Unlock Your Fitness Potential: Discover the Secrets to Achieving Your Health Goals

In today's fast-paced world, staying fit and maintaining a healthy lifestyle is more important than ever. As we strive to strike a balance between work and personal life, it's essential to prioritize our well-being. If you're ready to take charge of your fitness journey, you've come to the right place. In this blog post, we will explore some powerful strategies to help you unlock your fitness potential and achieve your health goals.

1. Set S.M.A.R.T. Goals: Begin your fitness journey by setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals. Whether it's losing weight, gaining muscle, or improving overall endurance, having a clear objective will keep you motivated and focused.

2. Embrace a Holistic Approach: Fitness isn't just about hitting the gym; it's a way of life. To maximize your results, adopt a holistic approach that encompasses nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress management. By fueling your body with nutritious food, engaging in regular physical activity, getting adequate sleep, and finding healthy ways to manage stress, you'll create a solid foundation for your fitness journey.

3. Find Your Fitness Passion: Exercise doesn't have to be a chore. Discover activities that you genuinely enjoy and make them a part of your routine. Whether it's dancing, cycling, swimming, or practicing yoga, finding your fitness passion will make it easier to stay consistent and enjoy the process.

4. Consistency is Key: The key to success in any fitness endeavor is consistency. Set a realistic schedule and stick to it. Regular exercise and healthy habits will yield long-term results, while sporadic efforts will leave you feeling frustrated. Remember, small steps taken consistently will take you much further than occasional big leaps.

5. Track Your Progress: Keep a record of your workouts, measurements, and achievements. Tracking your progress not only helps you stay accountable but also allows you to celebrate milestones along the way. Consider using a fitness app or a journal to monitor your performance and witness the incredible transformations that take place over time.

6. Seek Professional Guidance: If you're new to fitness or struggling to reach your goals, seeking guidance from a qualified fitness professional can make a world of difference. Personal trainers, nutritionists, or fitness coaches possess the knowledge and experience to design personalized plans tailored to your unique needs and objectives.

7. Stay Motivated: Fitness journeys can have ups and downs, but maintaining motivation is crucial. Surround yourself with positive influences, join fitness communities, or find an accountability partner. Additionally, incorporating rewards, setting new challenges, and visualizing your future self can fuel your determination and help you push through difficult times.

8. Prioritize Rest and Recovery: Rest days are as essential as workout days. Your body needs time to repair and rebuild. Overtraining can lead to burnout and injuries, hindering your progress. Listen to your body, get enough sleep, and indulge in activities that promote relaxation, such as stretching, foam rolling, or meditation.

9. Embrace a Growth Mindset: Remember that fitness is

Check Your Vibe

Working out at home is a M A J O R vibe check.

I think it’s harder than working out at a gym. 

I understand when people tell me as much as they would like to workout at home, they know they won’t be able to be consistent with an at home workout program.

They like the gym vibe, they like the routine of going to the gym, they like getting the energy from the people around them as a means of motivation for their own workout, and mostly, they like that going to the gym gets them into a different environment to workout.

I get that vibe because I’ve needed that vibe as well. I’ve belonged to numerous gyms and I know the energy you can get from just stepping into that environment. 

When I first had my daughter, that gym environment was not conducive to life as a new mom, and I needed to figure out something to make sure I was taking care of myself. We didn’t have the home environment where I would be guaranteed time to go to the gym by myself everyday, and with the constant changing of our routine due to having a newborn, even if we had that flexibility as a family, it wouldn’t have worked.

Then we went through this phase where going to a gym with a daycare was a necessity of life. I needed to have that space and time to myself where I knew I had dedicated time to workout that wouldn’t be interrupted.

Life changed again though, and soon that gym environment didn’t work for my household. The hours of the daycare at the gym didn’t work for our family, and luckily my daughter was a little older and could be more easily distracted during the workout.

But then I have to make sure I’m not getting distracted during the workout by looking at all the distractions around my house.

