Can I Just Get 5 Minutes by Myself PLEASE?

In fairness, most of the time I make this comment out loud to the dog who is my constant shadow, and not my human.

I mean I’m not complaining…but…GOOD LAWD #momlife is a lot.

I am an introvert by nature. Well a socialized introvert. I realize I can’t live my life by myself and I need to be around people to adult effectively. 

I knew when I became a mom that I would basically have someone on me all the time. I read all the articles about moms having over stimulated central nervous systems because someone was always touching them, and how that impacted their relationships because once that little person was asleep for the night, the last thing they wanted was to be touched.

I know my alone time would be going away.

What I didn’t anticipate was that it would be gone for much longer than I thought. Don’t get me wrong, I love being an active participant in my household. I get a lot of satisfaction out of taking care of my people, sometimes I just need to be by myself. 

Some people hide out in their bathroom or their closet, for me, it’s the garage gym. Every being in my house knows when Mommy is in the garage, if it’s not a life or death matter, leave me the F!CK alone.

I don’t feel guilty about taking those moments anymore. I know that even 10 minutes to fill my cup will leave me in a better mood and more effectively able to take care of the people around me.

Time to go hole up in my garage gym. 

✌️ Mama’s busy.

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Today’s Workout

Grab the workout below for a little break from the stress that is adulting.

3 Rounds

25 reps each exercise

Toe touches

Bridge hip taps

Side leg lifts

Bicycle crunches

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Tell that Negative Voice to STFU

Why do we always go to the negative narrative when the workout gets hard?

I do realize we can be our own biggest critics. I feel like it’s just human nature, albeit a crappy one, but that’s our inclination. Shit gets hard and we automatically start telling ourselves how much we suck.

When really we don’t.

But when that negative narrative kicks in, all we end up doing is sabotaging ourselves. It creates this horrible cycle because we end up dreading the workout, knowing it’ll be “too hard”, thinking “we’re not strong enough”, and then we’ll find an excuse to avoid the workout. Then the cycle continues. Much to our own personal detriment.

So we gotta change that narrative.

Working out for me is a reminder of how strong I am, even though it wasn’t always that way. My workouts will always get hard, that’s intentional because I don’t have a lot of time in my day TO workout so I want to feel like every workout is worth my time.

When I get into that space where the workout is making me want to quit, when it’s THAT hard, I simply tell myself “yes I can”. I put that on repeat and I keep going. And even if the workout isn’t pretty or isn’t my best, I still proved to myself that I could do it.

You have to find that positive narrative for yourself. I found that space for myself by having some serious reflection about all the bad shit I’ve experienced in my life and how I overcame ALL of it. Which is just a testament to my own strength and resilient, but we’re all the same in that regard. We’ve all been through shit, be it positive or negative, and we’ve ALL gotten through it.

So yes YOU can do it. You can continue to prove to yourself that you’re strong, that you’re resilient and you’re more capable than what you think.

Worth It

Aren’t you worth more than easy?

Choosing to live a healthy lifestyle isn’t easy in the beginning. Making those changes to ensure that you’re doing what’s best for Y O U R well being is actually scary AF at first and kinda difficult.

You’ve gotten used to the life that you have. Your normal is YOUR normal after all and it provides a space of comfort. It’s familiar to you, and familiarity is a hard thing to break through because change is scary. Even just the anticipation of changing can be scary.

Even though you’re living in this space of normal, you know that it’s not good for you. You know that you deserve better and that being healthy in the long run will be the best thing you can do for yourself. But even though you know that, the prospect of changing is scary af. You’re venturing into unchartered territory and since you don’t know what that will look like, the thought of venturing into that space is scary.

But you’re worth it. You’re worth the effort, you’re worth the frustration and you are definitely worth the result.

Don’t feel like this is a process you have to go through alone. Go through it with support, with guidance and it’ll make the process of changing that much easier.

Be Brave

I want you to get brave and curious about your strength. 

We are so quick to tell ourselves that we can’t do something. Really, we’re normally the first ones to doubt ourselves, to convince ourselves that quitting is OK because we wouldn’t have been able to do it anyways and to just plain give up.

When I got hurt, I had two roads in front of me. The one where I doubted myself and my capabilities constantly or the one where I said Fuck it and just tried anyways. It doesn’t mean I didn’t fail, oh girl I have failed and in spectacular fashion, but I’ve tried. 

Failing didn’t mean that I beat myself up about not being successful.

Failing meant I had the opportunity to see where my limitations lie and how I could get past it. It just showed me what edges could get expanded on and what I could change.

