THIS is another one of those RANTS…… it gets me worked up a little!

I could spend $400+++ so that I can start studying and take a personal training certification exam and get certified as a trainer….. I could also spend hundreds to get a nutrition certification …… WHY am I sharing this?

Well I hear all the time that a business start up of $140 is too expensive…. and why would someone pay money to make money? Well for $140, you get a fitness program to try, 30 meals (count them 3-0) of Shakeology (I spend more than $100 on 30 meals anyway), 4 business websites, coach training, a mentor who has taken that $140 start up to over a SIX FIGURE INCOME… an intern program….. and help to guide you towards what needs to be done to get you from point A to YOUR DREAMS that seem so UNATTAINABLE one step at a time…… People are skeptical of this….

But then, pay $699 for a PT CERT program to get a bunch of books to study and take a test within 6 months to get a Certification….. now I am obviously not putting that down. I know many who have paid the $$$ for the program ….. I would do it because I love to learn more about the body, fitness, helping others, adding more tools to my toolbox so that I am able to benefit and help more people….. but the $699 is paying money to make money as well yet we don’t find that SKEPTICAL!!!! As you can see the point here is the skepticism that we hold, that we are programmed through our culture that can hold us back from OUR OWN POTENTIAL…

We (not all of us….. and ME INCLUDED) pay over 50-100k to get a DEGREE… go in debt, spend 40+ hours a week studying for the debt that we got ourselves in to…. to finish school with a piece of paper and maybe a job. JOB NOT guaranteed. I graduated with a bachelors degree in construction engineering management, worked every week since before high school so that I wouldn’t have student loan debt, but left me with literally $400 in my account. I couldn’t AFFORD to take time off between college and my career.  I paid money to make money!!  It was now time to make money! Again, I went to college and I am not putting it down…. I probably wouldn’t do it again, but that is okay it is what led me here.

I am sharing this with you to shed some light on what we as a culture are programmed to think. I paid money to work hard through college and no one was skeptical when I did that…. no one was skeptical when I graduated and paid $60k for that piece of paper and 4 years of hard work towards school ….. no one is skeptical when someone pays $699 to get a Personal Training Certification….. so then why is is that people are skeptical of $140 to get a fitness program, a workout, a business (YOUR OWN BB FRANCHISE), training, learning, mentoring…. learning from someone who has taken the $140 to over six figures in less than 2 years. Then why is it that people doubt that $140 when it comes in a business form????

There is nothing wrong with college. It’s for some, it’s not for everyone. There is nothing wrong with a personal training certification. It’s for some, it’s not for everyone. There is nothing wrong with a network marketing business that helps others through health and fitness. It’s for some, it’s not for everyone…….. yet there are so many doubters and skeptics who want to speak negatively. Why is it that we are programmed to be skeptical of things we don’t understand? How can we promote more research, more open mindedness….. even if something isn’t for us? Or if we don’t understand and it’s not for us why put that down and speak negatively?

………Off soap box now!

❤ ❤ ❤

Ever since we started dating, John and I worked out TOGETHER.  We would meet at the gym in the mornings at OSU and he taught me how to LIFT.  Good bye stair climber and elliptical 😉 I don’t think I have touched either since haha.  Could be that I loved the companionship of lifting, could be because I loved feeling muscle building . . . either way I loved it!

Fast forward to graduating and living in a teeny apartment together – we started P90X TOGETHER.  We never finished the whole program . . . and we would start and stop over and over!  So frustrating, but the days we would workout together we felt AMAZING!

Fast forward to last year when I became a coach and we were doing 10 Minute Trainer semi together and then P90X3 we did two whole months TOGETHER.  But we keep derailing each other because when one of us doesn’t want to workout . . . WE don’t workout . . .

WE MAY HAVE FOUND A SOLUTION THIS WEEK . . . I have been doing the 21 Day Fix (Day 18 today!) and John just started BODY BEAST!!!  I’m doing my thang and he is doing his.  He LOVES the breaks that lifting weights gives him and I LOVE the 30 minute workouts – done before you can think about it.

WILL THIS BE OUR SOLUTION????  I sure hope so 🙂 I am in charge of ME – If he doesn’t want to workout when he gets home from work it will NOT matter to ME because I am doing MY OWN plan.  I am responsible for ME.

Plus I haven’t seen him this happy to workout after work in a while 🙂

So I don’t know about you but my fitness goes on the same track as a roller coaster . . . you too?  One thing that keeps me going is I feel gross after too many “not feeling like working out today” days.  Well, there were a lot of sporadic lengths of days like that this summer.  I did more running than working on strength because I had two relays to stay in shape for, but that running was very minimal.

