Category: Health

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Health Planning

Meal Planning on Sunday

Sunday is the time to prepare for a busy week. One of the biggest favors you can do yourself is to plan what food you & your family are going to eat ahead of time so you don’t have to use those scarce and valuable brain calories during the week.

But what does that look like? Well, it surely doesn’t have to be complicated. Grab a pen, a piece of paper or use our free printable and let’s go!

1. Plan

First, let’s plan your week of dinners. Go ahead and look at your schedule. Note the days you might not be home, the days you’ll have more or less time to prepare food and so forth. Plug in those easy meals or meals that you’re eating elsewhere first. Next, figure out all your dinners. Plan to cook extra in order to meal prep lunches.

Next up, figure out your lunches. Lunches can often come straight from dinner or meal prep that happens alongside Sunday dinner.

Finally, you’ll figure out your breakfast and snacks.

TWO KEY TIPS WHEN PLANNING YOUR MEALS:

  1. If you’re trying to lose weight, plan your carbs and heavier meals earlier in the day. If at all possible, let’s only put protein & veggies down the gullet for dinner.
  2. Be realistic when planning. Don’t overdo it. Don’t try to be a hero. Stick to what you & your family are used to and what’s easy and stretch yourself just a little. That might mean taming a few recipes to be a little more healthy or it might mean trying one new recipe a week.

2. Purchase

When you’ve got all your meals and snacks planned, figure out what ingredients you need to shop for to make that happen. You can do this as you go or you can do it once you’ve brain dumped all the ideas.

TWO KEY TIPS WHEN SHOPPING:

  1. As you get better at this, you should be able to have a staple shopping list that you always purchase (weekly or monthly) that makes the quick trips easier and more efficient.
  2. Try pick up or delivery as an option when shopping. It saves you time and usually money by avoiding extra spending. You’re also forced to plan if you do pick up!

3. Prep

Okay, now that you’ve got a plan and you’ve got your shopping list, you’ll figure out what you can prep ahead of time to make your food life easier during the week.

This part can seem overwhelming so let’s chunk it down. You can choose to meal prep just one or two types of things for the week. You might also choose to only meal prep lunch and cook dinner. You’ll find your family’s sweet spot to meal prepping. Just know it does not have to mean you meal prep 100% of your meals and spend eight hours in the kitchen on Sunday!

TWO KEY TIPS WHEN MEAL PREPPING:

  1. Consider stacking your meal prep time with your grocery time. You’re already spending time putting stuff away, so it saves time now to prepare it in such a way that it’s ready for the week. That may mean rinsing and chopping fruits and veggies, it might mean boiling or grilling proteins and it might mean cooking rice or quinoa.
  2. Consider buffet style meal prep if prepping meals stresses you out. Yes, your fridge can offer you a buffet of healthy ingredients, ready to mixed and mingled into healthy meals. Ideas for buffet style:
    1. Salad bar.
      • Chop: lettuce, spinach, kale, cilantro, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, carrots, radishes, cabbage, peppers
      • Cook: hard boiled eggs, protein
      • Purchase: olives, artichokes, avocados, dressing, nuts, seeds
    2. Proteins.
      • Chicken
      • Turkey meatballs or ground turkey
      • Eggs
      • Etc
    3. Carbs.
      • Sweet potatoes
      • Quinoa
      • Brown Rice
      • Rolled / Steel cut oats

Remember, planning in this way is a form of self-care. Yes, you’re taking care of yourself by deciding ahead of time and relieving yourself of needing to do so during the busy week. The special human ability to plan is a gift, so let’s use it.

GET YOUR PLANNING WORKSHEET!

Hey, if you need help with this, you’re in luck. We have an EASY PEASY lunch meal planning worksheet just for you. It’s not fancy, it’s not complicated. It’s REALLY simple and easy and fast and amazing. Download it now!

PS: If any of this resonated with you, we’d love to work with you 1-on-1. We teach our clients how to build a body they love and change habits slowly to match their goals. In a world with fake quick fixes, we help them adapt a lifestyle that they’ll want to keep. If that resonates with you, please get in touch with the form below!

Ideal Balance is The Life Coaching Facility in Navarre, Florida that focuses on Fitness, Family & Finance. We help our clients create the discipline & habits they need to strip off what’s holding them back from living the life God created them to live. We work with clients in 1-on-1 sessions in person and virtually as well as in Small Groups in Personal Training sessions, workshops and other events. We’re on a mission to inject hope and empower our community one client at a time. Contact us if you’d like to find out more.

Categories
Fitness Health

Meal Prepping is the new fast food

Meal prepping is the new fast food is something we say all the time around Ideal Balance. Fast food is no longer fast, it’s not really food and it’s not cheap.

One of the quickest ways for our clients to be successful is to get them to stop eating out. This is one habit that affects everything we coach.

