Kim Barnes Jefferson

12 Days Of Fitmas

December 12, 2019 By kimkb49 Leave a Comment

Are you ready for MY GIFT to YOU this holiday season?

It’s the gift of FITNESS! (duh) 😉

One of the biggest excuses I year this time of year is that

❌I don’t have time?
❌I’ll be traveling

Well.. here is your excuse buster!!!

I’ve put together a quick & effective workout challenge to keep you active and moving over the next couple weeks, even if you’re heading out of town. ❤️

It requires absolutely NO equipment (except a step or other platform) and you can do it pretty much anywhere.

Plus, each workout will take less than 30 minutes.

EVEN BETTER … it’s the gift that keeps on giving. You will feel SO GOOD about completing this challenge as we enter the New Year!

🔥You’ll have more energy, sleep better, move better, AND you won’t feel like you are “behind” when the new year comes.

Here’s how it works:

There are 3 workouts/week.

✅ You will do ONE of the workouts each day

Here’s how it works:
➡️ Determine how many days/week you are going to workout.
➡️ You can use this as a supplement to your other workouts.

➡️ You’ll “ladder” the 2 exercises for that day, going back and forth between them, adding reps each round.

🏋️‍♀️Here’s what it looks like: Do 1 repetition of the 1st exercise, then 1 repetition of the 2nd exercise, then 2 reps of the 1st exercise and 2 reps of 2nd, and repeat until you get through 12 reps of each.

Keep moving as much as possible, but listen to your body and take breaks between rounds as needed.

❓Wanna win THREE FREE months in Fit Girl Magic Society? All you need to do is post a pic of you doing ANY of the workouts on ANY social media platform

➜Tag me @kimjeffersoncoach on Instagram or @kim Barnes Jefferson, Coach on facebook and use the hashtag #fitgirlmagic so that I can easy find it. 😍

🍀The more you do it, the more changes you have of winning.

You in???

Managing Change In 7 Steps

December 2, 2019 By kimkb49 Leave a Comment

Change is so difficult for many of us to deal with. Using these tips will help you in dealing with change.

Acceptance

This is probably the biggest step and the most necessary one. Accept that life will always be changing. As they say change is the one true thing that you can always depend on. Think back to high college and/or college you and your friends were hanging out and in a blink you graduated went your separate ways. There are and will be plenty more examples throughout your life.

Don’t Get Too Comfortable

The biggest changes always seem to always happen when we are content or comfortable. While there may not be scientific evidence to back this up, you should always be ready for anything that comes your way. When you are comfortable in your situation is when you let your guard down which makes it more of a shock when something does change.

Talk About Your Feelings Towards Change

Are you someone who has a tendancy to let things build up inside. Do you not talk about your situations, or if you do, do you tend to vent and complain to the wrong person vs talking directly to the person you need to talk to. Present your concerns in a calm manner and try not to let your emotions cloud the conversation.

Try to Turn the Change in Your Favor

You’ve heard the phrase, “turn lemons into lemonade”, insert eye roll right! It’s been SOOO overused. However, it’s hard to deny the meaning of it and the impact from that meaning. If you are dealing with change, in one form or another, what is the potention upside? Is there a workaround? Is this a sign that maybe you are doing too much and it will give you more time to spend with family?
In a nutshell look at change as an opportunity to look at the situation and see what angles you can use to make it work to your benefit.

Keep Changes You Can Control to a Minimum

I get it when decide you want to make a change in your life you want it to happen like right freaking now! So you starting trying to do ALL the things at once. How has that worked out for you?

Let me guess you did great at first and then you struggled. Don’t feel like it’s just you, for many trying to make too many changes at once, can be overwhelming.

You may need time to get comfortable with the changes that you may be making to your nutrition or yoru workouts so that they move come routine, second nature.

When you bombard yourself with a bunch of changes, if you are anything like me, you will rebel like a wild teenager, and you will be left yet again wondering, WTF is wrong with you and why can’t you sustain your healthy lifestyle?.

Here is where I challenge you to make mirco habits. They are small changes small actions that you do on a regular basis until they become a habit.

Are you ready to embrace a new you? What’s one microhabit you are looking ot create?

Trust Your Instincts

You may be forced into situations or decisions that go against what you believe in. If you find yourself in such a situation, it’s best to go with your gut or trust your instincts. If the change doesn’t feel right and you have no power to counter it, try to remove yourself from the situation if you feel strongly about it.

Change Can Lead to Unforeseen Opportunities

This goes in line a bit with the lemonade from lemons, but when you start to focus on change being something that is good, opportunities will be more open to you. What you think about your bring about. When you are clear on what you want, good things and situations have a way of finding you. The beautiful about opening yoru mind is that, had you not made the change, these opportunities may not have presented themselves had the changes not occurred.

At the end of the day there will always be changes in life and at the pace of today’s world, changes will happen at a much faster pace than we would like. Here is where you start thinking change or remain the same. If you feel that change is happening at a slower pace than you want, here where I challenge you to say – what is meant for you will not pass you by. It may not come in the form you’d imagine but it will come.

Are You Ready To Let Go Of The Busy During The Holidays

November 4, 2019 By kimkb49 Leave a Comment

I know seriously, yup, I’m talking about them. As I write this I’m watching a Hallmark Christmas movie. 😍 I’ll be in a Christmas movie coma through New Year’s how about you?

“I don’t have time.” A lot of you will post on Facebook or my clients will tell me, “I just don’t have time to commit to this, I don’t have time to commit to that.” I’m going to call bullshit on that.

What I need you to understand is we all fall into different seasons of our lives, and right now we might be in the busy part of our season, and so what that means is you have to adjust your priorities, you have to adjust the expectations that you put on yourself when you are in your busy season. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be the holidays, we all have those kinds of periods in our lives, there are women in my Facebook group and my clients who are accountants where March
and April are a shit show for them.

I need for you to start thinking about is, “How can I readjust my priorities when I get busy” versus “I’m just going to put fitness on the shelf.” Because that’s not how fitness works. Many of you want results, so many of you want the physique of your dreams, and in order to get the physique of your dreams it has to be continuous process. It’s not like, “Hey, I can work out. No, I can’t. Hey, I can work out. No, I can’t.”

That’s where you get on the road to on again, off again, and that road sucks ass. So, what I need you to say is, “When I’m in a busy period of time and I know that I can’t commit to a 90-minute gym session, and I know I can’t commit to six days a week at the gym, I need to back it down and say ‘what can I commit to?’

When this happens to my clients, I ask them to reach out and tell me, ‘My life is a shit storm, how can I best manage my time during this shit storm?'” And that’s when I as a coach will say, “Hey girlie, how much time do you have to commit?

How many days a week do you have to commit?” And then we’ll work together to come up with a plan. Because I see so many of you just punching out and being like, “I’ll get to it when I get to it.” Just so you know that’s NOT the fast track to success.

We’re not knitting an afghan, we’re not reading that book you meant to read. When you really want to make this a lifestyle, there is no vacation. But there are periods of time when I can really go hard, and there are times when I have to back it up.

So, I challenge you, instead of giving up and putting yourself on the shelf, because that’s just bullshit, I challenge you to say, “What can I do in this season of my life?

Whenever it gets busy what can I do, what can I commit to?”
Can you commit to your food?
Can you commit to three/four days a week at the gym?
Can you commit to 30 minutes of moving your body?
What can you commit to?

Because let me keep saying this to you over and over and over again, here is me smacking you upside the head, perfection sucks balls, you will never, ever, ever be perfect. And if you are aspiring to be perfect,
I think you’re going to be waiting until the pigs fly, anything that should fly flies, lightning might strike you more than it will before you hit perfection, hell, you might win Powerball before you hit perfection.

So, stop with the perfection and focus on what’s possible for you.

I want you to ask yourself where do you struggle — leave a comment below

1️⃣ is it time management?
2️⃣ Not sure where to start
3️⃣ All the things.

5 Tips To Eat Clean During The Holiday Season

November 4, 2019 By kimkb49 Leave a Comment

Yes it can be a bit of a struggle to manage your weight during the holiday season, but I’m here to tell you it’s possible. Yes, in spite of all of the high-calorie food, parties, alcohol, and stress.

Here are five tips that you can follow to eat clean during the holidays.

Limit The Alcohol
Booze despite what they will say about the benefits of red wine is just empty calories. Sure I could I stand here in a Ivory tower and tell you not to drive but that’s not realistic. We live in the real world, so what I want you to focus on making a plan of how many drinks you will have BEFORE you head to the party.
If you are someone who needs to have a drink in your hand, focus on drinking sparkling water, seltzer or water to space your drinking and to hydrate.

Eat Before You Go
It’s the holidays we get BUSY! It’s easy to forget to eat OR say hey I’m going to be eating a lot at the party so I should eat light or skip meals in a way to save calories. Sorry my loves. This simply isn’t true.
It’s always best to eat a small salad or some raw vegetables before going to a holiday party. If you are hosting a holiday party, make sure that you eat throughout the day.

Eating throughout the day will help you maintain a normal blood sugar level and make you less hungry and less likely to overeat when the big meal comes. Nothing is worse than being famished and having a buffet of unhealthy food in front you, it almost guarantees that you will release the hounds and wake up the next day with regret and a food baby.

DIY
Make your own meals for holiday parties. If you are going to your in-law’s house and know that they usually have high-calorie foods, offer to bring a dish. Most hosts don’t mind having one less item to prepare.
When you bring your own dish, you know what is going to be in it, down to the pinch of salt. You can skip the heavy cream and butter and go for a vegetable rich, tasty dish. You can also make holiday favorites but know you replace some of the ingredients to make them more figure friendly.

If you can’t bring a contribution to the meal, then search out platters that allow you to select simple ingredients. Vegetable platters, fruit platters, and sandwich platters let you see what is going on your plate. A plate full of vegetables and fruit with some lean meat is about as clean a holiday dish that you can get.

You can always make a salad, which is a simple item to prepare and the roughage will prevent you from overeating.

Whole Grain Hero
When you’re ready to make your plate search out anything that has whole grains in them. Whole-grain is full of fiber and is better for you than processed grains. Make traditional sides with whole grains instead of processed grains. A stuffing made with stone ground cornmeal, whole-wheat and vegetables is going to be healthier than the one you get out of a box.

If you prefer rice instead of stuffing with your holiday meal, make sure you select a whole-grain rice. White rice has had the husk removed. The husk is where all of the B vitamins and fiber are on the rice. Removing these shells makes for a more tender rice but a less nutritional food.

Smaller Plate
Do you know what a portion of meat looks like?
Most of us don’t.
Instead of focusing on the exact portion size, you focus on the size of your plate. Our brains judge how full we are based on the amount of food that we have consumed off our plates. Selecting a smaller size plate like a salad plate or dessert plate for dinner items will help you save calories while still leaving you satisfied.

Another way to trick your brain is to use a brightly colored plate. The brightly colored plates allow you to see how much you have eaten. While this may not seem like a big calorie saver, it will make you fuller faster when you can see how much food you’ve eaten.

Now you have five simple survival techniques to eat clean during the holidays.

Which ones have worked for you in the past?

10 Ways To Be More Proactive In Your Life

September 30, 2019 By kimkb49 Leave a Comment

Does your to-do list seem to be growing out of control? Perhaps your tasks have gone from manageable to off the charts overwhelming. Each day you have obligations that shape your actions. Despite your best efforts, it’s really easy for laziness to slowly creep into your routine that may keep you from being as productive as you’d like.

Give yourself a break, this this happens to everyone. In fact, a recent study that focused on trends of motivation in the workplace, found that companies lose $300 billion dollars annually due to a lack of productivity.

How can you beat this behavior?

