I recently wrote my own personal success manifesto. I have learned the hard way that motivation comes easily when it comes easily but maintaining weight loss motivation takes a lot of time and effort. I have learned so many lessons over the last year and I don’t want to lose them. I need to establish them as fibers of my being. I need to own them, claim them, know them and live them. Every.single.day. My success manifesto is made up of things that not only have helped me along my fat loss journey, they’re things I know will help me achieve any and all of my future goals – personal, professional, or emotional. They are lessons I hope to never lose sight of and lessons I hope to impart to all my clients. Though its extremely personal, I wanted to share with with you guys.
I only allow people in my life who make me feel capable, strong and beautiful. I only allow people in my life who want the type of love & friendship I have to give. If you aren’t supportive, if you aren’t kind, if you don’t believe in me, if you don’t make me feel like the beautiful, capable, tenacious woman I am – I ain’t got room for you. Its funny, as my life and career begin to take shape and I start to see all that I’m capable of, I’m beginning to see that some people don’t really want to be in my life. If they wanted to be in my life, they’d show up and ask to be in my life. They’d make it happen. I’m not chasing. I’m not begging. Its exhausting and I want more than that. I want people in my life who are eager and excited to be a part of my journey. Its been a terribly hard lesson to learn but I’m claiming this one. If you love me and you’re here for the good and the bad – I’ll love you right back just as hard as I can. If not – good riddance. You can just go.
I won’t regret my past or beat myself up for it. This one is NOT easy!!! Sure, I have wasted a lot of years being a person I don’t want to be. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve damaged my body and my mind. I have good days and bad days. I’ve lost opportunities. I’ve lost loves. I’ve lost friends. I’ve disappointed myself. I don’t look at my mistakes as failures. I look at them as lessons that have equipped me to be RIGHT where I am, doing what I’m doing. And I have mistakes ahead of me. Those too will be LESSONS. Opportunities. Here’s the thing though: a failure is only a failure if you QUIT. So really, the only potential failure is quitting and I will NEVER quit. And to quote Rocky Balboa (I recently watched the movies for the first time), “Going one more round when you don’t think you can is what makes the difference in your life”.
I will keep learning. The very best teacher for me? Me. Paying attention to my thoughts, emotions, cravings, hunger, setbacks and victories allows me to always be learning and improving. I try to view EVERYTHING as feedback – feedback that will be a powerful tool if I choose to learn from it. Days when I’m extremely hungry: opportunity to learn. Days when I want to eat everything in site and can only think about ice cream: an opportunity to learn. Weeks where fat loss seems effortless: an opportunity to learn. Weeks where nothing goes right and I seem to have lost my motivation: an opportunity to learn. But I’ll also immerse myself in the education and insights of others. Especially the people who love me enough to be in my life. They have so much to teach me and I want to learn from them. I’ll read, I’ll listen, I’ll study, I’ll reflect. I pursue personal improvement every day.
I will choose to be joyful. Sure, it would be easy to stress over how far I feel I still need to go. It would be easy to feed frustrated that I can’t eat whatever I want whenever I want. I could choose to feel burdened by my daily workouts. But I will choose to be joyful and find the good in my days. I’ve come so far. I have an incredible support system. I am capable of absolutely anything I choose to accomplish. What’s not to be joyful about?!
I will take risks, believe in my strength and pursue things outside of my comfort zone. If I stay comfortable all the time, I won’t change much. I want to grow. I want to take my physique, my thought processes and my business to the next level. So I will regularly take risks without fear of failure but rather with excitement for the potential to grow.
If you were writing your own personal success manifesto, what would you include? Tell me on facebook or leave a comment!
I absolutely cannot believe how quickly this year has flown by. It blows my mind. Here we are the day before Thanksgiving and less than a month from Christmas! Yikes!!! I know I’ve told you before how I used to write off this time of year. With all the sweets, treats, holiday parties and get togethers I would kinda figure there was no possible way I could lose weight so I might as well relax, eat and then “get strict” after the New Year. Go big or go home, right? I guess more like “Get big and stay home” hahaha – oh c’mon – laugh with me. Such a terrible plan!!!
