Counting calories is a great strategy when trying to lose, maintain or gain weight, but the question is how many should you be working towards?
How many calories should you eat?
Counting Calories with A Trainer can help you have better success towards your goals
One size definitely does not fit all when it comes to determining your caloric needs. Some of the factors you need to consider are:
Age: Calorie needs peak around age 25, and then start to decline by about two percent every 10 years. An aging body replaces muscle with fat, which burns fewer calories than muscle so if you aren’t using an exercise regime and other healthy lifestyle habits to keep muscle, your caloric needs will also from those that are.
Gender: Generally, a man’s calorie level is five to ten percent higher than a woman’s! The exception is during pregnancy and breastfeeding women can need more. But male biochemistry normally has less body fat and a higher percentage of muscle mass.
Metabolism: Everyone has a minimum number of calories needed to maintain vital functions. This is your basal metabolic rate (BMR). Certain medical conditions, medications, and your gender can affect your BMR. In our nutrition coaching we help you figure your BMR correctly.
Genetic blueprint: If you have a metabolic disease (e.g., hypothyroidism), factor it in. If you have hormone disorders (e.g., PCOS, PMDD, endometriosis, hashimotos), factor those in. There are SO many ways our genes can affect your calorie needs and a certified coach can help you incorporate these in well.
Body shape and athletic shape you’re in: These affect a number of calories you need. Did you know there are different body types that burn more calories or hold onto calories more? It is important to look at that and how much you exercise right now too, which is next.
Activity level: The type, length, and intensity of exercise all affect how many calories you’ll burn.
On average a female can eat between 1,800 and 2,200 calories per day to maintain her current weight. A male can eat between 2,200 and 2,600 calories. These figures are based on men and women between the ages of 30 to 50 who have a BMI of 22 to 23 (a normal weight). But that number can then vary greatly taking in the above factors and more!
All calories aren’t created equal
A calorie is defined as a unit of energy supplied by food. One calorie is one calorie regardless of its source (e.g., carbohydrate, fat, or protein). But how calories are digested, absorbed, stored, and burned differs.
A good example of this is 100 cals of broccoli vs 100 cals of oreos (a classic example I use in coaching). Broccoli is nutrient dense with lots of natural vitamins, minerals, and prebiotics. Plus due to its unprocessed nature, it has strong building blocks for your body building. On the opposite side of that is our 100 cals of oreos – synthetic and made for you to not just eat one, but to eat the whole sleeve and still feel wanting.
Eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins along with healthy fats to keep your weight in check and help you to stay healthy and honestly, eat less calories overall because most nutrient dense foods that are less processed are high in volume.
Losing or maintaining weight
If you’re looking to lose weight or maintain your weight, you ought to consider your blood sugar levels and therefore eat 4-6 times a day. This can also keep your metabolism (what uses up your calories) running. Eating 4-6x a day can make it so you don’t get “hangy” and overeat at your next meal.
Counting calories
Adagio FIT teaches a pyramid of nutrition and on the base of the pyramid is mindfulness. With that mindfulness comes awareness of where we are currently at. So in order to know that, we track our intake of calories and then use that as a starting point to then work towards your goals.
Eating too much or too little
Interestingly enough, you can eat too little and not get results. Be sure to eat enough calories when trying to lose weight. Sometimes people restrict too much, which will slow metabolism, hinder weight loss, and actually make you gain weight.
So how much do you need to eat? Hopefully you know now that it can differ for everyone at any time. Adagio FIT would love to help you calculate your needs. There are so many options for calculating caloric needs.
You can calculate them yourself with a website like this one but it can be a really bad reflection of what you need if the calculator doesn’t consider the factors we talked about above.
You can get a macro count session with or without coaching with Adagio FIT or you can dive deep and do a package of nutrition coaching to learn all the whys of your body. It will be an education about you that will serve you for a lifetime.
Whether with a coach or a trainer or having no accountability at all, how many times have you “set a goal,” only to not reach it and then feel disappointed in yourself?
This has happened to most of us, even me as a coach, and the problem with goal achievement isn’t usually that we “failed” or “didn’t work hard enough” — it’s that our goals weren’t clear and descriptive enough to offer us an effective road map to the end result.
using the right coach can help you reach your goals this year
The goals that you set should be a helpful way for you to nail down exactly what you want to achieve and how to get there. Your goals should offer you ways to monitor your progress along the way. In this article, I’ll coach you exactly how to set yourself up for success.
Outcome-Based Goals
When most people set goals, they choose an outcome they’d like to reach. Outcome-based goals focus on the end-result, and are often number-oriented. These types of goals are very familiar to us, and they’re easy to identify. Losing twenty pounds, squatting your bodyweight, doing five chin-ups are all outcome-based goals.
Unfortunately, outcome-based goals sole focus is on the result, and these goals often leave out the most important details and step-by-step instructions. The most common experience in attempting to achieve an outcome-based goal includes:
Getting frustrated when it’s difficult to make progress toward your goal.
Feeling like you just have to “work harder” when you fail to reach your goal.
Starting to believe something is wrong with you when you work harder and still don’t reach your goal, and feeling overwhelmed with the process.
The good news is, you’re not a failure and there’s nothing wrong with you. Rather, your outcome-based goal has failed you and it needs some revamping. Here’s why.
Outcome-based goals don’t leave you 100% in control of achieving them.
The things you can do are to create the conditions and behaviors that make your outcome more likely. For example, if you have a goal of squatting your bodyweight, but you do random workouts and don’t have a training program that includes squatting or other exercises that might help you increase the amount of weight you can squat, part of your road map to goal achievement is missing.
Using a training program that is progressive, includes squatting as a main exercise, and that you do a few times each week consistently over a period of months will make it more likely for you to achieve your goal of squatting your bodyweight.
Outcome-based goals might be unrealistic or lead to feelings of overwhelm.
Sometimes outcome-based goals can feel really far away and although the end result is something you really want to reach, the process of getting there might seem insurmountable, especially if your road map isn’t clear.
For example, let’s say you’ve never exercised with consistency before and are really hoping to get in shape by starting to train and by changing the way you eat. Overhauling your life might include making sweeping changes to the way you exercise, shop and prepare your food, plan your daily, weekly, and monthly schedules, and how you prioritize your rest, recovery, and self-care.
