Christine D'Ercole: “My Body Was Built For This!”

Christine D’Ercole, Peloton mindset master extraordinaire

You know her and you love her: . Christine was actually my first Peloton instructor and her ability to talk to me like I was the only person in the room resonated deeply. When we talked on Women Physician’s Day, I couldn’t wait to hear her amazing story.

When Christine was a little girl, she wanted to be a ballerina. But they wouldn’t put her in any shows with a short tutu as the costume. She was told she was a good dancer, but wouldn’t get a part if she couldn’t lose weight in a matter of weeks. At 12 year old, Christine developed an incredibly dysmorphic sense of self. She carried this feeling of being unworthy for a long time.

Finally, after going to as many means possible to make herself smaller - including self-harm and eating disorders - Christine did a lot of therapy and moved on to acting. She got into Carnegie Mellon’s theatre program and took it as a sign that acting was the right track for her. Then she came across an audition sheet that said she was “a little heavy in the thigh.” This one comment threw her into a tailspin.

Eventually, Christine graduated from Carnegie Mellon and moved to New York. She became a bike messenger because she needed a job to do on the side while auditioning with bike grease under her fingernails. It was during that time that Christine learned - when racing her co-workers in Central Park - that she was a talented cycler and should think about racing.

Christine got curious and dove heavily into cycling. She was doing national competitions, racing for Nautica, and being invited to teams. So she went back to her acting agent and they agreed that this was her time to pursue cycling, not acting. She loved that bike racing had nothing to do with what she looked like. She won races because of decisions she made and the strength she trained for. Discovering that she could be successful because of herself, not somebody else’s opinion of her, was an essential shift.

She’d been so frustrated and so tired of rejection, and Christine naturally moved toward what made her feel good. So Christine said yes to the team and started to race all over the country.

Then she found she was pregnant. She stopped racing. And she gained a lot of weight. Christine had to find a way to be okay in her new body after finally getting to a place of being proud of it. She needed to feel empowered again. So Christine auditioned to be a plus-sized model. She was told she wasn’t big enough as she was, but she could work the fall and winter lines if she wore pads that took her from a size 18 to a 22. So that’s what she did.

In that job, Christine was exercising her ability to be proud of herself when she looked at herself in the mirror. It was a fake it until you make it sort of thing. And eventually, when she looked at herself in the mirror, Christine’s inner voice told her to get back on her bike, forget all of the stuff that had anything to do with others’ opinions of her, and see what she was capable of. She heard herself loud and clear. It was a directive. She finished that day of work and was done.

That year, Christine got a Christmas present: a one-month membership to a gym. So she went and took a spin class. And the class was terrible. The instructor was mean and judgy. Christine knew it could’ve been an amazing experience. She knew that if she were the instructor, Christine would put on beautiful music, helping people want to cross the finish line instead of berating them. So within a month, Christine got certified to teach spin classes.

Not only was Christine empowered by what she was capable of as a cyclist, but she was also on a stage, telling a story, and moving to music - all of the things she’d ever been passionate about. She discovered that all of this was about storytelling, whether through movement in dance, acting in words, or racing on bikes. She realized she was a storyteller using a vehicle of a stationary bicycle to take people somewhere rather than words. 

The messaging and images in our culture telling us we have to look a certain way to be loved and accepted are so loud, making us feel that if we don’t look that way, we should just give up. But Christine believes that we should all be able to walk around naked and proud instead of hiding our bums with our shirts.

Self-acceptance is still a journey for Christine. She still has bad days. But getting on that bike and speaking to people is cathartic and therapeutic. It’s all about how we talk to ourselves. It’s about finding where we are now and what we can do about it, giving ourselves permission to think of what we can do without boundaries.

Now, approaching 50, Christine realizes that the moments of change in our lives are soft, not hard, sharp angles. It’s a collection of moments that leads us to growth. She hasn’t achieved a perfect mindset. She still has to tell herself in the mirror that she’s bigger than a small pair of pants. And that’s part of the journey.

If you are looking to start your own body journey, I’d recommend. you check out my YouTube page:

If you want to follow Christine, you can find her on Instagram or her website.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

The Thigh Master Changed My Life

My mom recently reminded me of the time that I did my 8th Grade English Presentation on The Thigh Master.

Haha. Yes, you read that correctly. The assignment was to do a demonstration speech. At an early age, I loved fitness equipment and I wanted to share my passion with the world.

I stood in front of the class and got ready to give my talk. But... I just couldn’t stop laughing. So I ditched my lines and decided to just go with it.

I proceeded to demonstrate a workout for the class. It was such a hit, my good friend Michael Riecke asked the teacher if I could do it again. I can remember him laughing and clapping... it was the best.

I am now leading a a program where exercise is a huge component of what I do. AND I ABSOLUTELY ADORE IT. I love being able to help others process thoughts and emotions through movement.

So, why am I telling you this story?

See, I never forgot about my Thigh Master presentation. It was this presentation alone that gave me confidence to put myself out there. I didn’t know if I would get an F or an A on the project - but I believed in it - so I did it. I believed in myself, and I evaluated the worst case scenario. What is the worst thing that could happen?   

Whenever we have a decision to make, we are often flooded with ideas on how we should proceed. We often make it complicated. But, what if, just for a moment... you could listen to your heart and decide exactly what you wanted to do?

You actually do know what you want. Often, we just don’t give ourselves the space to recognize it.

Once you know... then likely your brain will give you reasons why your choice may not be optimal.

This is where you ask yourself... What is the worst thing that could happen? Identify it... have a strategy for what you would do if it did happen... and are you willing to risk it? If you are willing to take the risk and follow your heart - then you can move full speed ahead. 

Others will always have their opinions, and you can listen... or not. Your energy will be best spent on creating space and moving fearlessly forward.

Give the space and listen to the signs. Who knew that my 8th grade presentation would have given me a clue for what I was meant to do. I will forever be grateful to the Thigh Master... the device that allowed me to express my humor and embrace my unique ideas. Without hesitation, I can say that The Thigh Master changed my life.

“I Don’t Need It, But I Want It”

The thought, “I don’t need it, but I want it” brings up so many different feelings. We feel doubtful or even guilty and selfish. And it comes up often in many different places, like when you’re ordering groceries, online shopping, and cleaning out your closet.

It can get kind of fuzzy when we have to draw the line between need and want. How do you know which is which? And when is it okay to just want it?

Here’s my answer: if you want it, you have two choices. You can own wanting something and proceed in wanting that thing, or you can think more and come up with pros and cons, coming to the decision that you don’t need it and talk yourself out of wanting it. But if you’re constantly having little reminders of whatever it is that you want, you can probably pay attention to them. After all, what’s so wrong with just wanting something for pleasure?

Pleasure

Pleasure is a human experience that can be embraced. It’s so important to allow ourselves to experience pleasure and do things that we want to do just because. So why don’t we create more pleasure in our lives?

How does pleasure feel? It’s slow. You want to stay in it forever. It’s typically centrally located in your heart, radiating out. What things bring you that type of pleasure? For my clients, it’s hugs and snuggles, candles, hot tea, and exercise. Clothing, pajamas, and sheets that they love. People whose presence makes them feel pleasure.

There are so many ways to incorporate pleasure into every day. Typically we don’t make it a priority because it’s not a survival necessity. It’s not something that has to happen, but we can choose to make it happen which will make our lives even more full.

So if you’re craving a full, flowing, amazing life that’s a bit slower than the one you’re currently living, pleasure may be something you need.

When I channel the feeling of pleasure, I think, “Why don’t I do this more?” and “It feels really good to be in this moment” and “There are so many opportunities in this day to bring something beautiful in my life.” So instead of saying, “I want it but I don’t need it,” we can say, “For me to have the life that I want to, I do need this.”

Comparison

When we think we need something, we’re basically saying something may be wrong, that there’s a void we’re trying to fill. But that is a limiting belief because we aren’t yet adapted to the idea that pleasure is necessary. It leads us down the pathway of feeling selfish and greedy. We start judging, comparing ourselves to others, weighing our priorities against those of others and starting to believe we want or need something we don’t really want.

So where do we go from here? How do we start thinking about what we want?

For us to decide what we want and truly need, we can start with the basics: food, shelter, water. In fact, simplifying in this way can be a great source of pleasure. And when you really think about what’s enough, you’ll start to feel like you are enough. Then you can get to that place of asking yourself what you want. When we’re able to go from “Who am I?” to “What do I need?” and “What do I want and what brings me pleasure?” we can embrace our unique beauty and avoid those comparisons. We’ll all find our own zone, understanding what feels good for us.

Have you ever had a friend or a relative in your life who does something that brings them pleasure, like redoing their kitchen or getting a dog, and you hear the announcement and it brings up something weird for you? You’re super excited for them but you also wonder, “Do I need that? Do I want that? Maybe I should do that.”

When those we love are going in a certain direction, we wonder if we’re missing out. Let’s figure out who you are and what you want independent of others. Because if you’re wanting things based on comparison, it might lead you down a path that you may not want to go down.

Hats

We all wear so many different hats. Partner, mother, friend, daughter. When we start to break down what we need and want, it’ll look different when we have our different hats on.

