Category Archives: motivation

Diet Culture Fitness VS Body Neutral Fitness

Where my diet culture drop outs at? 🙋🏻‍♀️

Re-evaluating our approach to fitness and exercise is a crucial part of any journey. But just because something like strength training or HIIT cardio can be abused, doesn’t make it “bad”.

Each one of us has a different metabolic identity, depending on past and current behaviors, and it can be very difficult to convey context and nuance for each individual through a social media post.

As you know, my message centers on shifting away from the diet culture mentality, over exercising, and “earning” your food, and refocusing on learning to properly and intentionally nourish, appreciate & respect your body.

We can easily fall into the traps of the diet and fitness industry. We constantly chase perfection and the desire to alter our bodies because we live with the belief that we are not good enough. We want to be a smaller size, a smaller number on the scale.

I’ve learned these lessons the hard way, as I’ve shared my fitness/health journey coming from a fitness/bodybuilding competition background & the health repercussion of competing.

Recreating the relationship that we have with exercise and why we do it, is one of the most important aspects of shifting from restrictive-driven behaviors to cultivating a happy and lasting lifestyle that is pleasant to keep up.

✌🏼Looking for more support navigating your cycle with fitness & nutrition? Check out my FREE guide & pro-metabolic strength training guide available for purchase!


LINK to apply for 1:1 coaching ❤️

More info on http://www.meganmefit.com

#bodyneutral#dietculturedropout#dietculture#bodyneutralfitness#onlinefitnesscoach#fitnesscoach#onlinenutritioncoach#prometabolic#workoutplan#fitnessjourney#fitnessmotivation#mindsetmatters#prometabolicnutrition#prometabolicfitness#womenshealth

What body appreciation ACTUALLY is

🚨 SPOILER ALERT 🚨 Weight loss, DOES NOT & WILL NOT improve your body image. It’s body appreciation and gratitude towards the body that are KEY 🔑 in cultivating a positive body image.

Body appreciation is finding value in our body’s functionality and uniqueness as well as appreciating the differences of others. There is a benefit of having body appreciation above and beyond just the absence of a negative body image. After accounting for body dissatisfaction, body appreciation positively influenced self-esteem and coping skills, Intuitive Eating ability, as well as decreasing the risk of eating disorders.

Body appreciation can be present even in the face of dissatisfaction. We can have things we wish we could change about our body while still respecting and appreciating it for the life vehicle it is.

While we all may have our days where we feel awkward or uncomfortable in our bodies, the key to developing a more positive body image is to recognize and respect our natural shape and learn to overpower those negative thoughts and feelings with positive, affirming, and accepting ones.

Please have compassion for yourself as you retrain your thinking. Do not beat yourself up for your insecurities, show yourself patience and gently replace any harsh thoughts you have about yourself with kindness and understanding. Changing deeply ingrained thought patterns takes time, but with consistency, you’ll get there.

Accept yourself. 💕

Accept your body. 💕

✌🏼Looking for more support navigating your cycle with fitness & nutrition? Check out my FREE guide & pro-metabolic strength training guide available for purchase!

LINK to apply for 1:1 coaching ❤️

Sources:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2014.09.006
PMID: 11948650

#bodyimage #bodyimagehealing #bodyimagemovement #bodyimageissues #onlinepersonaltrainer #onlinefitnesscoach #onlinenutritioncoach #dietculturedropout #bodyneutrality #bodyneutralfitness #prometabolic #prometabolicnutrition #fitness #selfhealers #improvebodyimage #eatingdisorderrecovery #disorderedeating

How your monthly cycle can impact body image.

🌀Body Image & your cycle🌀

Something I’ve noticed with myself & with clients is fluctuating body image days. 🎢

The more we understand about our monthly cycles, the hormonal fluctuations & how they impact everything from our brain chemistry, energy levels and metabolic function, the better we can support our physiology during these more challenging times.

👉🏻Swipe through to learn what the research says, and my tips for working through this!

Have you ever heard of the term & concept cycle syncing? It was created by @alisa.vitti the founder of @floliving and it’s a practice of planning your life according to the phases of your monthly cycle. Like the foods you prioritize. The movement you focus on, the work project you take on, the social activities you commit to & so forth. It’s more intuitive than you may think!

