“Eat food, not food-like substances.” 

Behavior change number one was to start reading labels. Now let’s move on to something tangible.

Behavior change number two is to add in organic produce. Organic produce doesn’t have pesticides and is not genetically modified like conventional produce. Organic produce will fight diseases; conventional produce will feed them.

By adding in good stuff, your body will start to get used to the amount of vitamins and nutrients you are feeding it, and it will crave more.

Let me tell you a personal story that proves this. When my boyfriend and I moved in together, we had huge differences in our eating habits.  He didn’t eat breakfast, ate Boar’s Head sandwiches for lunch, and had a Lean Cuisine for dinner. He was definitely in shape and seemed perfectly healthy, but I slowly showed him the “problems” in his ways.

Instead of banning his types of food from the house, I started cooking for him and offering healthy, organic meals. I would make my healthy french toast or chick’n and waffles for breakfast. Lunch included pita pizzas and hummus wraps. Snacks were chopped veggies and fruit. For dinner, I made salads into meals by adding grilled chicken. Dessert was soy vanilla ice cream in stevia-sweetened root beer. By the first week’s end, he started craving my salads and asked if I could please make them. He wanted to know where the chopped veggies were, and asked for more celery. I never thought I could get that freezer empty from those sodium-filled tiny trays, but I did! And if I’m not home, or feeling too lazy to make dinner, he’ll enjoy a low-cal one by himself that is full of lean proteins and veggies.

The moral of the story here is that, even a manly-man, who played lacrosse throughout high school, can now love a salad for dinner. (As long as I add in a tablespoon of dried cranberries, he’ll devour my grilled protein salads!) So even though he was perfectly healthy before, he now sees food in a different light, knows how to read labels, and has hopped on the organic train with me. We are fighting disease together by eating together. It’s simple additions that lead to an overall lifestyle change. And now we get to bond over meals and feel great together, knowing we are extending our lives and avoiding disease.

Head to the store, fill up your cart with all your favorite seasonal fruits and veggies, and get your weight loss journey off to a great start. It’s the first day of Fall, and a great time to start getting healthy.

If you need any help getting started,  you can head on over to check out my meal plan.  If you need recipe help, just email me. Give me your ingredients, and I’ll  give you a healthy recipe. It’s all included!

Bonus: These changes are not just for weight loss, because you could do that in numerous ways. But this plan is to increase your overall health, fight the top five fatal diseases, and cure your ailments you are currently taking medications for. Say goodbye to that handful of pills once and for all.  High blood pressure, cholesterol meds, and heartburn will be a thing of the past. Just follow my blogs, read my daily tips, and sign up for my membership. You will not regret it.

Boars Head: Isn’t it natural? No. Processed meats, lunch meats, cured meats, and sausages are cancer-causing. The way they are processed into their final products means adding in carcinogenic dyes, preservatives, and nitrates. If you like to eat meat, choose local, organic sources. Eat lean meats that are right off the bone, such as boneless, skinless, chicken breast, wild or sustainably farmed salmon, and grass-fed organic beef.  Try a farmer’s market, health food store, or Trader Joe’s for these options.

Believe it or not, even trainers go through a weight loss journey.

As a child I was overweight. I was active and loved playing outside, jumping on the trampoline, running around, riding bikes, and hiking hills. But I grew up in a low income household eating junk food to sustain myself, and it did not help my health…or weight. Little Debbie was my best friend and brownies were my breakfast.

Although I was constantly running around all day, I couldn’t out-play my bad diet. And neither can you.

Today I am a fit person inside and out, from a low body fat percentage to a strong physique. I decided to make a change at age 17 after taking a nutrition course in college. It opened my eyes and motivated me to help others and now I couldn’t imagine turning around to that lifestyle.

Since then, I’ve taken many years of education dedicated to being and making the best bodies, minds, and souls.

Everyday we both must pay attention to every morsel, every bite, and every drink we put in our body. By having control of what we put in our bodies, we have control of how they look and feel. 

With proper behavioral changes, we can gain that control and will power. And with the support of a team, a social network of people, and each other, we can do it.

If you’re interested in starting your weight loss journey, click on over to here.

Most of us go through some sort of weight loss journey in our lifetimes, if lucky. We may be doing it after gaining weight in college, having a baby, or just getting lazy. At one time or another, we turn to quick fix diets, weight loss pills, caffeine, and the media to give us our answer on how to be the next thinnest thing. Something or someone lights a fire under our ass to tell us it’s time to lose a few. Whether it’s to the point of a doctor explaining your cholesterol and triglycerides are high, to an upcoming best friends wedding in a bridesmaids dress we are already regretting- there is a time to lose weight.

Most of us will turn to anything and everything that is low-fat, low-cal, low-anything, to lose a few pounds. Then we realize that all of our efforts on the low-food isn’t working and hit the gym. And after we lose 3 pounds from wearing down our legs on that horribly boring treadmill, we feel elated. Deflated. Utterly discouraged. And give up.

But I’m here to show you it can be easy to be healthy. The hard part is getting sculpted like an Olympic athlete – that takes time.

Behavior Changes

The main way to lose weight and keep it off is to change our behaviors. We must change our connection to food. Food brings us joy, is there to comfort us, and is there to help us celebrate. But most of the time, that food is unhealthy, packed with calories, and sinfully delicious. And I mean sinfully! 

To start, we must disconnect food from emotions, and connect it to what it truly is: fuel.

A calorie is a unit of measure that nutritionists use to determine how much energy a certain piece of food can give us. If we eat too much, it gets stored as fat. If we eat too little, our body feeds off that fat. (Yay!)

Behavior change number one is to start reading labels. Read how many calories a food is, how much each serving is, the amount of fat and sugar in each serving, and so on. Get to know the food you are eating before you eat it. Move on down to the ingredients. Do you recognize them? Could you picture them in your head? If not, chances are the product is full of things you don’t want to be putting in your body. Start with this simple change this week, and next week we’ll add another.

Good Luck,

Nicole