Plan Your Plate! Healthy Eating Tips for Your Next Get-Together.

Hi friends! Fall is here and it brings so many things that I love, including lots of get-togethers for football parties, holiday parties - and for us our anniversary and our daughter’s birthday. It’s basically one big party all season, which is both wonderfully fun and totally exhausting lol. 

Fall also brings with it so many cozy flavors and a lot of concentration on delicious foods. This combo of tons of social events and get-togethers plus tons of pumpkin-spice-laden treats can leave us feeling a little stressed about making healthy eating choices. 

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Fall!! It truly is my favorite season.  As an enneagram 9, it’s hard for me to choose a favorite in anything, but I love fall so much that it’s the obvious choice. 

I know so many other people who love all things fall too, but I also know that fall can bring with it some stress or maybe even worry about making healthy eating choices. Fall leads right into the holidays and for anyone who is trying to make health-conscious decisions or may be worried about their weight, there seems to be a little nagging voice in our heads that’s a little stressed out about all of the food. 

So today, I want to give you a few practical tips to quiet those nagging thoughts and help give you confidence in making healthy choices while still completely enjoying the season. 

Adjust your expectations 

We have to live in reality, friends. How often do we go to a party or some kind of holiday get-together thinking we just won’t eat anything or we’ll just pass on the dessert? First of all, that sounds miserable, doesn’t it? Secondly, it’s hardly realistic for most of us! The reality is that dessert, snacks, and whatever else that you are thinking of avoiding will be there, and you’re going to want to eat it, and that’s okay. So let’s just adjust our expectations, that avoidance isn’t really realistic in most cases and it’s probably not the best idea anyway. 

Decide what a “healthy choice” means for you. 

This doesn’t always look the same for everyone and it doesn’t look the same in every season. Spend a little time thinking about what foods work best for your body, what makes you feel bad, and what foods you love and can’t wait to enjoy. For some people, this may look like not eating certain foods, and for some this may mean eating healthy portions of everything! Don’t follow the crowd on this. Be intentional (but remember those realistic expectations). 

Quit with the guilt. 

 We need to be conscious of unhealthy patterns when it comes to eating - and I’m not at all talking about food. I’m talking about unhealthy patterns when it comes to our mindset. One of the most common ones is feeling guilty when we eat something that feels indulgent or something that may not be the most nutritious. I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve worked with who find themselves caught up in this pattern of eating something that they’ve deemed “bad” and then spend the night or next day feeling guilty about it and sometimes even punishing themselves or trying to “make up for it” with extra long workouts or by barely eating anything the next day. There are not any bad foods. Food is amoral. It is both physically and mentally unhealthy for us to assign morality to certain foods and immorality to others and it has led to some really deep rooted issues with food in our society. So when you catch yourself feeling guilty or saying something like “I’m going to have walk off this dinner” or “run an extra mile tomorrow because of this dessert” try to change that narrative to something like “I’m thankful that I get to enjoy this meal”. Also, one more thing on this - remember that while food is fuel for our bodies, there is also an emotional component to food that is connected with the pleasure centers in our brain - and that’s a gift. God didn’t have to give us taste buds or allow us to enjoy our food, but He did, so let’s not rob ourselves of that. 

Always Balance It Out (carb + protein + fat)  

Remember that one of the major factors supporting your health is blood sugar balance, so make that a priority over counting calories or another arbitrary focus. Some examples of how this may look at a party: choose hummus and guac with chips; add some chicken or a few meatballs to your plate along with all of those starchy carbs; when it’s time for dessert, add some high-quality half-and-half or higher protein nut milk to your coffee, or add a handful of nuts to your plate along with the brownies. This starts with making sure that you are familiar with some good protein and healthy fat options that you enjoy. Download my Foods that Heal List for some ideas - also a new resource for this coming soon!) 

Support Your Digestion

This is important all of the time, but especially so when we’re eating different foods or foods that are very rich and can cause some digestive upset. Try to eat your meals when you’re seated, calm, and can really enjoy your food. When we’re hyped up or upset, we often have a lot of adrenaline and stress hormones pumping through our bodies which makes digestion and nutrient absorption, so when possible eat at a more calm time in the get-together. Also, avoid grazing throughout the entire event. Our bodies digest best when we have at least 90 minutes in-between eating, so enjoy your meal and then give your gut a break. This will help to avoid or reduce unwanted symptoms like bloating. 

Bring an Alternative 

Bring something that you know you enjoy and will make you feel good. Ideally, something with protein or nutritious ingredients. One way to be sure there are foods there that you feel good about eating is to bring them yourself. This is especially important for those with food allergies or sensitivities. 

I hope these tips help you enjoy this season to the fullest while still making decisions that prioritize your health!

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What Weight Loss Is Really About with Camille Martin, RD

Hi friends! I’m excited to share today’s episode with you as I think it’s a topic that many of us can relate to - weight loss. Camille Martin of Love to Lose is our guest on today’s show. She is a registered dietitian and public health writer who has dedicated her career to helping women get off of the dieting merry-go-round and actually set helpful goals for their health. You guys know that I talk about goals and mindset often and it’s something that I think is so important in anyone’s health journey, so I think Camille’s perspective on how those things affect weight loss is going to be helpful for you!

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Topics in this episode…

Weight loss is a common goal for most women, whether it's just a few lbs or a major weight loss goal. You say that in reality, it’s not about the actual weight, right? Can you explain what you mean by that and what you believe it is about instead?

How do mindset and the kind of goals we set affect whether or not we experience progress in our health journey? 

How does this affect women who are dealing with specific health issues? How can they focus on improving their symptoms without becoming obsessed with their health?

What is one practical action step that women can take today that will actually help move them forward with their health goals?

Learn more about Camille Martin of Love to Lose.

Not Seeing Results with Your Health Goals? This Could Be Why!

Hi friends! It’s the end of February and a lot of us are feeling 1 of 2 ways with our new year’s health goals - either confident and excited to keep going or frustrated and ready to call it quits. In this episode, I’m sharing some of the most common reasons that we tend to hit a wall this time of year and stop seeing the results that we think we should be seeing in our health - whether that’s weight loss or another health factor we are wanting to improve. I think this is going to be super practical and helpful for you, so let’s get into it! 

