Category: Fitness & Training

The Worst Health Advice I’ve Ever Received…Part III

Post author By AMANDA WRIGHT
Post date April 1, 2017

In our final installment of the 3-part series I’m calling, ‘The Worst Health Advice I’ve Ever Received” I’m going to be sharing probably the most ubiquitous bad health advice we’ve BOTH ever received.

While the world has advanced with greater and greater scientific and specific health knowledge, it has also made room for a looooooot of bad advice.

Today’s bad advice doesn’t have a story around it like the others because to be honest I can’t remember who exactly first told me this one, or if it was actually just my MIND that inferred this advice from simply how society approached health and wellness.

The bad advice that I now know better than to fall for is this:

HEALTH IS ONLY ABOUT EXERCISE AND NUTRITION.

Isn’t this what society teaches us? All you need to focus on in order to get health and stay healthy is to concern your efforts on what you’re eating and how you’re moving.

If you struggle with your health, it’s only because you’re not doing something “right” with regards to your movement and your eating.

This is what I have believed for over 3 decades of struggle with my body and body image. This advice sent me into a frenzy of exhaustive effort, almost becoming addicted to thinking about my eating, obsessive with my exercise, and never feeling satisfied with where my body was.

Oh, you aren’t seeing results? Well, try harder.

You adapted to your workouts? Hmm, you should probably just try harder.

You put on 5 lbs from a weekend of excessive eating? Try harder!

This has been so conditioned to our psyche, we have formed a mindset of lack and scarcity. Never feeling “good enough” and always on guard for the evidence that proves we are underperforming.

The thing about believing that advice that all it takes to be health is to focus on your eating and your exercise is because there IS TRUTH in this advice, but it’s only half of the truth.

There’s no denying that your physical health depends on your eating and exercise. But it’s missing the 2 other pillars of health— your THINKING (what I call WISE’her) and your SPIRIT (what I called SURREND’her).

So, let’s get into the WORD of God for what might reveal what TRUE HEALTH looks like for every one of us.

Bible Background...

The Apostle John was one of the 12 disciples that followed Jesus during His time on Earth. John wrote the Gospel of John and was one of Jesus’ best friends and self proclaimed to be the “one whom Jesus loved.”

John was also the disciple to lived the longest. Where many of the others were martyred for their Faith in Christ the Messiah, John lived into his 80’s in the town of Ephesus. It is from this city that he penned some of the greatest books of the Bible: 1 John, 2 John, 3 John and Revelation.

Well, it is in the short letter called 3 John, we see where this wise, Jesus loving, disciple tells us what is KEY to health.

His greeting in this letter states: (3 John 1:2: GNB)

John tells us two very critical things in this simple greeting.

1. Our HEALTH is very important to our calling. You cannot be of your best use to God’s mission if you are NOT well in health. While this might seem obvious in statement, it’s NOT obvious when you look at the state of health of the church. I pray that this continues to change in the Body.

2. It tells us that really, our body’s health CAN ONLY BE AS HEALTHY as your spirit and soul.

It’s important that you EQUALLY invest in your SOUL (your emotions, your thinking, and your will and motivation) and SPIRIT (your relationship God within you) as you do in your physical health.

What I realized in order for my struggle-to-turn-to-success in my own body is that my PROBLEMS were not with my body, my eating, and my exercise regimens. My problems were in how I was THINKING about my body, my eating and my exercise.

The thoughts that created the feelings and misdirected my motivation all were problems in my SOUL that was buried in my FLESHY nature as opposed to how God has called me to walk, within my SPIRITUAL nature.

With this new found freedom of truth I have built a platform of complete education and direction for women who are ready to live TRULY HEALTHY lives.

It’s called the her Health Lounge and it’s a 26-week journey to a LIFESTYLE of health.

The Lounge is an online portal where all members have 24-hour access to over 80 coaching videos discussing the necessary knowledge one must have to truly walk in Spiritual and Physical health.

We spend 8 WEEKS devoted to BODY (nutrition and fitness education), 8 WEEKS devoted to MINDSET, and 8 WEEKS devoted to SPIRIT.

All members receive my best tools for physical success with my Nutrient Based Eating program and book, as well as my signature STRONGher Fitness & Mobility program delivered on the Lounge portal as well as my STRONGher APP with the full-length video demos.

The best part is not just the Lounge and it’s amazing content, but it’s the COMMUNITY of women and the COACHING from myself and my co-caoches. This program offers your access the the most encouraging and motivating Facebook group out there!

And you will also sign up for either (13) 1:1 coaching calls every 2-weeks or (8) small group coaching calls every 3-weeks. It’s in these calls that you will hold yourself accountable and establish a clear pathway to success!

I’d love to welcome you to this opportunity to improve your physical health by focusing equal effort on your Spiritual health as well! The doors open to sign up on April 3 and will close on April 9. Our 26-weeks together will start April 10!

Be sure you’re on the waitlist if you want to get first dibs. I’d love to reach out to you to set up a call and chat more to ensure we are a “wright fit” for each other. Click HERE to join that waitlist.

Tags 3 john, Bible, bible study, disciple, faithfulness, fat loss, fit by faith, Health, her health lounge, Jesus, Soul, spriti, Women, women's community, women's health

Fitness & Training Health Coaching

The Worst Health Advice I Ever Received…Part I

Post author By AMANDA WRIGHT
Post date March 28, 2017

This week, I’m going to be sharing a 3-part series on what I’m calling the “Worst Health Advice I Ever Got” and how I have learned the REAL TRUTH that I will share with you.

Before I start, let's be clear there are no VICTIMS of bad advice. Ultimately we all make our own choices and have to take personal responsibility and that's exactly what I was able to do here. So, if you take nothing else away, I want you to know you are your best "expert" of your body. Own that right and responsibility!

Nevertheless we know that the health and wellness industry is quite NOISY. There are many self proclaimed “experts”of things they have no real experience with outside of their own experience or a limited number of clients. So, the moral of this story is to look beyond the scope of who is giving you advice and make sure they really are qualified to advise YOU.

So my first story kicks off when I was 26-years old and I was living in San Diego, CA. As a hardcore football fan, I had scored what I thought was the job of my lifetime as a intern in the Community Relations department of the San Diego Chargers team.

This wound up being a really *interesting* 2-years of my life, and very challenging for reasons I won’t get into with this story, though it was an exciting opportunity overall.

The unfortunate part of this time in my life is that it was also my HEAVIEST WEIGHT I have ever been. The combination of being emotionally stressed, working 2 jobs full-time plus a third part-time job to make ends meet in San Diego meant that I was exercising little and “eating my feelings” and thus put on a good 25-30 lbs.

Now, due to my hormone structure, my body shape is certainly pear and I carry the majority of my weight in my thighs and my butt. So, I was up to about a size 12 pants and was not happy about it.

Finally, having enough of feeling so unhealthy, I decided to push myself back into regular exercise. I was able to use the Chargers facility to workout after all the of NFL players were done for the day. So, I began going down to their training room, doing a little bit of running on the treadmill and then some weights and exercises afterward.

I was in the middle of doing a crazy set of body weight lunges up and down the football field outside when I noticed some shadows in the building and heard some snickering.

Lo and behold there were 3-4 of the NFL players there watching me and laughing. One of the players I knew a little more personally because I had started to work with he and his wife helping them with their nonprofit charity. So, it was this player who shared with me what they were laughing about.

He told me, and I quote, “You really shouldn’t be doing so many lunges when you already have such thick thighs.” End quote.