❤️

Listening to @hormonehealingrd Are you Menstrual podcast 🔊 is informative as well!

✌🏼Looking for more support navigating your cycle with fitness & nutrition? Check out my FREE guide & pro-metabolic strength training guide available for purchase!

LINK to apply for 1:1 coaching ❤️

#bodyimage#bodyimagemovement#bodyimageissues#bodyimagehealing#onlinepersonaltrainer#onlinepersonaltraining#onlinenutritioncoach#nutritioncoach#pms#pmsproblems#womenshealth#womenshormones#womenshormonalhealth#fitnessjourney#dietculturedropout#period#periodproblems#periodtalk#cyclesyncing#womensupportingwomen#women

Pro-metabolic Strength Training Guide 2.0

🥁 Drumroll Please! 🥁I am so excited for this guide!

My intentions are to educate you on how to approach strength training while honoring your physiology.

When dealing with hormonal issues, PCOS, thyroid & adrenal issues, and autoimmune flare ups it’s important to be working WITH your physiology not against it.

👉🏻In these women, we typically see low thyroid hormone (either production, conversion or cellular uptake) and high cortisol. So, over-exercising or the KIND of exercise can potentially set you back, push you farther away from achieving hormone balance and reversing your symptoms. 🙅🏻‍♀️

As you know, my message centers on shifting away from the diet culture mentality, over exercising, and “earning” your food, and refocusing on learning to properly and intentionally nourish, appreciate & respect your body.

We can easily fall into the traps of the diet and fitness industry. We constantly chase perfection and the desire to alter our bodies because we live with the belief that we are not good enough. We want to be a smaller size, a smaller number on the scale. I’ve learned these lessons the hard way, as I’ve shared my fitness/health journey coming from a fitness/bodybuilding competition background & the health repercussions of competing.

Swipe through to learn more about it!
👉🏻slide 4 The Pro-metabolic Decision Tree: For clients and I, the top recommendations for non-negotiables prior to incorporating intentional exercise would be: close to ideal temps/pulses, adequate rest and nutritional intake. There is obvious nuance and context here, but this is a general guide.

If you’re low on rest, but really wanting to move your body more than walking/household chores, stick with the blue color-coded workouts which are more core & mobility focused, or a light yoga session. If you’re well rested and well fed, the purple color-coded Strength Training workouts are more appropriate.

LINK TO GUIDES HERE! Check out my FREE guide & pro-metabolic strength training guide available for purchase!

LINK to apply for 1:1 coaching 

#onlinepersonaltrainer #personaltrainer #prometabolic #fitnesscoach #onlinefitnesscoach #onlinefitnesscoaching #fitnessprogram #pcosfitness #womenshealth #womensfitness #strengthtrainingforwomen #strengthtraining #fitfam #womensfitness #thyroidhealing

REMINDER: If you’re a woman adding intermittent fasting on top of exercise, can be harmful to both your performance and health!

⚠️If you’re adding intermittent fasting on top of exercise, you aren’t gaining any extra benefits.

Low energy availability is extremely common in females.

A 2019 survey of 1,000 female athletes across more than 40 sports published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine estimated the risk of low energy availability in women athletes at more than 47%.

Nearly half the performance-minded women may not be eating enough for their body to perform basic functions like creating muscle, regulating metabolism, and maintaining homeostasis after accounting for the energy they use for training.

💥 Diets such as intermittent fasting and keto disrupt kisspeptin production. Women are more sensitive to kisspeptin, neuropeptide that’s responsible for sex hormones and endocrine and reproductive function.

💥 Adding exercise to the equation just adds to the stress of denying our bodies important fuel sources. Our thyroid activity is depressed as a result, which messes with your menstrual cycle.

💥 The long-term effects of intermittent fasting with exercise for women athletes is endocrine dysfunction, increases in abdominal fat, more prone to depression, and subsequent fat gain.

Pretty much the opposite direction of your goals.

I think back on before I truly grasped this concept, not only was practicing intermittent fasting days, fasted workouts/cardio, I was also chronically under-eating and over-training in general. 😟 Never again!

👇🏻LMK What’s your experience with IF?

