How to have the best morning E V E R ☀️
Your day is pretty much formed by how you spend your first hour.
Think about that. What do you spend your first hour doing? 🧐
Did I hit snooze 5 times? Was I in a rush to hop on a call or to get to a meeting?
I love the morning and I am seriously trying to make myself a morning person. It’s not an easy habit to form, but a cup of coffee definitely makes it easier. Sometimes two. Or the whole pot ☕️
On my best days, the ones where I am next level productive, happy and getting after it, they all have one thing in common: what I chose to do with the first hour of my day.
So here it is, my secret recipe for creating my best days ever 🙌🏼
☀️ physically sit up as soon as your alarm goes off. This is your first opportunity to set the tone for your day, choose wisely.
☀️ make your bed. I wrote a whole post on how making your bed changes your life, that’s how much I believe in this. This only takes 60 seconds, so no excuses.
☀️ get moving. Whether this is stretching, yoga, getting a workout in, taking a shower, walking your dog, getting your body moving is key to waking your body up and getting that blood flowing.
☀️ OPEN THE BLINDS! Open.Your. Blinds. Make it bright.
☀️ put on your favorite music. Something happy that you know all the words to. Or something new. Nothing mopey.
☀️ get ready, even if you have nowhere to go. (bonus points if you laid out your clothes the night before!)
☀️ actually eat breakfast. Start your day with a full belly.
☀️ clear 10-15 minutes to be grateful. Say a prayer, write in your gratitude journal, be mindful of your blessings.
☀️ positive affirmations. Say these out loud. In the mirror. Write them down. Always start with “I AM…” and speak the human you want to be into existence.
☀️ do the hard things FIRST. Don’t procrastinate making that payment or returning that package. Get it over with and be proud of yourself.
Check your thoughts. Check your actions. Check your attitude. Now go carpe diem allllll over your day! 🌈
Do you have a morning routine? If yes, what’s something in it that you can’t go a day without?
“How much cardio should I be doing?”
“How much cardio should I be doing?”
That depends. Cardio depends on physique you HAVE and physique you WANT.
Are we growing? Leaning out? Maintaining?
But first things first, let’s refresh our memory on what types of cardio there are:
✖️HIIT: high intensity interval training (ex: sprints)
✖️LISS: low impact steady state (ex: jogging)
“Well which one should I do?”
Well, what’s your goal?
Your lifestyle, your lifts, your job and your goal greatly impact how much cardio you’ll need (if any) to achieve the look you want.
Regardless of what your goal is, I recommend that you incorporate lifting weights 3-5x a week. Muscle only grows by lifting weights! If you’re going for that “lean and toned” look, you will never get there without picking up a dumbbell. If you’re wanting to grow a 🍑 booty, same thing; you have to lift weights.
✖️Lose weight and burn fat? Cardio should always be after lifting, so you can prioritize the peak of your energy to be fueling your most demanding part of your workout: weight lifting. Sweet spot would be 3-5 sessions week for your average person, and this can be a mix of HIIT and LISS depending again on your goal.
✖️Wanting to build muscle? LESS IS MORE. Muscle builds best when in a caloric surplus. The LAST thing we want to do is to decrease that surplus by burning more energy on the treadmill. 1-2 LISS sessions a week, no more than ~20 minutes OR 1-2 shorter HIIT sessions if that’s more your jam.
Cardio in this phase isn’t with the goal to burn fat or lose weight, it’s for heart and circulatory health. So keeping cardio to a minimum here is a must.
✖️Maintain? Moderate cardio for most people, but it depends. Whatever your physique is that you want to maintain will be the big variable here. Want to maintain a more lean look? More cardio. Want to maintain a more curvy look? Less cardio. This all about where you feel comfortable and what it takes to have your body stay there.
Some people can maintain the look they want with zero cardio, some may be putting in a few sessions a week, some may be more. Again, this is different for everyone.
More cardio = less curvy. Less cardio = more curvy.
