I got a great email the other day from a woman who was feeling awful, feeling like she keeps giving in and giving up and she wanted me to help her get back on track.
Since I know most of us can relate to feeling that way, I wanted to share my response to her with all of you.
First, here’s what she wrote me:
Hi Elizabeth!
I wanted to write because I’m having a hard time resisting food right now. I have family in town and I find myself over indulging and am starting to feel terrible! How should I go about getting back on track? I’m disappointed in myself and I don’t want to go back to where I was.
Thx!
First of all, I gotta say how awesome I think it is that she emailed me. She reached out. She asked for help.
I can’t tell you how many times I felt that way, like I was on a slippery slope, and never did anything to course correct or get support.
Her email itself is a massive win. I tell my clients in the Fat Loss Fast Track all the time, “If you’re struggling, ask for help. Why would you suffer through, wanting to pull yourself out of the funk but not do anything other than think about it!?“
So the first thing I want to really emphasize is: don’t drift. If you don’t like how things are going, do something differently. You can make one single different choice or you can reach out. Or both. You guys know I’m always encouraging you to reach out to me if you have questions, suggestions or need support. Do that.
Here’s the second point: I want to eliminate the notion that we can ever be “off track”. Here’s the way it goes: choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice.
What comes next, no matter where you are? Another choice.
We always have the opportunity to capitalize on the next one that comes along.
Think about it this way: did you ever play double dutch as a kid? Or even watch other kids play double dutch? (I never played. I watched. I felt like I was too fat to try but that’s a story for another day. The point is still important, so read on…)
You might struggle to find the rhythm as the ropes swing and stand there on the outside, not jumping in, thinking, “Oh crap. I missed it!”
But there’s always another opportunity. The ropes keep swinging and you jump in when you can.
You might trip. You might stand there and watch for a while. It’s all good. The ropes keep swinging and there’s always a chance to jump in.
What does this have to do with feeling like you’re “off track”?
There’s another choice coming. Always. Probably in a few minutes. And then again. And then again. And again.
You can always capitalize on the next good choice.
I ask myself all the time, no matter how I feel like things are going, “What’s the next thing I can do to move towards my goals? What’s the next best choice I can make?”
So many times we stand on the sidelines, overwhelmed by how we’ll ever make 10 great choices or be consistent for the rest of our lives or lose all the weight we need to lose.
Blah.
That’s not how it works.
It’s one jump. It’s one choice. It’s always that first jump and that first choice.
We only move one step at a time. We only make progress one choice at a time.
No matter where you are, how overwhelmed you are, how far you are from your goals, just jump.
I think this episode & the paradigms we’ll discuss can change your life. I really do, if you’ll choose to let them.
Here’s the thing: life is hard. Hard things happen. Many of us choose to let these tough circumstances influence our choices. It doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, if you want to live your best life, if you have to be your healthiest, happiest self, you need to change that patterned response.
In today’s episode I’m going to be sharing some theories about hard things, about the challenges of life and the opportunity we have to allow those hard things to help us grow, improve and excel instead of cower, complain and withdraw.
These are choices. Welcome to the human experience – sometimes it’s really challenging. How will you respond to those challenges? Will you become soft? Will you become hard? Will you develop, grow and improve?
In today’s episode I talk about stories & situations that I believe can change your life. I believe they can help you go to the next level. I believe they can turn you from your victim & excuse mentality to your warrior and conquerer mentality.
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about calorie burn during workouts (as reported by cardio machines), wearable fitness trackers and the validity of target heart rate zones for fat burnings. So, of course, we’re diving into those topics today.
In today’s episode I’ll be diving into the myths & facts about fitness trackers, heart rate zones and the accuracy of calorie counters on your workout equipment.
While folks who are working out have awesome intentions, they’re often misguided based on inaccurate or incomplete information. If you are something who uses a fitness wearable, pays attention to the calorie burn on your workout equipment or monitors your heart rate, you do not want to miss this episode!
Myths & Facts About Fitness Trackers, Heart Rate Zones and Calorie Burn During Workouts
Lots of people use the amount of calories they think they burned during a workout to help them determine how many calories they should consume that day. In most cases, that is highly inaccurate information.
First of all, that approach assumes that the calorie in/calorie out model is the most effective or accurate model for fat loss. It’s not. If you aren’t sure why it’s not, please go no further until you’ve listened to episode 062 of the Primal Potential podcast on why calorie counting is misleading.
Second of all, these calorie counting devices do not collect much of the relevant information that would allow for an accurate determination of calorie burn.