So, first of all, yes I really wanted to smack him and I was MORT-I-FIED to know that this was the reason they were laughing. I CAN’T EVEN get into the rant about the sexist jerks because the more important factor was all about his “ADVICE.” This just goes to show you that even people who are trained to be professional athletes don’t necessarily know WOMEN'S BODIES!

It is WHOLLY INACCURATE to believe the lie that if you already struggle with carrying extra body fat in a certain body part of yours that you shouldn’t do strength training on that body part.

ESPECIALLY given the fact that I was doing BODY WEIGHT lunges, which means it’s nearly impossible to grow that much muscle that would warrant concern about the size of my thighs.

It’s literally the OPPOSITE of what you should be doing. If you want to lose body fat in any given area, you need to strength train that area!

——> MUSCLE BURNS FAT <——

Even HEAVY WEIGHT TRAINING will ultimately help you (eventually) LEAN your problem areas, and I have proof.

~2ish years after this incident many of you know I trained for 5 months to do a bikini competition. I started my training process having been training regularly, but still carried my weight in my thighs (as you can see from my ‘before’ picture).

To get my legs to get as lean as they look in the 'after picture', I lifted weights….HEAVY WEIGHTS. I was squatting nearing 200lbs, leg pressing 450lbs plus hundreds and hundreds of weighted lunges every week! Because this was my “problem area” I lifted this area MORE than any other area. Seriously!

If you don’t build the muscle of that specific area, you are going to have a much harder time in burning that fat in that area.

Now, TO BE CLEAR, my fat loss was MORE about my DIET and even the cardio that ultimately helped me lean out so quickly for the competition (though, I admit this was a very unhealthy part of doing these shows that I now work with my clients in a much WISER and slower pace to ensure they don’t have the unhealthy rebound weight gain and potential metabolic damage.)

So, this is a very common misconception I deal with all the time with my clients.

My client who carries weight in the back of her arms is afraid to lift upper body and triceps. My client who carries it in her butt and thighs, is afraid of lifting weights in her lower body.

Women are STILL AFRAID OF “BULKING" in these areas, so let me lay to rest what really does happen when you lift weight and why it’s an investment WORTH doing and ignoring any BAD ADVICE that tells you otherwise.

TRAINING TRUTHS TO LEAN OUT:

—Building muscle boosts your metabolism which helps you burn fat. In fact, muscle has MORE of an effect on your metabolism than even your eating does!

— Building muscle the right (i.e. at higher intensity) way can help you burn more fat than cardio alone. It’s such a misconception to women to only do “light weights and cardio” to try to lose fat or "tone up." Though there’s no denying that cardio can help you lose weight, these efforts can actually help you lose muscle which will ultimately do you a disservice as you age by slowing down your metabolism! Building muscle, called hypertrophy, is a necessary component of getting lean and staying lean. You will love your CURVES MORE when you have more muscle.

— For women, truly getting “BULKY” is nearly impossible without a very intentional process that includes diet modifications. Some women do have slightly more testosterone, so they might be able to get certain body parts larger, but they’ll also have to eat a substantial amount of calories to do that too. Most women don’t have the hormone structure (testosterone and growth hormone) that will help you truly “bulk out.”

—The truth is that when you lift heavy weights, women do have more short-term inflammation which makes you “think” your muscles grew overnight, but the inflammation will subside and they’ll go right back down and may even have some less body fat around them!

—Leaning out IS a process of BUILDING and BURNING that takes AWHILE and you’ll have to pay more attention to your diet. I coach on a practice I learned from Metabolic Effect that’s called a “toggle” of Exercising More and Eating More to help you BUILD some muscle for 2-weeks in a row and then Exercising Less and Eating Less to help you BURN more fat for 1-week. I toggle these 3-weeks throughout my STRONGher Fitness and Mobility Programming and app!

—You CAN strengthen a muscle without building the size! This is what I coach in my PERIODIZED STRONGher Fitness program The key differences is knowing how heavy of weight to lift (a % of your 1 Rep Max), the number of reps to lift, and the amount of time you spend resting in between each set. These are my areas of expertise as a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist.

So, if you too have realized you were believing some BAD ADVICE in regards to the value of strength training and fat burning, I encourage you to join us in the her Health Lounge where I will coach you through 26-weeks of this extended weight training programming to ensure the loveliest, leanest and strongest body you’ve ever had! The h2L is available April 3!

Tags body fat, burn fat, gained, heavy, lean, lean legs, legs, lift weights, Lose Weight, lost, metabolism, nfl, problem areas, professional athletes, weight training, women's health

Fitness & Training Food & Nutrition

3 Simple Steps to Maintain and Not Gain This Holiday Season

Post author By AMANDA WRIGHT
Post date November 29, 2016

Real quick, just a friendly reminder that today is the LAST DAY to save big on the A. Wright Fit Daniel Challenge! For Cyber Monday, I'm extending my offer for this 6-Week Nutrition Course that starts in the New Year. After tomorrow it will go back up to $97, but today, you can grab a spot for yourself or any friends in need of thoughtful and helpful gifts, for just 50% off! Click this link to purchase and enter the coupon code: danielchallenge50.

Can't wait to see the breakthroughs that will come this New Year together!! For more info, here's the info page.

But, from now until then, we have a WHOLE LOTTA HOLIDAYS to get through and ideally, we want to do it without completely losing all self-control on the Christmas cookies or spiked Eggnog, #amiright?

As I mentioned the other day, I recently lost about 7 lbs of weight and inflammation while doing just a 7-day Daniel Fast. In spite of a glorious Thanksgiving back home in Colorado, I have maintained this weight loss and still feel SO MUCH better!

The thing is that it is RARE to actually keep off the weight you lose, so I'm definitely brushing up my maintenance skills myself and want you to do the same!

Over the course of being a Certified Nutrition Coach and personal trainer, I have seen time and time again that I could help HUNDREDS of clients lose 20, 40, 60 lbs of weight over several months of hard work and discipline, but I saw time and time again that MOST of my clients would GAIN BACK a significant portion of the weight they lost.

Part of the problem was that I had put them on a "meal plan" where they would measure and count their macronutrients. The tactic worked, as we both saw, but it didn't last because it wasn't a sustainable lifestyle!

So, this, along with my own spiritual awakening, is what spurred me to create the Nutrient Based Eating program (which is also offered in the Daniel Challenge) AND also allowed me to transition to a more HOLISTIC approach to health changes.

This is where the STRONG'her (body), WISE'her (mindset), SURREND'her (spirit) tag line came from. I realized that your health HAS to this balanced approach in order to not just attain health results, but more importantly, MAINTAIN THEM once you achieve them.

So, for this Holiday season, allow me to give you...

1. **STRONG'her TIP:** The 80% RULE

I call this the "Dating vs Married Principle" in my coaching. Essentially, what you did to get her you're going to have to do to keep her! But by "her" I mean, your body changes.

You need sustain about 80% of the activity and clean eating strategies to simply MAINTAIN what you lost.

So, if you workout 4 days a week to attain the results, you will need to still workout 3 days per week at about 80% of the intensity to maintain your results.

If you typically eat really clean for 3 meals and have 1 treat per day to attain your results, you'll still need to eat 80% clean and maybe add in a 2nd treat to be able to maintain those results.