  1. Our fitness clients need to stop eating out and start eating more healthy in order to lose weight.
  2. Our family clients need better time management, clutter-free kitchens and more family time. Meal prepping will be a big part of achieving those goals.
  3. Our finance clients are often throwing so much money away on restaurants. That’s money they could & would rather be putting toward their future dreams & goals.

So, no matter what your goals are, we really think meal prep can help! So, let’s dive in to 5 reasons why meal prep is better than restaurants!

Meal prep saves money!

When you go through a drive thru, you’re going to pay at least $7 for a meal. For that same $7 you could probably grab chicken, green beans and potatoes and eat a couple meals!

The average American home spends over $200 per month eating out.

Even just the little lunch splurges will add up. A Visa survey in 2015 found that folks spent $53 a week for lunches. Guys that’s $2,746 year!

It’s not just the expense that makes fast food no bueno. In the time it takes to drive to fast food and wait in line you could’ve gotten your meal prepped food out, heated it up, eaten it and had a short nap. 

Meal prep saves time!

The busy work week doesn’t give us a lot of time. There isn’t a margin for error. 

We are going from alarm clock to bus stop to meeting to store to practice to homework to bath to bed. We really don’t need to have to make food decisions in the middle of all of that.

Yes, with meal prep you’re trading time for time, but it’s a great exchange.

On the weekend you feel less stressed, less anxious. By spending some time getting prepared for the week when we have a little extra time (the weekend), we set ourselves up to not have to spend any time or brain calories on food decisions during the week when we are more stressed and busy.

Success leaves clues. – Jim Rohn

If you want to mimic the success of others, you do what they do. 

Meal prepping is single-handedly the key to success for most clients when trying to eat healthy. 

Meal planning and prepping tips the scales in our favor (pun intended) and gives us one small advantage in this fight. Why wouldn’t we add to our advantages? 

Meal prep can be fun. 

Meal prep is a great way to be active on the weekend. It gets you off the couch and gets you mentally prepared and ready for the coming week.

Put music on and maybe even add in a glass of wine. Commit to it and enjoy it.

Meal prep can be good family time. 

If you’ve got a partner or kiddos, consider that meal prepping can be like a little date or quality time. You’re working together, doing something important. Everyone can help in their own way. The added bonus is that when folks have had a hand in preparing their own food, they will have more buy in for what they are eating. It’s also a great way to teach/learn about nutrition and healthy habits together.

That’s great. But how do you meal prep?

Think about this: Thanksgiving was the original meal prep. So, let’s just do it like that but a little less overkill and a little more healthy. Here are 5 steps to get you started meal prepping.

1. Start small.

Start with meal prepping just one meal for the week. Maybe it’s lunches, maybe it’s dinners. Whatever it is, just don’t try to do it ALL or you’ll get overwhelmed. Brainstorm what would make the biggest difference for you and get going.

2. Plan.

Now that you’ve figured out where to start, get a plan together. If you’ve decided to go with making lunches and you’ve got two recipes you’re going to use for meal prep, shop for the ingredients and make sure you’ve got the tools / containers to make it happen! Finally, schedule and block off the time to do it.

3. Focus until you finish.

Dive in! Preheat the oven, gather everything you’ll need on the counter including your containers. Then, get going, follow your recipes /plans! Be as efficient as you can. If you’re waiting on the oven to preheat, wash and chop your foods. If you’re waiting for water to boil, season the food or put together any condiments you’ll take with meal prep (i.e. salad dressing or hummus in a small container). If you’re waiting for food to cool, wash your dishes. Let’s be productive and be able to walk away with a clear head & clean kitchen!

4. Get better as you go.

Every new skill requires time to master it. So, think about what you learned, what worked, what didn’t. Then get better.

As you eat your food throughout the week, be mindful about what you enjoyed, what you avoided, what you want to do again and so forth.

Let’s talk about some best practices:

Buffet style

Instead of creating whole meals to go, you can choose to batch whole ingredients to your meals. In other words, you can make quinoa, hard-boiled eggs, shredded chicken, oatmeal and other bulk items that you can then use to easily make meals throughout the week.

One meal at a time, one step at a time

When you begin making meal preps, consider just doing one thing at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed. So, maybe just get all of breakfast done and then do all the dishes. If you’re making dinner, do all the vegetables then do all the meat. Chunking it down to very small, bite size pieces will keep you from overwhelm but also allow you to have stopping points in the process.

Prep as soon as you shop

Plan enough time to wash, chop and whatnot as you’re unloading your food after you get home from the store. You’re already having to handle and possibly repackage your food, so you can build in time to do it all the way!