Why I don’t do meal plans 🧐 🥗🍎🍞
Why I don’t do meal plans 🧐 🥗🍎🍞
I’ve never followed a meal plan, I don’t create meal plans and I will never sell meal plans.
Why?
First of all, it’s illegal 🤷🏼♀️
It’s illegal for anyone who is not a RD to sell meal plans. Why? Because it’s essentially writing you a prescription. What food to eat, how much and at what time. Without having the proper education to back up their protocols, you can absolutely get yourself in hot water by hiring someone who doesn’t have the credentials to back up their protocols.
I am team #flexibledieting all day long, restriction doesn’t work well for me. I eat dessert every night, poptarts for preworkout and hate being told what to do. So macro tracking and IIFYM was the perfect fit for me 🤓
So why would anyone choose to follow a meal plan instead of counting macros?
Convenience. It’s so much easier to just eat than learning HOW to eat.
They don’t teach you anything about nutrition, only to eat what’s in front of you.
So what do you do when your friends want to go out to eat, but the restaurant they chose doesn’t fit within your plan? What do you do? Do you stay home and follow the rules or do you throw your goals in the trash to spend time with your people? 👯♀️ Why do you even have to pick? What happens when you travel? ✈️ You can’t meal prep all of your food on vacation, and you probably don’t want to. How do you know what to fuel your body with that won’t ruin your progress?
What about the next time you want to lose a few pounds? You’re still just as clueless as you were the first time around, the only way for you to “diet” is to hire someone to write you a new meal plan.
After you finish the meal plan, what did you learn? How to follow the rules?
With tracking macros, you have to learn about nutrition to make it work. 🍔
With my team, education is our first priority. Everything we do is built on creating sustainable habits to keep you healthy and happy long term. We track macros, we learn about nutrition, we level up our training knowledge. 🤓
Do we take the easy approach? Nope. Is it worth it? Absolutely. 🙌🏼
HOW TO GROW A BIG BOOTY 🍑 (or any muscle group)
HOW TO GROW A BIG BOOTY 🍑 (or any muscle group)
So here we are about 3.5 weeks into reversing, going into a serious improvement season. Where now my main focus shifts from losing body fat to growing muscle. For me to be able to bring the package I want to bring to the stage next spring, I know I want to really develop my backside and focus on growing my glutes.
So if you’re growing right along with me, here’s what you need to know 👇🏼
✖️CHOOSE MOVEMENTS YOU FEEL: If you don’t feel a movement where you’re supposed to, don’t waste your time. Do some experimenting until you find movements that really hit that muscle group hard that you FEEL where you’re meant to. Everyone’s body is different, just because I feel my glutes well on squats, doesn’t mean you will.
✖️LIFT THAT MUSCLE GROUP 2X A WEEK: muscle grows when it’s trained hard and often. Want to specifically focus on growing one part of your body? Make sure you hit that muscle group 2x a week, and go all out.
✖️PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD: this is a training style that requires you to always up your intensity in reps, weight, or both, every time you complete a workout. It forces you to make muscle and strength gains every time you’re in the gym. The structure of this is super simple but it’s crazy effective.
✖️WEIGHT: Muscle grows under tension. More weight = more tension on the muscles. When we grow our muscles we’re in reality breaking down our muscle to rebuild bigger. More tension from the heavy weight means more muscular breakdown, which translates to bigger muscle gains when they rebuild. Lifting heavy not only helps you grow muscle but it also makes you feel like a baddie👱🏼♀️
✖️NO SLACKING: aka cut the crap. Being lazy and crawling through your workout doesn’t benefit your gains whatsoever. You have to go in and give everything you possibly can to that set, that rep. PUSH THE ENVELOPE. Get your mind right and work hard. If you can put your head down and focus, you’ll be thanking yourself later when you’re seeing crazy results.
Who else is in their building phase right now?! Let’s all put that Halloween candy to good use today and drop a PR in the name of gains 🎃🙌🏼
You don’t have a metabolism problem, you have a movement problem🏃🏼♀️ ...or lack thereof.