One of my hats is “athlete.” When I’m wearing that hat, I need movement. But what I want is to keep getting better and stronger because it brings me a lot of joy and empowers me. Materially, I might have everything I need to keep getting stronger and staying healthy. But I want new equipment and memberships. And that’s okay! Maybe not everybody needs a GHD device in their home gym, but it was something I wanted.

The idea is that it’s okay to want things. Even if you’re having a tough time drawing the line between need and want, it’s fine! There doesn’t need to be a solid line between need and want because those things change from day to day, month to month, year to year, and hat to hat. The important thing is to check in with yourself to see where you are in your life and make room for both the needs and the wants. You’ll find they blur together nicely.

The reason this topic is so uncomfortable is that it requires being comfortable with the grey zone between needing and wanting. We don’t have a definitive answer all the time. In the grey zone, we have to go with the flow and figure it out.

So spend some time today checking in with yourself and figuring out what it is that you want. Break down all the hats you wear and focus on one of them. Go through the process of figuring out what you want and what you need for that hat.

For example, let’s look at the “partner hat.” In a relationship, the things you need are the dealbreakers. They’re your boundaries, what you need for the relationship to flourish. The things you want are the ones that are exciting about the relationship, like having a date night once a week.

So what do you want? Pick a hat. Think about what you want. This work will allow us to have self-love, self-acceptance, and compassion for ourselves. Remember, you are perfect. You are enough. And it is okay to want things for pure pleasure.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Unconditional Love

With uncertainty all around us, I thought it would be fun to share some of my personal stories regarding observation of unconditional love.

What is unconditional love, anyway?

It’s really hard to just assign it a definition, right? But, let’s make a deal. After you finish reading my share, I want you to reflect on your life... honor your stories... notice the signs of unconditional love all around you.

Now, what I am about to share might not be pretty, but it’s real. 

Unconditional love is when I disregard an idea that my husband, Mark, is super excited about. Yes, for real. We have been talking about remodeling our kitchen. The remodel is my idea because I love to cook, entertain, and eat… you can tell I was raised by an Italian mother, huh?

Well... Mark thought that it would be a great idea to replace a beautiful chandelier with a ceiling fan. I immediately had a violent reaction and said, ”Um, no way.” 

I know we are talking about a ceiling fan, but he was LEGIT excited about this. A few seconds went by, and I realized that I could have been kinder in that response. I turned to apologize, but he had already gotten over it. He didn’t even know what I was apologizing for.

Unconditional love is when someone can see through the words and know the intentions of your heart.

Unconditional love is when I catch my 6 year turning on the baby monitor for the puppy during her class break and talking kindly to her. She always says, “Hi girl. It’s ok girl. We will come get you soon, girl.” It’s the way the 6 year old cares about what we are eating for dinner only to make sure that it is safe for the dog in case a scrap falls. 

Unconditional love is when you haven’t talked to a close friend for months - maybe years - and when you do, you pick back up like nothing has changed. It’s also when you don’t see eye-to-eye with a friend, but that doesn’t really matter. Those disagreements are forgotten. 

It’s when you haven’t seen your parents in over a year because of the pandemic... and they say, “Don’t worry, it’s ok - as long as we get to hear your voice, we are happy.”

Unconditional love for ourselves  is when we say “enough” and we start protecting our boundaries. We start accepting the idea that we can say ENOUGH because we ARE ENOUGH. Without any bells and whistles, we are ENOUGH. 

When we can believe this... we start to see that others are enough... and we start to drop the unrealistic expectations for others. And, we are able to love unconditionally.

“Dr. Mona Singh: A Journey To Optimal Health”

Dr. Mona Singh, a pediatrician from California, has been in my coaching business since the very beginning. She found me through a Facebook group where another one of my clients posted about having had great success changing her eating habits and thinking by working with me.

At that time, Dr. Singh was heavier than she wanted to be, using food to numb herself from stress, sadness, and loneliness. She was super frustrated, feeling like her weight was holding her back, and her A1C was coming up to the range where her doctor brought up medication as a possibility. For Dr. Singh, this was a wake-up call.

By that point, she’d tried everything: Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, nutritionists, hypnotherapy, Whole 30, low carb, no sugar. All of them were successful for a short time, but she’d inevitably fall off and put on more weight, which was the worst part of it. She felt bad, lethargic, and like there was no end in sight. So almost as a last resort, she reached out to me.

Thankfully, that’s what finally brought the change that Dr. Singh was looking for. I started her out with thought work, doing a five-minute thought download every day. With the alternative thought models, something opened up for her. She realized she didn’t have to come home from work stressed out every day. Only then did we start working on how Dr. Singh could change what she was eating. Once she understood her negative thoughts and how to change them, eating wasn’t a struggle anymore.

Even without restricting, still drinking a Coke a day, Dr. Singh lost about 30 pounds and her A1C came down from 7.2 to 5.5. She started eating vegetables on her own, not because she had to, but because she wanted to. Slowly, one Coke a day turned into a Coke every other day to once in a while, whenever she wants one.

There once was a stop sign that was monumental for Dr. Singh. She passed it every day on her way home from work and by the time she reached it, she’d decided: either she was going to get fast food and indulge or she’d go home to eat normal food. But now, she just drives past that stop sign without having to think about it.

At first, Dr. Singh struggled with urges, specifically those that came from restlessness. And today, they’re still not fun, but they’re no longer the struggle they once were. When we first started to work together, Dr. Singh would give in to any urge that came up. Except when she was dieting; every diet plan she’d tried in the past forced her to white-knuckle her way through urges.

Together, we talked a lot about urges. Dr. Singh realized that urges feel fast, like you have to react to them. She had to come to terms with having to sit there and let the urge slow down, knowing nothing bad is going to happen. We practiced not making decisions or giving in to her cravings until the feeling slows down. She’d wait until the urge slowed down and all of a sudden, she wouldn’t necessarily need that cookie. And the more she did it, the less scary the urges became. And now when urges come up, Dr. Singh can ride them out until they’re done.

The truth is that when we can trust ourselves enough to allow that time, that is how we can overcome the urges. Dr. Singh’s transformation wasn’t only physical but also emotional and mental. And most importantly, she’s sustained it for years. That being said, it is continued work. There are still things to fine-tune and more weight Dr. Singh wants to lose.

Coaching Intuitive Eating

So, today, Dr. Singh and I worked on stopping eating when she’s satisfied. She can identify when she’s satisfied, but actually stopping at that point is tough. Typically, what takes a lot of work is knowing when your body feels like it’s had an appropriate amount of food. When she knows she’s satisfied, Dr. Singh feels a feeling that’s a bit fast, almost like anxiety. She thinks, “It’s not fair that I have to stop eating. I’m enjoying this and it’s been a long day and I want to keep eating.” And these are common thoughts.

It’s a thought distortion called the fallacy of fairness. We think we’ve worked so hard and we deserve to indulge, turn our brains off, get the dopamine going, and enjoy our food. For Dr. Singh, this thought comes with feelings of fatigue and secondary thoughts of, “What am I doing? I should really stop eating now.” That’s what creates that fast feeling of anxiety. And fast feelings lead to actions of trying to do something, like finishing those last few bites. We’re not okay stopping or being still.

When your body feels satisfied but you want to eat more food, it’s a perfect time to slow down and say, “What’s really going on here?”. For Dr. Singh, it’s wanting comfort after a long day.

So now, we have to create a different belief that will give Dr. Singh the result she wants, which is stopping at satisfied, being able to go to bed not hungry or full, and continuing to lose weight. So what’s a thought we can create and believe that will give us this result?

So we work backwards. What beliefs make Dr. Singh determined to stop eating when she’s satisfied? “I want to feel good when I step on the scale at the end of the week and keep making progress. By feeding my body the appropriate amount, I will arrive at my goal. And I can go back and eat more if I’m hungry later.” Instead of spinning into thoughts of, “I should really stop,” she wants to go into the place of, “Food is available to me any time. If I’m hungry I can come back and get more. But to achieve the goals that I want, the best thing I can probably do right now is get some rest.” When she’s satisfied, Dr. Singh can go and lay down or take a shower, knowing she can always come back and get something to eat later on.

Coaching Exercise

Another issue we talked about today is that Dr. SIngh has a hard time getting started with exercise. Once she’s there, she feels great, but she has trouble getting started. For a long time, she was committed to a minimum baseline of exercising three times a week, but lately, she hasn’t felt like it and sometimes only gets in two, one, or even no sessions in a week.

Well, your baseline minimum should be so minimal that it’s almost hard not to achieve it. So if you’re having trouble getting there, it may be a sign that you need to bring it down even lower. Because you want to be able to feel that sense of accomplishment which helps you create thoughts like, “It’s a privilege to be able to exercise” or “Exercise helps me feel less stressed,” which leads to a result of exercising more.

High achievers like Dr. Singh often think little goals are worthless, that they won’t do anything. But the idea is that the magic will happen in the grey zone, the place between perfection (which we don’t even bother striving for because it doesn’t exist) and not showing up at all. The more we can create grey zones in our lives, the more growth we’ll have.

Dr. Singh may have perfectionist tendencies, which can lead to all or none thinking that makes her want to throw in the towel when she doesn’t perfectly follow her plan. That’s why, with me, she doesn’t really have a plan. Instead, she has flexibility and trust that allows her to go all-in on the perfectly imperfect grey zone, which has allowed her to achieve amazing results.

