Being healthy and fit is not easy, believe me. My journey started as my own way of keeping myself in a healthy mental space. Working out has been proven to improve our mood and make us more relaxed and at peace. The brain releases feel-good chemicals called endorphins throughout the body which reduces anxiety and depressed moods.
After dealing with the end of my marriage and the loss of a close friend, I needed something to occupy my mind and my time. I decided to pursue spiritual counseling as well as fitness on a more intentional level to help me through it. Eventually I found my own personal trainer who later became my mentor and helped me to transition my fitness journey into helping others pursue their fitness goals...the rest is history. Fitness soon became a passion of mine.
My fitness journey continues to this day, and it is not always easy. It has to be an intentional journey and at times it is imperfect. The goal is to make your fitness journey adapt to your lifestyle as much as possible, taking the path of least resistance; which is why there are so many options to meet individual preferences, to include dieting preferences. For example, some dieting options include the keto diet and/or low carb diet, vegetarian options, vegan options, holistic options, balanced nutrition, macro counting and so many more. The intent is to choose a lane that is most natural for you to adapt to.
Personally, I enjoy food! Like all of us, and I too get into a lull of dealing with everyday responsibility and can let working out fall by the wayside. For my personality type I do enjoy challenges, if I feel myself digressing in my fitness journey I’ll set a goal for myself. Example I’ll choose to take the next 30 days and challenge my eating habits, restricting my diet of foods that are low in nutritional value (ex. Fried foods, items high in sugar, starchy carbs, sweets, drinking calories). There’s a feeling that I get once I’ve reached that goal of 30 days, or 15 days, or 10 days and the difference that I see and feel once I’m done. That is my fitness high, and by the end of the challenge I’ve earned that cheat meal guilt free. But what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. My advice is to find your WHY.
With that in mind, the evolution of my fitness journey with my clients has transformed over time. It has transformed from personal training, to offering fitness classes, to providing my 30-Day Challenge options and now I have adapted an online Empower Program which focuses on helping women new to or newly returning to fitness to start their journey in a space where they can start, grow, and own their journey over time. With building these programs I have learned a lot about myself as well as a lot about clients and what it takes for them to be successful. During my 30-Day challenge, my goal was to provide the ladies with flexible options to stay active as well as flexible options to eat healthier on a daily basis and with my Empower Program I have provided a platform that provides a level of ease & accountability such that any reason to not take advantage of the program resources is minimized.
With my programs I provide at-home workout assignments as well as online group training, which is recorded for those who are unable to attend live sessions in addition to bonus workouts. More importantly I provided personalized meal plan options as well as a meal prep guide that broadens their nutrition options; in addition to this, clients were and are still provided a nutrition blog that provides them with daily tips on what healthier eating habits look like. Therefore the ladies involved are not limited to specific meal items that they must eat during the duration of the program; but instead, they are provided the resources to help them adapt to healthier eating habits.
The key to living a healthier lifestyle is to make it work for you. For those clients who prefer one on one personal attention, personal training is available. For those individuals who prefer to be around others who are motivated towards the same goal, group classes are available. For those individuals who prefer the convenience of training from anywhere, virtual options are available. And for those individuals who enjoy challenging themselves over a short length of time to meet a goal, group challenges are available. Some clients prefer to simply be active just to get moving and prefer the outdoors. Let that work for you. It is okay to not be working towards a physical fitness goal and to just workout to feel good. Your journey is yours to own.
My intent and my goal is to help provide those options to my clients so they can be successful in their goals or simply happy with how they feel, not only in the short term but in the long term.