The other thing that happened was OUR TOILET BROKE!  Should that be the cause to not workout??  NO!  But it was!!!  You see we have a scale in our guest bathroom downstairs.  I hardly use this bathroom NORMALLY so I would rarely weigh myself.  Like maybe once a month just to check in, but for the most part I would let my clothes tell me what I weighed or my lungs tell me when I had a hard time walking up stairs – I would know it’s time to run a few times that week in addition to my 3-4 strength training workouts.

So the toilet broke in our bathroom upstairs (close to my office and in the bedroom so it was ALWAYS the one I used).  Well when it broke I had to use the one downstairs with the scale.  I would see the scale constantly (drinking 80+ ounces of water a day will do that!).  I started weighing myself here and there, then it became every morning because that’s when you weigh the least!  Then I started weighing myself 2-3 times a day . . . WHO WAS THIS?!  I didn’t really even realize I was doing this!  I wasn’t losing weight, but I was just making sure I maintained that weight.  You see this year I finally dropped below 140 (139 yeah! haha) I had been at 155 two years ago or so.  I have never been obsessed with the scale until the battery died – that’s when I realized that I was OBSESSING over my weight.  People have been asking me all summer if I have been losing weight and I really haven’t, I have just been more toned than I ever have and muscle looks better than the same weight without tone.  So I LOOK better, but I was SO confused why people thought I was loosing weight and the scale was staying the same!  So I obsessed!

Yes, the toilet upstairs is fixed (only was broken for a week or two until we made it a priority to fix it) BUT my obsession with weighing myself didn’t stop until that battery died.  And wow it took me a few times to realize it was dead – I would be standing on it wondering why it wasn’t working and then realize oh yeah its dead!  Our unconscious brains are STRONG!  Don’t let it get the best of you!

Does this sort of sound familiar?  Maybe you are there waiting for that battery to die?  Yes, we should be aware of how much we weigh, but when it is an obsession, it isn’t healthy!  You will weigh more or less depending on a million different things (more water, more muscle, just ate, haven’t gone to the bathroom recently, time of the day, time of the month. . . ) You name it!  Don’t obsess about the numbers.  DO obsess about what you put in your body.  FEED it right.  Work it out.  We were meant to FEEL GOOD.

HE LOVED IT!!! ❤💪❤

🌟Recipe success!!!!!! 🌟

I think I would have barfed 2 years ago if you tried to make me eat this hahaha 🙊🙈👎

Well another amazing weekend in the books!  One of my best friends is getting married!!!  SO Bachelorette Party madness 🙂 What comes after a night of French 77s, wine, mimosas, Chicago style popcorn, chocolate fondue . . . and lots and lots of other yumminess . . . sickness.  Oh man does the belly hurt!  I have learned that I will never give weekends like this up.  This is part of life.  Poor eating choices are LIFE.  We need to remember to not get so down on ourselves for weekends like this.  Could I have toned it down a little on the popcorn?  YES.  Could I have eaten MORE?  Possibly haha.  But what happened happened and the only thing I could do when I got home was make myself a Shakeology with some Greens Power boost and chug water 🙂 Does that make up for it?  Nope, but it also doesn’t take away the awesome memories I made with awesome friends.

I don’t want to feel like this every day or let weekends throw me off track and quit.  So I don’t.  I move on.  Too many people think they need to be PERFECT with their fitness journey!

THIS is why I take care of my body the rest of the week so that I don’t have to be so hard on myself.  Is this every weekend that I gorge?  Nope.  Will I do it again?  Yup – lots of friends to go on the married train 😉 Will I push a little harder to work my muscles so they can continue to burn off those carmel and cheese popcorn calories?  YES!!!!

FEEL proud of yourself EVERYDAY!  Even those hard days – don’t let 1 weekend throw you off –  LOVE YOUR BODY and TREAT IT RIGHT!  Don’t love your body by fueling it with crap ALL the time.

We all need a little love.

We all have the ability to love.

Why wouldn’t we give that love to ourselves?

Practice daily self love and self talk.

If you don’t love yourself, who will?

Let’s go back to my high school self – Or maybe 8th grade – I went to a small school (we had 7 kids in our combined 7th and 8th grade class!!! – There were NO 8th graders haha).  Then middle of 8th grade my family moved.  I was excited for a change, excited to be in a bigger school, meet new friends and hang on to the old ones . . . My life really changed . . .

