Create A Beautiful Body With Accountability

I think accountability, which is the act of being responsible for one’s self, is a practice and depending on where we start and how well we know ourselves, it’s a process.

According to Brene Brown accountability is connected to courage. She explains since accountability opposes blame, we can see how not having accountability can keep us in a victimhood state of mind. One that paralyzes us and keeps us in shame without being able to move forward and find resolution.

I’ve gone through this myself and with many of my clients. Accountability is hard and most of the time we need someone to walk us through it if we’re not sure where to start.

The most uncomfortable part is finding the courage to be honest with yourself about what is or isn’t working. I’ve been in denial about what’s not working more times than I can count. Sometimes it takes a little push from the people who care about me most, but when I can be honest with myself and begin to take steps toward what could work, I find my life shifts into alignment.

When you stop hustling and guessing you can begin to make decisions that are based on your values. When you give yourself space to slow down and to reflect then you’re better able to make decisions from a place of awareness rather than not.

Coming from this place of awareness is incredibly helpful in shaping a foundational plan that’s based on your values (not someone else’s)

You no longer have to guess, self criticize or get frustrated because things aren’t working. Instead you come from a place of knowing what works and what doesn’t so that you can start moving toward your goal.

But you’ll never know this unless you look at what you’re doing first.

You most likely will make mistakes, but it’s a learning process. If we can avoid attaching ourselves to the shame of messing up and instead realize that messing up is part of the process of learning, our experience can be way more impactful.

Moving forward with courage instead of shame and blame is the first step in holding yourself accountable and trusting yourself again.

Accountability Tools For Success

You don’t even have to participate in extreme dieting tactics if you don’t want to. All you have to do is become aware of how much you take in in relation to how much you move. It’s that simple.

Some people are not taking in enough and some are taking in too much without getting enough movement to offset the calorie intake. Some people are eating too much in one sitting and could benefit from splitting the bigger meals up and spreading them out throughout the day.

What Your tools Will help you see:

• Your macronutrients ratios and discover what works best

• What vitamins and minerals you’re getting and which ones you may not be getting enough of.

• Your food patterns - if you’re eating too much in one sitting or not eating enough.

• If you’re eating low quality foods you’ll quickly discover that you’ll not be satisfied with your normal calorie intake.

Tools I Use:

Cronometer - A food logging app. It tracks calorie intake and compares it to how much movement you’re getting each day. This app helps you discover how much you’re taking in comparing to how much you’re expending. Cronometer integrates with Fitbit and offers a paid option of splitting your meals so you can see how much you are eating at each meal. I find this to be incredibly helpful to know.

Fitbit - tracks; hours of sleep, gives you your weekly average weight, daily water intake and movement

Note: If your goal is to lose weight, You want to take your weight everyday first thing in the morning with the same scale. Then take the weekly average. That way you will see a true measure of weight rather than the day to day fluctuation (because you will fluctuate depending on the time of day and where you are in your cycle)

Temp and pulse - Use your temperature and pulse readings to find out how your metabolism is functioning and responding to changes you are making.

Mood - Your mood will always give you an indication of how your physiology is working. It will also tell you if you’re not getting enough energy or if you have tons of energy.

If you want to learn more about how I teach my clients to build a foundation of fitness and nutrition so they can live the life they love in the body they love contact me today for a free 30 minute consultation.

5 Simple Strategies For Increasing Your Metabolism

When I talk to my clients about nutrition initially, the first question I ask them is,

“How frequently are you eating?”  

They usually say not frequently enough and some even admit to waiting up to five hours between meals.

Could the key to a healthy metabolism really be as simple as food frequency?  

I find it’s the most underestimated factor in most people's nutrition programs. Many people are simply not eating enough throughout the day.

Maybe it’s our busy stressful lives or fad diets (like intermittent fasting and keto) that promise instant results or maybe we’re just totally distracted and forget to eat all together. 

Whatever the reason is, the consequence of doing this over and over again will lead to a metabolic slow down. And trust me, when that happens it’s hard to get back up.

Let me explain… the issue is blood sugar regulation.  

I think eating clean organic foods is incredibly important, but if your metabolism is slow and you’re not already eating consistently enough to balance your blood sugar (to avoid hypoglycemia) on a daily basis, you’re simply not going to be able to meet your body’s metabolic needs (energy requirements).

This creates inflammation and a perfect storm for metabolic slow down.

It’s a problem because chronically stressing your systems day in and day out (with a byproduct of adrenaline and cortisol) leads to a whole cascade of symptoms. Many of which you’d be pretty surprised to know.

• Irritability

• Mood swings

• Brain fog

• Low energy/fatigue

• Digestive issues

• Bloating

• Muscle mass loss

• Sleep issues

• Rapid heart beat

• Diminishing ability to recover

• Low thyroid function

• Skin issues

• Hair loss

• Weight gain

• Can’t gain weight (depleted state)

• Severe issues, like fibromyalgia, diabetes, MS, etc.

And the list goes on

The simple act of not eating frequently enough puts you at risk for chronic hypoglycemia.  This sets the stage for hormonal imbalance, severe mood swings (we call this getting hangry at our house) autoimmune disease and hypothyroidism which can make it basically impossible to lose weight.  

