The Power of Accountability and Community

I have a friend who was never able to stick to an exercise routine. No matter what she tried, she always dreaded going to the gym. She constantly made excuses and skipped workouts. Naturally, she failed to make any noticeable progress toward her goals.

Fast forward a few years, and my friend has lost weight and competed in powerlifting meets. She talks up her gym to everyone she knows and looks forward to her workouts. What happened to create such a drastic change?

My friend found accountability and community. She joined a semi-private training gym where a couple coaches oversee a small group of gym members completing individual programs at the same time. The atmosphere at the gym was fun and low-pressure, which allowed my friend to shed her initial insecurities. The coaching provided her with some much-needed guidance. She was finally able to master basic movements and subsequently noticed big strength gains.

Most importantly, she built friendships with the staff and other members who trained at the same time. The more time she spent with these people, the more she felt part of the group. Rather than being something to dread, her workouts became a time to have fun and get some stress relief. This made all the difference in helping her establish an enjoyable and sustainable training regimen.

Humans are hardwired to be social. Although we all like to think we can do everything ourselves, the reality is we perform best when surrounded by supportive people.

This week, I want to explore two of the most powerful ways you can use the support of others to help you be more successful with your individual goals. Accountability and community are related but independent factors that could be the missing link in your fitness journey.

Accountability

Having accountability means being responsible to something other than yourself. In the context of health and fitness, it means someone else shares expectations for your success. It’s easy for life to get in the way when you are the only person who’s figuring out the best way to move toward your goals. It’s much harder to drop the ball when someone else shows you the way or walks along the path with you.

Hire a coach

Hiring a coach or trainer is one of the best ways to hold yourself accountable. A good coach can help you achieve your goal faster using their extensive knowledge of program design and experience coaching people through challenging lifestyle changes. Trainers help you manage expectations and establish realistic plans, reducing the risk of frustration or burnout.

If you can’t afford or don’t have access to an in-person trainer, there are many great coaches currently offering online training programs. These programs are often much cheaper than in-person training and aren’t restricted by location or scheduling. Many online trainers can also write programs for people who train exclusively at home or on the road with more limited equipment.

If you want to learn more about online training or work with me, fill out an application at this link.

Find a workout buddy

An easy way to build in accountability is to find a workout buddy. Your partner, a trusted friend, or a coworker with similar goals are all good choices depending on where and when you train. It’s much harder to bail on a planned workout when you know someone else expects you and counts on you to show up.

I’ve used this system myself with great success. Over the past year, I was supposed to do one session of interval training each week. For a while, I was trying to do this at the end of a weight training session. I found I was so mentally and physically tired after lifting that I rarely got around to actually doing the intervals. I knew my boyfriend liked to do intervals on Thursday nights at his gym, so I changed my training schedule and started going with him. This extra boost of accountability was tremendously helpful. Even if neither of us really wanted to do intervals, we both went anyway.

Use technology

These days, there are several apps you can use to help keep you accountable. If you are financially motivated, use apps like Healthywage to inspire you to make changes. These kinds of apps vary from awarding cash prizes to charge you if you fail to you to stick with your eating or exercise plan.

You can also download apps to provide training programs and track your progress. Following a program will get you much better results than simply showing up at the gym and doing random workouts. A training log keeps you honest and allows you to assess whether you are truly progressing over time.

Looking for a done-for-you training program? Grab your copy of Full45 here.

Making a public announcement or commitment can also help keep you accountable. Once your goals are out in the open, it’s much harder to give up or make excuses. Status is a very powerful motivator, and nobody wants to look bad in front of their friends. Take advantage of this internal wiring and put yourself out there for all of your social network to see. Schedule regular check-ins to keep your friends and family in the loop. To make this even more powerful, find a digital accountability buddy and use social media to keep tabs on each other’s progress.

Community

Community is formed when you are part of a group that shares your values, interests, goals, and attitudes. You are part of a community when you feel like a member of a group or part of something bigger than yourself. When you start to look forward to just being at the gym and seeing your friends there, you’ll know you’ve found a great community.

Finding the right gym environment

One of the reasons why Crossfit has become such a widespread phenomenon is the tightnit sense of community fostered at its “boxes.” People keep coming back not only for the workouts, but also because they feel at home. They build relationships with coaches and members and identify with the culture. Over time, they invite other like-minded friends and the community continues to grow and evolve.

If you want to join a private gym, shop around for the place which feels the best to you. Visit the facility, soak up the atmosphere, and take a trial class or session if you can. Get to know the owner and any staff you will be interacting with. Talk to the other members and ask them what they like and don’t like. If something about the environment feels off, or if you just don’t click with the people, it’s best to keep looking elsewhere.

If you train at a big-box, commercial gym, you can still create a sense of community. Befriend the other regulars who train at the same time as you. Learn the names of all the staff members. Get involved with charity events or competitions run through the gym. Every gym, no matter how big, has a group of regular members and employees who are always around. If you can get to know and like these people, you will be more excited to come to the gym.

Find a virtual community

Not everyone has access to a great in-person community. Some people train at home or on the road, others live in isolated communities, and still others simply can’t find supportive, friendly environments where they live. Fortunately, the internet has made it incredibly easy to find groups of like-minded people.

A quick Facebook search will likely turn up numerous groups of people who share your goals and interests. Join the groups that jump out at you and become an active member. Ask questions and contribute answers to others where you can. Get to know the other members of the group. Share your successes with the group and celebrate those of others.

Over time, you may be surprised at the rich relationships you can build within a great online community. You may even eventually meet up with these people in person and form lifelong friendships.

If you are struggling to achieve a goal or find motivation, look for ways to involve other people in your process. Find a coach, friend, or tool to help keep you accountable and make it harder to succumb to excuses. Seek out a rich community of like-minded people to support and encourage you along the way.

As I mentioned above, hiring a coach is one of the best ways to hold yourself accountable. There are two main ways you can work with me:

Sign up for online coaching. I design 100% customized, structured, long-term workout plans based on your unique needs. I also offer nutrition and lifestyle coaching and accountability check-ins to support you with your goals.

Purchase Full45, a done-for-you three month training program designed for busy professionals who want to get stronger and leaner. Train your entire body twice a week for 45 minutes using these client-tested workouts.

December 5, 2017April 5, 2018

Seasons of Lifting

Do either of these sound like you?

It’s May and suddenly beach season seems imminent. Unfortunately, you realize you’ve been skipping workouts and eating poorly for the last four months. Now you are scrambling to get in shape as fast as possible. Although you start off strong, your efforts are derailed as summer arrives and you find yourself enjoying drinks with friends at your favorite rooftop bar and stuffing yourself at weekend barbecues.
You decide you want to lose 20 lbs so you start a new diet. However, things are getting very crazy for you at work. Between the chaos of business travel, lack of time to prepare healthy food, and large amounts of stress, you soon find yourself giving up your attempts to get in shape.