This requires making a ton of changes, some of which probably aren’t realistic or sustainable if you’re just getting started, which feeds feelings of overwhelm. These feelings of overwhelm might actually be a barrier to even getting started.
Outcome-based goals don’t necessarily address the root cause for wanting change, which makes it hard to identify concrete steps that align with your value. Many of us assume that achieving a particular outcome will lead to increased happiness and satisfaction, which is often not the case. Just because you reach a goal you’ve set for yourself doesn’t mean you’ll feel satisfied with the results, especially if you haven’t figured out exactly why you wanted to make that change in the first place.
For example, some women want to change their body composition by losing a significant amount of body fat. When some women do achieve their goal, they still feel unsatisfied if their body doesn’t look or feel the way they expected it to.
They might feel shame because they were chasing a “look” that they thought would bring about a certain feeling or emotional state. They assumed that being leaner would make them happier. What they didn’t do was figure out exactly why they wanted to be leaner in the first place.
All of this seems frustrating, right? So what’s the solution? Set behavior-based goals that lead you toward a desired outcome.
Behavior-Based Goals
Behavior-based goals are a stronger alternative to outcome-based goals, and provide you with a roadmap of actions you can take that lead you toward the results you’re chasing. These types of goals put you in the driver’s seat and more in control of the process of reaching your goal. In fact, the entire focus of behavior-based goals is the process itself. This is how I coach.
By digging into exactly what you want to achieve (your outcome) and why it’s important to you, it’ll be easier to identify the steps that make goal achievement more likely.
If you know why something’s important to you, you should be able to evaluate what you’re willing (or not willing to do) to get there. This puts you in control of your actions and behaviors and gives you a systematic way of achieving your goal. The process of goal achievement should feel less overwhelming and more satisfying because you’re becoming the person who “does the things” to reach your goal.
This approach typically allows you to have a more positive mindset along the way because you’re consistently racking up small “wins” when you take each small step toward your goal. All of these things lead you to experiencing more success.
Big Rocks vs. Small Rocks
When looking to identify behavior-based goals, we suggest that you focus first on what we consider the “big rocks,” which form the foundation of a healthy lifestyle. Big rocks include getting adequate restorative sleep, drinking enough water, managing stress, eating nourishing food, moving meaningfully, and doing these things consistently. The idea is that if you can’t consistently practice these habits, then the “small rocks” (such as choosing to add cream to your coffee or not) won’t impact your ability to get results as much as the “big rocks” will.
On a side note, you want to make sure you aren’t loading your jar with too many big rocks or nothing will fit— make sure you aren’t spread too thin with too many behavior to dos. Also, as your coach I remind you that there will always be more rocks than can fit in your jar, so choosing wisely which rocks you want is important.
So, how do you set a behavior-based goal?
1. Identify Your Outcome Goal
Determine the long-range thing you’d like to achieve, and think about why it’s important to you. How do you think you’ll feel by achieving it? Does it align with the resources (time, energy, money, etc.) that you have available, and with your values and priorities? If so, move on to step two.
2. Assess What You’re Doing
Next, do an assessment of what you’re doing currently that is moving you toward that outcome. List things that might be challenging for you along the way, as well as the areas you are confident in making changes. Where are the opportunities you can make small, realistic changes that move you toward your goal?
3. Choose Next Steps
Create realistic, actionable behavior-based goals that lead to your outcome. Each of these little steps acts as a rung on the ladder that leads to your goal. Each step might seem small, but all together they take you closer to where you want to go.
4. Prioritize
Rank your confidence based on the frequency you’ll need to take each action and the resources you have. Prioritize the actions you’ll take first, and remember to make small changes one at a time.
5. Track Your Progress
Choose a method for tracking your behavior-based goals in order to monitor your progress. This may be a simple check mark in a notebook, or you may choose something like an app to keep track of your changes.
6. Start With The First Behavior-Based Goal
Start tracking one behavior-based goal. On a confidence scale of 1 to 10 you should feel like you are at a 9 or 10 out of 10 that you can complete that behavior. Track for two weeks and then evaluate for consistency. If you completed that behavior 80 percent of the time over the previous two weeks, choose a new action to start tracking.
If you didn’t reach 80 percent consistency with that behavior, do a check-in to assess whether it was really realistic for you. If it’s something you’d like to continue monitoring for a while longer, go for it. If it was originally unrealistic, scale it down to something you can definitely do.
Coaches’ Corner
As a coach or trainer, my clients come to me with their goals. It’s my job to help them translate outcome-based goals into actionable behavior-based goals.
I coach them to:
Figure out why that goal is meaningful or important to them.
Identify whether that goal aligns with their priorities and values.
Clarify and refine concrete and manageable actions they can take.
Manage their time by guiding where to place their energy.
As a coach, the process for taking a goal from outcome to behaviors looks like this.
As a coach, I will assess my client’s current training, nutrition, rest and recovery strategies. I’ll take a look at their lifestyle, work schedule, leisure activities, commitments, and weekly schedule. We discuss what they might be ready to change, as well as the barriers they might encounter.
Then we set behavior-based goals based on their outcome goals, and keep in mind that the actions they take to move them toward their outcome have a lot to do with “big rocks” and less to do with “small rocks.” Big rocks include getting adequate restorative sleep, drinking enough water, managing stress, eating nourishing food, moving meaningfully, and doing these things consistently. Big rocks move the dial, while small rocks are very small, nuanced actions that won’t make much difference in goal achievement unless the big rocks are in place.
As a coach and trainer we will start with small changes my client can confidently make first. I help them create routines to make these actions more likely. I stay involved throughout the process of goal achievement and evaluate their progress and help them through stalls in progress, over roadblocks, and problem-solving when they arefeeling challenged.
I help you through behaviors to get in the best shape of your life—for good.
With adagio FIT Training and Coaching, you’ll get the support, accountability, and expert education to eat and exercise in a sustainable way — without restrictive diets or spending your life in the gym.
Whether your health and fitness goals are to…
Get stronger
Gain muscle
Lose body fat
Improve your pull-ups
Have a safe and healthy pregnancy
Return to exercise safely postpartum
Heal your relationship with food
Balance your hormones/disorders
Increase your confidence
… or anything else, we’ll help you achieve them. You can experience life-changing results while eating and exercising in a way that actually fits into your life — instead of controlling it.
