Mar 29, 2018 | Blog
I’m a big fan of having a coach. Regardless of the kind of change or improvement you’re trying to make, having a coach is, without question, one of a few things that can make creating change faster & easier.
If you’d rather listen to this blog than read it, please click play. Otherwise, keep reading below.
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My business is most successful when I have a coach. My fitness level soars when I’m working with a coach. I recently hired a coach for my guitar playing. Could I learn on my own? Absolutely. Is it infinitely faster and easier with a coach? Of course! I’m learning from an expert, he holds me accountable and knowing that I’m working with someone prevents me from letting the guitar gather dust in the closet for 6 months (like it did last time when I didn’t have a coach!)
Having a coach prevents drifting.
I think this is one of the most important benefits. Life gets busy, right? Priorities shift. Motivation fades. Emotion gets in the way. When you have a coach, it’s like being tethered to your goal. You might fade a bit but you’re still connected so you won’t get too far from it. Without a coach, you could let a rough week turn into a few months (or years) of settling for less than what you want and not making progress. I’ve certainly experienced that. Having a coach keeps you in the game.
A coach will point out your blind spots.
We all have blind spots. There are things we are doing, right now, that are holding us back. Sure, we know many of them but we don’t know all of them. When you’re trying to create change in your life, it’s kinda like you’re in a maze and you can only see what’s right in front of you and a bit of what is behind you. Even what you can see is understood through the filter of your assumptions and experiences. You’re biased. Having a coach is like having someone in a helicopter above your maze. They aren’t biased. They aren’t emotional about your situation. They can save you a lot of wrong turns when you lean on their guidance. It’s a major time & effort saver.
A coach provides accountability.
Let me first say: there is NOTHING more powerful and transformative than being accountable to yourself. We all want to get to a point where keeping our word to ourselves is more important than our word to someone else. However, that’s a process and most of us aren’t quite there yet. As we learn to trust ourselves and keep the promises we make to ourselves, there’s no doubt that external accountability can be a serious lifeline.
I’ll share with you one thing I’ve learned about having a coach: choose someone who you trust. If you don’t trust & respect your coach, you won’t let them help you. You’ll resist and resent the relationship.
And, as tough as this can be sometimes, choose someone who won’t handle you with kid gloves. A coach is not a cheerleader. Where you might let yourself off the hook with excuses and exceptions, a coach is going to bring those things into the light and help you face them honestly. That isn’t always comfortable, but it is incredibly powerful.
Last week I shared my own coaching style and how I work with my clients. It’s certainly not for everyone but this seminar will give you some insight into if it’s right for you. My coaching program kicks off on April 1st and registration closes tomorrow! You can learn more about it here.
Mar 28, 2018 | Blog
Have you ever felt like you don’t know where to start? You want to eat better, lose weight, increase your fitness, make more money or make a career move but you’re spinning your wheels because you don’t know where to start?
If you’d rather listen to this blog than read it, please click play. Otherwise, keep reading below!
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I hear this all the time and, of course, I have felt “stuck” in this mindset before, too. So often people debate: should I go keto? Should I fast? Maybe do a whole 30? Join a CrossFit gym? Is SoulCycle better than CrossFit? Ah! There’s so much conflicting information I just can’t decide.
Stop.
Just stop.
Seriously. There is a far simpler approach. Ready for it:
What am I able and willing to do today that’s an improvement for me?
What am I able & willing to do today to make this day better than yesterday?
That’s it!
Stop trying to plan out a long term approach. That’s not an efficient use of your energy.
You always have, right at your fingertips, an improvement you can make today.
Simplify. Put your energy there. Do that thing. Just focus on what you can do today to make it better than yesterday. That’s it.
Maybe that means you don’t snack in between your meals. Maybe it means you cook dinner at home instead of grabbing fast food. Maybe it means you try the CrossFit gym or you take a walk after dinner.
Every single one of us has improvements we can make. So, make them.
That’s it!
I recently did a training on 3 ways to make change easier today. I think it’ll be a big help to you. You can watch it here. If you have any questions, be sure to let me know!
Mar 28, 2018 | Blog
I don’t know about you, but I grew up collecting plastic eggs full of candy on Easter. I’d eat my weight in chocolate eggs that, in my opinion, weren’t even very good. Easter was about candy. It’s high time we make some amazing adult Easter eggs! I’ve got you covered with bloody mary deviled eggs!