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While there are a lot of factors that can go into why we may feel that way, I have found that when people are feeling stuck or frustrated with a lack of results, there are usually some common culprits. So before you call it quits, evaluate how you’re doing in these 5 areas. 

Not enough quality sleep

Most of us don’t get enough sleep. We prioritize productivity over rest and we’re damaging our health. The recommendation is 7-9 hours of sleep and 2 hours of deep sleep (most of this happens before midnight). So really get intentional about your sleep - track it (Apple watch / Oura ring, Garmin smartwatch), set some hard boundaries, etc. (more ideas for optimizing sleep in episodes 29 and 69). 

Inadequate calorie/protein intake

Often when we think about weight loss or health goals, we think about eating less (which occasionally may be warranted) but I’ve found the opposite to be true more often than not. So many times when someone is experiencing difficulty losing weight or regulating blood sugar, healing their hormones, etc. - it’s because they aren’t eating enough. Not enough calories, or not often enough throughout the day, or even both! It’s also very common for women to not eat enough protein. 

I’m not a proponent of counting calories because I think we set ourselves up for an unhealthy obsession with our bodies and an unhealthy relationship with food by doing that; however, having said that sometimes it can be helpful to track for a couple of days (ONLY) just to gauge how much food we’re getting. Somewhere along the way, we’ve adopted this mindset that we should only be eating 1200 calories a day or something ridiculous, and for 99% of us, that is way under what our bodies need to actually function. Now, this is different for everyone, and I don’t want you to mishear what I’m saying and think that I’m saying that weight loss is the most important goal or that it’s as simple as kcals in/out because if you know me or have been around here for a while, you know that I don’t teach that at all. BUT I do believe that understanding the science behind how our bodies use food as energy is helpful. Your body needs a certain amount of calories to just basically function - you can find out this amount by using a BMR calculator. It will show you the number of kcals you need to just sit still and breathe. s the algorithm explains, this energy will be used only to maintain vital organs, which include the heart, lungs, kidneys, nervous system, intestines, liver, lungs, sex organs, muscles, and skin. For most people, upwards of 70% of the total energy burned each day is used for upkeep.

If you want energy to move or do anything at all you will need more and the calculator will base that on how active you are, if you’re pregnant, nursing, etc. Again, this isn’t as simple as this math equation, but it does provide a basic frame of understanding and supports the idea that major calorie restriction is not a good idea.

It’s also super common to not have enough intake of protein and have too high of an intake of either simple carbs or fats. A really simple rule of thumb here is to make sure that you’re not having any meal or snack that is just a carb (or just a protein, for that matter). The inclusion of all three macronutrients is important for stable blood sugar and metabolism. Somewhere around 25-30g protein per meal is a good goal and using the palm of your hand as a guide is a super easy, sustainable way to track this.

Too much or too little exercise

Another common issue I see often when someone isn’t seeing the progress that they want is an imbalance in their physical activity - either too much/too intense exercise or too little exercise. 

Regularly moving our bodies for somewhere between 15-45 minutes daily supports the function of our bodies in so many ways! It helps our bodies manage stress levels, helps promote deep sleep, aids in digestion and good gut motility, reduces chronic inflammation levels, increases oxygen, and therefore healing, to the body, helps with cognitive ability, supports stable hormones, and so much more. It’s a vital component of a healthy lifestyle! 

On the flip side, overtraining or doing too intense of a workout, or even too long of an intense workout can have some of the opposite effects leaving us feeling more exhausted and depleted; it can also raise inflammation levels, have a draining effect on our adrenal health and therefore hormone health, lead to digestive issues including bloating and constipation, add to insomnia, and when paired with a too restrictive way of eating, leave our bodies starving for energy. 

As with most things, there is a sweet spot for exercise, especially for women. 

Misaligned Mindset and Goals

I’ve talked about this a lot because this is one of the most common issues that I see and one that most of us simply overlook. I actually have a guest interview episode all about this that comes out in a couple of weeks, so I’m not going to go super deep into this, but I do want to give you a couple of things to think about. 

When we are setting goals from a place of negative feelings or feelings of shame about our bodies, we are likely keeping ourselves stuck right where we are. Those feelings may motivate you for a day or two, but most of the time they are going to lead you to feel like giving up or crashing on the couch instead of taking proactive steps to improve your health. 

However, if we can switch our mindset to setting goals tied to something we love or a dream we have for the future, we are much more likely to feel motivated to take those action steps. 

Behavior is driven by our mindset, not the other way around. 

There’s so much more to be said on this topic and as I said, I actually have an entire guest interview about this coming up in the next episode, so make sure you are subscribed and keep a lookout for that. 

I also have a youtube video dedicated to a healthy mindset and goal setting that you can watch. I’ll link that in the show notes so that you can get to it easily. It’s actually a clip from my Move Forward, Feel Better course and dives much more in-depth into how we can align our mindsets with the truth of who God made us to be. I truly believe that this is the missing piece for so many women who find themselves stuck in a cycle of dieting and frustration with their bodies. 

Have any of these common issues resonated with you? If so, I hope that you have found this episode helpful and it has given you some ideas to think through. The good news is that in each of these examples, we can easily make changes to address what’s going on. I encourage you to spend some time evaluating these areas of your lifestyle and brainstorming 2-3 very achievable steps that you can take to move forward. You’re doing a great job, friend! Just by taking the time to listen to this episode and give intentional thought to your health, you are moving forward, even if it doesn’t feel like it! 

Why We Struggle with Consistency

How often have you heard “consistency is key”? It’s everywhere, right? In a lot of instances, I think this is absolutely true, but I want us to go a little deeper today because consistency is often a pain point for people when it comes to their health. Often when I ask my friends or even my Instagram followers what they are struggling with the most or where they feel like they need the most support, every single time the overwhelming popular response is “consistency”. Consistency in exercising, getting good sleep, eating nutritious food, not eating junk food every night, and on and on it goes. I would venture to guess, you’ve probably had a few of those thoughts yourself and I would say “me too”. I have found myself feeling the same frustration - “ugh! Why can’t I stay consistent in this?!”