Set a Goal
Goal setting is the beginning step towards organizing your direction. Set a clear and meaningful goal that you keep in your thoughts. By having a target to focus on, this makes your journey clear. If your end–goal is rather large, set tiny milestones in-between to keep your momentum going. Celebrate when you meet your mini goals to maintaining your motivation!
Plan and Prioritize Tasks
In order to take action, you have to make a plan. Imagine heading out on vacation without a plan! If heading to the beach you’d plan to bring sunscreen, bugspray, a bathing suit and a hat. You’d plan ahead so you aren’t scrambling or buying all these things when you get there. The same can be said about your fitness and nutrition. Do you make a plan?
Have a plan b
This builds off of the last tip. Life is busy and hectic and doesn’t always go as planned. The key is to decide what you are going to be proactive and know what you are going to do when you hit a problem. A few questions to consider when faced with obstacles are:
❓What Can I do to Make this Run Smoothly?
❓What Can I Personally Control Immediately?
❓What Resources Do I Currently Have to Help Me to Solve This Problem
Prepare for any possible roadblock that may prevent you from hitting your goals. Some productive individuals have a plan B, C, D, and E! Think about what could go wrong and have a useful backup plan to rely on.
Create a Schedule; Personal Accountability
Learn how to properly delegate your time through creating a set schedule for you to follow. This will help build discipline and accountability. Analyze when you feel the most productive.

Is it during the early morning, or late afternoon? Decide when you have the mental clarity to complete your tasks and create your schedule around those time. In addition, hold yourself responsible for your personal success.

Eliminate blaming outside sources as making excuses for your lack of action. Instead, take personal responsibility for your actions and set up realistic consequences. Remember, you are your biggest motivator!
Analyze All Possible Outcomes
Strategic chess players analyze their future moves by thinking two to three steps ahead. This means envisioning every possible move and how you can counter it. Can you do the same thing with your health and fitness goals?
Take Initiative; Pay attention to Detail
The act of being proactive is defined as, “Getting shit done.” This requires taking initiative when you see activities that need to be accomplished. Paying attention to detail involves ensuring that everything surrounding your task is running smoothly. Pay attention to what is going on around will ensure that you stay the course.
Embrace Change When Necessary
The definition of insanity is performing the same action while hoping for a different outcome. To see a change, you need to make a change. To get the results you are seeking the change may be easy or may be a little more difficult that you will feel resistance. Be open minded to trying new things as they may reveal solutions to the path of your goal.
Redirect Your Focus; Emotional Regulation
Regulating your emotions is key to avoiding unnecessary stress. When facing a problem, do you feel an overwhelming sense of anxiety? Do you start to fixate on all that could go wrong? Focusing on all that can go wrong is counterproductive and de motivating. Allowing yourself to become overly emotional can detract you from achieving your goal. Learn how to focus on what you can control and look for solutions.
Watch Your Circle of Influence
In order to be proactive, you have to surround yourself with like minded individuals. They say you are the sum of the five people surround yourself with. Who are you five?
Avoid Burn-Out Through Self-Care
I know self-care seems like a waste of time, but you can’t pour from an empty cup. Self-care helps you to keep your sanity when engaging in productive activities. It is so easy to become consumed in your work or family that your personal needs are pushed aside. Take some time to decompress and rejuvenate yourself so you can continue on your road to success!

Being proactive doesn’t involve complicated life changes that inhibit your fun. Rather, they are small improvement points that will assist you towards reaching your goals!

Are you ready to make a change? Join me in the 5 Days To Effortless Weight Loss

The Easiest Way to Create Lasting Habits

August 28, 2019 By kimkb49 Leave a Comment

Habits. I hear so many people talk to me about habits, and they always say, “If I had better habits…”, or “If I could create a habit…”, and it’s always about what could they create or something they can break. And so that’s just the whole gist of this episode. How do you break free of habits and how do you create habits, because maybe you have a habit but if I were to able to piggyback on that habit you might be able to build stronger habits in another area that you want to already do.

How many hits?!

I want to just kick it off with a fun fact, if you will. Did you know that if you googled “How do I lose weight?” that you’ll see it’s been googled over 110 thousand times every single month for the last six months? Now, I knew that that was going to be a big number, but I was like over a hundred thousand times people are googling “How do I lose weight?” And that’s just the base level, and then… you’ve probably have never done this, look through SEO words, but if you ever were to look through SEO words it starts with that base level of how to lose weight and then it can boil it down to “How do I lose weight keto?” “How do I lose weight paleo?” “How do I lose weight belly?” And it just kind of boils it down to every iteration of “How do I lose weight” and fill in your own blank.

That isn’t the most interesting part. The next one is that once I pull up the, “How do I lose weight?” just the pages that shows up at the top of the page are pretty freaking ridiculous. Some are just advertisements camouflaged as helpful articles, and it’s really just trying to sell you Product X or Product Y and wrapping it around an advertisement or an article if you will. What this tells me is that so many people are still looking for that magic pill, that magic bullet, and I got to tell you, that magic pill isn’t out there. That magic pill is wrapped up in work. That magic pill is wrapped up in commitment. And if there was a magic pill, don’t you think that late night or early morning TV wouldn’t be riddled with these “lose weight here” infomercials or “hop on this latest and greatest machine” to get the six-pack or the booty of your dreams?

Make a decision and make it work

Now, you know I’m a no-nonsense kind of girl, so I’m going to give you the straight stuff. There’s not going to be any fluffing around here. I’m going to give you seven simple yet effective tips that can help you integrate and break out some of these great habits to get you inspired to lose weight and keep it off for good, because how many of you have been like, “Me and my weight is like that high school/college boyfriend where you break up and you make up and you break up and you make up.” Well, how about you finally break free of that cycle and you no longer are going back to that old boyfriend, that old weight?

The first thing I want to get across, and this is for anything, weight loss, life, that old boyfriend, refuse to give up on yourself, refuse. Because I get it, sometimes I get so sick of myself, I get so sick of myself repeating my patterns that I’m like, “Oh sweet Jesus, I can’t anymore.” I want you to just tell yourself that, “I’m making a decision and making it work.”

Earlier this month I went to a conference and the biggest takeaway that I got from that event was make a decision and make it work. Now, every decision isn’t going to be cataclysmic, there’s not going to be this lightning bolt that’s going to come down from the sky and be like, “This is the decision that’s going to change your life.” No. It works like this, I kept blowing off my night time workouts because I was too tired to get them. Years ago, I decided that I want to work out in the morning, now I’m not a morning person and I wasn’t a morning person. If you knew me in college, my college roommates are still flabbergasted that I workout in the morning. But I knew that if I was going to be consistent with my workouts, I had to do it before my day got away from me. So, I want you make a decision and stick with it, and that’s a decision I made, and for the last 15 years that’s what I’ve done, I’m up and out most days by 6:00 a.m., and that’s the only way I’m going to get my workouts done. So, I want you to just figure out what it is, that decision.

Why are you doing this?

Then the second piece is you need to decide why. Recently I was speaking with a new client and she really wants to get back to the gym. She’s like, “I used to be so good at the gym. I used to be so awesome at the gym.” And she goes, “Then life.”

And how many of you had that? “I used to be so good eating healthy. I used to be so good going to the gym. I used to be so good getting to bed on time, then life.” Family, work, whatever obligation happened and just kind of took you off of the track. Your life took you off the track, I get that. But you how do you get back to why do you want this goal so badly?

Going back to my client, she told me that, “I’ve been on this medication for so long, I don’t really like taking pills, and I know that when I get under a certain weight my doctor said, “I won’t need to take this anymore.” I said, “Okay, you hate taking pills, you want to get back to the gym; what if every time you took those pills you said to yourself, “I wouldn’t be taking these pills if I went to the gym”? And she was like, “What?” It was such a coconut to the head that she was like, “I never thought about it like that. I never took what I disliked and what I liked and marry them together.” And I said, “That’s your why.”

For me, I lay in bed, I don’t spring out of bed most days. The alarm went off today at quarter to [5:00], do you think I was like, “Yes! I get to go to the gym”? Oh, no. I was like, “Great gunga munga.” I said stronger language, but doing my best to keep this PG.

I was like, “All right, I’m going to give myself five extra minutes and then I’m going to get out of bed.” I said to myself, “I want to feel comfortable in my clothes. I want to go on that beach vacation and not be like, “Ugh, if I only had five less pounds on me.” I don’t want that feeling, I don’t want those thoughts to come through my mind, and I know if I lay in bed I’m not marching towards my goal.

Don’t give up on yourself

So, here is where you refuse to give up on yourself, and I need you to determine what’s your why, why do you want this lifestyle? Because that is what is going to keep you going, that’s going to help you be your own cheerleader. I know people are like, “Oh, if I was only motivated.” Sometimes at [5:30] in the morning you got to be your own motivation, and as a coach I definitely could be there to help support and motivate you, but at [5:30] in the morning I’m not going to come and wake you up out of bed. I think that service is a little out of most of my clients’ price range. Maybe if you were a superstar, maybe if you were Oprah you could be like, “Hey girl, can you move in with me?” But I think most people would be like, “I can’t afford that.” I really want you to think about how you can become your own cheerleader.

Find your flavor

The second thing I want you to do is do what you love. So many people are out there seeking like, “Hey, what do you do Kim? What’s your workout routine? Hey Suzy, what’s your workout routine? Hey Sally, what’s your workout routine?” I want you to say what you like. Do you like riding a bike? Great, get yourself on a bike, go to a spin class, get one of those Pelotons, whatever. Do you like dancing? Go to Zumba, take adult hip-hop classes, whatever it is, find something that you like, start there.

Don’t start with, “So and so is going to CrossFit, so and so is going to boot camp, I got to do that too.” No. You got to do you. You got to do what you like, because if you do something that you like, you stick with it.

My husband, I love him to pieces but he’s very competitive, he is competitive AF. And so, when I try to get him to do things it has to be in a competitive nature. One of the things I do is we take a spin class, in the spin class, it’s called Flywheel, in this spin class up on the board you can compete against everybody else in class; he lives for that, it is his thing. He has a certain number that he tries to hit every time we go to class; he has a certain rank that he wants to beat in the class. For five years he has continued to go the class, he looks forward to it, he makes sure that we have a reservation every single week because that is what he likes. He also likes Orange Theory, same thing, on the board where he is compared to everyone else. He could have his own personal benchmark but then he also sees, “Am I beating everyone else in class?”

I want you to know what motivates you, what is that like oomph. Do you like to dance? Then great. Do you need to be social? Then great. Find a great group fitness class, find a yoga class, whatever it is. And it doesn’t have to be expensive, you could do something at home. Everyone from Target to T.J. Maxx sell some form of workout equipment that you could do at home, there are zillions of YouTube videos that you can just do, Pinterest is riddled with workouts, so just find something that you like. It doesn’t have to be hours long, no, you could get a good killer workout 12 minutes.

I don’t know if you ever saw that movie, Something About Mary, and if you haven’t, it’s really funny if you like kind of raunchy comedy. It’s never going to be an Oscar, let’s just say that. In the movie the guy was talking about an invention and he said, “Do you know that video, 8-minute abs? I came up with 7-minute abs.” I want you think about there’s always a certain number of workouts that can work for you. I just encourage all my clients to just move, move at least three to four days a week and move at least 30 minutes, and like I said, I said move, I didn’t say kick your own butt, I said move. So, think about what you love and what could you probably do for at least three to four days a week.

Be real with yourself

The other thing is be real. Be real with yourself. No one is your toughest critic more than you. I know my inner voice probably should be doing time as a former gang member. She can get all up in my face, get all up in my head and make me feel like everything I do is crap. If you have that same girl up in your head, I get you. You already know what it takes to get healthy, you know it. Everyone that’s listening here you know there’s one or two things. You’re like, “If I could only stop having that sweet treat at 4:00 pm. If I could only get to bed on time. If I could only get to the gym. We all have that, “If I only _____” we all have it. I get it. What I want you to do is go into those old habits and accept that this is going to be a gradual process. It’s not going to be like,” I flipped the light switch, the light is off, now it’s on and everything is great. I’m going to just roll up and be this healthy, fit person. I’m going to roll up and be awesome at whatever it is I decide that I’m going to start working out at.” No.

