Tag: Health

From Pieces to Peace — 7 Distinguishing Signs You’re Living Your Greater Purpose

Post author By Amanda Wright
Post date March 27, 2015

The other day, I opened up about a time where I very blatantly ignored the voice of God within me when I decided to push myself to do a Bikini Competition. As challenging as it is to open up about such private stories, I was surprised to find relief and even joy in divulging this to you.

You see, because I am where I am now and since I have done ALL the work I have done, I look back at that time, which was just about 2-years ago, and am beyond thankful that I had those dark days so I can fully relish and realize the light that I feel today.

It makes me weep almost daily at the beauty of what I feel inside. Make no mistake, my life is not perfect and I am still learning hard lessons every day, but the difference I am feeling TODAY versus how I was feeling just 2-years ago, feels like light years away.
It is as though the missing pieces of my soul have finally clicked into place. As though the puzzle that was broken into a confusion of scattered pieces has finally started to come together to reveal the picture they were destined to—the picture of my heart.

I have gone from pieces to peace.

I have found the freedom and peace that I believe only comes from SURREND’hering myself the path to my Greater Purpose in life. By mustering the courage and bravery of changing my habits and refocusing my path, I now live a life that feels so full. How different it feels than just 2 years ago.

I pray earnestly that all women (and men) might find this strength and peace.

I pray for the women who are lost, just as I was, and are trying desperately to create their own “Purpose” in this life.

Like I was, women who are suffering from their own ways and are coping with this suffering with endless cocktail hours, hook-ups, gossip, body and beauty obsession and more.

Like I was, women who think that if they can only accomplish Goal “X”, they will be happy. Only to find that Goal “X” just leads to a hamster wheel of new goal after new goal. Going faster and trying harder but getting nowhere and feeling no happier.

Like I was, women who think they have to create their own destiny and find their own Purpose and set out to create lists, and plans, and vision boards to get “there”, only to find there is no “there”, there.

As I explained the other day there are clear signs that we are on the path to our Greater Purpose or a path of our own choosing.

Greater Purpose, as I see it, is our destiny, our calling, and the WHY in our lives.

There is so much we can go out an conquer in this world! There are endless opportunities that await us and so many challenges we can take head on!

HOWEVER, finding the Spiritual alignment of our Greater Purpose FIRST is the key to developing the right short-term and long-term goals to lead you to a life you dream of.

So, how do you know if you’re following God’s Greater Purpose or Your Own Path?

Using my experience from 2-years ago versus how I live my life NOW, I’ll explain the:

7 Distinguishing Signs You’re Living Your Greater Purpose:

God has a unique plan for your life but you must develop a relationship with Him in order to see the steps ahead. Time spent in prayer is key, but also allowing your life to fall into place as it is supposed to is key as well. Showing you can Surrend’her control to Him. You can tell something is in God’s plan when it all feels like it’s falling into place with little or no effort of your own. It does not mean it’s easy, but God will provide you the tools with each step.

When I decided to do my bikini competition I didn’t consult God to ask if I should do the show. I made my decision and theennnn prayed to God to help me do it, big difference! I heard God’s voice telling “I didn’t have to”, but I brushed it off to justify my own ways of thinking. My process of training kept hitting wall after wall too. My body had to be pushed very hard to lose the amount of body fat that I did. While I expect a challenge from God’s path too, there is a difference between a challenge God gives me and the challenge I faced when trying to force my body to change so drastically.

Now, I am challenged every day to overcome my fears and tendency to worry about what people think of me, but I defeat those fears because I know God has called me to do this. God has put me on this path and God is more powerful than any fear or difficulty. My life is challenged but in a way that still gives me peace and hope that I am on the right path.

The path of your Greater Purpose is not presented to you on a map where you see exactly where it will lead. No, God just takes you day by day making you focus just on the next step of the path. Living intimately connected to Him in your soul allows you to see things just as they are right now, in the present moment. He will offer you refuge, patience, love, joy, understanding, awareness, wisdom etc if you see it in the moment you are in. Practicing this with Him allows you to live more fulfilled and aware of all that you are blessed with in this very moment, allowing your worries about “tomorrow” to fall by the way side.

When I was prepping for my bikini competition all I could think and fantasize about what what it was going to be like when this process was over. Dreaming of the day of the show, what I would get to eat, and how I was going to feel. Day by day, I was a walking hollow shell and felt I was floating through life hardly connecting to anyone or anything in my path.

Now, I still have no idea where this Greater Purpose may lead me, my marriage or lead this business, but I have faith and strong hope that God will see me/us through, and it will be Good.

The human side of us always tries to tie our relevance in life to what we do for a living. While our jobs are what we spend a great majority of our time doing, our Greater Purpose is how we perform our jobs and how we live our life outside of our jobs too. Our Greater Purpose flows from our soul outward which means it starts in the areas of our character, our core values and our personality. These define us more than our job title.