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Recently I’ve been doing some work that’s prompted me to dig deeper into the idea of body image and diet culture - and why we so often feel like we are failing in this area of consistency. One thing that has come up for me and that I think may be one of the biggest contributors to this common struggle is a misalignment between our mindset and our goal. 

I know that sounds a little philosophical, but hear me out on this. 

When the goal (our desired result) is to lose weight, get our bodies “summer-ready”, change sizes or “tone up” a certain area, or even to feel “good” or get back to feeling energetic like we did 5 or 10 years ago, etc. - we will get overwhelmed. First of all, those things are not always in our control. We can do all the “right things” - follow all the principles of living a healthy lifestyle and sometimes still not lose a pound, or still not get pregnant, or still have a disorder or disease. So that’s going to feel really frustrating and we’re probably going to give up. We will also often give up because of the massiveness of the goal. It doesn’t seem attainable - it feels so far out of reach, so we often won’t see the value in sticking to whatever plan we had made for ourselves. 

However, when the goal is something attainable, something we can control, something that is directly and immediately affected by our choices, it makes following the plan easier, therefore allowing us to be “consistent” in our behavior. 

Let me put this in a practical context and use this for an example: 

Scenario - It’s 9:45 pm and you can’t stop thinking about the ice cream in the freezer. 
Goal: Be able to fit back into the jeans you wore two summers ago (the pre-covid ones :P)

Your thinking will most likely go something like this: “ugh - this sucks! I bet ____ doesn’t have to worry about not eating ice cream.”, or “meh! Who cares? I’ll never get back in those jeans anyway”, or “I’ve already fallen off the wagon the past few days, what’s one more treat? I’ll do better tomorrow”... and then you either deprive yourself and don’t eat it while inducing shame and judgment on yourself and others; or you do eat the ice cream and immediately feel regret or apathy about the goal you set for yourself. This leads you to the question, “Why can’t I be consistent in what I’m eating?!” Does that sound familiar?

Now contrast that with the same scenario but a different goal:

Scenario - It’s 9:45 pm and you can’t stop thinking about the ice cream in the freezer. 
Goal: To feel good about how you are caring for your body 

Can you already feel the difference? In this scenario, your thinking may go something like this: “hmmm… well, every time I eat that ice cream, my stomach gets so bloated and I feel miserable for hours. I don’t think it’s worth that. What else do we have instead?” , or “I love that ice cream - that sounds so good, but it is going to probably spike my blood sugar pretty high. What can I eat with it to help stabilize my blood sugar?”, or maybe even “Ah yes! I’ve been waiting for the perfect time to try that ice cream and I know it’s made with good ingredients. Let’s go for it!”. So either you choose to eat the ice cream or you don’t, but you make a conscious decision that won’t be followed by guilt or regret. 

The difference is that with the second goal, you are making a decision from a place of loving and caring for your body right now, just as it is, rather than making a decision from a place of shame or apathy while putting a ridiculous amount of pressure and expectation on yourself. 

One of the biggest enemies of consistency is unrealistic expectations. 

There is definitely something to be said about being intentional and scheduling things into your day or week like prioritizing sleep and exercise. There is a practical, logical piece of actually planning things into your calendar or schedule because if you don’t, it probably won’t happen. But again, we are much more likely to make choices that support our wellbeing when we are operating from a goal of caring for our bodies and stewarding them well. 

So I want to challenge you to take a look at your goal or your lack of goal. If you are feeling discontent or wanting to change something about your health, what is your goal? Is it to take good care of your body, to love it well, and to support it in functioning well? If not, consider making it your goal. It will change how you make decisions. It will change how you feel the decisions you make. It will change how you feel about yourself. 

If this idea rubs you the wrong way or you find yourself rolling your eyes a little bit while listening to this, ask yourself why. Dig in a little bit. Does the idea of loving your body, caring for your body, or stewarding your body well seem weird or even wrong to you? Do you feel like your body is subpar or broken or maybe shouldn’t even be considered at all? If so, why? Where did that idea come from? 

If you find yourself feeling this way - let me ask you a few questions that I hope will change your perspective. Do you believe that your body was created by God? The same God that created the sky and the ocean, and the sun and the moon. Do you remember that after He created man and woman - their bodies - He said that it was good? Do you actually think that He could make something that is bad or subpar? If you find yourself thinking that about your body that way or talking about your body that way, isn’t that insulting your Creator? 

Please know that I don’t ask you these questions to put shame on you, if anything I want to help pull shame off of you. Friends, we think that our biggest problem or struggle or obstacle is not being consistent, but in reality, our biggest obstacle is that we have a misalignment between our mindset and our goal. 

When we view our bodies as something to be fixed, or a project that always needs to be improved, or even as just a tool, or really anything other than a good creation of the Father in which we get to experience this life and experience Him, we will not be motivated to be consistent in caring for our bodies. It will feel useless, pointless, we might even find ourselves believing that it’s vain. 

I’m not saying any of this as someone who has conquered this or figured it all out but as someone who is right there with you. I’ve been working through some of these thoughts and feelings myself over the past few weeks. I’ve had to dig deep and ask myself these same questions about what I believe about my body and the One who made it. I can honestly say that realigning my mindset with what God says and focusing on the goal of caring for my body out of a place of love, gratitude, and stewardship, has made a huge difference for me and I believe it will make a difference for you too. 

It’s easy to get caught up in what culture says about health or about what we should look like, eat like, workout like but as believers, as women who follow Jesus, that is not where we find truth and direction for our lives. 

If you feel frustrated with yourself because you don’t feel that you can “stay consistent” or because you lack motivation, ask yourself these questions. Check your mindset and focus on the goal of caring for your body, being kind to and grateful for your body instead of trying to make it into something or make it look a certain way. 

If you feel like you need to do some work around the issue of body image or body shame, or if you would just like to know more about a kingdom mindset about health and body image, I encourage you to check out Jess Connolly’s Good Body Gals community. I have found it incredibly helpful for my own soul as well as helping me think about how I teach and coach other women. You can find all the information about it in her Instagram bio or by searching for the tag #goodbodygals. 