4 Day plan

Your government health agencies advise not keeping food longer than 4 days. We can’t say we agree, but we’re not going to go down that rabbit hole. Instead, let’s talk aboutthe four day plan. If you make enough food on Sunday for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday then you can plan what you cook on Thursday to have enough leftover to have lunch and/or dinner on Friday! Win, win, win! You can also meal prep enough to freeze so you have go-tos to pull out throughout the week.

Sheet pans

If you’re not using sheet pans to do your meal prep, you’re missing out. One dish! One whole meal! One meal on one dish! It’s just such a no-brainer.

Okay, there you have it. It’s our version of why you should meal prep & how to do it.

Hey, if you need help with this, you’re in luck. We have an EASY PEASY lunch meal prep plan just for you. It’s got a shopping list and step by step guide to get it done. It’s not fancy, it’s not complicated. It’s REALLY simple and easy and fast and amazing. It’s great for those just starting out. Download it now!

Categories
Health

Eating out is ruining your weight loss progress

So, this topic might seem obvious, but stick with us! So many people are trying to balance fun & life with their health & weight loss goals. So, eating out is a pretty common thing these days. We get it. But, we want to offer that it’s really tripping up your progress. More than you understand. And, losing weight is hard enough. We 100% do not want to make it harder or slower!

So we’re going to tell you why it’s messing you up. We love to know the why and we think you do too. If your brain understands it a little more, it might be easier to make some changes, right? Then we’ll talk about how…how, in this eating-out-loving-culture we live in, how can you change this habit? 

Let’s dive in.

First of all, let’s get the obvious out of the way:

1. Restaurant food is not good for you.

Preservatives, sodium, gluten, dairy and all the other things you’d be limiting otherwise are happening when you’re eating out. These things obviously stall your progress by causing bloat and inflammation.

The calories & portions at restaurants are ridiculous, as you know. 

2. Eating out is an old, bad habit that triggers more old, bad habits. 

When you’re trying to eat healthy, you’re doing something new. It’s not easy! When you go out to eat, the “old” you rears up, and the old habits, routines, excuses, thoughts will show up. So, you’re more likely to say things like, “It’s okay, just this once, just one more bite, I deserve this, I’ll restart tomorrow” or whatever old thought pattern you’ve got. You most likely have a history of indulgence at a restaurant, so it’s going to be much harder to break that habit when you’re just getting started. Restaurant food is so hard to say no to and you most likely have a habit of not saying no most of your life.

3. Eating out means you haven’t solved your food problems. 

What we mean by that is that if you’re eating out often, you’re probably not planning your food, either weekly or daily. That means that you’re still finding yourself too busy to make your health a priority. That needs to be solved.

You’re also not being intentional about what food you’re putting in your body if you’re eating out often. That needs to change as well. 

If you’re eating out a lot, you might still be eating in response to your emotions like feeling stressed, upset, busy, sad, mad or what have you.

Another food problem we try to solve is to make it so that food is not the best part of your day, that it’s not the thing you’re looking forward to in order to find pleasure, relaxation, fun or relief from your day. If you’re still eating out a lot, chances are you haven’t solved that food problem.

The sooner we solve these problems, the sooner you hit your goal. So, stalling is only going to make it take longer.

4. Eating out gets you off track.

The final problem with eating out is that it gets you off track. You. might’ve been doing really well for two days and then you found yourself downing a cheeseburger and fries. While that’s not the worst thing that could ever happen (remember, it only takes one meal to get back on track), we can often make it seem like the end of the world. Instead of just getting back on track, so many times when we “mess up” once, we throw the baby out with the bathwater. We completely abandon our plan and progress saying things like: “Oh well, I might as well give up now,” or “I’ll just start over next week.” You might feel bad or see the scale and get mad at yourself. Then you give up.

All of these things are tough to overcome when you’ve already been using most of your energy to stay on your plan. Again, we don’t want to add anything that makes losing weight or eating well harder. Eating out is basically setting yourself up to stumble or at least to have to try REALLY hard not to stumble.

So, are you convinced that eating out is stalling your progress? Great. Now, let’s brainstorm some ways to change!

1. Obviously, meal planning & prepping is the easiest way to avoid eating out.

Most of the time you eat out because you have no brain calories at meal time. So, it’s “easier” to hit the drive through or let someone serve you at a restaurant. We get that. And we want you to have that same easy, no-decision-making process but with your own goal-hitting food plan. Do your busy, stressed out self a favor, and make the plan ahead of time. Then, all you have to do is stick to it. This is REAL self-care. This is truly taking care of yourself.

Meal planning needs to be a habit, something you do every weekend but also every day. 

Don’t make it boring and bland. Get creative about how to make your favorite restaurant meals at home, but healthier!

2. Look behind the curtain.

Think long and hard about why you’re eating out. How can you get those benefits without eating out?

Is it for social hour? We’ll talk about that in a moment.