I have to thank my boyfriend for my burst of cooking creativity…I just wrapped up a 7-day water fast and he joined me for the last 3 days. He had never fasted before and didn’t love the experience. One afternoon I suggested he just eat – break the fast early. He refused. He said, “This is a challenge. It’s just not a fun challenge.”
Being the competitive human I am, I suggested we do a fun challenge after fast. We decided on a cooking contest: who could make the best paleo, primal or keto appetizer & entree. This is my submission.
Before I share the recipe, let me give you a couple tricks I picked up for peeling eggs and making deviled eggs. Some of you might have seen me share these tips on Instagram story video!
- Pierce a small hole in the wide end of the egg before you boil them. Like I showed in a video on my Instagram story, I actually use one of the sterile needles that comes with my blood sugar/ketone meter but you could use a push pin or safety pin.
- Soak the eggs in ice water for 10 minutes after you take them off the heat.
- Before you peel them, crack the shells all around and put back in the cool water for 10 minutes.
- After you’ve peeled them, cut a very thin slice off the long side (each side) of the egg before you cut down the middle. This will make sure your eggs sit flat and don’t roll.
Okee doke. The good part. The recipe.
Bloody Mary Deviled Eggs
Of course you can omit the jalapeno if you don’t want them to be spicy and you can use any brand of blood mary mix or, though it would be less flavorful, tomato juice.
- Cook your bacon until crispy. Set aside.
- Discard all but 1 tbsp of the bacon fat.
- Add garlic to the pan with bacon fat and cook for a couple minutes. Remove from heat.
- Remove yolks from whites and place them in a bowl.
- Add two strips of bacon, finely chopped, plus cream cheese, apple cider vinegar, salt and bloody mary mix.
- Finely chop 1/2 of the jalapeno and add it to the filling mix.
- Use a piping bag or (as I did) a ziploc storage bag with the corner cut off to fill the whites.
- Break up the last slice of bacon into small pieces and use to garnish each egg
- Cut the other half of the jalapeno into thin strips and use to garnish each egg.
Enjoy the heck out of these guys and let me know what you think!
If you want to see & hear more of my meals & kitchen tips, make sure you’re following my Instagram stories!
In October 2019, our relationship with Thrive Market changed. They decided to put their marketing dollars in avenues outside of podcasting but we still think they’re a good choice if you’re looking to save money on health & personal care products.
Mar 27, 2018 | Blog
I spent most of my life on a diet. I was miserable. I was also very fat. I lived in a world of food obsession, always “on” or “off” and never feeling like I had control over food. I never felt amazing. I was always stressed.
Can you lose weight on a diet? Sure! There are hundreds of ways to lose weight. But for most of us, losing weight isn’t the goal. We want to lose FAT MASS (not just body weight) and most importantly, we want to keep it off. Bonus points if we enjoy the process (which is totally possible and a huge part of being able to keep the fat off!)
If you’d rather listen to this blog than read it, please click play. Otherwise, keep reading below.
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One of the primary reasons diets don’t work (in the long term) is that they emphasize RULES, not TOOLS. The truth is, we live in a world where we kinda like to be told what to do. I can’t tell you how many emails I get each week from someone requesting a shopping list or meal plan.
I think that’s a problem. There’s a reason I don’t provide those things. Could I? Sure! Could I monetize the heck out of them? Absolutely! But they keep us mindless.
Diets & their prescribed rules prevent us from really paying attention our bodies and that’s where change and improvements come from: not in blindly following someone else’s guidelines but leaning in to what works for us, what makes us feel great, and what our bodies respond to.
When we’re always looking to someone else’s rules, there will always be another distraction a second a way, tempting us with a new set of rules and a fresh new start. Someone will always have a new set of rules. This approach has massive built in distractions via the next “shiny thing”.
There’s no restarting when we’re looking for tools to help us understand our bodies better.
You don’t need to restart. You just need to pay attention.
Diets foster an all-or-nothing mindset. With dieting, you perceive that you’re either on the wagon or off the wagon. Dude, there is no damn wagon. And our quest in life isn’t to be “on” all the time. The goal, as I see it, is to feel amazing every day. I know that I can feel amazing while having a couple glasses of wine in a week and enjoying a cupcake every now and again. That’s not a diet. That’s the quest to feel amazing. No diet can prescribe rules that are as effective or as personalized as our own quest to feeling amazing.