If you feel like you need one-on-one support in this area or in knowing what steps to take, what being kind to your body looks like, what a healthy lifestyle looks like for you, I’d love to help you with that. I offer a free initial consultation where I learn about your specific needs, goals, and current obstacles and together we can come up with a plan to help. You can learn more about that by going to yourhealthforward.com. 

That does it for me today, friends. Thanks for spending some of your day here with me. Keep moving forward, go love your people well and I’ll talk with you next time!

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Why Throwing Out Your Scale Is a Good Idea

Hi friends! In today’s episode, I wanted to share a quick tip with you that is guaranteed to have a positive effect on your health - throw out your bathroom scale! For real. 

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Okay, maybe you don’t have to throw it away but do get it out of your bathroom. Maybe put in the back of your closet or under your dresser - somewhere where you won’t see it every day. 

This topic has been coming up often in my coaching sessions lately. Almost everyone I’ve talked to recently has been frustrated because they’ve gained a few pounds over the past few months and don’t see it coming back off, and I’m going to tell you some of the same things that I shared with them. 

• These past few months have been strange for everyone. COVID = stress, and when we are stressed our bodies go into “fight or flight mode”. Losing weight is not a priority for your body when it’s stressed - surviving is. Our bodies can’t tell the difference between being stressed about a pandemic and being chased by a wild animal. It just produces stress hormones and acts accordingly, which often leads to our bodies holding onto weight for protection. This will likely resolve once the stress has calmed down or we learn how to manage it and our bodies can return to a more relaxed state. 

• Weighing every day will only frustrate you! Our weight fluctuates for many different reasons throughout the day, week, and month. For example, hormones, salt or water intake, and inflammation can all make our weight shift up or down a bit and that is completely normal. Most of us would never even notice it, but if you are weighing every day, you will likely see that fluctuation and think that it’s due to something you did or didn’t do. 

• Weighing every day will make you focus on the wrong things. It is not emotionally or physically healthy to obsess about our weight or every single thing we eat, but if you find yourself continually worrying about the number on the scale, that is likely what you will do. This can lead to an unhealthy obsession and more stress (read - more weight gain).

Weighing every day will most likely sabotage your weight loss goals.

If you are going to weigh yourself or wanting to use your weight as a measurement for progress, I personally recommend only weighing yourself 1 x per month or at the very most every 2 weeks (When you do weigh yourself, make sure you are weighing at the same time of day, day of the month, wearing the same amount of clothing, etc.)

Ultimately focus on non-scale victories to track success and progress. A few examples are:

• The way your clothes fit

• The way your rings fit

• The condition/growth of your skin, hair, and nails

• Your energy level

• Your mental/emotional state

• Your amount of cravings for sweet/greasy foods

• If you are consistently doing things that help you to feel good

Remember, you could reach your goal weight and still be miserable and not feel good. A number is not the goal. A number doesn’t define health. You get to define that for yourself. You are worth far more than a number. 

Listen to your body. Appreciate your body and the gift of health. Go throw out your scale! 

028 - Should You Be Counting Calories?

Hey friends! In today’s episode, we’re talking about calorie counting. I feel like calorie counting used to be the gold standard of nutrition when it came to weight loss. Even when I first started getting into the nutrition world, which has only been about ten years ago, that was still one of the main methods taught. There was just such an emphasis put on quantity - like it was a simple math problem: “You want to lose weight? Simple! Eat fewer calories than you burn!” Thankfully, since that time, so much research has been done and so many people have spoken up about the fact that there has to be more to it, or otherwise it would work for everyone every time. 

Now, I’m not going to go so far as to say you should never track a calorie or have any idea how many calories you burn on a regular day, but I don’t believe that counting or tracking calories needs to be your primary focus and I want to share why I believe that.

The main reason… it’s distracting!

Most of us have some level of dysfunction in our bodies due to our lifestyles and common exposure to toxins and focusing on calorie counting alone can distract us from noticing what is really going on in our bodies. 

Focusing on calorie counting alone can also distract us from focusing on the quality of the food we are eating and cause us to only focus on the quantity. 

The calorie counting method can also be harmful to those who have a history of eating disorders and food addiction. Even for those of us who haven’t shared in those struggles, it is easy to become obsessive and overly rigid about what foods you eat - even to the point where you can’t enjoy food any longer (this is a symptom of Orthorexia which is an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy).

One of my biggest concerns with the calorie counting method is that it distracts you from learning how to listen to your body. It is so easy to become solely focused on this number of calories we are “allowed” a day and logging every single thing that we do in order to stay in the good graces of this “health math equation”. Unfortunately, what often happens is that we lose out on noticing how eating a certain food makes us feel - how it affects our energy levels, our mood, our digestive system. We see that it meets our calorie count standard and deem it “healthy” or good for us with very little thought of how it actually affected us.

I want you to know that there are healthier ways to lose weight and there are tons of methods out there! Just make sure the one you are choosing actually TEACHES you how to care for your body, listen to your body, fuel your body well, and why it matters. 

Just a side note: I am not naive to the fact that sometimes choosing these methods is slower and more work - they can be - but here’s what I’ve found to be true: when someone is unhappy with their bodies or how their bodies are functioning and all they focus on is weight and numbers and physical appearance results - they often miss all there is to learn and heal along the journey. A lot of times they end up right back where they started, or maybe even less happy with themselves because they didn’t really fix the root issues - the physical ones or the emotional ones. Weight gain or difficulty losing weight is so often a symptom, not the root cause. So find out why things aren’t functioning well or why you are unhappy with your health and then work on that. Don’t miss what’s really going on looking for a quick fix or by trying to ignore the root issues. It will be work but the work is worth it! 

As always, if you have questions or are ready to take the next step in getting personalized support and guidance to move your health forward, feel free to send me an email or schedule a free 30-min consultation call. I’d love to help you! 

Talk to ya next week!

022 - Why Losing Weight Should NOT Be Your Goal for the New Year

Hey friends! As I mentioned in the last episode, we are going to be spending the remaining episodes of 2019 talking about setting ourselves up for success with smart and healthy goals for next year! 

What Your Goal Should Not Be

We all know someone, or maybe we are that someone, who comes to the end of the year and says “my New Years’ resolution is to lose weight”. As a matter of fact, according to statistica.com, 45% of Americans made “losing weight” their goal for 2018. Today, I am going to share with you why that actually isn’t a good goal, why your weight isn’t how you should measure your level of health, and what you should be focusing on instead. 

