ok, did I get your attention?
CAKE? #yesplease….. SKINNY JEANS? #canthetwobeinthesamesentence #theanswerisYES
Don’t believe me?
Keep reading.
My goal is to recommend a book a week to ya’ll that has helped me in my health & fitness & sanity & overcoming struggles & #hotmessmom journey we call life!
Welcome to the first official book recommendation! (yes, I have recommended books before today!…but welcome to the first edition of a blog post centered around it!)
Today I wanna talk about a concept I’ve been thinking a lot about lately ~ “never hungry, never full.”
I don’t know about you but I’ve been hungry since like 1980. And, I also seem to always have to eat until I have that stuffed full, completely satisfied feeling.
I’m gonna be straight up honest with you (#keepinitreal) and say that growing up…even well into my adult years if I’m REALLLLLY honest…I would look at thin chicks and be envious. Envious of their metabolisms and their damn genetics and small bone structures and on and on of the list of reasons why I assumed they were thin. I even felt this way about sister. I often thought it wasn’t fair that she “got the good genes” lol. She’s always been thin and tone and muscular and could eat whatever the heck she wanted.
Now, while of course we all have our own unique body compositions and shapes and genetics DO in fact play a huge role, I want to talk about another reason some people just are naturally thin.
Looking back on how I looked at other women…..and now honestly since I’m in a better place mentally and stronger physically….I believe a lot of the women I was comparing myself to simply lived their lives with a healthy relationship with food. They didn’t know some secret I didn’t (ha, well maybe they did…..they somehow knew that food could NEVER solve a problem or a hurt). They didn’t see food as a coping mechanism like I did. They didn’t see food as some magical bean that would erase all their problems. They didn’t eat just ‘cuz they were bored….or tired….or sad….or happy. (Yes, that’s what people like me….emotional eaters…do. And, for me, believe me it’s ERRRRY emotion. Just like I don’t discriminate any food….I like everything….I don’t discriminate which emotion I eat with lol.) They didn’t have unhealthy food behaviors like binging or closet eating.
This is my sister!
She eats when she’s hungry and stops eating before she’s full. And, growing up, she wasn’t the one getting up in the middle of the night sneaking food. She wasn’t the one hiding food. She wasn’t the one who guilted herself to the point of being even more unhealthy and drastic after indulging in something. And, even more to my point about having a healthy relationship with food…..she LOVES food. And, she would be the first to say that! But, she just doesn’t see food the same way I do and therefore the way she uses it is very different. If she wanted (and still to this day) something delicious and decadent, she had it and didn’t spend even one minute feeling guilty for it!
And, now I’m going to divert a little bit but I promise I’ll bring ya’ll back.
In my quest to look at my nutrition as a source of what’s been going on with my body, I grabbed a book of Natalie Jill’s 7-Day Jumpstart. That’s not the book I’m highlighting this week….although it is really good. I LOVE her story! She was broke and didn’t feel well physically or about herself and she completely turned her life around and is now a successful fitness professional, author and a #girlboss I definitely admire! I didn’t get the book because of the title ;). I picked it up because I knew she had celiac disease and promoted a clean, unprocessed, gluten-free diet….(AND, like I said I just loved her story. I forgot to mention she was a presenter at a conference I was at for coaching in Dallas a few years ago, so I’ve been following her ever since). Anyhoo, I’m getting to the point! Natalie Jill also talks about this “never hungry, never full” concept in this book. And, that concept as she presented it isn’t in the context of a specific type of diet you follow ~ it doesn’t matter if you do flexible dieting or clean eating or Paleo! It’s simply talking about how to find a healthy way to look at food.
So, YES, I DO believe you can have your cake and wear your skinny jeans, too!
Again….
Wait.
What????
Is this for real? I know I didn’t always believe it. I believe it now. (Even if it means you have food sensitivities and indulge in GLUTEN-FREE CAKE from time to time! LOL!)
One of the biggest changes that happened in my life after I started coaching was focusing on personal development. It’s actually something the company and our teams talk about like DAILY. We talk about the importance of staying positive, staying driven, digging deep to conquer fears and overcome, letting go of the past, finding your faith and finding hope, and being the best you you can be to help others the best you can! How do you do personal development? You read and listen to books on audio and watch YouTube videos and go to seminars and workshops and listen to podcasts. The options are really endless. And, there is help for everything that you struggle with!
