5 major lessons I learned on a journey to over 200lbs of weight loss!

5 major lessons I learned on a journey of over 200lbs of weight loss!

*Not necessarily in order.

1. Attitude is EVERYTHING! Whether you think you can or think you can not, you are right. I couldn't find the author for that quote but I bet he or she is very smart ;). 

I remember feeling very overwhelmed in the beginning, I had so far to go. It felt nearly impossible. Even the doctors were skeptical and suggested surgery.

I would tell myself that I could do it and I pretty much faked it till I believed I could. It took me losing over 100lbs before I really actually saw I could for sure get myself to a healthy place. 

2. EVERYONE is a critic!

Before I began my weight loss journey, every function became a intervention. Guess what? Pointing out an emotional over-eaters weight causes more overeating. True story. You can not want it for someone else. I know how this feels, I have people in my life that I would love to help but they are not at a place to accept my help. 

Along my journey there were people commenting how my weight loss was too fast, others commented it was too slow. 

Now, I am on the high end of average, my goals are mostly to increase lean mass. I have friends and family who comment I should be skinny by now, or I deserve to be, like they assume that is my goal. I will tell you skinny is not even on my radar. The weight I am more focused on are my dumbbells. I am confident in my strengths these days so comments bother me far less. I am long past the day where I did a workout contest outside of a business because a random dude thought my fitness class would be a joke. For the record, I kicked his arse but it doesn't matter to me anymore. I only have to prove myself to myself, and guess what? You only have to prove yourself to you!

3. Find fitness that you like. Fitness is NOT punishment for the fat, it is for everyone!

I will tell you how out of wack my before thinking was, I remember thinking, why are all these thin people at the gym? Aren't they finished? HA. For real. Fitness is for health and everyone should attain it. 

If you HATE biking, do not bike. Find something that is more enjoyable and do it. This is part of the reason I own my own fitness studio. I remember the day I took my first small group fitness class, I fell in love! It was motivating, rewarding and fun. Not every exercise was fun, but doing it in a group was really motivating. This is actually where I learned for the first time in my life that I could be competitive. 

Disclaimer; When I started running I hated it but grew to love it, so make sure you give new things a solid effort! 

4. Healthy eating doesn't have to taste like shit! (or rabbit food)

This is where I struggled the most. Learning how to cook healthily and still having it taste yummy. Now, I actually prefer the taste of my own healthy cooking! I learned to cook healthy when I was a stay at home mom. When I became a working mother with a hubby working out of town I had to become a meal prepper and this was my saving grace. It still is. I literally have my meals within seconds because I took a couple of hours on Sunday to prepare. Play with spices, find your favorite go to's. 

When I started I was making salad with iceberg lettuce and heating frozen veggies. How unsatisfying! Yuck. It takes trial and error but this is so worth while. I mean, I actually love my food. How long do you think I would stick to it if I didn't like it? Remember I have kept extreme weight loss for over 8 years!

5. Do not fall for crash diets, wraps, pills, magic shakes or anything else that promises a quick fix!

I have done many of them before my actual health journey started. The weight always came back. I have had people come to my business just to meet me, I thought they were interested in my program but no, they thought that I must have some magic secret to share. I do not. Healthy eating, exercise and hard work. Those are the tough sells in the health industry. You will never see the hard work book fly off the shelf. 10 top exercises to lose the muffin top will though. FYI, you cannot exercise away fat. You eat healthy foods on a calorie deficit diet to reduce fat. Those exercises will help strengthen those muscles but you will never see them unless you eat right. 

Lies sell. They seem appealing. In the past 8 years I have lost count of the number of people I know who have tried the gimmicks only to regain. It is hard to sell fitness classes when your neighbor down the road is selling cleanse packets which are basically just shit bombs. 

Once you commit to leading a healthy lifestyle for life you are enlightened to the fact that healthy food can taste yummy, fitness takes effort but is rewarding and sometimes it is okay to eat the cake too!

Crazy week in review

Week in review;

This week was CRAZY! I had a few lows but mostly highs.

So as everyone knows I have dealt with a few injuries this year. A pinched nerve issue in my hip and Achilles tendon issues in my left heel. Those were things I trained around. I did a lot of biking instead of running on sore days. Due to injuries,  I erased my goal of sub 2:30 half marathon. The entire month of May however my issues disappeared making me start to think maybe I can do it after all. 

By Thursday, I had myself in a big uptight panic. I read a friends article about one of her races, where she had let herself get into her own head. It was like a light bulb moment for me. I was totally ruining the fun of my race week. I was SOOOOO stressed out. I was sending myself to the bathroom that is how crazy nervous I was. For two whole days I stressed. 

A few things were adding to my stress; my husband and biggest race day supporter wasn't going to make it home. I felt a little sorry for myself about that lol. I did have an awesome support team who I had trained with and also ran into a bunch of peeps at the race. A few clients came to cheer me on also, which of course made my day. I saw grandparents standing in the rain to cheer their family on and it made me tear up! 

The rainy race; as I drank my coffee in the comfort of my car, the rain pelted. I thought geez this really sucks. I was early (because I am an on time or early for everything person) so I went to the porta-potty and then inside to seek shelter. While I was zip locking my phone I started bumping into run peeps. My nerves started to ease and I started to have fun. 