Why Weight Isn’t A Reliable Indicator of Good Health 

My story is a perfect example of this. I recently shared my experience with Insulin Resistance and PCOS and how my physician and I were both surprised at the results of my blood work because I wasn’t considered overweight. I had a normal BMI and while I had gained a little weight, I was still within the normal range. As it turns out, I had inflammation and the beginning stages of disease taking a toll on my body, but I thought I was healthy because I wasn’t overweight. 

Our weight just isn’t a reliable indicator of the state of our health, for many reasons. One being that it isn’t a static number - our can weight fluctuates 3-5 lbs on a regular basis. This can be based on so many things including hormones, especially for women (weight will fluctuate at different stages of your cycle). This is why we do NOT need to be weighing every day! If you are getting on the scale every morning and beating yourself up because you seem to be battling the same 3-4 lbs over and over - STOP. You are creating undue stress on yourself by obsessing about your weight and being disappointed in your body or thinking that the work you are putting in isn’t worth it. This isn’t good for your physical or mental health, and actually, studies have shown that obsession with weight or dieting can actually lead to more weight gain. 

Also, standards such as BMI are skewed as well. They only take into account a ratio of height and weight and make absolutely zero adjustments for body composition and muscle mass. So people who are actually in great health and have a good amount of muscle mass will usually fall into the overweight or even obese categories.

Also, it’s important to note that in a lot of chronic diseases, studies are showing that weight gain or inability to lose weight is more a side effect of an underlying disease or dysfunction in the body, rather than the root cause. So when all we are doing is focusing on the weight, we could be missing what is actually going on in the body.

So if we shouldn’t be focusing solely on the scale or BMI, how should we measure our level of health?

Better Indicators of Good Health

Waist circumference

One better option for monitoring your health is by measuring your waist circumference. Studies have shown that having a waist circumference greater than 35 for women and 40 for men is indicative of higher amounts of visceral fat (a type of fat that lies deep within the abdominal cavity and pads the spaces between vital abdominal organs) and is associated with an increased risk for type 2 diabetes, unhealthy cholesterol, hypertension, hormone imbalance, and Cardiovascular Disease. 

All you need to monitor your waist circumference is a tape measure. Simply wrap it around the middle of your waist, right above the top of your hip bones, Make sure the tape measurer stays flat against your skin and level all the way around. This isn’t something that should be done daily or even weekly. Every 2-3 months is a good increment of time, especially if this is something you are trying to work on. 

Health markers related to metabolic disease 

Another better option to monitor your health and risk for disease is by regularly monitoring health markers associated with Metabolic Disease (BP, Fasting Insulin and A1c, and Cholesterol)  specifically HDL/ Total Cholesterol ratio and Tri / HDL ratio)

As a reminder, you need to work with your physician to have these markers evaluated:

• Blood Pressure Levels 

• Blood Sugar Levels - Fasting Insulin and Fasting Blood Glucose 

• Cholesterol Levels - specifically HDL and Triglycerides

A Harvard-lead study reported that high triglycerides alone increased the risk of heart attack by 3 times and people with the highest ratio of triglycerides to HDL -- the "good" cholesterol -- had 16 times the risk of heart attack as those with the lowest ratio of triglycerides to HDL. The ratio of triglycerides to HDL was the strongest predictor of a heart attack, even more accurate than the LDL/HDL ratio

Optimal Triglycerides / HDL ratio is under 2 (the lower the better)

Body function 

Just taking a moment to evaluate how your body is moving and functioning can be helpful in measuring your level of health. 

How are you sleeping? Do you wake up refreshed or groggy and exhausted? 

Do you find your energy crashing throughout the day - especially the afternoon?

For the ladies, are your cycles regular? 

Is your skin clear?

Do you have repeated sickness or seem to catch everything that goes around?

Do you have chronic pain or stiffness? 

How is your digestive health?

These are all questions you can ask yourself to possibly pinpoint any areas that you need to focus on or work with a professional to address. 

Better goals 

We will get more into the specifics of how to set smart and health goals in the next couple of episodes, but for now, as you are starting to think about health goals for next year - I want you to focus more on establishing healthy habits and rhythms. You are much more likely to see progress in your health with those anyway.

If you feel like you could use some extra support as you set health goals for next year or work to meet your goals from this year, schedule a free 30 min consultation call with me! I’d love to help point you in the right direction and see if there are ways that I can help!

008 - Part 4: The Top Four Reasons Women Struggle to Lose Weight - An Unhealthy Mindset

Hi friends! This week we are finishing up the month-long series on The Top Four Reasons Women Struggle to Lose Weight with Part 4, which is an Unhealthy Mindset. 

While an unhealthy mindset may be the last part of this series, it absolutely should not be the last thing you think about when considering why you may be struggling to lose weight (or to reach any goal, really) - it should be the first! The truth is that you can eat all the kale, never miss a workout, and drink tons of water, but if you don’t deal with the heart work - the part that addresses how you feel about yourself and the value you place on your health - you’re not going to make any true, lasting progress. 

This principle is along the same lines of what we talked about in the first part of this series with having The Wrong Goal, but it goes much deeper than that. Your mindset about your health, your body, and really your worth is at the core of who you are and whether consciously or not, almost every decision you make about food, exercise, self-care, boundaries with others, etc. is related to it. 

We all have struggled with this at some point - let me give you an example of what I mean. Let’s imagine that I have a client that is frustrated because she can’t seem to make any real progress with her health goals. She has tried multiple diet plans and has lost weight on most of them, but after a few weeks or months, she gains the weight back and is right back to feeling sluggish and depressed, she starts going through the drive-thru every night instead of cooking at home like she was before, she hardly ever works out anymore, and is back to drinking more soda than ever. This has happened to her time and time again and she can’t figure out why nothing ever seems to stick. She knows the things to do - but something is missing. She just can’t stay motivated! When I get to know her a little better, I learn that she has been dealing with these feelings and frustrations for several years. When I asked her when she remembers first feeling this way, she shared that it all started in college when she and her long-term boyfriend broke off their relationship. She told me about how he had made a few jokes about her gaining some weight and how it had hurt her feelings but she just brushed it off. Then she found out he was cheating on her with another girl who was much thinner and in her opinion, much more attractive than her. She told me that she blamed herself for their breakup and immediately started trying different diets and workout programs, and it worked - she lost all the weight she had gained in college. But nothing else in her life really seemed to change and after a while, she just went back to the same kind of lifestyle she was living before because it didn’t make the difference she was hoping for. She became very insecure about the way she looked and started spending more time alone. Even if other guys became interested in her, she would end things before they ever got started because she was afraid that if she couldn't control her weight, the same thing would happen again and this cycle just continued throughout her early twenties. 