I go to yoga, probably once every three to four months. I am the worst person in yoga;

1) I can only be there for an hour

2) I’m looking at the clock like I’m in prison on the last day before parole
3) I feel like she’s always around me fixing me,

Yes, these are all factors but this not why I don’t go.

I don’t go regularly because it’s not my jam! I go because every once while I feel like I need to take a nice deep breath. I go because I get a Groupon. That’s what I want you to know,
I go there, and I don’t go expecting to be the one throwing up a handstand and being like, Oh, look at this amazing downward dog”, because that’s not me. I go and I do me. And I really want to get across, in anything you do, go and do you.

Don’t go in and expect to be this big, bold badass because it’s not going to happen. Maybe. But what if you just went in and just lowered your expectation and said, “I just want to get through the class, I just want to get through the class and not fall off something”? That’s all I go through, I’m like, “I want to get through the class and not fall off that block or tip over in eagle pose. I want to get through the class and not be the sweatiest person in there. I usually don’t let it live up to that one, but I always hope that there is someone who is more of a sweat ball than I am when I go to class.

Start where you are

I really want you to start where you are, just start where you are. My favorite, favorite, favorite quote is by Arthur Ashe and Arthur Ashe says start where you are, use what you have and do what you can, just start. It’s not going to be pretty, beginnings suck, own it.

I want to think about Wayne Gretzky. If you don’t know who he is, he was a great hockey player, and he was interviewed and they asked, “How many hours did you practice?” And he said, “Back in the day I didn’t call it practice. I was just a kid who went outside, and I just did it, and I kept doing it and doing it and doing it until I got really good.”

That’s what I want you to think about, I want you to think about whatever you choose, “I’m just going to go out there, I’m going to keep doing it and doing it and doing it until I get good.” And it’s not going to be on the first try, it might be not be on the tenth try. It might be on the hundredth try.

They say an expert takes 10,000 hours, so on the 10,001-hour, expert. Give up the need to be perfect, give up the need to be good. I see it all the time.

I teach group fitness classes, and I see it all the time. 90% of my classes are repeats, and if you’re new I know who you are, and I see them and I always say in my pre workout talk, “Hey, if you’re new there’s a lot of veterans in the room, you do you. Don’t worry about anyone else, we don’t care unless you pass out on the floor and I need to give you CPR. Other than that, no one is paying attention to you.” But I see it all the time, they try to keep up and I’m like, “I want you to come back, but I don’t want you to try to keep up, I want you just to do you.” I can’t say that enough, do you.

Change the focus of your eating

I want you to focus on not eating less but eating right. I’m an 80/20 kind of person, 80% of your food is going to be great, clean lean proteins, vegetables, great healthy fats; 20% of your food is going to be fun. There’s going to be some Swedish fish, there’s going to be some Kim Crawford, there’s going to be some whatever that you love, have it and don’t have this guilt about having it. Make a plan, “This is what I’m going to have. I’m going to a party tomorrow night, I’m going to have a glass of wine, yeah that’s going to happen, I’m going to have a class of wine. And guess what? I’m going to wake up tomorrow, I’m going to wake up the next day and I had it, moving on.” I really want you to focus in on that it’s not about every meal has to be perfect, because it’s not.

I believe in the 80/20, but I also believe in good, better, best. Depending on where you are, what is the best choice, what is a good choice, and what’s an okay choice? And sometimes we got to be okay with the okay choice given the situation that we’re in. And here’s the thing, I know that not every day everywhere you go is going to be okay, I know sometimes you’re going to be like, “Yeah, I can get the best choice.” But I also know that if I go to McDonald’s I can get a salad. Is it going to be the best produce in the world? Probably not. Is it going to be the organically grown chicken and all that? No. But it’s going to be better than getting a fried burger with their amazing French fries that you have to dip into the sweet and sour sauce, just saying. But I know that, so it’s really figuring out the good, better and best for you and knowing that you’re going to try to do your best, that’s all I ask people to do, try to do your best.

In any situation, where are you in the moment, and what is the best for that situation, not the perfect because let’s just say perfect is going to leave you on the side of the road hitchhiking, waiting with willpower right next to you, that’s what perfection is going to do for you.

Focus on the goal

I also want you to stay focused, know what your goal is, be like, “This is my goal, my goal is I’m going to lose 12 pounds by the end of the year. My goal is I want to be able to do 10 push-ups on my toes.

My goal is I want to decrease the amount of time I can run a mile in, and you’re just so vapor locked in that goal that you’re not looking to, “Oh, well maybe I should try CrossFit or maybe I should think about running a marathon.” You’re like, “Boom, this is my goal, and I’m not going to be moved from that goal.” But, like I said, not every day is going to be amazing.

One day you’re going to be maybe 30 seconds off of the mile that you want, maybe you’re going to be stuck at eight push-ups for a really long time, maybe you’re going to be stuck at one pull-up or maybe hanging there trying to get that one pull-up to eventually you throw it over. But you’re still chipping away at it. I want you to think about the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon wasn’t built overnight, it was years and years and years of the Colorado River just carving away at that rock, and eventually, five miles down we got the Grand Canyon. So, take your time, patience is a virtue. Trust me, I don’t have it either, so I totally get that you’re going to be like, “Oh sweet Jesus, patience, ugh, I can’t”, but you can. I know that you can. It’s just knowing where you want to go and continue to make small changes each and every week and you’re going to get there.

Fit Girl Magic

One of the things I want to wrap this around is people always say to me, “What is the key to success?” I call it the fit girl magic framework.

We all know those magical unicorn people who always seem to be knowing the right workouts, knowing what to eat all the time, they just look amazing, they wear matching outfits to the gym, those people, and you’re like, “That’s not me.” That’s not me either. You can still get some of that fit girl magic, and how you get that is you have consistent habits.

Why do you think I’m talking about it right now, habits? You get consistent habits because once you get those habits down now you get a routine; once you get those routines then you get the consistency; once you get the consistency you get the results. That’s the equation, so when one of those things are out of balance, you’re not getting the results. If I work my way backwards, I want to say, “What am I not consistent with? What’s the routine? What’s the habit?” Stephen Covey says begin with the end in mind. Well, I want results, so it means I got to be consistent. What am I not being consistent with? Then I’m going to say, “What’s the first place I can start?” I always ask people, “Where are you most challenged, food or workout?” Most people say both or some people say food, some people will say working out. Wherever is the hardest for you, I’m not going to start there, so if food is the hardest for you, we’re going to start with your workout; if food is your easiest, we’re going to start with food and then we’ll hit the workout. Do you see where I’m going? I want to get a win, I want to be a winner, so I always want to start with wins.

If you only prep one meal…

One of the things that always tell people is to pack a lunch. I work from home and I still pack a lunch. I still make my lunch every single week. That’s the only meal that I prep. All week long I prep a lunch. It’s one of the main meals that we don’t eat at home. Not only is it money-saving, it’s also calorie-saving because I know what I’m going to eat.

I know that when I was in Corporate one of the meals that was always skipped was because I was in a meeting, and then the cafeteria closed so then I had to go to the vending machine with my dollar and it was 25 cents per snack, so I pretty much could have a buffet, and a buffet of M&Ms, Twizzlers, pretzels, come on, that’s not really healthy at all. So, I really want you to focus on creating a habit of bringing your lunch, and that is something that most people can do; double cook your dinner, get a whole week on meal prep. If that’s something you’re interested in, hit me up and I can give you access to that.

I just want you to think about just follow one of these simple tips and your chances of success is going to skyrocket. And I’d love to hear which one of these sounds like music to your ears.

The Food Moderation Mystery Revealed

August 12, 2019 By kimkb49 Leave a Comment

Finding Your Sweet Spot

Today’s topic is going to be a little let’s say triggering. The topic is all about moderation, and it is finding your sweet spot. And I know for a lot of people that’s the goal, the hope. They want to get to that golden zone; they want to get to that magical place where unicorns are flying around and there’s glitter and so forth. But for some people, they’re like, “Moderation is not for everyone. I’ve tried to get to moderation and somehow I find a way to fuck it up and then I’m back to that binge-restrict cycle, I’m back to my rules, and I got to keep my rules because my rules keep me safe.”

I live here in Boston; I have a really good friend who is a marathon coach. He coaches several teams to run the marathon from “you just decided you want to run a marathon” to “you’ve been running a marathon for as long as you can run a marathon”. I asked him – at the time I worked at the last mile of the marathon – I said, “John, how is it that these elite runners who have just run 25 miles and they’re sprinting, they are running like they’ve just started down the street?” I said, “How do they do it?” And he said, “It takes a bit, but they find their sweet spot, they find that pace that they can just do, it’s just, “I can run at this pace all day long.” And then when they get to roughly six miles out, which kind of makes me gag, six miles out someone is going to look at each other and they’re going to say, “We’re going to sprint this last X number of miles.” The idea of me sprinting, that’s what I do when I see the meter maid at my car, that’s my idea of sprinting.

Rub The Lamp

If we think about our health and our fitness as a marathon, it’s a long journey, it’s not a sprint. And how do you get to that sweet spot? How do you get to that golden zone? How do you become your own magical unicorn? Because I believe that everyone has a little magic in them, and it just takes a little bit of time to find it. I’m going to call this a fable, but correct me if I’m wrong, Aladdin, in that story a guy finds this old tarnished lamp, it looks like crap, people are picking over it and he’s like, “I think this is beautiful.” He rubs it, a genie comes out and all is changed in his world. That’s where I want you to think about. I want you to think about you’re that lamp. You’ve overlooked yourself for all these years. You’ve put yourself on the back burner. Now, here’s where we are going to start to rub that lamp, make it get pretty, make it get beautiful.

Put those eye-rolls on the shelf and let me tell you my story.

I struggled with this whole moderation thing. I was like, “Girl, that is just not for me, that’s for other people. But thank you for sharing that’s possible.” And I know that a few of you are like that. I felt that if I wasn’t following a plan or following a program to the T, I couldn’t live. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t trust myself not to look at, “What should I do today? What’s on the good food list? What’s on the bad food list?” I couldn’t trust myself, and the plan made me trust myself, the plan kept me safe. The plan kept me from running around like a sailor on shore leave.

The Yin And Yang of Moderation

I want you to think that it’s about finding that yin and that yang. If you think about the old school scales where you put something on one side and the other side goes up, and then you have to kind of fool around with how many marbles you take off and put back on so that it comes into balance. I know some of you will be like, “There’s no such thing as balance.”

I do believe there is balance, but balance looks different for every single person. There are some days that you are going to be running around like a chicken with your head cut off and there are going to be other days you’re going to be Netflix and chilling. You know that rhythm, and that’s what moderation is, it’s finding your rhythm, it’s finding your balance so that you’re not brought down to your knees because of a holiday and you lose your stuff and you can’t find a way to get back on track. Balance and moderation is not having these hard-fast rules that you can’t live up to day in and day out, and when you do open the lid it’s like champagne flowing out. I want you to think about that, how do you get a little bit of that self-trust back in?

One of the ways I started to find my moderation and kind of keep my A++ personality in check is I start with a weekly plan and it’s me sitting down every single Sunday and saying, “What does my week look like?” And us ladies of a certain age, most times stuff doesn’t just pop up, we know what we’re doing. There might be a vague something, but it’s penciled in, you kind of know what’s going to happen. It’s rare that someone is going to call you on a Tuesday and be like, “Let’s go out for drinks at [5:00]”, because for most us, once you get home and your bra comes off you’re not going back out, let’s just be honest about that. I want you to think about creating that weekly plan, and you’re sitting down and you’re looking at your calendar and you’re saying, “This is when I’m going to work out” realistically. I’m not asking anyone to work out seven days a week, that’s not what I’m asking. I’m saying my commitment to myself is I am going to work out at least three times, and I know I can do that. Usually I work out four/five times, but I know I can minimally hit three and definitely hit four, and five is my stretch goal. I want you to think about that. When I put down my week, it’s my good, better, my best, and so I want you to put down something that you know you can nail, because as you’re starting to get in the moderation groove you want to have these small wins, and small wins keep you wanting to do stuff, don’t they?