Now, if one week you're on real vacation and you won't have access to your regular routine, seriously don't sweat it. Just try to keep things normal the week before and the week after and during your trip and walk a lot more and do some bodyweight workouts or yoga while away! One week won't make a huge difference, but 40 days (between TG and New Year) will! So, set up your plan!

One really helpful tool I can give you is a simple weekly chart I call my "her Intentional Consistency." I have all my clients write down the THINK, EAT, MOVE goals each week and check off the box when they complete it. You can download your own copy here to help you track your own consistency.

2. **WISE'her TIP:** MANAGE YOUR "ALL OR NOTHING" THOUGHTS

The MINDSET is everything this time of year! The truth is that you should enjoy anything that you want to eat, but STOP convincing yourself that this is the VERY LAST TIME you can have it since "it's the holidays."

It's simply not TRUE. When you shift your thoughts away from the "FOMO" (fear of missing out) and start repeating the TRUTH that you can have whatever you want to eat and ANY TIME during the year, you realize that fear dissipates and it strengthens your self-control to enjoy SOME bites, but not the whole batch type of thing.

So, pay attention to your thoughts in your head. If you find yourself making excuses like, "Well, I'll get started again in the New Year, it's just too hard to resist this time of year," then I highly suggest your correct those thoughts before you start to wear them.

The truth is you CAN enjoy your favorite holiday treats in moderation and still eat in a balanced way the other 80% of the time.

And better yet, when you feel empowered and in control of your eating and don't see the weight gain, bloating and discomfort that comes from binge eating or drinking, then you will actually ENJOY THE HOLIDAYS more!

Why don't you test it out and see?!

3. **SURREND'her TIP:** WELL, SURREND'her IT!

Honestly, if we could all remember that God is with us to help us with e-ver-y-thing on our heart, we wouldn't try to do these difficult things on our own!

Have you ever thought that your eating and exercise is something that "I should be responsible for" and "not bother God with?" I know I have. I thought, "Why would I pray for help with my eating when there are people out there with real problems, like not having any food to eat!"

But this is an error in thinking. When I realized JUST HOW ABUNDANT GOD IS and that when He offers me more self-control (one of the Fruits of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22-23), it's not like He has LESS power or love to give to others! He's LIMITLESS!

If you struggle with the guilt or asking God to help you with your health, then here is a scripture for you to memorize and dwell on for several days.

James 4:2b-3 NLT
"Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it.And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure."

Overall, this holiday season is always meant to me a celebration! There is a reason for the season, and it's not to overdo it on spending or calories. It's to fully receive the incredible gift of our Savior's birth.

Certainly enjoy your special occasions and those holiday favorites that are worth-it to you. But remember, life is much more than food. Get up, get active, focus on your blessings and enjoy every minute.

Tags Diet, Eating, fat loss, Food, Weight loss, Wellness, Women

Fitness & Training

Pain on Purpose | A Way to Test Your “All”

Post author By AMANDA WRIGHT
Post date August 19, 2016

Pain on Purpose | A Way To Test Your "All"

“Sometimes you don’t know how strong you are, until being strong is the only choice you have.”

I remember posting these words on my Facebook page after another one of my many break-ups. I don’t remember which one exactly, as I had a long history of dating some terrrrrible guys. Not that it was always them, but us together, for sure.

Part of the consequences of believing the lie that my body and beauty were responsible for determining my self-worth and the subsequent feeling like I was never thin/fit/strong/beautiful enough to actually grow any self-worth, came with a side effect of choosing the wrong dudes to date.

So naturally, one of the best wake-up calls God had for me was any time I got my heart busted by some guy I was depending on to fulfill my value. Eventually, I learned the lesson that no man can fulfill the God sized whole in your heart—only God can do that.

SO, I digress in this story only to say that I found out how strong I was emotionally, really, one heart-break at a time. It was painful but I don’t regret any part of it. It’s how I learned to be resilient.

You might feel the same way about your tragedies and heartbreaks in life. The things we often think will break us wind up building us into who we are today.

But this quote above popped into my head the other day when I was reading, for probably the thousandth time in my life, THE MOST IMPORTANT VERSE IN ALL OF THE BIBLE.

Jesus said,

"Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Luke 10:27 (c/r Deuteronomy 6:5)

The hardest part of this passage is not the word LOVE. We all looooove love, don’t we?

The hard part is the word ALL.

And the part of the command that says “ALL YOUR STRENGTH” is especially tricky because the only way to get to know your “all”

is to TEST IT.

One of the COOLEST things I get to do for a living is to help women find how STRONG she is physically and watch how it transforms her internally.

Not only does it help build her body, but it builds her confidence, her self-efficacy, and yes, if you take this scripture above to heart, even her love for God

But the part that is TRICKY as a health coach and trainer is convincing my clients to do a self-test to find her MAXIMUM STRENGTH.

There is a name for finding ALL your physical strength through weight training and it’s called your 1 REP MAX TEST.

For my clients in my (*brand new*) STRONG’her Fitness & Mobility plan, I actually have her do just a 10 REP MAX test (which I’m going to give you below if you want to try it out too) so she knows how much weight she should be using for the various goals of the program. But even this one has been a hard sell.

It’s really important: knowing how STRONG SHE IS helps her reach her goals.

That MAX TEST number is actually VITAL information to be able guide her in how much weight she should be lifting during the progressive “Periodized” training.

For example, for Period 1 of my STRONG’her Program the goal is to grow “Muscular Endurance” which is a fancy, fitness word for the ability to complete many repetitions (i.e. 15-20) at a moderate weight for the purpose of building up greater endurance and stamina.

For this goal, I recommend that she use a weight that is roughly about 65% of her 1 Rep Max.

Therefore, knowing what her MAX is allows an accurate weight use for those workouts and she doesn’t go too light (which is unproductive) or too heavy (which is unsafe).

Muscle building has a different goal; strength building has a different goal; power has yet another goal. My programming takes each client through all these types of trainings to achieve the optimal body health while avoiding overtraining, boredom, and plateaus! <—Avoiding this stuff is really important to help you stick with your health goals, right?!

So, it’s something I give to all my clients to go and perform as a SELF-TEST.

But naturally, not many of my clients really want to do it (and of course, I don’t make it mandatory).

Willfully putting herself in that rather painful experience of MAXING out her muscles, to what’s literally called muscle “FAILURE," is a hard sell as a trainer.

It got me thinking that this must be why God has to get our attention through the shocking events in life. If He relied on us being willing to get max tested in our emotions, our relationships and our faith, we would never do it.

We as humans avoid pain. Period.

It’s why I ended-up dating so many guys that were not right for me…I was avoiding the pain of feeling lonely.

It’s why we can hold on to grudges and resentment… we avoid the pain required for true forgiveness.

Your health might be less than stellar right now simply because you’re avoiding the pain that comes with cleaning up your eating and exercising.

But avoiding pain is one of the worst things you can do for yourself if you actually want to achieve your PURPOSE in life and achieve your dreams.

“You don’t know how strong you are, until being strong is the only choice you have.”

Your ability to tolerate PAIN is directly proportional to knowing how STRONG you really are.

Knowing how STRONG YOU ARE is vitally important to being able to LOVE GOD with "ALL YOUR STRENGTH."

Being able to LOVE God with ALL THAT YOU ARE is the #1 way to find purpose, fulfillment and achievement in this life.

It comes at a cost and will require some pain in life. But that pain will teach you true resiliency and true Love.

So, with that in mind I decided I wanted to share this 10 REP MAX protocol with you today too because I believe that if you practice being willing to endure some pain PHYSICALLY, it can translate to what you can also handle INTERNALLY.

