Whenever someone makes a transformation in their body, people always want to know how they did it! I think what sells diet and exercise books in droves is the promise of a quick change.
If it were only that simple.
There is a way though, to change your body and to adapt a healthy lifestyle for the rest of your life. It certainly cannot be done in 17 days, but when you stick with it for the rest of your life, you can change the trajectory of your health once and for all.
Here are 5 KEY CHOICES (notice I said choices) my client made that led her to the change she desired:
- Decide that you’re ready and find your profound reason for change – This step is critical. If you don’t have a deep, guttural reason for changing your lifestyle to a healthy one, then when the muse leaves you, what would stop you from giving up? Jenna found her reason, and it is certainly a reason worth fighting for.
- The 80/20 principle – Jenna likes to go for a few drinks with her friends on the weekends, so she plans for it. If she decided to have drinks every night while she was making dinner, her body would reflect that choice. When trying to lose body fat, we need to make a concerted effort to make healthier choices more often than not. All of our indulgent choices can easily add up to weight gain. The principle is not that you can never indulge, but rather to implement moderation.
- Log your food – While this can be a tedious task, according to the Journal of Obesity, self-monitoring is the cornerstone of the behavioral treatment of obesity. The larger the amount of self-monitoring, the larger the amount of weight loss. Jenna logged her food every. single. day. for MONTHS! I would come to train her and her sister-in-law and both of them would have their journals open and ready for me to check. Why is this so important? Accountability, mindfulness and awareness. It certainly worked.
- Exercise with friends – There are so many reasons why I think this is critical to aiding in the longevity of an exercise program. I will list a few that impacted Jenna: Accountability -when one doesn’t feel like it, the other will. Competition – these two sisters would try to jump farther, go faster and lift heavier than the other, always in good fun. Laughter – they made it fun for each other. Support – these girls had a similar social circle. They were a huge support to each other when they were faced with temptations that didn’t fit into their plan.
- Keep setting goals – When I started with these girls, they decided to train for a 10km run. We orchestrated their training schedule to include timed runs leading up to race day. Over the months, their time and distance improved greatly. Then, on race day, they ran their fastest time. What an accomplishment, what a fantastic feeling. That feeling, improves our self-efficacy. By setting realistic goals, we can improve our belief that we CAN do it.
Here are Jenna’s own words of her experience in working with me:
I quickly learned that “can’t” wasn’t in my vocabulary.
Tracy helped me change a lifestyle that I wasn’t happy with to living a healthy lifestyle and feeling great! I had minimal motivation to go to the gym and had no idea what healthy eating was. Tracy taught me the keys to living a balanced lifestyle and something that I will be able to maintain for the rest of my life. Working with Tracy isn’t a “twice a week” session, every day she motivated and empowered me in some sort of way, knowing she always had my back encouraged me to MOVEDAILY! I looked forward to every session with Tracy; her workouts were always exciting and pushed me to always do better. I’m now focused on what I want my life to look like!
Nothing will work unless you do
~Maya Angelou
