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Fitness & Training Health Coaching Spiritual Health Uncategorized

That Time That I Ignored God….

“You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with the joy of your presence, with eternal pleasures of your right hand.” (Romans 15:13)

I distinctly remember the moment I ignored God.  Where God was trying to show me my “path of life” but i ignored Him.   Subsequently, I was not “filled with the joy of God’s presence” but rather felt a painful emptiness that ensued for the following several months.

I had just received my nutrition certification and was absolutely in love with the gym I worked at part-time called Bodies by Perseverance in Denver, CO.

BBP PicThis gym is known for it’s hardcore, family-centered, Faith and integrity-based, butt whoopins’. People that walk into that gym are ready. to. work.   I absolutely loved every minute I spent in that gym. I loved the people that pushed me. I loved the pain I felt from doing things with my body had never done before. I loved the feeling of pushing myself to my limits, time and time again. It kept me looking for more and more my body could do. It was intoxicating!

Naturally, because of the intensity of this gym and the owners, Courtney and Jennifer Samuel’s incredible training technique, it became a place where a lot of members would engage and decide to do Body Building competitions. Being surrounded by people going all out for their body was inspiring. But, I witnessed the highs and the lows of that training.

I was asked if I was interested in competing in a show for about 1.5-2 years, always saying “No, it wasn’t for me” simply because I saw the crazy moods and obsessive nature that each client (notably the females) would endure. However, I also saw their incredible bodies when they were there on stage, and I have to admit, I was envious.

When I finally got my nutrition certification, I was feeling very under qualified. I knew I passed the test, but did not think I had the chops to actually give anyone any nutritional advice. Forget that I had a degree in Biology and a passion for science and body understanding. Forget that I obsessively read health magazine and online resource and anything I could get my hands on that spoke about food and nutrition! Forget that I had already been helping clients lose weight! I was clearly qualified and clearly had a ton of knowledge, but I was still feeling insecure.

insecurity

Because of that insecurity, I rationalized that I should do the enviable “Bikini Competition” so I could “test myself” on the nutrition it takes to get really lean.

So on a whim, I made my announcement to my trainers and my friends at the gym that I was going to “finally do a show” and everyone was thrilled for me! My training would start immediately.

 Then it happened.

I was standing in the middle of all the equipment. Quietly it was dawning on me the amount of hours I had just committed myself to and the insurmountable tasks I had just pledged myself. Then, I heard it within:

 “You don’t have to do this Mandi.”

I knew it was God speaking through my inner voice. I can always tell that it’s God because of how loving it is to me. My own self-talk is always much more self critical and often is pushing me to do “more” and “try harder” at everything.

So I had a decision to make– listen to this Divine inner voice or follow-through with my plan.

I mentioned in an article last week, that one of the natural Core Values I’ve lived by is Integrity. Integrity is a very good quality and I do feel blessed that I have it as a natural value and tendency. url

However, in times like this, it did not serve my decision making very well. You see, because I had made my “grand announcement” to everyone that I was going to do a competition——remember, on a whim and out of insecurity—-I was going to follow-through with what I said I was going to do.

That is the problem with Integrity sometimes. Sometimes you say things you shouldn’t say; you commit to things you shouldn’t commit to; you sign up for outlandish tasks that are taking you away from the path you should be going. But because you said you were going to do it, you follow-through, right on down to your own detriment.

I’ve shared what happens in this story. My story didn’t turn out as I had hoped and my body suffered some severe consequences I’m still dealing with to this day.   Instead of being able to put myself on a “healthier competition diet”, I wound up resorting to whatever extreme tactics were necessary to get the results I needed. Instead of easing myself back into regular eating post-show, I wound up getting swept up in the excitement of a new relationship and engagement and moving my entire world to California —celebrating with wine and every carb in site on the way there, of course!

Show Before and After

The style of training and eating for 5-months became very detrimental to the way I thought about myself  (being WISE’her) and my strength of Spirit (my ability to SURREND’her).   Because I was only focused on my BODY, I had no time to build the strength of my mind or spirit. I was consumed with my body and deeply riddled with even more insecurity than ever before.  In spite of being the leanest I WILL EVER BE, I was only mildly happy with how I looked.   I know you might be reading this and frustrated that I could ever possibly say that, but it is the truth.

My body was not meant to be that lean.  There are just some body’s that can lean up pretty easily and mine is not one of them.  This took a trememdous amount of work and discipline to lose this much body fat and I wasn’t enjoying seeing what I was seeing.   The moment you start seeing your ribs show and your breast bones poking through your chest, you know you’ve gone too far.  But I wasn’t going to give up at that point…not after all that work I was putting into it.

 

WAIT.

Before I ruffle too many people’s feathers (including many friends that I love dearly) who have done shows or are planning to do a show, I know this story sounds like I’m bagging on doing competitions or doing anything that pushes your body to it’s limits.   Let me be very clear, I am absolutely NOT saying that.

I wholeheartedly believe in pushing your body. To stepping out of your comfort zone. To proving to yourself that you CAN do anything, and I mean ANYTHING! That is the blessing that I DID get from doing this show.

 God DID give me PURPOSE from this decision.

This is experience did offer me a beautiful metaphor of life. I showed myself my own commitment, my determination, my perseverance and my strength.

This show also still serves me an incredible amount of hard earned lessons that I am privileged enough to share on this forum.

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I would not go back and change what I did because it would not lead me to the wisdom I have now.

That is the beauty of God’s grace, His unfailing love, and His mercy. He will continue to give us Purpose behind every mistake. He can RIGHT any wrong. He will give us 2nd chance after 2nd chance after 2nd chance. He has more capacity for Love than we can ever believe because our simple human minds cannot fathom it. Yet, we receive it sill.

 

 

While I will humbly accept the PURPOSE He will give me from my disobedience and painful repercussions, I do not confuse that with the GREATER PURPOSE that He has set out before me.

Following Him to my GREATER PURPOSE would have meant that I would have listened to that voice in my heart that told me I didn’t have to do the show.

 I had a choice:

Choose MY WAY= fear-based path that was bred out of insecurity and not feeling “qualified” enough

OR

Choose GOD’s GREATER PURPOSE= faith-based path which would have required listening for God’s guidance in Faith, Hope and Optimistic Waiting. Knowing God would bless my path if I chose to obey His words.

 

Two Paths

I was not Spiritually strong enough to make the decision to God’s Greater Purpose for my life, but God gave me Purpose from it anyway!

Being able to recognize this now is an incredible gift that I thank God for every day.

 

FINDING YOUR GREATER PURPOSE:

I would like my story to serve as an opportunity for you to see and reflect on some of the goals you are making for yourself RIGHT NOW.

I would like to open up the discussion of what our Greater Purpose IS so it might serve as a reminder for you to look for that when deciding on your goals.

Starting to look at your life from the perspective of your Greater Purpose allows all of your short-term and long-term goals to be much easier to actually accomplish.

Whenever I start working with clients, I know it is always so tempting  tempting for them to create some super challenging, lofty goals.  Many question whether they should do a competition, run a marathon, do a photoshoot in a bikini.

I see the same things out of many people that are aspiring and chasing the same type of goals on social media.  I am so thrilled to see so many strong and courageous women push themselves to greater versions of themselves.   They might just be finding their own Greater Purpose in their journey!

But I want to also caution all of my friends and family that if you are chasing after some dream for ANY OTHER REASON than God telling you to go and do it, then I’m afraid you are going to suffer some of the same consequences of your decision just as I did from mine.

  • If your goal is laced in fear;
  • If your goal is motivated by insecurity;
  • If your goal is to try to make you feel more “worthy” of somethig (i.e a boyfriend or husband);
  • If your goal is based in guilt or shame in how you look;
  • If your goal is based out of envy or comparing your body or your life to others;
  • If you think that by achieving your goal you will become happier……

then there is more work to be done than just a diet and an exercise routine &

there is more to be achieved than to just see some weight drop from the scale and some body fat shed from your frame.

Everyone of those goals I listed above is a goal that is swarming in your own path.  These emotions are NOT from GOD and they are not signs that you are on the Path to your Greater Purpose.

There is another way to challenge yourself and to push yourself without having to take your health too far.   There is a way to push your body without causing detriment to your MIND and SOUL with it.

 

You can SURREND’her yourself to your Greater Purpose and become truly STRONG’her and WISE’her.

a wright fit tag line

So this week, we’re going to talk more about Greater Purpose, finding your Calling, trusting God and Choosing FAITH and not FEAR.

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It’s gonna be AMAZING!!!

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Health Coaching Spiritual Health Uncategorized

[Part 5] Wine Not?! How to Avoid Any WINE-ing

WIne a Little

If this were a fairytale, this story of my process of how I “broke-up” with WINE would end with something like: 

“As the young Lady Chardonnay realized the error of her ways, changed her heart and decided not to drink wine as much anymore,  everyone around her was so glad and happy for her transformation that they all just accepted and embraced her new life”Happily Ever After

As I mentioned in the introduction to this series in [Part 1} Wine Not?! Marking those Darn Health Changes that affect our social lives”, I pretty plainly pointed out that a LARGE number of my closest relationships, including my husband and my best friends, were intimately tied to this act of drinking wine together.

I charted my personal journey of this decision in a path to change from my BODY to my MIND and then to my SOUL. 

Today, I am sharing how this personal change was put into PRACTICE socially. 

I would be remiss if I lead you to believe that I had all these 4 phases of my personal change were linear and happened one after another exactly.   The fact is, with any major change in your life, you learn the most by doing.Confucious Quote

I began practicing the act of avoiding drinking before I had fully awakened my Consciousness of Spirit and Surrend’hered to it. 

But it was by PRACTICING (and pretty much messing it up a lot) that I actually learned the MOST Spiritually about this decision. 

As I reiterated yesterday, until you understand something down to your SOUL, you will struggle time and time again with making a long lasting change.

But you DON’T have to have it all figured out before you start making the change.   In fact, as of right now, I don’t think I’ll EVER have it ALL figured out because I’m still struggling in some areas and with some relationships.

