Category: Personal Development

Goals?!?!?!

We have talked in past weeks about goals. We have discussed the importance of setting goals so we can visually see in our mind where we want to get to.

This week we are going to talk about setting those long term goals and then making short term goals as well.

First thing is to pull out a piece of paper and a pen and start writing things that you would like on your bucket list. Things you want to do in the future. So part of my bucket list when I set my goals was to – go to Greece, lose 25 lbs, put in 10k steps every day, go to Ireland and Scotland, own my own business and lots more. I wrote down 20-25 things that I want to do before I die.

Then I put an order of priority on each of those items. A 1 represented something that I wanted to happen in the next 1 year and a 2 represented anything I wanted before I die. Like on mine it was lose 25lbs. and keep it off was the number one thing and some of the 2 items were Go to Greece and go to Ireland and Scotland.

Once you have that list divided into #1 items and #2 items – you have now created short term goals and long term goals. #1 items being short term and of course #2 items being long term.

Let’s now look at the #1 items on the list and I want you to figure out what is the easiest way to accomplish an item that has a 1 beside it. In my case lose 25lbs and keep it off, so I literally did some homework and found that my cousin was having huge success on a keto diet and drinking exogenous ketones. I decided to give it a shot. In 3 months I lost 27 lbs and for 2 years I have kept it off. Short term goal accomplished.

Long term goals then move up on the list. One of my long term goals was to be able to see my son at least twice a year – since he lives clear across the country. In May I got to spend a week with him at my place and now for Thanksgiving I get to go see him. Sometimes it is the little things in life that help to keep us moving forward and so for this year I am accomplishing one of my long term goals with doing this every year.

Goals are an important part of my life. I was talking to a co-worker the other day about focus and we have days in our lives where our focus is just off. Not sure why, not sure what to do about it, maybe our brain is just fried from working so hard or thinking so hard. So goals help to give us some focus when our brain says “‘I’ve had enough”.

Next step is to write down those goals – both short term and long term and read them every day. That is the focus part of goal setting. Reminding yourself what you want. Some people will actually take lipstick and write them on the bathroom mirror so that they are reminded every day of what they want in life. When they have accomplished an item they take it off the list and add something else to it. Because as you grow and accomplish goals in your life, those goals keep changing. If you still have the same goals today that you had 20 years ago, then you are stagnant and not moving forward in life.

So let’s get going with setting some short term and long term goals. I’d love it if you would share some of those with us in the comments.

Til next week – have a fabulous week!

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Is It Working?

“If the plan doesn’t work, change the plan, but never the goal.” Dr. Ryan Lowery

Have you reached a plateau and you are no longer losing? Dr. Ryan Lowery, a former national champion baseball player, who has a B.S. in Exercise Physiology, and M.S. in Exercise and Nutrition and a PhD in Health and Human Performance says “If the plan doesn’t work, change the plan”.

You still have the same goal – whatever that might be. Sometimes we hit a plateau on any “Diet” or “Lifestyle” Your body reaches a point where it may need a boost of some sort or a change.

There is a thing out there called calorie cycling and carb cycling. When you have reached a plateau and you still have weight to drop it’s ok to make a few changes in what you are eating.

Any time that you are trying to lose weight you must have a calorie deficit to accomplish that. Our body is an amazing muscle. Once it realizes that you are trying to lose weight, it tends to slow our metabolism down, even if you are weight lifting or running or doing massive amounts of exercise. It just does it.

So sometimes you have to fool it, by switching things up a bit by doing low calorie about 4-5 days a week and then 2 days do higher calorie or some people will do a week of low calorie and a week of higher calorie. The idea is to switch it up some so your body doesn’t understand what you are doing. Listen to your body and it will let you know what works best for you.

Carb cycling, on the other hand, is changing the amount of carbs you intake. Very similar to the calorie cycling only changing grams of carbs instead of just counting calories. One of my suggestions for carb cycling is 6 days of eating strict keto and one day of carb loading. If you go overboard on the carbs in one day though, expect to feel lethargic. Don’t allow this to get you off your lifestyle, just incorporate it as part of your lifestyle.

Both calorie cycling and carb cycling take place after you have reached that plateau of a couple of weeks of no loss and aren’t seeing any new results. Then it’s time to mix things up a bit.

Just like Dr Ryan says “If the plan doesn’t work, change the plan, but never the goal.” We are changing things up but our goal is still the same.

If you should have any questions on carb cycling or calorie cycling please don’t hesitate to get hold of us. I, myself, do carb cycling since I live a Keto lifestyle.

Until next week, have a fabulous week!

