolutely eat three meals a day if (and that’s big IF) you feel like your body is asking for the nutrients.

If you’re eating enough protein and healthy fats during your first meal of the day, this should hold you over for at least 3-4 hours, maybe more. The definition of “enough” varies from person to person. For example, if I eat at least 30 grams of protein (2 hard boiled eggs and a protein shake with two scoops of protein powder) at around 8am, I’m good until about 12:30pm. Not eating between meals helps mitigate sugar cravings and gives your body a break from having to work to digest food.

Doing an hour of high intensity cardio 5 days a week

Too many high intensity cardio workouts will increase your cortisol levels (also known as the stress hormone). When your cortisol levels are super high, this not only inhibits your ability to burn fat efficiently, but causes too much stress on your heart. Your heart is a muscle so when you do a cardio workout, your heart is contracting just like your thigh muscles do when you squat. Too much of the this for long periods of time too frequently causes stress on your heart. Just like your other muscles, your heart needs time to recover from workouts.

Move your body frequently throughout the day if possible and shift your focus to building lean muscle mass. You really only need to do about 2-3 strength training sessions a week. And they can be around 30 minutes or so. You’ll get your heart rate up just enough to give your heart muscle the exercise it needs.

Drinking a protein shake filled with all sorts of fruit

I’m a big fan of drinking protein shakes to get extra protein or if you just need a quick and easy meal replacement. Adding fruit to them is a great way to get extra nutrients such as potassium, vitamin C, and antioxidants. The kicker is when you put too much fruit in your shake. Here’s the thing about fruit: it’s still sugar. It’s definitely better than throwing a bag of Skittles in your shake but too much of it can spike your blood sugar and wreck havoc with your hormones. If your body doesn’t burn the sugar within a reasonable time it will store it as fat.

I usually add about 1 tablespoon of frozen blueberries and about 3 frozen strawberries to give my chocolate collagen protein shake just a tad of sweetness. I’ve found this is the right amount of healthy carbs for me to have in the morning to start my day. Your carb intake can vary depending on where you are in your hormonal cycle and your activity level. This is something I encourage my clients to experiment with while we’re working together to find that sweet spot (pun intended).

These aren’t the only habits that can be disguised as wellness. What might be a healthy habit for one person may not be for you. The beauty of working with a professional like myself is you get to explore your habits and decide whether or not they’re supporting your health and wellness goals.

If you think you may have some habits that are disguised as wellness, let’s chat. I’m happy to hop on a free call with you to talk it through.

Dieting vs Lifestyle Eating

Food is one of my favorite things in life. I like talking about it, eating it, creating delicious meals with it, and buying it. I’ve always had a healthy appetite, even as a kid, meaning that I never starved myself. What I didn’t always have was a healthy relationship with food.

What I’ve learned over the past decade is that if you don’t have a healthy relationship with food, you’ll never lose weight or be able to maintain a healthy weight for your body type.

Let’s do a deeper dive into diet versus lifestyle eating.

We all need food to survive, right? Your body uses the calories from the food you eat as energy to fuel the systems it has in place to keep you alive and surviving. Without food your body will simply stop working. It sounds pretty simple, right? Eat food (any food) and you’ll stay alive.

However, eating can be a bit of an emotional process for many people, especially women. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you’re eating whole, nutrient-dense foods that help you thrive and not just survive. The challenge comes in being surrounded by junk food that does more harm than good.

To paint you a picture, I’ll share a quick story about my emotional eating journey over the past few decades.

When I was in high school, I ate fast food almost every day for lunch. My girlfriends and I would hop in one of their cars and head down the street to the cluster of fast food joints. Cheap tacos and hanging out with my girlfriends are some of my favorite memories from my high school days.

I ran track and lifted weights in high school so I didn’t gain any weight from the tacos I was stuffing my face with on school days. Heading into my college years and later on in my 20’s was when I would start to see a difference. When I was in my mid-twenties I noticed my clothes were a little snug. I thought I just needed to workout harder and I’d be able to exercise my way out my bad diet. Or I’ll just go on a “diet” and lose the weight. Super easy, right?

I was totally wrong about this.

I hear women say all the time “When I turned 30 the weight just started piling on.” The reality is it wasn’t because of turning 30, it was because your body was very slowly storing extra calories that it wasn’t able to burn immediately as fat. It doesn’t happen overnight regardless of how it might feel.

The same is true about weight loss. Your body knows exactly how to burn any excess weight it doesn’t need over an extended period of time when you give it the tools it needs to make this happen (proper nutrition, sleep, and movement). It’s a slow and efficient process. Trust your body. It knows what it’s doing.

I have tried just about everything to lose weight: counting calories, low fat, no fat, intermittent fasting, keto, etc. While some of these methods do actually help you lose weight (keto is great for menopausal and post menopausal women due to the lack of estrogen), it’s all about how you think about it.

If you tell yourself “I’m on a diet” this could cause your emotions to go all over the place. The thing about “being on a diet” is it comes across as being restrictive and depriving yourself of foods you enjoy eating. This could make you miserable and unhappy which is the exact opposite of how you want to feel when you’re on a weight loss journey.

