Tag: Health Coaching

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Fit Faith Friday Health Coaching Spiritual Health Uncategorized

{Fit&Faithful Fridays} Maryalice Goldsmith


As I started A. Wright Fit and stepped into this “Fit & Faith-based” company, I was met with many challenges—one of which was I really didn’t know what I was doing. (Disclaimer: To a very large degree, I still don’t!). But one of the smartest things I invested in during this start-up process was a business and mentorship coach and group of women to help me along the way. This gem of a woman, Maryalice Goldsmith, because my online mentor. She is just one of my coaches, along with Jill Coleman who started the Best of You Coaching program for online coaching professional women!

can be a bit tricky, but Maryalice has such warmth and compassion, that it actually translated very profoundly through your writing and assistance. As I started to know her better and looked through some of the awesome programming she was offering in her own online space, I was in awe. Read on about what Maryalice has to say to some of the deep Faith and Fitness related questions I asked her. You can also read the entire article on my blog post here:

Maryalice Goldsmith

InsideoutWellness, GoGetters Online Mentorship

Me: Tell us a little bit about what you do and how you started your business?

Maryalice: I started my business back in 2008 as a “hobby”. I put my 3rd and final son on the bus and thought, “What the heck am I going to do now?” After being a stay-at-home for 14-years I knew I wanted to tap into more areas of my brain. I loved being a stay-at-home Mom, but I got to that point where I knew I wanted to challenge myself and do something outside of that.
I decided to get certified in personal training and I started my “hobby” in the basement of my home. Whilst I’m still currently operating from my basement, it’s better than nothing. Eventually, the business will get to a level where I can move to a different space. For now though, I’m stuck in the basement. When I get clients, I do feel a little bit unprofessional telling them that I’m in the basement of my home. When I told my friend this, she suggested that I could always visit yourvirtualofficelondon.co.uk to look at getting an office address in London. That would make my business seem a lot more professional, so I might look into that at some point. It would also save me from giving my home address out.

In less than 18-months I had over 36 one on one sessions and 6-different varieties of bootcamps; boxing, TRX, sports conditioning and traditional style bootcamps.

I was in for about 50+ hours per week.

This was so not the goal. So I decided to check myself before I wrecked myself.

I made the decision to go online so that I can reach more people, get more time back in my life, and that work life balance we all desire. If it wasn’t for numerous guides to get me online such as this how to park a domain article, I would have had to fork out a lot of money trying to gain an online presence.

Running an online fitness empire is empowering, but it does have its technical challenges, especially where managing a website is concerned. For example, it is so important to use a reliable server such as Hostiserver to ensure that visitors to your website enjoy a smooth experience and are therefore more likely to engage with your brand.

It has been the best, most challenging, most incredible experience of my life.

Maryalice_against the wall

I hired a business coach back in 2013 and in 2014, she hired me to help her coach her clients. How cool is that?

2015 has been one of the best years in my business, I am so incredibly grateful.

My goal for 2016 is to continue to impact women in a positive way.

I run maryalicegoldsmith.com and I have two signature programs; Go Getters Online Mentorship and InsideOut Wellness.

I literally get to coach women everyday how to live happy, healthy, and successfully from the inside out.

It is truly a dream come true!

Me:How has your Faith impacted your Fitness and your Fitness impacted your Faith?

My faith means everything to me. It was a gift given to me by my parents – the very best gift they have ever bestowed upon me.

My faith impacts my fitness because I believe in order to honor God and the body He gave me I need to treat it with care, pride, and love – the way He would.

My fitness impacts my faith because when I respect my workout regiment I am the best version of Maryalice I can be. I am happier, more energized, and I shine my light (it’s a pretty bright light!!!). When I am not taking care of me, well that light is not so bright.

I don’t have that pep in my step… it all comes down to taking care of myself and giving myself what I need to be the very best version of me. Fitness helps me accomplish that.

Me: What is the biggest struggle you see women facing today? How do you think Faith and/or Fitness can help them in finding a solution?

