This past weekend, I shared a really personal bit of audio from ASCEND Nashville last year about why I didn’t give up on my body even when I stopped getting results.
I talk candidly about the trials of the last couple years – illness, moving, heartbreak, divorce & beyond – and what kept me committed to self-care when life was really, really hard & my body wasn’t responding.
I can’t tell you how many people emailed me to share how much it moved & inspired them so I’m sharing it here with you!
Last year at ASCEND while kicking off the weekend by sharing my story, I explained why I didn’t give up and how I kept myself committed to the work even on the days when I just wanted to give up, hide, eat and escape the entire world.
I found some of the audio on my phone and I wanted to share it with you. It begins with me sharing how I leveraged success in other areas of my life to create success in weight loss and then I talk about my own personal struggles AFTER significant weight loss and how I held on tight and refused to surrender to circumstance.
The clip is less than 12 minutes & I hope it inspires you to re-think what “success” is and what your “why” is.
As I shared in the audio clip, I don’t eat the way I eat & choose the things I choose because of the results they bring.I do it because of the way it makes me feel.
I would LOVE to have you at ASCEND Boston with me! I hope you decide to join us – it’s going to be an incredibly powerful weekend!
Today’s workout was amazing. One of my favorites, for sure! I LOVE this style of push-rest fitness. I brought my level 10 effort & felt amazing when I left the gym.
I’m so happy with this workout! I wish I could do it every day!
On the food front:
I shared my breakfast over on my Instagram story – a cabbage salad bowl with raw cabbage, 2 eggs, 2 slices of bacon, 1/2 and avocado & a little bit of Primal Kitchen Chipotle Lime Mayo.
Around 2pm I had 1 hardboiled egg, half an avocado and a little bit of coconut butter.
I hit up Chipotle Mexican Grill for dinner – a salad with chicken, salsa & guacamole.
I’m going through a really cool activity with my Primal Potential Masters Club right now. Every month we read a book together and most months we have a challenge or activity that helps us create our best, happiest, healthiest life.
I won’t bore you with the details of our challenge this month, but I will share my draft of something I created for it.
I wrote myself a letter that I’ll read at least twice each day and it begins with a powerful question.
What are the behaviors that make me feel most alive and most eager to engage fully with life?
See, here’s what my experiences have taught me: overeating might be satisfying for a couple minutes, but it absolutely does NOT make me feel most alive and it does NOT make me want to engage fully with life.
Instead, it makes me tired, sad, frustrated and disappointed. When I’m not making the best food choices I can, I don’t want to engage with anyone. I just want to throw a pity party.
On the flip side, making amazing choices and taking impeccable care of myself makes my life fuller, brighter and happier.
There’s really no comparison.
But, I need to remember that on a daily basis. I need to keep that realization at the forefront of my mind, which is why I wrote this letter to myself:
What are the behaviors that make me feel most alive and most eager to engage fully with life?
To choose anything other than that today or any day means a decision to suffer, miss out, settle and say “no” to what is possible for me.
Feeling most alive, feeling joyful and desiring to live at the highest level requires that I take impeccable care of myself.
Choosing anything other than impeccable self care means living at a level below what is available to me. Easing off doesn’t make things easier.
I have suffered enough. I have created a backlog of excuses, exceptions & justifications that confined me to a life of fear, hiding, depression and negativity. I’ve left that behind.
There are no more excuses, exceptions & justifications.
I refuse everything that doesn’t actively support my happiest, fullest and most joyful life.
Gratitude is a minimum standard in my life. Joy & celebration are the filters through which I see my days.
I am where I am, moment to moment, because of my thoughts. If I don’t like how I’m feeling, I have the power to immediately change my thoughts. Change can happen right now & I have to create it.
I get what I seek. My thoughts are constructive, never destructive. No longer will I bombard my mind with materials that feed my doubts and fears. Fear has no place in my life.
I do not play safe or small. I do not spend time in my comfort zone.
I am bold & determined. That is reflected in my daily actions.
What do you need to stay mindful of each day? And how would your life change if you kept that thing at the forefront of your mind?
Today’s workout was decent. Not bad, not great. Just there getting the work done even though I didn’t feel much like it.
“Helen”
3 Rounds:
400 Meter Run
21 Kettlebell Swings (53/35)
12 Pull-ups
I swapped the run for bike since I’m trying to be careful with my knee.
On the food front:
Brunch was, not surprisingly, my cabbage salad bowl. I’m on a major kick with these lately which means I’ll probably get sick of them and not eat them for a few months. But, for now, I’m loving it!
A few hours later I had bacon & 2 eggs and dinner was cauliflower rice and a Mahi Mahi burger.
Nothing too exciting today, other than the great letter I shared above!!
Is a high protein diet the metabolic equivalent of a high carb diet? In a lot of ways, yes.
Our bodies do not have a storage form of protein. Excess protein – more than the body needs to maintain lean mass and repair tissue – is often used in a process called gluconeogenesis, or the creation of new glucose (sugar) from protein.
Most people are eating far more protein than their bodies need and even when they’re trying to minimize carbohydrate consumption, they are disregulating glucose & insulin due to their protein consumption.