I can accept that and even embrace this fact because I learned very early on, by putting this process into PRACTICE I use each experience as a significant learning tool that has deepened my own Spiritual Conviction and connection to my Core Values.

Nevertheless, I have some wonderful key perspectives that I have learned that have allowed me to maintain these valuable relationships in my life.   Naturally, I am unwilling to give up just because I am no longer choosing to drink wine as much.  But naturally, something had to change in these dynamics. 

That change has been me.Me

I have learned some key perspectives allowing me to embrace this change keep my relationships in tact!

KEY PERSPECTIVE #1:

GO IN WITH A PLAN

I don’t just go into any event where I know there is going to be wine and other temptations to just wing it.  Also, I don’t go in telling myself “I’m just not going to eat that or drink that.”  No, that I’ve learned doesn’t work at all. 

The best thing I have learned to do is to go into the event with a plan of what I AM going to do.

  • I take the time to decide what it is I AM going to drink for the night, which is usually a bottle of sparkling water (served in a wine glass!) with fresh lime or lemon.
  • I’ll also plan what time I’m going to leave an event so as to avoid being around drunk people (that is not fun when you’re sober). 
  • I also find it helpful to plan ahead things I have to do the next morning that will all reinforce my commitment to my health and my Core Values that I determined (again, if you’re interested in signing up for my Core Values, 6-Step Exercise, click HERE)

KEY PERSPECTIVE #2:

ALLOW OTHERS TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR BODY, THEIR PROCESS AND THEIR FEELINGS.

I will go ahead an admit that this is the hardest thing for me to do and I am relearning this step ALL THE TIME!

NewsFlash

I can’t control other people. 

I can’t control what they are putting in their body, where they are in their own process of making a health change and certainly how my decisions are making them feel.

This is tough detaching from all of these things, especially with my natural tendency to be a people pleaser and to help people (especially in their health).     

I seem to consistently learn this perspective the hard way, especially with my husband! Errr…..

If I try to convince them that what they were doing was “wrong” then I sound judgmental.  If I tried to tell them how to not feel that way, it made them feel worse and definitely more defensive!

So, while I don’t take responsibly for their stuff, I can empathize with them. 

  • I understand how they might feel that I’m judging them because I remember feeling that way before too. 
  • I understand how they might feel ashamed that they don’t have the “will power” to not drink because I remember when it was that I thought I just needed more will power too. 
  • I can see why my actions are evoking an emotional response from a friend or my husband because I remember how hard I was on myself and how those feelings came out negatively, too.

We all want our loved ones to be on the same “page” as us so that it makes our decisions easier.  But the truth is that they’re just NOT.  We can’t control their decisions and the more you remind yourself of this fact and hand the responsibility back to them, the more it frees you from this burden!

KEY PERSPECTIVE #3:

I TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR MY OWN BODY, MY OWN PROCESS AND MY OWN FEELINGS.

Responsibility

The worst trouble I get myself into is when I think I have myself “all figured out” and I have it all “under control” or “I’m cured” of the lies. 

I get arrogant or something because the next thing I know, my husband orders an impromptu glass of Chardonnay for himself at lunch on the patio and I am jealous and mad.  I say things without thinking them through and definitely come off as though I’m judging or nagging him.

But, after a pause and some reflection, I realize exactly where my reaction is coming from.  It is stemming from still believing some of the lies in my soul that say things like, “You can’t have fun without wine” or even some other harsh things about how I’m at fault for damaging my body and this is the punishment I deserve for having been so reckless.

I take a breather and gather myself back into that space of Spiritual Consciousness in into God’s care and I see it all more clearly.

I take responsibility and make the choice to see things in their TRUTH, not see things in their lies.  Because the TRUTH is that this health choice is NOT about punishing myself—-it is about rewarding myself!  Freeing myself from the burden of lies, freeing my body from pain, freeing my mind from negative thinking and overall empowering myself and my health.

I take responsibility for my own body and my own process including any part where I realized I am backsliding and hovering between some of the phases again.

I take responsibility for my words and apologize to any person that I might have sounded judgmental to and I own exactly what my feelings are. 

Just the other day, I had to admit to my husband that my negative reaction recently to his health choices was out of jealousy, insecurity and these lies of self-punishment in my head.  I realized those feelings were wrong and my reaction to him was wrong.  Verbalizing this is an incredible gift to our loved ones and offers great clarity, but is also a gift to ourselves!

Admitting your fault first is not easy all the time, but it is liberating!

KEY PERSPECTIVE #4:

HELP TO CREATE THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENT

When it comes to social behaviors like drinking, people are most concerned with having fun.  So I have learned that the most important thing I can do to alleviate any backlash or change in the relationship is to focus my energy on creating a fun environment even when I’m not drinking.

If my energy is off and I’m in my negative head space, I will be more quiet, reserved and sitting in jealousy over the fact that I am not drinking the wine.  Negative Nancy.  Negativity 

But I will take a moment to choose my mood and choose the positive sides of my choices and go into the event much more upbeat.    It makes a significant difference!

If my friends see that I’m having fun, enjoying the night, laughing with them and not making the whole topic of conversation about the fact that “I’m not drinking wine” then it has majorly positive impact on their mood, the the night as a whole. They will be less likely to assume you are judging them or have an issue with their life choices.

One solid tip is to really shy away from talking too much about your “diet” or this health choice.

I made the mistake a time or two to explain to people exactly why I wasn’t choosing to drink and I was met with some blank stares and a clear indicator that they considered me “no fun.”  Well they were right, who wants to hear that! 

People always want to ask you why you’re not drinking and I find that a simple, nonchalant answer is ALWAYS the best call. 

“Oh no thanks, I’m good” 

I'm GoodThis is my favorite one because it’s reaffirming that I’m GOOD, as in I’m happy with my decision.   Not, “No thanks, I’m on a diet,” or “ No thanks, I can’t have that” which are both negative version.

If someone presses me further, I try to always tell the truth to these questions (some people will make up a lie, which I find to usually be unnecessary and kind of weak in owning what you’re doing) but will make the truth as light and breezy as possible.  The key to doing this is by SMILING when saying it.

–“Oh, I’m just taking not feeling it tonight.  I have something early in the morning.”

If they still continue to probe….

-“Yeah, wine has just been making me feel off lately.  So I’m taking a hiatus.  But it smells delicious!  I hope you’re enjoying it!” 

Create the environment one of enjoyment and others will not bother you as much!

PERSPECTIVE #4:

PRACTICE DOES MAKE PROGRESS!

Practice Makes Progress

I won’t say that practice makes perfect because nothing is perfect.   But practice definitely makes tremendous progress!  Studies have shown that the more you engage in a new habit of change, the more the habit will run into your natural stream of subconsciousness!

Some studies will say that you need to do something 21-days in a row in order for it to be come a reinforced habit.  But when it comes to behavior that you don’t engage in every day necessarily, I would say that a solid 30-60 days is a more realistic expectation.

I realize this may sound like a long time, especially for anyone that is struggling in early stages of this change, but it’s not a white a black issue!   It’s not as though it’s hard all 60 days and then by some miracle it’s easy on day 61!

It is a PROCESS and the more you practice, the more it will get progressively easier and easier too.  You can build momentum in your progress and it helps to reinforce your choices each time.

It is because of these valuable perspectives that I have been able to enjoy being around wine and feeling empowered by my choice to not drink it. 

It is because I was able to dive deeply into not just the health of my body, but to the health of having a strong mindset and a strong connection to my Spiritual Alignment that I was able to get to the place of putting this new health choice into action with very little change to my relationships!

I have become more and more confident that this choice is the right one for me the more I put this choice into practice! 

I take ownership of my health, my process, my values and my responsibility to improve myself to live my best life!

As I said the other day, this choice can just be one more way that I can be the change I wish to see in the world and to let my light shine before others. 

I encourage you to start the process today for whatever new health choice you need to make to do the same thing!!

God will bless your journey!

  

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Fitness & Training Spiritual Health Uncategorized

[Part 4] Wine Not?! How did I WINE-D Up Here?

You’ll find that a consistent theme in my writing and teaching on health is the importance of reaching the Spiritual Connection to any change you wish you make in your life, even your health goals. I believe it is not until you reach this pivotal moment of spiritual alignment that you can finally make a LIFE change, not just a short-term, will-power dependent, kind of change.

Over the course of this week in my 5-Part Series called “Wine Not?!”, I’ve charted the path at how I arrived at the life decision to step away, or as I said, “break-up” with my relationship with WINE.

This decision first started for me with some physical ramifications (which I explained on Tuesday‘s blog), which lead to some logical assessment and some tougher questions to answer (which I explained on Yesterday‘s blog).

Today, I want to go over how it all finally “clicked into place” as I explain how I reached a Spiritual Connection to the act of avoiding wine.

I believe it’s worth explaining here exactly what I mean when I say “Spirit” and exactly what I mean when I say “Spiritual Connection or Alignment.”

What Is Your Spirit?

As I’ve struggled to fully articulate the complexity that is our Spirit, I think I have settled on this finite explanation, for now:

To me, our Spirit is our Truest Essence and Being. It is our inner compass that directs our lives and guides each decision we make. It is the home to our values, our virtues, and our character. It can be both our Light and our Darkness.

Our Spirit is the place where God dwells, waiting for us to call on Him. It is also where the Evil One dwells, hoping we’ll believe his lies.

Our Spirit is not always in our consciousness and most people live their entire lives having never awakened their mind to their Spiritual being.

Spiritual Consciousness:

I am not actually referring at all to RELIGIOUS BELIEFS when I’m talking about being guided by our Spirit.

I don’t in fact believe that religion itself actually guides anyone to a conscious spirituality. In spite of growing up in a healthy, faith-based home, going to church every Sunday and attending a Christian university, I can admit that I only came to my Spiritual Consciousness maybe 4-5 years ago.

While I have gone through stages of loving and hating attending church, it has been only by a shift in my Spiritual Alignment that I have truly CHANGED MY LIFE.

It has been a shift in my Spirit that has opened me up to the purpose of this great life……which is to have a personal relationship with God.

Religion does’t necessarily get you that relationship. Religion can often be caught-up in traditions and rules and guilt and fear. Religion is more man-made where as I know my Spirit was God-made.