That being said, this is all a journey. Dr. Singh still has negative thoughts and emotions. She still has positive thoughts and emotions. That’s the human experience. But if you actually think about it, negative emotions don’t actually feel that different in your body from positive emotions. The main difference is that negative thoughts create negative emotions and positive thoughts create positive emotions. Our body doesn’t know if it’s feeling fear or excitement sometimes. It’s our brain that tells us if we’re afraid or excited. We tend to be so afraid of the feeling, but if you take the thought away and allow the sensations, the feelings don’t feel all that different.

So moving forward, Dr. Singh will write herself a few post-it notes to remind herself to live in the grey zone of making an effort but not killing herself either. She’ll be able to keep moving forward, sustaining and improving on her amazing results.

To listen to the podcast episode, click here.

“I’m Afraid of Missing Out”

Why FOMO Happens

We often worry there’s something wrong with us if we have fear of missing out. But it’s actually a beautiful, human thing. It’s saying that you want to be connected with your community. It’s a very human thing, craving social connection. That’s amazing.

Knowing this, fear of missing out can even serve as an exciting reminder that we’re human. Because we try to suppress so many of our human thoughts and emotions. But negative emotion is a good thing. The reason why we call it “negative” emotion is because we’re typically having thoughts that aren’t super positive that create these emotions.

But emotions are simply things we feel inside our bodies. Negative or positive, we don’t have to try to avoid emotions. All we have to do is get more comfortable with being uncomfortable. Then we can handle feeling any feeling.

Areas Where We Most Commonly See Fear of Missing Out

Social Gatherings

Maybe a cool event is coming up. t’s going to be so much fun. All your favorite people will be there. There are going to be great pictures and memories. It’s going to be amazing. You think, “They’re going to have the best time. They’re going to make connections with each other. They’re going to create memories. They’re going to change their lives during this event and I’m not going to be there. I won’t be part of the crew anymore. I’ll be forgotten.”

Of course, this isn’t the case. In these situations, it’s all about trusting yourself and being happy and content with yourself. You can go to or not go to a million events but at the end of the day, if you’re happy with yourself, the fear of missing out won’t be as powerful. You’ll believe, “I’m perfectly fine as I am. People love me just as I am even if I can’t go to certain things. There’s always next time. I can create an experience any time that I want.”

While it’s a beautiful thing that you crave connecting with people, you don’t have to be at every event and do everything to maintain that human connection.

Lifestyle

What about health goals? In my Society group, I have many women with many different goals. Some want to lose a few pounds. Some want to gain a few pounds. Some are fine just the way they are. But sometimes, when one person looks at another person’s goal, they can be influenced to think that should be their goal, too.

But “should” is a thought distortion that means that what we’re doing right now isn’t good enough. It makes us feel less confident in our own goals, so we start looking at what other people are doing and thinking, “So-and-so got great results. She’s doing it right. I have to change what I’m doing to do it her way.” This creates lots of confusion, negative emotion, and doubt.

Instead, we have to start having thoughts like, “There are many different ways to do the same thing. Other goals are allowed. Even if I don’t have the same goal as somebody else, we can still support one another on our journeys.

If we want to try new things out of curiosity, we want to make sure we have the right thought for curiosity: “I know what works for me but I’m not opposed to trying something else to see if it could help me even more.” But ultimately, at the end of the day, we have to come back and check in with ourselves and see if it works for our body type and our lifestyle. When we can explore different things and ultimately decide what works for us, that’s when we’ll no longer have fear of missing out.

Family

People in a partnership or marriage sometimes miss being single. Then there are the single people who would give anything to have a partner or spouse. Some people want to have children while others envy those who don’t. On both ends, there is fear of missing out. Because whatever circumstance is in your life, you can’t avoid the fear of missing out. You can always find another thing to have fear of missing out for.

We can take any circumstance and have fear of missing out on it. As they say, the grass is always greener on the other side. We can always have fear of missing out on the grass we don’t have in our yard. But it all comes down to nurturing the grass that we do have.

The FUN of Missing Out

What if instead of fear of missing out, we could have the fun of missing out? In order for us to have fun missing out, we have to create a feeling of excitement and fun. What thoughts give us a fun feeling with the circumstance of missing a great event, like an amazing boathouse party full of expensive champagne?

Instead of going to fear of missing out, we need to shift to the fun of missing out. We can think, “What else do I want to do? How can I turn this around?”. Maybe you just want to drink tea and watch a great movie at home alone. Maybe you can realize you’re missing nothing because you can be just fine right here in this moment. If you can create feelings of content and fun, the action you’ll take is investing the time to be compassionate toward yourself and knowing you’ll be okay even if you miss this opportunity.

Strategies for Handling FOMO

1)    Recognize that you’re having fear of missing out.

2)    Accept that you’re having these thoughts and feelings. Know it’s completely okay.

3)    Decide if you want to shift into what’s best for you, like a place of self-compassion. How can you own what you’re doing?

4)    Get out of your head. Find a way to connect mind, body, and breath to be in the moment. Meditation can be a great strategy for this. Shift into parasympathetic mode and slow things down.

5)    Think about the other times you’ve missed out on things. Everything was fine. Maybe regret will come up, but all that means is that you made the best decision you could back then. But you’re different now. You can’t compare apples to oranges.

To listen to the podcast episode, click here.

A Chance to Learn About Your Natural Instinct in Emergencies

I have to be honest... my week has been all over the place. I am feeling much better physically, but this week was definitely one for the emotions.

With that being said, I want to tell you about what happened this past Thursday night.

We were all sound asleep. At 2:00am, our house alarm went off. It has never gone off on its own in the middle of the night (thank goodness).

When I heard the alarm, my eyes popped open. I jumped out of bed, only to smash my shin into the heavy wood of our bed frame. I fell to the ground. My adrenaline was pumping so I leaped up and ran down the stairs.

I checked the 3 doorways... and they all appeared closed. What the heck?!

With 5 seconds remaining until the cops would be automatically called, I managed to disarm the system. Guardian Protection had called my cell phone and said that it was coming from the garage.

Well... what do you know. The door leading into the house from the garage had come ajar. Phew. Everything was fine. They asked for our secret code... and sure enough, I remembered it. 

I sat on the steps, took a breath, and noticed that I had a contusion the size of a softball on my shin. And it was painful. The pain radiated to my hip. I was sure that I had done some damage.

But - everything was fine. Nothing had gone wrong.

As I reflected, I thought back to my many nights on call working in the NICU. Never once had I fallen out of bed and hurt myself while running to a code, but the response was similar. I was confident that I was going to show up - I was going to arrive as fast as possible. - I was going to make a difference.

Long ago, my father taught me that the worst thing you can do in an emergency is nothing. I think those words have impacted me significantly.

And as I sat on the steps... I felt very proud. Feeling proud is something that we don’t celebrate enough. I felt proud that I would do anything to protect my family. I felt proud that instinctually, I take action. I felt proud of myself.

I didn’t talk about this pride to anyone. So - I felt that it was super important to remind you to feel proud. There are so many things that make you uniquely you... which of those things can we celebrate today?

Feeling proud is a beautiful, human thing. Let’s stop missing opportunities to celebrate this.

Today, I want you to take a minute and answer this. What are you proud of???

Sending you love and strength….

More of my own advice...

Something very strange happened this week.

Everything was going absolutely fine until last Friday, when I started to feel the sensation of having to cough.

Now before I tell you more, let me tell you how we have been living the past year. We work from home, kids are virtually schooled, we get our groceries delivered, and we do not see any other humans.

Ok, back to the cough sensation.

I had no other symptoms at all, but I felt as though I was going to get sick. I let it ride out hoping that I would feel better. Because it felt like bronchospasm, I even took some albuterol (I have no history of asthma).

Ok... so 7 days later, I am not better. Not worse... but not better.

So, I called my doc. She ordered some labs and a chest Xray. I was sure something would come up.

The next 24 hours while I waited for results, I had convinced myself that something was very wrong.

But then... the labs and the Xray came back. All normal. Exam - normal. Pulse Ox - 99%. Now, I am very confused. So I did the only thing I knew; I consulted any and every medical professional I could. My brother(s), my dad, my husband, my friends, my clients... hahahaha.

And guess what, they all said the same thing.

My friend Sasha, a cardiac anesthesiologist, said, “Ok. You just need to stop. Your body is telling you to slow down. You cannot be the hero to everyone. You must rest. Stop trying to find a damn diagnosis... and rest.”

She then texted back again and said, “I’m not kidding. I am worried. You need to rest now.”

My friend Ellen, a radiation oncologist said, “Will you take your own advice and stop pouring from an empty cup?”  

So I did a thing. I asked for help.

I cleared my weekend schedule and put my beloved clients in the hands of my trusted team. My biggest fear was letting them down and not being at the Saturday workout or our Sunday check-in. This is a big week for my coaching group, and I want to be there.  

But - I always want to walk the walk. And so I am.

I am resting and I have asked for help. And it feels good. And all of a sudden... I don’t feel like I have to cough anymore. I can celebrate that my work-up was negative. I can celebrate that I have the best friends, the best family, the best team, the best clients… I am so incredibly grateful.