Most diets emphasize some variation of “eat less, move more” which completely ignores the reality of how fat loss actually happens in our body. Fat loss is faciliated or prohibited based on hormonal signaling. These signals aren’t controlled by calories. These signals are controlled by what, when & how much you eat. Most importantly: they are different for every single one of us. When I’m working with my clients, I help them understand their unique hormone signals and how to optimize them. We are all getting signals from our hormones every day (hunger, cravings, energy, mood, sleep, skin, etc) and we just have to learn how to work with our bodies instead of against them. Most dieting approaches do not teach us how to work with our bodies. Instead, they want us to blindly follow the rules.
There is so much more to why diets don’t work and I’ve gone into so much detail on how our bodies respond to the eat less move more approach as well as how to begin breaking the chains of dieting and creating a sustainable lifestyle that works for your body. For some of those detailed resources, check out these episodes of the Primal Potential podcast. If you have any questions or suggestions, let me know!
Episode 329: A Case Against Calorie Counting
Episode 062: Why Calorie Counting Doesn’t Work
Episode 039: The Science of Fat Loss
Fat Loss Basics Part 1
Mar 26, 2018 | Blog
The other night I hosted a free, live webinar to share 3 specific changes you can make TODAY to make creating change in your life easier. The reality is, we’re making it too hard. Maybe we don’t even realize there’s an easier way, but there is. If you take the time to watch this presentation, I have no doubt you’ll make faster progress and it will feel like less of a struggle or fight against yourself.
Mar 23, 2018 | Blog
In case you missed it, I’m smack in the middle of a 7 day fast. If you have no idea what that means, if it’s healthy or how fasting really works, you’ve got to check out the episodes I’ve done on it.
Take a listen to episodes 037, 300, 307 and 310. You can also read this blog from the other day.
If you’d rather listen to this blog than read it, please click play. Otherwise, keep reading below.
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Today I want to share with you 7 things I love about fasting.
- It frees up a ton of time – until you’ve done a fast, you don’t realize how much time you spend thinking about food, planning meals and snacks, shopping for food, prepping food, eating and cleaning up from eating!
- It’s free! I spend a lot of money on meat and veggies. This 7 day fast has cut my monthly food expenses by 25%! That’s pretty awesome 🙂 There’s no equipment required, no special meals…it’s 100% free to fast! But it’s actually free in a way other than money. I love fasting because it frees me from the internal debate about food. I’m free from wondering if I should eat that, if I should have seconds or if I should order a drink with my dinner. It provides a whole lot of mental freedom!
- It forces me to be less reactive – Yes, I definitely get hungry when I’m fasting. And when not fasting, I react those those urges. I start thinking about meals & snacks – reacting to an impulse. Fasting is built-in practice for being more calm and less reactive. It’s okay to sit with a feeling without reacting to it!
- It gives me a totally new relationship to hunger – I talked about this the other day on the blog. When you’ve got 4, 5, 6 or 7 days without food, you have a totally new relationship to that “I’m so hungry” sensation an hour or two after a meal!
- It sends my personal confidence through the roof – I remember when I paid off over $130K in personal debt. It gave me such a belief that I could do hard things. That belief changed my life. Fasting is pretty similar. The confidence that comes from fasting makes me feel so much more powerful in the face of any & all temptations, distractions and excuses. It really is a game changer.
- Once I get over the hump, I feel absolutely amazing – the first 2-3 days are hard for me. Yes, I feel hungry and sometimes it’s hard to focus with that feeling. However, once you get through those transitional days, the mental sharpness and energy are pretty impressive!
- It’s a powerful reminder to be happier and to complain less – I won’t lie; the instinct while fasting is to complain about fasting. This fast has shown me my tendency to subtly complain about LOTS of things and I know that this awareness is going to be make me happier long after the fast is over.
Next week I’ll be sharing a recap of my fast including how it went, what I learned and tips for anyone who wants to give extended fasting a try.
If you have questions about fasting, check out these resources!
Episode 037: Intermittent Fasting & Overfeeding
Episode 300: Extended Fasting
Episode 307: Is Fasting Right For You?
310: 5 Things I Learned During My 5 Day Fast
Jimmy Moore & Dr. Jason Fung’s book The Complete Guide to Fasting.
