I was in my gym this morning and it hit me, something I have been missing for all of you, something that I should have made loud and clear if you are not already aware, start where you are!  If you are starting a weight loss journey, getting back to health, or whatever, start at where you currently are, stop looking to the past or what you haven’t done.  

My weight loss journey has been a lifelong road.  Growing up my weight ranged from around 230-280.  Yes, you read that right.  After high school I made it up to the 300 range.  It was never easy to be heavy in school.  I remember the looks, remarks from other kids and even from family.  I was probably harder on myself then anyone, but either way, it was hard.  A tough thing to take as a teenage girl.   I remember one day in Junior High, I was running down the stairs in between classes when another kid tripped me.  I fell, hard too.  In the fall, I hurt my foot.   All the other kids were just standing around pointing snickering and laughing.  I tried getting up as best as I could.  I remember other comments about how heavy I was and not even being able to get up off the floor.  I don’t recall shedding a tear at the time, there was no way I was going to let them get me down even further.   The pain in my foot continued to get worse throughout the day but I made it through.   My mom looked at it when I got home, it was all kinds of black and blue.  When we finally went to the doctor for X-rays, I learned that I had broken my 5th metatarsal.   The road ahead was even worse, from crutches to a walking cast, to an air cast, it felt like it took forever to heal.   The comments, snickers, teasing and downright assholes along the way sucked! 

I have to say, I am so glad I didn’t grow up in the social media era.  It was hard enough growing up overweight, awkward, acne prone and not comfortable with my own voice.  For those of you reading this in your growing up years, as hard as it is, don’t listen to the naysayers, you just do you! 

What no one ever knew in this moment and many other moments along the way was how hard I focused on losing weight.   When I had extra money, it was going to whatever weight loss program was out there.  We didn’t have Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, Etc.  This was back in the VHS era baby!  Tony Little, Suzan Powder, I even caught a little bit of the Richard Simmons craze.  And, the gadgets, oh dear.  I remember a belt that would basically shock your belly to activate your ab muscles.  Yes, that was a thing and I tried it.   And, later the Tony Little Gazelle, I think you get my point. 

Healthy living and exercise were not exactly staples in my family.  Mom loved to bake, cook and darn good I might add.  And, we all love to eat.    In fact, there isn’t a time I can remember in my growing up years that we didn’t have some type of sweet treat in the house.   I remember frequenting DQ often.  I don’t remember a whole lot of times that we had fresh vegetables in the house.  Mom and Dad had our best interest in mind always, they really did, I just don’t think it was what they knew.    Pretty much all of us were overweight in my family.  My mom’s side of the family was mostly morbidly obese.  My mom was obese for many of my growing up years.  She went back and forth with her weight.  Most of my siblings are heavyset or overweight.  My dad was always fit from what I can remember until he retired.  He stayed active but gained weight pretty quickly. 

I remember many times eating way too many sweets, generally Ice cream was involved.  I would get so sick and the worst stomach aches.  Ironically enough, it was never connected to sugar or overeating.  I remember clearly being told by doctors that it was dairy and allergies.  BullS**t, the fact is I ate too much shit and it make me sick, period! 

Looking back, in every moment when I’ve lost the weight, the shift came in an instant.  I’ve been the most successful when I stared right where I was in life.   Without comparison to others or what I have not done in the past but starting where I was and making small shifts.  Often where we want to be is far closer then we think.  I’ve kept off over 115 pounds for more then 17 years.  I have another 30ish that I have struggled throughout the years and have gone back and forth with a few times.  When I recognize that I am off track, I start where I am.  If I was to look back to “how did I let this happen” or “how am I going to get back there” or worse “what people must think” it would cripple my efforts.  I know this because I have lived through each one of those statements. 

So, Start Where you are!

