Perspective

I'm just going to leave this here for myself. I don't mind sharing it with you, but it's more as a reminder for myself that no matter where I am right now, it's a far cry from where I was almost 13 months ago!

I'm not where I want to be, but I'm getting there!

Time for Something New!

As the sound of crickets have been heard through my blog over the past almost 6 months, I've decided it's time for some new accountability!

Life has been crazy busy, and I've done well sticking to the meal plan that one of my coach friends had put together for me. I finally got to the point where the scale said 25% BF and it definitely got under 175 and at one point I had the metabolic age of a 25 yr old!! Super exciting!

 And then I just stopped.

I tend to do this. I set a goal, I work actively towards it, I achieve I and then I give up. I've noticed this pattern looking back on my life and I realize I did it here too!  I'd reached my goals, had no accountability or push to reach a new one and as a wise woman once said to me, "If you are not moving forwards, you are moving backwards." So I stopped pushing myself, stopped caring and allowed myself to let life not only life all over me, but let it drag me down and started moving backwards.

I have honestly let my depression take over and I ate junk food for the last 3 weeks. I have pounded back chips, popcorn, candy... I stopped being consistent with my tabs and my nutrient timing and I gained 5 lbs and 4% BF back. Plus, my energy has been almost non existent and my sleep schedule has been a mess. Feeling gross and miserable turned my mood gross and miserable and.... Well, it's just been a yucky time.

Thankfully, I've been able to recognize that this shift in my life is not one that's going to be in my favour and so after chatting with a different coach friend who did a competition jearlier this year, I decided it was time for me to push myself, to hold myself accountable to a new level and to get some sick results. I've always envied those fit girls who had abs and beautiful biukini bodies and I've decided it's time for one of my own!! So I've joined the H24Fit Smoothies and Shakerz and I'm excited to be competing in a Novice Mama bikini comp Oct 15th!

Here are my starting pics:

Well... Gotta start somewhere, I guess! 

I've never owned a bikini before. Ever. Purchasing my very first bikini in my entire life was a definite out-of-my-comfort-zone move today. Putting it on and having photographic evidence of my last 3 weeks was very humbling and reminded me that whether I kept a accurate food journal or not, my body is going to. But being able to really look at my body in this way makes me proud of how far I've already come and really makes clear to me how ready I am to really kick everything up a notch and push myself to a new epic result!

 I am excited to do this Oct comp and know that by my 31st birthday (Oct 27th) I will not only be in the best shape of my life, but will have achieved what only 2 years earlier I was convinced would never be possible. And I get to do it eating my delicious Herbalife products! 

It is still a challenge for me to not compare myself to others who have posted their starting pics in the private Facebook page, but I am actively reminding myself that this competition is about me only truly competing with myself to get to my own personal best. They have not had my life and I have not had theirs and I have to be gracious and allow myself to be ok with where I am and to know that ultimately, it doesn't matter what I look like now, because this is the starting point. And everything from here is going to be improvements! 

I'm excited and it's going to be awesome and I'm looking forward to sharing my challenges and this entire experience with you as well! 

Wish me luck!!

When "Get-Up-and-Go" gets up and goes.

So I've had a rough week this past week. I'm not going to lie, this picture pretty much sums it up. I let the world get to me this past week. Life decided to life all over me and instead of fighting back, I let it take me down.

Last Sunday was the day that life life-ed all over me and Monday I woke up super sore. Like I could barely move my neck and shoulders. I bowed out of Monday Fit Club (which is unheard of for me) and instead chose to watch the kiddos. I guessed that a lot of my issues with my neck was stress (as that's usually where we hold all our tension) so I used the time to journal. That helped a bit. I took myself to the hot tub at the fitness centre and later on that night put more heat on it.

Tuesday it was worse. WAAAAAAAAAAAAY worse. I didn't sleep well as every movement was painful and by Tuesday morning I couldn't even lift my head. I was lucky hubby was home to be domestic for me and get the kiddos out the door, but I did eventually have to get going. I had a business I needed to take care of, so I did what I needed to, and later on, once the kids were in bed, a good friend come and hang with me and just sitting and talking made a world of difference.

Wednesday I wasn't as sore, but made an appt with Magic Hands Meghan, my amazing massage therapist and friend and learned that my pecs where so tight that they were screwing with my back and neck. She worked a lot of them out and i felt tons better. Physically, that is. Emotionally, I was still brooding under a black cloud. Went to Fit Club Wednesday night and worked out hard.