Because your laundry is literally staring at you from across the room whereas at the gym, you can push it out of your head. You’re not getting interrupted every 5 seconds by someone who all of a sudden needs something, even though they didn’t right before you started working out. Shoot, even seeing the dog fur float around on the floor can be a total mind game.

When you workout at home, you have to figure out how to get that energy without the gym environment, as well as how to push those distractions out of your visual and mental space so you don’t get diverted from your workout.

I know it’s possible, but I know it takes time and ultimately the intrinsic motivation to WANT to workout. I know you’re choosing this option because logistically speaking, it’s going to be easier for your life.

It takes some getting used to. Like anything else, it takes patience and practice to get used to how this new aspect of your routine will work within your life and schedule.

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Here’s my Top 3 Tips to Adjusting to At Home Workouts:

1. I did a TON of HIIT workouts 🏋️‍♀️ . They’re short and they move fast. Less transitions = less time to get distracted.

2. I put an alarm in my phone 📱 for my workout time. Like I was going to a class without leaving my house 🏠.

3. I used a heart 💜 rate monitor. I know it sounds off the wall, but the monitor gave me accountability to keep moving and not stop my workout short or half ass it.

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5 Tips on How to Stay Active As A Stay At Home Mom

Hats off to all my mamas. I see how hard you’re working often at the sacrifice of your own wellbeing in order to ensure you’re not raising hellions. But dang that struggle can be so real…to find time to do something for yourself especially when you’re entertaining a circus all day long. 

Add in the frustration of trying to drop those last 5 pounds of baby weight, without feeling like you ever have time to hit the gym and I’m guessing you’ve really had days where you want to pound your head against a wall.

Here’s what I did to stay active so even on the days when working out fell by the waist side, I still felt like I did something to move my body:

• I stayed accountable. I asked the people around me who knew my frustrations to hold me to the fire when I started making excuses around why I couldn’t do workout and I asked for their support in helping me make the time to be able to workout.

• I included Grace. Sure we did the Mommy and Me classes, but I also worked out from home and often in my backyard so she could run around like a maniac.

• I went for a LOT of walks and hikes. Poor Sully. This is probably the main reason why my poor Corgi hates to walk now.

• I took the stairs. I didn’t want to but I did. Or I parked far away from the front of the store and walked in.

• I lived in my athletic gear. Not only because it was more comfortable and the prospect of wearing jeans made me want to cry but it left me with no excuse except to workout when all of a sudden I had 20 minutes and COULD work out.

10 Best Exercises For Women With No Equipment

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to have this massive in home gym to get you body in shape or even belong to some fancy pants gym that charges you a bajillion dollars, but you’re low key not even sure how to work most of the equipment. 

All you need is you. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of cross training, I’m a proponent of moving resistance in the form of additional weight because all of those things will benefit your body as well and not just in the immediate. When we think of the longevity of our lives and what quality we want that life to be, we need to take care of the body we have, so yes girl you need to be doing different modalities of fitness. In the long run, for a variety of reasons, this will pay off for your overall health and well being.

But in the immediate, when you are maybe learning what you’re doing, maybe you’re intimidated by the prospect of walking into a huge gym, or maybe you just don’t have time right now to go to the gym, there’s still options.

That option my friend, is you. Your body is perfectly equipped as it is to make you sweat, to burn calories, to keep your forward momentum to your weight loss and healthy living goals. You just have to know how to use it. 

Before we get into the exercises I regularly turn to so I make sure I move my body, I want to provide this disclaimer: I know you can YouTube everything under the sun and you should if there’s an exercise that you’re not familiar with because it’ll give you a basic idea. But if you want a solid breakdown of not just how to do the exercise correctly, but also whether or not YOU are doing it correctly, working with a coach is key. You might be busting out reps on an exercise and thinking that you’re totally kicking ass, only to come to find out that you’ve been doing it incorrectly for next to forever and potentially putting yourself in a place where you can cause injury. In that same thought, you could be doing an exercise, it could feel funky and totally off, and you might have NO idea how to fix whatever it is that you’re doing.