Can you relate to this client? Do you feel like you’ve tried every diet program under the sun but nothing really sticks long-term? Have you had a similar experience where you started to doubt that your body was good enough or that your identity was somehow wrapped up in the number that showed up on the scale? 

There are a few questions that I would ask my client - and that I’m also going to ask you: 

• How do you define what “health” is? 

What does it mean to you? Not a number on the scale or a certain size. I want you to dig deeper than that and think about what health means to you. 

• What would it look like for you to be healthy? 

What would your life look like? How would it be different than it is now? What would your energy be like? Your relationships? Your career? 

• Do you think that you can actually be healthy? 

When you picture that healthy version of yourself, do you actually believe that it’s possible for you? 

• Do you feel that you deserve to be healthy? 

Like the client in my example, have you allowed something that someone said to you to become your own belief? Do you think that you are somehow undeserving of being healthy because of something you did, or maybe something you continue to do? Are you subconsciously punishing yourself because you feel like that is what you deserve?

Those may seem like weird questions but you would be surprised at how many people have never thought about these questions and honestly have a hard time answering them. It is so common for people to believe that truly being healthy isn’t actually possible for them or is something that they don’t deserve. So, I want you to take the time to reflect on your answers to these questions. 

Now that you’ve thought about your answers, I want to spend the rest of today’s episode focusing on ways you can move into a healthier mindset. 

Self-Worth

The first is to remind yourself of your worth! You were intricately and specifically made to be you! It sounds cliche to say but it’s true - no one else can be you!  We spend so much time getting caught up in what others might think about us or maybe even in something that has been said about us by another person, that we forget what our Creator said about us - that we were fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139)! We are who He says we are - not what the internet says we are, not what our friends or family say that we are, not even what our own thoughts and feelings say that we are. We have to do the heart work of letting that stuff go, of laying down our insecurities and the lies we’ve allowed ourselves to believe. We have to remind ourselves that we were made by God and God doesn’t make junk, and He doesn’t make things without a purpose. We were given life and a body to live it in, and it’s our responsibility to honor that gift by stewarding it well. 

Overwhelm

The second is to work through the overwhelm! Listen, I get it - trying to improve your health or make any health decision is overwhelming. There are so many options and so many people with opinions about the best way you to do it, but you can’t let that paralyze you. I’m all for making informed decisions and researching which option might be best for you, but it’s so easy to get caught up in all the noise that you end up not doing anything at all. So, my advice is to pick something - pick one action step that you know will improve your health, something simple. Things, like drinking more water or moving your body for 20-30 minutes every day, are great places to start. Action begets action. Once you start to make one change and stick to it, the more motivated and confident you will feel to move on to the next thing. 

Maybe your situation is more overwhelming than most. Maybe like me, you are dealing with a health condition that needs specific considerations and recommendations. If so, your first step needs to be contacting a professional that can help you, then commit yourself to learn as much as you can from them. 

Whenever I get really overwhelmed, usually with a list of things that I need to do, my husband always tells me the same thing. He says, “Line them up vertically - stop looking at them horizontally, as if they all need to be done at the same time, and just do the first thing.” As much as it may annoy me sometimes, he’s right! You can’t think about changing all the things at once - you will psych yourself out - but if you choose one thing to do first, you will begin to make progress and it will get easier from there!

Support

The third thing is you need to have a good support system. It’s critical for success! Research has shown that your health is greatly affected by the people you spend the most time with. Now, I’m not saying that if you have unhealthy friends that you need to stop hanging out with them, but I am saying that you need to find at least one person, preferably more, that will have your back and support you! Who will celebrate your wins and encourage you when you’re having a hard time. It’s going to be really difficult for you to make lasting lifestyle changes when the people you surround yourself with are making fun of you for going to work out or for not eating pizza for the third night that week. Again, the point isn’t to lose your friends, but to choose carefully who you have in your corner for this journey! Most of the time, if they truly care about you, they will be supportive and if not, it’s usually due to their own insecurities, so just keep that in mind. 

If you need a group of people to be in your corner, who are experiencing similar struggles and have the same kind of goals, join my group coaching program! This is the last week to sign up for it (registration closes on 9/1) and there are a couple of spots left! Maybe this is the first step you need to take. I really can’t think of a more fun way to get started on your health journey, or maybe to restart on your health journey, than with the guidance and support from a coach, as well as with the support from other women all experiencing and learning the same things. 

The group will meet twice a month from September - November and the meetings will be held virtually, so you’ll be able to join from the comfort of your own home! I’m really excited for this group and I would absolutely love for you to join us! 

Friends that wraps up today’s post and our August series! I hope that you heard something that encourages you! Enjoy the rest of your day!

006 - Part 2: The Top Four Reasons Women Struggle To Lose Weight - Misleading Health Myths

Hi friends! Today we will be continuing with part two of our month-long series on The Top Four Reasons Women Struggle to Lose Weight. 

Today’s topic is misleading health myths and oh my - there are so many of them! Today I’m just going to cover a few of the ones that I encounter often when working with a client and how these myths could be getting in the way of your weight loss progress.

If you haven’t already listened to part one of this series, please go back and start there! The info in that episode helps to build a solid foundation and also ensures that you understand where my heart and intention is with this series.

Let’s get into talking about misleading health myths! 