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Taking Control of our Lives

“When we take control of our lives, the habits we adopt, and the choices we make on a daily basis, we can achieve whatever we dream and think possible.” Josh Perry

Josh Perry (check at bottom for a link about Josh) is a former Pro BMX Rider who has survived numerous brain tumors to become a public speaker on brain health, eating healthy and taking control of our own lives.

You’ve made the choice to do a low carb or a keto lifestyle. LIFESTYLE being the appropriate word here. For many of us we beat ourselves up a lot if we cheat a little or get knocked off our “DIET” by life events or stress or sickness. This is where taking control of your life comes in. It all comes back to mindset and not allowing life to change our mindset and our goals of where we want to get to.

When it comes to food that means sticking to your meal plan. But if you can’t for some reason, you start over again the next day or one of the things that I have done is meal prep. If I make two different meals on Sunday afternoon for the week, then I have something different each day for lunch and something different for dinner. This helps eliminate temptation for me because I’m prepared and not bored with my food. When my meals are already planned then I can go to the refrigerator and get my lunch instead of being tempted to go to the cafeteria and buy something that may or may not be on my eating plan and I don’t have to think twice about it.

I struggle sometimes as well with what to eat, how much to eat, being bored with my food, etc. I will say though, that one of the things that I have realized is that if I take control and have planned the rest of my day and week, I need to plan what to eat as well. This saves me a whole lot of heartache later on and I’m not as nasty to myself when I cheat a little.

We, especially us women, are extremely hard on ourselves about cheating at meal time. We know what we want as far as our goal, then we know what we are supposed to eat, but if you’re stressed or had a fight with the spouse or kids or your mom responsibilities seem like they never go away, we tend to cave and one little bite won’t hurt and then afterwards when one little bite wasn’t enough – we beat ourselves up for days sometimes. Been there done that. I can hear the old words in my head “You can’t stick to anything, you’re weak, you can’t do anything right”. STOP with this cycle and realize that tomorrow is another day or meal two of your day is another meal and go right back to your new lifestyle. Don’t spend days hating yourself and giving yourself the excuse to go back to your old habits. Be a big person and accept what you did and move on immediately.

I’m great at planning everything else in my life and sticking to it, but when it comes to food I am tempted. Even still today. But the big difference for me today is I no longer beat myself up which gives me a much healthier outlook on life and when stress comes along and I can’t say no to that one little piece of sugar free candy that turns into three pieces (LOL) I can legitimately say that tomorrow is a new day and forget about the three pieces of candy and move on.

This is when you start getting a healthy mindset toward food instead of using it as a crutch or excuse. I know I’m a stress eater, so during stressful times I have to stop and be really conscious on what I’m doing instead of just moving in a fog. And I no longer beat myself up internally for what I have eaten. When you live a keto lifestyle, if you pay attention to your body and only eat when you’re hungry, you’ll realize that most of the time when we eat – we eat out of habit, because it’s that time of day, or a I don’t want to be rude because someone brought in a special desert, or your mom made your favorite food. If you choose to take control of your life – then choose that you will allow yourself some cheat time without beating yourself up.

Yes it may take an extra day or two to get back into ketosis – unless you’re taking a supplement, but STOP with the self critique and self hate and self loathing. YOU ARE IN CONTROL!

Check out Facebook video on Josh Perry. https://www.facebook.com/JoshPerryBMX/videos/207887376676897/?v=207887376676897

So until next week, take control of your life and have a fabulous week!

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Want to Quit?

“Everybody comes to a point in their life when they want to quit. But it’s what you do at that moment that determines who you are.” David Goggins

If you’ve never heard of David Goggins check him out. This man is a retired Navy SEAL, endurance athlete and motivational speaker. He lives each day getting out of his comfort zone so he can achieve his personal best.

So what do you do to get out of your comfort zone? When we feel like quitting we may just need to stop, take a look around us, smell the roses and move forward. What does that mean for you and a low carb keto lifestyle?

Some days are difficult to say the least. We have outside stress going on, our family doesn’t want to support us – they think we are crazy, everyone has an opinion – which isn’t our opinion. How do we move forward with everything and everyone dictating what we do!?

Stop!!! Just stop for a minute and find something to be grateful about in your life. Maybe it is just that you had food in your house to have breakfast this morning! Maybe your child didn’t throw a fit this morning! You have a car to get you to your job on time! Once you have found something to be grateful for, now it is time to make a plan.

Making a plan needs to be simple. It needs to be doable on a daily basis and it needs to be written down. If you look at your schedule and you can’t fit in an hours workout – don’t stress. According to David Asprey, author of Bulletproof Diet, you only need 20 minutes a day. Maybe a quick walk everyday, then two to three times a week you do some bursts – that is when you run really fast for 30 seconds to 1 minute – in bursts and then walk the balance of the time. I think this is definitely doable. I try to walk and get 10,000 steps a day. Some days I can do that at work, but others I need a plan to get it done, especially now that it is getting dark sooner.