Don’t go at this alone. Ask advice, throw your questions to your coach (hey that’s me!), make sure you’re doing things correctly. It’s worth it in the long run.

Now that my safety speech is out of the way here’s what I do:

• Squats

• Burpees

• Push ups

• Lunges (forward, backward, lateral)

• High knees

• Butt kickers

• Heisman

• Mountain climbers

• Side planks

• Planks

How To Workout When You're Tired AF and Totally Unfocused

I got to that point in my post partum journey where I literally couldn’t find pants that fit comfortably. It was the most discouraging feeling in the world. 

I knew I needed to workout but the prospect of moving my body as a new mama to a kid who apparently hated sleep exhausted me even more than I was already exhausted. It was a daunting prospect.

But here’s the thing: as long as you’re moving your body, and increasing your heart rate you’re going to burn calories. So on the days when you’re tired af, don’t focus on WHAT you’re doing, focus on just DOING.

Here’s my pro tip for how to workout when you’re exhausted:

Listen to your body. It’s really that simple. Be kind to yourself. Our bodies go through such a tremendous amount of change when we’re growing our families. We tend to forget that this change happens LONG before the baby actually shows up in our arms.

Don’t worry I won’t get all science nerd on ya, but rest assured between physical and hormonal changes that occur while you’re pregnant, your body has been through the ringer before you even go into labor.

Then regardless of whether or not your labor goes “smoothly” (OMG biggest laugh ever…smooth labor…I mean a watermelon coming out of THAT is definitely something you’re going to feel) you’ve still experienced a trauma. While it is a beautiful, transformative, life creating experience, it is still a trauma. And even though our bodies were designed to be able to create, carry and deliver life, it’s still a process with its own hormonal releases and physical changes. 

And THEN you start breastfeeding which is a whole other game of hormonal and physical changes.

Here’s my point to this long winded reflection down memory lane. Your body has gone through a lot and if you’re still relatively early in your post partum journey, your body is still going through a lot. Not to mention that you’re attempting to teach a small human how to sleep, eat and all of those things. 

I think of all those things, I think back to when I experienced all those things (with a colicky baby) and I was tired AS FUCK. I’ve never been that tired before, not even when I was in the Army did I EVER FEEL THAT TIRED. Bone sucking, mentally ass kicking exhaustion. It’s the kind of tired that you can’t even explain to another human. It’s that unrelatable.

So I can imagine that the prospect of working out makes you want to kick people in the shins. Conversely you feel like you have to because you’re just so sick of seeing that flab that makes you look like you’re in the not so cute stages of pregnancy (when it looked like you just ate too much) so you feel like you have to workout. Talk about a shitty catch-22.

Listen to your body. Be patient. Be kind. Know that these changes that happened in your body took almost a full year to occur so give yourself TIME to heal and TIME to get back to a healthy state. Focus on the things you can control. Like eating healthy food.

When you go to workout, do the workouts that sound the most appealing in that second of time. I always had a workout and a contingency plan. The reason being two fold: first I could have options if I was so tired I couldn’t see straight AND I needed a back up in case things around me went to shit.

I always had the hardcore, super intense workout. This was normally something HIIT, or longer endurance workouts that I knew would kick my ass. Then my back up was always the gentler option. Yoga, mat pilates, resistance training, stretch days, things that were kinder to my body.

On days when I needed to, I did the gentler workouts and celebrated the fact that I could still move my body and on the days when Grace wasn’t partying like an out of control rockstar, I did the more intense workouts. On days that went so amazingly well I had to pinch myself, I did both (those days were rare in my house).

Regardless, I was doing the work and what mattered more is that I was doing the work consistently. I could focus because the workout was what I needed, I felt better after, and I knew that I was still on my way back to feeling like myself again.

What Do You Tell Yourself?

Working out can be so damn frustrating. Look I’m just calling it like I see it. There are some days when holy crap the workout doesn’t work out at all. Maybe you slept wrong, maybe you didn’t have breakfast or coffee, maybe your kids are interrupting you or the dog is being a pain in the ass...regardless there’s gonna be days when your workout will lead to more frustration than release. 

