I remember having a conversation with a client eight months into working with her. She was going through a stressful divorce. She was hitting her marks with her food, for the most part. She worked out really hard when in session with me. But she wasn’t hitting her workouts (particularly her morning walks) as consistently as she liked. Those walks were stress-reducing, woke her body up, helped her burn a few calories, and provided a great reset for her mind. And yet…she lacked consistency in getting her daily walk in.

And then, we fixed it. We fortified a key habit of hers by changing the parameters of success. When we set up her workout routine, a 30-minute walk was the goal. Come to find out, if Beth didn’t have 30 minutes, she didn’t go on a walk. It was either 30 minutes or zero minutes…and most of the time it was zero minutes. And with work and kids and divorce proceedings, her time demands grew and her ability to walk for 30 minutes diminished.

Plymouth personal traiiner says “shoes on” is a better goal than “ walk for 30 minutes”

We redefined success for her cardio workouts from “30 minutes of walking, or bust” to “shoes on, get out the door, and lock the door behind you!” I didn’t care if she walked for 30 minutes or 30 seconds. Just get your shoes on, get out the door, and lock the door behind you. That is success. Walk the length of three houses? Success. Walk three miles? Success. Walk six minutes and nine seconds? Success. Shoes on, out the door, lock the door behind you.

By lowing the bar (our definition of success) for her cardio workouts, we increased the consistency of the habit. By fortifying the habit, Beth saw more success in her pursuit of lasting health change because she was actively reducing her stress levels…which was the main block in her weight loss journey. In the first eight months of working with Beth, she lost 15 pounds. Not an extraordinary number, per se…but weight loss is a hormone game and Beth had a lot of stress in her life. High stress means more cortisol production (the stress hormone), and less weight-loss success. In the final four months of the year Beth lost 37 pounds! She lost 52 lbs. in twelve months!

Lasting health change, regardless of the outcome we are after, is achieved by fortifying the right habits. Consistent execution is the key. Often times lowering the bar and redefining success is the trick to fortifying a habit.

One of my clients, Kristen, just got a rowing machine (she found out she enjoyed rowing after I brought my rowing machine to her home for workouts a few times…I bring a lot of my equipment to my clients!). My challenge for Kristen is this: 50 meters of rowing per day. That distance should take her less than 30 seconds. The real goal is this: get on the rowing machine daily! Chances are, if Kristen gets on the machine to row 50 meters, she will end up rowing much more than 50 meters. But even if she only rows 50 meters, she is fortifying the habit on rowing daily. Fortifying that habit is her best path to lasting health change.

In my estimation, the goal shouldn’t be a 40-minute workout. The goal should be “get your workout clothes on and pick one exercise.” The goal shouldn’t be ten miles of cycling, it should be to get on the bike daily. Getting going is the hard part…so make it easier to get going. Make “getting going” the goal!

If you find yourself falling short of your health goals, I’d love to help you succeed. Having a dedicated partner, accountability, encouragement, and a solid plan can make all the difference in your goal getting. I’d love to help you bridge the gap from where you are with your health to where you’d like to be. I can promise you that we will dial in your consistency with small wins. I will help you to get your shoes on, get out the door, lock the door behind you. I’ll help you get 50 meters of daily rowing in…or whatever micro-goals we need to establish to fortify the healthy habits most important to your success. You will become a master at doing little things well for your health. And from those little things, you will accomplish big things! Want to get started? Contact me HERE!

As I sat in my home office in Plymouth, MN (in between personal training sessions), my attention was grabbed by the familiar Facebook prompt: “So-And-So mentioned you in a comment…”

Curious, I entered the productivity killer of social media to see why I had been tagged in a comment. A woman named Libbie asked about how to keep weight off. She said she’d yo-yo’d the same twenty pounds for years, and that was driving her insane.

What does it take to achieve long-term weight loss? How can we make success sustainable? The trick is to be purposeful in fortifying our healthy standards. While the blueprint looks different for everyone, here are three ways to best position yourself for your weight loss success to last.

Personal Trainer Tip to End Yo-Yo Weight Loss #1 : Demote Your CEO

When an organization wants to change directions or raise their standards, they often times fire their CEO.

We all have a CEO. Who is yours? Is it your friend, spouse, or sibling? They are our partner in crime, our sharer of treats, our…Chief Enabling Officer!

The greatest challenge in raising our standards (and keeping those standards) is that we often are surrounded by people who don’t raise their standards with us. That’s our CEO. They are the one trying to convince us that we deserve a night out when we promised ourselves we wouldn’t go out for apps, drinks, or dessert. They are the one texting you a photo of them at your favorite restaurant, asking if you want to swing by. Your CEO likes you just the way you are…in part because it is close to the way they are.

To maintain weight loss in the long run, we need to marry the higher health standard we’ve been dating. Make it permanent! Make it official! And who is standing in the way of our permanent improved relationship with our health? Our Chief Enabling Officer! I’m not suggesting you disown your sibling or best friend. I am suggesting that you re-work the rules and roles of the relationship to guarantee your success.

Change your schedule to force yourself out of your CEO’s most enticing standing offer. Is it apps and drinks at Trivia Thursday? Join a group fitness class for the next ten weeks that meets on Thursday nights. Is watching the game with him going to result in a caloric and gluten tsunami capable of wiping out your entire week of clean eating? Watch the game at your place while you cook clean food for the upcoming week.