Mar 22, 2018 | Blog
On Tuesday I shared with you guys that I’m doing a 7-day fast. That means 7 full days of nothing but sea salt, water and black coffee. If you have questions about fasting, definitely check out the episodes of the podcast I mentioned in that post.
If you’d rather listen to this post than read it, please click play. Otherwise, keep reading below.
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When I made the decision to do this fast, I had to think about what I’d include and exclude. For example, was I going to drink coffee? Yes. Black coffee is definitely included. But another interesting thing made the list of inclusions:
Joy.
I know, it sounds so cheesy but hear me out.
When I did my 5 day fast last year, I very much made myself a victim of it. I went into it with doubt and dread. Though I made the choice to do it and could absolutely have chosen to not do it, I was totally in victim mode.
I complained about being hungry. I complained about being tired. I complained about being grumpy and lacking focus. I complained about seeing food pictures online.
There was zero joy.
And honestly, I think a lot of us go through life that way.
We complain about our jobs. We complain about responsibilities we took on by choice. We complain when we’re single and we complain when we’re in a relationship. We complain about food. We complain when we’re hungry and we complain when we’re stuffed. We complain about our bodies. We complain when we’re tired and also when we overslept. We complain about other people, even people we love and have in our lives by choice!
It’s kind of exhausting. It’s exhausting to be the complainer and exhausting to listen to others complain.
We’re a victim of our own circumstances – circumstances we created. We’ve turned our blessings into burdens and become accustomed to participating more in our problems than in solutions to our problems.
So. I choose joy.
I choose to be joyful in this fast. I choose to be joyful as I go through my work day. I choose to be joyful as I respond to emails and joyful as I update my accounting records.
I chose to do this fast. I can choose not to at any time. I refuse to make myself a victim of my choices and circumstances.
If I don’t like something, I’ll participate in the solution. Otherwise, I choose joy.
I hope you will, too.
Mar 21, 2018 | Blog
I receive hundreds of emails each week and there is one theme I see more than any other. Every time I see it I know exactly why the sender is struggling.
If you’d rather listen to this blog than read it, please click play. Otherwise, keep reading below.
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Before I tell you what the problem is, I’m going to show you. Here’s an email I got just the other day.
Why am I so comfortable failing and so uncomfortable winning the day?? It’s almost as if I fight for failure. For me there is a 4 hour window that I need to be okay being uncomfortable with (boredom). 4-8 pm is my 4 hours of winning or losing the day. Strangely enough choosing bad choices is easier. Not easier tomorrow but so easy and comfortable at the moment even at the expense of tomorrow. Sounds ridiculous but a destructive habit I have subscribed to.
What do you notice about this email?
It is 100% focused on the problem.
It is 0% focused on the solution.
This email is explaining, justifying, arguing for and attaching to the problem. When you’re so deeply engaged in the problem, you’re not engaged in the solution! You can’t be! You aren’t even trying! You’re just making yourself a victim of the problem. That’s not how change happens. In fact, that’s how to ensure you keep change from happening.
I asked some questions in my response and encouraged her to focus on the solution. Here’s part of the reply:
I am noticing that I struggle on the days that I am home alone and bored. The hours from about 4 pm until I go to bed are extremely uncomfortable for me unless I am sipping on wine. It’s worse with wine than any other food because after a few glasses I don’t care about what I eat and it leads into a binge. I do realize that once this clicks and I conquer this I am going to be so much happier. Boredom is definitely what I am uncomfortable with plus the habit of using wine to not be bored and fill those hours before bedtime.
How much of that is about the solution?
Guys, you are either participating in the problem or you’re participating in the solution.
We give so much energy, attention and time to the problem – to explaining it, rationalizing it, complaining about it, justifying it and making ourselves a victim of it. When you do that, you’re not trying to fix it. Even if you want to fix it, you can’t simultaneously be part of the problem and part of the solution.
Refuse to give your attention and energy to the problem.
Participate exclusively in solutions.
I shared on the podcast a few months ago that when my new tiny house was delivered, I was inundated with problems. Day after day, minute after minute, a new problem emerged.
It would have been so easy to dive into the problems. To kick, scream, complain, argue, blame and vent about the problems. But, where would that get me? Officially: no where.