When I was in competition mode, I was living a life of a weakened spirit. The values I was living by were self control, conformity, belonging, introversion and unworthiness. None of the values that I aspire to live out for my Greater Purpose now.

Now, I focus on the values God calls me to live— Love, Health, Integrity, Empathy, Service to Others, and Obedience. I would describe my calling and my Greater Purpose by these words that guided me to in my Core Values Exercise. (click link to receive the Core Value Exercise)

Our life is meant to be lived and shared with others. Loving and serving others and caring about those around you, not just in the physical sense, but caring about their spiritual well being as well.

When I was in competition mode, I had no real time to think about other people. I could only muster the energy to make it through my 2-hour workouts and my 5-6 meals of protein and supplements and really had no time to fellowship with my friends, family or even strangers.

This was the part I hated the most and the part I cringe at when I see other friends competing. All I talked about with my friends was me, my diet, my workouts, how I’m feeling, what I need to work on still…… me me ME! I got so sick of talking about ME.

Now, when I’m on the phone with my health coaching clients, I get so much joy from hearing more about them. I find more purpose in listening than in speaking. While my Greater Purpose is also testing my own voice (both written and verbally), I am always reminded to be quick to listen and slow to speak. It is a challenge for me, but I value learning first, teaching second.

When God sets you on your path to your Greater Purpose you feel secure and so motivated in your daily life that it gives you such forbearance and patience to help propel you through the day. Although, you may not know where you path is leading tomorrow, you have a calm sense of knowing that what you’re doing is Right.

When I was in competition mode, I was impatient, irritable, and cranky with the slowness of life. I could not wait for each day to get over and I could not wait for the day of the show. This impatience certainly contributed to the more and more drastic actions I took to get me to the stage.

Now, while I can’t say I love being patient, I certainly have learned to appreciate it. Living in the present focuses my mind on my true motivation and what I should be doing. This activity naturally builds patience to result because I have less time to worry about what will be….I am swept up in the power of now.

God will reveal to you exactly the thing you should be working on and strengthening. He offers times of work and times of rest that allow a balanced approach to you life. Following His Greater Purpose path, you’ll find that as you rest some areas of your life for short periods, you can be engaging and growing other areas that will need tending to. Listening for His guidance allows you to live a balanced life.

When I was training, I was only focused on one thing—my body. I did not rest my body, nor did I have time to strengthen any other part of my life—like my mind or my spirit. My emotions were burnt out, and I felt off balance.

Now, I find time to work on all three areas of my life- Body, Mind and Soul. I’ll put “work” on my body (via exercise or by focusing intently on my diet) and then rest that stress. While Im resting my body, I find ways to engage my mind. To rest my mind, I find ways to open my spirit and surrender more. Once I feel spiritually restored, I can go back to putting work into my body! It all flows together in a balanced approach and balanced life.

Even though my life feels like a whirlwind of travel and being on the go, I feel much more “together” than I ever have before.

When you full embrace and Surrend’her to God’s path for you, you can fully realize and see that you have very little to do with how your life really plays out. You realize how small you are and how Great God is. Even in our inner strengths, character and values we have, God is responsible for this awareness and for these unique characteristics all coming together to create the masterpiece that you are.

When I was in competition mode, I put all the ownership on myself. That I was solely responsible for what I was able to achieve. It put a lot of pressure on myself and perfectionist way of thinking.

Now, I can live a life free from that burden because I realize and appreciate how much God really take care of. That I don’t need to take the ownership of every detail because He will do it in a better way than I could anyway.

Looking for the path of your Greater Purpose is a challenge and I hope you all can see you’re probably on the right path in some areas of your life, but may be holding on to other areas as your own. I encourage you to take a deep look at ALL of your life and see if you have truly SURREND’hered it all or have held on to some pieces. More will be revealed to me, I know. I’ll be looking out…..

Tags body, God, Greater Purpose, Healing, Health, Love, Mind, Path, Purpose, Soul, Spirit

Health Coaching Spiritual Health Uncategorized

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

Post author By Amanda Wright
Post date March 20, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That change has been me.

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

KEY PERSPECTIVE #1:

GO IN WITH A PLAN

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

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

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

KEY PERSPECTIVE #2:

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

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

I can’t control other people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

KEY PERSPECTIVE #3:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

KEY PERSPECTIVE #4:

HELP TO CREATE THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh no thanks, I’m good”

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

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

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

If they still continue to probe….

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

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

PERSPECTIVE #4:

PRACTICE DOES MAKE PROGRESS!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

God will bless your journey!