Is it to avoid being at home because your home and/or kitchen is a mess?

Is it to avoid picky eaters?

Whatever the reason is, let’s get honest and start really working on that issue instead. Remember, dealing with these things is what is going to make you life-long successful and, truly, more content & happy in life.

3. Change the game.

A lot of time our social life is wrapped around eating out. So, let’s change that game. Let’s be the example. Ask your friends and family if they’d like to meet for a walk, bike ride or something active. Maybe a game night. The good company, the laughs, the stories–that’s the real goal. Food doesn’t need to be involved.

4. Schedule only once a week.

We’d prefer once a month while you’re working on your goals, but we know that might not be realistic. So, let’s plan it on purpose, once a week. We call this joy eating. Let your family know, everyone can learn to look forward to it as the treat it really is. This will help your brain as well since it knows it always has some fun to look forward to.

5. Portion / box immediately. 

One strategy is to immediately box or portion half of your meal. So many times we are full well before we finish eating but we keep going because it’s right there in front of our face! Trick the brain by boxing it up first. Then you’ll feel really good because you cleaned your plate but it won’t have been all of those calories. Bonus: you’ve now meal prepped for another meal. 😉

Okay. So we decided that losing weight and getting healthy is hard all on its own. Let’s not make it harder or slower by eating out so much.

This isn’t forever, this is for right now. Remember, if you change nothing, nothing changes. So, give yourself a chance at real progress! 

Hey, if you need help with this, you’re in luck. We have a little brainstorming worksheet FREE for you. Use your biggest weapon to help you: your brain. Answer the questions, be real & honest with yourself. This workbook will help you think through this entire concept. And thinking through it will help you stick to your guns.

Categories
Health Mindset Planning

Morning Ritual

The truth is if you’re not doing a morning ritual, you are robbing every person and cause you say you care about of the best version of you.

Apple: morning ritual podcast
spotify: morning ritual podcast
podcast home page

Today we want to offer that the one thing that might be missing from your life might be the one thing that could make the biggest difference and be the biggest game changer in your life.

What’s that thing?

Bet you guessed it —> a morning ritual. Well done!

You’ve heard that you need to take self-care time. You know you’re supposed to have quiet time. Oh yeah, don’t forget you’re supposed to exercise. Don’t forget to pray! You should also be reading something great everyday.

The list of all the things you’re supposed to be doing to be an amazing person can seem daunting. Where in the world are you going to find the time?

Well, you’re certainly not going to find it in the middle of the hectic day. You’re probably not going to find it at night when you’re exhausted either.

No, the morning is your best bet. Not only do you more likely have more control over your mornings, you also can make the decision to set the tone for the day by creating a morning ritual.

Why should you have a morning ritual?

There are many things that we know we need to do in order to feel better, to feel less stressed and less anxious. The problem is we don’t do them. That’s where your morning ritual comes in.

Your morning ritual acts as a container to get in most of the things you consider important for you to be the best version of yourself. It acts as a container for you to get in your self-care.

Refusing to take time for yourself in the morning isn’t selfless, it’s selfish.

It also allows you to show up for yourself first so you can show up for others later. You may think you’re being selfless by not taking time for yourself. The truth is if you’re not doing a morning ritual, you are robbing every person and cause you say you care about of the best version of you. Instead, they’re getting maybe the 50% or 60% version of you. So, if it’s hard for you to do things for you, do it for them. (And hire a life coach to work on the first part of that sentence.)

Another objection you might have with a morning ritual is that you’re not a morning person. That’s fine. On one hand, we’ll say put your big girl panties on and get over it. =D On the other hand we will say to start small. Just get up five minutes earlier and do one activity that is going to make you feel better and start your day with intention. Once your brain learns to look forward to this (dopamine hits, anyone?) then you can move to 15 minutes, then maybe a bit more and more if you need it. You can become a morning person by training your brain that it’s fun and worth it to get up earlier. You will begin to enjoy your morning routine AND you will begin to see the effects of doing it in all areas of your life. That will train your brain.

How do you set up a morning ritual?

Okay that was the why. Now let’s talk about the how. You need to figure out what activities are going to make you feel energized and ready for the day. What self-care activities do you know you need to be doing but you’re not? What activities have you wanted to try but just haven’t yet? List these out.

Then you’ll list out the time each activity takes. Next, total the time up. Then work backward from what time you need to leave or be ready to take care of others in the morning. So, if your morning ritual takes 45 minutes and your kids get up at 6am, you’re getting up at 5:15am.

The final step is giving yourself a chance to make this a reality by committing to doing it for at least 30 days. If you hate it by the end, quit. But give yourself the gift of trying it for 30 days.

We have a worksheet that will help you create your morning ritual. You’ll love it because it walks you through all those steps!