Maybe you invite your former CEO to join you at the fitness class and clean cooking. Maybe you don’t. Either way, it’s important for you to recognize who your CEO is, which rules you need to change in the relationship to guarantee your weight-loss success, and what new role they will best serve in your life. You may have room for them as your CMO (Chief Makeover Officer…when you have earned a non-food reward like a massage or pedicure).

Losing weight is hard work. You deserve every opportunity to maintain your progress. Demote your CEO to make sure you can protect your new, healthier standards.

Personal Trainer Tip to End Yo-Yo Weight Loss #2: Get Yourself a Bulldog

The best way to fortify your healthy standards is to find and hang out with a bulldog. You know who I’m talking about. They are the one who has standards that intimidate you. They are the one who can do things in the gym you only wish you could do…or can’t imagine yourself doing. You admire the strength of their discipline (and discipline, by the way, is the muscle we must strengthen most when we want to make lasting health change).

Maybe it’s a personal trainer like myself (I typically serve the western suburbs of Minneapolis). Maybe it’s your friend that we don’t see as much since they raised their health standard (does that make us their former CEO???). Find someone who has the type of standards and discipline you want. They are the type of person that takes accountability seriously. You start slacking off? They will get in your face about it. You keep slacking off? They won’t have time for you. They are, after all, a bulldog.

Your bulldog won’t let you skip a workout. They will text you to ask if you stuck with the lunch you brought to work instead of partaking in the pre-diabetes party your co-workers like to call “Flatbread Friday!”

Your bulldog should deliver the discipline, accountability, and consistency to help you fortify your healthy standard. If you want to end your yo-yo weight loss, get yourself a bulldog!

Personal Trainer Tip to End Yo-Yo Weight Loss #3: Integrate Fresh Ideas Into Your Program

Variety is not only the spice of life…it is the self-imposed road less traveled that keeps us traveling down the healthy path! A new recipe and a fresh set of exercises can go a long way to keeping us on track. A bit of variety allows us to stick with what works without finding ourselves so bored we stop doing the work.

What’s missing from your food plan? Do you need a good soup recipe as the temperatures turn colder? Is it a sweet tooth that begs for you to find a Paleo blueberry crumble (I love the one in Diane Sanfilippo’s book “Practical Paleo”)?

I’ve done the math. There are 1.2 gazillion recipes on Google, Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. Make it a point to integrate a new recipe twice a month or more. A fresh idea keeps us engaged, delivers fresh energy, and helps keep our eye from wandering from the game plan we know is working for us.

As you may have experienced, new and different exercises can surprise our body. Recently, I did a hamstring exercise I hadn’t done in awhile. During the exercise, I could REALLY feel my hamstrings getting good work. I was excited about how good it felt to engage my hamstrings in such a way. And then I was sore. For eight days! I REALLY surprised my hamstrings!

I’m not saying the goal is to be sore for days on end because of a new exercise. What I am saying is that our bodies can get into a groove with our exercise routine…and sometimes that groove turns into a rut. By integrating new exercises here and there (safely…and in moderation…lest we get sore hamstrings for EIGHT STINKING DAYS!), we can defend against a stale fitness experience.

New ideas provide the variety we need to keep us engaged. By keeping our program fresh, our journey keeps us engaged, which helps us fortify our healthy standard!

IN CLOSING…

Winning with weight loss for the long term is no easy task. If losing weight requires raising our standards, then keeping off the weight requires fortifying those standards. If you can create distance from your chief enabling officer, find yourself a bulldog, and keep your program fresh, you will be on the path to cutting ties with yo-yo weight loss.

Simple, delicious, and healthy.  It's where I live!  When I come across a paleo recipe that meets my criteria, I tend to lean on it quite a bit.  As an in-home personal trainer based out of Plymouth, MN, I am relied upon by my clients to make their cooking time shorter and easier.  This dish is a "MUST ADD" to your paleo recipe list.

A few quick words on what I do to make this dish as healthy as it needs to be...

1) I use Applegate-brand bacon.  It is uncured, antibiotic-free, nitrate-free, humanely raised, etc.  It's a quality slab of bacon without all the extra garbage added to it.

2) I use Smart Chicken breasts.  Smart Chick is also hormone-free, antibiotic-free, etc.  From what it eats to how it is treated, what goes into a chicken impacts the quality of the meat we eat.  Smart Chicken is a brand that does a nice job, so I trust them when I buy chicken.

3) Guac is almost always paleo, so I usually buy it pre-made.  Make sure you read the ingredients just to be sure nothing silly is lurking on that label!

Ingredients

-4(6 ounce) chicken breasts, butterflied or pounded thin -salt and pepper to taste

-1/2 cup guacamole                             

-8 slices bacon 

Cooking Instructions

1.       Lay the chicken flat, season the outside with salt and pepper, spread 1/4 of the guacamole on each of the chicken breasts, roll them up and wrap each in 2 slices of bacon

2.       Grill over indirect medium heat, with the lid down, until the bacon is crispy and the chicken is cooked (160F to 165F), about 20-30 minutes, or bake in a preheated 400F/200C oven on a wire rack on a baking pan until cooked, about 20-30 minutes, turning the oven to broil for the last 5-10 minutes to ensure that the bacon is crispy.

3.  Add a veggie to it (salad, grilled asparagus perhaps), and you are ready to eat!

As always, I want to make sure I credit the source of the genius.  I found this recipe here:

http://www.closetcooking.com/2015/07/bacon-wrapped-guacamole-stuffed-chicken.html