What's the deal with Apple Cider Vinegar anyway??

I’ve been doing a lot of research on gut health and how important health from the inside out is. So much of our health stems from our gut! If you want beautiful skin, more energy, white teeth, less cellulite, etc., start with the gut. Today’s Wednesday Wisdom I’m sharing my findings from my recent gut health research, and my Morning ritual drink recipe (and why I’m loving Apple Cider Vinegar these days). 

Starting off I just want to say that I am NOT a scientist by any means, and I don’t claim to be an expert on the matter. I’ve just been reading, and experiencing benefits on my own so I want to share what I’ve been learning with you all! 

I want to focus on the ingredients of my morning drink and explain why they’re so beneficial. So here it is:

• Heat up 8 oz of water in a mug
• add about 1-2 Tbs of Apple Cider Vinegar 
• Add a wedge of lemon juice
• add a slice of fresh ginger
• add a couple drops of honey
• Stir all together and sip it down!

Whether you’ve heard of Apple Cider Vinegar or not, you may not know all the awesome health benefits. As I type this, I am feeling amazingly better after being sick for a week, and I just finished a glass of this concoction. This stuff works!

• Nutrient Delivery. So this drink is not full of Vitamins & Nutrients, like a green smoothie, but it can help your body put those vitamins and nutrients to good use. The acidic-ness of the lemon and the ACV actually help reduce harmful acid and inflammation in our bodies. It helps improve digestion and the absorption and delivery of vitamins and nutrients to the rest of your body and all the important functions that need to be taken care of. This speedy delivery will result in more energy and radiant skin :) 

• Cleans up our insides. Apple Cider Vinegar is anti fungal, and breaks down the harmful bacteria in our bodies. Along with breaking down bacteria, it will break down plaque build up in arteries for a healthy heart, and mucus build up if you’re feeling congested. I have had a week long cold and lingering on with a cough and I felt a huge difference after consuming my drink! If you get seasonal allergies as well you’ll totally reap the benefits.

• Weight management. Some of the weight management benefits come from the fact that drinking this can suppress your appetite a bit. It does have a strong taste, and I would suggest starting with a small amount of the ACV and a bit more honey while your palette adjusts. It has also been shown to regulate your blood sugar levels. This is why I love to take it first think in the morning because I reap the benefits throughout the day. Part of weight management is avoiding extreme blood sugar spikes throughout the day. This drink will help your body regulate blood sugar levels. Some researchers believe the notion that acetic acid (the main make up of ACV) turns on genes that trigger enzymes to break down fat and prevent weight gain. SWEET! Now I’m not saying this is the magic pill, easy quick fix to losing weight. You will need to eat a healthy diet full of real food, lots of veggies, and exercise, but this drink can help in your efforts and help you feel great from the inside out. 

• The Ginger Bonus. The ginger in this drink is optional but also has powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. It is a natural way to treat Nausea and morning sickness for all you momma’s to be! Ginger is also effective in treating muscle soreness. I know a lot of you are working hard at the gym, and can benefit from these healing properties. Ginger also appears to speed up emptying of the stomach, which can be beneficial for people with indigestion and related stomach discomfort. The list goes on and on with ginger, helping with brain function, heart health, fighting cancer, and more. So definitely not a bad thing to add to the diet!

Give it a try. Especially if you find yourself with an upset stomach or bloated often. There’s a lot of crap all around us so it’s important for us to counteract it from the inside out starting with our systems inside of our bodies. 

The Ugly Reality of Body Shaming

How many of you have ever felt like your body wasn’t good enough for some reason or another? Not because you didn’t feel healthy enough, but because you felt you didn’t meet some expectation for a certain look. Today I want to recognize the ugly reality of this body shaming nonsense. Before I start I just want to add a disclaimer that I’m not trying to turn this into a pitty party of any kind, I just had some feelings and experiences lately I’m sure we can all relate to, and I want to help as many of you as I can to avoid this trap. If anything I’m just excited to have a conversation with you all because I’m sure I’m not the only one who has had these thoughts and feelings. 