PS: If any of this resonated with you, we’d love to work with you 1-on-1. We teach our clients how to build a life they love and change habits slowly to match their goals. In a world with fake quick fixes, we help them adapt a lifestyle that they’ll want to keep. If that resonates with you, please get in touch with the form below!

Categories
Health Recipes

Eat like a hobbit (but not really)

We have a strategy here at Ideal Balance. That strategy is that you put so much yummy, healthy food down your gullet that your body 1) releases all the fat because it’s not afraid anymore and 2) you don’t feel the need to put as much other, unhealthy stuff in it. This process helps us change our relationship with food and with “diets.” So, when and what do we eat? Well, do you mind if we take a detour and talk about hobbits first?

I read the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings as a child. Nerd alert! Moreover, I do love the hobbits in the movies. So, when I’m asking clients to eat more (it’s hardly ever LESS than what they were eating), I like to tell them about hobbits. Hobbits love food and this is partly what makes them so jolly we are led to believe. So, they have six meal times daily.

  • Breakfast
  • Second breakfast
  • Elevenses
  • Luncheon
  • Afternoon tea
  • Dinner
  • Supper

For our purposes, we’re going to change things up a bit. Here’s what we’re going to advise our clients eventually work to:

  • Breakfast
  • Shake
  • Lunch
  • Second Lunch
  • Dinner
  • Evening tea

Breakfast is usually one of the hardest habits for our clients to adapt. So many time busy folks are subsisting on coffee until lunch time. That isn’t going to work for us. We are building strong, healthy bodies that require fuel! So, we start by asking them to eat something simple like a banana just to get into the habit. Eventually, we’d like to move them over to a light but fueling protein + carb meal for breakfast.

We of course LOVE our Shakeology, so that’s going to be an excellent snack for our clients, though many of them choose to have them for breakfast. Our shakes fuel your bodies with nutrition, energy and digestion enzymes. That means the earlier they get it in, the better. It will serve them as the eat food throughout the day and it will keep the cravings at bay as well. Plus, it’ll help them stay regular. 😉

Next up we’re going to have our “comfort” lunch. Yes, in this lunch you’ll likely find some sort of carbs in them. Now, we work with each client individually to dial their nutrition in according to their goals. So, if they are still consuming some flour or sugar in their diet AND making progress, we are good. If they aren’t, we will incorporate small changes so they keep making progress. Over the course of a client’s journey this might look like:

  1. Track what we’re eating for lunch (Sandwich or tacos)
  2. Modify portions for lunch (Half sandwich or 1 taco)
  3. Change types of food for lunch (salad or bowl)
  4. Avoid flour + sugar unless planning for joy eating (beans, rice, quinoa, sweet potatoes, etc)

Remember, we only dial the nutrition in as the progress slows. If you’re making progress, we’re happy. But, as you slowly change, what’s hard today will be so much easier in six months. And when it’s easier, we know your body will adjust and will need a little extra to keep losing weight. Our key here is that carbs are done and over with by this lunch meal, so enjoy them! Carbs are not the enemy we say, but we do like to use them to our advantage.

On our hobbit-like journey, we’re now going to have second lunch. Now, this second lunch will be according to your body and your goals. Either way, we’re looking for fill in any nutritional gaps you might have. So, if you’re needing more veggies, fruit, healthy fats, etc, this is the time! This second lunch is likely a form of an adult lunchable. So, we might have a favorite fruit, a veggie w/ hummus or avocado and hard-boiled eggs. We’re popping in nutrition that is yummy and fun to eat!

When we get to dinner we’ve have a lovely day full of yummy food. We might not even be super hungry, but we are going to eat for fuel. When we eat to fuel at night, we want to be sure to eat in a way that will support the night both in terms of digestion and in rest. You don’t want to be super hungry when you go to bed but you do want your tummy to not be very full either. You also don’t want to eat foods that are hard for your body to process. As we progress along your health journey, you’ll figure out what that means for your body. We have healthy dinner ideas that are lean and nutritious here.

Evening tea is a fun way to help think about relaxing and avoiding temptation at the same time. Evening tends to be the time our clients struggle the most with eating or drinking in ways that is not in alignment with their plans. So, we might try to modify-not completely change- that habit to something healthy that still feels a bit indulgent. So, a warm cup of tea might just do that trick. It will satisfy our need for manual stimulation while also giving us something simple to put in our bellies!

Okay, that’s it. That’s how you eat like a hobbit while avoiding their waistline. 😉

PS: If any of this resonated with you, we’d love to work with you 1-on-1. We teach our clients how to build a body they love and change habits slowly to match their goals. In a world with fake quick fixes, we help them adapt a lifestyle that they’ll want to keep. If that resonates with you, please get in touch with the form below!