Many people fail to live up to their eating and exercise aspirations because they choose unrealistic goals that don’t mesh well with their daily lives. Rather than attempting to overhaul your entire life, it’s best to look for ways to incorporate training and healthy eating into your current routine. You will certainly have to sacrifice and make changes to get in shape, but that doesn’t mean you need to force a square peg into a round hole.

One of the easiest ways to set yourself up for success is to modify your routine based on the seasons. Even in places without true seasons (I’m looking at you, California), most of us have alternating periods of grinding and relaxing throughout the year. Different seasons are filled with activities that influence your eating, activity levels, and stress. It makes sense to plan your training around these factors.

This blog post provides a few ways you can use the changing seasons to help you plan out a year of training and eating. At the end, I explain what to do if your personal schedule doesn’t fit with my general recommendations.

Winter/Spring

Many people begin the year with a diet after a holiday season filled with various indulgences. There aren’t many holidays in the first few months of the year, which makes it easier to cut back on eating out or social obligations involving food or alcohol. This is also a time when many people are the busiest at work. For these reasons, the winter is a great time to focus on fat loss.

Although diet is the main driver of fat loss, your training plays a role as well. You should always aim to retain as much muscle as possible when dieting. Keep pushing yourself in the gym and strive to make progress even as you get leaner. Although you may want to add in some extra cardio or high intensity interval training to your training during this season, weight training should remain your top priority.

No matter what type of training program you follow, keep a close eye on recovery. Dieting is stressful on the body and compounding this stress with too much training volume or intensity can lead to burnout, injuries, or chronic fatigue. High intensity interval training can be especially draining, so start with just one session per week and increase only if fat loss progress stalls.

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Summer

Most people want to have fun and relax during the summer. Between summer Fridays (which are huge in Chicago where I live), family vacations, and weekends by the beach, there is a lot going on in our lives outside the gym. Summer is the time to maintain your performance and physique while still allowing some flexibility to enjoy the seasonal activities.

Training time can be cut back in the summer to get you out of the gym faster. You can also move some of your workouts outside to get in some extra sunshine and Vitamin D. Hill sprints, track workouts, or bodyweight workouts in the park are all great options during nice weather.

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Fall/Winter

The last four months of the year are filled with holidays, feasts, and parties, most of which involve lots of food. Rather than stressing out about gaining weight during this time, harness those extra calories to seriously crush your workouts.

Fall training should be intense enough to promote muscle or strength gains. Lift some heavy weights, set some new records, or challenge yourself with a high volume hypertrophy-focused program. Although anyone can lose fat with diet alone, hard training is necessary to stimulate strength and/or muscle gains. Chasing these goals at a time of year when eating supports them ensures you will keep getting better year after year.

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Plan Your Training Around Your Year

Many people will find the above recommendations are a perfect fit for their year. However, your schedule may not follow the seasons. If this sounds like you, look at your yearly calendar and determine when you will be more or less stressed. This could be influenced by busy times at work, planned vacations, family obligations, visitors staying with you, or many other things. For most people, stressful periods tend to fall at more or less the same times every year even if they don’t line up with the seasons.

You can use this information to inform decisions about your training. For example, a three-month stretch filled with travel is a bad time to diet. However, a three-month stretch when things will be more relaxed at work could be an ideal time to try to lose fat. This can also work in reverse: a period when you will be hosting lots of visitors may be a good time to focus on building muscle or strength since you know you will be eating some extra calories. Above, I explain how these periods can line up with the seasons. However, if your year looks totally different feel free to move these blocks around. The goal is to set up a plan that works with your unique schedule.

As we move into December, take some time to sketch out what your next year of training will look like. You don’t need to train with the same intensity, frequency, or programming all the time. Scheduling a year of lifting based on the seasons or big life events will keep things fresh and put you in the best position to be successful. Better planning leads to better results.

If you need help adjusting your training or eating to match your lifestyle, please submit an application for my online coaching program here.

November 21, 2017November 21, 2018

Better Health and Fitness Through Gratitude

This Thursday is Thanksgiving, the day Americans set aside to celebrate all the things we are grateful for in our lives. For many people this means gatherings with friends, family, and other loved ones. Some people may spend the holiday alone due to work or other reasons. Regardless of how we spend the day, most of us will spend at least a bit of time reflecting and giving thanks.

Although gratitude is an overused word these days, it can still be a powerful tool to help live a more positive, fulfilling life. Practicing gratitude enables us to see the positive in any situation. It teaches us to celebrate the things that enrich our lives even in the face of struggle and hardship. The perpetual optimist who always tries to appreciate the things they do have will be much happier than the person who constantly dwells on the negative, thinking only about the unfair burdens they’ve had to bear or what is lacking in their life.

As you give thanks this week, consider your attitude toward your health and fitness. Are you someone who looks forward to daily movement and loves the way you feel after filling your body with nutritious food? Or are you someone who dreads the gym, eats junk regularly, and constantly feels run-down or lethargic? Do you take ownership of your choices or do you feel like eating right and exercising are impositions placed on you by someone else? If you are struggling to make exercise and healthy eating a regular part of your life, take a step back and use gratitude to reframe your situation. Getting in shape is tough, but being thankful for the things you are able to do goes a long way in helping you push through challenges.

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Exercise as a celebration of movement and life

I know how hard it can be to find the motivation to work out. After a long day at work, a poor night’s sleep, or unexpected family stress, putting on your gym clothes to get your sweat on is often the last thing on your mind. Compounding this problem may be a toxic attitude toward exercise. For many people, exercise is a form of punishment for eating poorly, looking a certain way, or feeling lazy and apathetic. There is no joy in their workouts and they dread coming to the gym.

To change this, reframe exercise in a positive light. See exercise as a celebration of all the things your body can do. The human body is an amazingly complex, versatile, and resilient machine. Be thankful for the gift of movement and recognize that if you don’t use it, you lose it.

The human brain and body evolved to be intimately connected. Engaging in regular exercise and physical play enables you to feel more connected to your body, encourages mental sharpness and focus, and improves your mood. This is one reason why mental health practitioners always recommend exercise as a part of a well rounded treatment for mental health issues.

One way to get motivated is to find physical activities you actually enjoy. Too many people force themselves into conventional exercise modalities because they think it’s what they’re supposed to do. The reality is that movement comes in many shapes and sizes: walk, run, climb, throw, jump, kick, crawl, lift, swim, pose, stretch, carry, dance, play, and more. Find a handful of activities you enjoy and engage in them regularly. Ensure you have a good foundation of strength and conditioning so you can safely and effectively perform these other activities.

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Another way to make exercise more enjoyable is to find a community of likeminded people to support you along the way. This could be as small as one other person or as large as a group of 100 people or more. If you don’t have access to such a group in person, there are numerous online communities designed to provide support, accountability, and encouragement to people of all ability levels chasing every kind of physical goal. Humans are social animals. Going through challenges with others helps you appreciate your own skills and keeps negativity in check by providing some perspective as to what other people are experiencing.