Tags be the change, Change, choice, girls night out, God, Health, husband, leadership, ownership, responsibility, social life, Wine

Fitness & Training Spiritual Health Uncategorized

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

Post author By Amanda Wright
Post date March 20, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

What Is Your Spirit?

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

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

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

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

Spiritual Consciousness:

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

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

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

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

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

Step 1: AWARENESS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LIES

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

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

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

STEP 2: REATTACHMENT

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

Ha! If only it were so easy.

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

The only thing that casts out LIES is the TRUTH.

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

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

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

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

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

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

People-Pleasing

Approval

Harmony

Conformity

Meekness

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

Health

Faith

Integrity

Love

Obedience

Serving Others

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

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

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

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

Put another way from Gandhi, I want to,

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

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

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

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

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

Step 3: PRACTICE

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

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

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

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

Tags Addiciton, Beliefs, Believe, Change, Consciousness, God, Health, Love, Spirit, Subconsciousness, Substance Abuse, Wellness, Wine

Food & Nutrition

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

Post author By Amanda Wright
Post date March 17, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s why:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

According to website Alcohol Rehab

* It can cause malabsorption so that the individual is not absorbing all the nutrients from food they need.

* It may cause leaky gut syndrome where unwanted toxins are able to leak through the intestine into the rest of the body. These toxins then cause problems and lead to ill-health.

* It can exacerbate irritable bowel syndrome

*Alcohol can cause both diarrhea and constipation

Well, no wonder I was feeling so CRAPPY right?!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tags Alcohol, Bikini Competition, body, Body Composition, Diet, Digestion, Exercise, Food, Health, Health Changes, Wellness, Wine

Fitness & Training Food & Nutrition Uncategorized

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

Post author By Amanda Wright
Post date March 13, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(click picture to view more clearly)

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

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

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

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

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

 www.cell.com

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

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

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

This is how it works:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We eat largely because of behavioral and mental reasons too:

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

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

WHAT TO DO:

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

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

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

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

Allow me to use myself as an example:

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

My schedule thus becomes:

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

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

REMINDER!!!

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

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

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

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

Tags body, Circadian Rhythm, Diet, Exercise, Food, Health, Healthy Eating, Intermittent Fasting, Lifestyle, Meal Timing, nutrient, nutrition, strength, Timing

Health Coaching Spiritual Health

Enough with the Guilt! 4 Ways to Rid The Guilt

Post author By Amanda Wright
Post date March 10, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For example:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One things I know for sure,

GUILT IS NOT FROM GOD.

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

What you need is…..

Less GUILT and More GOD.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Naturally, all of this elicits the question:

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

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

1.)RECOGNIZE the trigger words in your head

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4.) REFOCUS your effort–

Ask yourself questions like,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

REAL CHANGE.

Tags Change, Diet, God, Guilt, Health, Religion, Rules, Weight loss, Women, Worthy

Spiritual Health

The Art of SURREND’her & Your Health

Post author By Amanda Wright
Post date March 6, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

We grow impatient quickly. We grow weary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But, trusting the process of health IS trusting God.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You do not give up.

But you sure do Surrend’her.

Tags Boat, Faith, Fit, Fitness, God, Health, Let Go, Relax, Surrender, Survival, Water, Weight loss, Women

Food & Nutrition Health Coaching Uncategorized

[Infographic] 5 Steps to the Best Meal For Your Body!

Post author By Amanda Wright
Post date February 13, 2015
2 Comments on [Infographic] 5 Steps to the Best Meal For Your Body!

When it comes to your body, what should be your #1 focus to building the best meal for your body??

My guess is 50% of you are mumbling something about Calories, saying that the QUANTITY of food that you eat is the most important part of weight loss and maintenance.

(Nodding head) Yes, yes very true and valid point.

Then I’d venture to guess that the other 50% of you is saying something about the Macronutrient Breakdown or the QUALITY of your foods and how many grams of Carbohydrates, Fat, and Protein you are getting.

(Raising hands in the air) also, not wrong there! Getting enough protein while not too many carbs and the right amount of healthy fat IS very important too.

In this industry of Health and Fitness, you’ll visit a hundred sites focused on weight loss that will break down weight loss this way.

Focusing on Quantity = Weight Loss

Focusing on Quality = Fat Loss (aka. leaning out)

I have lived the majority of my life focusing on one……then the other…… then both…… then neither! But, I’ve changed my focus and my priority now.

I’ve realized, I have been living just to see results, but I have not been LIVING my best.

I might be at a healthy weight, I might have pretty great muscle mass and a pretty lean figure. But my main issue for the last few years, especially as I age (and don’t worry, I fully admit I’m not even old yet!) is that no matter how healthy my weight and my body fat levels might be, it doesn’t mean my body is FEELING great. If I’m not feeling great, then I’m not living my best life and I’m certainly not living the life at my fullest potential the way God intended.