This last year I got down to the smallest weight I’d ever been since I don’t know, pre highschool?? It was this summer after living in Europe where my food was cut down and I walked EVERYWHERE. And then I ended on the note of dengue fever in Thailand so I was in the hospital for a week barely being able to stomach any food. I came home feeling pretty weak, and not my healthiest. I gained back a little strength quickly, and kept with my smaller portions. I felt great about my body, but my fitness level had definitely taken a hit. Adjusting back into life in the US, I’ve let happen what I was afraid of happening. I’m not walking nearly as much, and food is very much more abundant. I’ve definitely gained back some meat on my bones. I’ve been getting stronger which I’m really happy about, and I think being strong builds confidence and is a beautiful thing for women. Then why was I crying last night looking at pictures from a photo shoot I did recently? I prepped for the photo shoot, felt pretty confident, knew I wasn’t looking my best, but still felt good going into it. Why was I beating myself up over body image? I found myself picking apart every picture. I was so bugged my skin rolled over my spandex a little, and that my back fat was showing from my bra line. For the first time since I’ve been out of college and in the fitness industry, I had gained some weight rather than lost weight. This past summer I felt what it was like for all my clothes to be big on me, and people to comment on how small I was. Note that I still got the negative comments like “you’re way too skinny, put some meat on your bones!”. And now just being slightly bigger, but at a totally normal and healthy weight for my body type, I find myself being so critical of my physique. I’ve let the comments and opinions of others effect me in a negative way, as if they know what I “should” look like. Comments like “wow you look….. muscly” or “You’ve really put on some muscle” have caused me to feel like I’ve done something wrong, like I’m not the right body type for my audience or the people paying attention. This week I let these comments make me feel bad about being “too” strong or “too” muscly. The pressure of having the perfect “personal trainer” physique, or whatever the “perfect body” is in your eyes can sometimes get the best of us. 

But I wanted to address this, because I know a lot of us struggle with body image. What’s not ok is thinking there’s a perfect body mold that we all have to fit into. I think its totally ok and healthy to have goals of “getting lean” or “shedding some extra thickness” that we may not love. But the point I want to stress is loving and accepting yourself where you’re at, and have your main goal be HEALTH. I’ve been having so much fun training at the gym the past five months since we’ve been back from Europe, and I’ve been loving feeling stronger and more confident with lifting. I will be the first to admit that I have been eating slightly bigger meals than I probably need to be, and haven’t been too disciplined on my treat consumption. Being in my profession, I know what it takes to shed a few pounds & lean out. But what bugs me about this situation is that I’ve let the opinions of others and comparison of myself to others effect my body image. It’s so easy to compare ourselves in the social media world. We see images of perfect bodies without the whole story behind it all. I know we’re all guilty of comparing ourselves to filtered instagram perfection, and I want you to snap back in to reality like I made myself do. Realize that you truly are beautiful! There is no perfect body size. Weight is just a number that can drive us crazy if we let it. When we love ourselves, we can better send love out into the world. Never tell anyone that they are too skinny, too muscly, or too much of anything as far as their body goes. We don’t know how these words can effect someone negatively, and who’s to say what’s too skinny or too muscly anyways? 

I’ve found that as we strive to be HEALTHY, the great body will follow! The best body type is the one you feel your healthiest in and that allows you to live your life to the fullest. For some of us that may mean shedding a few pounds that crept up over the holidays thats making us feel a bit sluggish, or for others of us that may be putting on a few pounds of muscle so that we feel like we can take on more of what life throws at us. This past week, while I was feeling so down about the way I looked in these dumb pictures, it just made my heart go out to all the beautiful women who have ever felt anything negative about how their body looks. I want you to know that you are beautiful. One of the main reasons I do what I do is to build up confidence in women and I found myself a victim of body shaming myself. It happens. Lets turn it around, build each other up, and find beauty in strength and health. One of the most rewarding parts of my job is seeing the joy and confidence in my clients after they’ve been working out, feeding their body right with healthy food, and they feel strong and confident. It radiates! Fuel your body with whole foods and stay active and watch the results come. End of the story, I went back and looked through my pictures that I was so critical of earlier and they actually looked great to me! I saw them through a much less critical eye, and noticed my strengths, rather than my flaws. Sometimes thats all it takes! Happy Wednesday everybody! 

