All in coaching
Ready for some unconventional holiday season advice?
You don't have to "earn" your body (or mashed potatoes).
It's the language of the season, the undercurrent of every holiday-themed meal, but I don't find it productive. In fact, it often does more harm than good.
I think it's terribly destructive to use this language, not only because it sets us up on a food-as-reward-fitness-as-punishment cycle, but also because it reinforces an idea I am vehemently against.
Picture these 2 scenarios:
A) How bad do you want it? Push it, push it, PUSH IT!! Pain is weakness leaving the body. Come on, you can't quit until you puke or faint! You can sleep when you're dead. NO EXCUSES.
B) How well did you sleep last night? You got 3 unbroken hours and the rest were up and down, because your daughter had a nightmare? Okay, how about we do a moderate-intensity continuous circuit instead, or would you rather go for a walk? Have you eaten a fruit or vegetable yet today? Would you like me to fill your water bottle for you while you warm up?
My training philosophy has shifted over the years, as I stare down my 10-year anniversay of entering the fitness industry.
How regularly do you stop to take stock of your progress?
It's a practice I highly recommend (and for which I block off time every Friday afternoon, on a micro level, and that occurs naturally on a macro level, I find, if I pay attention to my rhythms and those of nature). I've found both with myself and with the vast majority of my clients, if we don't stop to look around and notice how far we've come, feeling the breeze on our faces of the new places at which we've arrived, things can feel like an eternal uphill battle.
Is your workout "working?"
A client came to me once saying that her workout didn't "work." She twisted her hair around her fingers, obviously nervous to say so.
"I love the feeling I'm getting during our sessions & in my own gym time," she said. "I feel stronger. I push myself harder, and I love feeling accomplished. I can lift more weight. I'm having fun. But it's just not...working."
Of course, because I am a fan of questions more than most other things, I asked what she meant.
Honing our crafts takes reps under the bar, after all. To learn where we thrive under the pressure and where we cower in fear, we need to set out on the path.
When looking into some research on perseverence and change, I found that the highest performers work on their weaknesses the most. Seems obvious, no?
But it's the last thing most of us want to do.
We want to avoid them, find ways around them, out-muscle our weaknesses with our strengths.
SO many of us have bought the dream sold by the fitness industry: that once we’re lean enough, light enough, tanned and toned and waxed and sculpted enough, THEN we’ll be happy. Then all those opportunities will be offered to us. Then we’ll have the perfect partner, the perfect kids, the perfect wardrobe, the perfect meal prep... we’ll have it all figured out.
And, lucky for you, there’s a cream and a pill and a 21-Day Fix that will give it all to you, no work required, for the low low price of $19.97 (plus a $29 startup fee, and a monthly subscription of $24.95).
How’s that been working for you?
Once upon a time, someone asked me if I would join them in training for a bodybuilding show.
It sounded like a good idea at the time: I’d have a group of women that would hold me accountable; I had a deadline that included me being on a stage in a tiny sparkly bikini; I had a meal plan perfectly laid out for me.
All I had to do was follow it.
Any guesses on how long that lasted for me?
Fitness is about your physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
It’s about feeling at home in your body, knowing that you have a powerful tool at your disposal, ready to tackle rogue babies crawling all over your floor, a demanding work life stretching your skills, the weekend pickup kickball game with your friends, and anything else in between.
It’s about saying YES to the life you want to live without the nagging thoughts of, “I don’t have anything to wear,” or, “I shouldn’t do that, because I had too many Goldfish yesterday.”
It’s about FINALLY not missing out on 95% of your life in order to weigh 5% less.
Which is why I've developed The Bold Body Initiative, a 12-week fitness and body image group coaching program to help you feel at home in your body — no matter what you're wearing or doing or eating.
"But HOW?"
I get asked this question a lot, and it's a fair one.
HOW do you start strength training if you've never felt like you belong in the gym before?
HOW do you eat just a few bites of "bad" foods?
HOW do you wake up in the morning and not hate on your stomach?
HOW do you dance when you're a clumsy dancer, or write when you're an unclear writer, or love when you're an insecure lover?
There aren't always easy answers, and, "just start," while true, isn't very helpful in the swirling overwhelm.
Rigidity in our programs keeps us uninformed: it keeps us enslaved to a program or a personality dictating our goals to us and promising that their methods are best. We don't give ourselves the opportunity to be our own best teachers—to explore, to experiment, or to say, "that's not my jam."
Allowing my body the space to not be perfect showed me that I actually don't have to be perfect anywhere. I know what's best for me, and I can change course at any time.
If you're a woman, it's highly likely that you've spent at least some time training to shrink.
The gym is male-dominated territory, and in no place is this more prominently displayed than in the weight room.
The free weight area is often full of grunts, stringer tanks, gallon jugs, backwards hats, and egos, with the women relegated to the 5-pound dumbbells (you know, for toning.).
We've all paid our dues: every woman I know has spent hours on a treadmill, elliptical, or stair stepper, not feeling a workout is complete until there are puddles on the floor, wrapping ourselves in waist trainers and sweat bands to hasten the process, always hoping to...get smaller.
An exercise I do with many of my clients is an examination of the words we choose to describe ourselves.
Many women come to me feeling things like, “gross,” “large and in charge,” and/or, “disgusting.”
I've been there, too, impugning my thighs for spilling over the sides of my chairs, deriding my stomach for flowing over my waistband, slamming my shoulders for ripping the seams of my shirts.
You're not alone in this shadow, but you also don't have to stay there.