You’ll learn how to:
Improve your nutrition without giving up the foods you love
Exercise safely and effectively so you’re getting maximum results from your workouts without burning yourself out
Increase your confidence, love the way your body looks, feels, and performs — and enjoy your life more than you ever thought possible
And you’ll become the happiest, fittest, strongest version of yourself, one step at a time.
Interested in learning more? Join in a free, no-obligation consultation with Clarissa, our Female Personal Trainer and Nutrition Coach by clicking below.
It’s almost the end of the year, so within the next couple of weeks most of us will be making our resolutions for next year. Even as a personal trainer and health coach I make them too!
making personal goals with a coach
As of this month I’ve been coaching for seven years.
At the studios, the studios are usually packed every January first with people with New Year’s resolutions. Then, by the middle to the end of January the studio dies down to back to normal numbers with a few new faces continuing on, but lots gone.
What happens during those first 2 or 3 weeks of January?
Why is it so hard to stick to our New Year’s resolutions especially with fitness?
It is estimated that over 95% of us fail at our New Year’s resolutions. By fail I mean, failing = giving up.
Here are the top 5 reasons why we fail at our fitness resolutions.
1. Overwhelm: we overload ourselves with too many resolutions. We have fitness goals, nutrition goals, financial goals, relationship goals, we have goals for our spouse and even for our kids. We simply can’t handle that many serious goals.
Studies show that when we try to take on more than one life-changing goal at a time our success rate is near nil. We simply don’t have the necessary will power and energy to focus on more than one at a time.
Fortunately, willpower is like a muscle, it gets stronger as we use it But it also is finite. Overload it and you’ll run out too fast as well.
Solution: simplify and commit to one big goal. Once that goal becomes a habit and it doesn’t take so much energy and will power to complete, then you can start working on a different resolution.
2. Lack of a plan: When one creates a resolution without a plan they lack direction and step to get there. Just like those with fitness goals going into a gym for their first time; walking around not knowing what to do next. There was no order or direction to their workout. The workout was purely left to chance.
The cardio deck, however, is always packed. This happens for a couple of reasons. One, it’s the default form of exercise especially for those that don’t feel comfortable lifting weights. And, I get it. It’s a lot easier figuring out how to set up the treadmill than designing a strength training workout and figuring out lifting technique.
And, reason number two, many people still falsely believe cardio to be the best form of exercise for fat loss despite dozens of studies pointing out how ineffective it is and that it is often counterproductive (people can actually get fatter from doing cardio). I see this in the studios a lot when women who have worked out for months complain that their body hasn’t changed even though they are working out so hard doing all these cardio classes.
Solution: hire a trainer to set you up on a program, or at the worst find a program online that targets the same goal you have and then watch some YouTube videos to learn technique.
3. Unrealistic expectations: We live in an extremely fast paced world. We can cue up any movie or TV show and watch it at any time. We can literally order anything in the world and have it shipped to us “next day “. We’re impatient, we want our perfect body and we want it yesterday.
Setting unrealistic goals is a dead end road. Instead of a goal being motivating, the goal becomes demoralizing and shame full. Week in and week out we beat ourselves up because we’re not hitting our numbers. So, of course, after a few weeks of that we’re gonna throw in the towel.
Solution: Hire a trainer. With their experience they can guide you to realistic expectations. Also, when setting a goal ask yourself how confident are you that you can accomplish it. If you’re not 90-100% confident that you can do it then modify it to the point that you are at least 90% confident.
Another part of being realistic is to expect plateaus. Nobody gets consistent progress week in and week out. There will be setbacks. Accept this fact and the road accomplishing your new year’s resolution will be a lot more enjoyable.
4. Skipping the goal setting process: “If you fail to plan, plan to fail.”
When talking to my clients about goals we talk about 3 types of goals: outcome goals, behavioral goals and purpose goals. When we first meet we will talk about these three types of goals.
At bare minimum you need to decide “what” it is that you’re trying to accomplish and then commit it to paper.
A goal gives you direction and writing it down helps hold you accountable while motivating you at the same time.
“An arrow without a target always hits its mark.” If you have vague goals your results will be vague as well.
So.. get super specific with your goals and review them daily.
Solution: carve out 20 minutes to visualize your goals and commit them in detail to paper. Then, review them daily. Remember to keep them simple and break them down #1 and #2 from above.
5. No accountability: Personal accountability is an oxymoron. By definition, you can not hold yourself accountable. There has to be a second person involved, a second person to which you report. Otherwise, it’s human nature to slack.
Accountability is the number one thing new clients ask me to do for them. It is usually why they hire me as their trainer or coach.
They want me to make sure they make it to their workouts and follow through with their nutrition goals.
Even without a trainer, studies have shown that just having a workout buddy can make a positive difference on consistency with your fitness goals.
Solution: hire a trainer to hold you accountable or at the very least find a buddy to hit the gym with and report to each other on your nutrition.
I teach my clients to make things effortless. Then they don’t have to think about winning, it is already set up for them. So for you, almost all of these five mistakes can be resolved by enlisting the help of a trainer or coach.
I believe this is a life lesson that crosses over to all aspects of life.
If you want to improve your golf swing, hire a golf pro.
If you want to get out of debt and prepare for retirement, hire a financial planner.
If you want to start a new business, hire a business coach.
The point is you don’t have to recreate the wheel with your fitness. An experienced trainer has “been there, done that” and they can get you to your goal in the shortest time possible.
Speaking of hiring a personal trainer or coach, I’d love to be yours.
It fixes all of the above mistakes and you’ll create the lifestyle that you envision for a healthy, happy life.
You will get world class training, nutrition coaching and accountability. And right now, I am offering a discounted rate going into the new year.
Follow this link to learn more. But hurry because my training and coaching spots fill in so fast.
There’s a quote that says it takes four weeks for you to see a difference, 8 weeks for close friends to see a difference, and 12 weeks for the rest of the world to see a difference. This quote hones in on something that’s been on my mind.
About 150% of the time (no kidding) when I have a health coaching client who is doing really well they hit an interesting roadblock. The roadblock comes because when you make changes and others notice, others think that it is now their job to give you input about this change. Usually the input comes when we change because others become uncomfortable because they liked the old you or behaviors, or because they are curious towards your success and they want the same for themselves.
What usually happens with my clients though is that they do great until people start making comments and then, when people start making comments, it makes them uncomfortable and these clients have a revert to past behaviors to soothe this discomfort. So as a health coach, working with my female clients, we have to start learning how to be uncomfortable with other people being uncomfortable and voicing that discomfort.