How is this happening for me?

I know how I want to show up for my people, but it starts by showing up for me. I just needed a little reminder. Actually, it was quite a big reminder.  

Today - I want you to carve out some rest time. I am guessing you need it, too.

I finally took my own advice

I don’t always follow my own advice.

My philosophy is less is more, embrace imperfection, progress not perfection, and setting appropriate boundaries. And many days, I am doing way more than I want, not delegating, feeling disappointed that things didn’t go perfectly, focusing on the end goal and not the journey, and allowing every boundary that I ever set to be crossed.

Even though I help others to do the above, I am not immune to my overachieving tendencies that are loaded with limiting beliefs.

So... this week, I took my own advice. I committed to my 3-2-1 rule that I talked about last week. If you don’t remember, the 3-2-1 rule is as follows:

Each day, list 3 things that have to get done, 2 things that you want to do, and 1 thing that you are keeping on the to-do list.

And all I can say is WOW. This practice allowed me to set small, realistic goals, and when I completed them - I felt so good about myself.

In fact, by setting small goals that I was easily able to complete, I felt motivated and accomplished. I didn’t feel behind or overwhelmed.

But... there is more.

3 years ago, I was working 3 jobs, but somehow now with just 1 job, I felt that I had less time. I was putting pressure on myself to accomplish all of these extra things simply because I had more time. It was really unexpected.

You know the old saying... “when you do more- you do more.” So now I had more time - but was doing less and felt pretty bad about it.

I am finding that I am able to complete my 3-2-1 strategy outline in less than 2 minutes each morning... and I can definitely get my 3 to-dos checked off the list in under an hour. 

Then I get to do what I want - and leave something on the to-do list - and it is all ok. This has opened up a ton of space for me to be creative, to create, to connect and reconnect with my passion.

In just one week... I feel excited. I feel encouraged. I do not feel overwhelmed.

I know that my 3-2-1 advice is a keeper. In fact, it is having a positive impact on many of my clients. One of my 1:1 clients loves it so much that she messages me her list every day for accountability... and she is creating tremendous (intentional) space in her life, too.

Wishing you space full of fun and excitement. But also, leave room for the negative feelings - because they are allowed, too!

“I Am Overwhelmed”

What causes overwhelm? Overwhelm is a feeling. For me, overwhelm starts in my chest and radiates into my head. I feel a pressure sensation pushing in on me and there’s nowhere to go. I feel trapped. Overwhelm is a doom and gloom, dark and stormy, grey feeling. It moves slowly, which makes it hard to get past. It seems like it’s going to be there forever.

Now, we all know that our thoughts create our feelings, so let’s talk about some of the thoughts that can make us feel overwhelmed.

●      There’s too much to do.

●      There’s no one to help me.

●      I have no choice.

●      Everyone’s depending on me.

●      I have to do this perfectly.

Typically thoughts of the “all or none” variety lead us toward overwhelm. Because overwhelm creates a tremendous amount of pressure. And when do you feel pressure? Well, when you have to get things done quickly and efficiently, and you’re managing a lot at once. We’re all wearing so many hats: doctor, partner, parent, friend, daughter, pet owner.

If this resonates with you, know that you can decrease the intensity of overwhelm just by admitting that you have a lot on your plate. Because here is the kicker: overwhelm is a choice. We just don’t know that we’re choosing to feel overwhelmed because of something called automatic thoughts.

Automatic Thoughts

All of these thoughts we have that make us feel overwhelmed are automatic, ingrained in our psyche. Our job today is to start identifying what these automatic thoughts are for you. To start, you can sit down for five minutes and write down every thought that is coming up for you. When you start to see the same thoughts again and again, you know that those are the ones to work on. Because all of our results ultimately come from our thoughts. If we want different results and feelings and actions, we have to have different thoughts.

Long-Term Solution and Buy-In

You may think hiring a coach is about somebody telling you what actions to take. But the truth is that if you don’t have thoughts that support and make you feel a certain way to help you do what your action plan says, then you’ll do it for a week or two until your willpower runs out. It’s not a long-term solution.

You have to remember that any time we set goals for ourselves, we need to start thinking about them in terms of long-term solution. And long-term solution is all about creating a system. If something isn’t working, it’s just the system that’s not right, because you’re not able to get your thoughts around it. So either you can change your thoughts and buy into the system you’ve adopted, which will take more time because you have to retrain your brain, or you can modify the system in a way that you can get your thoughts behind it. Either way, you have to have the buy-in. You need to believe that you have the choice to be overwhelmed or not overwhelmed.

Content

Now let’s look at the opposite emotion. When you’re not overwhelmed, maybe you’re content. What would it take for you to feel content today? Content for me is right in my chest. It’s airy and light blue. It feels fun. Here are the thoughts that make me feel content:

●      I have a realistic plan.

●      I’m choosing to do things that I want to do today.

●      Everything is happening exactly as it should.

●      Everything is just as it should be.

 High achievers tend to flip easily from content to overwhelm, but that means you can just as easily flip back. All it takes is the awareness that it’s happening and that you can change it. It’s about owning the idea that you have the choice. When you believe that you have control of your emotions, that’s called emotional adulthood.

Emotional Adulthood

Emotional adulthood is when we take ourselves out of the victim role and say, “I’m in charge here. I have the ability to be content or overwhelmed. No circumstance can make me feel. It’s my thoughts about these things that create a feeling.”

The relationships that tend to be most uplifting and not draining are ones between two people who accept emotional adulthood. That’s a thought-provoking relationship, one that’s primed for growth and causes less conflict.

On the other hand, emotional childhood is when you’re constantly putting yourself in the victim role, thinking, “This happened to me. Nothing good ever happens.” Everyone’s human. We all live in emotional childhood sometimes and emotional adulthood sometimes. It’s all about choosing where you want to live.

Scarcity and Abundance

In overwhelm, you start believing you don’t have time, money, or friends. You jump into this scarcity zone. But a scarcity mindset can cause you to have even less time, money, and friends because you’re believing that’s how it is. In contrast, if you can maintain an abundant mindset, overwhelm, by default, will decrease. 

If we believe that we have just the right amount of money, we can start thinking about our money situation as abundant. A lot of the time, people will say, “I just don’t have the money.” But I want to challenge you to think about if you choose to have the money for this thing or not.

It’s the same way with time. Because when we talk about time, our all-or-none mentality takes full effect and we think we need hours upon hours to dedicate to this one thing. But what if I told you you only need five minutes to make a tiny step in the right direction? It’s all about progress over perfection. The perfection zone is the all or none zone. The progress zone will keep you in the content mode.

When people set big goals, like putting on ten pounds of muscle, there are so many variables to manage: time, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and relationships. There are so many moving components that can lead you to overwhelm. Automatically, you’ll have feelings of overwhelm before you’re able to even scratch the surface of your goal.

So it’s all about progress. What is one step you can take to get there?

The 3-2-1 Rule

Here’s something you can implement immediately to start cracking down on incremental progress to create contentment right here and now and choose to stay out of the overwhelm.

I recommend giving yourself five minutes in the morning to write down:

●      Three things that need to get done today, outside of having to go to work

●      Two things you want to do today for yourself. You may not think you have time for yourself every day, but you do, even if it’s just a few minutes.

●      One thing you think you have to get done today but will leave for tomorrow. This will help you get comfortable with the fact that our to-do lists never end.

Here’s my list for today:

Need:

●      Pay the bills

●      Schedule an appointment

●      Take an hour to plan out my month

Want:

●      Sit in my massage chair

●      Take a walk outside

Leave:

●      Leave 1 thing on the todo list and be ok with it. The truth is - the to do list doesn’t end- so let’s just be ok with it.

We choose if we want to stay in overwhelm or not. Feeling overwhelmed comes from our thoughts. A simple strategy like 3-2-1 can help us own our contentment right here and now. If you implement 3-2-1, it will slow down time for you. You can choose to jump out of the overwhelm and into the contentment.

Are You Ready For Change?

I want to discuss the process of change with you today.

So often, we set lofty goals that we don’t plan to follow through on because we are just not aware of how ready we are to make change.

Let’s discuss the stages of change.

Stage One: Pre-Contemplation

Pre-contemplation. If your goal is to gain muscle, your pre-contemplation phase may be realizing that you can’t carry your groceries into the house and you want to be stronger. It’s recognizing there is a perceived problem.

Stage Two: Contemplation

Contemplation is when we are considering doing something about it. We haven’t committed yet but we’re considering it. For me, this happens all the time. I proceed from pre-contemplation to contemplation pretty quickly. This phase is all about collecting data and seeing what options are out there. Maybe it’s Googling or speaking to a coach about what needs to happen for you to get stronger.

Stage Three: Planning

Planning is putting the plan into place. It’s saying that based on the studies, it looks like if you do strength training and hit the big muscle groups three times a week, and fuel your body properly, you can gain muscle. Ideally, we’ll be very careful to create a realistic plan.

Stage Four: Take Action

The next step is taking action and executing your plan. Note that if we pick something that’s more than we can handle, we’re likely to lose motivation right away. Not being able to stick to your plan can create feelings of failure that crush our motivation. We have thoughts of, “I can’t do this. Why did I think I could do this?”, which makes it hard to stay motivated.