It only takes one accident or serious ailment to rob you of your ability to move. Don’t take this amazing gift for granted or let it slip away as you age. Be grateful for your good mobility and engage in whatever kinds of movement feel best to you.

Healthy eating as a gift to your body and brain

Dieting is inherently challenging. You have to push your body to an uncomfortable place in order to see changes. Experiencing hunger, practicing self-restraint, resisting temptation, and dealing with pressure from friends and family are all par for the course when you go on a diet. These uncomfortable sensations can compound to make you miserable if you let them.

Instead of getting caught up in negativity or self-pity, reframe dieting as a temporary discomfort that ultimately allows you to live a healthier life. Think of healthy eating as a gift to your body and brain. When you fill your body with nourishing foods, you look, feel, think, and perform better. This makes everything in your life more enjoyable.

Be grateful you live in a place where you are privileged enough to restrict food intake or make healthier choices in order to improve your wellbeing. Many people around the world don’t have access to fresh, healthy foods and still others are suffering from various malnutrition related ailments. If you have the resources to make these changes, you are doing much better than most. Sometimes thinking globally helps put your individual discomfort into perspective.

Another food related reframe centers around holiday eating. Many people experience a great deal of food anxiety over the holidays when they find themselves surrounded by less-than-ideal food choices at parties, gatherings, and family meals. Stress over weight gain can put a huge damper on a time that should otherwise be relaxing and joyous.

Instead of fretting about your diet, take a step back and reconnect with what the holidays are truly about. Take some time to show your appreciation for friends and family. Be grateful for the opportunity to rest, celebrate, and reflect with loved ones. If food is an important part of your holidays, go ahead and relax a bit. Eating has always been a central part of human celebration and you won’t ruin a whole year of hard work with a couple of feasts.

Use gratitude to help you appreciate life more

Nothing worth having comes easily. In all areas of your life – professional, personal, health, and more – you must push yourself through challenges and make sacrifices to move forward and grow. Taking time to be thankful for the gifts we’ve been given goes a long way in making these struggles more bearable. Don’t dwell on the negatives; look for ways to practice gratitude this week and beyond.

If gratitude has you feeling inspired to recommit to your exercise routine, you should check out my 4C System. It’s a totally free five day email course teaching you to become a more consistent exerciser. Sign up using the box below.

November 14, 2017October 14, 2019

3 Mindset Shifts That Helped Me Lose 70+ Pounds and Keep it Off

Statistics about weight loss success are very sobering. Newspapers and magazines claim “diets don’t work” and many people think success is out of reach. We all know someone who has lost a lot of weight only to gain it all back and then some; in fact, it’s often cited that 95-97% of people who successfully lose weight regain it within 3 years. Even more common is the person who always appears to be on a diet but never seems to lose any weight.

Me at my heaviest, shortly before I decided to lose weight.

My personal story bucks this trend. After struggling with my weight for at least 6 years, my heaviest BMI placed me in the obese category. It took me six months to lose the first 60 lbs and several years longer to lose another 10-15 lbs. Although I still experience weight fluctuations, I have for the most part successfully kept off these 70+ lbs for 6 years and counting.

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Me 70lbs lighter, 5 years later.

What has been the secret to my success? Although I totally changed my eating habits and got serious about exercise, I ultimately don’t believe the specifics of my diet or training plan were most important. Rather, a few key mindset shifts helped me overcome obstacles, stay the course, and ultimately change my entire lifestyle for good. I want to share three of these mindset shifts with you this week in the hopes that you may find inspiration for your own weight loss journey.

Accept that you’re in it for the long haul.

I’ll never forget the first week of my initial journey to lose around 60 lbs. I had a sobering annual checkup with my doctor during which she informed me I was prediabetic and would need to make some serious changes to avoid a descent into full-blown Type-II diabetes. As a 19 year old, this scared the shit out of me. I had my whole life ahead of me and had no interest in managing a chronic condition that was totally avoidable.

It was just after this appointment when a friend of mine shared her aunt’s cooking blog on Facebook. The blog is unfortunately no longer running, but the thing that stuck out to me was a post from the author detailing the 10 steps she used during her own weight loss journey. These steps included things like managing calories, tracking food intake, cooking your own food, combining strength training and cardio, and reducing consumption of refined and packaged foods. For whatever reason, the simple steps on this list (most of which were things I already knew I should probably be doing) clicked for me in the moment. I finally felt I had a concrete, realistic plan I could follow that would almost certainly result in weight loss if I stuck with it.

Most importantly, I fully understood it would take me a long time to lose the weight I needed and wanted to lose. This acceptance did not feel overwhelming; on the contrary, I felt liberated from the pressure to see dramatic success right away. Something inside of me recognized if I just kept doing the right things, I would ultimately get where I wanted to go. Accepting that I was in it for the long haul gave me the courage to take the first steps forward.

Takeaway: Practice patience. Changing your physique often takes way longer than you expect. You can’t give up if you don’t see immediate results within the first few weeks. Remember that regardless of whether you make any changes, time is going to pass anyway. Wouldn’t you rather be slightly leaner and healthier after a year than to remain where you are or gain more weight?

You don’t have to change everything at once. Small, incremental changes maintained consistently will have big payoffs in the long run. Determine what your biggest problem areas are and attack those first. Once you master those changes or if progress slows, look for further changes you can make.

Be nice to yourself.

Like many people who have struggled with their weight, I used to have severe body image issues and terribly low self-confidence. I was constantly comparing myself to my (I thought) thinner, prettier friends. I told myself I was fat and ugly and would always be that way no matter what I did. Of course none of this ever helped me make positive changes. Contrary to what some believe, shaming others or yourself is not an effective way to motivate long-term change. Rather than feeling bad about themselves or their decisions, people need to believe they have the fundamental capacity for change.

As I lost weight, I developed a new kind of negative self-talk. Each time I “screwed up” on my diet, I felt powerful feelings of guilt and self-loathing. I would beat myself up for days about my poor decisions. I would force myself to dramatically reduce calories in the following days, sometimes even fasting for extended periods of time. Other times I would punish myself with grueling workouts and extra cardio. All of this extra work only fueled a negative cycle that ultimately pushed me into problems with disordered eating.

Takeaway: If you fall off the wagon, be nice to yourself. Remember your success is based on the sum of many weeks and months of decisions. One bad meal, bad day, or even a bad week does not mean you are doomed to failure assuming you make good choices most of the time.

After a screw up, I encourage you to take a “clean slate” approach and get right back to your normal plan as soon as possible. Don’t worry about doing penance for your mistakes – simply focus on nailing the good habits you have been working on.

Accept that failure and screw ups are an inevitable and necessary part of change. Always look for ways to learn from your mistakes so you can handle similar situations differently in the future. Reframe failure as success – you are now a bit wiser and farther along the path than you were before. The people who experience the most success long-term are those who keep picking themselves up and continuing on after they make mistakes.

