Afraid of the winter weight gain? Trying to avoid your “winter body”?
It’s that time of year everyone starts talking about eating too many cookies or too much food, period. January 1st everyone starts talking about their New Year resolutions. You hear about everyone’s “new” fitness or health goals. We’ve all heard it, “you are what you eat”. How about, “you can’t out train a bad diet”. I know I’ve done it. I’ve worked out really hard and gave myself permission to indulge. It’s common to think that, but in reality, it just leads to bad decisions later. Many people don’t know how much they eat on a daily basis. Or even worse think, “I eat healthy”. Then we sit down and talk and find out they are severely under-eating 4-5 days of the week and then severely overeat the rest. That averages out to consuming more than they need in the week. I don’t think macro or calorie counting is for everyone every day, but I do believe if you are having difficulty getting the body composition you’d like then weighing and measuring can help you figure out where things might be going wrong.
During the holidays, I suggest having a plan to help you stay on track of your goals. If you’re new to making goals here are some ways help you figure out your goals and a plan.
Let’s think about what motivates you? Is it your health? Is it to look better? Is it to be strong? You have to be honest with yourself and what you want to accomplish. Some people are motivated by money. Some of you will get back into the gym and clean up your nutrition when your doctor tells you, that you need to or else.
Once you know your goal, try to find out your weaknesses. What held you back in the past from reaching those goals? Why haven’t you followed through? Was it time? Was it priorities? Was it a lack of motivation? You have to find out what that is and find smaller goals to make it through the rough times. Hire a coach if you need 
someone to help you be accountable. Or have someone you trust help you figure out the smaller steps to set yourself up for success.
I’ll tell you most people I work with and this was even myself, needed someone outside of my circle of friends that I had to help keep me accountable to my goals. They helped remind me of my goals and what I needed to do instead of what my head was telling me I wanted to do.
If your goal is to get healthy, or look better, or be strong, take time to find what motivates you. Forget bribing yourself. Change your perception of yourself and be positive about your goals. Do what it takes to get yourself moving in the right direction. Find out what you want more than the bowl of ice cream.
Find ways to relieve your stress. Stress can manifest itself in many different ways. It can be everything from exhaustion, to digestion issues, to joint pain, to headaches, to moodiness.
Whether it be a nutrition goal or fitness or health goal try the S.M.A.R.T. method. What is S.M.A.R.T.? It stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. How do you do this? Making a goal specific and simple. Ask a friend to help you narrow it down. Make sure it’s measurable, just like being able to measure your foods can you put a measurement on it or is it a: yes you did it or no you did not do it. Achievable is usually the hardest to come up with. This is usually where we tend to be a little “wild” with our goals. Knowing our time domain for our goal can help narrow it down and work backwards from that. Then keep your time line shorter and that can help keep your goals achievable.
Work on them every day.
If you have a tendency to forget, set reminders on your phone.
Hire a coach to keep you accountable.
Ask a friend to join you.
Whatever your goal is write it down so you can see it on a daily basis. Make it a habit to revisit your goals. Make a plan and stick to it. Get some accountability. If you fall off don’t use that as an excuse to stay off. Dust off and get back on track.
Keep up the hard work.
~Jess