I’m excited to expand more on this topic for Wild + Well Fed wellness Collective in July! @iamannikanicole@wildlyonswellness

Looking for more support navigating your cycle with fitness & nutrition? Check out my FREE guide & pro-metabolic strength training guide available for purchase!

LINK to apply for 1:1 coaching 💜

Sources:
PMID: 29860237
PMCID: PMC4818825
PMID: 27046965
Front. Endocrinol., 28 March 2018 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2018.00123
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41574-020-0363-7
Dr. Stacy Sims
#intermittentfasting#intermittentfastingforwomen#womenshealth#womensfitness#onlinepersonaltrainer#personaltrainer#onlinefitnesscoach#fitnesscoach#fitnessmotivation#strengthtrainingforwomen#nutritionist#womenarenotsmallmen#womensfitness#fitnessforwomen#dietculturedropout#bodyneutrality#intermittentfastingdiet

How to create a meal and recipe on My Fitness pal

MEALS:

For foods that you regularly eat together, saving them as a Meal lets you easily add them to your diary as a group. For example, you can create a Meal called “Two eggs & toast ” consisting of two eggs, sourdough toast with ghee and OJ. You can then add this as a group, instantly, instead of adding each item separately. You can also save a single item as a meal, if finding that item in your Meals list adds convenience.

To create a Meal, just log the items you’d like to combine to one section of your diary, then:

On the Web

  • Click “Quick Tools” then “Remember Meal”
  • Give the meal a name.
  • Click either the green “Save Meal” button to save as a new meal, or click the green “Or, Replace An Existing Meal” button to do as the name suggests. 

In our iOS apps and our Android app

For items already logged in your diary…

  • Tap the “Edit” or Pencil button
  • Tap the selection box next to each item you’d like to include in the remembered meal. You can select items from the same diary meal, or include items from multiple meals.
  • Tap the “Save Meal” button (fork and knife around a plus symbol). In Android app, you need to tap the three dots on the top right to select “Save Meal”.
  • Give the meal a name and tap “Save New” or tap “Save as..” to replace an existing meal (iOS apps, tap the check mark)
  • To quickly create a meal from all of the items logged in one diary category, tap the “More” button under that meal. 

Creating meal from scratch…

  • Go to the drop down menu or more page
  • Tap My Meals, Recipes & Foods
  • Select Meals tab
  • Tap “Create a Meal”
  • Then add Meal name, photo (optional) and food items
  • When finished, make sure to hit the Save button on the top right.

When you are logging food in the future, you’ll find your remembered meals in the “Meals” tab of the food search screen.

RECIPES:

Learning this MFP feature allows you to quickly import recipes from popular recipe websites, or to easily match lists of manually entered ingredients, to help make tracking your meals/snacks quicker and easier!

There are two ways to add recipes in our Mobile apps:

From the Diary:

  1. Go into your diary and Add Food
  2. Select the Recipes tab then click on the + (top right)
  3. Select Create a Recipe then Enter Ingredients Manually or Add From Web
  4. Enter the recipe Name and number of servings**
    • If you choose Bulk Import, put in the list of ingredients and the system will choose the best match. You will be able to check update these later
  5. Select Add Ingredients (you can either scan the barcode or type in the search field)
    • You will not be able to use items from your recent/frequent/my foods list
  6. Select Next then review your recipe and Save

From Recipes, Meals & Foods

  1. Open the Menu or More…
  2. Select Recipes, Meals & Foods or My Meals, Recipes & Foods
  3. Make sure you are on the Recipe tab then select Create a Recipe
  4. Then Enter Ingredients Manually or Add from Web
  5. Enter the recipe Name and number of servings**
    • If you choose Bulk Import, put in the list of ingredients and the system will choose the best match. You will be able to check update these later
  6. Select Add Ingredients (you can either scan the barcode or type in the search field)
    • You will not be able to use items from your recent/frequent/my foods list
      Select Next then review your recipe and Save

** If you’re not sure how many servings a recipe will produce, enter a best-guess number when you first create the recipe.

After the recipe is cooked, you can evaluate the number of servings that have been produced. Then, the recipe can be edited, and the correct number of servings can be entered. This article contains additional information on editing recipes.

Check out my other blog for more tips on tracking!