Step 1: AWARENESS

Even so, just because I was now “conscious” of my Spirit in MOST areas of my life, it does not mean I was truly letting my “inner compass” guide me in ALL areas of my life.

What I was eating and what I was drinking were certainly never things that I thought I needed to consult my Spirit about. These were actions that were still relegated to the subconscious part of my being. All my eating and drinking habits (i.e. the Strict Binger person I was) were largely due to having a narrow and mainly negative focus on how I saw my body.

As I struggled to cut back my drinking, in spite of knowing it wasn’t having a good affect on my body, I started to ask myself these tough questions:

-Am I dependent on wine?
-Do I need wine to have fun?
-Do I need wine to make people to like me?
-Do I need wine to like people?
-Do I need wine to feel like myself?

 

After some deeper connecting, I realized the reason why I was still resorting to drinking wine even when I was “trying to stop” was because of one truth:

I BELIEVED THE ANSWER TO ALL THOSE QUESTIONS WAS—-> yes_logo

 

That is not to say the answer IS yes to all of those questions. (The answer to all those questions is indeed a strong NO, I have found).

But, I was subconsciously believing that I was dependent on wine on a Spiritual level.

Somewhere, deep in my soul, there were still some lies that I was believing about myself. Lies that were telling me I needed a chemically induced way to truly alleviate stress. Lies that told me I needed a drink to have fun. Lies that were telling me that those around me would like me more when I’m drinking. Lies that were telling me I needed wine to feel like my real self.

LIES

LIES

LIES

 

They are LIES in my head and they are LIES in your head too. Whatever your “thing” is that you just can‘t seem to give up, in spite of suffering some body or mental consequence because of it, is because of some set of LIES you continue to believe in your Spirit. Whatever reason you give yourself for not being able to DO anything, is a lie. Because I’m here to tell you, LOUD AND CLEAR,

THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN’T DO, IF YOU DO IT WITH GOD.

Exposing these LIES through simple awareness and spiritual consciousness is the first step to replacing them with the TRUTH about you and the TRUTH about whatever it is you’re trying to change.

STEP 2: REATTACHMENT

Once I become aware of these lies, I couldn’t just tell myself to STOP BELIEVING THE LIES.

Ha! If only it were so easy.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.

The only thing that casts out LIES is the TRUTH.

The truth is I CAN de-stress without wine. I CAN be fun at dinner without getting lubricated. Others WILL like me even if I’m not drinking and they are.

MY Truth, was that I was not put on this earth to be dependent on anything except my relationship with God. Not my husband, not my mom and not any of that Good Juice I call Wine.

I needed to REATTACH myself to my Greater Purpose in my life and see things how for their TRUTH.

Each one of us has a Greater Purpose. This is the term that I use to describe your destiny, your calling or basically your God-given purpose.

Each of us is built with our unique DNA, our unique character and our unique set of core values that all live within our Spirit. We find our Greater Purpose when we can SURREND‘her these spiritual gifts to God and align ourself on His path, not our own.

As I was drinking and depending on WINE so much, I realized this was because I was attaching this act to some old, subconscious VALUES of mine:

  • People-Pleasing
  • Approval
  • Harmony
  • Conformity
  • Meekness

 

But the Greater Purpose set of values I have identified from my Conscious Spirit (i.e. from God) are:

 

  • Health
  • Faith
  • Integrity
  • Love
  • Obedience
  • Serving Others

 

(BONUS, If you’re interested in investigating in YOUR Core Values to live your Greater Purpose, click HERE to receive my 6-Steps to Values Based Living straight to your inbox!)

When I REATTACHED my decision of drinking to my Greater Purpose set of values, my decision was much easier to make.

  • In Health, I’ll limit my intake to none or just 1 glass at a time to avoid the body consequences of drinking.
  • In Faith, I remind myself of ALL that I’m put on this earth to do, which right now includes a habit of getting up at 530am every day to have some quiet time and to practice the art of writing. Having to get up so early means that I DON’t want to have a foggy brain or headache the next day from drinking.
  • In Integrity, I’ll remind myself that if I say I’m going to do something, I need to follow-through and do it. Making promises to myself and breaking them is not allowed in this value.
  • In Love, I realized how slippery a slope alcohol can be to my relationships. Drinking always increases the chances of arguments or feelings getting hurt. Out of love for others and love for myself, I don’t want wine to be the excuse for these things.
  • In Obedience, I want to be actively obedient to my divine intuition. I want to obey what is coming from my spirit so I might avoid hurtful pathways that don’t serve my Greater Purpose. I want to be obedient for the blessings that come from that.
  • In Serving Others, I know that my Greater Purpose is to

    “Let my light shine before others, that they may see (my) good deeds and glorify (my) Father in heaven.“ (Matthew 5:16)

Put another way from Gandhi, I want to,

“Be the change I wish to see in the World”

I don’t want to see a world that suffers from alcohol addiction or dependence any more. I want to see more people acknowledging their problems and accessing treatment from places like Enterhealth. What can I do? I can serve others by holding myself accountable first.

When we align these aspects of our life to what God wants for us, we find that tremendous blessing ensue. A feeling of peace waves over you as you realize you are doing exactly what you need to do.

If something in your life isn’t working for you any more, it is likely due to the fact that this habit or entity doesn’t actually fit into your Greater Purpose and the Godly given character and values you could be following. It is worth revisiting your values to reveal more about your Greater Purpose.

(Again, if you want my Values Based Living Guide, HERE’s the link again to have it sent to you)

Step 3: PRACTICE

After I was able to reattach, and thereby re-engage, my Greater Purpose based approach to this act of drinking wine, the only thing left for me to do was PRACTICE.

But, yes, I am talking about practice! Even after all this CLARITY and after all of my deeper connecting, nothing was going to change until I put it into PRACTICE.

Check me out tomorrow in the 5th and FINAL part of the series, as I detail how I put into practice ALL of this decision work and didn’t let it defeat all of my relationships and my social life!

It’s a good way to WINE-D down the series! You won’t wanna miss it!!

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Uncategorized

[Part 3] Wine Not?! Thinking and Drinking…

Over the last couple of days, I’ve introduced a major change I’ve made in my health and lifestyle as I’ve decided to “break-up” with my close friend, WINE.

Yesterday, I went over the way that I was first prompted to consider this health change because I was experiencing some pretty uncomfortable BODY reactions to this regular habit of drinking wine. I explained yesterday, that while these BODY reactions were not only caused by wine, but rather the ramifications of the lifestyle I’d been engaging for some time, wine nevertheless made them much much worse for me.

In spite of the physical pain that drinking induced into my body, it was not just because of those body reactions that I was able to just up and quit drinking wine.

I actually tried to do just that, but it didn’t work.

I would tell myself, “Ok, I’m not going to drink tonight.”

But sure enough, when I got to the dinner and everyone was drinking some delicious bottle of buttery
chardonnay, it would take all of 2-seconds to cave right it! Call it the “Fear of Missing Out” (FOMO) or just plain caving into peer pressure, every good intention I had would fly right out the window when around the good juice.

So, in what I call the Becoming WISE‘her phase to change, I started to really think through what was going on with this regular habit and started to question why I was having such a hard time cutting back.

Some of the questions I asked myself were:

1. Do I have a drinking problem or an addiction here?

I think this is always going to be the first question you ask yourself. It is a fair question for not just particular substance of WINE, but for anything we consume or indulge in. Anyone can become addicted to anything and I think certainly food, drinks and drugs are at the top of that list.

I was lucky that I was pretty able to assess that my drinking was not an addiction. I did the online self test and passed. I was really glad I did pass, however, I understand that people can become addicted to alcohol quite easily. I know a couple of people who have had to deal with this realization and luckily they were able to solve it. If I remember correctly, I had one friend who stayed at the austin sober house to help them recover. So long as it works, then that’s all that matters. Since I passed the test though, I don’t have to worry about going that far to fix my drinking problem. Also, I did my own examination and I did not drink every day and had gone several months without drinking. Also, when I did drink, I didn’t spiral out of control and consume copious amounts at one time (although, I do admit that has happened before, just not on a regular basis). I also very rarely got “drunk” but would just enjoy the act of drinking socially.

Something that’s stereotypically more severe than alcohol addiction is the attachment to illegal, recreational drugs like meth and cocaine. These drugs can have a detrimental impact on one’s life and in some cases, can lead to fatality if a dose is too large. It’s essential that people access help if they find themselves falling into the addiction to illegal drugs. There are plenty of Addiction Treatment Center‘s out there that are more than willing to help anyone with an addiction.

If you feel that addiction may have taken control on your life, with love and compassion, I highly suggest you take the same linked test and also self evaluate your life. Alcohol, or any substance we over consume, can be detrimental to our health and well-being. It can also has a negative impact on your life. Some people who may be struggling with alcohol addictions may need someone to help register them into a residential alcohol treatment center. The individual may not want to go, but often going to these places can turn people’s lives around for the better. I know how common every day drinkers are in society today, but just because we are like everyone else, doesn’t mean we don’t have an addiction. It could very well mean “we all” have an addiction. Out of love, I hope that everyone who might feel this inkling from overdoing any substance visit this link first!

2. WHY do I always want to drink wine?

So if I’m not addicted to the wine, why am I having a hard time stopping drinking?

I know the reason why I LIKE wine, of course.

It tastes good. It helps me relax. It goes well with dinner. It helps lighten the mood with others. It is a bonding agent with friends and new people I don’t know. It’s fun to do with my husband etc.

But from this list of things– this process lead me to the BIG WISE‘her QUESTION:

3. Are any of the reasons why “I like it” bigger or more important than my health?? Is it more important than feeling good in my body every day?

Surely, you would know that being in the health and fitness field, I would of course immediately want to
answer “No, of course not!!” as I slam my fist down on the table and take up my torch to march off to throw out all the bottles of wine in the house (cue my husbands gasp as he reads this comment :-))

But, when I got honest with myself the answer was actually, “Hmmm…..I’m not sure.”

And THIS answer bothered me. It REALLY, REALLY bothered me.