You don’t have a metabolism problem, you have a movement problem🏃🏼♀️ ...or lack thereof.
Losing weight vs. gaining weight, in reality always comes down to calories in vs. calories out. It’s a number’s game through and through.
Eat less + move more = weight loss⬇️ Eat more + move less = weight gain⬆️
It always boils down to how many calories you eat as opposed to how many calories you’ve burned which is the difference between your weight loss, weight gain and plateauing.
Let’s say in an average week you sleep for 8 hours a night and workout for an hour 4x a week. 8x7=56+4=60
That’s only 60 hours accounted for out of the 168 we get each week! ‼️ So what can we do with the remaining 108 to seriously impact our transformation? It’s this little thing called NEAT 🤓 (and it is super neat)
NEAT=Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis, aka the calories you burn outside of exercise.
NEAT + BMR (metabolism) = how much you can eat daily and maintain your current weight
Before you think your metabolism is in the toilet, let’s look at your NEAT👉🏼
You sit. In the car, at your desk, at the dinner table, on the couch and then lay down and go to bed, your metabolism isn’t your issue. Your NEAT is just non existent.
It’s so easy to increase your NEAT by hundreds if not THOUSANDS of calories a day just by being intentional about it. Being mindful and choosing to go the extra mile. (literally)
Want to beef up your NEAT? Here’s some ideas: 💥taking a call? walk and talk
💥park in the back of the lot
💥take the stairs
💥walk to the mailbox
💥take 10 minute walk breaks throughout the day
💥use a farther bathroom
💥go inside the coffee shop to order instead of going through the drive through
So before you decide your metabolism is trash, take a good look at what you’re doing in your 108 🙇🏼♀️
How do you show yourself love?
How do you show yourself love?
Maybe you kick back, hop in the tub and soak you’re stress away🧖🏼♀️or maybe you turn on a podcast, or take a nap, maybe do a little retail therapy 💸
There’s nothing wrong with baths, naps, or swiping your credit card to make you feel better, but there IS a problem when you’re throwing a self-care “bandaid” on an issue that really needs stitches.
Those acts of self care are kind of like fix-a-flat. It patches the hole long enough to get you to the shop, but you still have to replace your tire. 🚗
If I don’t go get a new tire I better watch my back, because that patch only lasts so long.
It’s only a matter of time before I’m stranded on the side of the road waiting for triple A to rescue you. 🚨
Do you see what I’m getting at here?
Why are you taking better care of your TIRES than you are of YOURSELF? 🤔
Real self love is calling yourself out on your crap in order to grow.
The issues you have today will still be there tomorrow, if you’re throwing a bandaid over your problems and calling it a day.
The truth hurts. 🤷🏼♀️
Being honest with yourself is freaking hard. But is it harder than living your life unhappy and uncomfortable?
Do you love yourself enough to get new tires so you’re not living in fear of a blowout?
Stitches only hurt for a minute, but those wounds heal. Bandaids just make your injuries look different.
Nothing changes, if nothing changes. Don’t expect yourself to grow while you live in stagnation.