You deserve to feel excited, energetic, and happy when you’re doing what you need to do to lose weight and maintain it. To be perfectly clear, I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, especially at first. There will be challenges that may take some critical thinking to overcome. This is to be expected.

When you feel happy and energized, you’re keeping your stress at a healthy level that will actually support your weight loss efforts rather than inhibit them.

One thing I tell all my clients is that you should enjoy the food you eat on a daily basis. You shouldn’t force yourself to eat food that you really don’t like the taste of just because it’s nutritious. This does not sound fun to me and I’m sure it doesn’t sound fun to you.

When I learned how to create an eating style for myself that was made up of whole, nutrient-dense foods that I actually enjoyed eating, the weight started to fall off on it’s own. Now it’s easy for me to make food choices that help me not just survive but also thrive. It’s lifestyle eating that’s helped me to maintain a healthy weight and give me the freedom to live a life I love and deserve.

You have the power to create an eating style that you enjoy, gives you energy, and helps you be the healthiest version of yourself.

Need help creating your personalized eating style? Go here to book a call with me and we’ll create a strategy that works for you.

How to Ask for Help

When you feel overwhelmed how often do you ask for help? If your answer is not very, you’re like so many other women. Women tend to naturally be the one in the family who takes care most of the items on the household to-do list in addition to taking care of kids and/or bringing home income.

I believe this is in our DNA as women. In the hunter and gatherer society, the women were the gatherers. Women would hold the babies while gathering any veggies and fruit they could find. They were able to focus on multiple tasks at the same time. Men, on the other hand, were the hunters. Their primary job was to be laser focused on hunting animals to feed their family.

So, it’s natural that women feel the need to handle everything else in the household to make sure everyone in the family is fed, clothed, and well taken care of.

Of course, in today’s society things are little different. These days more men are willing to share the household responsibilities, yet, women still do a bulk of the tasks that keep the household running smoothly. This can be because women don’t know how to ask for help.

There are several reasons why we don’t want to ask for help. It can be fear of losing control or feeling like no one else can do a task as good we can. When we come up with reasons like these, our focus is on why we can’t ask for help rather than how we could we ask for help. This is where a simple mindset shift can be a game changer.

“If you change the way you looks at things, the things you look at will change.” Wayne Dyer

So, how do you ask for help in a way that relieves the pressure you feel and helps you feel comfortable passing the baton? We’ll use meal prep and cooking as an example as this is a challenge my clients experience and I’ve had challenges with myself.

I’m a big fan of planning meals a week in advance. I’ve found from personal experience this helps me find the motivation to cook a homemade meal when I’m tired at the end of the work day and just want to relax. Having the ability to come home and simply look at a menu makes it super easy for me to get out all the ingredients and get to cooking. However, this does require you to carve out time the week before to plan the meals, do an inventory of your fridge and pantry, and go to the grocery store.

Tip #1: Make a list of all the ways you’ll find freedom in asking for help.

When I was feeling overwhelmed with doing all the meal planning for dinner in our home, I imagined what it would feel like if I asked my hubby, Scot, to share the meal planning with me. What I learned was it would give me an opportunity to transfer my meal planning energy into other things such as relaxing or focusing on how to better serve my Wellness Abundance clients and community. It was one less thing for me to stress out about during my day.

Tip #2: Make a list of ways in which the person you’re asking for help from can benefit.

This can be a game changer when it comes to enrolling your family in the meal planning and cooking process. Part of it was about taking some pressure off of myself and another part of it was giving my hubby the opportunity to utilize his creativity skills in the kitchen. My hubby can get really creative in the kitchen and has created some of the most flavorful and nutritious meals we’ve enjoyed together. I love watching his face light up when he’s experimented with a new recipe that turns out to be really yummy.

Another benefit of Scot helping out with meal planning and cooking is he gets to be my hero. He loves being my hero so if giving me a night off from cooking means being my hero, he’ll do it in a heart beat. This is something that brings him so much joy.

Tip #3: Create some guidelines with your new process in collaboration with the person you’re asking for help from.

After Scot was onboard with sharing the meal planning and cooking with me, we talked about how we would make it work. We decided that whoever was the chef that night would be responsible for choosing the meal that night. The chef would not be responsible for clean up duty. When he cooks, I clean and vice versa. We bought a small white board that we have in our kitchen that lists the days of the week and the specific meals that we’ll have that night.

Before we assign ourselves to a day of the week, we discuss the schedule for the upcoming week. Most of the time we both stop working by 6pm, however, occasionally I’ll hold a coaching appointment or join a Beautycounter meet up after 6pm. These nights Scot will be in charge of dinner and it’s usually something quick and easy like bacon and eggs. We also schedule a date night once a week and get take out or go out to eat to give both of us a break from cooking and cleaning.

These three simple tips have helped me focus on the benefits of enrolling help and how it can actually feel empowering to ask for help. It feels incredibly liberating to relinquish control over some areas of your life so you can focus your energy on activities that align more with your strengths and move you closer to your goals.

What area in your life could you ask for help?