Organized Sports are NOT My Thing

I was NOT the kid in organized sports.

My mom likes to tell this story about how my parents put me in soccer as a kid, and my general attitude was “If i get to the ball, cool, if not…also cool”. I’m pretty sure I showed up for the donut I got when the game was over.

I have never been in competition with anyone but myself. That used to kill me in the CrossFit community because it’s all about competition and I never could bring myself to care. Even when people were taunting me that I didn’t lift as heavy or finish the workout as fast.

My reaction, albeit not a well received one, was “ok cool. Did you get a metal for your performance? Like what did that provide for you?”

I truly don’t care if you outperform me, even now as a professional in the fitness industry. That’s cool. Get yours. Considering we’re all different, we have different body types and muscle composition, I KNOW people will always be able to outperform me.

Start Right Now

All I ever want is to do my best and show up for myself every single time.

When I went into the fitness industry, that aspect of competition was the part that bothered me the most. Some of that stems from my injury and the knowledge that my body’s capabilities are different than the person next to me. That knowledge extends past my own body’s capabilities to everyone I train.

To me, there is no point in being competitive with the person next to you because you’re two completely different people. You’re at a different point in your journey with wellness and fitness, you have different goals, and you’re also approaching your journey from completely different starting points.

That competitive spirit when extended towards someone else will only set you up for potential failure because you feel like you fell short, and then you feel discouraged as a result.

But it’s in our nature to look at the people around us, to be inquisitive as to their performance, and to compare what they are doing to what you are doing.

The challenge then becomes turning on your blinders so you can focus on you and your body, your goals and NOT the person next to you.

Here’s my Top 3 Tips to Staying Focused on Your Goals and not what the person next to you is doing during your workout 🏋️‍♀️:

1. Applaud the person next to you instead of wishing you could do what they were just doing. They’re kick ass and so are you AND you both are doing something that is good for your bodies. Celebrate that instead of being disappointed that you can’t do what they just did.

2. Remind yourself that everyone is on a different journey. Your WHY for working out is totally different from the person next to you and so is where you’re at on your individual journeys.

3. Celebrate 🎉 ALL the victories. Even the small and seemingly mundane ones. You got off your ass and did a workout on a day you literally would’ve rather been doing anything else? That’s winning girl. That’s creating all those heathy habits that will lead you to change.

Change is Hard

The change I’m proposing you make is the harder one.

When I started A Healthful Life, I had a nightmare of a time figuring out how to convey to people that I wanted to create custom tailored programs for them to find THEIR health. In a way that would last.

When I got hurt, I was really blessed to have a group of people advocating for my health and encouraging me to think about how I wanted my health to look over the longevity of my life. 

This is the difference between you and me: I don’t approach fitness from the standpoint that this is a 30 day and done program. I don’t view this as a temporary aspect of my life. I don’t see this as something I can “take a break from” or let up on.

I know that if I let my workouts go, if I let my eating go, my health will immediately go and I will know that because chronic pain will absolutely debilitate me. I know the potential consequences are not worth the risk.

However, I also know that most people don’t approach health in the same way as me. We, as a fitness industry, have established a standard of the quick fix with no road map of how to maintain the results you achieved.

Meeting someone where they’re at and creating change in a realistic way turned out to be the easy part. The hard part was getting the person on board with the change taking longer than what they wanted.

It means being patient and it means being willing to fail. You have to be willing to try things, see how they work and change them when they don’t. Which means you can’t beat yourself up when you try something and it doesn’t work, you have to be flexible and adaptable to try something different.

I get the appeal of the fast change. The instantaneous results. You want that fast result because you’ve taken so long to change that by now, you wanted that change like yesterday. You don’t want to take the time to make change that will last for the long term. It’s the “I just need to lose 15 pounds” but not thinking past what happens AFTER you lose 15 pounds. 

What I teach is not the temporary, rigid, give up your whole life change just to drop a few pounds. It’s the change that will teach you how to effectively incorporate healthy habits into your life, so you feel like you have balance and you’re not deprived of the things you love.

So you feel like you’re thriving and not surviving.

So you don’t make a drastic change just to lose it a year later when you permanently fall off the wagon, because you gave up too much and couldn’t take it.

I want you to know health as just life. Not a sacrifice, not an inconvenience, but just how you live your life. Healthy, sustainable change means taking the long road. It means trial and error to find what truly works the best for you, and being able to have the skills necessary to make changes when your life changes.

Bye Bye Distractions

If you’re gonna take time to workout you gotta tell all those distractions to step back. 

We all have the distractions. Those things that pull us from every angle, be them in our mind or our environment. Wow 😳 sacrificing a workout comes so easily when a distraction gets in the way. 

How do I mitigate the distractions?

Here’s My Top 3 Ways:

1. I put my phone on do not disturb and then I put it in a different area from where I’m working out 🏋🏼‍♀️. Because if it’s just on silent, I’ll hear the vibration of a call or text come through. Not to worry though: the people who are saved in your favorites are the only calls that can pass through the do not disturb setting. So you won’t have to worry about missing an emergency.

2. I make sure my distractions are set up with their OWN distractions. Dogs 🐶 with bones, kiddo with something that can keep her busy, you know the things that will keep those physical distractions at bay even if it’s not for the longest period of time. Use them.

3. I tidy up 🧹 before I workout. One of my biggest distractions is seeing clutter in my space or something that needs to be cleaned 🧼 when I go to workout. So I make sure I either workout in a completely different room or I give myself 5 minutes (with a timer so I don’t get distracted) to get it organized before I get going.

Grab Your Dumbbells!

$0.00

Snack Time

I don’t play in my snack game. 