I am happy to announce, that I have completely re-wired my mindset and approach to my health and to those of my clients. Instead of starting with calculations and macro nutrient distribution of meals plans, we start with the ENERGY components first and foremost!

I’m talking about NUTRIENTS.

More appropriately, getting Nutrient Sufficiency from your food.

Focusing on Nutrients Sufficiency= Happy Body (aka Thriving)

Nutrient deficiency is the one factor that no matter how healthy of a weight you might be, no matter how much muscle mass you’re sporting, or how ripped and toned you are, if you are not getting enough nutrients in your body, then you are simply not living your life the way God intended!

Life should be about thriving! About having energy without depending on things like caffeine or other stimulants to make it through the day. About having sustenance for your brain to function at it’s highest capacity; to have a healthy digestive system that moves quickly and excretes efficiently; to be sure that our immune systems are working at optimal levels to prevent illness and death; to know our systems are all working at peak conditions.

The difference between living and thriving can be found in a Nutrient Focused meal plan!

What’s great about living this way, is that it really is very simple to start! There are only 5 Steps to the Best Meal for your Body! Every meal can get you closer to Nutrient Sufficiency and feeling better every day!

But first, let’s define what we’re talking about when I’m talking about NUTRIENTS.

As I mentioned before, the stars of the weight-loss world are the essential MacroNutrients :

-Protein
-Fats
-Carbohydrates
-(Water)

They are called Macro because you need larger quantities of them (measured in grams)

However, my good but less glamorous friends the Essential MicroNutrients:

-Vitamins
-Minerals

They are called Micro because you need less of them (measure in milligrams or less)

Vitamins and Minerals are incredibly important because they the delivery agents that actually carry out all functions in the body, including converting our food into energy!!

One example) Muscles cannot contract unless the mineral Calcium binds in the muscles cell. That same muscle cannot relax unless Magnesium binds in the muscle cell.

Kinda important, wouldn’t you say?!

So, while it is easy to glance over Vitamins and Minerals and only focus on “weight loss” or “leaning out” but you’d be missing a HUGE, albeit, micro-sized problem! A problem that is all too common when we are just focusing on our BODY goals without fully embracing what it means to be Truly Healthy: Body, Mind and Spirit.

So, I know what you’re thinking! You’re saying, “Yes obviously Amanda, we need our Vitamins and Minerals, that is why I take my multivitamin every day!”

Before you go reaching for your Gummy/Flintstone/WomanDailyChewable or any other version you get, be aware, that simply taking a multivitamin does not mean you are doing a service for your body. In fact, it could be quite deadly.

Many studies have come out warning against the dangers of over supplementing with vitamins ad minerals.

One article from the NY Times said that “scientists have known for years that large quantities of supplemental vitamins can be quite harmful.” See full article HERE

One study from the New England Journal Of Medicine back in 1996 studied “18,000 people who were at an increased risk of lung cancer because of asbestos exposure or smoking received a combination of vitamin A and beta carotene, or a placebo. Investigators stopped the study when they found that the risk of death from lung cancer for those who took the vitamins was 46 percent higher.”

Uhhhh…… what?

The article goes on to site 5 additional studies that showed that taking supplements of several different vitamins and minerals, notably Vitamin E, all were associated with higher rates of mortality.

The article goes on to highlight one important fact about the FDA. Apparently we have not heard about these mortality rates from Vitamins and Minerals because of a botched court hearing and other political reasons. The Vitamin and Mineral companies certainly make a lot of money, and you can bet they enlisted the help of a congressman to help keep their empires in tact.

I’d like to highlight here that we can all thank a politician named, William Proxmire, a Democratic senator from Wisconsin, for getting that bill to protect the Vitamin and Supplement industry banned in in congress back in 1976. Jerk.

Moreover, it has recently been revealed that the industry of Supplements ARE NOT regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). So there is no telling if the labels are accurate, the quality is worth it, or the supplements we take are even what they say they are.

Without knowing about all of those important factors, how can you justify the amount of money you are spending on taking them without really knowing if they are working for you or against you?

The obvious first step in Nutrient Sufficiency that I emphatically practice and encourage is to make your priority getting enough nutrients and a wide variety of nutrients. So every meal includes green vegetables, colored vegetables and water.

I know, I know, I know. We are all so sick of people telling us to eat our vegetables!!

But, honestly, in this day and age and in America, the land of plenty, there is such a wide variety of produce available to us, there is hardly any excuse that you can give me for not finding several vegetables in a wide array of colors that you can’t cook in a way to make them edible.

You don’t have to love it…..but I can guarantee you can learn to like it.

