Transform Your Health: A Holistic Approach to Fitness, Diet, and Stress Management for Lasting Change

You're struggling in your fitness and health in large part because when you look in the mirror you don't like yourself. So you go about changing yourself. You don't accept who you are. It even pains you to see yourself, feel yourself.  This can drive change for many. Disgust, shame guilt. They are powerful emotions and drivers. 

But they are lousy long term solutions. 

Last week I talked about a former client who used those exact emotions in her journey. It worked for a little while, until it didn't and everything backfired. You can read about that here.

When you start seeing yourself as the ideal version of you BEFORE you achieve it?

Now you are driven by inspiration, heart, love, ambition. A better LIFE!

This is what prompted me to overhaul my whole life 3 years ago. You can learn more about that on a recent post on Instagram HERE. ( be sure to follow :)

But the point today is that once you've created a vision of your ideal self, you still have to do the work. You have to take the actions towards better health.

So once you are clear and have a vision for your future, here is where you want to put your energy into as far as actions towards better health go. 

In no particular order:

-Diet
-Exercise
-Stress Management/Lifestyle

Lets break down the areas of focus for each.

Exercise: 
-Resistance train 3x a week
-Walk 8-10k steps a day
-Mobility work

Resistance training in this context is defined as the breakdown of muscle. When we break down muscle it becomes very expensive, meaning it will take more calories to recover and re-build the muscle you've broken down. The benefits of this are that you will burn more calories from fat, you will become stronger, you will have an aesthetically pleasing shape. Also you will be healthier metabolically and hormonally. 

You probably have noticed that your weight lifting workouts "only" burn 200 calories for you 45 minute session while your cardio workout will burn 600 calories in the same 45 minutes. 

Easy to see why cardio is preferred but the truth is that once you are done with that cardio session the calories burned stops. For the most part you are burning sugar, glucose and glycogen stores in your muscles and body. With resistance training you will be burning calories the whole rest of the day. Meaning those calories you burned during the workout don't stop there and you will burn significantly more calories the rest of the day. Bonus is that having more muscle means you burn more calories doing nothing. Added benefit of resistance training compared to cardio alone.

There are many more but one I want to point out is that the will and desire to overcome a heavy squat, heavy bench press, heavy weight will teach you more about what you are made of than almost anything else. The adaptive nature of this stress will help you be stronger not just physically but mentally and emotionally as well. You become bulletproof to any BS around you in your life. 

Many of these benefits are unique to resistance and strength training and are not necessarily the same benefits of doing cardio, Peloton, etc.

Lastly, blending both cardio and weightlifting is ideal for many other reasons I won't go into. The point here is to emphasize weight lifting since so many neglect it.

PS You can access a free guide on how to create your own workouts to do in the gym HERE.

Walking 8-10k Steps: I almost put this into stress management because this isn't brisk walking or anything stressful, it is about de-stressing and managing stress hormones like insulin and cortisol. But because its physically active and has physical benefits I put it here with exercise as a "must do."

Also, this kind of leisure activity will burn MORE calories than your exercise or training will. Meaning you are much better off, from a body composition perspective, eating well and staying active, and NOT lifting weights than you are eating well, not being active, but lifting weights.

Let me say it this way, if you lift weights everyday but don't move the rest of the day you won't see as good of benefits as the person who is super active but doesn't life.

Its like our hunter gatherer ancestors who didn't eat a ton but were very active and very lean. Make sense?

They key is incorporating BOTH into your life.

Mobility Work: This is about functional movements and the ability to move with ease. Sure you can be strong and lean, but without great mobility you may still be limited in your range of motion or even have pain in your body. Think yoga, stretching, functional training, etc. 

The importance of each of these is crucial to living strong and with much more ease. The beauty is that your age doesn't matter. The trick is prioritizing these into your unique lifestyle.

Lets move on.

Diet:
-Eat Protein
-Drink Water
-Manage Overall Calories

Manage Overall Calories: Part of diet is making sure your body gets quality food in the appropriate amounts. A blend of quality and quantity regardless of your goals (weight loss or weight gain, or maintenance.)

For this reason it may be useful to track your weight or measurement and use a calorie tracking app to see how many calories you are consuming each day.

Depending on your goals, each will give you unbiased feedback. 