Logically, I wanted my answer to be a no brainer that I was choosing my health over all other reasons. I am someone that appreciates my body and I want to use it to my best ability.

This question became what I’ll call an ONION question. It’s the type of question that has LAYERS.

It prompted a layer of questions like:

-Are you dependent on wine?

-Do you need wine to have fun?

-Do you need wine to have people like you?

-Do you need wine for you to like people?

-Do you need wine to feel like yourself?

And these types of questions are not questions where I consult my brain and my mind and try to find the most logical answer. Contrary to popular belief where you think you just need to “think about this more.”

No, if I wanted to REALLY get to the bottom of my WHY, I needed to go deeper, yet again. I needed to travel down from my head……to my heart and what emanates from there.

These questions are actually questions regarding my values, my character, and my virtues.

These are questions from my SOUL.

Look for how I dove even deeper into my Spiritual and thus TRUE path to health tomorrow!!

Categories
Food & Nutrition

{Part 2} Wine Not?! The Wine:Body Connection

Making a tough social change for me with figuring out what was going on in my BODY!

Yesterday, I began a 5-Part series on how I made the decision to cut back, or basically, “break-up” with my good friend WINE.

It was not an easy decision to make and it came with a PROCESS like all good changes do.

Today, I’m going to take you through my BODY‘s process and why I knew this change for my health was a much needed change for my BODY.

To get the context of how this particular health decision came to fruition I should explain that my body has been through A LOT of ups and downs because of my constant struggle with “trying to lose weight” and taking more and more severe measures to achieve that.

I would out myself as a “Strict-Binger” in the yo-yo dieting circus of my life.

Because I was so motivated to always get “leaner and leaner” I would practice incredibly STRICT diets of eliminating sugar, candy, high fat foods, grains and other carbs and replace them with protein supplements, artificial sweeteners and other “fake” processed food.

I would do this with a goal in mind, like, a vacation or a weekend night out. I would be super STRICT on my diet, exercise like a maniac (easily 2-3 hours a day) and then on my night out or vacation……BINGE city baby!! One drink of wine…..led to some cheese….which led to dessert and REPEAT until I basically fell out.

Then, as I inevitably put on anywhere from 5-10lbs over the weekend, out of guilt and shame I would go even stricter the next time around.

Each time, I would need larger and larger goals to keep me motivated to lose weight and workout like a crazy person!

This yo-yo mini-cycle eventually led me to the decision to do the bikini competition which I spoke about in my blog HERE. This competition required 5 months straight of no cheating, no alcohol, low low carb and high high protein. It was the longest I had gone on my overly strict regimen, for sure!

This bikini competition, like for so many of my fellow bloggers HERE and HERE and HERE came with some severe body consequences. I suffered from amorrhea (losing one’s menstrual cycle) and definite signs of nutrient deficiency throughout my body as well as some hormonal issues that I haven’t even figured out yet.

What was more, was the whirl wind part of my life was coming into high gear. My “ex boyfriend,” had decided to show up to my bikini competition as a surprise after 18-months of not hearing from or seeing him. As we reconnected a little on the day of my show about 5 days later called me and confessed he knew I was “the one” and then all of a sudden we were engaged! WHIRL WIND!!

So after a 5-month period of single living, uber strict eating, no alcohol, no cheating and crazy amounts of exercise…..within just a few short weeks, I was celebrating one of the most exciting times of my life and eating and drinking my way to enjoying it! Everything was cause for alcohol-with no one better than my best drinking mate of course! Everything was cause for celebration and indulgence and vacation after vacation after vacation!
So this ULTIMATE YO-YO of dieting lead to some pretty severe stomach issues. I still suffer from
digestive tract issues that I am not sure what is going on,

still ………after 18-months post-competition. 🙁

I AM making progress though and I have completely changed my approach on eating food. Instead of the Strict/Binge nutzo cycle, I now eat and promote a holistic approach to eating where you eat whole, unprocessed foods most of the time without being overly strict about it. I advocate this eating not just because it works for me (and my issues), but because it’s the most sustainable and least binge-inducing form of eating there is! Period.

So, as I cleaned up my eating quite easily (for me), there was this whole WINE issue that was clearly needing to be addressed in my body too.

One thing was certain, as fun as she was to hang-out with, my friend WINE made me feel pretty bad. Like, really, really bad.

While from a nutritional standpoint, I know alcohol wasn’t the only cause for my body issues, it certainly was a huge culprit that exacerbated the affects of all that was going on in my body.

Here’s why:

Alcohol has no nutrition. It has calories of course (7 calories per gram) but it is void of all vitamins and minerals.

(As a reminder) Among other functions, vitamins and minerals are the essential components that allow our food to be broken down to be used as fuel.

Vitamins and Minerals are absorbed in the gut, mainly the small intestine, and then carried all over your body to do their functional thing.

Now, I know what you are thinking! Yes, wine does have some nutrients because of those antioxidants from the wine skins, but the problem for someone like me, who was having some digestive issues, is the good does NOT out weigh the bad.

When we ingest alcohol, our bodies want to get it digested FIRST before anything else! It is what’s called “highly reactive,” biochemically speaking.

(If I might pull out some random memory of my degree in Biology/Biochemistry) the hydroxyl ending of alcohol (-OH) is highly reactive in our bodies, so it gets first priority to biochemical reactions as it gets sent down to the stomach, to the small intestines and over to the liver to be oxidized and metabolized (i.e. broken down).

This action overall slows down your metabolism because of our body’s need to oxidize alcohol so quickly to “detox” will lead to a slow down of ALL other systems. Some people who want to support their detox system make use of glutathione mercury detoxification so I hear. This is why some of my smart friends and mentors write articles about how alcohol inhibits fat loss too.

The problem is that not only is alcohol void of any vitamins and minerals itself, it is actually worse because it still requires vitamins and minerals from our body to get metabolized.

For this reason, it’s actually called an Anti-Nutrient because it basically steals the much needed vitamins and minerals from our bodies without replacing them!

So alcohol has been that friend that just takes and takes and takes and never gives anything back! Soooo rude, right?!

In addition to this fact, it can also lead to a whole host of other unfavorable affects. According to an article on the Telegraph.UK, alcohol “to varying degrees it can deplete minerals, affect microbes and bacteria in the gut, tax the immune system, interrupt sleep patterns, accelerate aging and lead to dehydration.“

These adverse affects can get even worse for some of us experiencing digestive issues.

According to website Alcohol Rehab

  • * It can cause malabsorption so that the individual is not absorbing all the nutrients from food they need.
  • * It may cause leaky gut syndrome where unwanted toxins are able to leak through the intestine into the rest of the body. These toxins then cause problems and lead to ill-health.
  • * It can exacerbate irritable bowel syndrome
  • *Alcohol can cause both diarrhea and constipation

Well, no wonder I was feeling so CRAPPY grid-cell-5151-1407875654-5right?!

Obviously, there are certain things that may help some of the above. For example, I’ve heard of things like megasporebiotic probiotic or similar, possibly helping leaky gut syndrome. However, before you do anything, it would always be worth consulting your doctor first. Depending on your relationship with alcohol, your doctor may suggest different methods of treatment for your ailments. If you or someone you know is an excessive drinker or has an alcohol abuse problem, the doctor may suggest a visit to a rehabilitation center similar to The Holistic Sanctuary (https://www.theholisticsanctuary.com/rehab-centers/drug/) for extra support. This is because of the number of factors that could result from this kind of substance abuse.

In the same article, it also explains that for some really excessive drinkers, alcohol has actually not just shown poor nutrition, but MALNUTRITION. Malnutrition means that you are so severely nutrient deficient in macronutrient or micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), you are actually suffering sever body consequences and life threatening disorders. (wikipedia.com)

The reason is that because you are getting so many calories from the anti-nutrient alcohol, you are not hungry. When you’re not hungry, you’re not eating enough food to get the protein, energy and vitamins and minerals you need (or you’re just eating Taco Bell at 2am, which, let’s face it, is also not getting you many vitamins and minerals, either). It can become a very serious deal at this point!!

OK OK OK…..I can practically hear the whistles blowing and “Party Fouls” I’ve just been given though the interweb here. I get it, I’ve just put a major damper on some of your happy hour plans this weekend!

But, AGAIN, I am not here up on my soap box trying to tell YOU what to do. I am only telling you what was physically going on in MY body and one of the main reasons I had to step back.

Ultimately, alcohol does’t work so well in MY body. You might be one of those lucky people that has no adverse physical reactions to alcohol and might only feel some of the benefits that wine can bring. I’m just not one of those lucky ones.

If you are experiencing some intestinal issues or any other body symptoms that you think might be caused or exacerbated from alcohol, the only way to find out is to actually go through the process of elimination and reintroduction. This can go for ANY substance or food that you think might be giving your body some “issues”.

Elimination: For a period of minimum 21 days (preferably 30 days), you completely eliminate the food/drink group(s) from your system. Absolutely no cheating, sips, tastes or accidental ingestion. If you take one sip, you start your 21-30 days over.

Reintroduction: After going 30 days without the food/substance, you try moderately reintroducing it back into your diet. I have found the best practice to do this is to focus on just 1 meal, have a moderate portion of the item and take note of how you feel in the moment and how you feel the next day.

For some who are extra motivated, I always recommend the challenge “The Whole 30” and the book It Starts With Food by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig. They take you through 30 days of eliminating ALL things that might give a person digestive or body issues and then take the time to reintroduce each food group (including alcohol) back into your body. This is the best way to prove that your issues are caused by, say, alcohol, and not gluten AND alcohol.

It’s not an easy undertaking for some, and I always, ALWAYS caution my clients to see it as a testing experiment, NOT a diet of restrictive RULES to follow. The reason is that if you only focus on “losing weight” while restricting food/alcohol choices you will more than like binge on the foods when done (thereby making your 30-day experiment null and void) and you’ll be disappointed if you don’t “lose the amount of weight you thought you would by being so strict.”

It‘s a system that is not about weight loss, its about body awareness. A key distinction!

After all of this, you would think that after feeling these adverse BODY affects to alcohol, it would have been a ‘no-brainer’ to just go without, but my relationship with WINE was not over just because I knew it had some adverse affects on my body.