I know that we are America, and that we all think we have the right and need to LOVE everything that we do in life otherwise we just don’t do it. But, the reality is that we do a lot of things we don’t LOVE to do. But we do them because we must and because living is a responsibility. You know, like work. Jury duty. Wipe babies butts. Need I go on?

Our bodies are sheer miracles. They are such blessings and we should all be in awe that God has designed us as he has! If anyone has any doubt in God, I dare you to take one human physiology class and tell me the complexity of our systems don’t make you believe in a Creator.

Our bodies not only give us life and function and house our great minds and intelligence. But they are the vessel for which our souls carry out our Greater Purpose!

As with all blessings from God, our bodies are our responsibility. It is vital to take care of them. They are our indeed our temples.

Taking care of your body is our way of showing gratitude to God for the abundant life we live in our bodies. It shows how much you value and recognize the great gift He has given us. In spite of the pain, the hurt, the disease if might have. I still believe that you can find gratitude for what it CAN do and certainly how important it is!

Eating well means you are showing your gratitude to God. Taking care of your body means you do not take it for granted. Loving our Body shows that you Love God.

I encourage you to educate yourself on what you are eating and be more mindful of what goes in your mouth. It also means you might just have to eat some foods that you don’t LOVE. But doing so with a grateful heart will certainly make it taste better than you thought!

Part of my calling and my goal is that I might help educate you, my beloved reader, on some of the very necessary and some less necessary Vitamins and Minerals out there and the ways that you can make your way to a more vivacious, energetic and grateful life!

OH, and you might just lose weight while you’re at it too!! #bonus!

First things first though, let’s make it easy on ourselves and just start with the basics. The Meal Plan design.

Here’s my Inforgraphic to the 5 Steps to a Nutrient-Based Diet!

Want the PDF version of this? Sign up for my newsletter HERE and you’ll get it sent right to your email!

Tags body, carbohydrate, deficiency, Diet, fat, fat loss, God, Health, life, living, minerals, nutrient, nutrition, protein, thrive, vitamins, Weightloss

Health Coaching Spiritual Health

Purging My Past | Moving Beyond The Person I Thought I “Should” Be

Post author By Amanda Wright
Post date February 10, 2015

I don’t think I’ve ever felt my body shake as much as it was at that very moment. I was having an ‘out-of-body’ experience to it’s highest degree. I was up on a stage, in front of hundreds of people including my closest friends and family wearing…….gulp…..a bikini about the size of a slice of bread.

How many of you have ever thought you needed to lose weight before you could be happy? How many thought you needed to lose weight before you would find a man to love you? How many have ever thought you needed to be a certain size to represent the woman you think you should be? Have bought certain clothes, styled your hair, and wore certain make-up to fit into that role? Have changed anything about your appearance in order to “dress the part” of the person you thought you should be?

Well, me, up on a stage, in some stripper high heals, wearing a bikini the size of a thumb nail, loaded with tons of make-up and shaking like a leaf in a hurricane is the ultimate version of me trying to “dress the part” of the person I thought I was supposed to be.

To literally set the stage, we need to back-up in time just a bit.

It was about 6-months prior to this moment, I was beginning to experience a significant shift in my life. I decided I was going to pursue my passion of being a nutritionist and personal trainer in addition to my regular full-time job. The opportunity had presented itself at my favorite gym (Bodies by Perseverance in Denver, CO) and it was all clicking into place, the way all good things tend to do. I felt God had led me to that very point and I was nervously anticipating the fun I was going to have seeking a vocation from this passion. I felt strongly that there was a purpose behind this passion.

Along with that feeling of purpose, however, it also evoked a lot of the long held fears of mine including body image issues, insecurities, feeling good enough, smart enough, likable enough…..I mean, enough!

We all deal with body image issues at some point. But it is important to remember that if there is something about your appearance that you would like to change, there are solutions out there to give your confidence a boost.

One of my friends who lives in chicago recently had a mommy makeover after visiting a plastic surgeon and has never felt better. Another friend of mine has recently had a breast augmentation procedure.

Just remember that if you do decide to get plastic surgery, then it is fundamental that you do your research to find a reputable surgeon that you know that you can trust. Not sure where to begin? Why not try doing some research into the best plastic surgeon denver has to offer? Life is all about finding what makes you happy after all.

There are a lot of plastic surgeons out there available for those who are interested in changing their bodies from New York City, NY to Louisville, KY. No matter where you decide to go or what you decide to do remember it’s up to you.

However, as for me, those fears I felt weren’t about IF I was going to move forward (I was committed!), it was more about HOW I was supposed to move forward. Unsure of what path I should take to be “successful.”

Should. It’s just a bad word.

But, instead of waiting and listening, I was off and running! Naturally I am a “DO-er” in life. If I commit to something, I’m ALL-IN and I follow through! Both a great character strength and flaw and you’ll see why.