Because I know that when you have to courage to stop avoiding pain and actually TEST YOUR STRENGTH, you are gifted with the ability to actually USE IT.

So check it out below and send me an email back of what you thought of the experience. Was it as bad as you thought it was going to be?

With Love and Light,

Mandi

Tags 10 Rep Max, Faith, fitfaith, Fitness, God, max testing, muscle, Muscular Endurance, Periodization, strength, training

Fit Faith Friday Fitness & Training Goal Development

The 3 Strageties That Helped Me Make More Time for God and My Health

Post author By AMANDA WRIGHT
Post date August 12, 2016

3 Top Notch Scheduling Practices:

Complete this sentence: “If I just had _____________ I could live the healthy, faithful life I aspire to live.”

Well, if you’re like any of the 80% of the women who I interviewed and surveyed this question to, your answer is something to the effect of “more time.”

TIME MANAGEMENT.

This year, I am busier than I have ever been. So I have been incredibly intentional on building the SKILL of my activity (a.k.a time) management so I could be productive in my business, mindful to my relationships, and dutiful to my health.

Managing your activity is one of the best skills you can invest in developing for yourself that will have a PROFOUND impact on the likelihood of success in your health and relationship with God.

So these 3 strategies DRAMATICALLY helped me manage my busy schedule much better so I could still make time for my Faith, health and fitness goals.

#1. The 5 Category System:

My days were wildly overwhelmed until my “She Works His Way” mentorship happened. In this 1-month mentorship with coach Michelle Myers, she introduced the 5 Category system to me which took my scheduling to another level.

Now I only focus on those activities that fit into my chosen Categories of greatest VALUE in my life AND the deal is, in each category, I can only have 3-5 ACTIVITIES that I devote myself to.

That’s IT.

The reason there are only 3-5 activities is because that is the number of things you can do for each category WELL. Any more than 5 would cut into the quality and commitment to the others and ability to complete certain tasks any respectable amount of time.

So, my most important category (which I think you should have too) is my GROWTH Category. In this category are the following activities:

Time with God.
Rest/Downtime
Learning and Developing Skill #1 (like my certifications/biz development)
Learning and Developing Skill #2 (a particular study or course I want to take).
Learning and Developing Skill # 3 (work with a coach)

Another important category is HEALTH and SELF CARE:

Exercise
Mobility/Alignment
Meal Planning
Hair, Nails, Etc appt.
Reading for Fun/TV/Movies

One difficult one is the PROVISION/WORK Category. For me it looks like

Coaching Calls
Writing/Blogging
Social Media Presence
Program Design or Launch #1
Program Design or Launch #2

Other categories you might have are things like: Family/Friends, Service/Volunteer, Leadership/Mentorship, Hobbies/Activities etc. All of these should be categories that are UNIQUE to your personality and calling.

So, you can see that there isn’t isn’t a whole lot of room to get too crazy on the number of people/things in each category. It forces you to make some decisions on WHAT’S MOST IMPORTANT TO YOU (i.e. what God is calling you to do) and focus on doing those things WELL TO COMPLETION.

The key is to then give yourself permission to DELEGATE anything that doesn’t fit into the category to someone else to handle it (cleaning your house, certain parts of your job, hiring a assistant etc) OR simply put off a project until you finish another one, knowing there is plenty of time for you to accomplish that when you have some space free.

#2. TIME BLOCKING + BREAKS:

Once I had my PRIORITIES configured, I then IMPLEMENTED them into my daily schedule by using a system I was already accustomed to —> TIME BLOCKING.

Hopefully, you know by now that MULTITASKING doesn’t work (see study by Dr. Caroline Leaf HERE). So for productivity, focusing on a single task in a BLOCK OF TIME is one of the best ways to break up your daily schedule.

The book, “The Power of Full Engagement” shows that most productive people who excelled at their jobs, were those that would work FULLY ENGAGED for 90-Min BLOCKS of time and then give themselves a 15-min break before going back at it.

The amount of time was significant because it was just enough to get intensely productive but just shy of getting fatigued.

The second part, the BREAK is also incredibly powerful. It’s just enough time to get in a quick walk, do some mobility or stretches, or to eat (yes, I’m a fast eater).

The BREAK is so powerful because it allows enough recovery time to then be able to get back into the zone with the next Time Block and be more productive that way.

#3. INVEST WISELY NOW TO SAVE TIME LATER:

One of the BEST lessons I’ve learned (the hard way no less) as an entrepreneur is how VALUABLE it has been to invest in quality coaches and mentors who know what they are doing so I don’t have to try to waste time trying to figure it out on my own.

It has been a significant amount of money, but money that has been WELL SPENT because I have been able to save myself from the FRUSTRATION of trying to go it alone.

This is exactly why I would LOVE for you to join me in my FREE 4-Week “A. Wright Fit Reset” program this Fall. I know for a fact that investing your time in a program I have METICULOUSLY developed for ALL AREAS OF HEALTH (Nutrition, Fitness, Mindset, & Spirit) will be an investment of your time that is well worth it because it will SAVE YOU TIME (and maybe even money!) IN THE END!

I hold no fear in openly sharing with you just how much I LOVE working HARD on learning and passionately pursuing Fitness & Faith so I can be and ELITE COACH who truly helps and impacts her clients lives.

I have taken extensive and expensive measures to be very well versed and intentionally BALANCED in knowledge and acumen to address ALL areas of your health, not just a couple.

It’s why I decided to level-up my certification this year to become a CSCS through the NSCA and am currently studying for my second Nutrition certification through Precision Nutrition because I wanted to be sure I chose ELITE institutes that were well known to make ELITE coaches. The greater the challenge they are for me (which they ARE!) the more I know it will help truly my clients!

In the same light, this is also why my number ONE resource for ALL things in life is the Bible and Biblical teachings and sermons. I have learned MORE in this one year of reading the entire Bible and studying God’s word than in the previous 3 decades of my life. My coaching would be nothing but foolish, worldly opinion if I didn’t take the time to invest my time in THE resource of pure Truth. It is the greatest gift I have given myself and those I love and coach.

I used to think speaking of such things of myself was like bragging, but now I know it’s a gift to you that I share this LIGHT of passion I wholeheartedly pursue. Always remember, when we are called to "let our light shine before others so they may see our good deeds and glorify our Father in Heaven." (Matt 5:16) When you let your light of life shine, you automatically give permission for others to do the same.

Making time for your FITNESS and FAITH is a LIGHT FOR YOU TO SHINE for those you love the most!

The world deserves to see you functioning at you best and proudly shining it for all to see!

Join me in the “A. Wright Fit Reset” to engage in flexing those Physical and Spiritual muscles! Program starts August 15!

Questions? Visit this link HERE or contact me directly info@amandawrightfit.com!

Fit Faith Friday Fitness & Training

{FitFaithFriday} Meet Anna Willard of IronWillTrain!

Post author By AMANDA WRIGHT
Post date February 27, 2016

I "met" Anna through my business mentorship program under our mutual mentor, Jill Coleman's Best Of You Coaching Club. It was such a nice relief to find more and more of these women sprinkled throughout this industry and I love all that Anna gets to go and do while glorifying God. Whether she is water skiing like a CHAMP or just passionately pursuing new ways to push her clients, she has a spark.