Reverse engineering your success

Or if you have a schedule that isn’t as stable as mine you can definitely start with a 24-hour plan. You sit down and you say, “It’s Tuesday, what does tomorrow look like? Can I fit in a work out? What does my food look like?” And just map it out. Maybe it starts with, “This is when I’m going to bed” and then you map it backwards. Or you put in the commitments that you have that day and then you fit your food and your work out around those particular commitments. And as I’ve said, I’ve come up with these non-negotiables, and that way I honor myself. Because if you think about it, we as women honor everybody else before ourselves. We’ll run kids to XYZ activity, birthday party, try out, whatever, we will contort ourselves to get them there on time. We’ll contort ourselves for our spouses, we’ll contort ourselves for our family, but when it comes to us, “I’m being selfish” or “Tomorrow” or “Next week”, and we always find a way to put ourselves in the backseat. So, this helps me to put myself in the driver’s seat, and I’m come up with three non-negotiables, and it helps me to say it’s okay for me to have Kim-time, and so this is me giving you permission you have you-time.

The Law of 3

It’s three simple things that I know I can commit to week in and week out.

I work out at least three times a week. When I say work out that’s not me going to the gym and banging out for multiple hours, that’s me having 30 minutes. It could be anything, it could be going for a walk, it could be doing something in my home gym, it could be actually taking a class. But it’s three times for at least 30 minutes I have to move my body in a week.
I have a big ass salad with some protein item, and that way I can get a ton of veggies in. I know that I’m getting my veggies, I’m getting my fiber, and I like salads, and I know that I can go anywhere on the planet and get a salad.
My sleep because I know that when I don’t sleep, I am hungry and a bit of a bitch. That’s a simple way to test – I want you to track your sleep for a week, and when you track your sleep and you get less than seven hours of sleep I want to know at what point do you start getting those sugar, caffeine cravings to give you that extra bump to get you through the day. Because I know when I get less than six hours of sleep, me and my coffee makers are BFFs. I’m like, “Bring on the coffee.” And at [4:00] I’m like, “Hmm, what sugary treat could I have?” And let me tell you, it’s not me reaching for the cotton candy grapes. That’s why I know I prioritize my sleep. So, I want you to think about does that same scenario play through for you?

This was me changing three habits, just three. And I know everyone wants to change… “But I have “this many” habits that I need to change, and I need to change them right now.” Here is where you change that thinking, I want you to think about your bare minimum, it starts a good habit. Once you have good habits then you can build a routine. Once you have a great routine, you can build consistency, and it’s the consistency that gives you results. A lot of times I talk to my clients, they’re like, “Ugh, I ‘m not getting any results.” And they’re complaining and ask the question because WHY. It’s because “You don’t have consistency.” And they’re like, “But…” and they give me the litany of excuses, and I was like, “Let’s go back to habits, give me three habits that you would love to either create or break.”

Because it’s the habit that drives the routine, and it’s our routines that we work on autopilot. Think about it. Think about your routine of washing your face and brushing your teeth. What do you do first? Do you brush your teeth first, or do you wash your face? That’s a habit, that’s a routine, you just do it over and over again. When you have coffee in the morning, do you put in the cream before the sugar, or do you put the sugar in before the cream? It’s what you do. So, I want you to really think about where can we create some great habits that can turn into some amazing routines that can turn into that consistency that can turn into results?

Patience breeds success

Results and consistency take time. It’s slow, I know. It’s slow. But I want you to think about the Grand Canyon. That giant ravine, I don’t know how many miles long it is, Google that, but that didn’t happen overnight. That was years and years of the river carving through rocks. That is how change happens; it happens over time. I know we all want change to be some type of action movie where I walk through a door and boom, bang, everything happens. No, my queens, not at all. It is a slow thing. And so, when I break things down into small bite-size chunks, you know how I am, I really like to check things off the box. So, the more I can give myself these mini goals, the more checkboxes I can have and the happier I am because it looks like I’m on my way somewhere. But when I’m always looking that I have to lose a thousand pounds, I have to lose 40 dress sizes, that’s a long freaking way.

Pace yourself

I started this show about marathons, and one of the things the marathon coach told me is that they take it a mile at a time. They’re like, “How do I do that mile? How do I do that mile?” And they’re checking their watches to see, “What was my pace?” They’re checking in, “What’s my hydration?” They’re always checking in. And that’s what I want you to do, as you start going through your goal, what are the milestones? Because that’s how you get to moderation, is that you’re checking in with yourself, seeing how things are going, and if things are going well, you’re like, “Yes, things are going good. I can continue down this path” and start to feel the groove, start to feel like this is what it feels like and feel amazing. Because so many of us, we’ve been dieting for so long we don’t know what it’s like just to be. And when you let the reigns off… I know that many of you feel like, “Aw snap. If I let the reigns off there’s no getting this horse back in that barn, because once I get a taste of something, I am free, I’m free.” But what if that wasn’t the case, what if that was just a story you told yourself? What if someone did leave the barn door open and you just went out and you just graze and you felt okay, and when you were tired of grazing you went back in the barn and you went to sleep? That’s possible.

Why do we have to have in our mind the worst possible case? “If I do not have it planned, if I don’t have any rules, I should just pull up to the old country buffet with some maternity pants on and just let it go down.” But what if instead you’re like, “You know what, I’m just going to eat till I’m full”, even if that means leaving some things on your plate. And I know that when I was a kid we didn’t need to clean our plates. I’m grateful to my mother for this. When she was a kid, she was raised you had to clean your plate. She would say she wasn’t hungry. She was raised in that family that took your plate and put it in the refrigerator and you ate it until you finished, and that was before the microwave, so it was cold. She decided that is not how I will raise my kids. So, I’ve never been someone who has been a member of the clean plate club. As soon as I’m done, I stop eating, as soon as I was full, I stop eating. I didn’t want to push food into my mouth. Some people say to me, “I don’t know when I’m full. If it’s in front of me I’m eating it till it’s done.” Here is where you need to start taking breaks when you are eating so that you can check in with yourself and ask are you hungry are you full?

Split Your Meal With Yourself

What I encourage my clients to do is eat half their meal, whatever you’re eating, eat half of it. And take a pause for two three minutes and just tune in and check in because the travel time up your nervous system between your tummy and your head, there is a little delay. Have you ever been on a Skype call or a Facebook call and you’re talking and then they just freeze and then you wait and then they catch up? That’s how your brain is to your stomach. So, just take two/three minutes, check in, ask your question, “Am I full?” “Am I not full?” And it’s not wasteful – if you’re at a restaurant, doggy bag; if you’re at home, have it later, split up your meal in two. Maybe you had a bigger portion than you were hungry for that particular day. I hope that you’re picking up what I’m putting down here, because one of the ways I was able to break free of this whole perfectionism or the fact that my meal plan called to eat X number of carbs and X number of fats. I just had to break away and I had to start asking myself better questions. And one of the questions I asked myself was, “Was my quest for perfection costing me? What was it costing me, this ‘I had to follow the plan to the T’? What was it costing me?” And then was it pushing me further from my goal, because when I got frustrated, I would sabotage? And was I using diet and exercise to control my life because I had things in my life that weren’t controllable?

Again, I told you I was type A++, and at the time, at the height of my diet mania I had a really hectic job and I had things that I couldn’t control. I had a hectic and chaotic boss, and so I couldn’t control that, but I could control food. And I see it play out sometimes with my clients. One of my clients, she is a new mom, she runs a business, trying to be a good wife, trying to be a good mom, rock her business, and she is literally picking her body apart because that’s the only thing she feels like she has control over. She hasn’t found her rhythm yet in this whole mommy hood. And one of the things I told her is that, “You have to take this giant step back and figure out what is your new life with your little nugget. How does your nugget play into everything else that you’re trying to do? Because you might need to stop doing some things just because you have to take care of your kid. You might have to delegate some things because you have a kid now, and so maybe that free time that you had is now you’re being a mommy and then being okay and comfortable with that’s what has to happen.” So, that part of moderation comes with you doing an internal look to see are you trying to take on too much to prove to yourself “I can do it. I am woman, hear me roar”? Because if you’re burning yourself out, who’s going to hear you roar? Or they’re going to hear you scream when you pass out on the floor.

Do You Have Realistic Restrictions

I want you to really focus in on, “With the restrictions that I’m setting up for myself, is that creating a life that I can live in the long-term?” And if you can’t live that life long-term or you always find yourself cheating on said “plan” This client she’s always like, “This is what I’m doing this week.” I’m like, “Great, let’s do it.” And then the following week I’m like, “Hey, how did we do?” And she’s like, “Well, it was a really rough week, so the wine and the chocolate came out.” And that right there, I tell her, “The wine and the chocolate is your response to stress. And so, every time that wine and chocolate comes out, you have to look at what’s causing the wine and chocolate to come out.” If that sounds like you, it’s time for you to really evaluate what you’re doing in your life that needs to change, because if you want to see a change in your body and you keep reaching for wine and chocolate, moderation is going to be like pfft, it’s pretty much like traveling to Mars for you. And I don’t want that, I want moderation to be maybe for some of you driving across the country, some of you, traveling across town. Maybe some of you are already there or you are on the town line and you just need to make a few tweaks and you can stay in that magical golden zone. In order for me to get through to moderation I had to break up those rules. I had to break up those rules and start really listening to my body. I had to stop saying, “I needed to have X number of meals a day” and really just trust and eat how I felt. Now, I know that that takes time, and again, remember I said this is a marathon, not a sprint.

When it comes to food, one of my biggest breakthroughs when it comes to the moderation for food is that I had to balance satisfying versus satiating. Satisfying is up here – my brain sees something on my plate and it’s like, “Yeah, get in my belly.” And when I eat it, if I’m full, I feel fullness, that’s satiation. That’s all the blood vessels in the center of my stomach saying, “Alright girl, we’re full.” But I also have to have it up here, because if my brain looks at something on the plate and is like, “I’m not feeling this”, I’m going to be a bottomless pit. And so, I want you to think about how many foods are you eating that gives you that visual, that brain candy if you will? And how many foods are you eating because it’s on the good food list? And so that’s where I want you to really kind of tune into your body that says eating chicken, broccoli and brown rice, is it satisfying in your brain, or is it satisfying in your gut? What’s happening? Pay attention to that, because that’s when you really start to honor yourself and you start to eat differently and eat better foods that will keep you fuller longer. And the goal is to stay fuller longer so that I’m not constantly in seek mode, because usually when I get into that seek mode, I’m seeking foods that I really know that aren’t good for me. I’m going for the quick fixes of the junk food so that it’s, “How quickly can I get another dopamine hit up here in my brain for something that is satisfying versus satiating?”

Work Your Workouts

And then workouts – “I want to work out for at least 30 minutes.” Yes, 30 minutes! I know that it’s kind of scary to step away from those two-hour workouts, because trust me, I was that girl. I remember going to the gym with my husband and we would always walk in together, we would say, “How much time do you need?” For me, a good workout was 90 minutes.
If I couldn’t get a 90 minute-ish workout, and if he had to leave early, I remember I would be so mad, like how can we not work out for 90 minutes, seriously? And I was just like, “Okay”, and meanwhile on the inside I’m like, “I’m mad. This workout should be 90 minutes or why do it.” If I had less than 60 minutes my mindset was, “I have no time to come back to the gym to finish my workout.” Fast forward to today, like, “Oh, sweet Jesus, how much time did I spend at the gym?” Now I’ve become way more efficient with my workouts that in literally 30 to 45 minutes I can kick my own booty and feel sore. So, I want you to really look at what you’re doing for your workout, and is it more of a mental thing than a physical thing? Because, trust me, there are some crazy kick your booty workouts that can be done in 30 minutes. And so, for those of you guys who one of the reasons why you’re not able to find moderation, you’re not able to find the consistency,

especially when it comes to workout is because you think a workout has to be this marathon session at the gym, holla at your girl, because I can help you out.

