Hey Friends,

We are officially 6 days into the NEW year.. I think in the past this would have been about the time where I would have been embarrassed about how badly I had fallen off track already. I would have searched back on my own newsfeed and deleted whatever “resolution” I bravely announced to my social media world so that the next time I was caught skipping my group fitness class or eating something fried I could deny that I ever really wanted to change.

It’s kind of a funny image to picture me eating fried food in my workout pants in the parking lot of LA Fitness, but it’s probably less funny when you can relate.

This year I decided for the first time in a long time to take a different approach to a fresh, new year. To be transparent we typically start Jan 1 with a completely cleaned out fridge.. we toss out anything that no longer agrees with our “new” selves and we start fresh. This year though, we decided to create habits that we could adjust to and maintain long term. For us, that meant we slowly weened off the junk we had been indulging in instead of going to bed with a belly full of Oreos Dec 31st and waking up a completely different person who only eats white meat and loves kale on Jan 1.

Now if you quit junk cold turkey and you are 6 days strong- GET IT GIRL (or guy!) If you have a plan that is working for you.. keep working it, but if you are getting a late start like us or if you fell off track and got a little road rash, let’s tackle this together.

This year looks different for me when it comes to health and fitness goals because in just a few days we are officially starting our first round of IVF (I could burst I am so excited) but that does mean that what I normally do will no longer serve me in this season. I am restricted on supplementation, calorie deficit, exercising… so pretty much my entire “new year, new me” plan goes out the window!

At first I was bummed because I’ll be honest, while I have worked hard at not being discouraged mentally over the last year, I have let my food discipline get out of control because waiting on a miracle is hard.. but waiting on a miracle while I eat pizza, slightly less hard. So when I found out that I couldn’t use my old tried and true method I decided that I would have to come up with a plan that was healthy mentally and physically in this season of life. For me this year my goal is to go from “FRUMP TO BUMP.”  So my focus has shifted from “leaning out” to a healthy pregnancy.

Even if you yourself are not tying to grow a human this year, if you are looking for a solution that is both healthy and doable for longer than 1 week, I think you’ll find my method helpful!

These are the top 3 things I am doing to help myself stay focused on my health and fitness in 2019.. and get a WIN!

I think it’s important to point out that a “win” will look different for everyone. Some examples might be:

Waking up early to get a strong breakfast in before work.

Drinking 1/2 your body weight in ounces of water each day.

Trying a new healthy food that normally you would pass on.

Cutting out or only having dairy in moderation. (mercy, this one is hard!)

Finding a meal plan that works for you and sticking to it!

All of these move the ball down the court and so they count as a win!

 

1. Give myself grace.

I’m already working on this one because it was difficult for me on Jan 1 to not feel like a failure when I wasn’t perfect. This year I am going to focus on not quitting so I don’t have to “start over.” If you suffer from a diet mentality then you know exactly what I am talking about when I say it’s exhausting to start and stop the same “diet” or “plan” a billion times.. it’s like hot dang if I had just stuck with it and moved forward when I messed up instead of stopping and going immediately to the drive thru I would have seen some results by now.

I think that is where a lot of people get tripped up.. they look at people who have gotten the results that they want and assume that they were perfect along the way, when really they have just been doing it longer not better. When I coach people with their nutrition I like to tell them when they are getting overwhelmed by a bad choice to “make the next food that goes in your mouth a good choice.” It’s that simple, just like that you’re back on track!

 

2. Be prepared.

I can’t stress this one enough, especially if you are battling a food addiction you MUST have a plan for your next meal. When I don’t have a plan and hunger hits I will straight up eat cold tortilla shells.. I don’t know why, it’s like something snaps in my brain and I have ZERO self control. Meal prepping for me is less about pretty meals and more about avoiding being HANGRY at all cost.. one because I am mean when I am hungry but also because I can’t remember my goals when I can smell a crouton from a mile away.

If you have the time, skill and patience to make beautiful meals, good on ya… while you’re at it come to my house. For us, we keep it simple and we keep it budget friendly. When you make your meals in advance is as if you have taken authority over your appetite and you are forcing it into submission. After some time you will tame your tongue and you won’t have to be so stern but for now, you’ve got goals so get some Tupperware & a George Foreman.

3. Do not do it alone.

I have yet to meet someone who has had massive success losing significant weight or changing their nutrition radically on their own. If you are anything like me you’ve probably tried this solo act before. You have set goals in private and you have casually adjusted your food at the dinner table but every time you stop before true progress sticks. If you didn’t need help with this, you would have already conquered it. I use to think that if I didn’t verbally admit something it was as if I could fix it and then I would never have to talk about it.

If I didn’t admit that working out intimidated me then I could get over it and get fit finally.

If I didn’t admit that I knew little about finances I could just make more money and it would work itself out.

If I didn’t admit that we were struggling to become parents I could just get treatment and have a baby and not have to talk about how hard it was.

For me, fitness, finances and family were all things that I struggled with in private for way too long because it was uncomfortable for me to ask for help and to admit that what I was doing wasn’t working. Once I found people who would hold me accountable and teach me how to get the change I was looking for I saw real results!

If you want 2019 to be the year that you finally check something off your “resolution” list you are going to have to approach it differently… for me, it’s going to look like aggressive grace, for you it might mean asking for help!

There is no shame in yo’ game when you partner with like minded people to go somewhere you have never been before.

See ya next Sunday,

Cara