Categories
Health

The 4 Types of Eating (which to do & which to avoid)

Today we’re going to talk about the four types of eating that we do. We got this concept from Brooke Castillo @ The Life Coach School if you ever want to check her out. There are two types of eating we want to do & focus on and there are two types of eating that we want to break habits from as much as possible!

Fuel Eating

This is how we should be eating most of the time! Eating to fuel your body because it needs energy to do all the things is great. This means we’re putting good, whole, healthy and delicious foods in it. This will look a little bit different for everyone because you will know what types of foods really fuel you best.

Fog Eating

This is the eating we do and we don’t realize it. It’s the bag of chips while eating TV when we were just going to have a couple. It’s the grazing by the snack table while talking to some friends. Fog eating is just any time we are eating and it’s not a deliberate, conscious decision. Let’s not do this.

Fog eating is just any time we are eating and it’s not a deliberate, conscious decision. Let’s not do this.

Storm Eating

Storm eating is any time we’re eating as an emotional response to something. That might be stress, disappointment, sadness, heartbreak, anger, or what have you. If you eat in response to something happening or a way you’re feeling, that’s storm eating. What we want to do is retrain our brain and our habits to deal wit the emotion in a way that will actually help (bath, walk, journal, talking with someone, taking a nap). We want to NOT do this guys.

Joy Eating

If you plan to eat something for fun, enjoyment or even in celebration, this is joy eating. So, if you’re planning to go get ice cream with the kids on the last day of school to celebrate-that’s joy eating. Fun date night at a new restaurant-joy eating. Weddings and birthdays are also joy eating. The key with joy eating is that you planned it and it’s something you’re looking forward to0-it’s not because you want to “cheat” or you’re being emotional. Food is meant to be enjoyed, so this type of eating is totally okay as long as it’s in your plans for the right reasons. Of course, the amount of joy eating you do will directly reflect in the results you get for weight loss. So, if you want to get results faster, be a little more stingy about how often you do joy eating. Consider once a week or a few times a month.

Food is meant to be enjoyed, so this type of eating is totally okay as long as it’s in your plans for the right reasons.

If you’re interested in working with us to get healthy, get organized or get out of debt, fill out the contact form here and we’ll be in touch.

Categories
Health

Calibrating your hunger scale

Eating when you’re hungry seems pretty obvious. But…..think about the last time you ate. Did you eat because you were hungry? Did it something like this:

  • go hunger > decide to eat > food

Or, are you like most Americans, and you ate because there was food nearby or because it was time to eat? That goes something like this:

  • food > decide to eat
  • clock struck noon > decide to eat

Yes, most of us are totally out of whack when it comes to even feeling hungry. Because of the food we eat we don’t often feel hungry because of the effects flour and sugar have on our hormones and digestive system.

There’s SO MUCH CHEWING involved with the veggies that it gives your brain time to send the signal that you’re full.

What we like to teach is how to recalibrate your hunger scale. We want you to get in touch with yourself and learn to honor you body’s request for fuel (hunger). We also want you to start noticing when you’re eating for other reasons.

So, if we can focus on paying attention to our bodies, eating when we’re hungry we’ll have won half the battle. Of course, the other half is to stop eating when we’re comfortably full. So, don’t keep eating if you’re no longer hungry. (PS: One trick for this is to load half of your plate with vegetables and eat those first. There’s SO MUCH CHEWING involved with the veggies that it gives your brain time to send the signal that you’re full.) This is another way to be in touch with our bodies!

  1. Starving, Weak, Dizzy.
  2. Very Hungry, Irritable, Low Energy, Stomach Grumbling.
  3. Pretty Hungry, Stomach beginning to Growl.
  4. Beginning to feel hungry.
  5. Satisfied, Neither Hungry Nor Full.
  6. Slightly Full, Pleasantly Full.
  7. Slightly Uncomfortable.
  8. Feeling Stuffed.
  9. Very Uncomfortable, Stomach is Aching.
  10. Very Full And Feeling Sick.

So, spend time this week thinking about calibrating your hunger scale. The hunger scale is the just the range of hunger and non-hunger you have as a human. When you’re at a 1, you’re absolutely starving and even feeling weak and dizzy. When you’re at a 10 you’re very uncomfortable and may even feel sick (think Thanksgiving!) So, as you go through your week, notice when you’re hungry and when you’re full. Try to stay away from getting to 1-2 or 7-10. Stay in that 4-6 range. It will take practice. Feeling a bit hungry should be a proud moment because that means your body has used the fuel you put into it! You don’t want to overdue that, but it is good to notice these things.

If you’re interested in working with us to get healthy, get organized or get out of debt, fill out the contact form here and we’ll be in touch.