Meal plan. Did you know that this will completely save your life when you are trying to live a certain lifestyle? Take one hour on Friday or Saturday and come up with meal ideas to have and then meal prep on Sunday afternoon or evening. If you’ve never done it, you should give it a try. It is amazing to just open the refrigerator door on Monday morning and have meals already prepped for the week for lunches. Then for dinners make it simple – have that already planned as well and just mix and go or make it on Sunday and pull it out of the freezer for dinner.

I can guarantee you that if you do this one week you will want to do it every week. It takes so much pressure off you during the week and keeps you from wondering what you are going to have for lunch! I generally prep at least two different meals a week so that I can have leftovers for lunch of one and leftovers of the other for dinner! Or I will do a bag salad and put chicken or steak on top of that to give me some protein.

Find a way to keep yourself from quitting when life happens. We all have it. Let’s make the best of things. Know ahead of time snacks that work with your meal plan as well and always have some of them in your desk at work or in the console of your car. (Uh don’t put the chocolate in the console!!!) HAHAHAHA found that out the hard way – not even thinking.

If you need help with any of this please don’t hesitate to ask. We are here to help support you when life happens and you need ideas. Have a happy and healthy week.

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Thankful

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been doing work on self development on myself. One of the most important things I have figured out is that even though most of my life I have been thankful for things, I really haven’t been as thankful or grateful as I should be.

Most of our lives we are so busy just living life and getting through our day to day that we don’t stop to smell the roses! The roses in this case are the little things that we have in our lives.

Are you grateful for the little things in your life?

Little things like the roof over your head? a running vehicle? electricity in your house? indoor plumbing? air conditioning? a sofa to sit on? These are all things that I think we all take for granted. But we need to be thankful for where we are in life and then as we plan our goals and where we want to be we have to be thankful for where we are going.

Maybe it is a certain weight goal, or a certain financial goal. You have to see where you are now and then where you are headed. If we have a grateful attitude it makes life easier, because when issues pop up called life – we can stop and say thanks for the positives and the current things we have.

Like when LIFE happens – a few weeks ago in the heat of August, my air conditioning went out in my house. So I live in the south and August temps outside for the most part are in the high 90s. Luckily I was out of town for about 3 of the nights that the air was out, but I still had 3 nights without air. The day my air was fixed I was so thankful. It made me ask how people lived in the south in the olden days without air conditioning. We are so spoiled.

What do you have in your life that makes you feel spoiled? Ask your grand parents or your great grand parents what it was like to go to the bathroom in an outhouse? or take a bath in a wash tub? or do laundry the old fashioned way with a wash board? Or no electric lights and no tv or cell phones?

We all need to be much more thankful and grateful for what we have in life.

Be thankful and enjoy your week. Til next week – Be Awesome and Grateful!

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Keto Reboot

What is a Keto Reboot? Do you leave your computer running and just close the lid like I do? Once in a while you need to reboot it – this allows the computer to add any updated information, get rid of all the old stuff running in the background and download any new upgrades to the system.

A Keto Reboot is much the same thing. Your system needs a way to clear out all the old cellular waste and damaged cells. Once you have done this your metabolism increases, your energy amps up and your overall health is rejuvenated. Dr. Andi Campetelli talks about intermittent fasting and rebooting your system in this YouTube video. She talks about teaching our bodies to use ketones as a primary fuel source instead of glucose.

I can tell you that having done a 60 hour fast using the Pruvit keto Reboot system produces amazing results. Your energy level goes through the roof when you have eliminated all of the glucose from the body (kind of like the runners high without the running). The mental clarity is amazing. Each person will have a different experience and mindset is everything. We have so programmed ourselves with food that we go from one function to the other only thinking about our next meal. If you were to sit down and journal your thoughts just for one full day – you would be amazed at how many times you think about food. And most of those times it is out of habit, not because you’re really hungry.

Each month our Keto community does a Reboot. It is a structured 60 hour fast with a kit that includes exogenous ketones, better//broth bone broth, signal//os in both pm and am formulas and mito//plex electrolytes. Everything you need to get your body running on ketones. If you want to hear what Dr Ryan Lowery has to say about the Keto Reboot, just hit his name and it will take you to a video of him discussing how it works and what it will do for you.

If you are interested in trying the keto reboot, hit the highlighted reboot above and we can connect. Have a wonderful and fabulous week and see you next week.

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