MY "NON-DIET" SKILLS FOR HEALTHY EATING

Well I’m back with a Wednesday wisdom for you all, and I’m excited about the topic. Lately I’ve been full of so much I want to share that it’s been hard to pick! So you may be getting more than just Wednesday Wisdom this week :)

Anyways, on to the subject, I’m giving you 4 skills to master that will help you on your healthy eating journey. I’m calling them “non-diet” skills because they are skills that will help you create a healthy relationship with food, and are skills to use long term. I’m all about getting to the root of the problem, rather than shedding some quick water weight with a detox diet. Good things take time and effort! Don’t think you have to master all of these at once, but lets try 1 at a time, each week taking on a new skill to practice. 

Skill #1: The PAUSE.

This may seem simple but it can have a huge effect! At your next meal, practice taking a moment to pause, evaluate your hunger. If you feel like you could eat more without reaching your max fullness, but remain at a comfortable state, then continue with a few more bites. If during that pause you feel at a comfortable spot, satisfied, and if you were to eat more your clothes would start feeling tighter, or you may start feeling overly stuffed and uncomfortable, then put down your fork and be done. This moment of pause is so important and we hardly ever stop during a meal to evaluate our hunger. This typically leads us to overeating and feeling stuffed. We want to fill satisfied and energized after we eat!

Skill #2: Healthy Swaps.

This skill is relative to where you are in your own healthy eating journey (yes we’re calling it a journey again). The idea is to see what ingredients you could swap for slightly healthier ones. For example, maybe right now you love sugary toasted nuts as a salad topper. Try swapping out the sugary roasted nuts for some plain toasted nuts. Or maybe you use a sugary dressing from the grocery store, try swapping that out with a simpler, homemade dressing with less sugar. Little baby steps towards healthy choices make a big difference in the long run. Check out some other healthy swaps with this free print out I put together.

Skill #3: Determining worth it vs. NOT worth it.

This skill comes with being honest with yourself. You may have to stop and ask yourself why you’re eating something. Are you eating that cookie because someone put it in front of you and you just reached for it out of habit, and it doesn’t even taste that great? Or is it because it’s your favorite homemade cookie that your grandma makes once a year and you enjoy every last crumb because its that good? Its making those occasional treats really worth it and delicious, and learning to pass on the stuff that we don’t love, and typically eat solely because it’s in front of us, or because we’re bored, or whatever the non logical reason is. 

Skill #4: Finding your ‘Sanity Keeper’ indulgence.

So you’re trying to eat better, stay on track. But you’re finding that you can’t be perfect ALL the time, you’re human! Welcome to the club. My suggestion is to find you ‘sanity keeper’ indulgence, which is something you know will satisfy you with just one or two bites to take the edge off. It will give you a sense of satisfaction when you need a little somethin somethin, but you know you won’t go overboard on. For example, when I’m craving something sweet, and dreaming of desserts, I’ve found that if I have a little piece of dark chocolate this will do the trick for me! When its a good rich chocolate, one little square is all I need. It’s low in sugar, and doesn’t leave me craving more. Some nights I don’t crave anything, but when I do, I have some chocolate ready to go. Find what works for you.

So there you have it! Which skill are you going to work on this week? Let me know, lets chat, I want to hear all about your successes! And struggles, we all of them! Have a happy, healthy, awesome week!

What's the best Diet???

WEDNESDAY WISDOM HERE! Hot topic, especially as we start off this new year. All of our social media feeds being flooded with New Years Resolutions, Cleanses, Detoxes, workout Trends, etc. How do we know what diet to choose? What's the secret?? Well I'm here with some words of wisdom. I'll tell you the secret....The best "diet" is the one we can maintain and helps us feel our best! That's it! Suprised? I'll teach you my simple guidelines later, but lets start with this No Diet Approach.