Categories
Health Mindset

It only takes one moment to get back on track

I’ve been a runner for years. I run almost daily but definitely every other day, week in and week out. You can imagine my dismay when my bare pinkie toe went toe-to-toe (pun intended) with my husband’s steel toe boot. Although I didn’t want to, my black, blue and swollen toe indicated I needed to lay off running for a moment. That moment was excrutiatingly long. Finally the black and blue went down a bit and I thought that day would be my day. Imagine my dismay when I laced up only to be confronted with a three day pouring rain storm.

This morning I finally got to go on a run after almost two weeks off. The last time I’d not run for two weeks was at least 6+ years ago when I was in the final stage of pregnancy with my youngest child.

This morning as I set out I thought, “Ah, that feels good. I’m back on track.” Yes, through the years I’ve had ups and downs with running. I’ve had setbacks, pauses, weather problems, injuries and all kinds of things that have required me to “get back on track.” Because of that, it’s very easy for my brain to understand that:

It only takes one moment to get back on track.

Compare that to what your brain might make a minor setback mean. Yes, our brains like us to stay in this all or none, black or white. We’re either on a diet or we’re cheating and giving up and clearly we were always going to fail. We’re either working out like mad day in and day out without fail or we’re couch-ridden sloths who are lazy.

So often there’s no room in our brain for what smart people call cognitive dissonance. You see, your brain thinks that the fact that you are a healthy person working toward a goal AND that you are a person that occasionally eats for joy CANNOT be true at the same time. So, when you step outside of what you imagine your perfect healthy self to be, it wants to put you in the other category. The well-I-failed-nevermind category.

But how does that serve you? Well, it doesn’t. Instead, what if it was simply true that you get to decide differently. So, if you have a minor “setback” you can DECIDE what you make it mean.

One of our FAVORITE decisions for our clients to make is this:

It only takes a moment to get back on track.

Yes, just like it took a simple moment to get off track, it can take a simple moment to get right back on track. Just like it took a moment for my pinkie to get annihilated, it took one moment to put one running- shoe-clad-foot in front of the other and begin a run.

Just like it took a moment to devour the ice cream, it will take a moment to eat the healthy food you planned the very next meal. It takes just one healthy choice to be right back on plan!

It’s a moment. You get to decide. Instead of going into a downward spiral where you brain tells you what to think you can decide to tell it what to think.

Many times your brain will think you have to wait until tomorrow or even next Monday or even next month to “restart” or get back on track. Nope, not actually true brain! you can get right back on track immediately whether it was a whole day, a whole weekend or even a whole year. The great news is the very first workout or the very first healthy food you throw down you gullet means YOU ARE BACK! You don’t have to wait, you don’t have to swell or linger in the spot you’re not super proud of. Nope, you can immediately get back to it.

And then, all of the sudden, your identity changes to the kind of person who can deal with setbacks. You’re the kind of person who trusts herself or himself to be able to get right back on the horse if you fall off. That’s the ultimate confidence and trust with yourself.

So, challenge your thoughts. Next time you find yourself off your plan, off of what you decided to do, get right back on the horse. Decide now you won’t let your brain go into drama mode. What makes this process even worse is that your brain telling you how terrible everything is makes you feel bad. When you feel bad, you’re probably going to repeat the behavior and that will definitely make things worse. Choose instead to stop this pattern right in its tracks. Decide you won’t let your brain tell you what to think, you’re going to tell it what to think!

The good news is this applies not just to your health and fitness but also every area of your life where you have a plan or a standard you’ve set for yourself. Did you go off budget? Well, instead of making it worse, let’s get right back to it. Fix the damage next paycheck if necessary, but double down on sticking to what you said you would do right now! Did you yell at the kids? Well, do what makes sense to make it right and then immediately jump right back into acting and responding patiently and calmly.

It only takes a moment to get back on track.

If you are willing to accept this idea, willing to implement it, you will soon find yourself with so much evidence that you are the kind of person who stays on track, no matter what. And the entire process to reaching your goals is going to be much easier.

If you’re interested in working with us to get healthy, get organized or get out of debt, fill out the contact form here and we’ll be in touch.

Categories
Health Mindset

Redefine those moments of temptation

We all have our moments. Everyone of us has patterns we slip into that do not represent our best choices or the goals we have.

For some of us, that may be the time you Netflix and chill and before you know it, half the ice cream or bag of chips is gone!

For some of us, that might be that busy time of day when dinner is being made (or ordered), people are getting home, homework is being fought and / or the laundry is sitting there staring at you. time for a glass of wine!

Still for others it may be an innocent meal out that turns into losing your willpower, binge eating and stuffing yourself so much that it hurts.

Listen, we all have moments.

The trick with health & fitness is to recognize what YOUR patterns are and then slowly try to tweak those moments so that they become winning moments instead of losing ones.