Busy-ness! We are so busy with work, the kids, family & friends, and life in general.

I believe this busy-ness has distanced many women from their faith. In that, they are distant from their soul.

They have lost their connection with their spirit. They no longer know what they want, need, or desire out this life. They are on autopilot and as a result, they have become more and more numb to their goals.

Maryalice Goldsmith-0003

The power of faith is enormous. There is NOTHING in this world you cannot face without faith.

It grounds us in understanding what truly matters.

It motivates us to make decisions that honor who we are and believe that no matter what, if we are staying true to ourself, everything will work out.

Having faith allows us to understand that this moment is simply that, a moment in time. NO matter your struggle, your burden, and or your fear… this too shall pass.

With faith you are armored with a strength… it is the strongest muscle that supports your soul!

Me: Do you have anything coming up that we could join in?

I am super excited about my upcoming Go Getters Online Mentorship that will kick off on January 11th. I have put a great deal into this program and I’m super proud of it.

My Father, who passed on May 23rd of this year, was my greatest motivator. I could remember being as young as 8-years old and my Dad telling me, “Maryalice, you can be anything you set your mind to, ANYTHING. I don’t care if you want to be the first President of The United States – you can do it. You have to work hard, be the best you can be, and be a go getter!”

So, in honor of my Dad I want to help women be Go Getters Online. To go after their dreams and create the lifestyle they desire by building a thriving online business.

If you want to start your own business, then you can do it. Just don’t forget that it is a lot of hard work, and you need to be determined to succeed.

Make sure you know what you need to do, make a detailed list if you need to. For example, it’s important that you register your business as soon as you can (check out Your Company Formations Limited for more information on this), make sure you have a solid business plan etc.

Don’t panic though you’ve got this. And if you are worried then I’m here to help.

This is an 11-month hand holding mentorship, NO SHAME! You can access all the information here: http:www.maryalicegoldsmith.com/go_getters_online

The application process is open, and anyone who fills out an application will receive a link to hop on a call with me. I am only taking 20-serious online entrepreneurial women, so its important that we vibe.

I also believe in human to human contact and the online space often prevents that from happening, I am looking to change that.

To all you Go Getters reading this, I would love to connect!

You can also follow Maryalice on all things social media here:

www.maryalicegoldsmith.com
www.facebook.com/insideoutwellness08
www.twitter.com/MaryaliceHere
www.pinterest.com/insideoutwell
www.instagram.com/maryalice_goldsmith

Categories
Goal Development Health Coaching Uncategorized

The Quit Quitting Plan

"You can pray for anything, and if you believe you have received it, it will be yours." Mark 11:24

So, we’ve all been there before.

You make changes to your exercise and nutrition routines.  Cut back on those extra desserts, fried foods and other things you love.  You feel great off the start, see some results right away and that motivates you to stay the course….for a time.  

But then, it comes.  Boredom.  Willpower drainage.  The awkward conversation with your husband/boss/sister/girlfriend/mom that emotionally triggers you to reach for that bag of Cheetos or old stale cookies in the back of your pantry.  

Ugh, you just want to quit.  What's the point in trying?  

#AmIRight? 

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If I’m being honest...

I have QUIT every single diet I have ever been on.  

 As a bonafide emotional eater, I couldn’t hang with any “program” I tried to willpower my way through because my emotions ruled my life and my eating behavior.  

  • If I was happy, I would eat. 
  • If I was sad, I would eat. 
  • If I was stressed, I would eat. 
  • If I was bored, I would eat. 
  • When I felt defeated and wanted to quit…..you guessed it, I. Would. EAT!  

  This overwhelming emotional state of living was not working well for my health aspirations.  While I usually tried to compensate for my eating by just exercising more and more (and more), during certain seasons of my life where I was too busy to find time for the gym, my weight crept up easily.

 At one point,  in the course of just 6 months, I went from a healthy 160ish lbs (standing at 5’10”) to 180 lbs.  I was miserable and ashamed but felt stuck.  