In today’s episode we’re talking about things you need to know about protein to help you shed excess fat, reduce hunger, minimize cravings and be as healthy as possible.
In today’s episode we talked about aiming for around 0.5 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass. Lean body mass is your body weight minus your fat mass.
You can figure this out if you know your body fat percentage.
For example, if a 200 lb individual is 30% body fat we can calculate that their fat mass is 60 pounds because 30% of 200 is 60.
Then, we’ll subtract 60 from 200 to see that their lean mass (total mass minus fat mass) is 140 lbs.
Using the calculation of 0.5 grams of protein per pound of lean mass, this individual would target around 70 grams of protein per day.
As I drove home last night, my phone was blowing up with text messages from family members.
You were so much fun this weekend.
You seem so happy.
I’ve been unhappy for years. Beginning sometime in college, I became extremely insecure and self-conscious. My weight was steadily climbing and I just didn’t want to be seen. Beyond my weight, I had a tendency to focus on everything that wasn’t right instead of everything that was.
I didn’t want people to look at me. I wanted to shrink into the background. I hated events & parties and celebrations. I just wanted to hide.
I spent decades on the sidelines. I wouldn’t be joyful or carefree because I’d be thinking about my body, my weight and what other people might be thinking of me. I was certain that everyone was judging me.
I didn’t want to dance or be silly & fun because I assumed everyone was looking about my big legs, fat arms or wide ass.
I sat on the sidelines of life, feeling embarrassed and sorry for myself.
This weekend was different for so many reasons. It was mostly different because I decided to make it different.
In the past, I’d spend weeks finding the most immobilizing Spanx to go under my outfit. I’d make myself miserably uncomfortable to look a half inch smaller. Then, I’d run from any & all pictures lest someone have a permanent reminder of my size.
This weekend, I wore a beautiful black dress with no Spanx. No bra. No underwear. While that might not seem like a big deal to many – that’s the first time in decades that I didn’t feel the need or desire to hide and confine. I’m proud of my strong, muscular legs. I’m proud of my arms & shoulders that reflect the time I put into the gym. I’m proud of my big, round butt and hips that are wider than my waist.
But even if I wasn’t proud of my body (which is more about my mind than my size), I decided to engage fully in the weekend.
I sat on a picnic table with my sister & my niece taking picture after silly picture, loving every one and sharing them with everybody.
I danced on the dance floor – sometimes all by myself – with no thought of if anyone was watching or thinking about the size of my waist. I requested my favorite songs and focused solely on having a great time, not at all on what anyone might be thinking.
Truth be told – from the perspective of the one full of joy and living large – if anyone was thinking anything, it was that I looked to be having fun and perhaps even that they wanted to be as uninhibited.
On Sunday, I took off my skirt & shirt and ran into the water to swim, without a word or a thought about anyone’s impressions of my body.
People didn’t see my size. They saw my heart, my energy and my deep love for my life & my family.
That’s joy. That’s freedom. And THAT is what my journey has been & continues to be about.
The reason I felt reminded to “not be a loser” is because I could have had that joy & freedom all along. I just chose not to because I made life more about my size than about my joy. I made my life more about what I didn’t think I had than about what I did have.
Throughout the weekend I noticed some people who wouldn’t get up and dance. They said they’d embarrass themselves. Many made comments about how they looked, expressing frustration or shame. Others didn’t say it but it was written on their faces. They chose their insecurity over experiencing & creating joy and memories.
It was so familiar to me because it’s where I lived for most of my life. It was a choice and it was a bad one.
Those texts I got on the way home – they weren’t about my smaller body. They didn’t say “you looked great!” – they said “you looked happy” & “you were so fun”.
That has nothing to do with my body. It never did, except in my head.
Guys, life is short.
Swim in the ocean, in your underwear if you have to. Don’t worry about Spanx under your dress or who is thinking about you when you’re dancing.
Have fun. Be fun. Life is about so much more than your body and while you’re busy thinking insecure thoughts, you could be having the time of your life.
I’ll be thinking about how I create more of these moments in my life. How I can dance more. How I can be silly with my family. How I can be less inhibited and more spontaneous.
I’m going to actively create more of those moments.
This post doesn’t include my workout today (because there wasn’t one) or my food (because that’s just not the point of this post).
A quick note on why I didn’t workout today: I was super, super tired when I woke up this morning. I decided that my two health objectives today were rest and clean, nutrient dense nutrition. I decided that keeping it simple without the workout would allow for more rest and less hunger. It was the right choice for me today and I’ll be back at the gym tomorrow morning.
Progress stems from what you do. Change requires action yet most of us spend most of our time in thought.
In today’s episode we’re talking about the destructive impact of overthinking. You do not need to learn from your theoretic strategy – you will learn from your actual strategy.
When you aren’t sure what to do, simplify your thought process, pick the choice that is most likely to help you grow and then learn from your action.
I’ll be sharing a couple of messages I recently received from a client and her struggle to discern the “best path” from her overwhelming barrage of thoughts.