On my Instagram I do every Friday a fat burning Friday (#fatburningfridday) and it’s probably no more than five exercises that are done either for time, done for rounds, and its body weight exercises or requires very little to no equipment. And it’s things you can do at home, so if you’re someone who is like, “I don’t have a gym membership or want to have a gym membership”, or maybe you have kids, you want to work out at home, it’s really simple.

I have a good friend, Kerri, she has a two-year-old, and she sits him over in the corner and he’s playing with blocks or coloring and she pulls out a10-15-minute workout. And sometimes it’s a couple minutes during the day or sometimes it’s just 15 minutes, wherever her son’s tolerance is at that particular day. So, I really want you to start thinking about rounding out what does that type of moderation look like to you. But the big take away that I want you to take from this session is one, be flexible. Be flexible but be committed and finding time. Commit to yourself just like you commit to other people.

Discover the Secrets of Meal Prep

August 5, 2019 By kimkb49 Leave a Comment

Here we are, we’re heading into the summer, and summer for a lot of us is busy. Well, life is busy, but mainly I feel the summer gets even busier because kids are out of school, the days are longer, and we’re trying to squeeze, at least I am, trying to squeeze as much outdoor activity as I possibly can in the 5 minutes of summer we get here in Boston. And one of the biggest ways that I’m able to save time is meal prepping.

What’s stopping you?

I asked this question on my Facebook page the litany of reasons why people do it and the reasons why people don’t, there were a lot of commonalities and a lot of different reasons why people don’t do it. For me, when I first started losing weight, I didn’t know anything about meal prepping, and when I started, the trainer I was working with at the time was like, “You should prep at least your lunch.” I was like, “What are you talking about?”

I remember as a kid my mom would cook meals in the beginning of the week and she would freeze them or use a crock-pot because she was a working mom, the last thing she wanted to do is come home and cook dinner after a long day. I always thought it was a time saver, but I wasn’t cooking for a family, most times I’m cooking for myself. And of course, you always throw together sometimes crappy meals, sometimes not the healthiest meals, or find any place that is willing to deliver it to you in 30 minutes or less, that’s what you’re eating.

I know that so many of you agonize over meal prep, and some of the things I heard was, “I can cook it on Saturday, the thought of eating four-day-old chicken – yuck! Or, “I cook it, and by the time I get to whatever day I’m supposed to have it, I just don’t feel like having that anymore.” Honestly, I know that meal prep takes less time than you think. Most of us spend more time planning a vacation than we do what we’re going to eat, and then we spend more time regretting the choices that we made. Anyone ever make a meal and you just regret it? Last night I was like, “Hm.” It was an okay dinner, but I traveled all weekend, I kind of quickly went to the grocery store, and I’m going to say I wouldn’t even give myself a C, it was like a D for dinner. Luckily my husband ate it, he didn’t complain about it so two snaps up and a tic-tac to you honey.

Plan it out

The first thing when it comes to meal prepping is you have to make a menu. So that means you have to go to the grocery store. And trust me, I hate the grocery store. I’m not one of those people, you know you see those couples in the grocery store and I’m like, “How did you wrangle your man to come to the grocery store?” One person is pushing the cart and one is putting stuff into the cart, and I’m like, “Oh my god.” Me and my husband would be having one of those like knock-down drag-out fights because whenever we do go to the grocery store together, he’s like, “Why don’t we buy this? Why don’t we buy that?” He’s a five-year-old, 🙄 At least I can yell at him at the store and people not call DSS on me 😉. So, grocery shopping for me, I have to be organized to go to the grocery store because I’m not those people who go up one aisle and down the other aisle.” I’m like Mario Andretti, I’m like, “How fast can I get in and out of this place?” And ideally, I want to be in and out of that store in 30 minutes, and so I’ve gotten to the point where I know when my store isn’t that crowded, like Sunday afternoon around [3:00], boom, slide in there. Go during Patriots season, go during the first quarter of the game, boom, in and out. I’m all about. “How can I quickly and easily get in and out?” But in order to do that you have to have a list.

Eat first. Then shop.

Always Have Your Must Haves

When I go, I make sure that I eat before I go so, I’m not shopping hungry, and I have my list. I create a list throughout the week. When I do run out of the staple foods that I always have in the house I just put it on the list, so Half and Half, life is not good without Half and Half in my house, so it’s like my base level staples. And we all have those base level staples of things that you just enjoy to always have in your house. For myself it’s always having Half and Half, always having cottage cheese, always having one or two fruits in my house, always having one or two vegetables in my house, always having one or two good fats that aren’t peanut butter in my house, always having some type of brown rice, quinoa, barley, cans of beans, something so that if I’m in one of those times where I went away for the weekend and I didn’t get a chance to go to the grocery store I can quickly and easily throw together a meal but it’s not perishable. That’s the first step, you’ve got to hit the grocery store.

Build your staple stash

And then when I prep, it takes away the stress of, “What am I going to eat?” The stress of that is gone, it takes less of that mental energy. Today I was grocery store, I didn’t go with a list and I didn’t go with an idea, so I spent probably 10 more minutes trying to figure out, “What the heck am I going to eat tonight for dinner?” And then I just stumbled across taco shells on the end cap, and I was like, “Tacos.” I went to grab some ground turkey and grab some shredded cabbage off of the salad bar, and we’re having tacos tonight for dinner. I want you to start thinking about when you have a list versus when you don’t have a list, you get in that, “Wait. Uh, what do I do?” kind of situation. And it makes shopping faster, easier and you spend less money because you go in with a plan versus these hits or miss things. When you go hit or miss, how many times have you bought something that, one, you’ve never used it, or you bought it and it’s a perishable and five days later you’re tossing it in the trash? So, I want you to think about what are your basics and your staples that you always just want to have in the house.

Build around family favorites

And then decide your meals. One of the best things that I do is we all have those staple meals that your family likes. I’m laughing because we’re having tacos and it is Tuesday; Taco Tuesday. You have those staple meals that your family like, so build on what your family likes. If your family likes chili, if your family likes tacos, if you’re family likes Italian, just figure out those meals that your family likes and start to incorporate that regularly into your diet. I remember as a kid Friday was pizza night, so maybe you still stick with that Friday is pizza night. Maybe now that the weather is nicer out, you’re grilling outside more often. Figure out what do you have in your house as I’m planning so that way as I’m writing out my list I’m not duplicating and I’m not running out to store multiple times a week. I go to the grocery store one time a week, and if I didn’t get it in that week, guess what? I’m not getting it. It takes a pretty big thing to get me to go the grocery store more than one time a week. I don’t like the grocery store so much.

Let someone else do it

And for those people who are like, “I don’t like the grocery store” nowadays in most major cities you can either easily get a home delivery from several sources. I know here in the Boston area there are three places, Peapod, Instacart and then actual individual grocery stores will deliver within a certain mile radius of the store. There are several grocery stores, at least here in the Boston area, that you can order online but pick it up there, so at least all you’re doing is throwing the packages into your car. For those people who you have young kids and there are the five-year-old who are like, “How come we can’t have sugar pops, and how come we can’t have ice cream?” you can do that, grocery shopping that way, and that way you’re not worried about unbuckling and strapping in and all of that good stuff. It keeps the kids strapped in the car, throw the groceries in the trunk and off to the races you go. Or don’t even bother with getting them in the car and they all just arrive magically with elves at your front door.

Look to the week ahead.

First of all, you have to go to the grocery store, you have to decide what are the meals that you’re going to have. And then create a calendar. I take a look at my week. Every Saturday I sit down, I take a look at my calendar and I’m like, “Does my husband have a business meeting? Do I have a business meeting? Is there travel?” So, I know how many meals I am actually going to make for that particular week. Then I also will decide, “What am I going to have?”

My main thing I prep is lunch, so I look at it and I say, “What do I want to have for lunch?” And primarily I rotate through either I’m having a big-ass salad, which is all the veggies and I grill some protein, or I’ll be having leftovers. So, I’ll grill breast of chicken and then I know that I’ll have a couple of things left over that I’ll be able to eat and have a salad on the side. I know that a lot of people say to me, “Oh, I don’t know what I want to eat.” Or, “If I cook it on Sunday, I don’t want to eat X number of day-old chicken.” And I get you, I hear you. So, if you like it quasi fresh, I’m a big proponent of you double cooking, so I would cook my dinner and I would have it for my lunch. Or you could cook two dinners in one and that way the next day you’re coming home and all you’re doing is heating up the leftovers so that you’re only cooking a handful of times a week versus cooking every single day.

Variety is the spice of life (and meal prepping)

There are little tricks and hacks that you can do to alleviate your time in the kitchen. I’m not that person who is lining up the Tupperware things and putting all the same meals in it, I don’t do that because I’m with you, I like variety and so for me my variety comes in I double cook. I have dinner and I make it into my lunch for the next day. The other thing I like to do is I’ll make two different proteins, I’ll make two different starches, I’ll make two different vegetables and I’ll just mix and match that way, and that way for me it gives me enough of that variety that I need so that I don’t feel like I’m eating the same thing day after day after day. Now, I know that plenty of you will be like, “What’s wrong with you eating the same thing? I could do it all the time.” I hear you; I get it. That’s you. When I eat the same thing over and over again, I feel like I’m in a prison. I feel like I am a prisoner of war of my own making, and so I need as much variety as I possibly can.

Prepping hacks to reduce time

There are also several themes. Pinterest is my bestie, and a lot of people say, “I don’t know how to cook,” or “I don’t like to cook.” I’m no Martha Stewart. I have no aspirations to go out back and pull a sprig of thyme off of my home-cooked herb garden and go out to my chicken coop and grab freshly hatched eggs. I have no desire to do that. All of that happens for me at the grocery store, it’s magic, magic gets to the grocery store. I know there are farmers, I know all that stuff, but it’s like sausage, do you want to know what’s inside? I don’t. You just go. I enjoy the smell.

If you go on Pinterest type in “easy chicken” and a plethora of recipes will pop up. And for me I’m not one of those people who spend hours in the kitchen. I’m like, “If it has more than five ingredients, it’s not for me, it’s just not for me.” If it takes more than an hour, it’s not for me. I’m like, “How can I be in and out?” As it is now, I struggle, I struggle. I work from home and I struggle to get food on the table by [8:00]. I got no excuses, but I’m all about, “How quickly can I get my food done?” And if you have all the time in the world, rock on with your bad-self sister girl, but I don’t. I don’t want to spend all that time in the kitchen. And when I used to have my old house, I didn’t have air conditioning, so I needed to be in and out of that kitchen as fast as possible because it was hot as (insert your favorite hot vocabulary word). 🥵

Theme cooking

When I was doing my research for the show, I said let me just toss out some themes because I’m not a theme person, I just will punch in the protein that I want to cook for that week. Sometimes I haven’t had fish in a while, so I’ll go on a fish run or I’ll go on a shrimp run. They have Meatless Mondays so you can type in “Meatless Monday” and come up with a number of plant-based meals. What I find is my husband is definitely a carnivore and he’s like, “You go meatless, but where is the protein in this?” He’s that shy about asking about that. He’s like, “It’s good, but I’m still looking for the protein.” So, you can go Meatless Mondays, Taco Tuesday, we’re doing that tonight. You could do Wellness Wednesdays where it’s like if you’re trying to get your family to start to eat healthy maybe you can incorporate some salads on Wednesdays. Also, it’s summertime, so I know I eat a ton of salad. I was in Miami this past weekend and I had three salads that had the most common ingredients, but I never thought to put them together. It was quinoa, corn, tomatoes, and shrimp, and some mixed greens; heavenly. I got to recreate that at home. It was heavenly, and I was like, “Why don’t I have quinoa more often?” It was heavenly. But I digress.

