I get it. You know how to be healthy. You know how to lose weight. You just can’t seem to actually…do it.

You either start things up again and “fall off the wagon” by Friday and just wait for Monday to try again….or Monday keeps coming around and you still can’t muster up the mental energy to do the things you know you’re “supposed to” do. 

I see you. And I want to help. 

First things first.

What’s your why? You need to get crystal clear about it. Why do you wish you could do the healthy habits in the first place? What’s the reason for wanting to be consistent and follow through?

And let me tell you, it’s not just to lose weight. There’s always something more behind it. 

Why do you want to lose weight? “To feel better in my clothes.”

Why? “To feel more confident.”

Why? “To stop holding back in my life so much.”

Why? “So that I can do more fun things and have energy for them”.

See? There’s always a much deeper and more important reason than just physical weight loss. And figuring this out is going to be key. 

If you’re reading this and don’t have a clear why, no wonder you can’t seem to get yourself to do the healthy things! You have no reason to, and your subconscious mind is reflecting that.

Second step.

Next, I want you to ask yourself what your past relationship with exercise and eating has been like. 

If you can’t seem to get yourself to workout and your exercise history looks like this:

• “I have to earn my calories”
• “I have to work off my dinner from last night”
• “I have to do this to burn calories”
• “This is a punishment to my body because I’ve gained weight”
• “No Mondays off, I must push through sickness or injury if I want to lose weight”
• “I have to get up early and miss sleep to get a workout in”

NO WONDER YOU DON’T WANT TO WORK OUT!

Talk about a toxic relationship with movement! I wouldn’t want to work out either if there was this extreme intent behind it. 

And here’s the thing: this kind of thinking doesn’t just happen overnight. It’s been years and years of the messaging we’ve heard from our friends, social media, the trainers in our workout DVDs, and who knows where else over time.

No matter where you are in your health journey, I can bet that you are TIRED. You are mentally tired of this all-or-nothing approach to healthy habits in general. 

We do the same thing with eating. You’re eating 100% healthy, no deep-fried anything, only clean eating when actively trying to lose weight, and it’s just simply not enjoyable.

You’re not going to follow through with long-term healthy habits until you completely rework your relationship and mindset about how you nourish and move your body.

Let’s flip the script.

Ok, so speaking of movement, let’s change the way we think about this. 

It’s really time to ditch the previously mentioned forms of thinking. Because here’s the truth:

• You absolutely do not have to earn your calories. Your body requires consistent nutrition every day even if you don’t get out of bed. 
• You don’t have to burn off anything you ate. Your body knows exactly what to do with the energy you consume. It does not lead to direct weight gain. It’s used for immediate energy and for energy to be used later.
• Movement should never be a form of punishment. It should be a joyful part of our lives. It should be fun. It should feel good. Period! I don’t want you doing workouts you hate.
• You absolutely need rest days and your body doesn’t care what day of the week it is when it might need one.
• This is probably the most important one: you NEED to earn your workouts by getting adequate sleep. You need your 7-9 hours before you should even be putting your body through the stress of exercise.

Do these points start to change your thinking about exercise? I hope so.

Because once you see movement as something you get to do to support a healthy metabolism, build strong muscles, have energy, etc. it’s something you will want to do regularly. It truly has nothing to do with the calorie burn.

The better you start to feel, the more you will want to keep doing the things that make you feel good.

Same ideas go for the way you’re eating. Of course you’re not going to want to choose the healthy choice when your mindset behind it is “I must be good” or “I can’t enjoy what I’m eating right now”. 

The best way our clients start ditching this thinking is by learning exactly how their biology works and how foods actually affect it.

Once you realize how to balance ALL foods to keep the body in fat burning mode, you learn that you can in fact have a much more flexible, enjoyable, and realistic approach to eating.

You will start wanting to make the good choices more often because you will know how to do it without restricting yourself in any way. This is what makes the difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it.

More thoughts.

Now, if you feel like you do in fact have a much better relationship with movement and nutrition than in years past, but you’re still finding it hard to follow through with the things to support your goal, here are some more areas you might need to think about:

Do you have accountability?

Seriously. Accountability is often the biggest piece of the puzzle because no matter what we know about what we “should” be doing (for anything in life really), we benefit so much from having someone in our corner. Someone to check in on you. Someone to give you some tough love at times so you don’t fall into old habits and to really challenge you when you need it. 

Checking in with someone regularly to provide support for a long period of time is really all some people need to finally do what they say they’re going to do.

You might need permission.

I can’t tell you how many women I’ve worked with that don’t need any nutrition or lifestyle recommendations from me, they literally just need permission from a metabolism expert that, yes, this is the right plan for them. Someone who knows their story and their health history and to agree that, yes, you DO need to be eating this many carbs. Yes, you do need to stop exercising 6 days a week. It can be scary to make these adjustments after years of old thinking, so just having that extra reassurance is simply that necessary extra nudge.