Fresh into starting A. Wright Fit, I especially appreciated her reaching out to me to tell me that she loved that I was being open about my faith through my business. That kind of feedback can be so empowering for a recovering "people pleaser" who can tend to worry about "what other people think" more often than I'd like to admit. Sharing our Faith is not always "easy" but she and I can both agree, it is always worth it! I'm honored to share more about Anna's journey with you today!

Me: Tell us a little bit more about what you do and how you came to start it?

Anna: I have been personal training for five years and within this past year I took the leap of faith and started my own business IronWillTrain.

Why did I want to start my own business you ask? My mission in life is to help people see their power potential and reach their wildest dreams by strengthening them physically. I do this with the powerful tool: the kettlebell. The kettlebell allows everyone to feel they own power and how athletic they can be! Once I am able to physically empower someone through strength training and the kettlebell swing, they start to believe they have the strength, the courage and the will to achieve their dreams.

IronWillTrain is much more than training the body; it is learning how to train the mind through physical strength. It is a journey. Learning to train different aspect of life like patience, trust, and diligence (just to name a few). There are other aspect everyone will learn through their journey, I simply guide them and help them develop a power practice.

Me: How do you think your Fitness impacts your Faith and your Faith impacts your Fitness?

Anna: When I started playing sports in grade school, I realized I was given an amazing athletic ability. Most importantly, I saw this as a gift from the Man up stairs. I started viewing this gift as a responsibility to give Him the glory. I remember when at the basketball free throw line saying a little pray this is for you Lord. The times I played for someone other than Him (like myself wanting the spot light) I would have one of the worst games of my life! This is when I realized my fitness and Faith are the same.

The Lord has taught so many things through my strength but much more through my weakness. I have experienced many injuries, but every time the Lord has taught me the importance of Trust, Patience and Forgiveness.

It has been a journey seeing how Faith and Fitness are the same! We are all given a gift of life with an amazing complex human body that is designed to do amazing things! And the amazing part is God wants to work through this vessel this body! Fitness and health is both a joy and an obligation to maintain! It is a gift we are able to give back to the Lord and to give back to those who we love.

So to answer your question, fitness is me taking action on my Faith. Faith is not faith without actions. We have this beautiful opportunity to take action with our Faith through Fitness; it is simple making sure who gets the glory.

Me: What is the number one thing that you see women struggling with today? How do you think Fitness and/or Faith can help her in that struggle?

Anna: Wearing confidence with beauty, many women are not confident in their own beauty. We all have a very unique specific beauty that is designed for each of us to wear. Many times women will hide their beauty with food, with stress, and/or with work. Or we don’t even see our own beauty because we are to busy looking and admiring others’ beauty. Seeing beauty in other is wonderful! But remember to be able to recognize beauty means you have beauty living inside of you!

Fitness allows women to build their confidence right away! Slowly I believe they start to see how amazing their bodies are and how exclusive their own body is created! Faith is trusting how our bodies are created differently but all reflecting a different aspect of beauty.

Confidence comes from trusting in our own beauty!

It is like the Sunsets, there is never one sunset that is the same. Us as women are all different reflections of His beautiful Glory. We simply need to stand in his presence to reflect it!

Me: What is the biggest lesson you've learned recently?

Anna: Wow where do I begin? There have been so many lessons the Lord has taught me through this journey of starting my own business. I am constantly reminded I am nothing without the Strength of the Lord.

Just like fitness, when I try to muscle through an exercise routine versus focusing on the skill itself I end up working too hard or worse, injuring myself. When I don’t go before the Lord, I do the same thing in life; I try to work and muscle my way through life forcing things that are meant to be. I make it harder than it really needs to be. So to answer your question is TRUST! Trusting the Lord has me right where I need to be. Trusting he will give me the strength for the next task at hand or simply the right words to say.

The verse that has been guiding me is Proverbs 3:5-6

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

Me: What dreams do you have for this year and for the future? What role do you expect God to play in developing these into realities?

Anna: As a beginning entrepreneur, there are so many ideas swimming in my head! But I feel the Lord is creating a movement with these ideas into one big wave! And I am excited to ride this wave he is creating in me. So to be more specific, my first goal is to launch a beginners Kettlebell course online! YIKES! Ok I put it out there now its time to deliver! Here we go!

ME: I am just starting a blog series on living with FRUITFUL Health and walking through how to live the 9 Fruits of the Spirit in our health. We are starting off with LOVE of course! Can you tell us how it is that you have found a way to LOVE taking care of your health? How do you know it's REAL love?

Anna: LOVE It!

Love is forgiveness! Forgiving yourself, forgiving your loved ones, and the hardest forgiving those who feel like enemies.

Forgiving yourself is the start of loving yourself and knowing you are loved. I know for myself and for the women I work with this one of the hardest aspects of love. Forgiving yourself for overeating, for lack of exercise… but also forgiving yourself on the harder things like a divorce, a miscarriage, and debt . . . the list could go on.

Forgiveness allows us to experience LOVE despite our faults. It creates a new opportunity for us to create a different outcome!

ME: Is there anything you have coming up that we can join you in?

Anna: YES! HOPE. DREAM. BELIEVE!

These have been my theme words the Lord has given me on my journey of life! I will be creating an emails serious coming in mid March how to train your hopes and dreams to give you power to believe!

I will be sharing parts of my story, parts of stories I have read, and inspirational quotes. Most importantly I will be including what the Bible says about these words! I am super excited about this!

If you'd like to connect with Anna, you can find her on these social media platforms!

Facebook: www.facebook.com/coachannawillard

Twitter: https://twitter.com/coachwillard_
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ironwilltrain/ & https://www.instagram.com/annasplash_
Website: www.ironwilltrain.com & www.annasplash.com

You can follow Anna on the above social media platforms to find out more about her!

Join my on my 26 day trip around the world to learn how I stay healthy on the road!

Subscribe to this email list HERE and you'll receive regular updates on how I follow my "Nutrient Based Eating" plan in Washington D.C; Philadelphia, PA; New York NY; Munich, Germany; Barcelona, Spain; and Maui, Hawaii!

You'll also get my quick and dirty hotel workouts, my go-to snacks I pack, and a bunch of video and pictures of all that I am so lucky to experience!

I hope you'll join me in on the Nutrient Based Fun! Sign up today and you'll receive my Free Infographic on the 5 Steps To Building Your Nutrient Based Plate!

Fit Faith Friday Fitness & Training

{FitFaithFriday} Meet fitGevity Creator and Travel Specialist, Kate Higgins!

Post author By AMANDA WRIGHT
Post date January 29, 2016

I met the beautiful Kate Higgins through a business coaching program called the Best of You. Kate and I have been virtual friends for a while and then got to meeting in person last September at our annual retreat! She is wonderful, graceful, and really easy to get along with! She was kind enough to interview me for her first ever #TravelTuesday interview series (!) she does on her site (since I am an active traveler) and I was so happy to interview her for this #FitFaithFriday feature too!

She was a little nervous about our Fit & Faithful space here because she said, "Well, I am pretty private about my Faith and don't talk about it much. I probably couldn't quote you any scriptures or anything."

I assured her that this is NOT the forum in which we judge each other based on "rule following" principles of religion, right?!! I aspire to do just as God did for David, "People look at outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)

I am overjoyed when I have friends who are willing to share anything about their Faith and their own Spiritual journey because we are all a work in progress and it makes God so happy when we offer up any amount of Faith that we have! Whatever we give, He will make it grow (it IS the Law of the Harvest, afterall!).

So it's my honor to present Kate's thoughtful answers to the questions below!