That was my workout this morning. I knew I was pressed for time, but I needed to move my body. So I grabbed one of my quick workouts from the YouTube channel and attempted to get to work. Only to be interrupted like 5 million times (I’m exaggerating but you feel my pain) by my freaking dogs. Like why do you have to wrestle on TOP of my mat??!

But then I checked myself. Like hard. Because I don’t mind a workout getting hard, I know it will and it should, but I definitely mind getting distracted when I workout. Here’s the thing though: it’s still better than not doing anything or not being ABLE to do anything. 

I started thinking back to the days when I first got hurt, when I was doing bicep curls in a bed because I couldn’t walk, and I started thinking about how far I’ve come. It brought me to tears. When I was knee deep in my injury, when my body was wrecked after I had Grace, I never thought I would be able to move my body in the way I can now. Seriously sometimes I even surprise myself. 

I started thinking that every workout I do, every time I move my body, it’s an opportunity for me to show myself of my capabilities. Even if the workout doesn’t go as planned, even if I’m frustrated, it’s still a reflection of how far I’ve come. It’s still an opportunity for me to show up for myself. That makes even the shittiest workout worth it to me. 

We all know that parenthood and incorporating healthy living into it won’t go as planned. That’s the best lesson I’ve ever learned as a parent, the art of being flexible and patient, and now I know that it all starts in my head and if I can look at things from a different perspective, it makes all the work worth it. 

So when the workout gets frustrating, regardless of why, I want you to focus on how far you’ve come, how much you’ve shown up for yourself and how proud of yourself you should be. Let those thoughts give you power and motivation to finish STRONG.

What Do You Need Today?

Some days I just need to slow down. I know you know that feeling. When your body is literally telling you to stop and take a breath because you’ve been going a mile a minute with no end in sight. I mean I get it, life is crazy and there’s always something that needs to get done or something that needs to be taken care of for someone.

I’m not saying that taking a break means that you neglect your responsibilities. Far from it. I’m saying that taking a break needs to be an opportunity for you to rejuvenate.

With self-care being the hotness, I feel like people everywhere are toting this verbiage of doing what’s the best for you. To me, that’s not what self-care means.

Back in the day, I couldn’t give myself a break even if I tried. When I was really active in CrossFit, and then again post baby when I was trying my hardest to lose weight and feel good again, the thought of taking time off was non-existent. It was one of those ‘well that’ll be a nice thing to have in the future when I’ve reached my goals’ kind of thought.

I let my ego get in the way, along with my pride. I felt like taking a break meant I was weak or that I didn’t take the goals I set for myself as seriously as other people took their goals. Like one day off would circumvent any progress I had made. 

I realize that sounds a little ridiculous but that’s where my head was at. Like I didn’t deserve to take a second to myself, I had to do everything by myself AND I still had to workout like a fiend so I could hit my fitness goals. I was lucky because I didn’t hit burn out. Most people do. That kind of pace isn’t sustainable nor is it realistic for the majority of the population.

But you know what happened? I didn’t have some major epiphany or some major meltdown (thank GOD), but I started regressing. Not giving my body the rest it needed, meant that my body couldn’t perform in the manner I wanted it to because I was too exhausted. The feedback I received from my body was to stop if I wanted to get stronger. Take a break if I wanted to see change.

I could spout off all this stuff about how I had to let go of my ego and my pride, I had to do the work to realize that I was worth the break, my body deserved the rest and all that stuff. But I won’t. I won’t because that wasn’t how it happened. I had to give myself the rest because I was getting frustrated that I wasn’t performing to the degree I wanted to, and I had to let that rest show me that it wasn’t going to undo the progress I already made. After I saw that taking a break was not going to undo everything I had already done, that I actually felt better, then I started to do all that internal work (with the help of a coach).