No, I had to dig deeper to get to this point. Tomorrow, I’ll share some of the awakenings I had to MENTALLY get to the point of being able to break-up with my friend WINE.

You’ll come back, right? I mean, WINE NOT?

Categories
Uncategorized

[5-Part Series] Wine Not?! Those Darn Tough Choices that Affect Your Social Life

Making those darn health choices that affect our social lives. How I did it and how you can do it to!

I’d like to share a pretty sad story.  It’s about me and one of my closest friends over the last several years. 

We’d get together quite often through the years.   She’d join me at dinners on a regular basis, especially the dinners with my husband and some of my other closest friends.

I like her because she makes me feel relaxed and my stress just rolls off my shoulders when we’re together. Oh, and I always have such a good time when she’s there!   She made a strong presence at my wedding and most every big event I’ve ever had! 

She smells really good too, a different fragrance every time we meet! 

Oh, but really what I love the most about her is the way she tastes.

Wait……….what?

Oh, yes, I should mention that what I’m talking is my friend I call WINE.  😉

Yes, yes I admit I am a WINE-O with the best of them.  It started while waitressing at a nice steak house after college and getting to do wine tastings (for sales purposes, of course!)  But it developed from there and has become one the my favorite pastimes! 

In fact, my husband and I joke because it seems our entire relationship over the course of the 7-years of dating (on and off) prior to our wedding day was largely been built by our mutual love for wine.  In fact, he calls me “Lady Chardonnay”, because….well, I AM a lady….and well, there’s some pictorial evidence indicating that is, in fact, a good nickname for me.  

LADY CHARDONNAY COLLAGE

Drinking wine has been a large foundation of how we have built social engagements!  We go on regular trips to Napa Valley with good friends.  We have weekly dinners with even bigger Wine-Os who bring some of the real good stuff which has now made me into a “wine snob,” of course!

WINE BOTTLE COLLAGE

Not to mention the several company dinners for him that I will sometimes attend where wine is just a natural part of the deal.  It helps loosen up the corporate types and helps a business dinner go smoother. 

It’s not just with my husband either, it’s a LOT of my friendships too!

Every time my college girlfriends and I get together there usually involves brunch with mimosas or wine with dinner.  When I get together with my best friend in Denver, we sit and gab over a bottle of wine and cheese plate.  It’s just what we’ve always done!

Needless to say, between my love for it and the endless excuses to indulge in it (celebrating breathing, anyone?!)  I can easily find myself enjoying wine 2-3x per week, or more!

Well, the sad part is that I just can’t be that close with my friend WINE anymore.  In fact, as of today, March 16, 2015, I have actually only had 3.5 glasses of wine so far in 2015. 

Much like all friendships that have run their do course, things in my life just started pointing to the fact that this was a change I needed to make.  It didn’t ever really “hit me over the head”, but it was just gradual knowing that came to be that I’d like to share with you.

I was finally able to make this true lifestyle change for my health because I was finally able to see the benefit of this change in ALL 3 areas of my TRUE HEALTH:

1. MY BODY:   It’s not that I don’t like her, I do.  A lot.  But frankly she makes me feel bad.  Like, really, really bad. I’ve had some digestive issues pop-up over the course of the last couple of years (that were not triggered by wine, but were definitely exacerbated by wine).
2. MY MIND:  I came to realize that I had been using wine as a social crutch and I didn’t want that dependence anymore.
3. MY SOUL:  I’ve changed the alignment of what I want to do in this life and my Greater Purpose.

Over the course of this 5-part series, I’m going to break-down my break-up with wine! 

  • PART 1: Introduction to making a health change that affects your social life.
  • PART 2: (Tuesday): Stage 1 to changing– my BODY reasons for stepping back.
  • PART 3:  (Wednesday):  Stage 2 to changing– my MIND reasons for stepping back.
  • PART 4: (Thursday):  Stage 3 to changing– my SPIRITUAL  reasons for stepping back. 
  • PART 5:(Friday):  We’ll discuss how to adjust your relationships and expectations after making a health change for you, so you don’t feel “Pushed” into doing things you don’t want to do!

 Making a Health Change that Affects You Socially:

 I want to make it clear that my break-up with WINE was not about me thinking wine was a “bad” thing.  I don’t believe that at all actually.    So if you’re mentally picturing of me up on some soap box preaching about about the religion of “sober life”, you’re in for some disappointment.

But I AM going to be telling my story of truth and you might very much relate to some of the realizations I came to, but it may not be about wine or alcohol at all!

You see, what WINE was to me might be what “Behavior X” might be to you.

Your “Behavior X” might be things like:

  • sugar
  • soda
  • fast food
  • drugs
  • alcohol
  • meat
  • other animal products
  • comfort foods
  • processed foods
  • all-you-can-eat-buffets
  • caffeine
  • energy drinks
  • health/weight loss supplements
  • your family’s culture foods
  • etc.

You see, any one of the above listed is a change that’s tough to make.

Each one of these behaviors is likely something you have engaged in with others and it has become a social or family routine.

Not to mention,  all of the above listed have actual chemical properties that are addictive as well (sugar, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, drugs, caffeine, energy drinks, food, supplements)!

Because of this, many of the above behaviors are likely pretty tightly wound into your lifestyle.  As I explained above, drinking wine was truly a part of my identity and apart of my relationships!  Any one of the above behaviors, or more, can be equally the same for you.  It’s tough, I get it!

It is my hope by reading my story you’ll start to see that change has it’s own course, but change is ALWAYS POSSIBLE!!

Some changes you can do on a whim and somehow it sticks!

But most, especially these behaviors that really infiltrate our whole lives,  might need some tactical steps and guidance  to get to the “gut” of the real reason for change.  For me it started with some body symptoms that prompted me to dive deeper into the culprit.    For you, it might be the mental or spiritual reasons that hit you first.

The big picture is that just because YOU decide to change, does NOT mean all your friends, family and society will be right there with ya!  The real hope is to be able to make this change FOR YOU and have it not let it affect your relationships!    It can be tricky, and personalities will matter, but there is HOPE!

I HAVE found the way that I have been successful in this endeavor (so far, of course) and I can tell you it was not because of any one else.  It started with me……. and it ends with me!

Join in the journey and I “wine” a little.  😉

Categories
Fitness & Training Food & Nutrition Uncategorized

Nutrient Based Timing! WHEN you eat can be as important as WHAT you eat!

Part II of my quest to create a Nutrient-Based society is taking a look at the timing of eating, especially when eating Nutrient-Based!

Just as a recap from Part 1 that I’ve been featuring over the course of the last couple of weeks (HERE) the importance of having a Nutrient focus with each of your meals will help ensure that you get enough of the necessary vitamins and minerals!    

Vitamins and Minerals are absolutely necessary to not just look better (brighter skin, acne control, stronger bones and teeth, muscle tone, etc.) but to also feel better (high energy, low fatigue, efficient digestion, internal organs all doing their job, better sleep, disease prevention and high immunity, etc.)

But, as you might have guessed, just being sure you are getting enough of the necessary vitamins and minerals does NOT necessarily mean that you are able to stay lean and fit! 

Quality of food IS an incredibly important step in the right direction, but it does not necessarily promote weight loss or physique goals!

So, the next part I want to introduce to the Nutrient Based Diet is the TIMING of when you eat.

While there are no rules  to Finding “A. Wright Fit” for yourself, I have found that there are definitely some benefits to monitoring your eating patterns and adjusting how often you eat!

It all boils down to just 3-Steps to Nutrient Based Timing! 

(click picture to view more clearly)

Nutrient Based Timing INFOGRAPHIC

(If you’re interested in getting this printable infographic for you to add to the 5-Steps of the Nutrient Based Eating that you can get by signing up HERE). 

Step 1: Go minimum 12-hours without eating every night.

Research has been showing more concretely lately that going extended periods of time in a “fasted” state at night, has been extremely effective in helping bodies avoid obesity, even when eating a high fat diet.  It has been termed Intermittent Fasting in the fitness community.

The concept of intermittent fasting was first introduced around 2009 and was popularized with a study that occurred in 2012. In this rodent research, three groups of mice were studied.  One group was fed healthy food and the two others were fed the the same “higher fat” diet.  Of the high-fat diet, one group was allowed to eat at all times of the day (“ad libitum”) and the other group was restricted to eating only 8-hours of the most active part of their day.  The group that actually restricted their diet to just the 8-hours of the day stayed just as lean as the group that ate “healthy” food.  But the group that ate the same amount of calories and food, but ate at all hours of the day, became obese!!   Read about this study HERE.

Even more recently, another follow-up study has been done over a less drastic fasting time range that has equally shown great results.  This study had 4 groups of mice fed differing diets and found that over a 38-week study, the mice that limited their food intake to just 9-12 hours of the day, were able to stay lean and fit no matter what diet they were given.  More importantly, the study also tested whether those same mice could take a “break on the weekend” (much like we humans do)  and indeed, they were still able to stay fit and trim mice even when taking those weekend breaks in fasting.    Here is the graphic from the study and link HERE.

Intermittent Fasting Mice Graphic www.cell.com

I have personally tried intermittent fasting both for the 8-hour eating window AND a 12-hour eating window and I find that both time frames work equally well to one another for my body. 

The difference I have found is that I’m much more uncomfortable when trying to go 16-hours a day fasted.  I have early morning stomach grumbles like crazy and I would rely more heavily on coffee and tea in the morning (without cream or sugar, or it doesn’t count!) which I found unsustainable for my lifestyle.

Now that I only eat 12-hours a day (and thereby fast for 12-hours a day), I find it much easier to implement  this into my lifestyle and now many of my clients too!

This is how it works:

If you finish your last meal by 8pm at night, then you simply drink water, plain coffee or plain tea in the morning until your first meal at 8am.

For those that are morning people, you may want to monitor your dinner the night before so you can have the breakfast you need at the time that more convenient. 

For those that are night owls, you might do just fine eating a little later of a dinner since you’ll be up later at night.   (See more about food timing after STEP #3 below)

Step 2:   Eat meals every 3-4 hours, with no snacking in between!