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Embrace the Process

When I think about my life now compared to when I was obese, I see a lot of big changes:

I used to exercise rarely, now I do some kind of activity 5-6 days per week.
I used to eat until I was stuffed at every single meal, now I monitor my portion sizes to ensure I’m eating only the amount of food I really need.
I used to binge on junk food all the time, now I center most of my eating around protein, vegetables, fruits, and healthy carbs and fats. I am absolutely not perfect and struggle just like everyone else, but the majority of the time I make healthy choices.

These changes have allowed me to keep off the weight I lost while still enjoying life for many years.

I did not make all of these changes at once; I took things one step at a time. I tried to take a big-picture view and didn’t let myself get caught up in the daily scale fluctuations or the larger fluctuations caused by periods of upheaval and periods of calm and focus. I was not always successful with this, but over time I learned to love the process of taking care of myself. I love to train and cook. I love the way my body feels when I treat it well versus when I make poor choices. I am fully invested in the day-to-day practices that got me to this point. This is the biggest secret to my lasting success.

Takeaway: The secret to maintaining physique changes is to continue doing many of the things you did in order to lose weight. This is the hardest part for many people because they think about dieting all wrong. For some people, as soon as they get to their goal weight they celebrate with junk food and missed workouts because they “earned it.” Over time, returning to these old habits takes you back to the same old overweight you.

Long-term success requires you to embrace systems of healthy eating, training, and stress management which you can sustain on a daily basis once the diet is over. These need to be flexible enough to provide some freedom but rigid enough to keep you on track most of the time.

One more note on embracing the process: I encourage you to separate yourself from hard goals centered around losing x amount of lbs by y date. The unfortunate reality is you cannot control specific outcomes. Instead, focus on what you can control – the daily habits and practices which compound to ultimately create a leaner, healthier body. Instead of thinking of your goal weight as a destination, think of the rest of your life as a long arch moving toward better health. You have plenty of time and will never truly arrive, so relax and enjoy each step of the journey.

If you want help finally losing weight and keeping it off for good, please reach out to me here to find out more about my online training program.

October 31, 2017October 14, 2019

3 Strategies to Successfully Navigate Holiday Eating

Today is Halloween, which I consider the unofficial start of another holiday season. This time of year is filled with celebrations and gatherings. Along with this comes an endless supply of rich, sweet, and savory foods. All of the year-end holidays center around some kind of feasting and most people have many weekends in a row filled with parties and events for work, family, and friends.

For many people, the joy of this time of year is overshadowed by anxiety surrounding food. This is especially true for anyone who has been working hard to build healthy eating habits or who has recently lost a lot of weight.

You may be asking yourself:

How can I navigate the next few months when I am constantly bombarded with less-than-healthy foods?
Will I gain tons of weight and cancel out the hard work I’ve been putting in the rest of the year?
Will holiday feasts trigger dormant disordered eating habits like bingeing?

I know my clients and I struggle with these questions year after year.

This week, I want to share 3 strategies for dealing with Halloween, Thanksgiving, and all the other upcoming holidays. After reading this post, I hope you will be able to arm yourself with the mindset tools you need to enjoy a stress-free holiday season.

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Option 1: Stick with the plan and don’t indulge.

How it works

This option requires you to refrain from indulging in treats during the holiday season. Essentially, you will continue with your current eating plan. This means no Halloween candy from the break room, no pumpkin pie, and no extra drinking at office Christmas parties.

At big holiday feasts, you will need to stick with protein, vegetables, and carbs and fats that fit within your macros or meal plan. In the most extreme cases, you may need to bring your own food to certain functions when you know you won’t have options available to fit your plan.

Who it works for

This is the best option for anyone who needs to stay in great shape this time of year for upcoming events including physique competitions, photo shoots, weddings, beach vacations, etc.

It may also be the best option for people who have struggled with severe disordered eating. Sometimes the best course of option is total abstinence from trigger foods. If you chose to abstain from certain foods year round, the holidays may not be the best time to reintroduce them to your diet.

Problems

I don’t recommend this option for several reasons.

If you bring your own food to family gatherings, you may be mocked or receive disgruntled looks from other guests. Expect to deal with lots of stress and difficult decisions about which events to attend and which you may need to skip.

Telling yourself you will abstain also sets you up for failure because it is very difficult to follow this course of action. When you inevitably do decide to treat yourself, it is much more likely you will succumb to the all-or-nothing mindset and slide into an episode of binge eating.

The reality is this level of discipline is impractical and totally unnecessary for most people. Holidays are about celebrating and food has always been an important part of celebrating. Removing yourself from the festivities creates unnecessary stress and tension between you and loved ones.

Option 2: Choose your indulgences and set clear guidelines

How it works

With this option, you need to plan and make decisions regarding how you will handle the holiday season. Think about the holiday foods you most enjoy and those you can do without. Honestly evaluate your own tendencies with food and set guidelines that will allow you to enjoy yourself while still preventing you from eating everything in sight.

Here are a few example guidelines you could use:

Limit yourself to one plate of food. Take a little bit of everything you want to try rather than loading up your first plate and having to return for seconds.
50% of your plate veggies, 25% protein, 25% other carbs and fats. This ensures you are eating a well-balanced meal while still getting to sample whatever you want.
Be picky with your indulgences. Only eat foods that taste amazing. Your grandma’s pecan pie, an unusual cocktail at a fancy party, or a favorite hometown speciality you rarely eat would be good choices. Grocery store sheet cake, Halloween candy in the break room, and other generic treats you can have anytime are not worthy indulgences.
Follow the “law of first bites.” Stop eating a food when it ceases to taste just as amazing as it did when you started. You don’t have to finish everything on your plate.
Choose to indulge in some types of foods but not others. For example, if you don’t really have a problem with alcohol but you always overeat sweets, set some guidelines for desert but allow yourself to drink whatever you want. You may choose to totally abstain from certain trigger foods but freely eat other foods.
Eat slowly. Enjoy your food. Take a sip of water in between bites. When food is in your mouth, your fork should be on your plate.

Who it works for

This is the best option for people who have been working hard to change their bodies and improve their eating habits. It allows you to relax the reins a bit and enjoy a well-deserved mental break without totally losing control or diving into a mountain of deserts.

If you want to relax a bit this holiday season but don’t have a long history of making good food choices, establishing some guidelines to prevent things from getting out of hand is the best plan of action.

Problems

There aren’t any obvious drawbacks to this option, but it can take a lot of work and requires constant self-evaluation. As you are moving through the season, check-in with yourself periodically to see how you are doing.

Questions for self-evaluation include:

How is this plan working for me?
Am I feeling myself start to lose control?
What am I handling well?
Where do I need to tweak or modify my plan?
If I messed up, how can I learn and do better at the next holiday meal?

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Option 3: Eat whatever you want, but let go of guilt

How it works

With this option, you release yourself from all rules surrounding food for a while. You can truly eat whatever you want, whenever you want it. What I’ve found is although people who follow this approach eat a lot of junk at first, those who have truly adopted a healthy lifestyle will still make good choices most of the time.