Here’s what I didn’t realize: You can thoroughly enjoy your holiday meal, dessert, even a couple of drinks and STILL lose weight during the holidays. Not just maintain! LOSE!!! I am all about that. It does take some planning and discipline but c’mon, it is SO worth it!!! You’ll actually enjoy the holidays MORE when you feel like you’re in control, empowered and proud.
I’m not going to tell you how you should structure your Thanksgiving day but I’m more than happy to share how I plan to spend the day. Every Monday my strength coach measures my progress and I FULLY intend to go to the gym on Monday having made progress towards my fat loss goals. Thanksgiving is NOT an excuse (after all, it comes every year AND I could make any of these foods any day of the year, should I so choose). But, I’m also not going to skip out on my favorite things! No way Jose; I can do both!! Alright, so here’s how I plan to spend my turkey day and still lose fat.
5am: Wake up. This is about my normal wake up time and Thanksgiving is no different. I like to start my day before anyone else gets up – even my sweet puppy. It gives me quiet time to do what I need to do, focus, and start the day without rushing.
5:15-5:45: Meditate while walking on my treadmill or outdoors. This will depend on the weather – if its super cold I’ll hit up the treadmill. I like to call my practice of meditation “cognitive meditation” – I dunno if that’s a real thing or not. Haha. Everything I do could be labeled “cognitive” because I am totally unable to turn off my rapid-fire brain – its totally crazy up in there. But essentially, I spend my meditation time thinking about things I’m grateful for, imagining how I want my day to go and affirming positive things for my life and relationships. I’ll give you a little inside peak: tomorrow I’ll probably spend part of my meditation time thinking about how grateful I am for self control and the desire to pursue my goals. I’ll imagine the time I’ll spend in the kitchen preparing food and I’ll imagine the anticipation I have to enjoy my favorite things – turkey, brussels sprouts, ice cream. I’ll imagine the other foods around me – mashed potatoes, gravy, etc – and I’ll imagine joyfully preparing them for my family and feeling no temptation at all. In fact, I’ll think about the hundreds of times in the past I’ve indulged in them. I remember how they taste. Sure, they’re delicious, but not nearly as appealing as the thought of reaching my health goals! I’ll imagine myself enjoying dessert, savoring each bite and feeling supremely satisfied when its gone. I’ll imagine being able to leave the table happy, sated and not tempted to over indulge. I’ll think about all these things in detail knowing those sensations will carry me through the day and become my reality.
5:45-6:30: I’ll make a little time to work on Primal stuff. Check in with you guys on social, share how grateful I am for your support. I’ll take care of work stuff that needs to get done so its not in the back of my mind all day. Besides, everybody else will be sleeping 🙂
6:30-7:15: WORKOUT!!! Oh yes, I will workout on Thanksgiving!!! Why? Because I love it and find it really enjoyable. Besides, working out will help create the hormonal environment I’ll need to keep burning fat even while I enjoy some dessert! I’ll do this workout at home since the gym is closed and it’ll be the heart rate intervals my buddy Keri suggested to me. I’ll probably split it up between kettle bell swings and outdoor sprints. Here’s how it’ll go down: I’ll either sprint or swing until my heart rate reaches 85% of my max. (To calculate your max HR, subtract your age from 220. Take 85% of that number to determine 85% of your max). I’ll keep an eye on my HR and rest until it falls to 65% of my max. As soon as it drops to 65% I’ll go again, sprinting or swinging, until it hits 85%. I’ll repeat that process for the duration of my workout.
Quick side note: the great thing about that kind of workout is that you can easily do it at ANY fitness level, with any exercise and without any equipment. For example, when I was 300 lbs, I could have reached 85% of my max HR by walking up a hill for 5 minutes. That would be perfect! Then you rest while your HR falls to 65% and do it again. You could do it with jump rope, burpees, jogging up and down stairs, rowing, you name it!! All you need is a heart rate monitor and you can get those pretty cheap. (Maybe a Black Friday wish list item?!)
7:15-8:30: Enjoy a cup of bulletproof coffee and relax. I’ll usually browse the internet, watch a show on my DVR, read a book or listen to a podcast.
8:30-10: Shower & get ready for the day.