Thursday morning I lead a fit club and kicked not only everyone elses arse, but my own. Again. I got a good shower in that made me feel half normal and went to hang out with my awesome friend again. We chilled and patched our kiddos pants with creative patches (I love Pinterest for that stuff!) and then after picking up my kiddos from school, we went home and crashed out on the couch for the next few hours.

Friday was the day that I really fell apart. I was so physically exhausted from back to back intense workouts and so emotionally drained from carrying my junk around with me that I didn't leave the couch until my husband made me. And then I kinda blahed through the rest of the day until I could change back into my PJ's and lounge on the couch again, watching tv.

Saturday..... oh Saturday. I basically slept all day. I slept on the couch Friday night as my hubby and kiddos had taken over my bed. I woke up long enough to have a bit to eat, watch a couple shows with my girls, and then promptly fell back asleep for the rest of the morning and a good chunk of the afternoon. I didn't move from the couch other than to use the bathroom. I had no drive, no energy, no will to function. I was toast.

I will also mention here that I ate like absolute junk this week. I purposely went to the grocery store and bought junk food at the beginning of the week. I bought chips and chocolate. I downed most of it on my own. I was done with this healthy lifestyle thing. I was sick and tired of it all, and, dammit, i was going to live the lifestyle part of it all! I was so tired of being on all the time, eating all the right foods at all the right times. I was mentally exhausted and sick and tired of choosing to not eat the crap foods. I missed the crap foods. So I ate them. Chips, cupcakes (gluten free, of course), loaf cake (also GF), popcorn loaded in butter, candy, chocolate... I ate it all throughout the week.  I did not consistently have my shake every morning. I did not keep my water intake up. I did not eat good, clean, body fueling foods that give me energy. I didn't even take my tablets properly, only when I remembered through my foggy sleepy coma.

Today, Sunday, I decided would be better. I didn't truly want to, but at some point I needed to get my crap together. And there was no one around to do it for me, and I wanted certain things, so if I wanted them I was going to have to get off my arse and go get them. We did miss church due to sheer laziness as I was awake around 7 am, but I finally decided that at 10 we were getting ready to go out. I also made my shake this morning, took my tabs and got my crap together. Showered, got dressed, got me and the kids out and did some grocery shopping. Restocked the good yummy foods in my house and then headed out for a team training at 2, loaded up with snacks and an extra shake for myself. It was the best decision I could have made for myself.

Looking back on my week I can see how my mindset got in my way, and that is going to happen. Because as a wise woman once said, "Life is going to life all over you every chance it gets, so you gotta know what you want so you can stay the course,"  but I can also see how my food choices made a huge impact on how my week went. Those junk foods I wanted so bad only contributed to my feeling like crap. Which, naturally, fed into the crappy mindset. I also didn't get up at my usual 5am and do my personal development, which had a HUGE impact on how my week went. I didn't use my skincare consistently either, and now my skin is paying the price. They say hindsight is 20/20 and OMG, is it ever!!

I learned so much about my lifestyle and about how I want to live this past week. I went into my training today looking to be re-inspired, and I was! I swear, some of those people were talking directly to me! But today, my choices fueled my day to be better and it was! It was much better! And I want more better days. Did I maybe need a week of feeling like crap to help me gain some perspective? It's entirely possible. Sometimes the universe lets you get a good arse kicking to see if you're really ready for the next awesome thing it's going to bring. I think I also needed this week to see the importance of balance. I've been struggling to find that over the past months and I just got burned out. When I went back to how it used to be, I was miserable, which let me see the difference the changes I'd been making in my life really were making. And it let me choose again which direction I wanted to go in. And I'm excited to go that way again!! No, I don't have it all figured out, but I'm reenergized and looking forward to figuring it out.

A fabulous and truly inspirational lady, Jill Addy, said this today to us over training, and I want to leave it with you because it really rang true for me today:

 

What's good isn't behind you. The best hasn't happened. The best is yet to come! So keep looking forward, keep focusing on the future because it's going to be freaking awesome and you'll never get there if you spend your life like a driver driving through the rearview mirror. Take your crap, own it, push through it, and prevail! Because everything worth having is going to take work and determination and committment. And if you fall down, that's ok. What matters is that you pick yourself up again. So this week, I'm picking myself up and getting back to it.

 And if I can, you can!

We've got this!

The Power of Your Mind

I know that I had all the best intentions of staying on track with blogging and posting over the holiday season, but I did not make the time for it and so it fell by the wayside as I filled my time with other things. Forgive me. I'm working on doing better. I'm actually quite terrible at doing things like this, but I'm going to continue to make a solid effort with the intention of getting better and more consistent at it.
Ah, the holidays. While they're supposed to be fun and relaxing, I find them stressful, especially so this year as I worked at trying to stay on my nutrition plan with varying degress of success. And  Actaully, all in all, I would say my holiday season navigation was one bug huge fat failure. And I am being honest about that. And usually that would make me feel like crap. But it doesn't and I'm going to tell you why.