We live in a society where we have immediate access to food.  What a blessing that is! 

But with such access comes the unfortunate tendency to snack or “graze” all day long.  I call it “Drive by Eating” in my home.  Every time I come across the nuts in the pantry, I gotta munch on a few!   Every time I open the refrigerator for some water, I see the grapes and I gotta pop a few into my mouth! It is mindless and I’ve had to put some parameters on myself in an effort to stop!

Some of us have heard that we need to eat “every 2 hours” when trying to lose weight to “speed up our metabolism.”  But recent studies have actually debunked that myth.

The reality is that it all depends on your body and how fast your digest and break down your food.  It also depends on the size of your meal (which we’ll get to in Part III of the Nutrient-Based living!).   

So some bodies WILL eat 5-6 meals per day because they will digest their food fast enough.  But more commonly, most of us will eat 4 meals a day, which allows adequate time in between meals.

A list of benefits for allowing more time between meals is:

  • You are more likely to eat when you’re body is actually hungry, not just when you’re craving something. 
  • You give your digestive system adequate time to reset its digestive hormones and secretions necessary for adequate and efficient food break down.
  • The digestive rest in between meals is reseting your fat metabolism (i.e. You are in Fat Burning Mode!)
  • It helps regulate your hunger and satiety hormones (Ghrelin and Leptin, respectively)
  • Helps you maintain normal blood sugar and insulin responses. 
  • Helps maintain balanced mood.
  • Allows your body to use energy toward detoxing your systems instead of only focusing on digesting.

The amount of time you need to wait in between meals is unique to your body.  Since you are eating a full, Nutrient-Based meal for every meal, the size of this meal should take at least 3 hours to fully digest, if not more.  The fiber, the protein and the fat in our meals do take a while to break down. 

Some of you might have much faster metabolisms which means your body will become physically hungry much sooner. 

I encourage everyone to determine signs that you are “physically hungry” versus when you are mentally or emotionally craving something.    Here is a graphic from Metabolic Effect that I think sums it up really well!

Physical Hunger Verus Emotional Hunger Graphic

To ward off the tendency to have high cravings or emotionally eat in between meals, drinking water or herbal and green tea (without sugar or cream!) is really helpful in keeping your stomach happy and your body circulating!

STEP 3:  ATTEMPT TO EAT AT THE SAME TIMES EVERY DAY

The reason for trying to time your life to be similar day to day is because of the value add of going along with your Circadian Rhythms.  To get to the point, many functions in our body is regulated best in a rhythm, including when we eat!


To optimize these rhythms, the goal is to eat around the same time every day!  Your role for your body is to asses and see what times of day work best for you!

Circadian Rhythms are defined as: “physical, mental and behavioral changes that follow a roughly 24-hour cycle, responding primarily to light and darkness in an organism’s environment.” (National Institute of General Medical Sciences)

Essentially, it is our internal, or “body clock”, that regulates our hormonal responses, body temperature, heart rate and sleep cycles

Circadian Rhythms (CR) certainly contribute largely to our sleep/wake patterns in our life since they are highly regulated by the light and dark responses. 

But studies have shown that they can also be regulated by the timing of eating!  Eating at times when our bodies are in “rhythm” to eat is ideal for metabolic responses to be at their best. 

Our CR is mainly regulated by an area in our brain, the Hypothalamus, where about 20,000 neurons called the SCN (Superchiasmatic Nucleus) as the “master clock.”  But, recent studies have shown that the expression of our bodies “clocks” are not limited to just that area of the brain, but have been found in many tissues and cells throughout the body called the “peripheral tissues.”

Several studies  reported on in The-Scientist Journal HERE said:

“From these studies it’s clear that the clocks in peripheral tissues—vulnerable as they are to the timing of eating—are vital to metabolism in the body’s organs. “I would say the clock is playing a very fundamental role regulating all metabolic pathways,” says Takahashi, “not just in organ systems, but at a cellular level.”

Finding a patterned rhythm of eating that best supports your metabolism is one of the best things you can do to promote your healthiest, most energy efficient, and LEAN bodies possible!  

Sporadic eating does not contribute to helping find the natural “rhythm” of your body.  It causes some disruption to these natural rhythms and causes more internal stress than you know.   

In reality, we all know that we don’t always eat just when our bodies are hungry.  That would be too easy!

We eat largely because of behavioral and mental reasons too: 

  • -We eat just because it’s 12-Noon and we think “oh, I must have lunch!”. 
  • -We eat because we schedule that dinner with the couple at that certain time. 
  • -We eat because everyone else around us is eating.  We eat because we’re bored or sad or happy.

Just becoming more aware of an eating pattern (and sleep and wake pattern too!) is a great first step in finding your best rhythm for your energy!

WHAT TO DO:

  1. Map out your typical schedule.
  2. Start with the time you’d like to wake-up and the time you need to go to bed (getting 7-9 hours of sleep).
  3. Start with those personal qualities that are important to your eating life and require priority in planning.

—Do you workout early in the morning or evening?
—Does your family stress the importance of family dinners?
—Do you have a designated lunch hour that you need to stay within?
—Are there times of the day that you are most active and therefore most hungry afterward?
-If there is a particular meal time that you know you already are akin to, start THERE.  Don’t try to force something different from that important spot.

4.  From that time, designate a meal 3 hours before and 3 hours after (as many times as necessary) until you get about 4-5 meals. Some meals will be bigger some may be smaller.

5.  Assess and be sure that you are able to implement the 12-hour window of Step #1 given this timeline and map.

Allow me to use myself as an example:

*Everyday, I get up at 530am and go to sleep at 9pm-930pm.
*My main meal priority is my workout, which I typically do at 10am.  Therefore, my priority meal is right after this at 11am.

My schedule thus becomes:

Meal #1- 8am breakfast
Meal #2- 11am post workout
Meal #3- 2pm
Meal #4- 5/6 pm Dinner
(Meal #5- 8pm Post dinner snack (if I need it))

IF, I need to change my workout that day, I  still don’t change my meal timing.  I try to fit in the workout in a way that will allow be time to keep this schedule (so I’d try to workout at 12/1pm, or 4pm).

REMINDER!!!

As with all things about your body, this is an investment in time and requires patience for you to learn about YOU!  What works for me, may not work for you.  What works for you may not work for your sister!

But the payoff to some true, intentional investigation into your body, will be tremendous!  Remember, you are not put on this earth just to look a certain way!  You are put here for a GREATER PURPOSE!  Your LIFE must be LIVED in order to fulfill that!  Taking care of your health in your responsibility and the gift that you give back to God for the amazing, although at times HARD, life you have been given!

Your hard work will pay off in ways you can’t even imagine!  Just take it 1… 2…or  3 steps at a time!

Have any questions?  Comment below or contact me at amanda@amandawrightfit.com!

Categories
Health Coaching Spiritual Health

Enough with the Guilt! 4 Ways to Rid The Guilt

Enough with the Guilt!

Each woman in this world has a space to fill.  Each woman is worthy of infinite blessings from God.  Each woman is designed for a noble cause and has capacity for blessed improvement in this life she may lead.

YOU are worthy of your space, your purpose and your path.

Yet, what I am hearing from clients, from friends and from, frankly, my own head, is a tremendous about of guilt caused from what only can be “not good enough” syndrome. 

“Oh, I totally botched my diet this weekend!  Ugh, I am totally going to have to workout extra this week and cut some extra calories.”

“I never feel like my house is clean enough.  I should spend some more time dusting”

“I don’t feel like I’m doing a good enough job parenting.  I’m not there enough for them or helping them enough with homework.”

“Everyone at the office is putting in more hours than me, I should to stay late at work so they don’t think I’m the weak link.”

“I should really do something sexy for my husband, but I have just been feeling too tired lately and certainly not sexy.”

“I haven’t spent any time alone with God lately, I am sure He is going to punish me in some way.  I really need to go to church this weekend.”

Guilt, especially in women, seems to run rampant in our minds and more gravely in our spirit.

But let’s be very honest with ourselves, GUILT does not bring about any real and lasting change in our lives. 

There will always be more things that we “should” be doing better.  There will always be ways that we are falling short of perfection.  We are human. 

I think most women are aware of the guilt that they feel.  But it has become a feeling that is so familiar that it may actually become a tactic we use as false motivation. 

It’s false because the idea of guilting oneself into true change is like putting a bandaid-type of fix to an open-artery-type of need. 

Using guilt as motivation will not bring about true transformation, true change and true relief into any area of our life we are trying to improve whether it be personal, body, family, work, romance, or spirit.

If we take it outside of our own heads, we can clearly see several examples of how guilting others does not in fact motivate anyone for real change. 

For example:

The “diet” phenomenon is something that is all to common these days, and I am guilty of unintentionally prescribing such ways of thinking early in my nutrition career.  By issuing things like exact meal plans and precise diets to follow is basically establishing a set of “rules” that each client is expected to follow in order to garner success in weight loss.   The same goes for any diet program or fad that society will flock to, they are essentially establishing their own set of new “rules” to follow.   

But, each time we set up “rules” to follow, we are automatically setting up ways for us to issue these same feelings of “guilt” when we inevitably fall short or “cheat”. 

The problem with guilting our society into these weight loss “rules” is that it clearly does not have long-lasting results!  We have all seen more diet failures than successes!  There is a reason why the rate of overweight and obesity is on the rise despite having more diets out there than ever before.  Diets and their “rules” don’t work.

None of my clients had any intention of following my meal plan for the rest of their lives just as many people who try out the new fad diet will likely resort back to old eating habits eventually too!  Just short months after working with me and finding weight loss success,  I saw a great many clients gain back half, if not all, of the weight they had lost and were riddled with guilt about it.  The “rules” and the subsequent “guilt motivation” clearly didn’t last!  In fact, it just caused more guilt!

Outside of weight loss, I’ve also witnessed this ineffective guilt tactic in the role of religion in our country.  While I know a great many of friends that do believe that there is a God and most of whom do believe in Jesus as well, I would say the majority of those that do not embrace a Christian lifestyle don’t because of some religious person or persons that had evoked some sort of rules and guilt tactic on them at some point in their life. 