Let me explain.

You can have the most calculated, scientifically tested, measured out meal plan in the world, created by the smartest dietitians, but what good will it do you if it's too complicated to keep track of and stick with once reality sets in. The reason most diets fail is because people get sick of tracking stuff, its unrealistic with their lifestyle, and they quite. We want to go out with our friends and enjoy a meal without thinking of all the numbers throughout the night. We want to be able to make one meal for the family rather then individual orders for each member, leaving us feeling deprived in our corner as we eat our low-calorie diet food. We want to go to the grocery store without our heads almost exploding from reading all these labels, trying to remember what we should or shouldn't eat. This isn't to say you shouldn't even bother in trying to eat healthier, but my advice is to forget the diet rules and make one simple step towards a healthier YOU. Start where you're at, and small and simple changes in the right direction will end up making a huge difference over time!

The thing is, there's always a fad diet. Remember when the Atkins diet was the thing? or the Gluten Free Ban Wagon? Most popular now is the Paleo Diet, is this finally the answer we've been looking for??  In a recent article I read about the current hype on the Paleo diet, anthropologist Dr. William Leonard shared his research findings, “Our species was not designed to subsist on a single, optimal diet. What is remarkable about human beings is the extraordinary variety of what we eat. We have been able to thrive in almost every ecosystem on the Earth, consuming diets ranging from almost all animal foods among populations of the Arctic to primarily tubers and cereal grains among populations in the high Andes.” This to me, explains that we are all going to react differently to different foods, but as a whole, we are capable of utilizing a wide variety of foods. So when a diet plan calls to cut out whole food groups because we aren't supposed to be eating those foods in the first place, I don't fully agree (unless its processed junk your cutting out). Of course we should all listen to our bodies, and if we have a certain sensitivity that's totally different. For example, some people have a dairy or gluten sensitivity, but that doesn't necessarily mean these foods are harmful to everyone.

So want to hear my plan for the simplest diet ever?! Start where you're at and work towards the following:

1. Eat whole foods, avoid labels
2. If you do have a label, you want the shortest ingredient list as possible
3. Have a vegetable (or more) at every meal
4. Eat less sugar (especially processed sugar)

And there you have it! SIMPLICITY 

So when I say start where you're at and work towards healthy, here's what it may look like for you. 

• If you always eat out, try cooking two meals at home this week, and then work your way up to 3 meals, 4, 5, and then maybe you only go out to eat 1x per week!
• If you always have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, try a bowl of oats with fruit instead (fewer ingredients). And then maybe you add in some nuts or seeds to your oats, and some zucchini for your vegetable! Try throwing in spinach to your smoothies as well.
• If you love pasta for dinner, try swapping out your noodles one night for zucchini noodles, or adding vegetables to the sauce. 
• If drink fruit juice, try having a whole piece of fruit in stead, you will consume about 1/3 of the sugar that way. 

Don't try to be a perfect healthy eater all at once. By taking these baby steps, the habits will stick and you will transform your way of eating over time! If you try to do it all at once it will become frustrating and you'll be right back on the diet roller coaster. 

I hope this helps and please let me know if you have ANY other questions at all. Feel free to comment below or send me an email! If you're interested in some healthy recipes to get you started you can check out some of my fitness & meal plans here. Also I'll be doing my 2nd annual Resolution Revival again this February. A 4 week challenge to keep the New Year momentum going, full of daily workouts and meal guide. This year I'm adding an exclusive video page that will have the full workouts you can follow along and do them with me!! Exciting stuff :)

In the mean time, here's a sneak peak recipe that will be on the guide that you can try out this week!

WEDNESDAY WISDOM: 4 Steps for Goal Setting Success

Happy Holidays! I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and are enjoying this week with loved ones and some extra free time! Any one else feel all turned around during this week in between Christmas and New Years? Its been a little crazy but awesome! With it being the Wednesday before New Years I wanted to give some tips on starting the year off on a healthy foot. We all want to make New Years resolutions, but sometimes the New Years hype can get a little overwhelming. The problem is when we try to take on so much at once, a couple weeks into it we realize we can’t stick to all of these changes at once, and we quite. 