I don’t know if you know about a tuning fork, but when you use a tuning fork on, let’s say, a rock and hit it, the tuning fork will play a vibration/note according to that rock. If you were to take a second tuning fork and hit another rock that second tuning fork would play the note of that second rock. Now this is where things get interesting. If both of those tuning forks are playing those notes/vibrations at the same time eventually the one tuning fork will change its note to match the other tuning fork. And then they will play together.
What does this have to do with health?
When you make changes in your health you are changing your vibration. It may have been low but you have raised it with new habits and applied knowledge. You could have lost 10 pounds or are cleaning up your diet. You could have been going to the gym when you used to be very sedentary. When you hold that vibration long enough other people will notice that your vibration is different.
Everybody else in the world also holds a vibration. You could also call it a vibe or energy. When two vibrations meet and they are not on the same note, one vibration will need to change to meet the other in order to soothe the dissonance.
So the question is, who is going to change their vibration? And the second question is, how long can one hold out for the other to change?
It is a lot easier for those who are trying out a new vibration in life like becoming more healthy to drop down into their previous vibration. An example of this could be when a mom goes to wake up their kids in the morning. The mom’s happy to see her kids but her kids wake up ornery. She has tried to change her vibration by being happy but their vibration is low. So what happens? The mom drops her vibration to the kids’ vibration and starts yelling at them instead to get out of bed.
So what would have happened if the mom would have kept up her vibration? Well after a certain couple of minutes when the kids have really woken up they will probably raise their vibration to be happy and then they will continue on their morning in a happy positive way.
Here are some personal examples, because these vibration dissonances are happening all the time in our lives:
When I started my health journey I started having a protein shake everyday. My husband gave me a hard time at first saying how gross it looked, and continued in his own vibration of old habits. I held onto my new habit, and about five years later, he had a protein shake.He’s had one almost every day since.
On the flip side of that I was trying to level up my eating game this past year and went on a family vacation with my extended family. When we got to our destination together, the first meal that was offered was not something that was on my meal plan. I was so tired and worn out from traveling, and even though I knew it wasn’t on plan. I ate that meal. It caused a domino effect. The whole trip ended up with me moving back to expected vibrations because I was weak and dropped mine one time. That’s all it took. One time. I dropped my vibration down to what it used to be in many ways besides just my meal plan – from moods, to comments, to birth order roles and expectations. I’m sure you can relate to this. I am not proud of that vacation this past year.
Even after a couple of months since the trip, I don’t look at that vacation very fondly. I wasn’t true to myself and I didn’t keep promises to myself. I also didn’t hold off long enough for my family to raise their vibration because I was scared of what they would think of me or the comments that they would make.
I didn’t remember, but I want you to remember that when others comment about you, it is a direct reflection of them, not you. It is their noticing your vibration has changed and they feel that dissonance. It is their way of trying to regain control of the feelings they are having.
When you get to that point in your health journey of people making comments, be it family, friends, neighbors, etc, check into your vibration. Ask yourself if you would like to drop your vibration back down to where others will feel comfortable and your habits were the ones that didn’t get you to a good place, or would you like to keep your new vibration long enough for others to meet your vibration and for you to continue to feel proud of the work you’ve done?
That is what you are in control of. Hold that vibration.
What are ways to keep that vibration strong?
Honestly, I see the greatest strength come in numbers. Accountability with friends or a coach like me is a great way to hold strong. I meet with my clients to coach once a week and then also have check-ins. But my clients can text me anytime if it is an emergency. That is part of why you need a coach. That cheerleader and coach rooting you on and keeping your high vibration with you. Friends or other family can also do this for you, but tend to also be emotionally bias, so beware of that.
Second is to be honest with those around you. Don’t skirt about the issue. It isn’t their cooking! And even if it was, you are working with your body and mind to level up. When we state out loud what we are working on, we gain strength from new places. It is empowering.
Third, feel free to take some time. Sometimes I need to excuse myself to the bathroom to take a quick minute to check my intentions and habits. You could retreat to your room and do some breathing exercises. Putting space between the action and reaction is helpful. This time also helps you stay present and mindful.
As we head into holidays there will be lots of people who have worked really hard to change their vibration. They have new habits and new lifestyles and maybe a new shape that they are taking back to old energies. Does the term “falling off the bandwagon” ring a bell? That is losing your new vibration and dropping down to expected old ones.
If you really don’t want to come out of the holidays like that, consider setting up a free consultation with me and see if we are a good fit to coach together. I want health for you in body + mind. I am ready for you to take on this new vibration and can be that strength you need as you learn a new lifestyle and go through the learning process 🙂
Fill out the form linked below to get the coaching ball rolling. Those holidays are barreling in fast.
In my personal life I have been studying a lot about loss. In the next couple months I have some big changes coming up in my life as I have known it. I have felt such angst and stress about choosing these changes and implementing them that they have caused a lack of sleep and an inability to function well as a mother and coach.
For one thing, these future changes are my choice instead of something that is forced and two, I have never really done well with change. whenever we would go on an extended break or Holiday from school like Christmas, the first week back of school I would always get sick. This happened a lot in college. When the semesters changed and my routine needed to change, my body would get some sort of cold or flu, and I’d be down for the count and miss days of school. Even though I’m not in school now, whenever there are big changes or big events in my life or family life, I ramp up to them and then afterwards I get sick either mentally or physically.
On a side note, doesn’t this example show that our mental state can affect our physical state. More to come on those thoughts in an article soon.
So with me loving routine these changes have been ridiculously difficult to fathom and make. Therefore I have taken it to some of the doctors that I work with to talk to them about which changes and how much change I need to be able to heal and balance that with keeping myself mentally happy. I love where I’m at right now, but I recognize that some change is good and change will allow me to grow but also heal some health issues I am experiencing.
As I have talked with professionals about these changes my therapist brought to light a syndrome that we want to call the Tom Brady syndrome. It’s something I want to share with you today because it rang so true and felt was easily relatable.
training the mind
I’m going to assume that you know who Tom Brady is and if you don’t go and Google him. In a very short sentence he, being an amazing football player, retired from football and after a short time unretired from football and went back into the game.
As a top football player and a high-performance achiever I can only understand why he went back to football. He loves the dopamine rush and the 100% for filament that he gets from winning a game and being the top performer in his industry and Sport. One can only understand that retiring from that was a severe loss for him and probably caused mental sadness and emotions that he wasn’t used to having because he was so used to all the good emotions that he experienced while playing football and winning.