You could do stir fries, you could have a day that you just have sandwiches, you could have stew night. My crock-pot is my best friend. I know everyone is into this Instapot. I haven’t tried it, but same dip, crock-pot, throw all your stuff in in the morning. Nowadays they’re fancy. You can set a timer and then it’ll just put itself on warm until you get home. Instapot, I think it cooks things in like 3.3 seconds; it’s like the microwave of crock pots if you will.

Themes also keep you on task. So, for those people who are like, “Oh, I don’t know if I’m going to like what I decide”, if I haven’t pre cooked it and I just have the ingredients it gives me that flexibility to be like, “I feel like Italian tonight.” And you can make whatever it is for Italian, so you get that flexibility, you get that spontaneity. But again, you also can say, “I’m just going to double the recipe so I’ll either have dinner for the next night or I’ve lunch.” And that way, again, the flexibility, the spontaneity is still in there.

As you are going down this path start to collect recipes that your family and likes. I have a whole drawer full of recipes that have been the two thumbs up. So, when I’m getting organized on Saturday I kind of go through my recipes and I’m like, “This was good.” I do have cookbooks; I have a gazillion cookbooks. But now with Pinterest I just go through my pins of healthy recipes and I have notes of what were hits, what were misses, and go through there and just cook that way.

You could also focus on what is in season. Here in Boston we have several farmers markets, but it’s on Friday, so every Friday I go down to the farmers market and I’m like, “Okay, what’s here?” And I buy some fresh vegetables, and then I go to my Pinterest and say, “What the heck do I do with this now?” But I don’t over-buy, I only buy a couple of things so that way I’m not wasting it because it’s fresh, fresh stuff, so the shelf life ain’t all that long, so I just want to make sure that I’m using it within a couple days.

Don’t Wing It!

My calendar is my saving grace. I want that to be the theme. I know right now you’re like, “It just seems like too much work.” But I’ll tell you, how much energy do you spend asking yourself, “What the heck am I going to eat?” And then how much energy do you spend when you beat yourself up because you went out and you ordered not so healthy takeout. So, if I just sit down for maybe 30 minutes and say, “Okay, what does this week look like? What do I want to eat? How many meals do we need?” Boom! Go through my cabinets, what do we have in the house? What do I need to get? And once you start to get into the rhythm of it, it becomes a habit, and then you have a nice routine of this is how we create our meals for the week. Now it’s a routine. And it’s the habits that create the routines that create the consistency that creates the results.

The number one reason why so many people say to me they fall off the wagon is because they wing it. And trust me, I’m really good at winging a lot of stuff, but I found that I can’t wing health. I need to make a decision that if I want to be healthy, I have to do these things so that I can fit into my pants, that’s my goal, I just want to fit into my pants. So, if that’s one of your goals, you want to fit into your pants, you want to look in the mirror and be like, “How you doing?” You want to be able to go on vacation and not freak out that you have to lose 400 pounds in order to go on vacation, and oh my gosh, you’re pulling and prodding all over your different body parts. This is the way, spending 30 minutes to plan out your week of food is going to go a long way with take taking off the unwanted pounds and keeping you feeling healthy and happy at the end of the day.

Like I said, more people spend more time on where we’re going to go on vacation than what am I going to eat. I don’t know if you’ve seen the TV show, it’s called Camping with Jennifer Garner. It’s her and a bunch of friends on camping, and she was like the quintessential organizer, she had a binder for a binder for a binder. I’m not asking for that level of detail. I’m literally like a pad of paper and just write out what you are going to do, that’s all I’m asking for. And these are just quick hacks, figure out what day of the week you’re going to go to the grocery store, decide what the heck it is that you’re going to eat, plan in there for any potential snacks. I buy everything pre-chopped, sliced, diced – I don’t chop a vegetable at all – and cook double.

Love to hear some of your best meal prep tips.

To Women Who Want to Live Their Best Lives But Don’t Know How

July 10, 2019 By kimkb49 Leave a Comment

I always think to myself, “What do my readers need to hear? What are the things that I’m hearing from you?” And I think at the end of the day we all just want to live a really good life; we all want to live a fabulous life. You know I want to live the Flip Flop life, and hopefully you want to live the Flip Flop Life too. I created a manifesto of what does that really mean. So, if you ever want to get a copy of my Flip flop Life manifesto, do me a favor, hit me up on the socials or you can email me at squadleader at fabfitsquad.com, and just put “Flip flop Life manifesto” in the subject line and send it to me and I will happily send you a copy of the manifesto.

I was thinking about who am I to come up with a manifesto? I came up with a manifesto because I was like, “How do I want to live my life?” And that’s where I want you to think about yourself. If you were starting a business you’d be like, “What kind of business do I want to start?” And then you would say, The business is going to sell magic beans and the beans are going to come in these wonderful containers, and then the wall colors are going to be this color, and then when people come in this door we’re going to greet them in such a way.” You plan a kid’s birthday party, you plan anyone’s party, you figure out all the minute details and you take it from soup to nuts. Yet you don’t do the same thing with your life and you kind of bump along, for lack of a better term. And then you wake up and you’re just like, “Hell, how did X number of years pass by and I told myself when I was a little kid that I was going to be_________”

Were you going to run away and join the circus?
Were you going to be a French clown? I don’t know. Whatever it was that you told yourself you’re going to be your kind of like, “DAMN life has just passed me by.”

I’d Thought I’d Be More Successful By Now

This came up to me because I’m in the process of running this five-day masterclass and it’s all about those people who fall on and off the fitness wagon. And some of the themes have come up from these women, and I wanted to really kind of explore it a little bit more here with you.

It came to me as one of my private clients, told me that she feel as though she would be so much more successful.” My response, “What is success to you? How do you define success? And then how are you measuring it?”

How Do You Define Success?

Because the best thing I ever heard about when it comes to success is that when I aim at nothing, I always hit it. That was like a coconut to the head. And when I asked her this question, she kind of gave me this blank stare. The question I pose back to you is “Are you comparing yourself to somebody else? What do YOU want to be successful at? What do YOU want to be known for? What is that legacy you want to live?” Because before I start looking out the window and saying, “So and so has this, and so and so has that” and try to keep up with the Joneses, I got to know what I want. You know how I feel, and I’m going to get a little woo woo up in here. But if you don’t clearly declare what you want, there’s no way the universe can conspire to bring it to you. If one day you want an orange and one day you want an apple and one day you want a banana, there’s no way the universe is going to be like, “Girl, I’m just going to sit over here in the corner, I’m going to wait for you to get your shit together. And when you get your shit together then I’m going to kind of see if you really want it or you’re going to change your mind and lead your own little wild goose chase.”

So, I want you to really say if you tell yourself, “I have not been successful”, what is success? Define it, just like a word. If I were to say, “iPhone.” “Oh, I know exactly what an iPhone is.” And then you would take it to the next level. “What model iPhone do you have?” That’s the same thing that happens with goals and success. You can’t say, “Successful to me is really getting back to working out.” How many days a week are you working out? What are you doing for those workouts? It’s taking that one idea and then flushing it out. It’s like, “I’m going to build a house.” What kind of house? Ranch? Split ranch? (I know nothing about architecture, but are you picking up what I’m putting down?)

You define what you’re going for, because if you’re not clear on what you’re going for, how do you know you got there? How do you know that you’re not successful?

I’m all about having big audacious goals, I’m totally for that. But you have to clearly articulate what the goal is, and you have to give it a deadline, because it’s really easy to let things slide.

Think of it like a house project – have you ever remodeled your kitchen? And it starts with, “I’m just going to do the cabinets.” And then they take the cabinet’s off the wall and then they discover you have mold, or they discover that the wall wasn’t set up the right way, or they have to do something different to the cabinet. And all of a sudden what was one price slowly starts to creep up. And that’s what people do with their goals when they don’t put a concrete end date, they’re like, “Well, (say we’re going for weight) I was two pounds less, so I totally failed.” No, you didn’t fail. So, then I’m going to extend the date, and then I’m going to make it harder, I’m going to restrict, I’m going to work out 2x/day and I’m going to make sure that I don’t have any more than x number of calories and NO cheats. Uggh…I’m sorry that shit never works, try this instead.

I challenge you to write down 10 things that make you feel successful. And it doesn’t have to be these big things. I’m going to share with you what I wrote down. Keeps things simple, I like simple because life is already complicated enough without me complicating my own life or me complicating someone else’s life. And also keeps you from chasing rabbits because it helps you to figure out if what you’re doing is in alignment with what you want most. For me, I said what success is for me is

✅ I don’t want to set an alarm clock, I just want to get up when I get up, and that’s every day.

✅ I want every day to feel like a Saturday, that’s what I want.

✅ Success for me is when my clients email me back, text me back, communicate back to me that I’ve inspired them to take action, that I’ve done something that has changed their life. No matter how small or insignificant that it is, I want to know that I had an influence over someone’s life.

✅ I also love it when my own mindset shifts, that something that I was once struggling with I now am like, “Huh.” X number of months ago, years ago I would have been shut down, now I have the tools to handle that.

✅ I’d like to be able to travel every three months, just pick up and go somewhere every three months.

✅ My thyroid and hormones have finally come back into balance

That is on my list of what success looks like for me. So, you take the time, write down 10 things, just what makes you feel successful, what makes you feel happy. It could be I want to get a dog, whatever, I want to get a cat, goldfish. Go for it.

Give Yourself Grace

I see so many people beating the tar out of themselves over just past shit that just doesn’t even matter anymore. It doesn’t matter to anyone but you, but you keep playing that song over and over again. Do you know those movies that you’ve seen five zillion times? You know what is in the middle of the movie, you know what’s at the end of the movie, you know what’s at the beginning of the movie, yet you still park your ass down and you’ll watch, you say the words along with it, especially if it’s one of those sad movies like The Notebook, you know exactly what’s going to happen, but you watch. Or I just re-watched Message In a Bottle, sorry spoiler alert – the ending is not going to change, it’s still going to be a tear-jerking moment and you still watch it.

My husband is like, “Why do you do that?” I’m like, “I don’t know.” But I still do it. So, I want you to start to give yourself some grace. Stop being so hard on yourself. Yes, who doesn’t make a mistake? If you can point out someone who has not made a mistake, they’re not alive. And especially when it comes to health and fitness, there are no fatal mistakes. If you didn’t die, you’re good, you just learned a way that doesn’t work. Having a brownie is not going to kill you, having an extra glass of wine is not going to kill you.

The Kindness Of A Kid

Give yourself the same kindness that you would give your kid. Your kid paints on your living room wall. Of course, initially you’re pissed off, but you say “Oh Charlie, let’s clean this up together.” The initial ugh and anger turns into, “I’m not going to just go full crazy town on my kid.” I want you to have that same kindness that you would express to a kid that you would express to yourself, because think about it, when you beat the shit out of yourself, is that motivation? Does that make you want to try even more?

It’s Okay To Be A Beginner

No, you’re like, “fuck it”, and you move on, and you’re just like, “It’s time to go two feet in on just crazy behavior.” The big thing is to accept where you are and make a plan. Now, I know everyone wants to jump in and be the expert, but we all can’t come in at the expert level. We all can’t come in and be the know-it-all. I know that we want to be the know-it-all, but that’s not the case.

The other day I was listening to a podcast, and this woman is a consultant to really rich parents trying to get their kids into preschool, and she helps them craft the essays and all this good stuff to get some kids that are between three and five years old into preschool. And some of the parents come in, and what mother or father doesn’t think little Johnny isn’t a genius? Little Johnny can be the next president, little Johnny could be the next whatever, and they’ve included those kinds of things in their essay. The woman who is the consultant, she just tells it like it is, she doesn’t hold a punch. And she goes, “If you tell me your 18-month-old is a genius, your 18-month-old is fluent in any language, I’m ripping it up and throwing it in your face.”