This is why when I coach, I encourage my clients to listen to what their bodies are telling them. Know that there is always an option that will work the best for you and it doesn’t have to be what everyone else is doing. Learn the difference between doing what you want and doing what you need, and take ownership in doing what you need. There’s power in listening to what you need to maintain a healthy lifestyle. So when you want to go hard, go for it but when you need to slow down, go for that too.

The Practical Side of Healthy Living

Ok let’s get off of this mindset stuff for a hot second. I definitely realize the importance of it. Don’t get me wrong, when people talk about achieving healthy living as a lifestyle choice, mindset is the majority of the battle. It seems insignificant but really it’s huge. Because if your mind isn’t right, you’re not going to feel ok with making the decision to have self-care, you won’t feel right exercising, and it’ll be way easier to fall into the excuses trap then it will be to do the work.

I’m sure we’ll get back to that topic soon. I’m already thinking of stuff while I write this post in fact.

But I wanted this post to be more about the practicality of healthy living. I think a lot of people think that having a healthy lifestyle is super hard, it’s expensive or really time consuming. They’re comparing their journey unfairly to the famous person or influencer in social media who has a personal trainer coming to their house on the daily, and has a private chef. For the majority of the population, this isn’t how healthy living gets achieved. I mean girl if your goal is to have a private chef, I’m SO here for that. In fact, just plan on inviting me over for dinner ok?

I’m all about how it will work from a logistical standpoint, but I’m like that with most of my life. When you get hurt and you’re wheel chair bound, you begin to look at life like the game of Tetris. Like how are all these things going to fit together? How will I move through this activity to the next, what will I need, that sort of thing. 

That line of thinking for me was only reinforced when I had a baby and had to think about all the things that could happen once we left the house. It’s like contingency plans on contingency plans, constantly trying to mitigate any risk or pain in the ass complicated situation you can come up with.

Obviously I’m a planner as a result and that extends to healthy living. I can’t second guess this stuff. Partly because I don’t have the time and partly because I know if I don’t have a plan, that’s when the bad decisions are made. So I plan. Not crazy but I definitely do plan.

Part of that means planning out what my family will have for dinner during the week. So ya that does mean taking an hour of my time, usually while I watch Grey’s Anatomy (you’re welcome), and coming up with recipes, or taking note of recipes I want to cook that week and making the corresponding grocery list from there. I’ve taken it a step further recently to include what snacks we will be having as well, and including those ingredients on my list. It just takes the thought out of it. I know what options I have for dinner, sometimes I pre-plan to the day if I know I’ll be out at night, and I know I have everything I need already in my house. 

The other thing I plan are my workouts. This is a little more challenging because some of my workouts are planning for classes I teach or people I train privately, and some workouts are for my head more than my body (like yoga), and some workouts are just to sweat. But even then I know what is going to happen each day for that workout and I have it in my calendar. I have the time blocked out and I also have a back up workout just in case my original plan doesn’t work out. Working out because it happens more often than me going grocery shopping needs more options, more flexibility and more patience on my part. Because life is going to happen and things will change, but ultimately if I can get my workout handled at some point during the day, then all is good.

I’m not the type to stress buying this thing or that, or for a person to do this kind of exercise or that, but I do believe that we all deserve to feel our best. If taking an hour out of your day once a week and doing those things means I’ll feel better in the long run then for me, it’s an hour well spent.

I'm Gonna Go There

Ok I’m going to go there. Some of you might not like this one, so fair warning with it, but I feel like with all I talk in regards to healthy living and balance, it’s worth addressing. Obviously I’m a huge proponent in having a coach to help support you and guide you when it comes to meeting the goals you’ve set for yourself in regards to healthy living. Maybe it is a balance issue, maybe you’re wanting to lose weight, whatever your end game is, a coach is for sure beneficial. A coach is 1000% (yes there’s an extra zero there) that person who can look at your life and tell you where to make changes so you can get the results you’re craving. A coach is that outside person who can call you on your bullshit as well. Because we all have excuses that hold us back. Coaches are invaluable, shoot I have a coach and will always have a coach. I need my person to tell me when I’m full of it, but also cheer me on when I do something well.