By knowing your pace on the machine and age/weight, you know a little, but not nearly enough to determine calories burned with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Among other things, they overlook:
fitness level
exertion
body composition
nutrition status
muscle glycogen availability
Even the fitness trackers which obtain more information than the random machine at the gym (these trackers tend to know your gender, age, weight, height, etc) have a high degree of inaccuracy, anywhere from 10-25% . While that might not seem like a lot, if you’re using these burn estimations to determine how much you should eat, being off by 10-25% can absolutely be the difference between significant fat loss and significant fat gain.
Another area of misunderstanding is around target heart rate zones. Don’t miss today’s episode for a full explanation of where these heart rate zones come from and how accurate they are.
In short, here’s the primary issue. These heart rate charts that suggest a particular range so that you’ll burn a higher percentage of fat, they’re based on percentages, not absolute numbers.
Here’s a brief example: let’s say these heart rate charts indicate that in a lower heart rate zone, 60% of the energy you burn during the activity will be fat while in a higher heart rate zone only 40% of energy you burn will be fat.
People see that information and think, “Oh! I want to be burning 60% fat so I’m gonna hit that zone.”
It begs the question: 60% of what??
Seriously. Let’s say, using arbitrary numbers, that in a 20 minute workout in this lower “fat burning” zone you burn 100 calories. 60% of that is supposedly fat, which means you burned 60 calories from fat.
But, if you were working out in a higher heart rate zone you might burn 300 calories in that same 20 minutes. While only 40% of the calories burned were from fat, you still burned far more fat! In fact, you burned 120 calories from fat – twice as much fat burned in the same time, even though the percentage was lower!
Beyond that, these target heart rate zones don’t take into account the “after burn”, or calories burned after the workout. There is little to no after burn with lower intensity workouts. Higher intensity workouts create a significant after burn which adds to the total fat burned during the workout.
For the other major considerations related to heart rate zones and fitness tracking devices, listen to the entire episode!
On June 3rd, 2016, Muhammad Ali died. There’s no question that Ali was a relentless fighter both in and out of the ring.
One of my favorite things to do is learn from people around me, dead or alive. When I heard that Ali had passed, I knew I wanted to see what lessons I could learn from his life. I knew there was something I could find that would make my journey more significant. I was right.
Today, I’m sharing those lessons from Muhammad Ali, through my life. I believe that his wisdom and his fights can help us in the fights of our lives, whether that’s health, fitness, fat loss, finances, relationships, careers or anything in between!
In this episode I’ll share what some of Ali’s quotes mean to me & how they’ve influenced my perspective.
I got an email the other day & I want to share it with you. I think this email could have been written by any one of us and it represents one of the most significant issues keeping us from reaching our goals: the on-again-off-again cycle.
I like to talk more than I like to write so if you’d rather listen to this blog, click here.
This beautiful woman who emailed me wants to change. She wants to be healthy. She wants to be a better example for her kids. She wants to feel better about herself.
She doesn’t kinda want it. She really wants it.
But…
She consistently makes food choices that aren’t doing her any favors. She overeats. She overindulges.
She doubts her ability to change. She doubts that health is really achievable for her.
I’ll share with you parts of her email:
I found your podcast about a month ago on Spotify. I was randomly scrolling though looking for something to listen to and I found primal potential. I cant remember exactly what episode it was but I remember you were talking about not arguing for our limitations. I was hooked.
I have always been a heavy girl. I really ballooned up when I had my children. right now I am sitting at 270 I am 5’3″.
I have always tried to lose weight I will start off strong and then I will mess up and I’m like f*@k it.
I will be all gung ho to get it together and then have a bad day or week and reach for the convenience of ordering something or picking up something quick. I have to break that habit for our heath and our finances. I want to change our lifestyle before it negatively effects our children any more than it already has.
Anyway all of this rambling is basically to ask where you think I should start. I’m tired of being fat. I’m tired of hating my body. I’m just so over it and I’m so lost on what to do. I’m convinced that I will never be healthy because I haven’t my whole life.
I’m stuck in that toxic place that is telling me it doesn’t matter how much I try I will never be able to do it and I’m over it. I want to get out of there. I want to believe in myself. I want to change my quality of life so I can enjoy it with my children!
Boy oh boy do I understand these struggles and frustrations! Sure, I don’t have kids, but I have been in that place of not knowing how to start, how to keep going and being tremendously unhappy with my body. Add to that real doubt about whether or not it’s possible…it’s hard place to be.
Accept that there is no reason you can’t do this unless you decide not to do it
Reframe fearing of missing out and what “indulgences” and “convenience” really mean
Taking on too much too soon leaves you feeling like you’ve dropped the ball. If you decide to make 6 sweeping changes at once and you nail 3 and drop the ball on 3, you’re disappointed in yourself. You’ve broken a promise to yourself and triggered self-doubt & disappointment (even though you’ve made some improvements!)