Stage Five: Maintenance 

When it comes to goals and health, sustainability is my favorite word. Anybody can try something and get results and move on, but we want to sustain our results forever. Many of us think it’s too late for us, that we’re past our prime. But I think we’re just getting started.

Where are you in this process?

If you are having trouble making a plan... I suggest you listen to my podcast, “I Am Overwhelmed.” This is where I discuss my 3-2-1 principle. It will help you create space in your day to start moving toward making the changes that you want. You can listen here.

“Exercise is Stalling My Weight loss”

Is it true that exercise can cause weight gain or stall weight loss? Yes. There is some truth to it. One of the biggest reasons is that when we start an exercise program, we often burn more calories. Exercise can account for about 15 to 30 percent of our total daily calorie burn, and exercise can increase our appetite. As a result, we may take more food in. If you’re exercising a lot and fueling your body appropriately, you may potentially have some weight gain. 

Another factor is that when we exercise extremely or excessively, we can throw our hormones off. There are many hormones that are affected by exercise. We can stress our bodies pretty significantly when we over-exercise. 

What Are Your Goals?

Maybe you’re asking, “How do I get around this?”. And it all starts with what goal we’re trying to ultimately achieve. What do we really want? 

I have clients who are less concerned with body composition. All they want is to continue to drop scale weight. My recommendation is that exercise is non-negotiable because of the tremendous amount of health benefits it has. But it’s all about using it wisely. 

It’s recommended that the average American get about 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, which works out to thirty minutes five days a week. So what do you do? 

If you want to lose weight, ideally, you’ll do something that keeps your appetite at bay. Walking is a great, low-intensity option that burns calories but won’t have a huge afterburn effect. Note that some studies say that if you walk fasted, it can increase your fat burn, but it may also increase your hunger. 

Walking half an hour a day, enjoying yourself, and getting all of the benefits of exercise, doing that low-intensity exercise is your best friend. 

But what if your goal is body composition change, either increasing muscle mass, decreasing body fat, or doing both? In order to do this, there are two factors. If you don’t want to stimulate your appetite too much, you’ll want to maintain muscle mass and lose fat. To do that, you’ll need to do some strength training. Nothing too intense or vigorous, but something in which you’re stimulating your muscle. 

Things start to shift when we’re talking about gaining muscle. To gain muscle and maintain the same body fat, you will gain weight on the scale. If you gain muscle and lose fat, you’ll either maintain your weight or it will decrease slightly. 

So the big question is if we’re looking for the scale to move or for our body composition to change, because they’re very different approaches. When a client is okay with the scale maybe moving up a bit, the conversation is about stressing the muscle. We have to break the muscle down and cause micro-tears in order to build it back up. It may sound intense, but it can be very fun. We just have to be committed to the scale potentially going up at first or staying the same. Photos can be a great way to track our results even if our weight doesn’t change or even goes up. 

Putting it All Together

Let’s say you do want to change your body composition. Some questions come up. How much strength training? How much cardio? How often? Well, unless you’re a fitness competitor or a bodybuilder, it’s best to have a realistic time frame, which means you can go slower. The next question is how much time you’re willing to commit. 

Strength Training

If you’re new to the world of weight training, you won’t want to do it seven days a week and do maximum cardio because your body learns quickly. It won’t continue to change. Less is more, especially to start. We want to do the smallest amount we can and still see results. Typically my clients start with three strength training sessions per week with a full-body approach. This allows us to maximize the results we can get with minimal work. 

Then we observe and see what happens. At the two-week mark, if we’re serious about continuing on and making changes and improvements, we’ll tweak something. Maybe the duration, number, or style of the workouts. Every two weeks, we’ll think about changing something, always staying one step ahead of the body before it can catch onto us. That’s why having a coach can be so helpful.

Cardio

Again, the idea is to start off with the least amount of cardio you can do and still see results. Typically, I start my clients who want to make a body transformation off with 15 to 20 minutes of cardio three times a week, tacked onto the strength training workout or alternated with strength days. It’s up to you if you want to work out six days a week or have more days off.

Depending on how fast you want to do this, you can strategize and see what your body responds to best. Maybe you have a greater fat burn effect by doing fasted cardio in the morning, having a meal, and then doing your strength training routine. You can get it all done in one day and repeat three times a week. Or you can do your weight lifting first, empty out your glycogen, and then do your cardio, which will make your body have to burn fat for fuel.

If this all works and you see changes, we keep it right here until we stop seeing changes. Maybe we increase the weight you lift. Maybe you decrease the rest time between sets. All of these are tweaks we can make to maximize what we’re doing without adding more days of exercise in a week. Once we’ve exhausted that option, we can look at adding more days. 

So, sure, exercise may stall your weight loss. But many clients of mine start seeing the positive changes - more muscle, better fitness, better endurance, more energy - and want to keep going regardless of what happens on the scale. For so long, we’ve focused on our weight, and so many of us are tired of it. We’re starting to realize that weight isn’t the whole story. It doesn’t define our health.

Most importantly, what do you really want for yourself? Not for what other people think. How do you want to proceed? Any result you want, you can have.

A Reason Many Avoid the Gym

When you think of the gym, you may imagine lots of in-shape people walking around in designer fitness wear, laughing with their friends. It’s a big community full of beautiful people.

And if we don’t believe that we’re a part of that crew, we already believe we don’t belong there.

Having a certain image in mind of how we’ll have to look in order to allow ourselves to go to the gym will only create more judgment.

We all have an image of people that are “allowed” in the gym. Imagine you’re at the gym in the current shape you’re in. Picture yourself there. What’s happening? Do you feel nervous? Does it seem like people are looking at you? Worrying about what others are thinking is human nature.

But we don’t have to care what others think. We can choose not to, it just takes a bit of work. 

The reality is that nobody at the gym cares how much you’re lifting. They don’t care how fast your treadmill is going. They don’t care what you’re wearing. They simply don’t notice. If somebody does care, it’s more a projection of their own thoughts about themselves than anything to do with you. 

Part of the solution to overcome the constant feeling of being judged is to be vulnerable, to put yourself out there again and again, and realize that nothing bad is going to happen.

The minute we decide to be vulnerable and present, we feel calm, relaxed, and believe we can show up anywhere and work out.

If we can believe that we’re perfect as is, having that self-love and self-acceptance, we stop allowing others’ judgment to take over our lives.

At the end of the day, there’s no requirement to enter a gym other than that you want to be there and better yourself. It has nothing to do with how you look, how much you can lift, or anything of that type.

This concept also applies to bathing suits and public beach and pool settings.  We can put all of this energy to better use.

What would your life be like if you were 100000% confident in your own skin? The opportunities are endless in this space.

Remember... You are beautiful and perfect just as you are... so don’t go hiding any longer.

“I Don’t Understand Macros”

In this article, we’ll talk about what macros are, why we care, how we can use them, and why counting macros isn’t necessarily for everyone. Because while there are some major benefits to calculating macros, there’s also a real case to be made for combining intuition with a gentle approach to macros, which is what we do in my Mindful Macro program.

The Three Macronutrients

The three macronutrients are protein, carbohydrate, and fat. Generally, calculating macros requires a balanced diet with all three macronutrients. That being said, if you’re following keto or low-carb, you can still calculate your macros but you’ll be using different percentages.

The Broad Picture

We all have a Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE), which includes our basal metabolic rate (the calories our body burns just by being itself), the thermic effect of food (which accounts for about 10% of our TDEE), and exercise and activity (about 15 to 30% of our TDEE). This is why exercise isn’t the number one way to create a calorie deficit. 

Protein

Protein helps so many different things in our body, like the growth of muscle and skin. When you combine protein with carbohydrates and fat, you’ll be able to blunt your insulin response. That means that eating protein helps your blood sugar stay more stable than if you just eat carbohydrates. Often when we don’t get enough protein, especially if we’re engaging in lots of exercise, we’ll experience hunger and even cravings.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are our body’s quick and slow energy. Many people think carbohydrates make us gain weight, but in order to make a body composition change, you’ll need to put a good amount of demand on your body. Moving and stressing your muscle is necessary for body composition change. And to have enough energy to put in the work, you’ll need fuel. Carbohydrates give us that fuel.

If you’re diabetic, pre-diabetic, or have insulin resistance, you can absolutely still include carbohydrates in your macros. It’ll require more of a low-carbohydrate diet than a no-carbohydrate diet, and you’ll still be able to get all the benefits you need from those carbohydrates. And note that strength training can actually improve our insulin sensitivity so we’re simultaneously making amazing changes while improving our health parameters.

If we eat the right carbohydrates, we’ll get lots of good stuff, like fiber and B-vitamins. It’s about looking at food as medicine and fuel rather than as “bad foods.” Processed carbohydrates aren’t as healthy for us, but many of them can do good things for us.

Fat

“Fat” is not most people’s favorite word, and it was especially the enemy in the late 80s and 90s. But fat is so necessary. Poly- and monounsaturated fats are considered good, and you want to stay away from saturated and trans fats, even if you’re doing low-carb high-fat. 

Saturated fats have been shown to increase hemoglobin A1C in people who are doing low-carb dieting. It has a lot to do with genetics, but it is a phenomenon. To reverse this, it’s important to make sure your fats are coming from healthy sources. 