When I let go of those thoughts of failing, I could see my strength for where it was really at as well as where it could go. It made me curious to see where I could take things and where I could grow.

How strong are you REALLY? Have you ever even thought about it? If you stopped putting limitations on yourself, how strong could you become and what could you be truly capable of doing?

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!

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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!

How Ya Feeling Today?

I felt like shit in my own skin for a L O N G time.

Discouraging doesn’t even begin to describe how horrible I felt. People would tell me it was my new normal after having a kid, I just needed to accept that my body would be kinda...fluffy...that I had a c-section so this was reality now. Shit, people were saying that to me before the kid even came out of my body. Like I had to just accept that I would have this mambod and it would be jiggly and gross and I wouldn’t like how I looked at all…

Deep down, my instinct was SCREAMING that this was a load of bullshit. 

Even with the experience and education to know what I needed to do to get to the place where I felt like home again in my own body, the process was still daunting.

Because I was tired 😓 and the thought of having to do anything felt like too damn much. Adjusting to being a new mom was a LOT and looking at all these women who looked like they had all their shit together with no effort and looked amazing helped nothing. Especially when I had a kiddo who would scream her head off any time I tried to work out. I’m serious. Even if she was in a dead sleep and I tried to workout, she would scream.

Then I started thinking that if I felt like this with all my years of experience, with all the education I have for losing weight and working out, someone who doesn’t have that background must feel a million times worse than me. Like just give up and not even try worse. Because I have the benefit of knowing how to tweak workouts when I feel like I’ve plateaued and I know how to work my fitness game to best serve my body. Hell, it’s what I do for a living. Of course I knew what to do for myself. But I’m not so naive to think that everyone has that kind of background or even that basic body awareness.

That’s why I want to help YOU. I know how tired you are, I know how overwhelmed you feel, I know you have NO idea where to begin. But I do and I can help you through it so you can get to the place where you have energy and you feel like yourself again. I’m doing nothing if I’m sitting on all this expertise and not sharing it with the people around me. I don’t want you to give up and equally as important, I know that when you take care of yourself, it’s easier to take care of those around you. So let me help you. Let me share my knowledge and experience with you by meeting you where you’re at on your journey right now and showing you the way to get to where you want to be.

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

My Brain Needs to Stop

Mama needs a minute ✋.

I’m always thinking about things. What needs to happen, what has happened, the order in which things will happen. My brain is the type of brain that is constantly in motion and for it to stop, I have to FORCE it to stop.

I know I’m not alone. I know we all always have a million things on our mind, we’re often thinking of the next thing we need to do, or something that needs to get handled. We’re constantly trying to juggle every ball that seems to be in the air right now.

For my own sanity, I had to learn how to get my brain to stop, mostly because I wanted to sleep and it seemed for a long time like whenever my head hit the pillow, my brain started going a million miles an hour.

Rest assured, I tried everything and I have a TON of different coping mechanisms in place to get my brain to slow down depending on what I need given a certain situation. Yoga, meditation, breath work, and even a solid bedtime routine like I’m a child have all be helpful things in my life so I can get my brain to stop.

But one of the best ways for me to step away from those daily stressors is by working out. This is one of the primary reasons why I challenge myself so much with my workouts. I want my workout to be so challenging for that moment, that I can focus truly on just the workout and nothing else.

I know as a trainer, that kind of focus is super beneficial because when you’re challenged, you’re focused and you’re less likely to be distracted and get hurt as a result.

No better way to forget about the stress of my day, my To Do List that never gets shorter, and distance learning than by lighting my abs on fire 🔥.

3 Rounds

30 seconds each exercise

Plank hold

Bicycle Crunches

Crunches

Tuck ups

My Couch is Calling Me

You wanna know the hardest part about working out at home?

Motivating yourself. 

Because your couch is calling you, that pile of laundry that’s been sitting there for two weeks is calling you, and so are all the other things you need to get done. 

Our gym access is a mess right now so you don’t have the energy and the competition of a class to thrive off of, it’s just you and your workout 🏋️‍♀️.

Ultimately, it’s you and whatever that singular goal is that will push you through a workout. That goal that you don’t tell anyone about because you feel like it’s too embarrassing or too overwhelming or too unattainable. 

That goal can drive you, that goal can create your intrinsic sense of motivation or that goal can be completely ignored. It’s totally up to you. 

I want you to use that goal to push you through your workout regardless of where you’re doing said workout. So you can know that it’s not the person next to you or the energy of a class that’s giving you the vibe to create the change but just you and the goal you deserve to become a reality. 

Grab Your Dumbbells!

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