Interestingly enough, what has happened since he has gone back to the game are also interesting losses. his wife and he have gotten a divorce. His wife was his biggest fan and was a key contributor to his success as a football player. For example, she monitored every little bit of food that went into his mouth so that he was fueled properly and also was in charge of making sure he had boundaries so he could recover.Something else that has happened since coming back to the game, he’s losing.
So I want to discuss 3 points about the Tom Brady syndrome that you can see in what Tom Brady is going through right now.
The Tank
The first point is called the tank. The tank is where a professional is at the top of their career and due to age, injury, circumstances or other professionals coming into the same industry, etc, this professional starts to tank in their success rate and is not at the top of their game or career anymore.
With Tom Brady coming back out of retirement and losing all of these games is showing that he is starting to tank.
So the question for you is: should Tom Brady finish his career of football at the high or should he continue in football as he tanks and finish at a low? What do you think that would do to his mental health as well as the story that people will tell about him for years to come?
The next question there would be where are you at and your career? Do you think you have reached your Peak do you think you still have room to grow or do you think you are in the tank?
I have noticed in my personal Journey that due to the injuries and health problems I’m experiencing, I am in the tank. I have not been able to give what I used to be able to give and it has been discouraging and sad. I appreciated the advice that I received to not tank fully and exit at the low but to exit at the high.Honestly I think when we exit at a high we can look back with fond memories and there is closure.
The Acceptance
The second point is called acceptance. The acceptance is the concept that after we leave or turn away from our original trajectory and goal we might experience loss in the manner that whatever we do instead might not be as fulfilling as the thing we did first.
For Tom Brady, he probably should go out and buy a football team. That’s the closest thing that he could do to recreate the happiness that he experienced as the football player. However he probably will only be able to receive 90% of his fulfillment back compared to the 100% that he might have gotten as a player himself. That is part of loss.
It is good for us to recognize that in Los we may not be able to get back to the hundred percent fulfillment that we had. Very rarely will somebody experience something that is better than what they were originally doing when they were at the top of their game.
If you are aware of this you would be grasping for straws and probably looking outside of yourself for inner peace. Just like Tom Brady coming back out of retirement. He probably couldn’t find something that would fulfill him just as much as playing football did and he didn’t know how to handle that and sit with that. Then he has the consequence of losing his wife now because he chose to come back out of retirement and that is not what she wanted or was told would happen.
For me, I don’t know what is coming next after my changes but I do appreciate this concept. I used to dance ballroom at BYU and competed professionally and was doing very well. I stopped dancing because my body could not get pregnant due to how much physical work I was putting in to dance every day. When I stopped I experienced a severe depression for a long time. For years I couldn’t even watch the progress of my fellow dancers because I knew where I “should have been” in the dance world. I don’t think anything I have done in the dance realm since has been as fulfilling as being a competitor on the dance floor and winning. It still hurts 13 years later and now having an understanding that fulfillment might not reach capacity has helped me release the pain because of those expectations being replaced with acceptance.
The Vacuum
The final concept of the Tom Brady syndrome is the vacuum. And on a side note, I’m grateful for spell check, because I still don’t know how to spell vacuum without help. LOL.
The vacuum is where when you take something out of your life it will put a force into the universe that will pull something new into that empty space.
Tom Brady had a really big empty space because he had a very big, successful, Limelight career. Again oh, he didn’t have the tools nor the patience to wait for something else to come along to fill that space.
Along with that I feel like if we understand that there will be a vacuum we can be looking for opportunities and we can recognize that some opportunities will be good ones and some will be bad ones or destructive ones that will not help us.
When covid shut my job down as a group fitness instructor there was a big loss there. I was tumbled into this space that created a vacuum and needed to be filled. Some of the things that filled that space were good and I’ll talk about those in a second, but some of them were not so good. I didn’t eat well. I lost a lot of my discipline and my hope for the future. In fact, I think that I am still recovering from what that vacuum brought to me and what I chose. Now like I said, some of those opportunities were good ones. I ended up taking clients virtually during covid and really laid a good foundation to be a personal trainer and nutrition coach online. if it weren’t for covid and that loss I would not have had that space replaced.
Right now I don’t know what is going to fill the space from the loss that I am going to incur in the next couple of months. I was feeling anxious about that. There are a lot of what-ifs. But I am finding that because of the awareness that there is a vacuum I am handling the unknown a lot better. In fact, there’s a part of me that is really looking forward to what might open up for me in opportunities that are constructive and helpful to me and the next season of My Life.
So finishing up, let’s review the Tom Brady syndrome. The Tom Brady syndrome has three main facets. The first facet is the tank, the second is the acceptance, And the third is the vacuum.
Maybe you can look back on a couple of your losses and think about these three aspects. Then, being aware of these three aspects when you go into a new loss, which will happen because we are all mortal and human, maybe, because you have awareness of them you will be able to more gracefully and strongly handle your next loss in a way that will help you come out of that more refined and better.
At least that is my hope because I am seeing that work in my own life.
One of my favorite summer events is taking a boat out to the middle of a lake, turning it off, and just sunning on the back bench. I love the feeling of the boat gently rocking in the waves, the hot, sun-warmed vinyl from beneath my body, and the intensity of the Utah sun beating down from above.
Photo by Ahmed Zayan
Can you relate to this peaceful feeling?
Unfortunately, this moment of peace always has an ending.
I remember at a lake here in Utah we had stopped the boat. After resting for a while I sat up only to find our boat was mere feet from a rocky shoreline. From past experiences (*cough cough*), I knew the boat, being that close to the shore, was in a red zone. It was going to be a huge risk to start the motor and the propeller without a rock mangling it and therefore hindering our ability to get to the dock. We were in a bad place.
It took a lot of effort and teamwork to get the boat away from the rocks, start it up on a prayer, and head away from danger.
I’ve thought about this experience a lot and have really built a beautiful analogy from it relating to whole health that I want to offer you today.
As humans, we are wired for the desire to find and accrue peace. Those moments of weightless peace on the boat? Yeah, we seek that out constantly. Effortlessness that comes easy. Haven’t you heard so many people say, “it seems so easy for ‘so and so’ to lose weight,” or, “stay constant,” or, “be able to eat anything they want and not gain weight.”