I want you to think about that. These parents at 18 months are putting so much pressure on their kids so that they can get into PRESCHOOL. I want you to think to yourself that if you’re 18 months old, would you be an expert at anything? You might be an expert colorer, 🤷🏽‍♀️ you might be an expert at shoving a grilled cheese into the VCR, but what else can you be an expert at?
I want you to let yourself off the hook and say, “Some things I know, and some things I don’t know, and it’s okay for me to not know it all.” And that’s why people hire a coach, that’s why people write books to tell you how to do something a little bit faster. Because how many times can you spin your wheels before you take that next leap?

Transformation Is The Way

We love transformation shows; why do we watch The Biggest Loser? You like to see these people go from unfit to fit, and we watch the transformation. And during the show, the transformation seams, seamless? Is it like one minute they’re overweight and then one minute they’re down 100 pounds? No. There are trials, there are tribulations, and we tune in to that because we want to see the journey. And that’s where I want you to get back to it being in that journey because that’s where the grit is built, that’s where you learn who you are, that’s where you also learn what works and what doesn’t for you. Because so many people are out there looking for the magic plan; sorry, my queens there is no magic plan.

Seriously, I want there to be a magic plan too, that would make my life so much easier like, “Here’s the magic you’ve been looking for, rock on.” But there is no magic. So, what I want you to think about is through my transformation is my learning, through my transformation that is where the magic is. Your transformation is your own magic, and you pick the spells you make my own personal magic.

Think about this – it’s not a linear process. Biggest Loser, they have their ups and their downs, they all kind of cross their fingers when it comes to the weigh-in; same process. I want you to think about how many frogs’ princes and princesses kissed in fairy tales before they got to the prince. It’s the same thing. It’s not about I’m on this diet so I’m going to get all these amazing results. It might be I’m going to take a little piece of this, a little piece of Keto, a little piece of Whole30, a little piece of Weight Watchers, a little piece of Atkins and then make it the Kim Diet. And when I beat myself up, I’m probably not sleeping, I’m probably stressed like nobody’s business, I’m probably drinking a little bit more than I should, and I probably have a little bit more anxiety. So, when I start to peel away and just let myself off the hook, I might start sleeping better, I might stop drinking as much, I might reduce my stress. So, do you see that there is this nice cause and effect when I start to really kind of let myself go?

Set Boundaries

And the best way to let yourself go is to set these boundaries. If you are a people pleaser, raise your hand, where are my people pleasers? I see it all the time, especially with my clients who are people pleasers because to sneak away from work they’re like, “I’m sneaking away from work and that means that so and so might have to pick up the slack.” Or, “My kids don’t like the daycare, so I really don’t want to put them in daycare at the gym.” Or, “I’m already at work all day, I really can’t spend another hour at the gym.” It’s those kinds of things where I need you to figure out what do you want, and can you find a way to bring yourself into shorter periods? If you want to workout, can you find a way to workout at home? Can you find peace in an extra 30 minutes in the day so that you’re not doing it at the end of the day to take time away from your kids?

I want you to start to get creative with how you can make taking some time for yourself. I will tell you that the best way to practice boundaries is self-care. And it is for your own well-being, because when you feel good you project that out to the people that you care about, and when you feel like crap you project that out to the people you care about as well. And boundaries are healthy, boundaries also help, again, reduce that stress, because one of the biggest things, and I talk to my clients about this is if you can’t go workout, the two things I always say are the not the simplest, but the two things that are the easiest thing that doesn’t require a gym membership is to minimize your stress and get some sleep.

When I set my boundaries those are two things that immediately go up because one of my boundaries is, I set work hours and I stick to them. I set a bedtime and I stick to it. And so, when I start to create boundaries just for myself personally, and I honor myself, then I proved to myself I’m worthy of me. So, if I’m worthy of me, that gives me more confidence to start making those boundaries to other people.

I know that it’s tough when you’re a people pleaser. I have a client who she has a sick aunt and her aunt is like a mom to her, and she’s like, “How could I take the time off to go to the gym when she’s sick?” My response, “Well, what are you going to do, stare at her?” If you are away from her for one hour, what’s going to happen? It’s one hour. And you’re going to come back more refreshed and more recharged to really help her and serve her, and she’ll feel better that you’re doing something for yourself versus always waiting on her hand and foot.

Just start to think of those things as simple things to get away. And don’t be afraid to ask for what you need. So, many people can come to you and say, “Hey I need you to do this, and I need you to do that.” Here is your permission slip, it’s okay for you 1) to say no and 2) to ask for what you need.

What Happens When You Have No Discipline?

Lastly, so many of you come to me saying, “I don’t have the discipline. I really need the discipline.” And it’s not discipline that you need, it’s habit, because habits are how we achieve great things. Habits turn into discipline, so that’s your vocabulary lesson for the evening. Habits are decisions, habits are decisions that you make on a daily basis. I want you to think about from the moment you wake up in the morning. For me, I’ll tell you my habits. My habit is I set my alarm 15 minutes before I want to get up.

I snooze three times, that’s my thing, 🤷🏽‍♀️ it makes my husband nuts, but that’s what I do. Then I get up, I brush my teeth, I wash my face, put on my gym clothes, then I go downstairs, I make some coffee, I make my pre-workout drink, I foam roll and then I head out the door. That’s my habit, that’s my routine. It took a bit to get to that routine, but I want you to think about that. That’s what I do. Before I go to bed, I set my clothes up the night before so that I’m just ready to go. What does your morning look like?

Habits can hold you back, habits can be good or bad. “I’m always going to start again on Monday”, that’s a habit, it’s a routine, it’s ingrained in you now that, “I messed up, so I just get a fresh start on Monday. Do fresh starts only happen on Monday.” Why? Is that a rule? Show me, please show me that book that says that’s the rule.

Habits can put you into this holding pattern. Habits take practice so that they eventually become a routine, and then once you start getting that routine that’s where you get the consistency. And once you have that consistency, that’s where you get the results. People will say, “I want that fit girl magic, I want to live in that golden zone.” Well, that’s the formula right there, it’s establishing great habits that build on to great routines that establish consistency that give you the results.

The Power Of One Simple Habit

I always challenge people, what’s one simple habit that you can start? And then I get this whole list. Pump your breaks girlfriend, I’m looking for one simple habit. I’ll tell you my one simple habit. Drink more water – it’s already ingrained in me to drink coffee in the morning. If you try to take away my morning coffee I will fistfight you. So, instead what I do is I have my first cup of coffee then I have a glass of water, and then I have my second cup of coffee. And I can’t have that second cup of coffee unless I have that glass of water. That’s how I drink more water. Makes sense, right?

Then I teach group fitness classes, so I have to before I finish teaching class, I have to drink the entire bottle of water that I bring with me to class. If I don’t drink it all during class, I have to drink it on the way home, but in that time I’m away from my home I’ve got to drink that bottle of water.

Lastly, usually around seven-ish while I’m cooking dinner, I have another bottle of water that I have to finish that. Typically, I’m drinking throughout the day, but I’ve established these three kinds of way-points throughout the day, but I’ve linked it to something else that I’m already doing so that it’s my trigger. So, I get the trigger of I’ve had my morning cup of coffee, I get the trigger that I’m teaching a class, I get the trigger that I’m making dinner. So, now I have three guaranteed times during the day that I’m drinking water. Does that make sense? What would your one habit be?

I want you to think about, “What’s my one habit, and what is a trigger or several triggers that might get me to remember this is time to do this, this is time to do that?”

Discover The Secret: To A New Year’s Resolution Reboot

July 3, 2019 By kimkb49 Leave a Comment

I want to talk about rebirth. Here in New England we’ve had a pretty tough spring and it’s been raining, and you know that old saying that April showers bring May flowers, well we’ve had some April and May rain and now the flowers are blooming and it’s taking that time to kind of rebirth the summer. I know that most of us on January first, we think that’s the rebirth. Starting kind of at the end of December we’re all like, “Hey, the next year, it’s going to be my year, I’m going to be the biggest, the best, the awesomest”, the whatever-est person on the planet. And then March comes around, then April comes around, and then, “Should I try? Should I even bother? Is it worth it?” Here is where I say we all get a chance to press the reboot button, and probably the last several years I’ve started this whole thing of July is the new January, because if you think about it we’re six months into the year, so there’s still plenty of time to get stuff done. There’s still plenty of time for you to look back at what you said on January first when you had all that vim and vigor to say, “I got this, I can do it.”

Pack Your Patience

I want to talk about how do you press the reboot button and not feel like this big old failure, how do you press the reboot button and NOT bite off more than you can chew. One of the biggest things I see all the time is that we all underestimate how long something is going to take. In your head you’re like, “I’m going to lose 30 pounds, it’s really going to take me like 30 days because I’m going to lose a little pound a day, yeah that’s what’s going to happen.” And logically we know that ain’t the case, but emotionally we’re like, “I want these 30 pounds gone, and I want them gone right freaking now.”

I’m the same way. I have the patience of a gnat, and I always tell my clients, “Hey, I’m telling you this right now that you’re going to have to pack your patience.” And I know that is hard, that’s harder than climbing Everest and I know what that feeling is like because I have zero patience. You decide what you want, and you want it tomorrow. 🤷🏽‍♀️ You might wait till the end of the week but come on.

No Two-Day Shipping

I’m sure you’ve heard me say this before, our bodies and fitness aren’t like Amazon Prime.
I love me some Amazon Prime, but it has spoiled us because we think that if I order something on Monday, by Friday it’s going to be on my doorstep. And that’s not the case, and it’s really challenging for you to just put out the faith, put out belief that you’ve decided that “I want to get healthier, I want to get fitter, and I have to decide that I’m willing to wait for it.”

The best way I can describe it is we all want certainty, that’s one of the most basic human emotions, certainty. If I were to stand up, I am certain that gravity is going to keep me from flying off the face of the earth. And when it comes to getting healthy and fit, unfortunately there is no certainty. I know that if you eat less food, if you move your body, if you sleep right you have less stress, you are going to be well down the road to being healthy and fit,
I know that. Now, what I don’t know is that exact date. I can’t tell you on June 10th how much you’re going to weigh. I can’t tell you on June 10th you’re going to be a size whatever.
I can’t tell you on June 10th that you’re going to have six pack abs. That’s the certainty that I don’t know. But the certainty I do know is that there are certain steps if you take them you will be on the path to getting the results that you want, and that’s what I know.

Everything is a choice

And so, during that rebirth, that reboot, one of the biggest things I always challenge my clients is that it has to start with your mindset, and that mindset starts with your choices. And everything is a choice – you’re either going towards your goals or you’re going against your goals.

I’m not that coach who hands you a list of, your good foods list, and here are your bad foods list. I want this to be a lifestyle because there are going to be times when – this is how I roll, and then there are times that you’re going to go to a certain place and they make a certain thing that you’re like, “You know what? This is the best whatever, and I’m having it.”

Wegmans! I don’t go to Wegman’s every week. I maybe go every four or five months, but they make the most amazing snickerdoodles; I got to have me one. A snickerdoodle is never going to be on the good foods list, but it’s something I enjoy, it’s something I could have more than three bites of and I could be like, “Yum, yum, give me some MORE.” And it’s a choice, it’s a choice I make. I only go to Wegman’s a handful times a year, I’m going go and I’m going to have a snickerdoodle, and guess what? I’m having two snickerdoodles, and that’s what it is, it’s my choice.

Resist Restrictions

Now, some people feel the choice has to be restriction, and that restriction just keeps them so bound up, it keeps them always chasing fitness and health. Do you know when someone tells you, you can’t do something? Doesn’t it make you want to do it more? Is that just me?

In the past the more I restricted, the more I put myself into this box, the more I want to escape, and when I did escape, I went buck wild. I was a single sailor on shore leave. I am just going to be running wild because I’ve told myself for however long I’ve been able to use my willpower, that I can’t have whatever it is that I want. So, I want you to say, “I own my choices.” And then I also want you to say that you own your habits and you own your patterns.