I had NO CLUE how to make new friends.  My old friends and I had grown up together before we hit that awkward stage of judging people.  High school came and I was being asked if I was new . . . No one even knew I existed at this new school for the past 6 months!  It crushed me the first time someone asked me that, so I continued to stay in my own head.  High school is rough for everyone I know, but I hated it, absolutely hated it.  I focused on being good at my school work and graduated 1 or 4 valedictorians.  You would think I had good things going for me.  And I did!  Or at least I tried to make it seem like that.  Had half of my first year in college paid for through scholarships and more than half saved up in my bank account.  Because along with working hard at my education I worked hard at working and saving.

Ok so I had college tuition figured out but what the heck was I going for?!  Good at math, interest in a computer drafting class from high school SO Engineering it was!  Heck they make great $$$ right?!  Who cares if I don’t have any other interest in it because that is what I chose and that is what I will accomplish.  4 years later – Graduating with a Career to start on 3 weeks after graduation.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVED college.  Best 4 years for sure!  Made some AMAZING friends – had the best roommate anyone could ask for – found the love of my life whom I am now married to – and most importantly learned what it was like to own my own time.  We all had it good in college.  I worked every summer to pay for the next year of school and I worked during the school year to pay for living expenses.  It was like clockwork.  And Boom graduated with ZERO debt and about $100 in my bank account!

Fast forward to January 2014.  Been working for 2.5 years in the corporate world.  Bought our first house and paying for our own wedding in September.  Man life is GOOD.  Who cares that I have low pride in what I am doing at work – I am making $$$ to pay for all these things!  Life is good . . .

With wedding bells in the air I started dreaming of being a stay at home mom, being able to play all day and teach my kids how to love life.  Growing up though I told myself I would NEVER rely on someone else to take care of me.  This was giving me heartache because I want so bad to be with my kids (when that ever happens haha).  My mom owned (and still owns) her own business while I was growing up and I LOVED going to work with her!

Driving home one day in March 2014 – I remember exactly where I was too, I can picture it so clearly – I was doing a routine phone call to my mom to complain about my day so John (husband) didn’t have to always hear how horrible my day was.  I asked her why people had to be so rude and negative and her reply was – at work you just have to deal with people like that.  I didn’t take that for an answer though.  WHAT IF IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY?! I wasn’t happy with my choice of career at all.  It wasn’t for ME.  It didn’t fulfill my need to feel accomplished and to have purpose.  I didn’t have this drive to learn about construction or care about how to improve myself at all.  I was going downhill fast.  That year I had become a superintendent out in the field and I noticed I cared more about who I was working with than what project I was working on.  I wanted to hear how they got where they did and how their families were doing.  I have never really been a relationship builder in the past, but I truly CARE about other people.  Hearing others stories really got to me.

Remember that amazing roommate I had for 4 years?  She took her situation a little differently than I did.  We both started out in Engineering, yet she knew it wasn’t for her within that first year, so she took a little time to explore and landed in Nutrition.  I fought it.  I wanted to keep that decision I made in high school.  I had scholarships for Engineering NOT Nutrition.  How would I pay for it?! She used college as a time to figure herself out while I watched her fall in love with her career.  From the outside she thought I had it going on.  Career right out of college, house, husband, dogs . . . etc

On the inside I was hurting.  You really should look at your life when you start crying Sunday nights because you can’t wait for another weekend.  The people I worked with are amazing people, but I felt like a fake and could never really open up and become true friends with.  My fault? YES absolutely.  I wish I had been ME, but like back in high school I crawled inside my head and put on a face.

In comes this new light – this new chance – new ME!  I constantly looked on craigslist to see if another field looked like me, maybe a job description would light a spark.  I kept going to the barista ads – this is what I knew and was one of the best jobs I ever had.  I talked to people all day every day and I LOVED it!  Maybe I could own a coffee stand?  But that still left me clueless when it came to thinking about the future and being able to spend time with our kids.  The other category I constantly found myself in were the fitness ads.  I couldn’t go back to school though, I didn’t want to start over – stubborn side of me maybe 🙂  And then there it was.  An ad that just struck me as ME.  It was part time and could be done from home in your spare hours.  PERFECT!  I will do this for a while and see if it interests me at all!  Then I can keep my job and explore at the same time.

January 2015 – I got the courage to see what the future holds as being a fitness and nutrition coach and quit my job!!!!  I had kept my dream a secret and it was a shock to most people, but this is ME – this is where I need to be – and this makes me happy!  To make money AND be doing something that gives me pride and a sense of accomplishment blows my mind!