I had been actively *dieting* right up to this point.  But the overwhelm from the stress I was feeling, well, you get the picture.  I felt too overwhelmed and just quit trying.  

 But luckily, things can change...

Today, I am happy to say that I NEVER quit anymore. 

It’s not because I don’t have emotional eating tendencies, I still do from time-to-time, although I have a better handle on those too, but because I have built my LIFESTYLE approach to my health and am no longer *ON A DIET* which would necessitate having to *QUIT* my health plan. 

I have experienced a freedom that can only come from doing the inside work on my Spiritual life and my relationship with God.  This has allowed me to find these KEY True Health Habits  that guide me to a healthy living for my BODY, MIND and SOUL.  I no longer rely on my emotions to guide my actions, including any tendency to quit, and I am so happy to share with you my...

 

TOP 5 HABITS TO STAY THE COURSE WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE QUITTING!

1. RITUALIZE YOUR HABITS:  

A habit by itself gets boring really fast.  But when you take the time to ritualize your habit, meaning, you think about now just WHAT you are going to do but HOW you are going to do it in a way that you can enjoy, you keep things enjoyable.  

This means anything from wearing your favorite outfit to the gym, rocking out to a specific playlist on the treadmill, buying a special mug and blanket for you to sit with some hot tea at night instead of that glass of wine. 

Any way that you can add some special and personal enjoyment into otherwise monotonous habits will serve you in helping you feel more *REWARDED* in the process of your health.

 

2. VISUALIZE YOUR SUCCESS:  

Study after study shows that visualizing yourself succeeding in an action is  JUST as powerful as physically practicing the action.  Check out some studies here.  

And, as I always reiterate at A.Wright Fit, from a high level Spiritual standpoint,  it is important to KNOW that God has designed you for something specific and special in this world—a Greater Purpose for your life that only YOU can do, no one else.  Your health is a significant factor in helping you achieve all that you can out of life.  You are to live and THRIVE by God’s work in you and through you.

If you take the time close your eyes and visualize yourself as this future self, your Greater Purpose self,  and focus on her and what success looks like on her, you will train your brain to propel you toward becoming her.  

This is why my motto is STRONG’her, WISE’her, SURREND’her because we must all keep visualizing our own her that God will help us to become.

 

3. JOT DOWN YOUR LESSONS:  

Throughout any process and journey in our life, we are learning so many lessons, and unfortunately the HARD way.  What seems to happen more often than not, we have to learn things the “hard way” about 30-50 times in order for us to finally *GET IT.*  

But it doesn’t HAVE to be this way.  By starting a lesson journal you are saving yourself quite a bit of time.  By writing down your lessons you are committing them to memory in a better way. If you then read and re-read that journal from time to time, you are further conditioning yourself to remember what you are learning and to keep applying it.

Studies show that it takes 21-days for the neurons in our brain to actually create a MEMORY and a full 63-days to form a HABIT.  

Starting a Lesson Journal is a clear way to help keep this process going!  Plus, the satisfaction from real life lessons is incomparable in hindsight.  To look back on all that you learned helps you endure through painful experiences in the future too!

 

4.  SHARE YOUR JOURNEY WITH YOUR *PEOPLE*:  

You are designed for community and so every opportunity given by God also is an opportunity to connect and share with others.   Knowing you have friends or family in the background that are backing you gives you more incentive to stay the course.  

Choose wisely those people you can share your journey with.  Find those people that will be your true Accountability Partners in life, meaning that they account for your abilities and not just your disabilities. You don’t need people that point out your mistakes or guilt you into better behavior.  You need people that can see you the way God sees you and you should do the same for them!  Believe that they will become the person that God will’s them to be too!

 

5. ACT AS THOUGH YOU’VE ALREADY WON: 

This is everything!  God has designed you for Greatness and to WIN in life, and, now have taken the time to even visualize yourself as her, you have nothing else to worry about in this health quest.