10-1:00: Food prep!!! Wanna know what I’m making? Here’s a sneak peak:
Appetizer: Endive cups with bacon cream cheese & pistachios (my own recipe)
Turkey – I cheated and bought it from the Honey Baked Ham store – don’t judge.
Garlic mashed potatoes
Crispy Pancetta Brussels sprouts with Walnuts & Cranberries (my own recipe)
Grandma’s Apple Pie (my husband’s grandmother’s recipe that I usually burn. In fact, the first time I made it for him he came into the kitchen, looked at it and said, “Is this a joke?” Hahaha)
Coconut Cream Vanilla Bean Ice Cream (I’m working on a recipe….)
1-3:00: I’ll be honest. I’m an introvert. Knowing there is “social time” ahead, I’ll probably retreat to my office with a second cup of bulletproof coffee and watch football. A couple things about this: I freaking love football. It makes me happy. I get depressed when the season ends. Second – my bulletproof coffee will serve as my lunch. Its got plenty of calories – probably a few hundred – and it will satisfy my hunger, increase my energy and I just so happen to love it. If you don’t love it, don’t drink it, duh!!! I do this a lot of days but I’ll definitely do it on Thanksgiving since I know a larger-than-average meal is ahead.
TIME TO EEEEAAAAAT!!!!! I’ll probably enjoy 2-3 of my little endive cups. Gosh, I’m hungry just thinking about them! Super easy – I’ll just take some full-fat, hormone free greek cream cheese, stir in some cooked bacon, and spoon it into the endive leaf and top with a couple pistachios. Yumm!! I’ll absolutely enjoy some turkey. I’ll skip the mashed potatoes because I can have them any time and I’d rather have pie and ice cream. But I’ll load up on the brussels sprouts and probably have a 1/2 cup of the carrot/parsnip/cauli mash. That dish is as simple as it sounds: cook the veggies (I’ll steam them) then toss them in the blender with butter, salt, pepper and a dash (or two) of nutmeg.
Before dessert, if the weather is nice, I’ll probably invite the family to take my sweet puppy on a walk with me. He loves to get outside and I’ll probably be itching for some movement. Not a speed walk, just a stroll, appreciating time with family and enjoying a quiet, restful day. And then…..MORE FOOTBALL PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh dessert. My happy time. I do love ice cream and hopefully my coconut vanilla bean ice cream will come out well. I’ll let you know. I am hoping it goes really well with Grandma’s apple pie – and that the pie isn’t burned…….
Will there be leftovers? You betcha. Will I be able to enjoy them? Absolutely!!! Because I’m preparing mostly fat-loss friendly foods, I’ll enjoy them to the fullest. You know what I’ll pass on? The potatoes, pie & ice cream. Here’s the thing – I’ve overindulged before. I’ve stretched the Thanksgiving feast over several days before. It didn’t work for me, so why do it again? I’ll have plenty of delicious leftovers to enjoy and I’ll make the most of them. No need to keep going for foods that won’t help me reach my goals.
Alrighty guys….that’s my Thanksgiving plan!! I am totally confident that when I get to the gym on Monday I’ll for sure have made progress towards my goals. Thanksgiving won’t hold me back! I’ll enjoy it, make it special AND lose fat!!!
Happy Thanksgiving!!! Tons of love!! Oh! And stay tuned this weekend for a BIG announcement and some giveaways!!!!!!! Here’s the thing though: If you wanna get the giveaway info and hear the announcement, you’ve gotta be on my VIP email list! Click here to get on it NOW. This news will be dropping this weekend!
If you want to lose weight you have GOT to start paying attention to the link between hormones and fat loss. If you haven’t heard, the calories in/calories out model is DATED. It might make you lose some weight but you’ll be hungry, tired and doing damage to your hormone balance along the way! There is a better way. Hormones dictate your ability to burn fat. If you feel like you’re doing all the right things but not seeing the results you want, its time to start working SMARTER, not harder.
Have you ever been so hungry that you can hear or feel your tummy rumbling? That right there, that rumbling sensation, is thanks to the hunger hormone known as ghrelin.