After seeing dozens of fellow gym-mates, mentors and friends compete in body building competitions I decided that the best way to dive head first into the nutrition field would be to “test my body” on the diets necessary to get ultra lean.

However, not long after I had made my grand announcement and already had my plan in place, I had this nagging in my head. Something, or more accurately, someone, was telling me that I didn’t have to do this show to prove anything. I can still picture exactly where I was when I felt this voice from within. I know now this was the voice of God or what some may call my divine intuition.

The problem was that the FEAR in me shouted louder. As I said, since I’m a person who follows-through, I quite naturally was not about to quit, especially once I made the grand announcement.

Also, I felt enormous self-pressure to look the part of a trainer and nutritionist if I expected anyone to pay for my services. The health and fitness industry very clearly has a “look.” After all, as many clients will remind me, if you don’t look in shape yourself, how are you expected to sell your services? What does that say about your technique? I don’t disagree there.

But that pressure to “look the part” intensifies when you combine it with an already competitive personality and the repetitive FEAR in my head. I didn’t just want to look fit, I wanted to look the fittest. I was determining what “fit” meant by comparing myself to all the other trainers and health enthusiasts out there, which there are thousands of course.

Alas, I entered a bikini competition as a way to really push me to get to where I thought I should to go. It is no small undertaking. In addition to my full-time job, my gym teaching schedule, and my somewhat sad dating and social life, I was working out 2-3 hours per day, 6 days a week. Since my body does not naturally get very lean or lose weight, I had to take some more drastic cuts to certain food groups (ie. carbs) and spent over 5 months in training before I was ready. Going five-months on a strict diet without cheating one time is HARD.

But, I was very driven. I was fueled by this need to prove that I could do it. I was consumed thinking not about the present tense, but about the day of the show and how great I was going to feel in my new body. All the respect and business it would give me!

But that’s ALL I could think about. Forget hearing my intuition at that point. Forget being there for anyone else. I was completely submerged into myself and the show. That was it.

The day of the show, as the other 20 contestants and I all walked off the stage, all of the girls where exhaling and smiling from the nerves and the obvious “rush” of excitement they were feeling.

I was not feeling a rush of excitement. I was feeling morose, sad, lonely, and beyond uncomfortable in my own skin. It wasn’t just because I was literally starving, although that would clearly cause a whole host of negative emotions. No, it was because I thought that this was going to be that peak of greatness, accomplishment and success I had set out to achieve. I finally looked the part!

Instead, I realized that the hill I thought I was climbing was more aptly a hole I was digging. Instead of going higher and higher to my Greater Purpose, I was actually going deeper and deeper away from it.

That is the thing about our Greater Purpose. It is not defined in the ways we think it is defined. We think of ourselves as these soldiers that have to go out and fight for what God wants us to do, but that is not necessarily right. I believe so often, the Good path means that we actually slow down. Listen to Him and check-in with Him. What He might be saying is to do nothing at all. Just BE.

The severe disappointment I felt was not because I didn’t “win” (I was thrilled with 5th place) or because I wasn’t proud of all the work I had done and the courage it took to get up on that stage. I felt all of those things.

No, the disappointment was because I had heard the voice beforehand and I knew better. I knew better than to think this was going to magically prove anything by getting up on that stage. I knew better than to think that by being “skinny” I would be happy! I certainly did not feel skinny at all and I certainly was NOT happy. Let me tell you, backstage at that show, I did not feel skinny. Even at 12% body fat, I felt huge compared to all the other girls there. That was a severe sign that I was not mentally healthy at all!

That was just it. I put so much attention on my outward appearance and “looking healthy” I endured an incredibly unhealthy mind and spirit. I felt horrible about myself and frankly embarrassed. Such that to be completely honest, I have struggled immensely with how to share this story. It causes some significant tinges of guilt for me.

But it must be shared because it is a very valuable part of my story. The lessons I learned from going so far in the WRONG direction were absolutely what I needed at this time.

Let me be very clear, the problem was not that I chose to do a bikini competition. I’m not knocking anyone who has done a competition or intends to do one. I have clients that I take through the process of preparing for a show as long as I know that they are doing it for the right reasons.

The reason WHY you do anything for your body is incredibly important in determining if you can meet a body goal without compromising your mind’s health and your spiritual health.

The problem for me was my WHY. Because my why ultimately came from a place of insecurity. And once you give into that insecurity, that insecurity grows. That’s how FEAR works.

So it meant that this competition and my training superseded everything in my life! It was the only thing I could think about, which meant I was worshiping it more than I was worshiping God. My body had become my idol.

I think most people can see that doing a competition such as this is an extreme exploitation of what it means to be “healthy.” But what if it’s not so obvious and extreme? What it you are compromising your mind and spiritual health in exchange for your body’s health without even knowing it?