I want you to Join me in making 1, yes only 1, resolution on January 1st. We’re going to focus on that 1 goal for that week, give it all our focus. By the end of that first week we will re-evaluate. If you feel you have the first goal somewhat under control, then we can add one more. If the first week was a big struggle, we’re going to re-commit to that 1 goal for the 2nd week. Baby steps here. You don’t have to commit to a whole life of that goal up front, but we’re just going to take 1 week at a time. Biting off as much as we can chew. Before you know it you’ll have several healthy habits created over that course of a few months! 

Setting yourself up for success is key. Some of your goals may take a little prep work. If your goal is to go to the gym every day that week, you’ll need to make sure you have a gym pass, and that you have a time in your day carved out for that gym session. Also, eliminate the chance for error. Set reminders for yourself. That could be an alarm on your phone, or a sticky note on your mirror, whatever works for you!

The last step is to have a source of accountability. Tell someone about your goal! This is the vulnerable part. It takes some bravery to put yourself on the hook like that. By telling someone your goal, you add an extra layer of motivation. They will know if you’re following through or not. This can be scary but its so helpful! 

I’ll give you mine as an example:

• My goal: Sugar detox. eliminate processed sugars from my diet for a week.
• Setting myself up: throw away any left over Christmas treats or junk in the house that will tempt me 
• Reminder: My Screen Saver on my phone will say “New Years Cleanse”
• Accountability: I’m telling all of my followers and my husband about my goal. 

So now its your turn. 

1. Pick your goal
2. figure out what you need to do to set up for success
3. Set a reminder for yourself
4. Tell someone your goal! Put yourself on the hook

And remember, whatever damage you did this year, you get a fresh start! Time to move forward to a healthier you!

Well Merry Christmas ya'll. It’s Tuesday, and I’m on the plane right now flying back to Salt Lake City to be with friends and family for the holidays and I’m so excited! No place like home for the Holidays right? Well as I was thinking about what I wanted to share with you guys this week before Christmas, I’ve been having a common theme come up. The Christmas tradition that we may not like, but feel it every year. The feeling that lingers around us all at Christmas time is the feeling of a sugar overload, and food-coma. Who’s with me? Most of us enjoy a little extra intake of goodies this time of year and it usually leaves us with a nice cozy layer of fluff to start off the new year. While the extra layer may be nice for the warmth (if you’re always freezing like I am!) we probably don’t want it to stick around for too long. Well I’ve come up with 5 tips to help you bounce back from the Holidays and start the new year off right.

Have the best Christmas weekend and soak up the company of loved ones and the spirit that Christmas brings! 

Book Club: The Rules of "Normal" Eating

 

WEDNESDAY WISDOM

Here in Spokane Washington, I train at a gym called FitEdge. We work with our clients to obtain the 4 pillars of health. These are Mental, Physical, Fuel, and Regeneration. As part of our mental health, we aim to create a healthy relationship with yourself and food. To help with this, we started a little book club with our clients and I'd love for you to join in! Right now we are reading a book called 'The Rules of "Normal" Eating' by Karen R. Koenig. Each week we are discussing 1 or 2 chapters. I am loving this book so far! It's so real and relatable to all the things we deal with in our heads that we may think our normal, or we may not really know what "normal" eating is. This book will help you get on track with your core beliefs that effect your relationship with food and your success with maintaining a healthy weight. She breaks it down in such a great way. It's a quick and easy read to get you started off right approaching the new year! You can check out the Book Club blog Here. For now, I'll share this weeks post with you here at Body Design by Britt. 

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This week we get into some great stuff. Chapter 5 is called ‘Beliefs of “normal” eaters’. If you’ve felt like you don’t have any “normal” eating beliefs DON’T PANIC. We can change. In Chapter 4 we talked about reframing our thinking. How do we do this?