The most important caveat to this option is you must let go of all guilt and shame surrounding your food choices during the holiday season. Indulging in lots of less-than ideal food and then beating yourself up about it afterwards is terrible for your mental health and peace of mind. If you want to indulge, indulge. But tell yourself you won’t tolerate any negative self-talk after the fact.

Who it works for

This option works for people who have a rock-solid relationship with food. If you are the kind of person who can eat one serving from a bag of chips or a candy bar and then put it away, this option could work well for you.

If you don’t think you can handle this, I recommend following option 2 and establishing some guidelines to help when you are most vulnerable.

Problems

If you haven’t done the work to develop a healthy relationship with food, this option can lead to disaster. I learned this the hard way.

Last year, I decided I would treat the week of Thanksgiving as a total diet break. Over the course of five days, I went completely overboard with my eating. Every night I went to bed so stuffed I was in physical pain. I ate everything I possibly could just because I told myself it was ok. Often times, I didn’t even truly enjoy what I was eating.

After the week ended, I had an emotional breakdown. I felt totally disgusted with how out of control I had gotten during the week. After a lot of back and forth texting with my coach and a few weeks of normal eating, I returned to my pre-Thanksgiving weight with some important lessons learned.

One good thing to come out of this experience was the realization that feeling guilt and beating myself up over my “screw-ups” was counterproductive and ultimately detrimental to my progress. These days, if I make poor food choices I rarely engage in negative self-talk. Instead, I give myself a clean slate the next day and get right back to plan.

Reduce holiday stress

As with most things in your health and fitness journey, successfully navigating the holiday season requires preparation and planning. Remember that you don’t need to be 100% on plan year-round in order to look and feel great. Scheduling some relaxed periods that coincide with other events in your life (such as holidays and vacations) gives you a much needed mental break and may actually help your progress long-term. Be honest with yourself about what you need to put yourself in the best position for success.

If you want help navigating the holiday season this year, please fill out an application for my online training program here.

October 10, 2017July 14, 2021

3 Strategies for Exercise on the Road

Training on the Road

I work in downtown Chicago, and many of my clients are busy professionals who frequently travel for work. One of the most common requests I get from these clients is to help them come up with effective workouts to complete on the road.

I have previously written about staying healthy while traveling. This post provides more specific detail on how to get in a good workout on the road regardless of whether or not you have access to a gym.

Invest in some equipment

If you travel frequently, I recommend investing a few small pieces of equipment to improve the quality of your workouts.

The first is a band or set of bands. Bands help you train muscles which are hard to target without weights, such as your back. They also allow you to add extra resistance to bodyweight exercises. Bands travel well because they are lightweight and take up very little room in a suitcase.

You can buy a set of bands with different levels of resistance; adding a door anchor increases the number of possible exercises even more. I recommend this set to my online clients who train at home. You can also buy single bands or packs of bands here, here, and here. Check out this video from ResistanceBandTraning.com for plenty of inspiration on band training:

Like bands, sliders help you target hard-to-train areas and make traditional bodyweight exercises like pushups and lunges more challenging. You can buy a fancy pair of fitness sliders here, but I’ve found regular furniture sliders from the hardware store work just as well on most floors. These usually cost $15 or less. Check out this video from low-tech training wiz Ross Enamit for some ideas on how to use sliders in your workouts:

Finally, get a jump rope. Jumping rope is a great way to get your heart rate up and work on your coordination. You can jump rope just about anywhere, making it the ideal training tool for the road warrior.

If your hotel has a gym with weights…

Some of you are lucky enough to stay at hotels with gyms. Nice hotel gyms sometimes have a set of dumbbells up to 50lbs, which means you can create a workout that resembles your gym workouts back home. However, for some people the dumbbells at the hotel gym won’t be heavy enough to provide a real challenge. The good news is there are ways to modify exercises to make lighter weights feel more demanding:

Slow down the eccentric portion of the lift. For example, if you are doing a goblet squat, sit down as slowly as you can. If you are doing a dumbbell row, lower the weight as slowly as you can.
Add in isometric pauses. Hold the flexed position of the exercise for 1-5 seconds. Try to squeeze working muscles as hard as you can and maintain tension throughout your body during the pause. For a squat, pause in the bottom. For a row, pause at the top. You can also add a pause in the stretched position of exercises such as curls, flyes, and rows.
Increase the volume. Lighter weights feel much more challenging when you perform more reps. If you’ve never tried performing sets of 20 rep squats, you are in for a real treat.
Group exercises together. This works especially well if you group exercises for the same body part. For example, you could perform a set of dumbbell flyes before your set of dumbbell bench press or a set of goblet squats before some walking lunges. These groupings will make each exercise feel more challenging so you won’t need to use as much weight to get a good training effect.

Another way to make your workout more challenging is to add in some higher intensity cardio. Most hotel gyms have at least one piece of cardio equipment such as an elliptical, treadmill, or stationary bike. You can add cardio intervals to increase the conditioning demands of any workout. Hop on the equipment for 30-90 seconds at an all-out pace in between sets of strength exercises or at the end of a larger strength circuit. (Note – Please do not attempt treadmill sprints unless you are an experienced runner.)

If you don’t have access to a gym…

You can have a great workout in your hotel room without a single piece of equipment. Choose a handful of exercises from the following list:

Squats
Glute bridges and single-leg glute bridges
Jumps including squat jumps and jumping jacks
Single-leg exercises including lunges, split squats, and single-leg deadlifts
Pushups and advanced pushup variations including alligator pushups, dive bomber pushups, and clapping pushups
Core exercises including planks, side planks, other plank variations, mountain climbers, dead bugs, leg lowers, and russian twists
Crawling (if you have space)

Always consider your injury history and skill level when choosing exercises. For example, jump squats would be a poor choice for someone with knee pain but a good choice for a stronger trainee for whom bodyweight squats are fairly easy. In general, adding an explosive or jumping component to an exercise will make it more challenging. Jump squats, jumping lunges, and clapping pushups are good examples.

If you have purchased any of the equipment mentioned above, you can greatly expand your repertoire of hotel room exercises. Bands allow you train your back and arms. Sliders allow you to train your hamstrings using leg curls. Both pieces of equipment allow you to progress other exercises by adding some external resistance.

Putting it all together

Below are a few of my favorite travel workout templates. These example workouts can all be performed with minimal equipment in your hotel room, although you could easily modify them to include weights if you have access to a gym.

When creating your own workouts, try to be as balanced as possible. Each workout will ideally contain one exercise from each of the major movement patterns (squat, hinge, push, pull, 1-leg, core). Add in some conditioning using a jump rope or cardio equipment to make the workout more challenging.

Many of these examples were inspired by or taken from Jen Sinkler’s fantastic Lift Weights Faster product, which is a great resource for people who want to train with minimal equipment.