There are so many ways that it has become very normal in society worry about our appearance. But the act of “worrying” about fitting-in is the very essence that drives us in FEAR and toward unhealthy goals. While yours might not be as extreme as a body building competition, it could be just as damaging mentally or spiritually. Something very subtle or not-so-subtle things like agonizing over the mirror about your looks; isolating yourself at home because you’re ashamed of how you look; skipping meals or building up eating disorders to cover up guilt; refusing to date until you lose 20lbs; diets, diet pills, and plastic surgery… etc! Our society is taking more and more extreme measures trying to be good enough and we are ignoring our own divine intuition on a daily basis!

By God’s grace, I thankfully came to realize the consequences of not listening to my divine intuition and how far that could take my mind away from a healthy mindset about my health. God took me by my Right hand and helped me navigate my way back to True Health. A journey I am still on and a journey I am called to share with you.

He was always ready for when I was ready.

Today, out of remembrance of this story that I hate to share, and in the interest of continuing to Purge My Past, I did something else that was very good for my mind and soul—I purged the past of my CLOSET!

I realized when looking at ALL the clothes I have, that I often times was shopping for this person that I thought I should be. I was shopping for a body that was not mine. I was also holding onto a lot of clothes that don’t fit me now (a lot of the ones that I was wearing when I was down to 12% body fat). Don’t get me wrong, I loved the fact that I could find Black Friday promotions to lower the cost of clothes, but I wasn’t helping myself.

It struck me today, that while I’m purging this story up and trying to focus on my future walk, it would make sense to also purge ALL the ways I had tried to play the role of someone I wasn’t. As you can see by this massive pile of clothes, there was a lot of old ways of thinking and old versions of me that needed to go! I have never felt more free from the burden of being anything other than ME!

It’s time to move beyond the person I thought I “should” be. It’s time to just be me.

JOURNALING QUESTIONS:

What are some of the ways that you tell yourself you have to play the role of a certain person in order to be happy or to be someone you think you should be?

Is there a feeling of divine intuition regarding your appearance that has been nagging at you but you’ve been ignoring? I encourage you to quiet your mind and heart and listen. Write down whatever you hear and if it comes to you, why you think you feel it? If you don’t know why, I encourage you to sit and wait for a while before you move. More will be revealed.

Find a way to purge your past today! Whether it’s throwing out old clothes, burning up old stories, or cutting ties to places or even people that don’t represent the person you ARE.

REFOCUS: Once you have taken the time to purge the past, I encourage you to then reframe your mind back to the present by focusing back on God’s love for you. You don’t need to live in the past of your regrets. Come back to the presence of God’s love.

“I don‘t have time to maintain these regrets, when I think about the way He Loves Me.”
Oh How He Loves Us, by

In Good Health,

Mandi

Tags Bikini Competition, Body Building, Fitness, God, Health, Purge, skinny, Weight loss

Fitness & Training Food & Nutrition Health Coaching Spiritual Health Uncategorized

“I just want to fit into my skinny jeans” and other ways we fall short

Post author By Amanda Wright
Post date February 4, 2015

One of my health coaching clients sent me an article she received from her gym in New York City. Coincidentally, it was also an article about overcoming the urge to quit and she asked me what I thought about it. A couple days ago, I debuted my first blog also on ‘not quitting’ (which I purposely chose the positive affirmative of “Tips to Keep Climbing”). If you didn’t see it, check it out HERE!

This other article was written with the intention of helping keep people from already giving up on their New Years resolutions, which as we all know is very common around this time of year! Just 1-month in the New Year and a large population of people have already forgotten those new habits they were so determined to get right this year! Like many in the Health and Fitness Community, this gym came up with a very concise and straight forward list of tips:

1. Remember the reason why you started
2. Speak Positive Truths
3. It’s Just A Valley (ie. don’t quit from the challenge)
4. Play It Loud (get new music)
5. “They” expect you to quit (do it to show others they’re wrong)
6. Look at the ladies (or guys) for motivation
7. Eat Well (don’t cut too many calories)
8. Go To Bed (sleep)
9. Picture the New You (imagine your success)

They are all friendly reminders and with good intention behind it. I am not bashing the intention of this article at all and on the surface, they are all great tips.

But that seems to be my biggest issue with the way the Health and Fitness generation is trying to teach health. Everywhere you look, you are given tip after tip after tip! Often times, they are contradictory too and more confusing than anything.

But the reason why I feel I am called to this platform writing and expressing my view of health and why God is calling me not only to write my truth but to also question the truths that I have long been accepting from “experts”. My whole life I have been trying “harder” to follow ALL the tips at once, and feeling defeated when I couldn’t sustain any of them for very long.