So often, “religious” people get very caught up in the “rules” of the bible and “rules” of following a Christian lifestyle.  It is off-putting to think that one has to do so many things in order to make it into heaven!  You have to go to church, tithe 10%, get baptized, pray daily, take communion, confession, etc etc etc.    

I was blessed to be born into a healthy and faith-based household, but even I have had some very strong and off-putting experiences with “religious” people that were trying to enforce some “Christian” agenda.  It did NOT work to get me into church more and it did NOT work to affect any change on my life. 

Guilting me about my sin was not an way to get me to change in any real way. 

I shudder when I think about those crazy “christian” types that are picketing with signs outside of court houses bashing abortion and gay people and blaming them for our natural disasters.    

It is sickening and maddening when people try to use guilt as a motivating tactic, especially when they put the name of God on their own judgement.  I am just glad that we have a fair and just God who WILL handle all condemnation in this after life.

We see that these tactics evoke any real change, and yet we still guilt ourselves daily. 

One things I know for sure,

 GUILT IS NOT FROM GOD. 

If you want to truly change your life for the better?  Truly transform your heart?  Truly realign your soul in the direction you are destined to go? 

What you need is…..

Less GUILT and More GOD. 

Guilt is not one of the fruits of the Spirit.  Guilt is not one of the characteristics that is revealed of God throughout the Bible.  Guilt is not the purpose of any one of the teachings of Jesus while he walked this earth. 

Any time we feel guilty for not being enough in some way, that is not from God but is the devil trying to keep us playing small by feeling overwhelmed and lost.

God knows that we are never going to get it all done perfectly as much as we might try.  God knows that we are human and flawed in our nature.  Our imperfection has Greater PURPOSE.  God uses it to bless us!

Each one of our flaws opens up a greater opportunity for us to depend on God. 

We don’t do it by mastering the religious practices, or by following a specific religious doctrine. 

We do it by engaging in an ongoing relationship with Him.

“Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.” Psalm 34:5

Our imperfections are our avenues for God’s amazing grace to dwell and fill the empty space within.

Naturally, all of this elicits the question:

What are we to do with our guilt?   How do we actually step away from our natural “guilt” response?

Here are 4 R’s to Remember When You’re Riddled with Guilt:

1.)RECOGNIZE the trigger words in your head

You know the ongoing conversation we have with ourselves in our head?  Well, there are repeatable words and phrases that are common when guilting ourselves that we can recognize and change.

“Should” or “shouldn’t”—“I should have gone to the gym this morning.”  “I shouldn’t have eaten so much for lunch. 

“Ugh”, or “Ick”— Often when looking in the mirror or looking at our messy homes, the first word in our thoughts it something like “ugh.”  For some of my close friends lately, it’s more like “ewwww”. 🙂

“Just”– Commonly more of the complaining side of guilt, but phrases like “I just need more time in my day”, “I just wish I could have done more on that project at work.”

Your head might have different catch phrases when thinking guilty thoughts, but I encourage you to take some time to recognize your own thought patterns!

2.)  REMEMBER that God is with you in your mind and knows what you are thinking. 

What helps me is the second I recognize those trigger words in my head, I think about God sitting in an listening to them.  I think of how much He loves me and how much those thoughts don’t serve me or serve Him.  I open my heart and my internal ears for Him to gently guide my thoughts to Him and to how HE sees me, not just how I see me.

*Remember, if you have thoughts that God is seeing you with anything other than love, know that these thoughts are from the devil.  Do not confuse the two and do not listen to the evil thoughts in your head!*

3.) REPHRASE your thought in a way that is more self loving. 

Give yourself credit for what you ARE doing that is right and good and helpful to your life’s improvement.   This can be very hard to do in the moment, especially when we are so conditioned to be so hard on ourselves.  But opening yourself up even 1x a day for some self love can work wonders in motivating yourself from within. 

4.) REFOCUS your effort–

Ask yourself questions like,

“If I wasn’t trying to be perfect right now at everything, how can I use this time to better one area of my life that truly needs it?” 

or  

“What is it that I really want and need to do right now.”

So often, we feel guilt because we are trying to juggle a ton of things all at once and not doing any one of them very well! 

Stepping back and assessing what God is telling you to focus on “right now” is key! 

All day, I now have this conversation with God and truly believe that He is guiding me in the most mundane of activities. 

I don’t audibly hear Him talking to me, but it is a spiritual flow that only occurs when I remember to think about Him and I ask for small step guidance. 

When I am constantly speaking to God within, I do not have words of guilt flowing through my head.  I speak to myself in a more self loving and supportive way which is the most motivating and inspirational way of speaking possible!

Oh, the things I can accomplish when I skip the guilt!!    It brings about more joy, more love, more peace and you guessed it…..

REAL CHANGE.

  

Categories
Spiritual Health

The Art of SURREND’her & Your Health

Water Rapics_Final

“I am just so frustrated because I am doing everything right, but I’m not really seeing any changes to my body.”

This is a common quote from any one of my health coaching clients, or frankly, from my own mind from time to time.   I usually hear this type of remark about 2 weeks into developing new habits and rituals into the daily life of a woman attempting to get the body and level of fit that she desires. 

We think that getting the body we want, we will get the life we want.

We think by achieving optimal health, we will live comfortably.

We think that if we are uncomfortable or struggling in some way with our health, we’re doing something wrong.  That we must just need to try harder.

We grow impatient quickly.  We grow weary.

Some of us at this stage will just give up and say, “Well, it’s just not meant to be.  I’m just not meant to be fit.”

Others will start to take things into their own hands by beginning to “micromanage” their health.  Assuming the more control they have, the more they’ll see results and the less risk of getting to an “uncomfortable” place again.  They will start to rely on just themselves again.

For some reason, so many of us take God out of our goals for health.  We put God in the “Spirit” category of life.  He can come to church with me; He can help me find a new job and career; He can help me find a mate; He can help me repair my relationship with my (mom, grandpa, coworker etc.).

But our weight loss and eating habits?  “No, no, we need to do this on our own.  We can’t bother God with something so trivial!”

This is especially the case for those who don’t have much of a problem with their weight, but still have fitness goals.   They’re not fighting anything like obesity, diabetes, or cancer that would require more prayer.  But those who live in a pretty normal or healthy weight range but would still like to lose those few extra pounds will often leave God completely out of such category as fitness. 

What if I told you that your HEALTH, no matter how big or how small your health goal is ABSOLUTELY dependent on your relationship with God. 

In fact, your health, just like every other aspect of your life is a process to be SURRENDERED to God if it’s going to be a blessing to your life.

To Surrend’her means that you don’t give up, but you give UP.  You stop trying to steer the boat yourself, but you don’t abandon your boat either.  You stay in and you flow with God. 

My sister-in-law, Laura, and I were talking the other day about some visions that God had given her.  She said she kept picturing white water rafting, which is something she has never done before.

She said, “The beautiful thing about white water rafting is that in order to stay in the raft and handle the waves and rapids, you actually have to sit in the middle of the raft and not hold on to the sides or anything.  You just have to trust and relax your body as much as possible and let your body bounce with the raft as it hits the rocks and waves.  You have to surrender to it, just like we have to surrender to God.”

It was a beautiful analogy and I believe God was sending her a clear message that I was rewarded with too (as are all of you!). 

I see God as not only the raft that is taking you down your “river of life”, but I see God as the water itself, the rocks you hit, and the other underlying creatures below the surface causing your life to be quite the ride!  God is ALL of it and it all has purpose!

The key is, the more you surrender to the raft, the higher the rapids you can handle and the faster you can go.

Our bodies are so complex and our health goes so much deeper than what we can see in the mirror.    Our metabolic systems run just like the rushing white water rapids down a river.  They are constantly changing direction and moving according to the various hormone responses, food intake, weight, muscle mass, exercise exertion, water, vitamins and minerals and many more factors than that! 

There is NO WAY that you can completely control and manipulate your metabolism, just like there is NO WAY you can control a raging river.

In your health, there comes a point that you just have to sit in the middle of the raft and surrend’her to it all.   It takes an incredible amount of trust and faith to do this every day.

But, trusting the process of health IS trusting God.

Sarah Young in her book, Nearer to Jesus, reminds us “You can achieve the victorious life through living in deep dependence on (Jesus).”

Victorious life. Not “safe” life.  Not “always comfortable” life. Not even “successful” life. 

Victory in God means you have won the battle by giving up the sword.  You put your hope in the Lord and you trust the process he has put before you.  There is a process of nurturing and taking care of your health and your metabolism.  There are choices you can make at every meal of every day that will help keep all systems running as efficiently as possible.   

If you are struggling, seek the information you will need to learn about your body.  Once you have the information, start making the changes in your life and trust that it will all be for Good.  God can provide you resources for all. 

As you start to make changes to your health, you accept every stumble, every fall, every wave, and every rock as signs that you are indeed doing something right.  Because each stumble requires more and more dependence on God. 

This is what He wants from you.  He wants a relationship with you.  For you to bring ALL things to Him, even something as trivial as weight loss. 

For even in your discomfort, even in your failings and even in your shortcomings, you still have the Joy of the Lord when you keep Him by your side. 

You do not give up. 

But you sure do Surrend’her. 

Categories
Food & Nutrition Health Coaching Spiritual Health

Finding Harmony Among Chaos | 3 SIMPLE HEALTH INTENTIONS DURING STRESSFUL TIMES

Wild flowers growing in a crack in a rock

My life tends to turn into “whirl wind” status within a blink of an eye! I’m sure you can relate in some way in your life too!

Over the last 3-weeks my life has be thwarted and thrusted into the chaos of big changes, including:

1.) I started this very blog, new website and new business LLC all requiring patience and drive to overcome my technology learning curve. In the end, I decided to use a godaddy website builder to try and make the whole process a bit easier for me. I’m not the best when it comes to technology and I have very little knowledge when it comes to building a website. The business was the most stressful part of these past few weeks. I have worked so hard to get it started and I wanted everything to be perfect. I quickly learnt that it probably wouldn’t be!

