Where do you get MOTIVATION?

So, there I am at 154 and 125 pounds. The beginning of my journey (when I got cleared to exercise) to yesterday.

When I first starting taking an interest in before and after pictures I will be the first to admit that they were fake. That is, until I started my own journey to weight loss 3 TIMES. These pictures represent the struggle, the excitement, determination, hard work, and MOTIVATION.

The girl on the left never thought that she would see the girl on the right again. I was SO scared that I was going to be stuck with my "mom bod." I came from a place of negativity because I was self conscious and did not come from a place of confidence. I was SO insecure and DEVASTATED that I was back into my "old jeans." I saw reflections of me in the mirror and legit felt sad about how I looked. You can tell me all day that I just had a baby and I should enjoy motherhood but this "mom weight" was a struggle and while some women are all in the mom-ness I am just not one of those women. I did however know that it was going to take time to get close to where I wanted to be and I had the tools AND experience to get it done again so I DID grace myself with time.

The girl on the right has waited almost 9 months to get the weight off. It was not without struggle. December to February was TOUGH for me! I plateaued I was doing Body Beast and I got BIGGER in the arms and my hips were not moving. I took it upon myself to stop doing Body Beast and added in cardio with T25 and played around with 21 Day Fix workouts for strength and the cardio I believe was the KEY to my success. MY body needs cardio just as much as it needs strength training to get results. I listened to myself and I just did what my gut told me to do.

As a health coach people ALWAYS ask me where I find motivation to succeed AND to keep going once I had reached my goal. I have a few tips that may help you out!  

1.) Believe in the end result! 
I can't stress enough that even though there were plenty of days that I was not convinced that I would be the girl on the right, I believed OVERALL that I was going to get there. One day, I would get there. You may have your bad days but keep the end result in your mind. Visualize it! 

2.) Define short term goals and hit them! 
Saying that you want to lose 50 pounds is going to be a hefty goal. So break them down into scale and non scale victories. I made goals that I was going to go up in weight every week, or that I would eat clean for a whole week without cheats and that set my focus on being healthy which should be the end goal with a side effect of health being the vanity of losing the weight. 

3.) Remember your why!
WHY are you doing this? Write it down and keep it with you! When you make a goal to lose weight you should know exactly why you are doing it. There are going to be days when there is pizza (or insert not healthy food here) in your face and you are going to "forget" why you even started to try and lose weight because you are thinking about the now. THINK ABOUT THE END GOAL it can be either your big or small goal but think about how happy you are going to be when you get there and ALWAYS have a reason to start the thing. You need to have a vision of where you want your life to go and find a way there!

How to: Reading nutrition labels

I know that not everyone eats so fresh and clean and some people rely on nutrition labels to buy their food products.

I personally advocate eating less things in a box with a nutrition label but no one is perfect, not even me so let's get to your little lesson on nutrition labels.


Serving size: This is the serving size for 1 SERVING and lists how many servings there are in the package of whatever you buy. When you are eating overly processed or higher calorie no good for you foods, the serving sizes are going to be ridiculous. I mean have you seen how many chips are in a serving size for Lay's. let's get real people NO ONE eats an ounce or has a king size bag and saves the rest for later. PUHLEASE not even I do that! NOM NOM get in my face!

Calories: This one is pretty obvious. It tells you how many calories are in each SERVING of the food that you are eating. So is 200 calories for 12 chips worth it to you? I mean it may be. Maybe it won't that day. Who knows but that is the calorie count for ONE SERVING.

Fats/Sodium: This is where you want to be careful. Anything over 200 mg of sodium is TOO HIGH and is going to cause some serious bloat factor. It will cause water retention and all sorts of things. Be careful even when buying vegetables in a can, beans in a can or tomato sauces and such because the preservatives that they put in these things can be EXTREMELY high. Also beware of soups and stocks, these usually carry about 600+ milligrams of sodium and if you are trying to watch your weight you can be assured that if you aren't drinking a gallon of water a day you will probably gain a pound or two and wonder why the next morning.

Fat is just that, fat. Most things always have fat in them but the higher the percentage of fat in your foods the more calories it has and the more calories from fat it has as well. Fat isn't always a bad thing, if we are talking about avocados and peanut butter or olive oil these are good for you fats BUT should be used in moderation because it WILL make you FAT.

Fiber: You want to have fiber in your food. It helps in the digestive process. It creates somewhat of a ball and rolls through your intestines getting rid of all the gunk that is in there out. Fiber also helps to make you regular. 

Nutrients: This is where your vitamins and minerals are and you should be getting enough of those as well. If you are eating raisins per say your nutrients are going to be higher in this area than if you were eating chips. (I swear I am not a chip hater ha ha)

If you want to figure out where all of your calories are coming from in your meals you can take the grams of each component carbohydrates, fats, and protein and use this equation to see where your calories are going


FAT - 9 calories per gram
CARBOHYDRATE: 4 calories per gram
PROTEIN: 4 Calories per gram

This way you can see where your calories are going and you can judge your food from there. I always say that the best policy is to eat food without a nutrition label that way you are the safest you can be. We all know that we aren't all perfect so I hope you take this information and absorb it :)


Until next time!!!!

Jeannette

How to get through a 90 day workout plan

I know that when I started P90X in 2011 I was so excited about doing it that I just all about that tunnel vision and had my goal in mind. I knew that I was going to change my life and I was obsessing over the meal plan, printing the schedule I mean I WAS PUMPED!!!!! 

I was like Jeannette you are going to wake up at 5 AM and kill this THING!!!! OOOOO GIRL! I mean we all start that way right? SO excited and SO motivated I mean who wouldn't someone just told you about an awesome oppourtunity and hyped everything up for you and they lit that fire right. So how do you keep that fire on?

I know that there may come a point in your journey that you may get frustrated or antsy with the program that you are on, it happened with me when I did P90X. Here are some tips that may help you get through your hump! 

1.) Take everything one day at a time. 
        Try not to look at WHEN you are going to be done or how long you have left. Think about what you have already accomplished and how your body must change inside then out. 

2.) Don't post the WHOLE 90 day calendar up! 
      Just post your weekly workouts or write them in your planner so that you can see your goals for the week instead of looking at the future. You will get there when you get there. 

3.) Surround yourself with like minded people. 
     THIS one helped me out a lot. Being around like minded people helped me because when I hit "the wall" everyone was there to praise me and raise me up because they had gone through the same thing at one point in time. This is where challenge groups will become phenomenal for you because those people will actually be going through it WITH YOU! 

4.) Remember WHY you set out to achieve this goal. 
    I wrote my WHY on a piece of paper and put it on the fridge next to my good bye picture and put it in my bathroom mirror the 2 places that I frequented the most. I knew exactly why I was on this plan and I stayed focused on the goal but on the short term goal of completing every workout. 

5.) Remember the fire and the passion that you had when you started this whole journey. 
    Maybe you don't blog like I do and maybe you don't even keep a journal but you do have your memories. I know that I made a folder on my desktop with pictures of motivating people. I also frequented the P90X video that gave me the push to even ask for help in the first place. 

At the end of the day with anything, if you want to succeed you have to plan to. I know that every day there isn't going to be a great big fire of motivation and I know that things come up that will cause you to miss a workout. Stay focused on the goal and the prize at the end which is a healthier life for you!

Starting a new program can be a hard daunting task.