Here’s the thing though: even with a coach, at the end of the day girl it’s all on you. It’s still ultimately your choice as far as what you are going to do to get better. I’ve had this tremendous opportunity in my life to be a coach to all kinds of people. I’ve had the opportunity to work with all kinds of injuries, all different stages of life, all different goals and many different priorities. It’s been the best experience of my life to play a role in strengthening the individuals around me.

But ultimately it’s not even me doing anything. I mean obviously I have tools in my tool box that you don’t have, that’s just the nature of the beast. I’ll share everything I have, every tool, every piece of knowledge I’ve gained over all these years of experience. I’m more than happy to pay all of this forward. I mean after all, I’m doing nothing if I’m sitting on all of this knowledge and not sharing it with the people around me.  

Even then, it’s still all on you. Because if you’re not willing to show up for yourself, if you’re not willing to commit to yourself, then nothing will change. You won’t see anything improve or have any kind of transformation because you haven’t taken any action. It’s not some like magical thing that will just happen through osmosis. You still have to do the work.

A lot of the time doing the work is more than just doing the exercises and eating well. Doing the work is understanding what’s holding you back from taking action in the first place. It’s scary to learn about that aspect of yourself. To learn what your excuses are and why you have them in the first place, and then work through them. I mean dang girl, it can for sure take you to some unexplored areas of your mind but in the end it’s worth it.

In the end, it makes doing the work a whole hell of a lot easier. It makes taking action towards achieving your goals that much simpler. The work won’t seem as daunting, your coach won’t seem as annoying, and you’ll be able to find motivation you didn’t know you had.

Sophrosyne

I talked about this on a live last month, and I’ve posted about in on IG (oh the Gram), but I felt like it was worthwhile to expand upon in here too. Only because so many people have contacted me about this whole concept of sophrosyne.

I know. Fancy. I’m not one for fancy words but I’m totally one to geek out on concepts that are so applicable to all people all of the time. And the Greeks are super smart with ideas that were applicable back then and now as well.

Basically the idea of sophrosyne is the idea of moderation. It’s knowing what you need verses what you want, and how you create a healthy lifestyle around that difference. It’s that idea that once you know why you over indulge on something, you’ll be able to make a different decision because you’ll understand why you’re making that decision in the first place.

I think when most of us are presented with this idea, we think about either what we’re eating or our fitness. It makes sense to me that our minds would go to those two things because those are two things that are directly correlated with healthy living that can be quickly screwed up when it comes to healthy living. 

But doing that deep dive to understand why you’re reaching for the second piece of cake when you don’t really NEED it, or why you’re working out 4 hours a day when really 1 hour would suffice is hard. It means looking at aspects of yourself that maybe aren’t the most flattering or working through things that have happened in your life that maybe aren’t the prettiest.

It means you have to get uncomfortable. I mean right? Addressing these issues makes us have some icky feelings below the neck. Maybe our chest feels tight, maybe our breathing changes or we get clamy hands or all of those things happen at once. It’s uncomfortable, it’s hard, it makes us cry, it pisses us off but it’s so freaking necessary.

Not just for your growth and development as a human so you can be a better member of the community around you, but also for your own self worth and self love. It’s so you know when you go out to dinner and opt for the decadent mac n cheese instead of the salad that you won’t be beating yourself up about it later. It’s also knowing that you don’t need to finish the dish when you feel full. For me, it was giving myself rest days when I was actively trying to lose weight so my body could recover and embracing those rest days. Like going into true and full sloth mode and loving it because before I would berate myself for not working hard enough. I thought it would set me back and I would never lose the weight.

Healthy living really is about not just the choices you are making for yourself but also how you feel about those choices. Every choice. Down to your midnight snack choice. It’s knowing what serves you and what is a disservice to you and it’s being ok with those things. Because having a healthy lifestyle doesn’t mean you cut out all those things that you’ve loved before (like your lazy days), but it’s having the reassurance in yourself that those are not things you need to survive. That you can have some of all the things and be happy.