So we are searching for those moments where we can turn off the boat and relax in the Sun so to speak, but if we do that we tend to slowly drift towards red zones. For example, if I don’t track the foods that I eat I have a tendency to just take one bite or just one more piece of chocolate and the next thing I know after a couple days or weeks, I have lost complete control of my healthy eating. Same thing goes with missing exercise or your journal and meditation for the day.
The effort it takes to get away from that red zone is a lot and usually cannot be completed without members of a team in your boat. Now I’ll come back to your team in a second but I want to point that out. In your help red zones what does it take to get out of that zone? In my example it could be that I go through my kitchen and throw out everything that could cause me to overeat; or it could look like menu planning for the week and then putting that into an app.
Once you pull away enough from that Red Zone you can turn on the motor and really make some progress ( this might look like those first initial 5 lb that you lose or the ability to work out 5 days or 6 days in a week). The next question would be where are you headed next? That new destination is just like when we make goals.
When We choose to make goals we choose to move into the neighborhood of success and failure. Success and failure live next to each other. How does this relate to our boat?
It seems to me that when I have been on a boat heading for a destination it never fails that there’s some sort of friction that comes upon me. It’s to be expected. That friction could look like waves, other boats, wind, rocks, not quite knowing where we’re going, or even disagreement within my boat. But it is bound to happen.
When you make a goal you Essentially turn on the motor of your boat and head towards that goal. Those obstacles and frictions that come up will come up because you are trying to go somewhere. They make you work harder than just floating with the motor off. Sometimes you might lose sight of your goal. But if you are headed in the right direction with the right behaviors you will resurface so to speak and find her goal again.
Ironically enough when I’m talking to my clients I find that when we set a goal we tend to expect that it will be effortless or it is effortless while we turn our boat around and get it started in the first 10-15 ft but then after that it becomes harder.
But it is the friction actually allows us to make progress. If our boat was in the air in the prop was going at full speed you wouldn’t go anywhere. We need that water we need those waves in order to get us movement.
Now onto the next idea that I wanted to come back 2 was about the crew in your boat. Who do you want in your boat? Who will get you or help get you to your destination safely, more efficiently? either out of their previous experience or their skill set to help you man the boat. we want a good team on our side..
Two weeks ago when I talked to my client about this exact analogy I asked her who she wanted in her boat. She talked about her husband who supported her unconditionally in her goals. She talked about having me as her coach in the boat. And then she also talked about a woman who is a friend that she looks up to. So it wasn’t necessarily somebody who had skills but it was somebody she aspired to be like and be friends with; who could give her courage when the waters got rough.
In your boat it could look like a doctor, it could look like a therapist, family, friends, colleagues, boss, a lady down the street, somebody who always has your back, or somebody who can help you think rationally as well.
We could continue to find parallels with this analogy, so if you discover one for yourself, consider sharing it below. However, to come full circle with the final points of this analogy…
We tend to go easy and want to turn off our boats, but when we do we drift without control into Red zones.
When we make goals we essentially are turning on the motor of our boat and we will need friction in order to make progress.
The crew inside your boat will make or break your ability to reach your mile marker goal
So my question to you today is: What areas of your health are you floating with the motor off and, unbeknownst to you, heading for a red zone?
As a personal trainer, nutrition coach, and behavioral help coach I get in the boat with you. I help you have awareness of where you are on the lake and, As you make help goals, help you know how to navigate the friction will be ahead. We work together to be able to man your boat.
If this is something that has sparked some thoughtfulness in you, consider sharing it with a friend or family member and consider setting up a free consultation with me to see if we will be the right crew together to reach your new destination. I’d be honored to work with you.
What is health to you? What is in the description you’d give and what is excluded?
Photo: krakenimages
Next question: Is your health important to you? This means that what you said above is included in your health. Can you say that it is and each factor of your definition is thriving?
For example, if spirituality was included in my definition of health (not just exercise or diet), then I would need to account for my level of current spirituality when I thought about the importance of health and level of whole health in my life.
When I decided to become a coach, it was because I was missing a coach that considered ALL of what was important to ME as a client. I was getting “eat this like I did” and “do this workout according to what’s written.” I was missing the individual, whole health aspect and therefore didn’t come away with a lifestyle change. Because I couldn’t find the coach I was needing, I figured that there were people out there who also weren’t finding what they needed. So I became the coach I needed.
Photo: Jamie Nokleby
So what is WHOLE health to you? Have you found a coach that considers your full definition?
Whole health to me considers – physical, nutritional, emotional, social, spiritual, intellectual, financial, and environmental. Among many other things, it looks at genetic disposition, sleep, dietary needs, time constraints, and more. It shifts day to day, week to week, and even year to year.
May sound really complicated, and it is! That is why having a coach who can help you settle into your individual whole health is important. The navigation is tiring on our own right? It is always better to have a guide in untapped territory.
Whole health is comprised of basic guidelines for the many different areas of life, and then within those basic guidelines are the individual applications to each person. But it can be hard to know what individual applications you need to apply without someone who has been through and knows ins and outs of the road you are travelling on.
As a coach I help teach the umbrella of whole health guidelines and then we define, through a journey, what the personal needs are.
You need someone who can clearly see, through experience, how to help you navigate your health journey. Then you won’t feel lost, you won’t feel alone, and you WILL navigate successfully your individual whole health.
I have just completed 15 weeks of a bikini prep program. No competition but all the work to get to one. Let’s say, I started full force with great success and came crawling through mud to the end. Wow, did I learn SO much! Pros and Cons! I cannot wait to share these things with you. As always, it may look different for each one of you. All our bodies are SO different and circumstances/lifestyles – so what I needed, wanted, experienced is all from my perspective and not through others. I’d love to hear what you have learned if you have done one before.
First, I wanted to start with my why and motivation. For years I have pushed hard in the exercise realm and also ate well. But I noticed I was missing some key components to getting “ripped.” I wanted to prove to myself that getting my body fat % below 15% was possible and doable without a gym membership. I also was totally ready to grow as a personal trainer and nutrition coach. I wanted to experience the process so I can coach my own clients with empathy, understanding, and vision.
Next in the process. You start at a moderate but low calorie amount. Foods are mainly one ingredient foods with some exceptions. No sugar, no dairy, no gluten. Pairings of foods are placed together to give you the most bang for your pound. Every week there are subtractions or replacements to your feeds so you eat less but your body adapts because they are well placed adjustments. Exercise runs the opposite course – five one-hour sessions to six two- to three-hour sessions a week.