These are so common and understandably so... The nutrition and health world is constantly changing and just like anything else is subject to all the advertising fads and trends. This can make it so difficult to tell what is actually true and supported by the most up-to-date research. Unless you have had nutritional training (heck, sometimes even when you have) there’s not much of a constant point of reference or a trusted source of truth to base your decisions off of. For my family, I like to use a simple rule that helps me decide whether a health theory or new trend is good for us or maybe something I need to research more. I like to think of it this way: If the main ingredients of that item or product are made by God or come from the earth (for the purpose of eating) then it likely has a purpose in our diet and is good for us. If it’s something that has been manufactured or processed in a factory or industry, then I think twice. That doesn’t mean that I don’t eat it or use it, but I don’t just blindly accept it either.

Myth # 1 - Eating Fat Is Bad For You

One of the health myths that I encounter the most is a perfect example of following this rule. And that is the myth that eating fat is bad for you and should avoid it. Ugh… if only we could go back in time and tell the nutrition experts of the 60s that this simply isn’t true! In their defense, this was the best research they had at the time, but now there is so much research that proves that eating the right kinds of fats are not only good for us but are also absolutely vital for our health!

In studies comparing a high-fat diet, identical in calorie count, to a high-sugar diet, they found totally different effects on metabolism. The higher-fat diet caused people to burn an extra 300 calories a day (that’s like going for a 45 min run, without actually running)! These studies show that dietary fat actually speeds up your metabolism, while sugar slows it down. Not only does consuming healthy forms of fat speed up your metabolism, but it also helps to keep you full longer and helps to reduce cravings! 

In addition, eating healthy fats (like polyunsaturated, monounsaturated and even most quality-sourced saturated fats) has a long list of health benefits like reducing bad cholesterol (LDL) and increasing the good cholesterol (HDL), reducing inflammation in the body, fueling your brain (which is made up of 60% fat, by the way) and building stronger hair, nails and clearer skin. One of the most important things that consuming healthy fats does is to help balance our hormones. Fat is absolutely essential for hormone production in the body and also allows for the absorption of essential fat-soluble vitamins (like A, D, E, and K), which are all needed for hormone balance. 

I could go on and on, but as you can see thinking that including fat in your diet will make you gain weight or make you unhealthy couldn’t be further from the truth! Do make sure you are thinking about the quality of the source of the fats you are eating and avoiding inflammatory ones like trans fats and other inflammatory oils like canola. 

A few examples of healthy fats to include in your meals are things like avocados and avocado oil, coconut oil and butter, olive oil, flax seeds, chia seeds, salmon, pasture-raised eggs, nuts, and nut-butters.  As far as how much, a good general rule is about 2 Tbsp per meal (1 Tbsp is about the size of your thumb).

One more thing to add to the myth about fat is that if it’s true that healthy fats are good for your health, then it’s also true that all the “low-fat” and “diet” foods and drinks out there are not good for you. When in doubt, refer back to the basic rule that I mentioned in the beginning. Look at the label - are there a bunch of words you can’t pronounce or understand? Is it super low in fat but high in sugar? If so, it’s not a good choice! 

Myth # 2 - All Calories Are Created Equal

No… just no! I think if most of us really took a minute to think this myth through, we would see it for exactly that! All calories are not created equally and therefore will have different effects on the body. You will never get the same amount of nutrients, feeling of satiety, or energy from a can of coke as you will from eating an apple with almond butter, even though they are almost the exact same amount of calories.

Our intake of food is about so much more than calories, which is why I feel that a hyper-focus on calories alone can often do more harm than good! When your main goal is just to stay under a certain calorie count for the day, it becomes easy to lose sight of focusing on quality. The calorie-focused mentality can also cause us to mistakenly think that the key to losing weight is to just always burn more calories than you consume. As a matter of fact, I used to think that! I wouldn’t have any problem at all eating those donuts or that bag of chips, as long as I knew that I was going to go “work it off” later. But, the truth is that our bodies are way more complex than a math equation and our food is more than just calories and flavors! Food is information telling our cells what to do! It is actual fuel for our bodies! Whether we like it or not, everything we eat affects our hormones, our brains, and our metabolism. We have to be more concerned about the quality of the calories we consume, instead of the quantity.

Myth # 3 - The More You Exercise, The Thinner You Will Be

Without question, exercise is a foundational component of good health. There are numerous benefits to our health from regularly moving our bodies - things like lowering chronic inflammation, improving mood and memory, strengthening muscles and bones, increasing energy levels, improving sleep quality, increasing metabolism and many more. But just like in so many other areas, balance is key in exercise too! As we are now learning, more may not always be better when it comes to exercise - especially for women and especially if you struggle with hormone imbalance.

It may seem like common sense to try to work out as much as possible when you are trying to lose weight, especially when you’re working toward a goal like balancing your hormones or improving your fertility. But doing things like two-a-day workouts or multiple hour-long cardio sessions can tip the scale of benefit versus risk. As I just mentioned, regular, moderate exercise actually helps to lower inflammation and overall reduces levels of stress hormones, like cortisol,  in the body. But when you crossover into “over-training”, the opposite starts to take place and you start to have elevated cortisol levels in the body for a prolonged amount of time. If cortisol levels are chronically high, it can increase hormones like testosterone and subsequently estrogen, while also decreasing hormones like progesterone. This can quickly have a domino effect and start to cause things like irregular cycles, acne, increased appetite, extreme fatigue, and blood sugar dysregulation. These are things you certainly don’t want to deal with. 

So, I say all of this, just to say just be mindful of your workouts - both the frequency and the intensity! You want a good balance! 

I often recommend to my clients, especially when they are just starting to get back into exercising regularly, or they are already dealing with some hormone issue or inflammatory disease, to shoot for a goal of just moving their bodies for 30 minutes a day! This can be walking, jogging, weight-training, HIIT style workouts, barre, yoga - really whatever you enjoy! Picking something that you enjoy and won’t dread, will increase the likelihood that you will actually do it. Ask a friend to join you, if that will help you stay accountable and feel more motivated, but just don’t go to any extremes. Remind yourself that the point of exercising is to move your body, to increase oxygen and nutrients to your tissues, to help calm stress and inflammation, and ultimately to help your body to be strong and to function well. 

I hope that this episode has helped to clear up any of these myths that you might have been taught and will help remove potential roadblocks on your way to moving your health forward in the area of weight loss!