Dr. Broda Barnes talked about this in his book, “Hope For Hypoglycemia”. He discovered after seeing many people who had been turned away from their doctors (telling them either nothing was wrong with them or that they were clinically crazy) that it had more to do with blood sugar regulation and supporting the liver by supplying it with enough glucose for hormonal conversion.

Glucose is also our major fuel for the brain.

Your brain only runs on glucose so it makes sense that you begin to lose cognitive abilities and get irritable when you need fuel.

When you get foggy brain, your brain is talking to you. It’s telling you it needs more fuel.

There's a chance you may drop some weight with diets like intermittent fasting and keto, but it’s due to you putting your body under an unnecessary stress that will slow your systems (digestive, thyroid, metabolic rate) down to conserve energy (because your body thinks it’s starving)

There’s then a greater chance you’ll gain the weight back and it becomes harder to keep it off because now you’ve damaged your metabolism.

It’s a pretty significant sacrifice with dire consequences if you if you ask me.

I’m here to tell you there’s an easier way to do this.

I think what sounds like a more viable solution is to heal your metabolism by gradually training your body use energy more efficiently again (like you did when you were a kid).

If you do this first, excess weight will come off when the metabolism and thyroid are healed and the liver is working efficiently again.  You can do this simply with the right foods in the right amounts and at the right times.

Here’s my simple strategy for increasing your metabolism

1. Eat Frequent smaller meals: 

I know you’ve probably heard this one before but it’s true. The quickest and most easy way you can begin to raise your metabolic rate it to eat every two hours or add a snack between your meals.

When you’re training your body to run on glucose (for more efficient energy production) instead of adrenaline it’s important to eat every two hours until your body is able to run more efficiently.  If you go too long without food you run the risk of going into a stress hormone mode, raising your cortisol levels. Doing this too often and you can slow your thyroid which regulates your metabolism.  You can avoid this hormonal fluctuation by eating frequently enough to meet your body’s metabolic needs on a daily basis.

2. Eat Breakfast:

You’ve probably heard this one too.

Eating breakfast will break the fast of the night and help you curb your cortisol response so it's at a manageable level for the morning time.  If you drink coffee, eating food with your coffee in the morning helps you offset the adrenaline response after you've consumed caffeine. 

Adding organic heavy cream or half-n-half and gelatin to your coffee will slow down the adrenalizing effects of the caffeine.  The fat you get from the heavy cream and the protein you get from the gelatin will help your body better metabolize the caffeine and you’ll reap the benefits.

3.  Food Prep:

I can not stress this more. Getting prepared ahead of time can be what saves you in the end.

Plan ahead so you’re prepared for anything.

Prepare your meals and snacks for the week.  So many times we end up in a situation where we find ourselves unprepared with no food (aka, hangry)  

You can easily avoid those moments where you find yourself suddenly in a panic with nothing to eat. By planning ahead, shopping on the weekends and having enough snacks on hand to keep your blood sugar regular throughout the day you’re golden. 

I also suggest organizing and cleaning out your kitchen from time to time or even seasonally. Cleaning out your fridge and pantry pretty often so you can reset and feel more clarity when it comes to your food preparation.

4.  Don't skip a macronutrient

This one you may not have heard before but I assure you it’s one of the most important factors.

Mainly because there’s so much promotion in the way of cutting a macro out to gain quick results (example, cutting your carbs)

The simple truth is that your body needs all three to function optimally. Now can you make better choices when it comes to the types of macros you choose, yes you can.

Mind you, the better choices for carbs that will not fluctuate blood sugar are fruits, roots and dairy (not grains).

My recommendations regarding macros initially are to include 1 serving of protein from clean animal sources (not just meat, dairy and eggs too), 1 serving of saturated fat and 1 serving of the carbohydrates I listed above in every meal.  

As you get to know your metabolism, you can begin to play around with the ratios a bit.  Keeping a balance of macronutrients helps you avoid any unnecessary blood sugar fluctuations.

Fun fact: You can get lots of accessible protein from white potatoes and mushrooms too.

5.  Keep your body fueled when you exercise:

This is important because your blood sugar will drop when you workout.

Eat before, during and after your workout.  

Exercise has the potential to create inflammation and lactic acid in the body and cause a temporary drop in blood sugar.  In order to minimize this response I always suggest eating a small easy to digest meal 30 minutes before your workout.  

You could even sip OJ with gelatin added to it during your work out and eat a meal right after. 

Some suggestions for what to eat before your workout can be: 

• Fruit and milk (smoothie)

• Eggs, Cheese and fruit

• Cottage cheese and fruit

• Greek yoghurt and fruit

Re-Visiting The Deep Squat

Did you know that squatting is your natural version of sitting?  Before chairs, squatting was a natural position to rest, give birth, cook, eat, create art and take a bowel movement. Sitting in chairs is a fairly new phenomenon compared to how long humans have been squatting.