I mean I’m Italian and I’m an athlete, food is no joke in my life. My grandpa seriously used to take those root beer barrel candies from Claim Jumper’s just to have snacks in his car. 

I love snacks. I’m a perpetual snacker. So needless to say I’m serious about the snacks in my house and the snacks that go on the road with me. 

Over time I grew to understand that being serious about my snack game meant I had to prep my snack game. Because given the opportunity to grab whatever was available, I would GRAB WHATEVER. Even if it meant making an unhealthy decision that would cause regression on my progress towards my weight loss. 

I do realize this means taking time out of your already busy schedule to prep snacks. At first thought you’re probably thinking that my idea behind prepping snacks is cute but not realistic. I’m here to tell you it was a hot mess at first. I had to play around with my schedule to figure out how I could incorporate this level of prep in my life without losing my mind. 

So I started prepping snacks when I was making dinner. I mean I was in the kitchen anyways so I might as well right? Then I made sure to make the snack easy without a lot of prep or cook time involved. 

My go to weekly snack? Hummus. It goes with just about everything, it’s easy to make, and travels well. 

Grab the recipe for yourself!

I Don't Have Time for That

I do NOT have time to make lunches 🥙 in the morning. 

I give a LOT of credit to the parents who do. Our mornings don’t allow for that luxury. Most of the time I feel like I’ve been shot out of a canon just trying to make sure everyone is handled at on time-ish to school and work. 

In fairness, it’s my own fault. I like sleep so I prioritize that over making lunches. I would rather have the extra 10 minutes of sleep. 

Generally this means prepping lunches the night before when I’m making dinner. 

My other work around? I have stuff prepped and ready to go in the fridge that’s easy to make, healthy, and will hold up in my fridge for the week. 

Here’s one of my favorites!

I Love Chocolate

I’m not doing any diet that has me cutting out wine 🍷 or chocolate 🍫. 

Hold on, imagine my sing song voice…FUCCKKKKK that. Life is too short to be lived without some of the simpler pleasures especially when we’re all adulting like it’s a professional sport. So shit, if I want to have a glass of wine at the end of a crazy day with my hubby, whist enjoying our gorgeous view and catching up on our days, I’m going to.

I know that every single fitness expert says that abs are made in the kitchen and blah blah and I am NOT at all in disagreement with that sentiment. But I do feel like what people need as a result is a healthy relationship with food 🥘 so they know they can enjoy life but in moderation.

Yes I am saying that means you don’t eat chips and salsa at the restaurant until you pass out or feel so full that someone could roll you out of the front door of said restaurant.

It’s definitely an easier said than done sort of thing though and it definitely is directly impacted by how badly you want the goals you’ve set out to get.

When you want that goal so badly you can taste it, all of a sudden some of those other things don’t seem to matter as much.

But if you need that support, that guidance or for someone to be that voice in the back of your brain asking if you really need that WHOLE bag of cookies, I got you.

Slow Cooker Recipes for the Mama Who Hates to Cook

$2.99

I Will Not Weigh My Food

Don’t ask me to weigh my food 🥘.

I’m kidding. But I will totally refuse.

I’m not a proponent of making super restrictive or insane dietary changes, unless medically necessary, when I coach someone because I know our relationship with food can be a tough one. 

We have this idea that in order to be “healthy”, we can’t have the things that we love. The occasional chips and salsa indulgence, a glass of wine with girlfriends, or some chocolate. We also think we have to calorically restrict ourselves to the point of deprivation.

The human body, and more importantly, the human mind is much more complicated than that. But the solution I want you to find is the harder one to obtain.

If you don’t have a healthy relationship with food you’re not going to get the transformation you want. All those things you restricted with your food will be for nothing because as soon as you stop, all the progress you made will totally stop.

I want to take the food you love 💕, the food your family loves and give you the transformation you want. 

Which means we have to examine your relationship with food as a whole, why you’re making the choices you’re making when it comes to what you get, and the appropriateness of those choices. It also means that at the end of it, you’ll be able to make choices about your food with  confidence, instead of beating yourself up for those choices.

Go To Dinner Recipes

$0.00

I Never Thought I Would Look This Way

I’m smaller now and have more lean muscle than when I was in college and in the military. 

Isn’t that crazy? I went to go try on jeans at my favorite store, TJ Maxx and I realized holy fucking shit I’m in a size 6. I haven’t been that small EVER. I could only ever get to a size 8 and I could never hold onto it. 

Like look, I long ago accepted the fact that I have an athletic build and inner thighs that will always touch and a booty and I’m good with it. I like that I’m strong, I like that I look strong and most importantly I like that I feel strong.

I just was a little shocked by this revelation. Partly because I don’t own a scale so I have NO idea how much I weight and partly because I never buy clothes that aren’t workout related so I had ZERO idea what size I was even in.

And you know what? I still drink wine and eat chocolate. Know what else? I won’t cut either of those or whiskey out unless I have a medical necessity to do so.

You know how I got to this point of being smaller at 35 than when I was 20?

Healthy decisions 95% of the time. I wish it was more complicated, like I was delivering to you the location of the Fountain of Youth but it’s not. It’s that simple.

Healthy decisions. Healthy decisions when it comes to what I shove in my face, healthy decisions when I comes to how I move my body and healthy decisions when it comes to where my head is at.

I’ve tweaked things that didn’t work, I’ve changed up things that weren’t giving me a result and as a result of those changes, I’ve seen changes. I’m totally here for it.

Not just because I feel amazing but also because I know that the healthier I am, the happier I am, thus the more effectively I can serve my community and the better off my life will be in the long run.

I’ll still eat my pizza, sometimes with a cauliflower crust, sometimes not, but I won’t beat myself up either way because I know that regardless I’m making the right choice the majority of the time.