When your body senses that fuel is needed, either because of low blood sugar or your stomach being empty, a hormonal cascade is initiated. Levels of ghrelin increase, triggering your brain to stimulate hunger. Elevated ghrelin levels also encourage your body to store fat in and around your abdominal region. Low levels of ghrelin have the opposite effect – they minimize hunger and cravings.
Understanding how to control ghrelin levels gives us the power to control our hunger and cravings. Here are some strategies to consider to help keep ghrelin levels low and hunger and cravings at bay.
Avoid severe caloric restriction. Low calorie diets increase ghrelin production.
Eat your veggies. Non-starchy vegetables like Brussels sprouts, broccoli and cabbage are high in both water and fiber. They stretch out your stomach, lowering your ghrelin levels and keeping them low for longer.
Eat protein and healthy fats with each meal. This slows the digestive process and slows the rate at which food is emptied from your stomach. The longer you have food in your stomach, the longer your ghrelin levels stay low.
Avoid fructose, especially from processed foods, soft drinks and fruit juice. Yes, fructose is found in fruit but its most concentrated in processed foods in the form of high fructose corn syrup. Fructose raises ghrelin levels, making you feel hunger, and it also lowers leptin levels, preventing you from feeling full.
Eat often. Especially when you’re starting out in your fat loss journey you’ll be best served to eat every 3-4 hours. This will help keep your ghrelin low and your hunger and cravings to a minimum.
Avoid chronic stress. We all need to work on this one, but chronic stress increases ghrelin production.
Exercise regularly, especially in the form of high intensity intervals and weight training. These activities increase our production of human growth hormone, which inhibits ghrelin.
Make sure you’re consuming adequate omega 3 fatty acids, especially EPA and DHA, from oily, cold-water fish like salmon, sardines, anchovies or mackerel. Studies have shown that insufficient omega 3 intake increases ghrelin production.
Being hungry and battling intense cravings makes fat loss harder than it needs to be. Controlling hunger and cravings can make healthy eating almost effortless. Pick one or two of these strategies to focus on this week!
I went to see the movie The Judge with my husband. He sees just about every movie that comes out in the theatres but I’m not much of a moviegoer. I had seen the previews for this one and I really wanted to see it. I did not disappoint. Incredible movie. We both totally loved it (he expected it to suck). It was the kind of movie that keeps you engaged the entire time – it made us laugh, it made me cry and it shocked me. Highly recommend.
At one point in the movie, one of the characters is reflecting on a near fatal car accident. She said, “Whatever had or hadn’t happened in the past, I was going to be the hero of my own story”. Those words resonated so deeply with me.
My story hasn’t always been pretty. In fact, it’s rarely been pretty. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t struggle with my weight. My mom had me on diets starting in elementary school. I didn’t have a lot of friends. I had a number of abusive relationships. I struggled with extreme obesity, binge eating, eating disorders and food addiction. I used OTC and prescription drugs to drop weight fast. I obsessed over food. I would wildly restrict for LONG periods of time. Months. I literally went several months eating nothing but chicken broth and protein shakes. My weight ruined relationships. I’m tearing up as I write this because it has damaged so many potentially wonderful things in my life. Emotionally, it almost killed me. I’m not exaggerating. It was such an overwhelming burden that it literally almost killed me. I’ve gone through some incredibly dark times.
But I don’t want ANY of those things to define me. I don’t want any of those things to place restrictions on what I can do and who I can be. Because whatever has or hasn’t happened in the past, I am going to be the hero of my own story. You know, not only will I not let those things define me, I want to USE them to create an incredible story. I want to use them to help people. I want to use them to make my dreams come true. I want to use them – and I will use them – to make me strong that I have ever been, both physically and emotionally.
I fought hard to overcome food addiction. I fought hard to overcome obesity. I fought hard to overcome depression. I wake up every morning determined to create a better life. Why? Because no one can do it for me. Because I want it so badly and I’m determined to get what I want. Fortunately, I am 110% capable of doing it myself. It might not seem like making changes to your diet and exercise routine can transform your entire life, but it can.