Fat supports hormones, which control everything. Somebody who over-exercises and drops body fat may stop menstruating, and their hormone levels can be off. Often there is an issue with the amount of dietary fat they’re eating. 

Fat also supports healthy tissues and lets us have nice skin and shiny hair. Fat has the lowest glycemic load of the three macronutrients, which slows the absorption of protein and carbohydrates, allowing us to blunt the insulin response when we eat a balanced meal.

Counting Macros

There is a protocol called If It Fits Your Macros that tells you anything is fair game as long as you stick to your chosen macronutrient ratios. But I like to focus on optimal health, with more of an emphasis on nutritious foods. These are what I call all-the-time foods (note: not bad foods!), which feel really good in our body and serve us really well. In contrast, “sometimes foods” are more processed but taste good - and you don’t have to stop eating them. The idea is you can fit all these foods in macros if you’re calculating them. 

If you have somebody calculate your macros, they’ll usually give you percentages. One very balanced way to do it is 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein, and 30% fat (also known as the Zone diet). These percentages are calculated from your Total Daily Energy Expenditure. 

Another option is to eat one gram of protein for every pound of lean body mass you have. From there, you keep fat at about 30% and carbohydrates make up the rest. It’s really just about doing the math. The important part is that after you get a jumping-off point, you observe and see what’s happening. 

Macros Aren’t for Everybody

Counting macros may sound great, but it requires weighing, measuring, and food prepping your food. It can get pretty tedious, which may not make you want to do it long term. I certainly don’t. So a couple of years ago, I invented a program called Mindful Macros which allows you to eyeball and estimate how much of each food to eat to make up a balanced meal. It’s turned out to be very effective, especially for body transformation and quality of life.

Following our intuition, knowing when we’re hungry, and stopping when we’re full, combined with Mindful Macros, is a very appropriate for those of us who aren’t looking to competing on a fitness stage. People like me, who have a family, a business - a lot going on. For me, flexibility is the most important.  I rely on my intuition, hunger scale, and eyeballs. Together, these two approaches allow me to have an exciting, flexible, and free plan.

I’ve been following this for nearly eight years now, and I’ll never go back to calculating my macros every day. I love the flexibility. I’m within a healthy weight range and optimal healthy zone. I want freedom and results, so I meet myself halfway in the middle. It works for me. What will work for you?

“I Am Not Motivated to Improve My Health”

The scenario typically goes something like this. We know what we want to do. We’ve done it before and it’s worked. But something holds us back from doing it. The bottom line? We’re lacking motivation. 

Before we can proceed, we need to talk about what’s going on and what thoughts are coming up. Often, based on past experience, we draw an over-generalized conclusion on how it’s going to go.

Let’s say to get healthier, your goal is to lose weight. If you’ve lost weight in the past and it wasn’t super pleasant, you probably won’t be too excited to do it again. That’s why if you’re a person who’s done several diets in their lifetime, whenever there’s a new fad diet, it’s exciting. We think it might be different since we haven’t tried it, that this might be the missing piece. So we go ahead and try it and, often, it doesn’t work like we want, and that’s how cyclical, yo-yo dieting comes in.

The Process of Change

To understand motivation, you have to understand how change happens. That way, you can apply it.

Stage One: Pre-Contemplation

Pre-contemplation is when you recognize that there’s a problem. Maybe you have a patient who is a lifelong smoker with high blood pressure. They say their mother smoked for 80 years and lived to be 105, so smoking doesn’t affect their family and they’re not worried. Your strategy as a clinician is to help them see how things could affect their health. In the pre-contemplation phase, the patient would say, “I know smoking is bad.” 

If your goal is to gain muscle, your pre-contemplation phase may be realizing that you can’t carry your groceries into the house and you want to be stronger. It’s recognizing there is a perceived problem.

Stage Two: Contemplation

Contemplation is when we are considering doing something about it. We haven’t committed yet but we’re considering it. For me, this happens all the time. I proceed from pre-contemplation to contemplation pretty quickly. This phase is all about collecting data and seeing what options are out there. Maybe it’s Googling or speaking to a coach about what needs to happen for you to get stronger.

Stage Three: Planning

Planning is putting the plan into place. It’s saying that based on the studies, it looks like if you do strength training and hit the big muscle groups three times a week and fuel your body properly, you can gain muscle. Ideally, we’ll be very careful to create a realistic plan.

Stage Four: Take Action

The next step is taking action and executing your plan. Note that if we pick something that’s more than we can handle, we’re likely to lose motivation right away. Not being able to stick to your plan can create feelings of failure that crush our motivation. We have thoughts of, “I can’t do this. Why did I think I could do this?”, which makes it hard to stay motivated.

Stage Five: Maintenance 

When it comes to goals and health, sustainability is my favorite word. Anybody can try something and get results and move on, but we want to sustain our results forever. Many of us think it’s too late for us, that we’re past our prime. But I think we’re just getting started. 

This fifth stage is why creating a realistic plan that we can put into action and that we enjoy is so important. If we enjoy the journey, we’ll want to keep doing it, and we’ll be able to sustain it. 

When we make a habit change, it’ll take about six months to solidify. We have to set things up for success so that we can become motivated. The alternative of committing to an intense, complicated plan will make it much harder to make it through the action step to maintenance. We feel discouraged, not motivated.

Taking the Action

I have a client, Andrea, who successfully maintained a 55 pound weight loss for two years. One time, she told me about an article she read about motivation. The article said we sometimes hesitate to take an action because we’re afraid to fail. 

But in terms of habit creation, if we can show up every day and commit to the action that gets us to the end result, we’ll find the positives in showing up. By taking the action, we create new thoughts. Those new thoughts create feelings that drive the action even more. Ultimately, we’ll get the result we want. 

If we can have a very simple plan, if we just start and do something, even ten minutes once a week, we start to feel better and do it more and more. Committing to a baseline minimum, the smallest amount you’re willing to commit to, just doing it, may be the key to unlocking motivation. 

If you have limiting beliefs from past experiences in which you haven’t succeeded, it’s time to say, “That was then; this is now.” You can go through the change model and add the bonus feature of going right to the action, focusing on the beauty of the moment of action. 

The action can be fun! It makes you feel good and strong. It gives you thoughts of, “I’m worth it. This is worth it. This is working. I feel good,” thoughts that create motivation and drive you to continue taking action to get you to the result that you want.

I believe you can get any result that you want in your life. It just takes a bit of time, organization, and setting yourself up for success.

“I Can’t Have Food Freedom and Achieve Results.”

My Story

Have you ever had diet mentality? It may have affected you if you’ve ever been on a diet that gave you specific rules and restrictions. That’s the whole industry; there are certain rules and approaches and plans that you have to follow. There’s so much information out there that it can be so incredibly overwhelming, yet we fall into it. For the first 20 years of my life, I certainly did, for at least 15 or 16 of those years. When I was 5 I can already remember being on my first diet. 

When I was 5, one of my friend’s mothers told me that I was bigger than the other girls, that I’ll need to lose weight, and that I should go on a diet. I can still remember it. Although based on the growth chart I was actually a normal kid, it was already in my head that something was wrong with me. Over the years, that belief led me to find more evidence for why I wasn’t the same as my friends, that I should change and try to be different. That’s how I started experimenting with all the different diets out there: the Zone, Atkins, keto, Suzanne Somers, Weight Watchers, intermittent fasting, the 8-minute diet - you name it, I tried it.

The truth is that all of them will work, but to sustain the results that you get with them, you have to be able to continue doing them. Why did it take me until I was 25 to realize this? 

Freedom

Biologically, humans crave freedom. We don’t want others to tell us what to do. So what happens when we hear, “You can’t have that cake?”. The idea that we can’t do it just makes us want it even more. 

If you have any dieting history, you might think back about all the diets you’ve been on and how hard they were. Yet we somehow still believe that because it was difficult, it’s going to work. It’s the heaven’s reward fallacy, a thought distortion that tells us that the harder we work, the bigger the reward should be. It’s definitely an idea we hear often in clinical practice. As a result, the whole concept of having trust in ourselves goes out the window. 

But in order to find food freedom and get results, we have to start by trusting ourselves.

Defining Food Freedom

Often, when I say “food freedom” to people, they get freaked out. They say, “I can’t eat all the cake and candy and ice cream and pizza and fries I want and still get a six-pack. What are you talking about?” So we have to define what food freedom means to you. Is food freedom really just eating every single thing you’ve been told you shouldn’t have?

In reality, food freedom is tapping into your intuition. It’s noting when you’re hungry and when you’re full. It’s getting in touch with your natural hunger cues and your full signals. It’s asking your body what it wants and needs to feel healthy and vibrant. 

Here is an experiment I want you to do this week. If you’re losing fat, what do you crave? I crave fat. Makes sense, doesn’t it? When I’ve been doing a lot of weight training, my body craves protein. The signs are there. You’ll find freedom when you start listening to the signs. That’s how you’ll get results.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Hunger

First, we listen and start to notice. We want to get good at understanding when we’re hungry. We want to eat when we’re hungry, but before we get to the hangry zone when we can’t even focus. 

It’s important to discover and describe what hunger feels like for you in your body. Next time you’re hungry, think about what your body feels. For me, it’s a burning, radiating feeling in my stomach and esophagus. 