At the start line up, I tried to keep my nerves at bay. I reminded myself I was there to have fun. I did the training and I needed to trust it. The rain ended up not being as bad as I thought. I was literally soaked from one end to the other but it kept me cool. My soaked shoes were annoying but I tried to not focus on it. Something I did do different though was turn off my 10 and 1 timer at 15kms. I just kept going. I knew I had slowed my pace so to make up for it I skipped my walk breaks. When I made the turn to the finish line I knew I was going to meet my goal and I sprinted through to the finish. I couldn't believe that I did what I set out to do. Yay! 2:28!!!

Thank you volunteers for standing in the rain even though you were not getting a medal! Thank you to my support system of training friends, friends and clients who surprised me. You really made my day! I cried in my car, happy tears. I have never been emotional like that. A few minutes after I was finished my run, I grabbed a Starbucks coffee and a cookie and went to cheer friends who were doing the full. I REALLY wished I remembered a change of clothes. Standing in my wet clothes holding a sign was a lot worse than running wet.

I had a lot of phone calls and texts from peeps wishing me well and congratulating me. Thank you!

I read a few things that were annoying lol. People posting times and saying things like "I didn't even train and got a PR" (That were faster than mine).  I really had to remind myself that I had trained and did my best and that is what counts for me. Nothing has come naturally for me lol. I earned it. I trained in the snow, wind, rain. My PR, no matter how slow compared to someone else, was earned. 

This race went in my books as my personal victory!

In other news, two different companies tried to get me to either use or sell their shakes this week. Huh? No thank you. 

This week I also had the opportunity to meet with trainers from another gym. We met on other business but we ended up talking about obesity. As often happens, I was the only fitness professional in the room who had experiences first hand. I am often surprised by the lack of empathy some "professionals" have. I have been thanked on many occasions for shedding light on the topic in a way they can relate to. I also understand how some professionals do not make it in the business. Bottom line; You may have a masters degree in bio-mechanics but if you are a complete asshole towards the people you are supposed to be committed to helping you are not qualified! 

Di

Be ready to change your plan.

I have a coach;

People are still surprised when I say that. I am a coach. My coach has a coach. It is having someone in my health corner to check in with and someone who sees me from the outside in. 

I have been to the doctors, chiro and massage now trying to deal with first a hip aggravation and now Achilles tendon issues. I have been training for a half marathon that I wanted to beat my old time in. In chatting with my coach before I left for NL we discussed how silly it is to expect a personal best when injured. I have never quit a race and I have never signed up for anything I didn't follow through on. My new plan to simply finish slower and try my best to let go of any time goals and just try to have fun and not further injure myself. I may end up with a new slowest time and I need to be okay with just completing safely. 

If you have noticed, I have been biking a lot. I love it. I always have and when running injuries keep me from running I love that I have a back up cardio plan. Having a back up is key for me. So many times in the past year I have struggled through an injury and relied on the plan b. Do you have one? You really should! Otherwise, when plan a fails what happens? You give up? No way!

My plan after my slow half is to take a month off of running and focus on healing my Achilles. I will focus on biking and weight lifting. I also plan to ditch extra lbs which also helps every joint with my running. 

I have had 10,000,000 plans so far on my health journey and I am sure that number will continue to climb as I keep going. Never be afraid of change, never give up and always always be real with yourself. Denial got me to push 400, I aim to always be real!

#noexcuses

Nutrition

Nutrition;

When I started on my health journey I had already tried and failed many diet plans. Slim fast, weight watchers, atkins, cabbage soup, ETC. I am only stopping because I am forgetful, there were many more. They didn't work for me a) because I wasn't fully committed at the time,b) because they weren't really teaching me anything except restriction, c) I can only last so long feeling restricted and d) I didn't learn how to make it work for my entire family.

Eight years ago, I started LA Weight loss and I had success. My mind was made up and I was beyond ready to start feeling good again. What I liked about their program is it didn't tell me what food to eat it told me which food groups to choose from. This was the first time I did a program that I had to do the work. I learned painfully lol through yucky meals how to cook healthy foods. I also got myself measuring cups and started measuring. I still use my half cup for starches, my scale for protein and my tbsp. for peanut butter.

This is not a L.A Weight loss endorsement. I learned the basics with them. I lost my first 120lbs using their weigh in support and food guide.

For a while I tried coaching with Beachbody. I liked it. I don't like using supplementation so it became a conflict of the heart to sell it even though I do love their workout programs. FYI, those little containers from 21 day fix is pretty much EXACTLY the same system I used at LA. My program is similar with my own tweaking specific to each client. I use what I have learned to work with many of my own modifications. After studying anatomy I later studied nutrition and learned even more about our body and nutrition.

You may find a program that gives you fast results but buyer beware; If you're losing more than 2 lbs a week studies show you aren't just losing fat, you are losing muscle too. That is
NOT what we are going for with health goals. Health is more than a number on a scale. If you are losing weight rapidly without eating properly it will likely catch up. If your diet program suggests that carrots are too high sugar, find a new program!

If you are drinking plenty of water, eating lean protein, lots of vegetables and some complex carbs, throughout the day, you are set. What I offer is support to go with your plan and that is where I feel I differ from most. My clients contact me for extra support all the time. It is the accountability that many peeps need. Nothing makes me more excited than helping others learn to cook healthy and having them text me healthy recipes!

"Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food." Hippocrates