Working Out At Home

Here’s the difference between working out at home and working out at a gym: 

At a gym, the people around you hold you accountable. You have the person next to you who you can silently compete with, you have the friend in the class who makes sure you’re going to be there, and you have a community.

That community gives you energy, it motivates you to show up, and gets you excited (even on the smallest level) to do the work.

At home, YOU have to hold YOU accountable. 

That is such a hard thing for people. Myself included. When I started working out at home after I had my daughter, it was SO hard to stay motivated. I missed the energy of the class, not the competitive nature, but just being around other people and having them join me in getting stronger.

It made it super easy for me to quit on an interval when I only had a few seconds left, or skip an exercise because I didn’t want to do it.

When I started noticing that I was doing that, I seriously checked myself. Granted, things didn’t change overnight, but I started reflecting on why I would waste my own time when my time was so limited.

Knowing that I didn’t have a lot of time to workout, I gradually stopped half asking my work. I started becoming competitive with myself. I started drawing inward to find the motivation I needed to keep pushing so I could become stronger.

It wasn’t always cute and definitely wasn’t comfortable, but over time, I began to rely on myself for my own accountability instead of the people around me.

How will you show up when no one else is watching?

Grab Your Dumbbells!

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Grab the workout below to show yourself your strength.

Pyramid AMRAP

5 minutes

Start with 2 reps of each exercise

Increase by 2 reps on each exercise until the 5 minute mark

Rest for one minute

Start where you left off, and work back down to 2 reps of each exercise

Reverse fly

Hang clean

Reverse lunges

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.

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

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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

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Whatcha Gonna Do?

I’m not insensitive. 

I just know this is an opportunity so it is what you make of it.

Being able to wake up ☀️, move your body, and create your own healthy lifestyle is a GIFT 🎁.

I never looked at being healthy in that light until I got hurt and the opportunity was taken from me. 

Now I know that even on my worst and unmotivated days, it’s still a chance to give to myself and take care of myself. That might mean taking things down a notch if it doesn’t work for me that day, or even going extra hard because I can. 

Either way, I don’t look at the choices I’m making as an inconvenience or an obstacle. I look at it as a chance to give to myself, to take care of myself when my time is valuable and my days are busy. 

I know when I have those opportunities, big or small, that I need to take advantage of them so I can serve the community around me in a bigger way. 

Instead of thinking of working out and being healthy as an obstacle or a struggle, find the part of it you love the most and focus on that especially during the times you don’t want to try. 

Find that positive aspect of your healthy choices and hone in on those. Put those choices and how much better you feel on repeat. Create the gift for yourself and then continue to give it to yourself. 

Be proud of your progress

Be proud of your progress. 

We have this habit of getting caught up with what the end goal will look like and anything less than that isn’t good enough. As a coach, seeing this line of thinking in action makes me sad. We let that negative narrative invade our thoughts and it impedes our progress because our best will never be good enough.

I have never seen people be so negative or so critical of themselves than when they are in my space. That talk has no place with me. That talk is the kind of talk we get rid of FAST when we work together. 

Being healthy, for me, is about the journey not the destination. Mostly because the destination continually moves. Every time I hit a goal, I re-evaluate and give myself another goal. So this journey to being healthy, having balance and getting strong is ever evolving. As it should right? Because I am ever evolving and growing.

The last thing you need when you’re actively trying to do what’s best for you so you can give to others is to criticize your effort. Workouts will never be perfect, days are going to get the best of you, eating healthy can be frustrating AF sometimes, and you’re going to fall off the wagon with it ALL. But that does not mean you should start talking shit about yourself. If you go down that road, it’s going to be even harder for you to reincorporate those healthy habits. You’re self sabotaging. Knock it off.

When that ever evolving aspect becomes your health journey, you have to focus on the progress you’ve made, not where you think you should be. Go and write down 10 things you’ve accomplished for yourself on this journey that you never thought possible. Oh I’m not kidding Boo. Go and do it. And refer back to that list, add to that list, and remind yourself that you’re doing more than most people will do all day, all week, all year.

Think back to that first day you took control or took back control of your health and how much you’ve accomplished since that day.

Don’t discount that hard work and effort. Celebrate it and look forward to all your next steps.

How Badly Do You Want the Challenge?

Training for me is badass because I get to see more than just the physical transformation of a person. Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing ole hit their weight loss goals, or get their body to the point of strength and capability where they can do things they didn’t think would ever happen. It’s amazing, it creates joy in my life because I’ve empowered someone to step outside of their comfort zone and into a more authentic version of themselves. 

But that physical transformation doesn’t just happen on its own and the more rewarding transformation for me is the internal transformation. 

We live in a society that’s very aware of the power of eating healthy and moving your body, but the reality is that most people half ass that effort. They’ll come in, they’ll workout but really it’s not their best effort. They’ll eat well but fail when it comes to eating well consistently. 

I don’t need to tell you what you NEED to do, I get to hold you accountable for what you know you should be doing. 

While I’m doing that with you, I’m waiting for that moment. I see it happen, gradually at first and then completely suddenly when you go from that half ass effort to the everything you’ve got to give effort. 

That transformation...I LIVE for that shit. In that moment everything about your energy and your aura changes. The confidence you exude is palpable. I know nothing will stand in your way and nothing I give you will be too much. 

Gone are the excuses and in its place is this inherent knowledge that you’re capable and deserving of actually achieving the goals you’ve set. You want the challenge because you know it won’t actually be that hard, and you know the change will be completely worth it in the end.