Through personal development and coaching, I’ve been able to recognize my triggers and tendencies and utilize the tools I’ve been given to overcome. From the very beginning and for the very first time in my life (I began coaching when I was 37! Yes, that’s a long time of not knowing better. Like they say when you know better, you do better? #umyes And, it’s never to late to learn….it’s never too late to do better), I was exposed to a completely comprehensive and healthy approach to losing weight and getting in shape that focused on personal development FIRST….an approach to help you lose weight that wasn’t just based on throwing a meal plan and a workout at you. An approach that makes you think about WHY you struggle ~ WHY you may turn to food ~ WHY the thought of working out is too overwhelming to even take that first step. So, yes, I dove into personal development from the very beginning as a coach, and I began to recognize early on my self-sabotage and issues with food were never really about…..food! It’s wasn’t so much about that CUPCAKE but my emotional response to eating that CUPCAKE! My sister would stop at one CUPCAKE! (Or maybe not eat it at all…she doesn’t love cake like I do lol.) I have often binged on them to the point of being sick! But, my awareness and willingness to change and overcome has only continued to improve. And, being a coach and learning how important working on ME from the inside out was!
Ok, coming back around now. I want to start sharing regularly the things I have done for personal development that have helped me. And, if you have followed me for a while, you know I don’t just struggle with food. So, I’m going to be making recommendations for a VARIETY of life’s struggles! This first book helped me really think about what made my sister & I so different when it came to food. It really made me get down the ROOT of why I was turning to food….why I had such a long history of BINGE and closet eating ….or why I even had the other extreme….NOT eating. (Yes, sadly, I’ve went thru those stages as well. I lived on diet coke and sometimes one meal a day and then a night of drinking). And, more importantly, how I could start to overcome once and for all!
Through personal development and growth, I have found the strength and mindset to pray about it! Before coaching and before diving into ways of learning to overcome and finding my Faith again, I honestly never would have dreamed to PRAY about my issues with food! I think I was so ashamed that I felt like I wasn’t even worthy of being able to pray about them. I know now eating well is a form of self-respect and love for yourself and of COURSE that would be a God thing!!
Ya’ll know I’m still far from perfect, which is good because there’s no such thing anyway. And, the book I’m going to recommend isn’t about having the perfect nutrition and never indulging! Yes, I will ALWAYS like my beer and my wine and my cupcakes. And, there are seasons when I’m okay with eating and having them and seasons when I’m not. I’m in a season of not eating them right now. I’m actually in a really TOUGH season of watching labels and being SUPER sensitive to what I’m putting in my body. But, it’s not because I believe CAKE is the root of all evil. (I mean who in their right mind could think cake was evil 😉 ) It’s not because I think the foods I’m eating are making me overweight. And, there’s a chance that after I do this, I may find that I can in fact have gluten and I can have dairy and I can go back to having all things in moderation. Right now, I’m doing this because there’s definitely something going in my body and my nutrition is the one thing I CAN control. But, mentally when it comes to food and my relationship with it, I get stronger every day! This Whole 30 challenge isn’t something I could’ve even gotten 5 days into 5 years ago! And, I can honestly say right now that I no longer body shame or am jealous of my sister or anyone else! AND, I’m eating when I’m hungry and stopping before I’m full! No, I still am not QUITE like my sister or the people described in this book. And, it could take years, if I ever fully do….but just given the fact that I know I can get thru these 30 days make me feel proud that I’m not the person I was 3 years ago.
ANYHOO, here is it! “Thinside Out ~ How to Have Your Cake & Skinny Jeans, too!” Stop Binge Eating, Overeating and Dieting For Good Get the Naturally Thin Body You Crave From the Inside Out. If you dealt with or are dealing with anything I’ve described in this post, I think you’d love this book. And, my suggestion is not to just READ it and move on. Really take it all in! Bookmark the things that really speak to you! Dig deep on what it says. And, start to change your thinking OR if you’ve already overcome, forgive yourself and let it go already!
p.s. I would love to know what you think of this if you read it! And, I would LOVE LOVE to share success stories on my blog! I encourage you to email me if you ever have something you want me to share that could help someone else out there! Believe it or not, I really don’t wanna always just talk about me and my story!! I told someone yesterday that I want to use this blog to also highlight other #girlbosses and strong women!!! STRONG WOMEN….may we be them….may we know them….may we raise them! AND, maybe we have our cake and wear our skinny jeans too….no matter what size you are! (Ha, this would be the never-ending post if I went there right now…that’s TOTALLY for another blog post….loving yourself no matter what size you are! But, that’s what this is ALL ABOUT my friends!)
And, today’s bonus for you!
A recipe for sweet potato fries that looks delish!
I made Whole 30 sweet potato fries last night with just
EVOO (extra-virgin olive oil) & sea salt and they were SOOO nummy
but these sound a little more savory and fun! If you’re GF, do what I did OR don’t use corn starch and sub out the vegetable oil for coconut oil or EVOO (I was starving last night and just wanted to get them in the oven!)
If you’re not, just click the image to go to the recipe 🙂