1. Be grateful for the opportunity to get to where you want to be!  When you are grateful for your ability to take steps to lose weight, gain muscle, or eat healthy it is a whole lot harder to tear yourself down for what you haven’t done.
2. What do you want to do?  Lose 20 pounds? Gain muscle? Get into that size 12 pants?  Whatever it is, make what you want so clear in your mind.  You must know what you want before you can get where you want to go.
3. Take an honest look at what you need to change.  An example for me, I must stop buying the bar(s) of dark chocolate.  Yes, I am still a sweet lover.  When I buy bad things, I eat them, period.  When I don’t buy them, I don’t even think about them.  The other cool thing, when the hubs buys himself a few pints from Culvers, I don’t even crave them.  But, if I picked up ice cream for him, yep, you guessed it, I want some too.   Which leads me to my next point.
4. Know your triggers.  We all have triggers, be honest about what they are and what you are going to do when they show up.  I mentioned chocolate is my trigger.  So, pineapple and Strawberries are my new chocolate.  I also keep this as a no guilt carb.   If I ever felt guilty about eating fruit it would be even harder for me to have some type of balance.
5. Stop trying to do everything at once!  Before I figured out my weight loss journey, I thought it had to be a huge, drastic, do everything shift.  I am an all-in person, but things take time.  Know the areas you can go all in and those that you need more manageable shifts along the way.  I still go all in to many things but for my eating habits, nope, no can do.  As an example, I used to cut out all carbs including healthy vegetable carbs like carrots, carrots you guys.  So many times, before I understood myself and the journey, I would make these mistakes.  I now call these my “doesn’t count” carbs.  This makes it super easy to grab these yummylicious crunchy snacks for those moments when I need them, and I am not worried about throwing off my carb count for the day.
6. Don’t stress about the occasional unhealthy snack.  You need balance.   I’m not talking about a weekly binge or daily free day, trust me they don’t work and can completely throw off your progress if you aren’t careful.  For a long time, Friday’s were my cheat days.  I didn’t watch this close enough and I let it get way out of control which is one of those times I found the 18 pounds I didn’t want back. 
7. Celebrate your wins, often!!   
   

So, start where you are, small shifts, and celebrate the wins!!

Keep doing you!

Much love!
Jen

Do you ever have those days?  You know the ones that I’m referring to, those days where you feel overly critical of yourself?  Maybe you feel like you are just not making progress in whatever area you are trying.   Your career, physique perhaps, eating habits, family, whatever.  Then you look at where you are compared to your goal and either quit because you haven’t made progress, make excuses or one of the worst, from my point of view, get overly hard on yourself.  This is my most common.   There is a better way, progress takes time and let’s face it, we all have set backs. 

Let me start by sharing my day earlier this week.   

I’m looking in the mirror, half dressed, and I recognize that I am criticizing myself, pretty significantly I might add.  Picking apart each part of my body that I think needs work, from that little jiggle under my arms to those inner thighs that are just getting a bit too thick, then there is the overflowing muffin top that needs attention.  Shit, stop I say out loud as I catch it.   Thankfully the hubby is on thirds so he’s not going to think I am completely crazy this morning.  For those of you who have read my earlier posts you know my weight has been a lifelong struggle.  Couple that with not having a thyroid and being over forty our bodies change.  Or, at least mine certainly has.  This is the area I am most aware of and yet have to practice the most amount of “KIND” to myself, for myself. 

I’ve learned over the years that focusing too much on any given area is not healthy.  This can lead to a great amount of stress and anxiety when you have any small shift outside of what you think is acceptable.  Over the last few years I also learned the importance of living in the now, mindfulness, and practicing a day by day approach.

These three little words have significantly helped me put my progress and life’s wins in great perspective.  When you have a goal, a big something you want to accomplish focus on what you need to do day by day as opposed to the big goal.  For example, over the last couple years I found a few too many pounds from a few too many cheat meals which has led to those extra jiggles. For me, if I look at that big goal of wanting to lose 18-20 pounds it can get very daunting especially when I am not seeing the progress as fast as I want.  Here are a few simple steps to put your big goal in perspective.

First identify your “what”?

1. What is that thing you want to focus on?  For me, for example, it is losing that 18-20 pounds.
   
2. What do I need to do to get to that goal?  So, what steps will it take for you to accomplish what you are looking to accomplish?  Keep this one simple friends.   The simpler the steps you can take day by day the easier it will be to keep your commitments.  For me, for today, no refined sugar, no snacking in between meals and, except for vegetable carbs, no carbs until dinner.  That’s it, three little things. 
3. At the end of the day write, practice gratitude or somehow recognize yourself for the win for the day of accomplishing the simple commitments you were setting out to keep. Your brain and subconscious will remember the win.
4. Finally, for tomorrow, keep those simple three commitments, just for today!
   

We all create ourselves day by day, write your story well and always remember tomorrow is a new day. Stress less, appreciate you more!