 
It’s already been DONE for you.  There is no waiting necessary, really.  
 
"You can pray for anything, and if you believe you have received it, it will be yours." Mark 11:24
"You can pray for anything, and if you believe you have received it, it will be yours." Mark 11:24

Because while you think you are after the specific MEASURED success (which is not a bad thing to have a measurable goal in mind, they do work), you are really after a FEELING, which you actually have ability to choose NOW.  You are her NOW.

In Faith, know that if God has put it on your heart to want to achieve a level of health you do not embody yet, He has also paved the way for you to actually DO IT.  You have all you need because you have God within you.  Focus on Him within and act accordingly. 

Categories
Goal Development Health Coaching Spiritual Health Uncategorized

The Best Kind of Weight Loss

So I just got off the phone with one of my new clients and I am so inspired that I am actually going to botch the entire blog that I’ve been working on for the last couple of weeks to share this story with you today!

This client and I have only been working together for a couple of weeks so far, but she hired me describing feeling being at “an all-time low point with her health”.  She knew she needed to drastically change her health and knew she needed someone to help coach, guide and support her in some significant changes she was ready to make.  I am so lucky she chose me. 

I told her, as I tell all my clients, that I learn just as much from them as they do from me.  It is an absolute honor and priveledge that I get to be a support system for any woman willing to face her fears, overcome obstacles and set herself back on the path that God has created for her.  To witness such transformations with her, changes my soul and teaches me much more than I could ever learn on my own and through my own experiences. 

So, as I do with all clients, the first step that we take together is to decide and write down what her goals are going to be.  I whole-heartedly believe that choosing the (W)right goal for yourself is the most important step in becoming STRONG’her, WISE’her, andSURREND’her your life UP and should not be a rushed decision. 

GoalWithoutAPlan

If you are truly ready for some real change in your life and in your health, you must get the SURREND’her part down first.  That means, choosing the kind of health goal that GOD wants you to choose, not that you and your fears or lack-based tendencies are pressuring you to choose. 

 (By the way, I have combined all 7-steps into an ebook that can be downloaded when you subscribe to my emails newsletters HERE.)

As we discussed her goals over the course of the first couple of phone calls, the tone of her voice sounded unsure, embarrassed, discouraged, and soft. 

The tone of her voice when we just spoke today?  Completely different.  It sounded light, free, upbeat, and confident.

So what had changed? 

Well, she shifted her thinking and shifted her search for her goals!  Her story was so awe inspriing, I wanted to share with you here today.     

When she first contacted me she had told me her measurable goal was to lose X number of pounds.  This is extremely common and not at all a “bad” goal.  In fact, I highly encourage measurable goals to help motivate, track and stay accountable.    

However, there are a million ways to measure your goals, so I encouraged her to take some time and truly reflect on whether or not this was the right goal for her and was indeed what God wanted her to focus on.

After this conversation, she told me she kept seeing messages about spiritual fasting popping-up in her world and she decided to do an incredibly brave thing——she listened. 

She decided the signs were pointing her to do a spiritual fast and see if she could find some clarity about this health process.  So for a almost a full week, she only ate vegetables and fruit and spent the time she would have spent eating, praying and reflecting more with God. 

(NOTE: This is a highly effective practice for anyone spiritually mature enough to make it about connecting with God to answer a prayer and not about doing a “cleanse” to help you lose weight.  Your heart posture matters!  If you would like more information about this, I’m happy to help answer or guide you, just email me!)

As God promises us in the Bible, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Matt. 7:7)  When she sought clarity from God, He gave it to her.

During this fasting period, she came across a book that just seemed to pop-off the shelf to her.  It was called “One Thousand Gifts” by Ann Vosakamp.   The story resonated with her on such a deep level she devoured it in about 2 hours flat and had her new measureable health goal from it.    

Today, with her voice full of courage, hope and a new depth of Faith, she announced her new goal to me:   She is going to seek and find her 1,000 gifts. 