When it comes to this reboot, there’s three things that we’re going to work on working on owning our choices without guilt. When I have that cookie my first thought isn’t “Because
I had that cookie or those two cookies that means I’ve lost it and I might as well just start again on Monday.” No. It’s me saying, “I had these two cookies, and the next meal I will go right back to my plan. I don’t let that one choice define the rest of my day or the rest of my week, or heck, the rest of my month. It was that choice in the moment, I owned it, and then
I moved on.

And that’s where a lot of people get wrapped around the axle, my brain immediately shouts!, “Oh my God, I had those two cookies, so that means I might as well go to McDonald’s and then that means I might as well skip my spin class, and that means I might as well as my client Jessica says release the food hounds!

If you make one off step, one misstep, it doesn’t mean that the rest of day, week or month etc has to be a misstep. Think about if you were walking down the street and you tripped, would you be like, “I tripped” and lay there on the ground wallowing around and say, “Call 911”? No. You would get up because you’re embarrassed, you would look around and you would start walking. And that’s exactly what happens when you have those two cookies, or you have that ice cream, or you have whatever it is that you have, that’s what you do, you dust yourself off and you get up and you move on. And so, the same thing comes with your habits and patterns.

Is it worth it?

I have a client who just started with me and she’s like, “I’ve always had cookies before I go to bed”, and I was like, “Okay. Do you think those cookies are helping you towards the goals that you told me?” And she’s like, “No, but it’s a habit.” “Smoking is a habit and you know smoking causes cancer. So, you can decide that you want to continue to smoke and risk it, and maybe you’re one of the few who don’t get cancer. Or you want to continue to have cookies and when you keep asking me, “Hey, I’m not seeing any results”, I’m going to say, “Well, how attached are you to these cookies?”

Now, I’m not ever saying that you can’t have something, but I’m asking you to make educated choices, I’m asking you to take a look at your habits, and are your habits holding you back? Now, am I going to ever say you can’t have cookies? No. But I know that if you have cookies every day, your goal is going to leave you in the dust. It’s like a bucket with a hole in it; the water is just going to keep leaking out and you’re just going to be like, “Why can’t it ever fill my bucket?”, because you keep having darn cookies.

The question I had for her, “Is this a habit?” and she said yes. I said, “Now the key is we need to figure out how to replace this habit, how to break this habit so that you can get out of your own damn way, how to change the pattern of before you go to bed you need a sweet treat.” So, we’re exploring and brainstorming different options for her. I was like,
“Do you like tea?” Because there plenty of teas that can give you that sweet sensation.
I was like, “Do you like fruit?” Different healthier options to satisfy that habit until that habit passes. So, I want you to think about those habits and patterns that you might have that aren’t serving you.

Bottom line, if you want to lose weight, if you want to get healthier, you have to eat healthier and you have to exercise, bottom line. And I know there are so many people out there that tell you, “If you do this particular diet, you’ll never have to exercise”, or “If you do this particular exercise, you’ll never have to diet.” Well, let me just tell you, when you combine exercise and fitness together, you’ll get to your goal a lot faster than if you try to do one without the other.

If the queen isn’t happy…

Jack LaLanne, he’s the king of modern fitness, his motto and it’s true: fitness is king, nutrition is queen. Now, we all know the saying, “If the queen is not happy, the house isn’t happy.” So, if your nutrition isn’t happy, your body is not happy. And you know firsthand when you eat something that your body doesn’t like it feel like crap, and you sleep like crap and you just know when your body is just not getting what it needs, you’re dragging around like a fricking tire. Your health is like an albatross around your neck and you’re just like you’ve got to get out of this death spiral.

It’s all starts with the way you think. If you think that you have to give stuff up, then guess what, it’s always going to be a slog, and I don’t want it to be a slog. And that’s the first thing is that we always think, “I’m going on a diet, so here is the list of don’ts.” What if you flipped it around and you said, “What are the list of dos’?”

The first thing I do when you work with me is that I look at your nutrition, and I’ll tell you the two things I see always missing from people. If you started with these two things versus all the things you want to cut, imagine you might feel a little happier. You might feel a little more accomplished because I want you to feel accomplished.

I’m a geek, and I am one of those geeks that I write down my to-do list every single day, and I love it when I get to check boxes, boom, boom, boom, and the more boxes I check the more I’m like 🙌🏽 it’s awesome, I’m ecstatic.

That’s what I want you to do with fitness. For me, I work out in the morning, and that’s one box that I can check off in the morning and by 8:00am I’m like, “You know what, the day can do whatever it wants to do to me today, I’ve done one thing for myself, check the box, I win.” That’s the feeling I want for you, and it’s those little box checks that add up and make your day and makes you motivated, makes you excited to want to do it again so you get more box checks.

Don’t break the chain

And I’ve told you the story and I’m going to continue to tell you the story because it is so motivating. So many people tell me, “I don’t have motivation.” I say bullshit. Jerry Seinfeld, he’s a comedian, and so when he first started out as a comedian, he knew that in order to go to all these different open mic nights he had to have a whole catalog of jokes. He challenged himself that every single day he’d write a joke, every day. Back then there was no iPhone, so he bought a calendar and a big red marker, and every day he wrote a joke he put a giant X, every day. He made this mantra to himself, “Don’t break the chain.” And every day he put that big X, and the days that he didn’t write a joke he saw that glaring hole of where he didn’t write a joke. And it was a couple days he had that string, but then he also started to get momentum, the more he did it, the more it felt comfortable, the easier it became and the more the jokes flowed out. And then next thing you know, he had this whole catalog of joke so that no matter where he went, he could go out and have enough jokes. I don’t know how long a comedy set is, but he’d have enough jokes. And he also had enough jokes to move things around so that if a joke didn’t work the way he wanted it to work he could put it in the hopper to rewrite.

Consistency is key

Back in January, I took that principle for myself and I started logging my food. And every day I would log my food, and I use this app called The Today app. Everyday I tracked my food you see a green mark, and every time that I didn’t track my food you see a white mark. For me this is super motivating. I had a good streak going a couple weeks ago, and then I kind of fell on my sword, but it shows me the power of consistency. I talk to a lot of people they always are like, “How do I get results? How do I get results?” Lean in, here is the secret, it’s consistency. And this app on my phone is really helpful for that consistency because when I see those holes in it, “I’m like you know what, I could’ve done better that day”, and it’s not in a ‘beat the shit out of myself’ kind of way, it’s more in a what was it about that day that I couldn’t track, that for two days in a row I couldn’t track, what was it that happened? And then I can play CSI, and ask where could I have made better choices. I encourage all of my clients to create a weekly plan or at a minimum of a 24 hour plan, this way you go into the day with a sense of control.

Work the middle

This keeps my mindset from saying “I stink”, now I ask myself, “How can I be better? How can I improve?” And that’s where I want you guys to start putting your mind, I want you to start thinking, “How do I improve? How do I get better? How do I take myself to the next level?” I’m not asking you to be perfect, I’m not asking to be four levels up in one week; I’m asking you to say if you’re here, how do you take it to the next step? And then once you’ve mastered that step, how to take it to the next step, because what I see is a lot of you miss the middle.

The middle is mushy, the middle is gross, the middle is sloggy, the middle can feel like quicksand. But it’s the middle that gives you fortitude, it’s the middle that shows you what you’re made of, it’s the middle that tests the heck out of your patience, it tests the heck out of your desire, and it tests the heck out of your gumption, your gript, whatever you want to call it. That’s the good stuff right there, the middle.

When you’re just kind of going through the forest without any light, that is where you know what you’re made of. I want you to ask what motivates you, because it’s taking those actions, and for me, I found today app makes me take those actions because I want to get that check-mark, and no one else sees that check-mark but me.

The Motivation Switch

I hear all the time I’m not motivated; I’ll be very honest with you part of your motivation needs to come from inside. You need to find the internal switch that’s what’s really going to keep you going. That’s why people hire coaches. I am someone who is very externally accountable. If I know I have to show my work to somebody, I am more likely to do it, and some people, they can do that on their own, but if I know that at the end of the day I got to show you it, I want to make sure that I do it because I want to honor my commitments, that’s one of my core values. And maybe that’s one of your core values, and that’s why you hire a coach. A coach isn’t about “do this” kind of thing; a coach is more about giving you that checks and balances piece that you might not have on your own. And without any type of change there is no success.

A lot of times when I’m feeling like I’m in my comfort zone, I always say to myself, “If there is no change, there is no change.” What that means is if I want to make a change in my life, I have to make some other type of change. I can’t sit back in my comfort zone, I can’t continue to do the same thing over and over again and expect to get a different result. I can’t expect to keep walking into that wall and expect that wall to magically dissolve into a door. And that’s what a lot of people will do. One of the things when I kind of feel like I’m stuck is I say to myself, “I have to make a change if I want to see a change.” What change would you have to make?

Now, this change doesn’t have to be huge. I’m not asking you to leap a tall building in a single bound. I’m saying, what is the change? And remember I told you there are two things I always see when I look at food: protein and the vegetables. Those are the two things I always see. Can you increase your protein intake? Can you increase your vegetable intake? They both don’t have to be done at the same time but pick your battles.

The second piece this movement. Now, I’m not saying go and join a bootcamp class and go out and do CrossFit. No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying movement, so do you have a Fitbit? Do you have something in your phone? Can you get in at least 10,000 steps a day?

Can you sleep? Can you make it a priority to set a bedtime? Those are the things I’m talking about. Can you make it a priority to not be a stress ball? Those are all contributing factors to losing weight. And at any point did I say, “This is what you can eat, and this is what you can eat”? No. I want you to kind of change that mindset and say, “What are some of the subtle changes I can make that will have long-term impact on my life?”

And the big thing is finding someone who will support you. It can be a coach, it could be a really good friend, it could be a spouse, it could be a partner, it could be your mom, it could be anybody, but find someone who’s in your corner. Find someone who is going to support you, find someone who is going to help hold your feet to the fire when you have one of those days. Today is a rainy day and you could be like, “I don’t feel like it.” Have that person that is going to be like, “Well, how many days are you going to not feel like that girl?” Because you want that person to be that friend. I have that friend, we text each other, I’ve talked about it, every Monday we text each other, “This is what I’m doing this week” and every Wednesday we’re like, “What’s up?” I want you to have that person in your life, and if you don’t have that person in your life, hit me up, I have no problem being that person in your life.

Environmental Motivators

Look at the environment that you’re in. Are you in an environment where you might be on social media and you’re following all these people who don’t make you feel good about yourself? Unfollow, delete, gone. What about TV, are you always watching shows that don’t make you feel good about yourself or that aren’t aspirational, that make you just feel like, “My life stinks”?

I want you to find things that fill you up emotionally, spiritually, make you laugh. I don’t want you to look at things that make you feel like crap because you’ve got enough of that in your life. And that’s all part of changing that mindset, that’s all part of letting go of that control and just letting more flow, honoring where you are, because that’s where the change begins. If I honor where I am, if I say to myself, “I’m a beginner, it is what it is, and in order to get to advance (because again, we talked about that messy middle) it’s okay to be a beginner.”

Everyone has to begin somewhere, and I want you to find someone who you aspire to be, but do not let where they are influence where you are. I can’t remember who said this (but it wasn’t me) but it says success leaves clues. For my clients my goal is to be inspirational, not aspirational. I want them to say, “Kim takes these steps, out of the 10 steps she takes, right now I can only do these three steps, and I’m going to be comfortable and confident in these three steps. And once I’m good at these three steps, then I can think about taking more steps.” Like I said, I want to go back, and I want to check off those boxes, I want to feel awesome about myself. And I want you to know that yes, there are going to be struggles, there are going to be setbacks, but at the end of the day if I keep chipping away these little small marks, I will eventually hit my goals. And it’s completely possible, it’s completely possible for you to do that.

Stay tuned I have a new podcast coming out and I can’t wait to share with you even more goodies, get on the waitlist here

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