Circuit: Complete a set number of rounds (usually 3-5) as quickly as possible

Example: complete 3-5 rounds of the following:

50 jump rope or jumping jacks
20 mountain climbers each leg
30 squats
20 dead bugs (10 each side)
10 push-ups

Density: Set a timer and complete as many rounds as possible before time runs out

Example: Complete as many rounds of the follow as possible in 20 minutes:

10 reverse or jumping lunges each side
15 band pull aparts
20 glute bridges or 1-leg glute bridges
15 push-ups
10 dead bugs each side

Ladder: Complete an ascending or descending number of reps of each exercise.

Example: Complete the following ladder:

10 squats or squat jumps
10 superman
10 reverse lunges each side
10 pushups
10 side lunges each side

Next round 9 reps, then 8 reps, etc. Or if you have less time you could do next round 8 reps, then 6 reps, etc.

Make the best of your situation

You don’t need a lot of equipment or time to have an effective workout on the road. Invest in a few small pieces of equipment or choose from a list of bodyweight exercises you enjoy. Use intervals, training tempo, increased volume, and exercise groups to increase the challenge of a workout. Set aside time each day to exercise while on the road and reap the benefits of more consistent training without constant disruption.

If you’re serious about getting in shape, you have to find time to work out. However, despite the best intentions, it’s difficult to train when you’re busy, stressed, or on the road. I created my 4C System course to help busy professionals overcome these obstacles and become more consistent with training. This totally free five-day email course takes you through the exact steps I use with my clients. Sign up below and you’ll get the first lesson right away.

September 19, 2017May 5, 2020

How I Lost 30 lbs Without Counting Calories

My fitness and weight loss journey began in the summer of 2011. There have been many ups and downs and numerous phases along the way. I’ve lost weight, regained it, and lost it again more times than I can count. Every time, I learn more about myself and the process of coaching others through challenging behavior changes.

I’ve written previously about my recent experiences working with Bryan Krahn to reach my leanest level ever and about my battles with disordered eating.

However, not many people know about one of the most successful periods of my journey when I lost 30 pounds without counting calories, weighing myself regularly, or stressing out about food. This occurred in 2014 and 2015 when I spent a year living in San Francisco.

Me at the start of the year, at my heaviest since my initial weight loss

How was I able to effortlessly undergo a pretty dramatic transformation while still exploring one of the world’s best food cities and having tons of fun?

I unconsciously established a healthy routine and followed it religiously while still allowing myself room to enjoy life.

This article examines the four key areas that helped me achieve this success. Think about the ways these four areas play into your own ongoing health and fitness journey and use my experience to consider tweaks you could make yourself.

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Me at the end of the year, thirty pounds lighter.

Food

The most important component to my success was falling into a regular eating routine that put me in a caloric deficit.

I say this was relatively effortless because I honestly didn’t put a lot of thought into designing my meals or weekly eating structure. I combined my past successful experience dieting with my basic nutritional knowledge to find meals that were easy to prepare and I genuinely enjoyed. I ate these same meals at the same time most days of the week for many months in a row. This made shopping, cooking, and planning an absolute breeze after just a couple of weeks.

This was the exact eating schedule I followed 5-6 days of the week:

Breakfast: 3 – 4 whole eggs with sauteed spinach, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, and garlic, all cooked in ½ – 1 TBSP kerrygold butter
Lunch: ½ lb extra lean grass fed ground beef (or sometimes chicken breast), cooked as a bunless burger. Steamed broccoli or brussels sprouts. Baby carrots. One piece of fruit like an apple or an orange
Dinner: 2 or 3 grilled chicken thighs. ½ -¾ dry cup jasmine rice served with ½ – 1 TBSP olive oil. Side salad with red onion, tomato, avocado, bell pepper, lime juice, cilantro, and avocado oil. One piece of fruit, usually a pear.

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I loved this dinner and ate it almost every evening.

One thing you may notice is all of these meals follow Precision Nutrition’s hand portion control system. Each meal has about 2 palms of protein, 2 fists of veggies, 1-2 cupped hands of carbs, and 1-2 thumbs of fat.

Each meal was balanced and covered all of the important food groups. Overall this eating plan fits into a higher protein, moderate carb, and moderate fat blueprint. I found if I didn’t eat a healthy amount of carbs at dinner (usually in the form of white rice), my performance in the gym and energy levels throughout the day suffered. But I also didn’t shy away from healthy fats and consumed a moderate amount with each meal.

On the weekends, I ate out 1 – 3 times. I never paid much attention to what these meals were and used them as an opportunity to enjoy the amazing food in the city.

Frequent meals included burritos, ramen or other asian food, and enormous deli sandwiches. Most weekend mornings I met some friends for a full-fat latte and expensive piece of toast at Trouble Coffee. If I wasn’t eating out, I usually ate fewer and lighter meals than during the week.

In short, I left myself enough wiggle room on the weekends to enjoy great food and treat myself without going overboard.

I ate a lot of burritos.

Takeaway: Although I have used calorie counting a great deal in my weight loss journey, you don’t really need it to see dramatic transformations. The important things are to use a system to monitor your portion sizes and to balance out higher calorie meals on the weekends so overall you set up a caloric deficit throughout the week.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to eat the same meals most days of the week. This removes guess work, reduces hunger and cravings, and helps make your food prep significantly easier.

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This article wouldn’t be complete without a photo of my Trouble order.

Training

Just as I did with my nutrition, I found a training routine and stuck with it diligently throughout this process.

I used several free or low-cost programs written by fitness pros I respected. Once I decided on a plan, I followed it all the way through, which was usually around 3 months.

Conveniently, the end of each program usually coincided with a vacation or trip which allowed me to take a week off of training. Afterwards I jumped right into the next program.

This is the exact program I found for free on T-Nation and followed for the first ten weeks of my transformation. As you can see, the program includes 5 days of challenging workouts. There is an alternating emphasis on heavy compound lifts and lighter, high rep pump work. The program also includes a lot of interval training using bodyweight movements, throws and jumps, and sprints on the bike and rowing machine.

I followed this plan religiously and didn’t miss a single workout during the 10 weeks. I saw noticeable improvements in my strength, endurance, and muscle definition. At the end of the program I was able to squat 225 pounds; this was only the second time in my life I ever successfully hit that number.

Later in the year I ran through Bret Contreras’ Strong Curves (my second time going through the program) and a muscle-building program from Nia Shanks. (*Note – I purchased this program from Nia’s website and intended to link to it but it appears she is no longer selling it. I’ve loved Nia’s work for many years and am sure any other program on her site that seems right for you would be a great choice).

With each of these programs I was training hard 4-5 times per week, focusing on slowly improving my performance on everything I did. Each program placed a premium on strength training and used supplemental accessory lifts to build muscle in strategic areas.

Takeaway: Find a program that makes sense for your ability level and goals and follow it all the way through. You can also hire a coach to tailor-make a program for you. The most important thing is to train consistently and to constantly push yourself to improve your performance and test your limits.

On a personal note, I have always made the biggest changes to my physique when I was training 5-6 days per week. The workouts don’t all need to be hard lifting workouts. However, if you really want to see dramatic physique transformations and you have some previous training experience, are healthy, and recover well, you may want to consider increasing your training frequency.