Now, I look for that feeling right before I’m ready to eat, but at a level that I could wait another half hour or so if I wanted to. That’s the prime opportunity to ask your body what it wants to eat.

Fullness

The next step is knowing when you’re full. Stopping to eat when we’re full can be hard and overwhelming for some people. You have to get comfortable with the slow feeling and empty space of being full.

Emotional Eating

Eliminating emotional eating takes a lot of work. It requires allowing the feelings deep inside your body and realizing that everything is going to be okay. If you can eliminate the extra food that comes in when you’re not hungry, you’ll move even closer to a space that your optimal health body wants to be at.

Notice I don’t mention what your goals should be. We’re talking about optimal health, which will look different for every person. You get to determine what your optimal health is. It doesn’t have to involve a scale number. You can choose how to define optimal health for yourself. 

Movement

Another piece of this is loving movement, remembering why movement is present in our lives and all the benefits we get out of movement besides how it can potentially make us look. That’s just another thing that will happen over time as we stay consistent.

Think about the movements that you love doing, because those are the ones that you’ll do again and again. Think about what you love about them. What do you feel as you’re doing these exercises? Creating a mind-body connection will allow you to be in the moment. That’s when exercise can reduce stress, and that’s how we learn to love movement.

Perfectionism

Many women physicians struggle with perfectionism. But if we try to be perfect, it’s hard to trust ourselves. When we constantly set high expectations and don’t meet them, we’re no longer perfect in our own eyes. We believe we did something to let ourselves down. Little by little, we start to lose trust in ourselves. When we lose self-trust, we don’t believe we have the ability to know what we need so we can have freedom and achieve the goals and results we really want.

Gentle Nutrition

When we’re really going for certain results, like total body transformation, gentle nutrition has to come into the equation. Typically when we try to build muscle mass to shift our body fat percentage, we need to have balanced meals that have some macronutrient combining involved. 

Freedom for me is being able to know how to combine foods my way, not having to be at the mercy of a food scale or exact macros. It’s being able to pick exactly what I want to eat and not having to follow a prescribed plan. 

I recommend working within a ten-pound weight range that your body may be in. The lower end is when you’re really dialling it in, having a specific goal and working extra hard to get there, focusing on your hunger scale and keeping your meals balanced and healthy. The other end is about following the intuitive piece but not being so specific about how honed in things are. Ultimately, you can be anywhere in that ten-pound range that you want to be and feel really comfortable and free with it.

The bottom line? We can find food freedom and get the exact results we want to have. It’s all about self-trust and being completely realistic, taking the time to talk to your body. 

Food Freedom and Results?

This week in my coaching groups, we talked all about freedom and results.

What do I mean by this?

You know how you want to have freedom... things like eating what sounds good to you, exercising the way you want to, going out to dinner without always having to avoid the bread.  Essentially throwing away the rules that we have carried with us for years.

There is this common misconception that we have to be so strict with our food and follow all these restrictive diets in order to actually get healthier. Even more than this, that you can’t possibly eat what your body craves without gaining weight.

Let’s talk about why this is absolutely not the case!

You can have total food freedom while still hitting your goals and achieving the results you want. In fact, when you learn to trust your body and pick up on the cues it gives you, your goals will actually be way easier to hit. Not to mention way less restrictive.

Food freedom is all about tapping into your intuition and listening to your body. Eat when you’re hungry and stop eating when you’re full. If these are completely new concepts to you, it really is all about slowing down and paying attention.

A good example is that I know I’m in fat-burning mode when my body is craving fattier foods. Similarly, if I’ve been going really hard in the gym, I know that I will need to up my protein intake to nourish my muscles.

So many of us eat when we’re not hungry, for whatever reason. Sometimes, that reason is actually anxiety, which can mimic hunger signals. That’s why it’s important to get really in tune with your body’s wants and needs.

What I’d really encourage you to do is figure out what optimal health looks and feels like for you. Not what some exercise program or diet tells you is right, but what actually feels good. Included in this might be a ten-pound weight range where that fluctuates based on your body’s needs at the time.

If you do want to achieve some more specific body results, I’d recommend combining intuitive eating with a gentle nutrition approach. This way, you eat what’s best for your body while still fueling it with the nutrients it needs to perform best.

There are many gentle nutrition programs out there. My program, Mindful Macros, is a gentle nutrition strategy that allows you to estimate the ideal macronutrients for your body. Stay tuned, I have a whole podcast episode being released later this month.

We have signs.

The signs are there.

You will find food freedom when you start listening to the signs.

You will get results by tapping into your freedom when you’re listening to the signs.

You got this, my friend.

“I Don’t Lose Weight As Fast As Others”

The Thought Model

When I think, “I don’t lose weight as fast as other people,” my feeling is concerned. I feel like there must be something wrong with me, which also makes me concerned. It turns into a negative thought spiral, all of which creates the same feeling, making our concern get more and more intense. 

When we feel concerned, we analyze everything we’ve ever done, all the times we’ve failed at losing weight. We go on social media and look at all the other “successful” people and compare ourselves. We feel hopeless. As a result, we feel like it’s way too hard to do anything to get us closer to our goals and give up.

Of course it will feel hard if we have self-defeating thoughts. When you feel defeated, you’re not going to keep doing things that you think are hard. You think, “Well, it’s not working anyway, so why should I waste my time?”

The Individual You

The reality is that there can be truth in the comment “I don’t lose weight as fast as other people.” That can be a scientific fact.

You can draw some light conclusions on how you’ll respond to losing weight based on your body type. I’m mostly a mesomorph, which means I put on muscle easily. I know when I move my body, eat toward my hunger scale, and make good, balanced decisions, I’m not necessarily going to lose weight on the scale. But maybe my ectomorph friend who has the same habits would drop weight. Or an endomorph may gain a couple of pounds. There are so many different scenarios here. It’s all about understanding how your body works and what it responds to.

So maybe you do lose weight slower than some. And maybe you lose weight faster than others. But at the end of the day, the actions you’re taking and your lifestyle have more of an impact on your ability to lose weight than the make-up of your body.

Sure, we all have different tolerance to carbohydrates and different insulin and hunger hormone sensitivities. Nonetheless, most of us can work around these things. 

The first thing to do is to stop the comparison. Stop the over-generalization. Ultimately, what does it matter how fast this process of weight loss goes if you’re having fun doing it? What if losing weight was so fun? Would you want it to go fast? Probably not. We’re too concerned with the speed at which we’re achieving our goal. We think if we get there faster, we’ll be happier. So we forget to start off with being happy with who we are as a unique person. 

If we can consider releasing the expectation that we would ever have to compare our bodies to anybody else, what’s the next step? If there’s nobody to compare ourselves to, we may be a little bored. We feel restless when there’s nothing to complain about. But maybe we can put this energy into understanding ourselves - our body type, how foods sit in our body, how we feel when we exercise - a bit more. 

Commitment and Sustainability

The most important question is, “Do you like what you’re doing?” Consistency is always going to be the answer for us to achieve sustainable results. 

What matters more than how quickly you lose (or gain) weight and how that compares to others is where you are right now, if you love where you are right now, what you know about your body type and lifestyle, and what you want. 

Fueling your body well and moving will improve your long-term health. It will allow you to carry your groceries when you’re 80 and prevent common diseases. If you can make a plan based on improving your health and enjoying what you’re doing, you’ll want to keep at it. It’ll become part of your life. You’ll exercise, eat healthy, and be accountable to yourself and others because you want to and you enjoy it.

If you’re thinking there’s nothing that sounds good long term, you’re probably setting too big of an expectation on yourself. If you have the thought, ”I can’t work out every day so it’s not worth it,” you’ll feel defeated and you won’t work out at all. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What if instead, you believe, “Ten minutes is better than nothing?” You’ll feel curious. You’ll experiment with exercising more. It’ll feel good so you’ll do it again the next day and the next. This is how you develop a lifestyle, by focusing on how exercise feels in your body but not setting the expectation too high. 

We want to create confidence and build our relationship with ourselves. It’s all about understanding who we are and pursuing being the best versions of ourselves.

Maybe you don’t even want to lose weight. Maybe the problem isn’t the food, the exercise, or the weight. Maybe there’s something else you haven’t worked through yet. It’s all a discovery process. Maybe you can start noticing your limiting beliefs and see what happens when you don’t believe them. 

If you are trying to lose weight for your health, stay in your own lane. Don’t worry about anyone else around you. This is your time to find out exactly what will work for you and what you love doing. The secret to weight loss maintenance is to do things your way so you can be consistent.

The bottom line is that you are perfect just as you are today. I don’t care if you have a little tummy or if your thighs rub together. I don’t care if you keep the same skinny jeans hoping that one day they’ll fit just a little differently. You’re worthy. All I’m asking you to do is decide what you want. What makes sense for your life? With self-love and compassion, I want you to find the next first step you can take to make your dreams a reality. 

“I Need To Be In Better Shape To Go To The Gym”

If you’ve felt that you need to be in better shape to go to the gym, don’t feel bad; you’re not alone. I’ve felt this way, too. It’s human nature: we want to be accepted. We believe that if we go to the gym and we’re not in the kind of shape that we think we should be, we’ll be judged - by other and by ourselves, too.

