The Blog
Making Peace with the Pantry
My free eBook and companion eCourse is here to support you on your journey to food freedom
Sports Nutrition: Eating For Exercise and Fitness
Have you ever wondered what you should eat to get the most of your workouts? And what about fueling before/after a workout? If so, you are going to love the conversation I had with Mary Teunis, a fellow personal trainer and nutrition coach.
Mary is a former competitive gymnast and a CrossFit competitor who knows first-hand how important it is to fuel your body for optimal performance. In this interview, we dive into all sorts of sports nutrition topics to give you some actionable tips for eating for exercise and fitness.
Rebranding Announcement: Full Circuit Fitness & Nutrition
I began my health coaching business as a sole proprietor and recently took the step to become an LLC. With that change, I decided to call my business by something other than my personal name to reflect the work I do and the direction I want my business to take. And so, Full Circuit Fitness & Nutrition was born.
How To Prevent A Downward Holiday Eating Spiral At Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving can be a pretty stressful holiday. Not only is COVID-19 causing it to look very different this year, but it is also a holiday that largely revolves around food. The focus on the feast can leave many of us feeling anxious and fearful about overindulging and triggering a downward spiral of overeating between now and the new year.
If you find yourself worried about the holidays, read on for a few things you can do to prevent yourself from sliding down that slippery overindulging slope.
Strategy #5: Your Quarantine Stress Eating Survival Guide
Address Your Stress
Our health is greatly determined by how balanced the two branches of our autonomic nervous system are - the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. Chronic stress causes most people to spend more time with the sympathetic nervous system dominate and active. This post outlines several ways to address your stress and bring your autonomic nervous system into balance.
Strategy #4: Your Quarantine Stress Eating Survival Guide
Rest and Repair
Our culture teaches us that we must push ourselves into the ground in order to get results and achieve success. I fell for this belief hook, line and sinker. But this philosophy also broke my body. In this post, I share how chronic stress took a toll on my health and also offer an invitation to challenge this long-standing cultural norm and redefine what it means to work hard.
Strategy #3: Your Quarantine Stress Eating Survival Guide
Rig Your Environment In Your Favor
It is very empowering to set your immediate food environment up in a way that encourages healthy eating and reduces the likelihood you will overeat or make unsupportive food choices. Here are some tips on how to arrange your kitchen space so that it invites you to make better nutritional choices.
Strategy #2: Your Quarantine Stress Eating Survival Guide
The Art Of Making Tiny Shifts
This strategy is helpful to use after an episode of stress eating, emotional eating or general overeating. It offers a way to shift perspective so that an episode of stress eating doesn’t become an invitation to make one unsupportive decision after another.
Strategy #1: Your Quarantine Stress Eating Survival Guide
Create A Schedule. But One That Works For You.
This is a time of uncertainty and many unknowns. Both of which are incredibly stressful. So it makes total and complete sense that you might feel nudged to snack more often than usual right now. One of the best ways I have found to counter the unsettling feelings that accompany uncertainty, is to purposely and intentionally create certainty where you can. And one super simple way to do this is to establish a quarantine schedule.
Your Quarantine Stress Eating Survival Guide
The desire to mindlessly snack and emotionally eat has increased substantially since our COVID-19 quarantine began. I have found myself looking in the pantry and refrigerator on a pretty regular basis these last few days. I am not physically hungry but I am stressed, overwhelmed and incredibly antsy. And I am wanting a distraction.
As most of us know, food can definitely provide that distraction for us. However, the relief we experience is only temporary. Not to mention, it is usually followed by varying degrees of guilt, shame and/or overeating. How is it that one mindless pretzel can, oh so easily, turn into the entire bag?!
You've Had The Answers All Along My Dear
The desire to heal my relationship with food had me constantly trying to figure myself out. I was always the girl in the book store combing through the diet and self-help sections looking for the newest book that was finally going to fix me.