Non-exercise activity

In addition to hard training, I led an extremely active life in San Francisco.

I walked everywhere. I was constantly exploring new neighborhoods and parks in the city. Some days I would walk several hours getting to and from my obligations and checking out my surroundings. On the weekends I walked to the beach or spent lots of time on my feet. I went out dancing at night and took weekend hiking trips throughout the Bay area.

Although it may seem like such activities burn relatively few calories, altogether they really add up over the course of weeks and months.

Takeaway: Don’t be sedentary. Find ways to walk as much as possible. Take the stairs instead of the elevator, park farther away, walk or bike somewhere instead of driving, and spend your free time participating in active hobbies. It may not seem like much, but all of this low-intensity activity really helps when trying to lose fat and improve your overall health.

Sleep

During the year I lived in San Francisco, I made sleep a very high priority. I got around 9 hours during the week and only a bit less on the weekends.

I accomplished this by setting fairly rigid bedtimes and wake times. If I was feeling a bit behind, I found a park and took a 20-minute power nap. I also took longer naps on Friday and Saturday evenings if I knew I would be out late at night.

I cannot overstate how awesome I felt getting this much sleep. I felt sharp and focused on all of my tasks and had plenty of energy to train hard, be active, and enjoy my life. It was also easier for me to resist food temptations as I experienced very few daily cravings.

Takeaway: Don’t underestimate the power of sleep when trying to change your body or get healthy. Sleep makes it easier for your body to recharge and repair itself. Getting enough sleep helps you feel energized, focused, and well-prepared for everything life throws at you. Adequate sleep can also help you resist cravings and better manage hunger during a diet.

I totally understand sleeping for this long may be impractical for most people. These days, I am lucky to get 7 hours of sleep with my work schedule. However, you can get some of the same benefits by following a regular sleep routine. Set a bedtime and/or wake time and stick with them as much as possible. If you fall behind, set aside some time for a short nap to refresh and recharge.

Routine = Freedom

I learned some very powerful lessons about weight loss and healthy living during my year in San Francisco:

You don’t need to count calories to lose weight. Instead, find a way to monitor portions and account for excess calorie intake on the weekends. Cook most of your own meals, don’t snack or drink too often, and get into a consistent routine.
Find a training program or a coach and follow instructions precisely for several months. Train hard, but listen to your body and never compromise good form for higher numbers. Focus on strength training but don’t neglect cardio. If you can train more often (while still being smart), you may see more dramatic results.
Be as active as possible outside the gym. This is great for both physical and mental health.
Prioritize sleep, stress reduction, and other recovery methods.

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Me at the start of the year, at my heaviest since my initial weight loss.

Most importantly, my year in San Francisco taught me that routine allows you more freedom when dieting or trying to live a healthier life. Following a rigid eating and training schedule most days allowed me to stress less about what and when I would eat, while still allowing me sufficient freedom to explore and indulge in an amazing food city. Sleeping well and moving often helped me recover well and made the entire process run smoothly.

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Thirty pounds lighter while still enjoying life.

I am still looking for ways I can learn from this experience to make the current leg of my fitness journey easier and more sustainable. I hope you can apply some lessons to your own situation. If you want help building sustainable healthy habits and gradually moving toward your fitness goals, please contact me here.

August 24, 2017

What Does Fitness Do for You? Part 2

Part 1 of this post provided my favorite exercise to get in touch with your deeper goals and how exercise can help you along the way. In part 2, I want to dig a bit deeper into the most common goals I hear from new clients. I explore why these goals are valuable, what they may mean on a deeper level, and some unexpected benefits you get from focusing on each.

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“I want to feel healthy.”

Health is at the heart of many people’s motivation for exercise, but each person has their own idea of what it means to be healthy. For some, exercise is a way to manage or prevent certain medical conditions. If your family has a history of heart disease, exercise combined with proper nutrition can help reduce your risk of a heart attack. Certain bone and joint problems are better managed with regular movement. There are numerous other examples. If a particular medical condition is an important part of your goal, be sure to communicate with your doctor about potential limitations and what kinds of exercise will best assist you and your unique situation.

For many people, feeling healthy means having more energy and focus throughout the day. It seems counterintuitive, but the more active you become, the more energy you will have. When I was very overweight, I noticed I actually had much more energy on the days I made it to the gym for a short elliptical session. If I stopped going regularly, my motivation to exercise and my general energy levels plummeted. Getting into a regular exercise routine, no matter how light at first, is crucial to help you escape this vicious cycle.

Improved mental health is another powerful benefit of exercise. The gym (or your house, the park, or anywhere you exercise) can become a place of peace where you work through aggression or negative energy from your day. Finding activities you enjoy and a supportive, engaging fitness community can also help transform exercise from a chore into something you cherish. Our brains evolved to be connected to our bodies in primal and powerful ways, and regular movement can help regulate your mood.

“I want to get stronger.”

I’m always thrilled when a new client expresses interest in getting stronger. Becoming physically strong carries over into all areas of your life. You’ll have a much easier time performing basic tasks like climbing stairs, carrying grocery bags, and hoisting a suitcase into an overhead compartment. Strength is the most basic physical adaptation, which means getting stronger can help you run faster, jump higher, and perform other athletic tasks with greater ease.

As a woman, getting strong has allowed me to become very independent. I know I will never have to rely on another person to help me perform basic physical tasks. It’s incredibly empowering to push my body to perform feats I never imagined possible. For those of you who struggle with body image issues, pursuing strength goals is a great way to challenge your body and build confidence without obsessing over your weight or the way you look.

Physical strength also helps you build mental and emotional strength. Learning to push through challenging loads, maintaining composure under stress, and continually striving to improve your performance are all valuable tools to help you deal with personal and professional trials.

“I want to lose weight or look like XYZ.”

These days, aesthetic goals are frequently poo-pooed in the fitness industry as a vain and harmful distraction. However, I find chasing aesthetic goals can be incredibly fun, rewarding, and empowering. Be advised that an aesthetic goal should always start from a place of self-love and self-improvement rather than self-loathing or guilt. If you don’t like yourself now and think that will change when you lose weight or build muscle, you are in for a big letdown.

Changing your body can bring about a powerful confidence boost. You may feel more comfortable in your own skin, less awkward in social situations, and more likely to speak up at work or with your friends.

For me, losing weight allowed me to feel comfortable on a dance floor. I always dreaded school dances because I hated shopping for dresses and felt super uncomfortable dancing in my bigger body. This was my own issue to work through, but losing weight helped me feel much more confident in my own skin and taught me to care less about others’ opinions of me regardless of how I looked. These days, dancing has become my favorite hobby and my reduced fear has allowed me to build many meaningful relationships.

For many people, this is the true power of chasing aesthetic goals. The way you ultimately look is less important than the increased confidence and reduced anxiety and fear of social situations. Like building strength, the long and challenging process of building the body you want also teaches you the power of patience and helps you build habits that can create success in other areas of your life.

