Health Coach
Let’s face it. As Americans, we spend FAR too much time sitting on our booty’s. Even with that 5am spin class, many of us fail to fit much movement into our daily lives. We spend the majority of our day moving from one sedentary position to the next – bed, car, work, car, couch, bed – with sprinklings of walking mixed in. The average American only averages 5,000 steps a day. That’s not much.
Now this is an interesting post topic for me, because in my Health Coaching, I stress the importance of, and strongly believe in, not focusing on the number on the scale and that, ultimately, finding true balance and peace in your life and body is NOT about being a certain size or weight. I also believe that when we are treating our body’s and ourselves right and paying attention to our non-food needs and desires, our body will arrive at it’s own ideal weight where we feel comfortable and confident. However, as a Health Coach, I do get asked by people why they can’t lose weight when they’ve been being so “good” and exercising regularly and eating all their vegetables. While my belief’s still stand about diet and restriction, I do want to address a few reasons why these people may be “stuck” despite their efforts.
I know this post may seem early to you…but is it just me or did this month fly by?? Today is the 28th, which means that this Friday is Halloween, which means that next month is the highly anticipated grand kick-off of the Holiday season….all starting with that glorious day of shoveling as much food as humanly possible down your throat…Thanksgiving! Craziness. So I think it’s time to start prepping ourselves now.
I don’t know about you, but every year (up until the last two years) I left Thanksgiving (and Christmas….and New Years) feeling like a gross puffed up blow fish version of myself. I’m pretty sure I left every year waddling and struggle breathing my way back to my car. I bet it was a super attractive sight too..anyways, the point is that I always overate. Every year. Read More
If you are like most Americans, I am guessing your first 10-15 minutes home from work in the afternoons are quite chaotic and, on most days, lead to an even busier evening blur of events in which you don’t “come to” until sometime around 8:00 or 9:00PM. A lot of people I work with struggle with this – coming straight home from a stressful day and being thrust into an even busier night and never being able to “come down” from that work stress “high” we Americans spend far too much time operating in.
I often get asked how I changed my relationship with food once and for all. While the full answer to this question would be best answered with quite a long list of things, I am going to share with you today the one thing that I believe had the BIGGEST impact on changing that relationship for good. And that one thing is actually a pretty basic thing – a journal. I touched on this briefly in this post, but today I’m going to go a little deeper and let you know just how this journal changed not only my relationship with food, but ultimately with my life and myself.
I Graduated!!
I’ts hard to believe that my year at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition is already over! Seems like just yesterday that I tuned in to my first lecture. I have learned so much this year about nutrition, coaching, business and unpardonably, MYSELF. I think that was the biggest shock for me this year – the amount of self-growth I underwent. Sure, I assumed there would be some self-growth along with all of the amazing lectures and speakers I was blessed to be apart of, but man did I learn a lot! While there were many lessons learned this year, I think the one that stood out to me the most was the importance of learning to live inwardly out instead of outwardly in.
So a piece of pizza turned into an entire pizza which led to a bag of M&M’s which were washed down with a pint of ice cream and topped off with a bag of chips just for good measure. You feel disgusting, bloated, stuffed, uncomfortable, angry, upset, confused, annoyed, sad, but mostly, out of control. If you’re a chronic dieter, you are all too familiar with the instance I just outlined. Heck, you may have even lived it last night. Each binge looks different, if this isn’t you, maybe your binge looks like overeating (or never stopping eating) at family parties, or every time you go out to dinner with friends, or eating all the leftover cookies and snacks in the break room. I don’t know about you, but in my dieting days, any sort of binge would have immediately been followed up by a “clean eating day”, no carbs, a little extra cardio and strict food rules. Read More
Let’s face it. The name of the game when trying to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight comes down to not stuffing your face with excess food. In my own experience (and through working with my clients) I’ve come to realize that the main reason it seems so tough to stop eating before we’ve gone too far is because we have NO idea how to listen to our bodies anymore. We literally have no idea how much food our bodies need.
I thought that was a fun and appropriate title to catch your attention on this Monday morning. 🙂 Speaking of Monday mornings, how many times in your life have you “started over” again with your relationship to food on a Monday? Or began that diet that was going to change you life once and for all on a Monday? Or “hopped back on” the clean eating train on a Monday? I don’t know about you, but that number is all too high for me. Why Monday’s anyway? I mean, Monday’s are awful enough by themselves and then for some reason we think it’d be a good idea to add food deprivation and crazy exercise routines in the mix too. Yuck!
Meal prepping is a GREAT way to help you save money and stay on track with those health goals! But let’s be honest, meal prepping can be a pretty awful experience. However, it doesn’t have to be that way! When I first started meal prepping, it was horrible. I felt like I was tied in the kitchen for hours on end, which made Sunday afternoons anything but enjoyable. Luckily for you, my inefficiency taught me a lot about what NOT to do. I learned that it’s not so much about planning out and making a full week of meals on one day. It’s about setting yourself up for delicious healthy meals throughout the week so it doesn’t take up too much time or energy. Today, I’m going to share some of the tricks of the trade I eventually learned to help make it much more of an enjoyable experience for you.