It took me a long time to understand that I was continuously shooting the arrow at the wrong target. I was always looking outside myself for a solution. Looking to the next diet plan. The next exercise program. A new and improved system that would make everything click.
And with time, I came to realize that I was constantly in a state of seeking something outside of me.
The Answer You Give This Question Has the Power to Shift Everything
One of my weird little quirks is that I like to listen to battle music and write motivational speeches in my head. I do this when I’m at the gym. In the car. Sometimes even while I’m washing dishes or folding laundry. Anyone who has ever taken one of my cycle classes has been on the receiving end of this quirk as these speeches often transpire into my coaching cues.
They usually reflect something that I am working on within myself and serve as a strategy to help me navigate fear and uncertainty. As well as offer a re-frame in those times when I get caught up in my head. Which still happens to be A LOT.
I tell you this because what I want to share with you today stems from one these battle music speeches. And it goes something like this…
The Continual Journey to Heal My Relationship with Food & Where I am Now
I have been in the process of creating my new Eat Happy Group Health Coaching Program and felt it was important to tell you how it all transpired and came into fruition. But I had to summon up all my courage to do it.
Embracing the Not Yet
One of my favorite quotes of all time is Henry Ford's "Either you think you can or you think you can't, either way you are right." But what happens when you can't say the words "I can" with conviction because they don't fully resonate and honor your true feelings? Here’s what to do when the words “I can” feel empty, false, or fake.
How to Become More Resilient in the Face of Stress and Overwhelm
The last several weeks have been particularly stressful for a variety of reasons. But as I navigate what would have formerly sent me to the pantry for comfort, I can see that things have changed. I no longer need food in times of stress. It's no longer my go-to coping mechanism. And I have been able to take the last few weeks in stride and approach them with relative ease considering the chaos. And this, my friend, is HUGE!!
So what is different?
As I was reflecting on this, I identified 5 things that I do now, which have undoubtedly, helped me consistently manage stress and not be triggered to eat my face off.
Why You Should Kick Calorie Counting to the Curb
The diet and food industry has long sold us the idea that in order to lose weight, we should count calories, limit portions, and exercise more. That maintaining a healthy weight is all about discipline, willpower, and self-control.
But listen up friends. We need to ditch this mentality. Like STAT. We need to stop counting calories (and carbs and fat grams and anything else for that matter!) and switch our focus to consuming whole, real food and to upgrading the QUALITY of our diets. I know counting and measuring can be hard to let go of but a new study that was reported on by the New York Times last week may help you change your mind.
Reflections On A Day I Lost Control Over Food
Was it really on my kid's leftover gingerbread house decor? Why yes, yes, indeed it was...
I had a flashback the other day of a time when I felt completely out of control around food. It came when I was putting away the gingerbread houses that my girls made this year.
Here's a true story of what happened in regards to the aforementioned gingerbread houses.
Thanksgiving: It's Not All Sunshine and Gratitude Rainbows
Thanksgiving was a holiday that used to put my anxiety level through the roof. You see, I used to oscillate between times of extreme restriction and complete out of control eating. And when you struggle with guilt and shame over what you eat and how you eat, a holiday that mainly revolves around food can be pretty stressful.
My Struggle with Food: The Keys that Unlocked the Door
In my previous post, I shared my 20+ year struggle with my relationship with food. Today, I will share how I began to heal.
I can look back and see that there were a few marked turning points. One was when I had children. I have two beautiful and impressionable little girls. They stole my heart the second they were born. I wanted to figure this out so that they don't ever have to struggle in this way.
My Struggle with Food: A Self-Induced Prison
I’ve struggled with my relationship with food for as long as I can remember. It was always my outlet, my coping mechanism, the way to turn off my mind. I can remember jumping on the fat free band wagon back in high school. Fat was the enemy and I obsessed about every fat gram in every piece of food I ate. Thinner was always better. It always equated to more confidence, more social adeptness, more happiness.