I remember as a new mom years ago I would try to get my toddler boys to sit in little Ikea chairs I had bought for them thinking how cute it would be, but they never would.  My boys would always opt for the floor and would squat while playing.  I don’t think it’s our natural inclination to sit in chairs.

Your ability to squat can determine your ability to eliminate, detox, move your spine and strengthen your pelvic floor.  We rarely think about squatting as a part of our everyday movement medicine, but the truth is you really can’t function well without it.

Squatting may be more important than we thought.  It’s essential for many bodily movements and functions, like hip mobility, circulation, organ function, fluid movement, pelvic floor strength, for lifting restrictions, elimination, spinal and lymphatic circulation and pumping nutrition throughout the body.

According to Katy Bowman in, “Move Your DNA”,

“Squatting is a non-negotiable ingredient to improving issues with the gut, pelvis, hips and knees.  The problem, you see, is not the squat but that we haven’t squatted for the bulk of our lives.”

Sitting in chairs for long periods of time has recently been proven to be more hazardous to your health than smoking.  This is a big deal.  One reason for this could be that sitting actually makes it so your body no longer has to hold itself up anymore, which means your postural muscles stop working for you.  Over time if you sit in the same position enough your body begins to conform into whatever position you sit most in.  This creates lots of restrictions, which can lead to stagnation and disease.

I’ve found that sitting on the floor from time to time can actually stimulate your posture muscles enough to start working again.  Although it may be uncomfortable at first over time your body gets stronger and you get used it it.  In addition to this, working on your squat every day will benefit your health greatly and get you moving in the right direction.  Your body needs variety, different positions as well as circulation through walking.

My journey with the squat has been 20 years in the making.  It’s only the last 3 years that I’ve been able to really make any headway with it.  Up until recently, I had limited myself in my range of motion in my squats, accepting that my knee and ankle were restricted in ways that I would just have to live with for the rest of my life.

A little history on my body…

As an athlete, i’ve experienced total knee reconstruction, a spinal stress fracture, two ankle surgeries and three broken ankles.  As a mom, I’ve experienced two child births, an epidural that came with intense digestive distress afterwards, diastasis recti (separation of the rectus abdominis facia) , disbiosis and a disc bulge in the SI/L5 region.  After all this, most would consider it a miracle that I can even do a deep squat much less live without restriction and pain.

I started to make movement apart of my day by incorporating my pre-squat exercises which are essential if you sit most of the day and wear any shoes with rigidity and height to them.

Here’s some you can start with…

After this I began to squat with an object elevating my heals slightly off of the floor in order to get my hips lower to the ground without tucking my pelvis.  Since I have quite a lot of restriction in my ankle and knee this helps my hips get the full range of motion they need for circulation and mobility. Unweighted squats, because my heals are not touching the floor.

If your pelvis tends to tuck under when you squat try this exercise to repattern your squat then when the pelvis is where it needs to be try your squat again.

Walking with a thin sole that allowed my toes and feet to spread as I walked helped me open my restricted ankle naturally.  Along with doing daily calf stretching and spinal decompression stretching.  After this it was much easier to squat like I did when I was a kid, getting on the floor more often and walking with more awareness.

I started to park really far away from my destination and would walk.  Even if it mean I would have to carry heavy items or groceries to my car a little further.  As well, I’d walk to the bank, grocery store, shops, work and restaurants.  Even if it took more time out of my day, that just meant I wouldn’t need to spend that time on a machine doing cardio, etc.  Plus it was way more enjoyable and I could make it a part of my day.

I began squatting over the toilet with the help of a Squaty potty.  I would squat in the morning to wake my body up,  during the day while using my computer or coaching clients and at night to unwind my body at the end of the day.  I continued to do my pre-squat work which involved my regenerative exercises (SI joint and hip mobility exercises) and spinal decompression stretches to release any restrictions in the facial chain, specifically the extensors.

This allowed me to settle down into my squat much more comfortably over time.  As well, get lower in my hips and deeper in my knee and ankle bend without losing balance or stopping short.

In addition to all of this I slowly worked back to wearing shoes with minimal soles.  I was always barefoot when I did gymnastics as well as being barefoot every summer when I was a kid.  It felt so natural to go back to this way of being.

During the summer I wore very thin soled workout sandals that would allow me to work the muscles of my feet and feel the surface of the ground better.  I walked over pebbles, rocks, grass and concrete.  This helped my body and nervous system begin to adapt to different surfaces and absorb the ground with more awareness.  As well, it allowed my hips to release because my feet where able to do their job.  I also started to work on getting up off of the floor without using my hands.  Like this exercise below…

Here I’m working my hip mobility in both internal and external rotation.  This really helps to integrate muscles in the hip that have not been turning on as well as make space in the pelvis.

I've broken my ankle three times both in high school and college and the restriction as a result had had a direct effect on my back presenting itself as a disc bulge, because my body had to I adapt to the restriction in the ankle over time.  

I use the sumo squat exercise below to activate my outer hips to support bringing my knees out slightly so I'm better able to lift the chest more upright and this helps with ankle mobility.

As I was able to be more present with my gait and squat, I was able to even out my ankle flexion on both sides which made walking, running, squatting and jumping much more pleasant and my back pain free.