So, let’s take the first example. If you know that’s your problem, you can also come up with a solution. Perhaps the solution is to do something else with your hands while chilling. Or, maybe it’s simply changing out the snack. Maybe it’s reading instead of television. Whatever it is, we like to recommend small changes at a time until they get easy. Quitting cold turkey could work, but it’s not likely. It’s especially not likely to last long term. On the other hand, if you slowly teach your brain to change the habit over time, you’re likely to have success. We have no doubt you can be creative and come up with something that will work for you.

In the next example, you might simply decide to change something about the situation. Maybe try not to do all the hard things at once. Maybe homework waits until after dinner. Maybe laundry moved to another time and is paired with a favorite show or podcast. On the other hand, maybe you go for a walk while everyone is getting home and settled. Maybe you meal prep so you’re not in the kitchen at the busy stressful time. Finally, maybe you change to a sparking water or tea so you still get the manual habit, minus the calories and alcohol.

This is the way we tweak our patterns and habits that aren’t serving up. We do it slowly, in bitesize changes.

So what are your moments? Be honest, recognize who you are and when you’re making choices out of emotion or habit that DO NOT SERVE your goals.

Next, come up with a little hack to change your patterns for the better, slowly and surely.

  1. Moment ~> Small Change
  2. Moment ~> Small Change
  3. Moment ~> Small Change
  4. Moment ~> Small Change

If you’re interested in working with us to get healthy and feel strong, fill out the contact form here and we’ll be in touch.

Ideal Balance is The Life Coaching Facility in Navarre focused on Fitness, Family & Finance. We know people are stressed about money, they’re unorganized, they’re unhappy with their bodies, they’re distracted and they’re not thriving. But we believe humans are built to be strong & energetic and that good things come to those who work hard and are disciplined. So we coach people to get healthy, to get organized, & to get debt free. The vision is people having a happy & healthy life they’re proud of. We don’t take excuses but we do get results!

Categories
Fitness Health Mindset

Let’s talk goals + why

Okay, we all have goals. And for nearly everyone, health / fitness find their way into our goals in some form of fashion. Our clients are no exception. But when we talk goals for health / fitness, we really try to get well rounded. We recognize that a simple “lose weight” isn’t going to cut it. Nope, not good enough.

Rather, we think that if you really allow yourself to dream, you’ll recognize that health / fitness goals apply to every part of your life. What do we mean?

  • Family: You might have a goal to have more energy to play with your kids or grandkids. Great!
  • Health: Your doctor might have told you to get your blood sugars low. Alright, another goal.
  • Finance: Maybe you want to spend less on eating our or buying bigger size clothing.
  • Marriage: Hey, maybe you want to get in better shape so your confidence or desire in the bedroom will increase (we’re not pulling any punches).
  • Spiritual: Maybe you realize you’re leaning on food or alcohol more than prayer or meditation. Another great area to set goals in.
  • Personal: Maybe you just want to be proud of yourself and you’re tired of not showing up for yourself.

Your health and fitness goals really should span many areas of your life. And we know our clients tend to focus on just one area or another. Are you doing the same? Is it easy for you to say you’re doing this for your family or for the doctor but once you start daydreaming about how YOU will feel in that cute dress or even in the bedroom you clam up and stop daring to dream?

We want it all. We want you to dare to dream, to have many goals, to really connect with how getting your health / fitness in order will have such a domino effect in your life.

Once we find goals for the different areas of life, we’re going to want to drill down some whys too.

Why do you want to look good in your clothes? Why do you want more energy? Why do you want to stop emotionally eating?

We need the why. In the moment when you’re talking yourself into a workout or out of a candy bar, you need a why that is stronger than those desires. You need to want to be ablet o go on hikes and bike ridesw ith your kids more than you want to sleep in. You have to KNOW that why though, beforehand, so you can use it as motivation in the moment.

So, set your goals. Think long and hard. Think about all the different areas of your life and why health / fitness is important. Then, after you name the goal, name the why. WHY is it important to you? WHY is it more important than what you want right now?

Alright, so let’s hear it. What are your goals? Why are they important to you?

  1. Goal ~> Why
  2. Goal ~> Why
  3. Goal ~> Why
  4. Goal ~> Why
  5. Goal ~> Why

If you’re interested in working with us to start getting healthy, stop living paycheck to fill out the contact form here and we’ll be in touch.

Ideal Balance is The Life Coaching Facility in Navarre focused on Fitness, Family & Finance. We know people are stressed about money, they’re unorganized, they’re unhappy with their bodies, they’re distracted and they’re not thriving. But we believe humans are built to be strong & energetic and that good things come to those who work hard and are disciplined. So we coach people to get healthy, to get organized, & to get debt free. The vision is people having a happy & healthy life they’re proud of. We don’t take excuses but we do get results!