It wasn’t until I dug deeper into my health in my spirit and my mind that I was finally able to have real impact on my body’s health. I believe that we as a society need to GO DEEPER in order to invoke any real change in the trajectory of our health both as individuals and as a nation.

We can see all around us that we have a health epidemic on our hands. Our nation is sick, literally dying from health related causes. Our kids, our elderly, our poor and our rich–it doesn’t escape anyone. Our health has everything to do with much more than what’s on the surface too. Ironically, there have never as many Diet and Fitness Experts in society as there are today too. Thousands of them out there that will give you a thousand different “Tips” on how to lose weight and meet your goals. And YET, if you look around, all these “experts” aren’t really having any impact.

To Me, most people will fit into one of three categories:

A. Yo-Yo Dieters— hopping on and off the health bandwagons in an “all or nothing” fashion

B. Apathetic— that choose not to pursue their health and quit before we even start, seeing that the struggle is not worth the fight or it’s just “how they’re built.”

C. Extremists— The Uber fit, overdoing our goals to meet some unrealistic body image that doesn’t actually exist for long-term health.

As I read the list from the New York City gym, I don’t disagree with any one of the tips. But I also find the list to be very shallow in motivation and severely lacking in the DEPTH or any real CONVICTION behind it.

For example, if I were the old me and thinking about my New Year’s resolutions of years past, for Tip #1: Remember the Reason Why You Started?, my answer would have been something like:

“I want to fit into my size 6 skinny jeans so I can feel confident and better about myself!”

And I would log hour after hour at the gym until I reached my goal! Then, yes, as I slid on those size 6 skinny jeans I would feel really good about myself…….for about a week. Maybe two.

Then I would need another “motivation” or new “goal” to keep me going further otherwise I would just go back to drinking and binge eating and soon the skinny jeans wouldn’t fit so well any more.

That is literally how I lived the majority of my life. I was a “new goal” junkie, just creating more and more goals to get me “fitter” and “fitter.” Never having actually felt fit at all. Making small-time goals and reaching them, only to not feel as great about them as I thought I would. Most of the time I actually felt disappointed by them! Something was lacking. There was no “Joy” in my success. There was no real success!

The type of True Health and thus True Goals I am talking about are much deeper than this. To make goals based on FAITH and not FEAR. To use GOD and not GUILT. Tying our goals to our Greater Purpose makes the reason why we get-up-and-going to be a much deeper and much more life changing.

My True Health Goals look something like this:

I want to feel loved, fit and good enough no matter what my jean size is. I want to go to the gym and increase my strength and power so that I know if God calls on me to do something great, I will be physically strong enough to do it. I want to be a shining example for my kids, my friends and my family and I want to show them that anything is possible at any age. And, I know I can do this because I know “I can do all thing through Christ, who gives me strength.” (Phil 4:13)

Doesn’t my WHY resonate SO much deeper to SOULFUL level? Doesn’t the above goal not just hit what I want for my Body, but also my Mind and my Sprit too? Doesn’t it sound like the kind of life-changing conviction that will change my whole life and keep me motivated for longer? Not just help me with some small-time skinny jeans goal for the New Year?

So what if we turn that list into something with more DEPTH? Take their great tips and just add some Greater Purpose thinking behind it?

I think it would look something like this:

1. Remember why God is calling you to be fit, how does it tie to your Greater Purpose?
2. You are able to speak positive truths because you are perfectly Loved
3. Valley’s are purposeful so you always must rely on God. Embrace the challenge and draw nearer to Him.
4. The Music Lives Within— No matter what beat you hear, the movement will come from within you. Tap into that beat.
5. “Do Not Judge or You Too Will Be Judged” (Matt 7:1)- Think about ways you can support others in their goals and you will find that they will support you back.
6. Look to your soul for motivation and the men/women will come in the right time.
7. Eat Well to sustain your fuel for your Greater Purpose.
8. Find REAL rest to renew your body, mind and soul.
9. Picture Yourself Living Out your Greater Purpose!

Journal/Thought Provocation:

What are some of the goals that you have made so far this year? What are some ways you can re-frame those goals to serve your Greater Purpose?

If you are struggling with knowing what your Greater Purpose is, I invite you to sit and pray about it. Even if an answer doesn’t come to you immediately, the act of listening will be rewarding for you soon enough. What God might be telling you is that your Greater Purpose for right now is to do exactly what you are doing, but do it in a way that would bring honor to Him. Do it with integrity, courage, faith and love. Their is purpose in everything we do, so do it well and do it for Good.

In Good Health,

Mandi

Tags Diet, Exercise, Faith, Fit, Fitness, Goals, God, Gym, Health, Love, New Years Resolutions, Obesity, Obstacles, Perseverance, Weight loss