2.) My husband and I packed up most of our life to move into a new home in a brand new city also requiring big-time patience (as I am currently on day no. 3 of trying to get the darn internet, not to mention the endless shopping for beds, plates, and the essential nick-knacks and doodads.) After one of our friends told us about secured loans, we realized moving house could be easier than we first expected. We managed to sell our old house pretty quickly and then used the loan as our deposit. I’m so in love with our new home. It’s fabulous! Once we’ve finally settled in and have some spare time on our hands, we’re thinking about making it our mission to look for wireless alarms, as moving into a new house in a completely new city comes with the unknown. How safe is it? Do we have a possibility of getting burgled? These are all things that we don’t know, but if we have an alarm, a huge portion of that worry will be reduced. So, once everything else has been sorted, (whenever that will be), this should become our main focus.

3.) Smack dab in the middle of all these changes, we did whisk away to Hawaii, not just for the purpose of relaxation (although we did some of that) but so see my husbands 2.5 year old daughter, Eden, (who lives in Japan with her mom and stepdad most of the year). So, for 10 wonderful days we were thrust into the spinning vortex of toddler-life that, while exhilarating and drenched in deep love for her….. is also exhausting because she’s 2 1/2 and quite boisterous!

I am the first to admit, I am eternally blessed to get to experience such a roller coaster ride of life! You are eternally blessed (even when you don’t feel it!) for those crazy, manic experiences of your life too.

THE QUESTION IS:

How do we best handle our HEALTH when we are in chaotic times?

I gotta admit, even as a health coach, just 1-year ago, my health habits in stressful times were anything but healthy. In fact, my most common stressful habits included: excessively eating and drinking (alcohol) and overindulging, surviving on simple carbs alone, thinking I had to do everything myself and perfectly, not getting much sleep or rest and/or hardly taking a pause at all!

Might sound familiar?!

You see, at this time of my life, I was weighing all of my food, I was counting my macronutrients, and I was really focused on the details of my eating and working out (ie. Micromanaging my health). I was hyper focused on being “perfect” in my body’s health and severely relied on my routine!

While there is a time a place for some of us to really get down to the nitty gritty of what we are putting into our bodies (especially for the last few body fat percentages to your goal weight), the real win is if we can just stay CONSISTENT with our health and avoid the yo-yo of the scale!

But, for years at this “micromanagement stage,” when life got too chaotic for me to handle and I didn’t have my go-to daily routines in place, my whole health plan would fall apart at the mere mention on “away from home” or “vacation”. I then resorted to old habits and binge eating tendencies!

What resulted was massive swings of my weight AND mood. I could gain 5-10lbs EASILY in just 1 week. As I began to see and feel the weight gain, I would get a lot more stressed and more irritable and anxious too, affecting my mindset! At one point, I was that overwhelmed with my emotions and my negative thought-process, that I considered doing something about it. My friend, who has suffered from anxiety and stress in the past, said that CBD oil made a significant impact to her mindset, and improved how she looked at the world and the goals that she had. It sounded like a good idea, but I wanted to try and do this by myself.

This usually lead me to drastic cuts in calories and more stress to begin micromanaging my diet again. Usually cutting way back on my calories or carbohydrates, which lead to a major metabolic slow down! I found that every time I gained those 5-10 lbs, it got harder and harder to lose them again once the chaos slowed! It was frustrating, to say the least!

Not to mention, by making such drastic cuts in food, I was also cutting back my energy and ability to focus throughout the day. Which caused….you guessed it… even more stress!

A vicious cycle! (Blink if you can relate :-))

Alas, I’m happy to report that since I’ve refocused my health to what I call True Health (meaning it focuses on the body, mind AND soul altogether), I have just proven to myself that my new ways are having the EXACT OPPOSITE result as those old overindulging, micromanaging tendencies!

Not only did I NOT gain weight during these 3 weeks (I actually lost a few lbs), but I feel really energized still! I didn’t need a vacation after my vacation. And, I don’t need a vacation now that I’ve moved in! I still have energy to keep going! Which is KEY to sustaining this state of stress and change I am still enduring.

The best part is, it has been SO SIMPLE and just required me to focus on 3 SIMPLE HEALTH INTENTIONS DURING STRESSFUL TIMES to have such a wondrous affect.

God Bless It! I have found harmony among the chaos!

By just sticking to these 3 SIMPLE HEALTH INTENTIONS DURING STRESSFUL TIMES, I have never handled such stress so well! They are:

Intention #1– Stay STRONG’her– I chose just 1 habit to focus on for my body!

Intention #2– Stay WISE’her– I chose just 1 habit to refocus on mindset re: my body!

Intention #3– Stay SURREND’her(ed)– I chose just 1 habit to focus on my spiritual strength (and got some bonus love from God too!)

#1. STRONG’her Intention: I FOLLOWED MY 5-STEPS TO NUTRIENT BASED DIET

(If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, check out my Infographic HERE from my recent blog introducing my approach to the best way to start looking better AND feeling better).

The beautiful thing about following these simple 5-Steps to a Nutrient Based Diet is that it can be done ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE. I did it at the airport. I did it in the hotel. I did it at every restaurant. I did it in the midst of a move. IT CAN BE DONE! It requires NO food scale, NO calorie counting, and NO micromanaging!

In fact, check out some of the delicious AND nutrient-based meals I had in Hawaii!

(*BONUS- If you would like to see more of the nutrient-based meals I eat, follow me on twitter (@wrightfitinc) or Instagram (@a.wrightfit) where I will be posting them often with the hashtag #nutrientbaseddiet. Feel free to post your #nutrientbaseddiet meals too, tag me in your photos and I’ll re-tweet and re-gram you!)

As you can see, being on vacation or eating a nice meal out to eat does NOT mean I don’t equally focus on nutrient inclusion and diversity. Quite the contrary!

However, I DO still indulge some, because well….I’m on vacation! BUT my indulgences still fit into those 5-steps for a Nutrient Based Meal, which means, I indulge in moderation.

For example, if I wanted a glass of wine with dinner, I counted that as my carbohydrate source for that meal. If I wanted to try the house specialty of Coconut Crusted Shrimp, I sure did! But I only had 1-2 of them (for a good taste) and counted the fried part as my fat content for that meal. I would then have my vegetables steamed or salad with extra lite dressing to better balance the meal and not overdo the fat.

Also, if I knew that I was going to have a nice dinner at night, I might reserve a couple of my carbohydrate and fat servings from the meals earlier in the day so I could better enjoy the special meal at dinner!

The key was, even if I was treating myself in some way or enduring some stressful moments of chaos, I just made sure…

……. I still got my water

……..I still got my servings of green and colored vegetables &

……..I still got my protein

Keeping those core nutrient essentials helped fill up my stomach so I didn’t have room to overindulge on only the bad stuff!

2. WISE’her Intention: I FOCUSED ON MOVEMENT MORE THAN WORKOUTS

When I was feeling so stressed, the last thing I wanted to do was stress even more about working out (or not working out)! So, I let the workout opportunity come more organically than forced. There were a couple mornings that I felt like really getting in the gym and intentionally inducing some body stress for the sake of getting the endorphin rush and extra blood flow. It can definitely help with stress management!

But, on the days that a workout just couldn’t easily fit into my schedule, I didn’t sweat it (literally)! I was just more mindful of moving more on those days! With Eden, I was in the water much more with her and being silly playing (something all parents can do)! More recently as we’ve been moving, I was certainly getting a better workout by mindfully lifting the boxes, going up and down stairs with speed and “running the marathon of shopping” to find beds, plates, chairs, and all those other doodads needed to fill-up a home!

Stressing about working out does not serve your body nor does it create a healthy mindset! This happened to be something that would mentally disturb me previously, so it dramatically helped my mindset to intentionally step back from this self-pressure.

If you are similar, during tumultuous times, I encourage you to refocus your energy on movement! Then, when you have more time, get back in the gym. But when you don’t, just focus on the movement opportunities in front of you! There is an abundance!

3. SURREND’her Intention: I “CHECKED-IN” WITH MY SOUL DAILY

Sunday is not the only day to engage your spirit! I have learned that creating a daily habit of spiritually checking-in will infinitely increase my ability to handle whatever situation and stress I face that day!

For the last several months, I have created a daily habit of waking up in prayer (starting a morning prayer even before I open my eyes) even if it just acknowledging that God is God and that I have woken-up because He has allowed me to. Waking-up to Prayer first is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. It sets the perspective of the entire day ahead of you!

I also have found great spiritual strength by the brief moments checking-in with my soul and God’s presence throughout the day. I do it intentionally when I read my daily devotional (via ebook for convenience of course) or get my daily Bible Verse pop-up reminder from the YouVersion bible app (even more convenient!). These things take just minutes of my day and can easily be done on the busiest of days!

To my delight, by doing the intentional habits, I find that these “check-ins” also happen unintentionally throughout the day too!. I start to see and recognize God in the places and faces of people around me. I saw Him in the eyes of my step daughter, Eden, when she would laugh. In the face of my husband, Howard, as he held her and again as we wept when we had to leave her. I felt God when I felt the warm sun on my face or saw the dozen beautiful sunsets in front of me. I saw God in my mom’s eternal patience as she was here helping us move in. I saw God daily when I looked in the mirror and didn’t hate the image staring back at me. God’s grace. It is ALL around us, it’s all about recognizing it!

My friends, if you are among the many who are STRESSED or going through some transition or changes in your life, you don’t have to give up on your health!

Find just 3 simple habits that you can focus on-one for your Body, one for your Mind, and one for your Soul and stick with those! You will find the balanced approach to your health, even in the midst of stress, will allow your body to maintain your true health in such wonderful ways.

Focusing on nutrients at every meal, movement and a daily spiritual “check-in” like I did, will work WONDERS on your ability to manage anything that is happening!

Should you fall off for one meal, one day, or several days, don’t panic! Let this email remind you of what you CAN do to empower yourself to handle things better at the next meal, the next day and the next several days to get you back to true health!

AND, with all of this, it bears a reminder. God loves you just as you are, flaws and all. Allow these stressful times to draw you nearer to Him and He will use it to help build more character within you and guide you closer to your Greater Purpose!