1. Step one is to identify your irrational, unhealthy beliefs
2. Step two is to rework them into rational, healthy ones

Think of your own irrational beliefs towards Food, Eating, Weight, and Body. Now try to transform them into rational beliefs. She gives us an example for each category in this chapter (pg 87). I like the example for Food: irrational - “There are lots of bad and forbidden foods I shouldn’t eat”. How many times have we heard this?! “Don’t eat this, but you can eat that”, or “Top 5 foods to NEVER eat”. Sound familiar? Lots of catchy fitness magazine titles may come to mind. Well she explains that a more rational belief would be “There is no such thing as a bad or forbidden food” or “Foods can be nutritious or not, but they don’t have good or bad qualities” or “No one can tell me what foods I should or shouldn’t eat”. Those sound better right?

The chapter goes on to list several beliefs of “normal” eaters, showing us the irrational belief and then how it changes to a rational belief. One of my favorites was “Feeling good or bad about myself depends on what I eat or don’t eat”. That is totally irrational but I’ve caught myself thinking that several times. The more rational thought would be, “How I feel about myself has nothing to do with what I eat or don’t eat”. This is so powerful. Our self worth and confidence is so much more than food & eating! We need to know that and believe it.

One of my favorite excerpts from the chapter is on page 98. “Normal eating is about listening to your body and making healthy decisions. It’s about pleasure, satisfaction, abundance, self-trust, good self-care, internal messages, and most of all, enjoying food. Disordered eating – whether compulsive/emotional or restrictive- is about fear, deprivation, rigidity, childish gratification, mistrusting oneself, poor self-care, external messages, self denial, and scary feelings. What is most striking about the comparison is that disordered thinking about eating has so little to do with actual put-it-on-your-plate-and-enjoy-it food!”

What are CORE beliefs?? In the book she defines them as "your most basic assumptions about yourself and the world, your take on life; they contain your bedrock values and most firmly held convictions about how things should work." This is where our beliefs about food, eating, weight, and body all stem from.

What are your core beliefs?

If you believe in yourself and that you have big dreams your going to accomplish, you are more likely to take care of your health and fuel your body the best you can to reach those dreams! In this chapter she helps us with tools for figuring out what our core beliefs are. Once you’ve discovered your list of core beliefs (about 10 or so) weed out the irrational ones and reframe them into rational beliefs following her example in the book. Some examples of other core beliefs might be -the glass is always half full, not half empty  -We can achieve anything in life with hard work  -We get what we deserve  -Skinny people are happier  -Rich people are happier  -Money can't buy happiness  -etc. (mantras that you live by)

An example that I found while looking into my core beliefs is the belief that “People may not like me if I’m not in shape or gain weight.” This is totally irrational! For this exercise I reframed this belief into “My weight or physical appearance will not effect how much the people I care about love me or how they feel towards me.” By changing this belief, I will change other irrational thoughts and fears that come along with it. This includes being scared to eat in front of certain people, or feeling pressured to look a certain way.

How do we connect our core beliefs to our thinking about food, eating, weight, and our body? Well she gives us a 3 step guide!

1. Identify the eating- or body-related behavior you want to change
2. Identify the irrational eating- or body-related belief underlying the behavior
3. Identify the irrational core belief that underlies the food/weight/body- related belief

Easy enough? give it a try! Here is an example from the book:

• Behavior: Finishing all the food on my plate
• Belief: I am being wasteful if I don’t finish all the food on my plate.
• Core Belief: Being wasteful is an unforgivable sin

This totally describes me! This week I’ve been practicing being ok with leaving food on my plate if I’m not hungry for it. Being OK with scraping food left on my plate into the garbage if its not enough to save for tomorrow. I’ve made progress! Find a belief you have towards food/eating/or body that you want to change and practice this week.

Another example of this:

• Behavior: Weighing myself every day
• Belief: I need to weight myself to know what I should or shouldn’t eat
• Core Belief: I can’t trust my body to know what it needs

This is a great exercise to figure out where we can adjust our daily thoughts and behaviors that stem from our core beliefs. Remember, it may take a while to identify and change beliefs and behaviors, and that’s Ok! The more we sift through and work towards identifying these beliefs, the easier it will become.