I decided to exclusively participate in the solution. I wouldn’t indulge any conversations about blame or explanation. I just wanted to talk about solutions. How would we make it right? What were our options? What could we do?
That changed the game. Not only did fixes begin to happen, but I was happier and more peaceful. Contractors and manufacturers were less defensive. It made a massive difference.
When I work with clients, this is something I coach on every single day. I get it. There’s a problem. I get it, you’re irritated by it. Maybe you’re frustrated or confused. I understand.
But how about we work together to focus on potential solutions and what you can do to today to create a resolution?
That will change your whole life.
You can join me this week to talk about my approach to coaching and helping you make change easier. Click here to register for the free, online seminar!
Mar 20, 2018 | Blog
Hunger durability. Have you heard that phrase? To me, it essentially means how much control and calmness you have in response to hunger. Are you immediately reactive or uncomfortable? Does hunger have more influence over your choices than you do?
That certainly used to be me. The slightest twinge of hunger sent me in search of snacks. My lack of hunger durability was a huge barrier to fat loss and also really prevented peace of mind. I was always thinking about food. Cooking it, cleaning up after cooking, eating or planning what to eat next. It kinda sucked. And, because not all hunger means that your body needs fuel yet I was eating when I felt hunger, I really lacked an understanding of my own hunger & satiety signals. No bueno.
If you’d rather listen to this blog than read it, please hit play. Otherwise, keep reading below.
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Last year, I agreed to do a 5 day fast with my friend Ella. I was terrified. In fact, I was convinced I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t even sure it was healthy. I didn’t think it was a good idea but I was open to the experiment.
It was amazing. I learned so much about hunger and got to witness the way extreme hunger fades in minutes if you don’t respond to it. It gave me a whole new context for hunger and my body’s need for fuel. Yes, the first few days were pretty tough, but I developed so much confidence over that 5 days. I’m so glad I did it.
I’ve done a few episodes on fasting – one on intermittent fasting and a couple others on longer term fasting and also on my experience last year with a 5 day fast. If you have questions, those episodes are a great place to start.
Episode 037: Intermittent Fasting & Overfeeding
Episode 300: Extended Fasting
Episode 307: Is Fasting Right For You?
310: 5 Things I Learned During My 5 Day Fast
Another awesome resource on fasting is Jimmy Moore & Dr. Jason Fung’s book The Complete Guide to Fasting.
So why am I doing this again now? And what does a 7 day fast mean to me?
The primary reason I’m doing it is because I like to challenge myself and I see real value in improving my response to hunger.
Here’s how I explained this after last year’s fast.
Have you ever stepped in the shower and felt like the water wasn’t as hot as usual? Maybe you thought, “Yikes! This is cold!!”
But, what if you intentionally turned the water all the way to the right – as cold as it gets. What you thought was cold before really isn’t so cold, is it? In fact, relatively speaking, it probably feels warm compared to your new understanding of cold.
Contrast gives us context.
Contrast informs our perspective. If your only experience of hunger is how you feel it within a couple hours of eating, you just don’t have the power of context due to contrast. Fasting dramatically improves my understanding of and appreciation for hunger.
There’s also an impressive amount of science in support of the cleansing & detox benefits of extended fasting. This is something I’ve wanted to do since I froze my eggs a few months ago.
I’ve decided this will be a joyful fast. This week is launch week for my spring coaching groups and I’m excited for the simplicity of a fast. No meals to plan, prep, or clean up from. I will do it with a great attitude – this isn’t a punishment. I’m not a victim of this choice and hunger isn’t an emergency.
Here’s what it means for me:
Water, himalayan sea salt and black coffee. That’s it.
No kombucha. No bone broth. No fat.
I get the salt from Thrive Market* and I’ll add a pinch to my water. If I feel really hungry, I’ll add a pinch of the salt right under my tongue.
That’s it. I started Monday night and I’ll continue for 7 days.
You can join me for 24 hours, 36 hours or none at all! You can follow along on my Instagram stories where, after a couple days, I’ll share blood ketones. (I’d share blood ketones now but I realized last night I didn’t have any test strips left so I need to wait until they get here on Thursday.)
If you have questions, definitely check out those episodes and of course, feel free to ask any questions in the comments!
In October 2019, our relationship with Thrive Market changed. They decided to put their marketing dollars in avenues outside of podcasting but we still think they’re a good choice if you’re looking to save money on health & personal care products.
