Food Food Food

One of my biggest challenges as a Personal Trainer as I have been working with clients is their mind set around food.
I cannot stress enough the importance of eating right.
This Journal Blog I am going to talk to you about your mindset, the importance of eating clean and practical tips you can follow. 

Mindset is everything, if I have said this once I have said it a million times. If you are not in the mental game when it comes to your fitness, your battle will be substantially harder. You need to wrap your mind around a couple of key points in order to be successful.

1. You need to see food as fuel…end of story! Everything you put in your mouth needs to be fuel for your body, if its not going to fuel you then don’t put it in your mouth! It’s that simple!
2. You will have to workout for the rest of your life….its called a healthy lifestyle. A great example is myself as I once thought “I will get to my perfect weight and then I can cut back on the amount of times I work out during the week”. This is a huge lie I was telling myself and was ultimately believing. Start finding ways that you enjoy working out such as swimming, Zumba, Bootcamps, play a sport, go for a walk, one on one personal training ect. Be creative so working out does not become something you dread but rather something you look forward to.  
3. You need to start enjoying the journey. You didn’t get the body you have now over night or even in a month. It took years for me to gain the excessive 100lbs I was carrying around and it has now taken me around 5 years to lose a major portion of that weight and I still have around 2 years left of this journey and ultimately this journey for me will never end. 

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​Eating clean is crucial to your fitness journey, sorry I am not sure you heard me correctly, Eating clean is crucial to your fitness journey. I am sure most of you have hear the 80%/20% concept where 80% of your fitness journey is what you eat and 20% is the physical activity. Well this has recently changed; it is now 80% healthy eating, 10% physical activity and 10% genetics. If you don’t eat clean then you essentially sabotage your physical activity.
Society has made food soooo tasty to the point where we now crave it. They have also made it fast and easy which is convent for so many of us in our fast pace lives…BUT they have also made it very dirty, the complete opposite of what we need to be eating. This is where the mindset part comes in and you need to see food as fuel and not something just to eat. Constantly ask yourself “Will eating ____ fuel my body?” If the answer is “no” then guess what….don’t eat it, its truly not worth it.
 
There is something to be said about the people who “get it”. The people who meal prep, who care about what they consume, and the people who put their fitness above all else. You know that saying “if people are doing it and it works, maybe I should do it to”. Well now is the time to start doing what they do. 

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Here are a couple tips to help you on your journey:

1. Start you meal prepping for each week, care about what you put in your mouth and take away the excuse that, “I don’t have time so grabbing fast food is ok!” It’s not, so go into your week prepared. I would suggest doing your grocery shopping for one week at a time so everything is fresh and meal prep on Sundays and Wednesdays.
2. Make time for your health. The amount of times I have heard “I don’t have enough time” is mind bending, there will never come a point in life where you will have enough time and when you do have time it may be too late. It’s time to start taking away that excuse and start making your health a priority.
3. Keep a Food Journal- When it’s written its real. Send your journal to a friend or accountability partner every night…doing this will make it even more real!
4. Put in your calendar every day you plan to go to the gym during the week and do not deviate.
5. Get a personal trainer, not just because we are trainers ourselves but because it’s a proven fact that individuals who work out with a trainer will achieve 80% better results…faster
6. STAY AWAY FROM SUGAR! This is a silent killer and has been compared to cocaine of late as it is so refined and addictive. What the following documentaries (All found on Netflix) for a better understanding of how bad sugar really is for us. I have included some other great documentaries about food that you should also make time to watch.

 
i.Fed Up
ii.That Sugar Film
iii.Hungary for Change
iv.Food Matters
v.Food Inc
vi.Frankensteer
vii.Fat Sick and Nearly dead

​I know not everyone believes in the Bible, but there is a key verse found in 1 Corinthians 6:19 which states “…your body is a temple” and I truly believe we need to change our mindset and start viewing our bodies this way. We only have one, so lets take care of it. Make your fitness healthy a priority.
 
Thanks
Tiffany Ashmeade
 
Ps. Eating clean is crucial to your fitness journey...in case you missed that point