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.
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.
I can totally appreciate thinking about & classifying food based on whether it helps you achieve your physique goals or not. However, that’s a limited perspective that can come back to bite you.
When you only think of food through the filter of weight loss/weight gain or indulging/not indulging, you’re really missing some critically important considerations for your health, energy and vitality.
Food is so much more than fat loss (or fat gain). Food is the raw materials with which your body repairs and maintains itself. Food is one of the most influential factors driving how well, or poorly, your body operates. Food determines if you are creating health or creating illness.
The foods you choose can trigger inflammation or relieve inflammation. That might not sound like a really important thing but it is. If you are ignoring the inflammatory impact of your food, you’re in trouble.
In fact, if you think you don’t need to worry about inflammation, that’s a huge red flag that you need to stop & spend some time understanding what we’re talking about.
Inflammation increases appetite. It triggers cravings. It slows fat loss. It leads to brain fog & trouble focusing. It reduces energy. It causes headaches, joint pain, slow recovery, impaired immune response, cellular dysfunction, cholesterol problems, sexual dysfunction and much more.
You know how you feel bloated sometimes? There’s a good chance that’s not just water but also inflammation!
When people talk about inflammation, they almost naturally default to considering anti-inflammatories. They want to know which supplements and ingredients reduce inflammation.
I don’t want you to think about it that way.
Think about it this way: if you are continually stoking a fire with logs, sticks and kindling, what’s the best way to put out the fire? Stop fueling it, right?
You wouldn’t continue to load fuel into the fire while wondering about the impact of spritzing a water on it, would you?
That’s how we need to think about systemic inflammation that is leaving us hungry, tired, grumpy, achy and sick. We first need to think about how to stop stoking the inflammatory fires.
I went into a bit of detail about this on today’s podcast, episode 376, but I really wanted to write about it here in hopes that you’ll take it seriously, listen attentively and make some changes.
Here are some of the ways I manage inflammation in my own body:
I minimize sugar
I rarely consume gluten
I watch my consumption of nuts – I don’t go overboard like I used to
You don’t have to be a purist, but I want to strongly encourage you to think about the inflammatory effects of food, not just the fat loss effects of food. Please take 25 minutes to listen to today’s podcast! It really matters.
Another way I limit inflammation is by caring for my body after my workouts. Today’s workout was really rough on my forearms and grip!
Instead of leaving the gym feeling achy & sore, I took the extra time to roll out my forearms and stretch. When I got home I iced my knee. I’ll make sure to foam roll again later. To me, this is about working with your body versus fighting against it.
On the food front:
First, I told you guys I’d update you on dinner last night – I had a lamb burger without the bun & some avocado. I drank water.
This morning I had two eggs after my workout. For lunch I made a large salad bowl with cabbage, avocado, bacon and Primal Kitchen Chipotle Mayo.
Dinner is super simple: a wild caught salmon filet and broccoli with clarified butter.
There is a way to reduce hunger, minimize cravings, burn more fat, have more energy and dramatically improve your health that very few people are talking about: reducing internal inflammation.
We are missing the boat when we think of inflammation only as pain & swelling. It’s so much more than that. Inflammation that we can’t see or feel in the traditional way is often responsible for cravings, hunger, brain fog, headaches, acne, constipation, bloating, trouble losing weight, and so much more.
However, when we talk about the impact of inflammation, most people jump to considering anti-inflammatory foods & supplements. That’s not the best way to go!
That’s kind of like trying to put out a fire with water while you continue to stoke it with logs & newspaper.
Step one when trying to put out a fire is: stop fueling it!
In today’s episode we’re talking about strategies to stop fueling the fire of inflammation.
The way we think about & approach fat loss is a problem. When we focus too much on the overall strategy and not enough on the daily strategy, a few things happens:
We can undervalue the importance of today because there is no immediacy to the macro view
We can overwhelm ourselves because we’re looking at all the work that needs to be done & all the changes that need to happen instead of narrowing our focus to just today’s work
Mental & emotional commitment to a strategy or approach doesn’t equate to daily execution. You can attach to a big picture or a lifestyle without ever living it.
This is the fundamental difference between intention & action.
This is what we’re breaking down in today’s episode – how to move from intention to execution.