What were your thoughts about chapter 5?

My 3 S's to avoid the "All or Nothing" mindset trap

We’ve all been there, “well I already had a donut for breakfast, the rest of the day is shot. I’ll eat whatever crap I want for the rest of the day” or “I don’t have time to do my full workout today so I mine as well not even do anything” or “If I’m going to eat healthy I can’t have ANY sugar or ANY fatty foods for the entire month” or “I’ve already had one cookie, mine as well finish the whole bag!” Sound familiar??

Today I want to talk about a common state of mind that I see with clients, and have experienced myself. I’ve been reading about it in my book “the rules of Normal eating” as well. This is the trap of the “All or Nothing" mentality. The thought that there’s no middle ground with health. You’re either extremely healthy, chewing on organic kale, or extreme on the side of sweets and treats and couch sitting. 

In the book I’m reading ‘The rules of “normal” Eating’ (you can follow along with my book club here) she talks about how changing our beliefs towards food will change our behavior with food. When changing our beliefs we want to take a look at which of our beliefs are irrational vs. rational, and get rid of those irrational beliefs. For example, the belief that eating 1 cookie is just as bad as eating the whole bag so you mine as well eat the whole bag, is totally irrational! A more rational thought would be, ok I allowed myself 1 cookie, I’ll feel much better if I stop there rather than eating the whole bag. 

The problem with the “All or Nothing” mindset is that it becomes hard to maintain these extremes long term and we end up riding this up and down roller coaster. We’re either feeling pressure to be “perfectly healthy”, or feeling bad about ourselves for falling off the wagon. But the truth is we can be healthy in the middle! It's called MODERATION, and not viewing food as the enemy!

I think a big part of this for most people is over complicating it. We have so many voices around us saying “you have to count calories and macros” or “weighing your food is the way to go” and the chatter goes on and on. We think we have to do all this extra stuff if we want to be healthy and it becomes overwhelming and time consuming! What if I told you there’s a simpler way? I never teach calorie counting or macro counting to clients because I want to give you tools you will use for long term success. Who wants to be crunching numbers every time they eat for the rest of their lives? We’ll learn more about how to simplify below. 

Alright, now that we’re more aware of what the “All or Nothing” mindset is, how can we avoid it?? Here are my 3 S’s for avoiding this mindset that I’ve had success with in my life and want to share with you.

1. Simplify. Forget the measuring and counting, and use your built in portion control kit, your hands! This is an easy way to control your portions that I’ve adopted from Precision Nutrition. They’ve made this awesome infographic that I’ve attached to share with you.
2. Have a “Sanity Keeper”. What is this you might ask? Well its a food that you love, and can’t see yourself every living without, that you allow yourself. It’s just enough to take the edge off when you get that naughty food craving. You know that you are never going to give this up. At times when you need to cut back on sugar, or lower your carb intake, you may need to avoid certain foods, but this Sanity Keeper food you’ve chosen can always be in your life. The key is to allow it in moderation. This will help you avoid feeling deprived which usually results in a binge. For me its chocolate. I know I can have a little square of dark chocolate if I’m craving dessert and it will take care of that craving for me. I feel satisfied without feeling guilty, it’s a win win!
3. Just Start. the final S is for Start. You may feel overwhelmed thinking that you have to be this extreme healthy person and go on some crazy diet, so you never start. This will never get you to where you want to be. Just start with baby steps. You don’t have to change your life in 1 week. Start with going to the gym once that week. Then add in 2 days a week. Then maybe you start drinking more water and less soda, and then slowly these healthy habits will get easier and become natural to you! 

Well there you have it, my quick and dirty guide on how to avoid the trap of the “All or Nothing” mindset. Remember the 3 S’s: Simplify, Sanity Keeper, and just Start. Leave your comments below on how these strategies have worked in your own life or what other brilliant ideas you’ve come up with on your own! I’d love to hear :)

And as always, your questions are welcome here anytime!

Feel free to share this post along to your friends and family who may be interested in the information. Thanks you guys rock