Me: Tell us a little bit about what you do--when you started and why you started:

Kate: I am a fitness blogger, and I specialize in staying fit and healthy while traveling. My blog, fitGevity, started out as a resource to support my line of resistance bands I created in 2014. Since then it has evolved into personal blog dedicated mostly to my travels and how I maintain a healthy lifestyle while traveling

I made this shift with fitGevity for a number of reasons. First, how much fun is it to constantly be writing about resistance bands?? The answer - not too much! Second, a 20 pound weight gain while traveling around Thailand for four months made me realize that traveling and staying healthy isn’t the easiest thing to do. I wanted to share my experiences, mistakes, and solutions with other travelers with the hopes that they will be able to avoid a substantial weight gain like mine. Lastly, after driving for Uber for a few months, and talking with literally a few hundred people who constantly travel, I began to notice that staying healthy on the road is hard for everyone! From there I decided that my mission is to help as many travelers as possible via coaching to stay fit and healthy while traveling.

Me: How does your Faith impact your Fitness and your Fitness impact your Faith?

Kate: For me, my faith is pretty personal. I find that I don’t often share my feelings or beliefs with others. So my health and fitness are intertwined with my faith. I’m always grateful for my ability to move, exercise, treat my body well, and help others through my blog. I also feel like being able to help others with their health and fitness is a great way to give back!

Me: What is the #1 struggle that you see women facing today and how do you think Faith and/or Fitness can help them?

Kate: One main struggle I see with women today is losing their individual identities to their families. As women we are often times the caretakers of our families. In the end we give up our own desires, wants, likes, etc, for the good of the family. This level of sacrifice comes from a good place in our hearts, but in the long run can make us lose track of who we really are.

I think staying true to our beliefs as well as making time for our health helps to keep us mindful of who we really are. Faith and fitness give us time that’s just ours. If we feel good physically, mentally, and emotionally then we are going to thrive as individuals, be more likely to stand up for what is most important to us, and will be less likely to lose our identities.

Me: What is the greatest lesson you have learned recently that is tied to your Fitness or your Faith?

Kate: The biggest lesson I have learned recently is that the truth will set you free. Holding onto anything can become toxic after a while. Lying, keeping secrets, and making up excuses is exhausting! It gives us anxiety, makes us dread seeing certain people, and the longer we hold onto it the more likely that the secret will come out at the wrong place and time.

While getting something off your chest might be tough, it’s incredibly worthwhile in the long run. You will feel as if a weight has lifted, stress has been reduced, and mental space has been freed up. This can lead to a healthier lifestyle, decreased levels of anxiety and stress, weight loss, a higher level of happiness, and more productivity.

ME: What dreams do you have for the future?

Kate: I have some big dreams for this year and the future! My goal is to continue to grow my blog. It may not sound like much, but by the end of the year if I have helped even 10 travelers stay healthy while on the road I will have accomplished my mission for the year).

As time goes on I want to continue growing my brand and to reach more people. I’m not exactly sure how I will accomplish this just yet - which programs I will design, inspiration I’ll gain along the way - but I trust that as long as I put forth 100% effort that I will be guided down the right path.

ME: Do you have anything coming up that we can participate in?

Kate: Yes! I have a free four day travel fitness coaching course coming out by the end of next week! I’m extremely excited about this program and have put lots of blood, sweat, and tears...well, you get the picture...into it. This program is a webinar style training delivered over four days, and covers everything from packing tips to exercise and nutrition. I’d love for anyone who travels frequently or is planning to go on a vacation in the near future to try it out! 🙂

You can find Kate and her Travel Tips on any of her social media pages here:

Website: http://www.fitgevitysolutions.com

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fitgevity

instagram: http://www.instagram.com/fitgevity

twitter: http://www.twitter.com/fitgevity

Tags Faith, Fit, fitGevity, Friday, God, Love, travel, travel tuesday, Women

Fitness & Training Spiritual Health

Why Two People Who Do The Exact Same Thing Will Experience Wildly Different Results…

Post author By AMANDA WRIGHT
Post date January 28, 2016

A lot of people have asked me if I am against people doing bikini competitions since I have told so many stories about the negative consequences of having done mine. And I wholeheartedly tell them, “Absolutely not!” I am in fact prepping a client for a bikini competition as we speak! She’s about 10 weeks away!

But also, the reason I would never dare to tell someone not to go after such a lofty goal is that there are a lot of really great things that can come out of pushing ourselves far out of our comfort zones. There is SO MUCH that I learned about my CHARACTER in that process of taking things “too far” for MY body that I have ZERO regrets about.

There are some people that actually THRIVE and really LOVE the competition world and can maintain a high character approach toward doing such activity.

One such example is one of my best friends and prayer partner, Jennifer. She was one who trained me and dozens of other women for these competitions with her husband. Jennifer did a couple different competitions herself over the years and told me she was was able to actually use them to grow closer to God!

Anything and everything we do can be an act of worship. So especially those really challenging goals we push for, we can definitely lean more on Him and we will be better for it! While Jennifer will tell you she won’t do another one (they are huge sacrifices, especially if you have young kids, like she does), her experience was markedly different than mine.

So why is that in life?

How is it that two women, both with hearts for God, can engage in the SAME endeavor, “planting our seeds” into the same routines, desiring the same outcomes, but experiencing radically different “HARVESTS” as a result?

This is often where we get hung up as we decide to try to do those things that we see our friends do, especially after we see their success.

The key to understanding the differences in these “harvests” and rewards is to realize that there are THREE vital parts to the Law of the Harvest, not just the two.

There’s the obvious SEED (our thoughts, our words and our actions)

Then there’s the obvious HARVEST (the results, our success, and our character blessing,too).

The THIRD aspect to this equation is the real difference maker.

It's the SOIL.

The SOIL is the *KEY* component into whether the seeds sprouts a REWARDING harvest or whether the the seeds withers, dies and gets ‘choked' by the weeds of life.

Take a look at the powerful words of Jesus’ Parable of the Sower from Matthew 13 which I like in The Message translation.

"A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn’t put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams.” (Matthew 13:3-8)

It’s obvious that this Farmer had worked hard to scatter his seeds. And it wasn’t the SEEDS fault that it failed because each seed was made with equal potential for greatness and success! The same goes for you and me. We are all created in equal love and ability for our own blessings and destiny.

The key difference as to whether the seed found success or not was the nutritious depth of environment that it was planted.

In other words if you don’t plant your SEEDS (i.e. your thoughts, words and actions) into an environment that doesn't have depth and nutrition, then the shallow soil will not produce the fruitful harvest you desire.

That’s exactly what went wrong with my experience in the bikini competition.

As I learned, more retrospectively, that the real reason WHY I decided to do the bikini competition was in order to “look the part” of someone I thought I was supposed to be.

The real reason WHY I chased having a “perfect body” was because I thought that was the answer to my body images issues and ultimately would give me self-love and happiness.

My “WHY" was my soil. Your WHY is your soil too.

If it’s a shallow, self-serving, or an overall unhealthy reason WHY you are really doing what you are doing then it will NOT produce the rich harvest of blessings that you want it to because God wants SO MUCH MORE for you life.