One Thousand Gifts

Every day, she is going to seek out the gifts of her life and write them all down.  She will set her her intention on finding all that is good in her life and will spend her time looking for that, not just seeing her life through the lens of self pressure or busyness.     

Her choice of a goal actually went hand-in-hand with a morning devotion that I had happened to read just this morning from the book, Nearer to Jesus by Sarah Young, which read:

“As you go through this day, look for tiny treasures strategically placed along the way. I lovingly go before you and plant little pleasures to brighten your day.  Look carefully for them and pluck them one by one.  When you reach the end of the day, you will have gathered a lovely bouquet.  Offer it up to Me with a grateful heart.  Receive My Peace as you lie down to sleep, with thankful thoughts plying a lullaby in your mind.” 

It is of no coincidence that she and I had received similar messages of seeking out the smGod Winkall treasures from God on the very same day.  These are the “God winks” that we can all experience every day that we have our eyes opened and willing to receive it. 

The best part of the phone call was the next part she told me…. 

She said that naturally Monday morning she decided to weigh herself to see if her weight had dropped after doing a week of fasting.   It did…..but only 2 pounds. 

She was fighting the natural instinct to be disappointed that after so much “restriction” she did not see more physical weight loss.

I reminded her however, that she had actually lost a significant amount of weight, it just wasn’t the kind of weight that we know how to measure.

You see, this past weekend after the fasting, she described how she had been able to go to her favorite Mexican food restaurant and felt satisfied after eating only 20% of her favorite meal. 

She went to a baby shower and was able to resist the unhealthy food choices and cupcakes, and made the best decision she could with the options she had (chicken salad and some fresh vegetables and fruit) and felt good and satisfied by it.    

The weight she lost was not physical weight.  It was the lifting of the MENTAL burden that she had been bearing for the past several years regarding food, cravings and overall energy.   I could tell she had lost such weight simply by the lightness of her voice.    

Weight gain is very rarely about actual “weight.”  90%+ of the time, our weight is determined more by our thoughts than anything else. 

  • Having a dieters mentality is a heavy burden. 
  • Being unhappy and discouraged by your body all the time wears you down.
  • Always feeling stressed to eat the right foods and to do the right exercises is a heavy load to bear.

All of these things are much “heavier” than the actual weight we may need to lose. 

Being able to lighten the burden of of our thoughts is MUCH MORE REWARDING than losing a few more pounds in one week. 

She was able to fight the temptation of disappointment and stay on this path of greater understanding, joy and peace because she was able to instead focus her life on the gifts of her day. 

From here, she will be able to now move forward toward an healthier body with a much lighter mental burden that will allow her to find True Health and success that no “diet” would have.

This is SURREND’hering.

I encourage anyone reading this to take the following steps to transform your MIND as well by asking yourself these 3 things.

  1. Are my current health goals really what God wants me to focus on or am I creating goals to fill some sort of void I have in my heart that only He can fill?

    If you find that you are not focusing on the right goals, take the time to pray and change them.  God will empower you and guide you if you ask Him.

  2. What are the small gifts that I encountered today that I can pick like a fresh flower bouquet? 

    Even if you’ve had a really crappy day so far, is there 1 or 2 things you can find that were unexpected gifts?  Perhaps you can start a journal too to see if you can get to 1,000 gifts?!

  3. What kind of mental weight am I bearing on my body that I need to lose before I can lose any physical weight?  Am I putting unrealistic expectations on myself?  Am I living only for others approval?  Am I taking on others burdens as my own? 

    Pray that God will show you how to unburden and share the “yoke” with Him so that you do not bear the weight all alone.

    SurrenderisInstersection

Final reminders that if any of you would like to also work with me for 1:1 Health Coaching, I have just a couple more spots available in my current roster.  You can check out the new 6-Part Module forum I’m offering in my 12-Week SURREND’her Health Transformation in this link HERE.  Feel free to reach out and contact me via email at amanda@amandawrightfit.com and I can answer any more questions you have!