Through changing my diet, I found self-confidence. Through changing my diet, I found my career path and life’s work. Through changing my diet, I overcame depression. Through changing my diet, I transformed my health. Through changing my diet, I’ve shifted my perspective. I changed my mind. I changed my body. I changed myself. It starts with believing that you are capable of transformation, you are worthy of an amazing life and then ACTING every single day to make those changes a reality.
I want to be the hero of my own story. I don’t want to be average. I don’t want to stand in my own way. I don’t want to live the life I grew up living. I want to create something extraordinary. When I feel like giving in, I remember how powerful I am. I remember how powerful my choices are. I remember the creative potential of my decisions. There is nothing I cannot achieve, but it takes ME. It takes commitment. It takes the daily decision to be different.
Whatever has or hasn’t happened in my past, I am going to be the hero of my own story. Are you?
Leptin is at the top of the hormonal hierarchy. Leptin & weight loss are very, very closely linked. Leptin might as well lumped in with insulin (in terms of its paramount importance) because, like insulin, its influence on fat loss is overwhelming. Here’s the thing about leptin: it’s JOB is to keep you from storing too much fat. Unfortunately, when it’s signaling ability gets screwed up, it can make it very difficult for you to release and burn fat.
Leptin is released by our fat cells. Consider it the “hall monitor” of fat accumulation. When you start accumulating excess body fat in your adipose tissue, your fat cells release leptin to signal the brain that plenty of fuel is available. This signal then kicks off a cascade of events to decrease your hunger and increase your metabolism (by stimulating your thyroid and adrenals).
On the flip side, when there aren’t an excess of fat cells secreting leptin, the low leptin levels communicate to the brain that there isn’t enough energy stored and so your appetite is stimulated and your metabolic rate is slowed down to help conserve energy.
Sounds like a pretty perfect system that should keep anyone from gaining too much weight, right? Unfortunately, just like what happens with insulin, we fuel our bodies so poorly that leptin’s ability to signal goes very wrong. Just like we have the carbohydrate cycle, there is a similar cycle I’ve put together to show how chronically high carbohydrate diets and high insulin levels impair the proper function of leptin in a big way.
Let’s look at what happens here – and remember – this is what happens over time, leading to excess weight gain, insulin resistance and ultimately leptin resistance, making it hard for overweight and obese people to break the cycle and successfully lose weight.
So you’ll recall that when we routinely eat high carbohydrate diets, especially processed, cheap carbohydrates that send our blood sugar through the roof, our body becomes far less sensitive to the presence of insulin (check out this insulin overview I posted a couple months ago). This is what we call insulin resistance and it causes our body to store more fat. More fat means that more leptin is going to be released (because leptin is released by our fat cells). Well, as you continuously pile on more fat cells, leptin secretion continues to rise. The same thing happens that we saw with insulin. Leptin is always around and your body tunes out the signals it is sending out. Leptin resistance and insulin resistance go hand in hand.
When you are leptin resistant to any degree, your body won’t receive the satiety signals it is supposed to. You can eat in excess without feeling full. Your hunger mechanisms are rarely turned off. Your metabolic rate slows because you aren’t receiving the messages that ample fuel is available (in your fat stores) so your adrenal and thyroid function slows. So you eat more, you are highly likely to store the food you do eat as excess body fat, and you rarely feel satisfied.
There is good news though. As with insulin, we have a tremendous amount of control over the action of leptin through the food we eat and the lifestyle habits we adopt. Because leptin is so significantly impacted by insulin, one of the most important things you can do to encourage healthy leptin signaling is to control blood sugar. How do we do that?
Eliminate processed foods
Reduce or eliminate wheat and grains
Focus on whole foods such as vegetables, fish, beef, poultry, nuts, seeds and some fruits
Eat protein and healthy fat at every meal
Avoid carbohydrate intake in the morning
When you are ready, incorporate high intensity interval workouts 2-3 times each week.
Keep your sugar intake low – even natural sugars like honey
These metabolic hormones are all closely intertwined. We’ve talked about how insulin and leptin go hand in hand but you also see that leptin function influences your thyroid hormones and your adrenals. You cannot address one without impacting the other. If you do damage to one, it will impair the others. Remember that while calories do matter, you can’t make lasting progress without working towards balancing these critical metabolic hormones.