{And by “really” doing, I mean, the real, deep reason why you are doing what you are doing. Not the reason you tell others or even convince yourself you are doing something. It might even be subconscious for a while, but eventually God will allow it to come to light. Your WHY matters most. }

"Planting on the PATHWWAY ":

Sometimes we make half-hearted choices in our health, the most shallow of all. We know these well. We commit to a “diet” that we’re never really going to follow. We sign up for a “program” that we don’t even open. We get that gym membership but never show up to use it. We don’t ever really COMMIT and therefore our WHY is extra shallow. These are equivalent to the “path” where the birds came and eat those seeds. Nothing will come from these efforts.

"Planting On Shallow Soil":

Sometimes we get excited and so we make hasty, quick decisions and see some quick results….but inevitably those seeds sprout quickly and die just as quickly.

We do that 3-day cleanse, but then we go right back to eating how we used to. We take drops or diet pills that decrease our appetite to lose weight quickly. We do an extreme workout regime for a month or two, preparing for a “special occasion.” But those extreme tactics cannot be sustained and are equivalent to the soil in the gravel. The faster it comes off, the faster it will come right back on.

"Planting Among the Weeds"

Then, there are times we we *think* we are planting our “seeds” in rich and deep soil of good intentions. This was me in my big endeavor in my bikini competition and DOZENS of other life experiences I’ve had.

We make the commitment alright, but soon realize that WEEDS sprout up all around us.

I love what Jesus tells us about the soil with the weeds (from The Message translation again which is extra powerful).

“The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it.” (Matthew 13:22 MSG)

For anyone that has planted a garden, you know that you don’t need to GROW WEEDS. Weeds just sprout up. The same thing happens in our head as we plant our seeds the the soil of opportunity.

Weeds are lies we start to believe about ourselves.

Weeds are the distractions of self-doubt, selfishness or even conflict. Weeds are the result of SIN and our human nature and the devil getting in the way of our destiny.

These weeds strangle our good intentions of the Spirit and distorts them, ruining the harvest.

"For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.” Galatians 5:17

BUT, GOD.

It would seem to be a lost cause that we would ever be able to truly reap a rich harvest we desire out of life, doesn’t it?

Indeed, I think a lot of people lose hope here. Thinking, “What’s the point? I’m always going to self-sabotage and will never escape my habits of worry."

It is a huge challenge in our lives and I am not trying to play this down at all.

BUT, Jesus is "the way, the truth and the life." (John 14:6)

But I believe that it is MORE THAN possible to plant your seeds of your health and your life in the deep, rich soil that is Jesus and you will WIN the harvest of your destiny.

When you align your WHY with God’s WHY for your life, and not the life of those you see around you, you will find that there are far fewer weeds that will get in your way and choke your destiny away from you.

"Planting on the Good Soil":

When your health becomes less about YOU and more about what you can do to better serve God’s kingdom, the richness of your soil will be incredible. It will sprout harvests for generations and generations.

Listen to what Jesus went on to say about planting seeds on “Good Earth,"

“The seed cast on good earth is the person who hears and takes in the News, and then produces a harvest beyond his wildest dreams.” (Matthew 13:23 MSG)

The "NEWS" is that Jesus has already done all of the hard work for you when He died on the cross.

The "NEWS" is that you don’t actually have to strive for and earn the things you think you do, God has worked it all out for you.

The "NEWS" is that He has come through with his weed whacker and has prepared some fertile ground for JUST YOU to plant. You just need to have COURAGE, FAITH and TRUST that God will always do what He says He will do.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

There are over 7,000 promises in the Bible like this that you can ROOT yourself and your health in. When you focus on Him and focus on His TRUTH the weeds of your doubt and the lies in your head simply cannot survive.

Get deep. Look for your real WHY and you will win. You will win!

Tags Bikini Competition, body, Body Building, body image, competition, Faith, Fitness, friend, God, Harvest, Jesus, Love, reap, reward, seeds, soil, success, Women

Fitness & Training Spiritual Health

Isn’t It Just Like God…. A Testimony of Fitness and Faith

Post author By Amanda Wright
Post date September 16, 2015

It would be 2013, lucky #13, that would be my most transformed year-to-date. I was single after being in an on-again, off-again relationship going on about 4 years. I was living in Denver, CO and had just found myself lucky enough to be raptured in a new passion that was soon going to be a career change. I had always loved going to the gym but then I was given the opportunity to start teaching group fitness classes, training clients and soon became a certified Nutrition Coach.

I had just found my “word”, you know, those words that seem to smack you in the face with how perfect they are for you right in the moment? My word was SURRENDER as I had realized that even though I grew up going to church, I hadn’t yet fully SURRENDERED and committed myself to a real relationship with God. Those several heart breaks helped me fill my heart with God’s healing Grace, and now that my life was falling into place just right, SURRENDER was the word I clung to to keep me walking with God and letting Him lead the way.

However, somewhere at the juncture of deciding to take my passion for the Fitness industry to a career-level, I got scared. I started to second-guess myself and my self-worth based on my long held body image issues. As a way to “look the part” I decided I would train for a Bikini Competition. I vividly remember standing in the gym with a tug on my heart and Jesus whispering, “You don’t have to do this, Mandi.” The problem was that I had already made my “grand announcement” and was receiving so much praise and encouragement, I feared I couldn’t back out of it. So I ignored God and thrust myself into 5-months of grueling training for an event my body was not designed to do. All so I could convince myself I was “good enough” for people to hire me as a professional.

It didn’t work. Show Before and After

The day of the show, I was back stage, at 10% body fat, 20 lbs lighter and still felt absurdly “larger” than the other girls. I was shaking my head in disbelief. How could I still feel this way after so much work? Not recognizing the woman I became, I prayed to God, pleading for Him to just be with me. I was deep in shame and regret but He, of course, was there all along, and His peace renewed my strength. I knew I would recommit my heart to Christ and try to put back the pieces of my heart with Him at the center.

But, here is where I would get the greatest shock and gift of grace of my entire life.

The day of the show, my then “off-again” boyfriend, Howard, whom I had not seen for 18-months, decided to fly in from California and surprise me at my show! He was a bit aghast at my ribs and skinniness (he politely asked that I gain back 20lbs immediately) and I thought of it as a sweet gesture of support that I tried not to think much about given the fact that I was attempting to be “OVER HIM” from the past years of pain. In my heart, he had always been “that guy” that I could not quite get over.

A week later, I got a call from Howard with some news! He had apparently spoken to my Mom and Dad, asking their permission and forgiveness first, and wanted to let me know that he had finally figured out (with the help of a couple years of therapy), that I was in fact “The One” all along. That he had finally overcome his fears of inadequacy and commitment and he was ready to get married, have a family, travel the world and anything I wanted, if I’d have him.

This news was of course a tremendous shock! The words I had always hoped to hear were finally being said! I felt elated.

“But…..,” he said. Never a good sign.

“I have to tell you, I have a 8-month old baby girl, named Eden.”

My elation was met with devastation and I could hear no more. I hung up and cried out to God, “God have I not endured enough? How can I bear this pain too? Please God….please.” I cried all night.

But by morning, something in me all of a sudden shifted. Something in my heart was triggered. A hair thin strip of peace that “transcended all understanding” formed deep within me and began to grow. For some reason, I knew everything was going to be alright. I didn’t know how, but I went back to my word—SURRENDER.

Over the next month and several more conversations with Howard, I would come to understand that this baby girl, sweet Eden, while not planned by her parents, was still planned by God. She would be an agent of change in Howard and would be used by God to transform his life. She would renew Howard’s faith too, as he fought his own regrets.

I realized, it’s just like God to do such an act of Grace. To take a time where I would blatantly ignore his voice and pull away from Him, AND Howard would certainly make a bad choice trying to do things “his way” too and yet, God decided to bless us anyway.