Much Love,

Jen

What a great day!!  I had the opportunity to have lunch with a dear client and friend.   During lunch we had the chance to catch up on all the usual life stuff, careers, family, kids, etc.  Each of which lead into much more about people, perspectives, and the struggles we all have.  As I sit back and reflect on our conversation, I think about how often we miss these opportunities.  We miss the chance to really hear and get to know other people.  What I mean by this is being present in the moment.   It’s easy to get caught up in “what’s next” or “work obligations” that we are not completely present in our conversations.  Looking back, I’m so happy I was able to make this shift and truly be present in moments.

Over my journey of recognizing and overcoming anxiety and borderline depression at times, I recognized how important being present is to combat it, at least for me.  In the past I would have been wrapped up in what I still have to check off on my to do list for the day.  Or worse unable to enjoy and appreciate the moments when you tend to how shall I say, overstress about expectations.   Way too often before I started focusing on me and my well-being, I would have had several the signs of stress and anxiety in moments like today.  I would be so stressed about work and the expectations although I would actively try to listen and be present my authentic self wasn’t always seen.  See it’s hard to show your true self when your hiding behind anxiety.   These moments are when we should be appreciating and enjoying building relationships, building support systems.   Interestingly enough and part of the conversation had today was that you often can’t recognize when others are struggling in this area.  Friends, Anxiety is not something you can often see.  You may have close people around you who are struggling each day that on the surface they put on a happy face.   I can’t say entirely from an outsider perspective, but I am pretty confident mine use to come across as “high strung” or “Edgy” when in actuality much of the time it was me so wrapped up in getting things right and not disappointing that ultimately, I was disappointing myself.   No one should feel this way.  The tough thing is that it’s hard to see. 

The long-term impact of stress and anxiety are well documented and very easy to find, just google it and you will come up with pages of results.  How to see anxiety is not quite as easy.  I can say for me.  I am pretty sure I hid it very well from people.  I’ve always had the mentality that you just have to slap on a smile and get er’ done.  You guys, if you are in this situation, take steps, it’s not healthy or good long term, it will catch up.
 
Here is the good news, there are active steps you can take to try to help.  I’m so grateful to be able to say, when I feel it now, I can redirect within a few seconds, generally speaking I mean we all have tough days.  Here are a few of the tips I use, try them they may work for you.    And, remember, you have a tribe behind you here if you ever need a nudge message me, I’d be happy to point you in the direction of my best tips and resources that have helped me.

• Write down what you are feeling.  When I first started redirecting the anxiety this one probably helped me most.  I started by writing positives but for me it helped more when I wrote about what made me anxious. Once I had that laid out it was a whole lot easier to define what was real and I needed to act on and what I needed to just recognize was not worth the worry and let go of. I keep a notebook with me all the time and what I am having a moment I write it down.  It somehow takes the moment out of my head and along with it any anxiousness.
• Start a gratitude journal.  Friends, if you would have told me a year ago that I would have a gratitude journal I would have kindly declined.  I believe I have always been grateful for the things and people I have in my life, why do I need to take the time to write it down.  But I stand before you today telling you I write what I am grateful for each day.  I write about the things I’ve overcome, the people I have in my life, the basics of course, roof over my head, cloths, etc.  I also write about what I am grateful which is yet to come.  It’s pretty cool what happens when you are grateful for something that hasn’t quite happened yet.
• Practice gratitude in the moment.  When I feel myself getting worked up or anxious in a situation, I remind myself that I am grateful for whomever is in front of me or whatever the moment.  For me, this can instantly take my anxiety and stress away. 
• Try meditation.  This one took me some time to really figure out what worked best for me.  I still have days that I must really work on it.  There are some great options on this one.  There are several apps or YouTube.  There is truly something for everyone.  I have a couple go too resources that I use on YouTube, Dr. Deepak Chopra and Vishen Lakhiani.
• Take a social media detox.  Social media can cause you to compare yourself to the other things/people you see.  It can also fill your head with negative images, thoughts, opinions.  Even though you may think it doesn’t impact you, your subconscious catches things.
• Write yourself a manifesto of yourself, all your best qualities and your vision for your life.  I love I AM statements for this one.  Then make sure you read it every day!  
• Just breathe.  Take sixty seconds and take some good healthy belly breathes, it’s amazing what it can do to calm and even rejuvenate.
  

Finally, talk to someone, if you have a reliable source that you feel you can trust.  Sometimes just the act of getting it off your chest can help.  You have a whole life in front of you friends, take the time to take care of you, You Are Worth IT!!

Much love,

Jen