Alright, without further ado, my list. I have been pondering on this for about 5 weeks now as I came dragging into the homestretch. They are in no particular order and definitely aren’t exclusive to all of my thoughts.
The same insecurities I had 18 pounds ago are the same insecurities I have now.
Eating whole, one ingredient foods make me feel the best
I am emotionally connected to food
I am socially connected to food
There was a point where my body rejected more programming and I needed to pull back for a while and reset.
My mental health is almost MORE important than my physical health. Without good mental health, anything good I pursue didn’t matter.
Eating one ingredient foods and ridding my body of sugar, gluten, and dairy changed three things drastically that weren’t my size – my acne is all but gone, my hormones were in a better balance range, my mental health is DEPENDANT on whole, one ingredient foods
You need a good coach to guide you and talk you off of the wall at times
You need serious accountability to make serious changes
This world is obese because of added sugars and too little protein
What you learn about yourself is WAY more important than the results at the end
Even a small step forward is a BIG win!
I wanted to throw the towel in multiple times and I am SO thankful that I gritted up and tried again – because 80% or even 50% or even 30% is better than 0%
Different goals require different nutrition and exercise programs —- too many women try to do everything ALL at once. Example: I had a client text me to see if I could coach her while she 1) lost weight 2) built 10 lbs of muscle 3) trained for a triathlon 4) wanted to intuitively eat. Yikes! We do better when we pick one or we’ll be knocking heads with the cross points of our goals.
Supplementation is a must with a cutting diet
Timing in your eating is IMPERATIVE to keeping muscle and not crashing mid-day.
You can do anything!!!
Because of this program, I have revamped parts of my nutrition coaching in what I have learned and am implementing it to be a better coach for you.
If you don’t eat right, you won’t see change. I swear nutrition is 90% of the equation to body change.
Get a coach! Nuff said there!
Food can be ritualistic and there’s definitely a FOMO in certain ritual situations (like my birthday) when you don’t eat what everyone else is eating and what you look forward to so much.
I love allowing myself a treat on Sunday’s. It keeps me sane.
Sugar makes me feel SO junky and slow and bloated and all the wrong things.
But my body craves sugar if I am not eating the right kinds of foods at the right times.
When you lose enough weight to change clothes sizes, it is really strange and difficult to fork up the money to purchase new stuff.
Sometimes weight drops don’t lead to clothing size drops. Don’t go there with expectations.
When you lose a bunch of weight, there is a fear of gaining it all back every single time you eat or shop for a new clothing size or get close to finishing your program.
You can’t possibly maintain a super low weight on a restricted diet without injuring your hormones or body in general.
To achieve an extremely low body fat %, it will take complete sacrifice of all else. Between meal prep, recovery, and gym time, it is hours of each day. Too many women want the body but aren’t willing or can’t do 3 hours a day, 6 days a week in the gym.
My body can’t eat cake and cut weight at the same time.
It is always about trusting the process and hanging onto your coach’s knowledge
There is an end to every season – from the actual program and challenge it was to even the weight I ended with, it is all temporary and the only thing certain is change.
Peanut Butter is king!
My body craves nuts and peanut butter when I am in a calorie deficit – like cannot stop thinking about anything in that realm.
This is a lifestyle I’d like to continue in – I truly was eating the right foods, just in a deficit. So now, I get to keep eating them in, but more!!!
You can fuel your body super efficiently with whole, one ingredient food.
It is all about finding volume foods and spices to liven and fill you.
There is always an event or an excuse. There just is.
Foods during low hormone phases vs high hormone phases tasted and pleased/disgusted differently.
Two hours in the gym plus little caloric intake wipes you out. YOU MUST REST and rest MORE.
So here are some before and after photos – honestly, I can’t see much change in myself but I FEEL better and have had others notice a difference. I guess it is all the eye of the beholder and sometimes we have to hold onto how others see us if we cannot see that change and know there is one.
Hopefully you have gained some insight into all the thoughts (even contradicting ones) of a rigorous program. There is a right season to everything, just not all at once. That is why I NEVER give my clients the same program as anyone else and NEVER try to achieve too many goals at one time. Everything is thought out to where the client is at and the circumstances they are in and where they want to be. Time, accountability, and consistency in anything is key and that is what I, as your coach, can do for you.
If you’d like to take a 12 week nutrition coaching course, do a bikini prep program, or get some amazing personal, personal training, reach out via the Contact Us link in the Train menu up top. I’d love to coach with you.
Overall, would I do the program again? Yes, I would, and I am planning on it already – I know there is more progress I can make. Would I make some changes in how the program is set up and given? Yes, I would. Was I perfect in keeping with my guidelines? Nope, I definitely had fails, but we have to be honest in our mortal bodies. Can I be a better coach because of this? Yes, I can and have already implemented some of the process to dos into my coaching to get better results for my clients.
***We do not claim to be a doctor or anything of the like. This document is for educational and journaling purposes only. Any action taken by the reader is their sole responsibility and should be done with discretion. No claim can be made against Adagio FIT or its employees. If you ever have any questions, take them to your primary care doctor.***
I once saw a thriller movie and at one point in a scene, there was blood oozing under the door frame into the closet where the actor was hiding. The actor had no idea what was going on until there was so much blood, he was 4-5 inches deep and it was “too late” for him. He succumbed to the monster with a blood curdling scream. I always wondered why that scene stuck with me… until it made a lot of sense for me today.
That’s what I start feeling around day 20-22 in my PMDD cycle. Everything is going wonderfully up until that point. In fact, yesterday I was just thinking how much energy and drive I had and how I could keep up with my goals for sure! I would smash my PMDD out of the water and win this month. I just knew it.
But today I noticed the muck leaching under the closet door.
It came in a way of noticing my bloated belly and my 4 lb weight gain overnight. How could I possibly send that to my coach?!
It came when I just couldn’t get the seam on my sock to sit right in my shoe or the drawstring on my pants kept loosening. I didn’t hate those pants last week, they were my uniform and now I can’t wait to get rid of them.
It leached more when I looked at my calendar and had dread of this coming weekend. Too many social events and planned things I need to “show up” for… panic, sweat, heat… how do I cancel these? Too much going on.