I woke up Dec 26 with a huge A HA moment. I woke up bright at early at 5 am as I was resolved to do to get back on track after the holidays and I did some personal development. Right now I'm reading a book by Jennifer Sincero called "You are a Badass" and it's amazing and if you haven't read it, get out there and do so because it WILL change your life. Anyway, I was reading the book and i got to the point where it was time to find a bookmark and I started digging though my nightstand. Inside, a few days before, I had dumped an entire box of Hot Tamales and was totally gorging on them, but stealthily hiding them from my hubby. And while I was looking for my bookmark, three lone Hot Tamales appeared. And I looked at one of them and thought, "I could totally pop this in my mouth right now." And the thought that immediately followed was, "Yeah, but I don't even want it!" And then it was like time stopped as the realization that I didn't want the candy that I had been shoveling in not 48 hrs ago. Its like someone had flipped a switch and all of the lack of motivation I'd had, the binging on the chocolate, the over indulging (all the things I know NOT to do, especially as a coach) was gone. 


It was this moment as this was all occuring that this quote finally clicked and made sense in my mind:

See, I didn't fully understand what this truly meant. But what it meant for me was that the reason that I was binging and indulging and having such a hell of a time staying on track was because after Oct 31st, I didn't believe that I could. I truly, 100%, did not believe that I could succeed and lose weight over the holiday season. And you know what? My mind made that the reality. I didn't succeed. I'm actually sure I gained (I'm not going to lie to you, I've stayed as far away from the scale as I possibly could as I am a little terrified to know what the damage is). But the point is that my mind so powerfully believed that I wasn't going to succeed over the holidays that it became my story. And the moment it was over, I was back in, 150%, committed to reaching all of the goals. Isn't that amazing?

When as coaches we tell our clients, its 80% nutrition, 20% fitness and 100% mindset, I didn't get the 100% mindset aspect. Sure it means that you practice discipline and commitment, but it's so much more than that!! Your mind is incredibly powerful! And if you don't believe with certainty that something can be done, it won't happen!! I just won't! It's a self fulfilling prophecy; Where if you focus on something negative so clearly that you make it happen. You take the chance out of it. When you are so focused on why something can't be done, you make it that way. But if you open your mind and believe that it's possible, amazing things can happen.
 
Ok, I feel you if you are like, "Ok, what have you been smoking?" I was like that too. I understood the concept, but the practical application completely eluded me. When I finally got it, I started playing with it and, I swear to you, it's like having the most epic super power.

One of the fun perks of losing over 40 lbs is that your clothes don't fit so you get to buy new ones at stores you could never even walk into before. I got to do this this past weekend and I decided to put my new mind powers to the test. I walked into the store and did a lot of browsing until I came upon their workout section and I found a super cute and warm workout sweater. As I was sifting through them, not finding my size, my mind pessimistically said, "Your size won't be here." I immediately caught myself and said, "No. My size will be here and it will fit perfectly." Guess what? I found my size. And it fit perfectly. In fact, I am wearing said workout sweater as I type this. It is warm and comfy and I love it! Two days later I went into a store with the intention of finding a cute sweater that I fit and I could throw over tanks and shirts to keep warm. I went in with the mindset that I would find the sweater and it would be in my size and in 10 minutes I had my sweater and was walking out of the store with my prize in hand. You guys, THIS SHIZ WORKS! It's mind blowing! And you feel like a superhero. And as I sat in my car later, I thought, "If I can do this with something as small as clothes, imagine how awesome it will be when I apply the same tactic to much bigger goals!"
Right now we are starting a 6 week New Year, New You challenge. And I am STOKED for it! You know why? Because I can see my success. I can see the numbers on the scale that I want. And I know that I am going to put in the work to get there. Because faith requires action. You can't just believe something and expect it to come flying towards you. It doesn't work like that. The universe isn't just going to hand you things, you have to put yourself out there, prove to the universe that you're not just playing, you're in this thing and you want what you want and you will put yourself into those positions to get where you want to go. If you work towards it, plan for it like it's already a done deal, the universe is going to make it happen! 

I am so excited to see what the future is going to bring with the practical application of my new mindset! 

 

P.S.



If you want to learn more about how to have your mindset work for you, here's what the book looks like. I totally recommend it. Be prepared for some growing and letting go of some old baggage, but, I'm telling you, it is SO worth it!!