If you don't like tracking you can learn how to eat use mindfulness in your approach. I wrote a free e-book that teaches just that. Get that HERE.

Eat Protein. Regardless of what your goals are, protein needs to be a priority for a couple of reasons. 

1. Its nutrient dense. It is going to give you everything you need to be metabolically healthy and manage a healthy weight. Obvious good reasons here.
2. It's going to be the most filling thing you can eat. Protein paired with fiber (think green veggies) and you have a recipe for naturally lower calories, highly nutritious and filling. Trifecta of goodness. Its also going to help you recover the best from the workouts we talked about previously.

Shoot for about .75-1g per pound of bodyweight. Yes, I know, its a lot. It doesn't change the fact that it's important. Yes, its hard. This is the work, you must figure out how to incorporate that much so that you can recover and adapt from your active and fitness lifestyle. Without it, you will be hungry, irritable, and lack energy.

It will take planning, prepping and thought. These aren't good reason to NOT do it anyway.

Keep at it.

3. Drink Clean Water.  Drinking clean water is one of the easiest ways to improve energy, regulate appetite and lose fat. Yes, lose fat. Getting clean water, like natural spring water, help every vital function in your body. Getting those micronutrients that are often stripped in drinking water, helps to normalize and optimize basic metabolic functions in your body. 

Drinking more water also helps with digestive issues, sleep, skin health, detoxification as well as cognitive function. Aim for at least half your bodyweight in ounces.

Stress Management/Lifestyle: 
-Sleep
-Spending time in nature
-Meditation/Breathwork

This I will define as the way in which you manage psychological and physiological triggers in your life and work.

Some of the best ways to do this were mentioned above with food and exercise but these three are equally beneficial (if not more) and are much more convenient to accomplish.

1. Sleep: You can be doing everything right and this is the ONE thing that can completely ruin everything in your life. I realize this sounds crazy but it is true. 

Bad sleep will ruin metabolic function, can destroy hormonal levels, and ruin your energy. This can lead to storing fat instead of burning it (if insulin and cortisol are off), diminish cognitive function which makes making better choices much more difficult. 

To increase the quality you must bring awareness to what is causing it to be bad in the first place.

For example, going to bed earlier isn't useful if you also spend that time on your phone being stimulated and triggered by its contents. In this scenario going to bed early isn't enough, you must put your phone away. 

After you have taken inventory and have awareness on what needs to be fixed then try it and reassess.

2. Get out in nature. Being surrounded by trees and plant life can lower stress hormones. The Japanese practice of Shinrin-yoku, literally 'forest bathing', is a testament to the profound stress-reducing effects of simply being in the presence of trees and natural greenery. Balancing time spent in front of a screen, in the gym, family, etc needs to be balanced with time spent outdoors, leisure moving, and being re-connected to the earths elements. The sunlight and sounds are also mood enhancing as well which help to lower stress hormones. 

Getting more sunlight can boost vitamin D which is vital for immune system and mood. Sunlight also helps manage your circadian rhythm which in turn helps regulate your bodies natural clock, which helps improve sleep. Lots of benefits here and more reason to prioritize getting outside.

3. Breathwork/Meditation. These can help lower stress hormones like cortisol, helping you feel more at ease. By quieting the mind you can also gain better clarity and focus. Being able to control your mind and thoughts are seen as effective "hacks" to being able to manage your stress. Deep breathwork can also help relieve tension in your body and muscles. It can also have help release "feel good" hormones to improve well being.

At this point we've gone over a lot of information so lets recap and summarize.

Great fitness and health means prioritizing resistance training, diet and managing stress.

To do these you must incorporate resistance training, walking and mobility work. 
You must also eat adequate amounts of protein, manage your calories and drink plenty of clean water.
Don't forget you're missing a big piece of the puzzle if you don't manage stress by getting outside, meditating or doing breathwork, and getting quality sleep.

You work becomes in simplifying these aspects into steps to focus on in your day-to-day life.

I promise you, 99% of your "problems" can disappear if you spend more time optimizing these things in your life. 

Take one thing at a time. Become a master at 1 before going onto the other. 
You won't figure it all out in a day, week, month or even year.

Its a lifetime of work. 

Keep at it, its' what we are here for.

As always, if you need help and guidance during this process you can apply to work together at the link below.

Have a great week.