The real payoff of regular exercise

The biggest benefit of regular exercise is an improved quality of life. Few of my clients explicitly communicate this goal initially. In time, however, it becomes the most powerful reward.

All of my clients experience unexpected improvements from exercise. Regular exercise helps you perform daily tasks with less pain and greater ease. It gives you more stamina to play with your kids or participate in your favorite hobbies and activities. You will have more energy and greater focus so you can enjoy your days more. And you will be more likely to able to do these things well into your old age, while others in your life are forced to slow down. As I mentioned earlier, exercise helps you build confidence and connect with your body in ways that encourage you to live a more active, vibrant, and fulfilling life.

There are so many reasons to start exercising today or recommit to a routine if you’ve fallen off the wagon. No matter where you are at in life, it’s never too late to move forward with fitness. Please reach out to me if you are unsure of where to begin or need some accountability to help you along the way.

August 22, 2017

What Does Fitness Do for You? Part 1

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There’s so much more to fitness than losing 10 pounds. Many of the most powerful rewards of regular exercise manifest in small, daily improvements in your quality of life.

What is Your “Why?”

I encourage all of my clients to complete an exercise to help them get in touch with why they are coming to see me. Sometimes clients come in with specific goals and we talk through this process together. Other times, especially if someone is new to exercise and doesn’t really know what they want, their motivations reveal themselves over time as the client starts to reap the rewards of a regular exercise routine.

Ask yourself what you want out of exercise. Some common reasons include improved health, increased strength, and weight loss or other physique goals. These are broad, surface-level statements that need to be explored further. What exactly does this goal mean to you? Why is it important? If you accomplished this goal in a year, what would your life look like? How would things be better? How would life be worse if you stayed where you are at now or moved farther away from your goal?

I find people often know deep down inside what they want to accomplish and why, but they feel embarrassed or worried their reasons aren’t the “right” reasons. They then express goals they don’t really care about but they think I or other people want to hear. Don’t let anyone tell you your goals are bad or wrong. Furthermore, remember your initial goals don’t have to remain your goals forever. You will almost certainly have new goals arise as you progress further along your fitness journey. As you age, your priorities will also shift. This is all totally fine.

After you identify some possible motivators, you have two final steps. First, establish metrics for success. How will you know you’re doing a good job or moving forward? I like habit goals because they encourage you to take things one day at a time and focus on the process rather than the outcome. For example, instead of measuring success only in pounds lost, focus on making healthy food choices and monitoring portion sizes every day. Ultimately we cannot control our outcomes, only our behaviors. I encourage you to look for ways to measure success aside from hard data and numbers.

Finally, set realistic expectations and commit to the long haul. This is an area where many new exercisers set themselves up for failure. If you plan to do ALL OF THE THINGS right away, you will almost certainly fail. Start small and build on your initial successes. Avoid setting hard deadlines for your goals (there are exceptions of course, such as getting in shape for a wedding or training for some kind of event). Instead, get comfortable with the idea of building a lifelong practice of regular movement. Be open to experimentation and shifts in priorities.

In part 2 of this post, I will dig a bit deeper into the most common goals I hear from new clients. I explore why these goals are valuable, what they may mean on a deeper level, and some unexpected benefits you get from focusing on each.

August 15, 2017

A Different Kind of 28-Day Challenge

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These days, it’s impossible to scroll through your Facebook, Instagram or Twitter feeds without seeing regular mentions of month-long health and fitness challenges. You know the ones I’m talking about – some have you perform higher numbers of squats and pushups every day, others challenge you to remove sugar or certain foods, and still others involve practicing yoga, gratitude or mindfulness. I often see my friends debating the merits of one challenge or another. Will this one help me achieve X result? Can this one finally kickstart my motivation to achieve Y goal?

Many of the 28-day challenges floating around contain good advice. The problem lies in the implicit promise of these challenges, which is that you can go back to your old habits after finishing them. This would be like saying you’re going to stick to a budget for just one month. Chances are good that after the month is up, you will go right back to your old spending habits and maybe even blow the saved money on a treat you feel like you earned.

You don’t need a month-long challenge, you need lasting lifestyle change.

The wrong mindset

One of the biggest problems with short challenges, especially those related to food, is people start them under the mindset that they are making changes only for the short duration of the challenge. Elimination diets often cause you to spend the entire time fantasizing about all the forbidden foods you will eat after completing the challenge.

For example, let’s say you pledge to remove added sugar from your diet for an entire month. You start the challenge super pumped about how you’ll have more energy, fewer cravings and less bloat. However, as the days pass, you start to get even more excited about all the foods you get to eat after finishing the challenge. You make plans to go to your favorite ice cream shop, bake cookies, and generally be a bit more relaxed because “you earned it.”

Do you see how this is counterproductive? Rather than helping you conquer your sweet tooth, the anticipated end of the challenge is fueling your cravings and giving you a false sense of accomplishment. A few days after the challenge, you have eaten your weight in sweets and feel terrible. You then conclude that “diets don’t work” and your self-esteem takes a hit because you weren’t able to control yourself.

Do This Instead

I encourage you to take a different kind of 28-day challenge. From the start, your intention should be to make small changes you can manage right now with the plan of building positive change momentum. Take an honest look at your exercise and eating habits and identify your one or two biggest challenges. Be as specific as possible for best results.

Next, brainstorm ways you can improve your biggest problem area using habits, tools or strategies accessible to you right now. You don’t need to pick options that completely solve the problem; rather, focus on noticeably moving the dial forward. The best solutions involve things you have to do every day. For example, someone who is sedentary may be better suited to go for a 15 minute walk every day than to attempt a challenging gym workout 2-3 times per week. Someone who never cooks should focus on just one meal per day for which they already know some healthy recipes. Finally, the best solutions are those you can actually stick with. Scale back your commitment if you aren’t sure you can do everything you want to all at once. The most important thing is to take some action right away.

Now that you’ve done the work to honestly think about how you can improve your situation, commit to nailing that habit every single day for a month. This is your customized version of the 28-day challenge.

The most important difference between this challenge and the ones you see on social media is this way recognizes you are making this change for life. Once you master the one or two most important changes, then you can take the next steps and address more challenges. You may even find you are so inspired by your success in the first 28 days that you can add more to your plate than expected. However, this isn’t necessary. The important thing is you are moving forward and building a growing snowball of permanent, positive habit change.

Change Takes Time

Improving your health and changing your body takes a long time. Rather than looking for a quick-fix, practice patience and accept that you are in this for the long haul. It’s pretty uncommon for people to experience dramatic body changes in just a single month (with the exception of people who are significantly overweight). After a few months of consistent, sustained effort, however, you can start to see real progress toward your goals.

By all means, if you are inspired by a short challenge you see on social media please take action and start it right away. I certainly can’t predict what might spark lasting change in your unique situation. However, don’t be fooled by false promises of rapid results with little effort. It likely took you a long time to get out of shape, and it will usually take just as long if not longer to get back into shape.

If you want help determining which behavior changes will make the most difference for you, please fill out an application for my online coaching program.