It came in more when I realized that my whole house was SO dirty and I am the ONLY one who seems to care. The load of work gets heavier and I notice everything wrong.
It leached when one hand on my back from my husband sent so much electric energy into my body I was awake for another hour trying to calm back down. OVer stimulation of simple things.
It rose with foggy mind issues, frustration of my hair today, feeling SO gross that I haven’t had time to shower and shave since Saturday and the hairs are catching on my leggings. In my workout where I couldn’t even look myself in the eyes I was that disgusted with who I am.
And with all these things I think, “That’s just weird. I know those thoughts and feelings aren’t who I am. I wonder what is going on?”
After a certain point in my day, it hits me. Every time, it hits like a bus. PMDD is here again. And I sorrow. I ache. I mourn.
For the life I am losing. For the pain I will cause. For another month, another round, another destroyer coming though of all that I had tried to build the past two weeks.
And I am tempted to just sit in the muck and let the monster take me too.
***We do not claim to be a doctor or anything of the like. This document is for educational and journaling purposes only. Any action taken by the reader is their sole responsibility and should be done with discretion. No claim can be made against Adagio FIT or its employees. If you ever have any questions, take them to your primary care doctor.***
Let’s talk sugar strategy here… Now remember that everyone’s definition and needs are different. Why? We are all on different health paths and our readiness or behavioral change journeys are different too. So take what you feel to apply to you to help you be just one step better and work on it.
We are talking three strategies today – food ingredients, abstaining vs moderating, and replacing. Along with some other tips to get your sugar break up started, there is something for everyone here.
First item of business, learning how to find sugar in your foods. You won’t find it on the front of a label, but you can search for it in a couple places on the back of labeled foods. Here are five tips that I use with my clients on nutrition labels:
The best tip I can give is to purchase foods that come with NO ingredient labels. Can you think of any? Like fresh meats, fruits, veggies, etc.
Going along with #1, if it does have a nutrition label, try to stick to less than 5 ingredients. The number is pretty arbitrary but the principle is that the less ingredients, usually the less processed. And less processed usually means more nutrients because they haven’t been stripped away during the processing and random additives put back in.
In looking at the ingredients, if there is sugar (see the many names below), try to look for foods that do not have sugar in the top 5 ingredients. The top 5 ingredients mainly constitute the bulk of the food you are eating, so the further down, the better.
There are SO many names for sugar (see section below). Companies are getting smarter about the placement of sugar on their ingredient list. To make sugar later on the list, they are actually using more than one kind of sugar to break things up so there are two + types of sugar in your product, but all those sugars can add up to a lot. So educate yourself on the names of sugar and what you need to look for on a label.
Look at the added sugar line in the nutrition facts. If it has less that 10 grams of ADDED sugar, you are pretty good for a more whole food.
So an apple doesn’t come with a label (good), it has less than 5 ingredients (good), and there is NO added sugar (even though they are super sweet). These are just great basic guidelines to practice in your shopping.
Next strategy is to learn if you are an Abstainer or Moderator. This comes from the amazing book of Gretchen Ruben called The Four Tendencies. Such a great read btw and worth your time! Helped me parent and wife in a whole new way. Anyway, she talks about people who are really good at being moderators and those that find it easier to just abstain. My hubby is a total moderator. He can take one bite of cake, taste it, and say no more. Me? I have a slice. Then a second. Then a third. And the rest of the pan when I am cleaning up. Then I’m sick. It is like I don’t have a system that tells me to stop. I’m that way in a lot of other areas of my life too. So it is MUCH easier for me to say NO to everything. And it works really well once I get going.
This can help you decide better how a sugar strategy might look for you.
During my luteal phase of my PMDD cycle I HAVE to be a complete abstainer because my hormones mess with my ability to regulate/moderate. During the follicular phase when hormones are running my body through a wringer, I am much better at regulation and can relax a little bit, but still do try to stay in the abstainer habit. Just makes it easier for me.
If you are a moderator, it is helpful to set your limit before you eat your sweets so you stick to that with no exceptions. I have heard that after three bites of a dessert you really don’t taste it anymore. So you could set yourself at three bites, one small slice, one cookie, etc. We actually have set some guidelines like this with our girls. I talked a little about this in part 2 of this series but we have set that we only do baking on saturday or sunday, we don’t purchase and premade sweets from the store, and we only need one serving of what we make and can share the rest.
This has saved our house immensely. There is less pressure to eat sweets as a “snack”, less pressure to snitch sweets because there aren’t any lying around, and we are enjoying our sweets more because we are making them ourselves! The girls (I only have girls) also can have any candy they get from school, class, friends, etc. There is no pressure from us as parents there because we know that there isn’t the rest of the bag. Loved setting some guidelines on health with our girls. They were part of that discussion. We talked about fully abstaining or allowing everything and we found what would work for use as a whole.
The next strategy is a replacement strategy. I love to use this one with my clients but it always seems to take a while to kick in because we have to remember we have options and in the middle of a craving, this can be tough. The idea is this: instead of focusing on what you can’t have, what are some things you can have without guilt and that also add nutrients to your body.
Other ways to cut back on added sugars:
Sugary drinks – stick with sparkling water, Zevia soda, herbal teas, infused water (I love mango and strawberries), and pure water
Avoid Sauces and Condiments – stick with spices, herbs, mustard, salsa (no sugar added), vinegars, and pesto.
Eat more healthy and full fat foods – there is usually more added sugar in low fat varieties of foods to help it taste good. Also healthy and full fat foods make you feel full.
Avoid any processed foods – you can be an unhealthy healthy – stick to as whole foods as possible
Watch your breakfast – one of the sweetest meals of the day – start your day with a good protein and fat filled meal – eggs and ham, protein oatmeal, etc
Add your own sugar – purchase unsweetened and then add your own sweetener in like stevia or erythritol.
Don’t keep sugar in the house
Don’t shop when you are hungry
Get enough sleep
Destress!
In conclusion, I hope that this series has been helpful for your awareness and desire to take bits and pieces and apply them to your life to be healthier. It isn’t about perfection, it is about small little steps over time to create a lasting lifestyle.
Below are the many names of sugar. I am sure this list probably isn’t all of them since new products are coming on the market, but it is great to be aware of the names when you are shopping.
The Most Common Names for Sugar
(Excluding artificial sweeteners and sugar substitutes)
Basic Simple Sugars (monosaccharides and disaccharides):