See, the reality is that we tend to judge ourselves for everything. In fact, we may not even know we’re doing it. But any time we think there’s something we should or shouldn’t have done, that’s a self-judgment. This belief that something has gone wrong and we haven’t lived up to an expectation is just that: a belief and a thought distortion - not a reality.

The Gym

When you think of the gym, you may imagine lots of in-shape people walking around in designer fitness wear, laughing with their friends. It’s a big community full of beautiful people. And if we don’t believe that we’re a part of that crew, we already believe we don’t belong there. Having a certain image in mind of how we’ll have to look in order to allow ourselves to go to the gym will only create more judgment.

We all have an image of people that are “allowed” in the gym. Imagine you’re at the gym in the current shape you’re in. Picture yourself there. What’s happening? Do you feel nervous? Does it seem like people are looking at you? Worrying about what others are thinking is human nature. But we don’t have to care what others think. We can choose not to, it just takes a bit of work.

The reality is that nobody at the gym cares how much you’re lifting. They don’t care how fast your treadmill is going. They don’t care what you’re wearing. They simply don’t notice. If somebody does care, it’s more a projection of their own thoughts about themselves than anything to do with you. 

Part of the solution to overcome the constant feeling of being judged is to be vulnerable, to put yourself out there again and again, and realize that nothing bad is going to happen. The minute we decide to be vulnerable and present, we feel calm, relaxed, and believe we can show up anywhere and work out. If we can believe that we’re perfect as is, having that self-love and self-acceptance, we stop allowing others’ judgment to take over our lives.

At the end of the day, there’s no requirement to enter a gym other than that you want to be there and better yourself. It has nothing to do with how you look, how much you can lift, or anything of that type.

Eating

One of the things that comes up all the time is worry about others judging what we’re eating. This comes up often with my clients who want to lose weight for their health. They’re very concerned about not wanting to be seen eating a “bad’ food because they’re worried they will be judged. They say, “If somebody sees me eating pizza, they’ll think I don’t care about my health or I’m not trying hard enough.” 

But nobody has ever actually said that to them. We create these thoughts based on what we think. Maybe that means that when we see others eating pizza, we’re judging them. See, how we talk to ourselves reflects how we see the world. It’s not something to feel bad about; it’s just the way our brains work. The beautiful thing is that we can correct it; it’s all about noticing that judgment in ourselves. 

This is where the diet mentality - classifying foods as “good” and “bad” - comes in. Suddenly, we’re not just judging ourselves; we’re judging our food, too. Alternatively, with intuitive eating, you dial into your body’s unique and natural hunger cues to decide what food will serve your body best at any given moment. Eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re satisfied will allow you to arrive at your body’s natural healthy weight. 

The beauty of intuitive eating is that we get to honor our unique bodies and achieve optimum health. We stop judging food. We heal our relationship with our bodies. We determine which foods are “sometimes” and which are “all the time” foods, but there’s room for all foods. That’s what is sustainable.

Seeing People After You’ve Gained Weight

Many of my clients have been chronic dieters for years, losing and gaining weight again and again, and they often worry about what others will think when they see them again after a while and they’ve maybe gained some weight for any variety of reasons. We start judging ourselves for having gained weight. We think it says something negative about us and we assume others are judging us in the same way. 

We create the story that others are judging us with the same exact words we judge ourselves with. But that’s impossible because no two people think exactly alike. Chances are, the people you care about don’t even notice the fluctuations in your body. And the more you accept your own unique body, the less fearful you’ll feel of other people and their judgments. 

Finding Freedom

When you don’t judge yourself, you won’t assume others are judging you either. It all starts with us. Whether it’s about going to the gym, how we’re eating, our weight gain, or our clothing choices, we have to come to terms with what we’re doing, what we want, and who we are. Then the other voices around us cease to matter. When we can believe in how we’re showing up, we become free.

When you’re free of judgment, anything can be going on in your life - unemployment, weight gain, anything - and you’ll maintain your self-love. If we can accept and honor where we are in our journey, that’s freedom. When we can release that judgment, we won’t be worried about how others perceive what we’re doing. The first step is to love, accept, and own ourselves and our decisions. 

It’s not about never judging yourself. It’s about recognizing when we do. That’s what will lead you to freedom.

“I Have No Grace For Myself Over The Holidays”

In general, it’s already hard enough to give ourselves grace in everyday life. In general, we always think that we “should” do it better. Now add the holidays: expectations are higher, you’re busier, and there are more triggers going on. We’re already primed to give ourselves even less grace over the holidays. 

Perfectionism

Let’s talk about perfectionism. Maybe it’s gotten us pretty far in our careers. It’s allowed us to provide good care for patients even when we’re exhausted and sleep-deprived. But as the years go by and we work more and more, that perfectionism can spill into all areas of our lives. 

Perfectionism tells us we have to be perfect, but there is no such thing as perfect. You’ll only think you’re perfect when you have 100% nailed the very high expectations you or somebody else had for you. 

Perfectionists live in the all or none zone. If they think a goal isn’t hard enough, they believe it isn’t worthwhile. The grey zone is difficult. But when we set expectations, all or none thinking won’t serve us. It’ll lead us to an unhappy place of pressure that builds and builds until we can’t take it anymore, pop the valve, and release it somehow, usually through one of various buffering behaviors such as over-eating, over-thinking, or over-shopping.

Exercise Goals Over the Holidays

It’s time to evaluate whatever goal you’ve set for your health this holiday season. Maybe you want to work out for two hours every day over the holiday break. Is this realistic? Can you 100% meet this goal? If not, consider a different goal.

Think about the concept of “baseline minimum,” when you set a minimum amount of exercise that you plan to accomplish during the holiday season. That is what you commit to doing. If you commit to five minutes five days a week, you celebrate that accomplishment. If you want to start living in the grey zone, where you can find contentment all day long, it’s about setting smaller goals. 

Part of giving yourself grace is coming to terms with not every goal having to be a mega marathon goal. It means committing to something you’re willing and wanting to do and then doing it. That way, there’s no room to beat yourself up.

But let’s say you shoot a little high, wanting to work out 45 minutes, three times a week throughout the entire holiday season. And let’s say you fall short. That’s an opportunity to give yourself grace by reevaluating. All you have to do is reevaluate and then choose to move forward with a new plan. 

Maybe you’ve been in a situation when you haven’t made an exercise plan. You get ten days into the holiday season but you haven’t worked out. And you think, “Well, New Years is almost here. I’ll just start on January 1st.” This is a pretty popular way of thinking.

If you’re heading into this holiday season and you don’t exercise, I want to put out there the fact that there are many benefits to it. Something as simple as walking is amazing. Those endorphins alone will help you feel better and give your brain the space to create new thoughts that allow you to find unconditional love and ultimate grace for yourself.

Eating During the Holidays

What if you could be the person who never worried about eating during the holidays or on vacation? It’s not about being perfect, but rather how good you feel when you follow a nutrition style that makes you feel healthy. 

When we set high standards of avoiding every potentially indulgent thing during the holiday season, we better have a good reason for it. If you don’t, you’re setting yourself up for failure because you probably won’t meet that expectation. This is where we want to set realistic nutrition goals during this holiday season.

My style is a combination of intuitive eating with gentle nutrition. Intuitive eating means knowing your hunger cues: when you’re hungry, when your full, and what your body is asking for. It’s not a diet plan. It’s about you getting in touch with your body, whether it prefers to eat carbs or not, to be five pounds heavier or five pounds lighter. When we’re willing to honor our unique body, we can have complete food freedom. Then you’ll enjoy the holidays, vacations, and every day. 

The Hunger Scale

The hunger scale will allow you to get through the holiday season open-minded to listen to what your body is telling you, finding a new love for yourself. It’s less important what the food you eat is, and more about your ability to say when you’re hungry and full.

It’s all about getting hungry first and stopping when you’re satisfied. Before you eat, ask yourself if you’re hungry. (If the answer is no and you eat anyway, it’s a perfect opportunity to give yourself grace.) 

It’s okay to stop eating when you’re full. We don’t have to eat everything because it’s there. But if you do overeat, take a grace period to reevaluate and make a plan for next time, when you wait until your body is hungry to eat again. 

When you do this and realize nothing has gone wrong, that you can keep it going year-round, you’ll get in the zone, stop restricting, give yourself grace, and realize you don’t want to overeat or indulge anymore.

If this is a new concept for you and you’re used to sticking to a certain plan to get results, ask yourself if the plan has worked for you. Has it been sustainable? Whatever you’ve done in the past, don’t judge it. Judgment is the opposite of grace. 

Everything you’ve done in the past - whether it included yo-yo dieting or extreme exercise - it’s all okay. You didn’t waste any time. It got you to this point, where you can find your sweet spot- that space where you can achieve what you want your way. 

It takes evaluation of your body type, your food preferences, and movement. But if you can stop judging, realizing your past has given you data and knowledge, you’ll learn that every new minute is a clean slate. You don’t have to wait until New Years’; you have a clean slate right now. What is the next best step forward? That is giving grace. 

Reevaluate where you are now. Look at the past with non-judgment. And look at the future with hope. Everything you’re doing is amazing. I hope you have the most amazing holiday season full of love and grace.