It’s just like God to take these unplanned and imperfect circumstances and make them PERFECT agents of change to propel us to the life He called us for, both individually and in marriage.

“And we know that in all things, God works for the GOOD of those who love Him. Who are called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:38

In October 2014, I became Mrs. Howard Wright and from that decision of forgiveness onward, my life has been a whirlwind of change! I gained back ALL the weight, moved to a new city and then another new city just 1 year later, adjusted to life as a “corporate wife” and of course, step-motherhood of a toddler! And I wouldn’t CHANGE ONE THING!

God uses every single bit of it and has molded every fear, feat and failure along the way into my Greater Purpose and this venture of A. Wright Fit. I am passionately using my small platform to help others find their True Health from the inside-out! Aligning our Fitness through our Faith and allowing God to take the reigns of our LIFE and our health! To SURREND’her our way to becoming STRONG’her and WISE’her.

Because it’s just like God to make us STRONG’her than we know…..

Tags bikini, Bikini Competition, competition, Faith, Faithful, fat loss, Fitness, Love, marriage, step mother, woman, Women

Fitness & Training Goal Development

{BODY TYPE} How Knowing This ONE Thing Can Set You Up For Goal Success

Post author By Amanda Wright
Post date August 26, 2015
2 Comments on {BODY TYPE} How Knowing This ONE Thing Can Set You Up For Goal Success

What’s Your Body Type?

How Knowing This ONE Thing Can Set You Up for Success

When I did the bikini competition back in June of 2013, I have written several times that it was a pretty bad experience for me. It was bad Spiritually because I blatantly ignored a voice from God that told me I didn’t need to do the show to make myself more “worthy” of being in the fitness industry. It was unhealthy for my mindset because I became incredibly self-involved and living in FEAR at every given moment–fear that I would fail before I got to the show and fear that I would fail after the show by gaining all the weight back (which I basically did). These things were just the things that happened to ME because I was doing it for the wrong reasons. It wasn’t because all bikini competitions are *bad.* I don’t believe that is always the case.

But, moreover, the bikini competition was a bad experience for me because of my BODY TYPE and the way that it wrecked havoc on body systems. I am an Endomorphic/Mesomorphic Body Type which means I gain weight very easy, have a high craving for food and have a naturally higher muscle mass AND higher body fat percentage (you’ll see more on this below). For these reasons, in order to get down from 19% body fat to 10% body fat, I had to take more drastic dietary cuts and increase my cardio for 5.5 solid months. Obviously 10% is not sustainable and not healthy for women. It was very hard and was a lot of sacrifice.

I wound up not having a menstrual cycle for 5 months (amenorrhea) and developed a host of stomach issues and intolerances (that I still deal with to this day) after I gained back all of the weight, as I feared I would. The mental aspects of this were the hardest part.

I have mentioned Body Types in passing several times, and I do go into more detail when you sign up for any health coaching service I offer (whether the 1:1 or the group) in my Metabolism Ebook. I go into depth about what the body types are and what you should be eating based on them (generally speaking).

For #STRONG’herAugust, I want to go ahead and break down what Body Types are and the PROS and CONS of each type so you can not only recognize and know yourself better, but you can then develop better GOALS that will set you up for success!

Please be warned, do not let this information place you “into a box” where you either use it as an “excuse” or as a “crutch” to lean on. The truth is each and every body type has opportunity for excellence and True Health! God does not look at appearance, God looks at the heart.

This information is valuable because you can establish smart goals for your body that will help you maintain your body’s health. You body is to be USED for God’s glory which usually means it needs to be in good shape. So use this information as a tool to help you figure out your BEST version of you, no matter what shape or size!

So here we go!

3 MAIN BODY TYPES and THEIR PROS AND CONS!

1. Endomorphic-

CONS: Endomorphic Body Types are those that gain weight very easily. They have higher tendency to be “Sugar Burners” which means they burn through carbs easily but not fat, so they get more hungry more often. They have higher tendency toward sugar cravings along with caffeine (sugar burner tendency’s).
PROS: While it might seem like you get the “short end of the stick” by God, I find that Endomorphic Body Types have the opportunity to be the HEALTHIEST. Endomorphics tend to CARE more about their health because they have to! They invest in themselves, know what they can eat and not eat. Many can have quite healthy figures (think of Marilyn Monroe!) and look curvy and beautiful! Take Kim Kardashian, for example. While her body type may be accentuated on pictures through photoshop, she is known for her body through Instagram, resulting in her being the seventh most followed person on the social media site (how does she not use sites like upleap to grow her followers?). This just proves that this body type can be healthy and curves should be embraced!

2. Endo/Mesomorphic-

CONS: While these body types can build muscle fairly easily, they also store fat pretty easily making dietary concern and body concern still a struggle. They will have the same “Sugar Burner” tendency and will have to restrict carbohydrates more than others.
PROS: These women have curves and know how to use them! It takes a lot of work, but it is well worth it! Also, these women can be strong and care about their health because they have to care about their food. A win/win for “True Health” in the Body.

3. Mesomorphic-

CONS: These body types can get “ripped” so fast that they might often take their True Health for granted! They can get away with maintaining a physique while eating some “crap” food (lots of processed food etc) that can still cause unhealthy results internally. Also, in women especially, having the ability to build such lean muscle mass can be undesirable from an aesthetic perspective. However, it can be great for others, especially if they find it difficult to build their own muscle mass with ease and often need to search for supplements such as peptides for sale to have the body they want.

PROS: They have a gift for weight training and athleticism. As women, these body types might have slightly higher testosterone allowing for more muscle growth quickly. Other pros is that the diet for Mesomorphic body types is typically a “Mixed Burner” which means they use both carbohydrate sources and fat sources for energy and just have to choose a balanced diet. Also tend to be average weight and in healthy BMI.

(It is my opinion that this body type is the ONLY great body type to be able to do body building competitions because it doesn’t require as much mental and spiritual strain to get the body to change so drastically).

4. Ectomorphic:

CONS: Have a difficult time putting on muscle mass at all yet can still have body fat which can someimes make them “skinny fat”. Ultra lean bodies have the highest rate of health issues later on in life and shorter life span. Ectomorphs are typically “muscle burners” meaning that their metabolism will start catabolizing their muscle tissue to provide energy when depleted. Often these are ‘Type A” individuals with lots of energy and forget to eat. Most should avoid caffeine as well, as it induced higher stress cortisol levels.PROS: The nice thing for them is they can eat just about anything and not gain any weight! They also need a diet that is higher in carbohydrates which makes eating more enjoyable. Also, ectomorphs can find really great exercises that fit so well with their body types. Things like Yoga and certain Dance (such as ballet) are really ideal for these body types. Just because it might be hard to put on weight, doesn’t mean it is. Cameron Diaz has some guns on her and cares very much about her True Health.

God has made every single body on this planet as unique as your DNA with purpose. Even if you might fall into some of the generalizations of these body types does not mean that you are defined by them! Use this information as you wish to, either to help you establish smart boundaries for your body goals, or to eat wisely, or do a really WISE thing and ignore it and just listen to your body!

The real question is, now that you know what your body “type” might be, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH IT?

Follow you Greater Purpose Pathway. God will lead the way. 😉

Tags body, body type, ectomorph, endomorph, Fitness, goal, God, Greater Purpose, life, mesomorph, success, Women

and Truth I know now…