You can be Kind to Yourself even with Imperfect Progress

With all of the Facebook Fear Marketing about how you’re going to get fat over the Holidays so you need this detox, juice cleanse, perfect diet, and perfect exercise plan to survive, I’m going to tell you something that you may not have heard during this onslaught. You have the right as a human being to be kind to yourself

You have the right as a human being to be kind to yourself

Yep. It’s true. You don’t have to wait to start the juice cleanse, the diet, or the program in order to be kind to yourself or even feel good about yourself. You can do this right now. It doesn’t matter if you weigh 300 pounds or if you weigh 130 pounds. You can be good to yourself right where you are. Let me tell you another secret: You are Enough.

Let me tell you another secret: You are enough.

Can you make progress? Yes.

Can you grow? Absolutely

Let me tell you that there is no trainer, no expert, no diet, and no exercise routine that can help you if you do not accept these fundamental truths. You can be kind to yourself and you are enough.

I thought this was a Health and Fitness Blog

You may be reading and thinking, “I thought this was a Health and Fitness Blog. Why is this sounding like an episode of, “Iyanla Fix My Life”?

The long term success rate of the traditional eat less/move more paradigm that the fitness industry is 5%. You read that correctly 5%. There’s a lot more to fat loss than simply eat less/move more. There’s the effects of hormone levels, mental and emotional health, and other factors that the industry has to ignore to get you to buy their products.

However I believe the biggest barrier to long term success when it comes to the Health and Fitness Lifestyle is: Addressing the Underlying issues that are keeping people defeated.

A meal plan doesn’t address the single woman whose husband left her for another woman and now she feels like garbage.

An exercise routine doesn’t take into account the woman who is always being put down by her partner and now feels like she can’t do anything.

Most trainers do not want to be bothered with the person who may have struggled with emotional eating her whole life and the easiest thing to do when she feels sad is to grab a box of cookies.

There is little support for someone who wants to make a lifestyle change but everyone around them is not ready to change and so they have nobody to encourage them and cheer them on.

It’s Time to Get to the Root of Your Issues

It’s time to Go Deep Inside and start asking yourself these tough questions. I have shared on this blog that the reason I got so caught up in the rapture of dieting and exercise was because I was afraid of getting fat. Fat to me was failing and it confirmed that I was going to lead a life I had always feared. That restrictive diet and exercise gave me something to do. I thought that the more I “punished” myself, the closer I would get to fixing myself so that I would finally be enough.

I have to tell you that once I admitted that, along with the eating psychology workshops I went to over the summer, all of my food issues went by the wayside AND I’m no longer freaking out about the weight gain. It may take longer than expected but it won’t define who I am.

How about you? What’s at the root of why you don’t take care of yourself or why you may start and then quit shortly after?

Challenge for 2016

We’ve got about 3-4 weeks until the first day of 2016 and the Fitness Fear Marketers will be in high gear. They will be pushing their pills, potions, and everything in between. However, they won’t be offering you a chance to really make change and really break through to what’s eating you.

There will be no lasting change until you get to the root of why you are going around these same mountains over and over again.

Please do not be fooled by these people marketing fears and projecting them onto you. I read a status last week where a magazine editor confessed that her job was to make women have anxiety. It was to convince them that they were not good enough.

I am offering something different. Beginning Dec 21 – Dec 31, I am opening up our Facebook LIVE BETTER Support Community to anyone who wants to join us. Right now I share: motivation, workouts, recipes, and more.

You can actively join us for the 31 Days of Living Better in January or you can just lurk and be encouraged by the posts. Either way it’s up to you. My #1 rule is that there is no self loathing allowed.

I have so many awesome resources for you in 2016, motivated by my own journey, my clients, and from all of the research I have been doing over the past 6 months to really dig in and help people. The way the fitness industry is currently wired is not successful with helping people Live Better(5%) so as I heard it declared last year:

It’s time to Say Something