Looking for more support navigating your cycle with fitness & nutrition? Check out my FREE guide & pro-metabolic strength training guide available for purchase!

LINK to apply for 1:1 coaching

Movement creates HOPE! Let’s talk myokines aka ‘hope molecules’!

❔Did you know your body can help your brain feel more hopeful through movement?
“Every time we move our muscles, we are giving ourselves an intravenous dose of hope.”— Kelly McGonigal, PhD

💥 Let’s talk The Power of Hope Molecules 💥 Swipe 👉🏻 to learn.

Exercise & movement are about much more than weight loss.

People who are active are:
-Happier & have more life satisfaction
-At a lower risk for things like depression & loneliness
-Better able to cope with stress & anxiety
-Feel more of a sense of purpose & social connection

Among its many life-altering rewards: the generation of hope, happiness, a sense of purpose, greater life satisfaction and rewarding connections with others, are benefits of exercise that go under appreciated.

Emerging research suggests that when exercised, your muscles become “basically a pharmacy for your physical and mental health.”

If you are willing to move, your muscles will give you hope. Your brain will orchestrate pleasure. And your entire physiology will adjust to help you find the energy, purpose and courage you need to keep going.

Recreating the relationship that we may have with exercise and why we do it is one of the most important aspects of shifting from disordered and restrictive-driven behaviors & cultivating a happy and lasting lifestyle that is pleasant to keep up 🤍

Looking for more support navigating your cycle with fitness & nutrition? Check out my FREE guide & pro-metabolic strength training guide available for purchase!

✌🏼💯LINK to apply for 1:1 coaching

SOURCES:
Psychosomatic Medicine 62:633–638 (2000
PMID: 31142190
PMID: 30627775
Dr. Kelly McGonigal

#mentalhealth #myokines #muscles #moveyourbody #bodyneutral #dietculturedropout #onlinepersonaltrainer #personaltrainer #personaltraining #fitnesscoach #hopemolecules #fitness #hope #antidepressant #strengthtrainingforwomen #prometabolic #exercisemotivation #fitnessmotivation #womenshealth #resilience #trauma #mentalhealthawarenessmonth #explorepage #movementismedicine

Ever felt “low on motivation”? This post is for you.

💡 If you’re frustrated about not being motivated, this SHOWS that you do actually have some motivation.

Because if you’re truly not motivated, you don’t give a 💩 that you’re not motivated. 🤣

We are complex beings who are rarely driven by only one type of motivation.

There are many qualities of motivation, and when people say they “lost motivation”, they usually mean they lost intrinsic motivation.
👉🏻(Intrinsic motivation refers to behavior that is driven by internal rewards. In other words, the motivation to engage in a behavior arises from within the individual because it is naturally satisfying to you.)

But that’s fine, we aren’t always going to feel intrinsically joyful to meal prep our food for the week, or to get in the 12-15 workouts on our program each month. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Taking motivational inventory is the ability to search for and leverage other reasons.

Maybe you:
-want to feel less aches & pains
-want to sleep better
-want to be a good role model for your kids
-want to have energy to play with your kids
-want to improve your performance & physique

ALL of those are motives, some are for external rewards for an outcome that feels rewarding.

Others are when you identify the outcome is meaningful to your current values, you may not want to exercise for FUN, or focus on your protein intake but you will do it because you want the outcome in the end.

You’re not always going to be motivated to workout.

Out of 12 workouts in a month:

Two workouts you might feel JAZZED and PUMPED

Seven workouts are like meh….

and three workouts you may have to force yourself to get it done. (Those are the ones that matter the most).

MOTIVATION

Simply put: Motive + Action

is the driving force behind your actions. It isn’t something you simply have and keep forever; motivation is like campfire that you must keep stoking to benefit from the warmth.

Because: 💯 Truth be told, you’re not always going to be motivated. It’s normal. Motivation itself is unreliable!

Looking for more support navigating your cycle with fitness & nutrition? Check out my FREE guide & pro-metabolic strength training guide available for purchase!

LINK to apply for 1:1 coaching 💛

#onlinepersonaltrainer#personaltrainer#onlinenutritioncoach#motivation#motivationtips#trainertips#trainertiptuesday#trainertip#originalaudio#fitnessmotivation