Please remember that sign-ups are open for my Fall Group Coaching Sessions that will start in September! If you feel like you need some extra support and accountability to reach your health goals, this is a great opportunity for you to not only work with me but also to be a part of a community of women all working on similar goals! Sign-ups will be open until September 1st, but spots are limited, so make sure you get your spot! 

005 - Part 1: The Top Four Reasons Women Struggle To Lose Weight - The Wrong Goal

Hey friends! I am so excited today because we are kicking off something new here - a month-long series about weight loss. Each week in the month of August, we are talking about the top four reasons that women struggle to lose weight. I think this is something that most of us have experienced, at least at some point in our lives. Whether it’s something you’ve battled for most of your life or it’s something that you are newly facing after having a baby, most of us can relate. And while it always takes effort and intention, for some, it seems downright impossible.

Can you relate to that? Do you feel like you are doing all the right things but nothing is changing? Have you tried every fad diet out there only to find yourself frustrated and pretty much in the same place you were when you started? Well, if so - the episodes this month are specifically for you and I hope that you will hear at least one thing that encourages you and can help point you in the right direction! 

Another reason that I am SO excited today is that I’m announcing the launch of my next group coaching program! So real quick, before we get into today’s topic, I want to give you a few details about the program and how you can sign up! 

So my Group Coaching Program is personalized coaching and support, just like you would get in a one-on-one coaching program with me, but in a group setting. This will be a small group of women, all with similar goals that will meet virtually - so in the comfort of your own home, twice a month. One of my favorite parts about participating in a group coaching program is that it provides you with not only education and coaching from me, but also with both accountability and community with other women just like you. It’s also a super affordable program and is great for those that feel that they need support, but maybe not to the point of needing a one-on-one session. Sign-ups for the session are open now and will remain open until September 1st! As I mentioned before this is a small group, so spots are limited!  Click here to sign up! 

As I transition into the topic of this month’s series, which is weight loss, I want to take a minute and just get clear on something that is really important to me and something I want to be sure that you understand. You, my sweet friend, are so much more than whatever number shows up on your scale in the morning. As a matter of fact, your weight, your pant size, your waist circumference has absolutely zero impact on your worth and what you bring to this world. If you never lost one pound, you would be just as valuable and loved by your creator as you are right now. So, while the topic of this month’s episodes may talk a lot about weight loss, it 100% does not need to be the focus of your entire life or the thing that defines you. 

As a matter of fact, when I’m working with a client, one of the very first things I tell them is that losing weight isn’t going to be the focus of our work together. Losing weight is a side effect, a symptom of becoming more healthy physically and emotionally, just like a lot of times gaining weight is a side effect or a symptom of becoming less healthy. Good health, increased energy, an optimally functioning body, a joyful and clear mind are all examples of a great goal, but losing weight cannot be the core goal! This leads me to today’s topic (finally, right!?)

One of the most common reasons that women struggle to lose weight, and to keep it off, is that they have the wrong goal! 

When a client comes to me and says “I want to lose weight” my very first question to them is going to be, “why”? Why do you want to lose weight? Is it so that you feel better? Feel better how? More energy to play with your kids? Fewer headaches and joint pain so that you can go out and be active with your friends and family? Is it because you hope to have a baby soon and you want to increase your chances of a healthy pregnancy?  Maybe it’s so you can feel more confident as you enter the dating world or as you prepare for an upcoming job change. Maybe you know that you have a genetic predisposition to a disease like diabetes, hypertension or an autoimmune disease, and you want to reduce the chances of that becoming your reality. Whatever the reason is, it has to go beyond losing weight for the sake of losing weight. It has to be something meaningful to you... Something that will keep you motivated when you are exhausted or when you aren’t seeing results as fast as you think you should. It has to go beyond the surface of just wanting to be thinner before vacation because guess what… that vacation is going to come and go, and then what? You go right back to where you were and then do it all over again next year. That just doesn’t work! 

Also, not only does it need to be meaningful, it needs to be both specific and realistic. Friends - this can be so frustrating for you! Having either a vague goal or thinking that you are going to be able to drop 25 lbs, safely, in 30 days will have you feeling defeated before you even start! As I mentioned in the beginning, this is one of the reasons that I believe that losing x # of lbs in x # of days just isn’t a healthy goal. There is so much that goes into your body functioning well and releasing weight, especially if it’s something you’ve been battling for a while, you can’t think that you’re just going to somehow will it into being. It’s a much better idea to set a meaningful overall, big-picture goal, and then to set small, specific, action steps that you can take as well as small, specific, results you would like to see.

So, let me give you a quick example - Let’s say that you come to me and say that you want to lose 30 lbs. After diving a little deeper, we realize that the reason you want to do this is that you are getting married next year and want to not only feel amazing and confident on your wedding day, but you also want to start this new chapter of your life as healthy as possible. So now we’ve identified your main, big-picture goal! Next, we set a few action steps that involve eating more meals at home - made up of whole, nutrient-dense foods, increasing your water intake daily, and moving your body 30 minutes every day. In our conversation, you also mention that you are struggling with acne and are so stressed out about taking pictures because of that. So, knowing that the food you eat has a major effect on the condition and quality of your skin, we set clearer skin and reduced acne as your small-goal/result # 1. 

Can you see how you would leave that session feeling much more hopeful and motivated, than if I said, okay - get to work and I want you to have lost 5 lbs before we meet again? That isn’t helpful! So why do we set those kinds of goals and expectations for ourselves? 

Your homework for this week is to make time to really sit down and think about your goal. Does it go beyond just seeing a certain number on the scale or fitting into that pair of jeans that you have tucked away in your closet? Is it meaningful? Is it reflective of your true desire and is it something that will keep you motivated? Also, is it specific? Do you know what action steps you need to take to get there? What results will you look for on the way, to help you know that you are making progress and on the right track? 

If you can already say, “no - I have no idea where to even start” or, “my goal feels too overwhelming”, let me help you! Sign up for the group coaching program or if you feel like you need more personalized, one-on-one support, send me an email or schedule a free consultation. I would absolutely love to help you! 

Next week we are going to be talking about health myths that could be making it more difficult to move forward in your health journey! Until then, enjoy your week and I’ll see you next time!