New week new goals 🙌🏼
New week new goals 🙌🏼
Dropping these here to hold myself accountable 🤟🏼
-nail my reverse 🔀
-time block my days 🕰
-make time to put my computer and phone away 📲
-try a new airfryer recipe 🤤
-make a home office space 💻
Do you guys make weekly goals? If not, you need to start! If yes, drop them down below👇🏼
Let’s GET it this week 😈🤘🏼
what I’m struggling with right now:
what I’m struggling with right now:
🦋getting dressed in something other than gym clothes 😬 OK so to anyone who has massively transformed their body, you’ll feel this one too. In the last two years my body has completely changed. I’ve gone from carrying all my weight in my belly and hips to being as lean as I ever have been, but with a rounder booty, bigger quads, and a much wider back. ⏳ Needless to say, my closet needs a makeover because everything I used to wear I’m literally swimming in or they don’t fit over my legs/glutes and gap at the waist 🍑 I can’t tell you how much time Lance spends waiting for me to get ready but my goodness someone give him an award 🥇
🦋 getting my fats in 🥑 with being 2.5 weeks into my reverse and macros going up, I feel like I’m having a harder time now more than ever hitting my numbers 🤷🏼♀️ this past week I’ve literally been eating butter straight out of the container to hit my macros 🥴 (it was honey butter but stillllll not my favorite) 🍯
🦋 falling asleep 💤 I’ve always had a super hard time falling asleep and staying asleep but lately it’s been way harder. Cue the blue light glasses I bought a few days ago off of amazon + the extra CBD I’ve been taking because your girl is D E S P E R A T E for a solid stretch of uninterrupted rest 😴
🦋 balance ⚖️ I’m an all or nothing type person so this has always been a challenge for me. With starting my own coaching business I have been so happy to work off and on from the I wake up to the time I go to bed every day, since I’m able to work from my phone, and that I just love what I’m doing. BUT I have to try to find balance here to make sure I’m not letting go of every other aspect of my life. Like spending uninterrupted time with my husband, reading a book, making sure my house is not a hot mess lol. This is NOT easy for me but we’re working on it 🤙🏼
I could have it so much worse and I recognize that I’m grateful to have the struggles that I do. Was feeling like just opening up today and being transparent that this girl who’s trying to be a perfectionist is actually struggling just like the rest of us 🤟🏼💙
“Don’t reward yourself with food, you’re not a dog” 🐶🐾🦴
“Don’t reward yourself with food, you’re not a dog” 🐶🐾🦴
When I heard this quote for the first time (thank you @erindimondfitness), it literally smacked me upside the head.
It hit me so hard because this is EXACTLY what I used to do 😅 This was me when I first started. Finding every excuse to give myself a reward in the form of Reese's cups and Chipotle, if I did something that was even remotely good for me.
I would go to the gym and work my butt off, only then grab Chick Fil A on my way home because “I deserved it!” or because “I worked so hard!” and while that may be true, I was creating a horrible cycle without even realizing it.
Do something good for my body, reward myself with something bad for my body. Doesn’t make any sense now, does it? 🧐
You want the real reason behind why I was doing that? I was unhappy. I didn’t like my “now” so I turned to something that would give me that instant gratification: food. 🍔
But the truth is, I only felt better while I was eating whatever greasy food was on the menu. After it was gone? All I felt was gulit, because I was doing it again. Self sabotaging.
Food makes you “feel better” for the 15 minutes it takes to choke it down. If you’re after the long term feel better, that comes from rewarding your body with things that are good for you, instead of vice versa.
Here’s some ideas of how you can reward yourself WITHOUT taking a hit to your progress 🤩👇🏼
🧡buy yourself some flowers
🧡 call a friend
🧡 go to the dog park
🧡 make yourself a home cooked meal
🧡 try a new coffee shop
🧡 go get a fresh haircut/color
🧡 make plans to go do some fall activity-carve pumpkins, apple picking, haunted house🎃👻🍂🍁🍎
What are some of you guys favorite things to do to celebrate you?! 🥳Drop them below to help someone out who might need this this week 🧡👇🏼
S T O P worrying about things you can’t control 🌿
S T O P worrying about things you can’t control 🌿
YOU. reading this right now, are probably worrying about something in your life that’s out of your control 🙇🏼♀️
in weight loss, in your job, in your relationship, in your life.
we only get so much energy each day, so spend that energy changing the issue or letting it go!
what you can control:
🌱your effort
🌱how personally you take things
🌱what you believe
🌱your priorities
🌱how kind you are
🌱what you eat
🌱what you talk about
🌱what you think about
🌱how open-minded you are
🌱your happiness
🌱how seriously you take life
🌱who you hang out with
do you have a problem? (yes/no)
can you do something about it? (yes/no)
then don’t worry!
don’t think about what can happen in a month. don’t think about what can happen in a year. just focus on the 24 hours in front of you and do what you can to get you closer to where you want to be ☁️