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My Favorite Workout Resources

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In 1991, I moved from Portland, Maine to New York City. For the first 9 months or so, I bunked with my childhood best friend, a fledgling actress busy with auditions and photo shoots. Keeping fit was the name of the game in that apartment. My roomie had a series of VHS tapes called The Firm, which were, a then, revolutionary combination of calisthenics and weight training. We Firmed ourselves Firm every single night.

I absolutely adored my first experience with at-home, follow-along workouts and kept up with The Firm for years to come, eventually moving over to DVD’s as technology changed. Being able to do a full-body workout in the comfort and privacy of your own home was a revelation to me. Prior to that, working out had meant jogging outside, joining a gym, or finding a jazzercize class in a church basement somewhere.

Fitness options have exploded with the advent of the personal computer and then the smart phone. There are tons of online workouts (many free) and loads of excellent phone apps (yes, free!)  If you are an experienced exerciser and know proper form on basic exercises, the info below will give you some terrific options to choose from. If you are a beginner, or someone who needs the accountability of other people to get your workout in, you probably will want to join a class or gym or hire a personal trainer. Know thyself.

Online Programs:

  •  BodyBuilding.com has several free online programs. If you click on Find A Plan you will see the full list from beginners to advanced, from fat burning to muscle building and everything in between. Their plans give you exact workouts for each day, as well as meal plans (not vegan, sadly). Each move comes with an instructional video or you can search their database to find videos of how to do exercises listed or what you can do for substitutions if your gym doesn’t have a piece of equipment or if it’s something you’d rather not do. Most of these plans do require access to a well-equipped gym with machines and free weights. Two programs I have done and loved were: Jamie Eason’s 12-week Live Fit Trainer and Erin Stern’s Elite Body 4-week Fitness Trainer.
  • SparkPeople.com is an online food tracker but it also has a gazllion of free workouts. Some you do right there in your office, in front of your computer, others are things like running and walking plans you can print and use offline.  You do need to be a member, but membership is free. These are good for beginning exercisers.
  • BodyRock.TV has tons of workouts online to do right there in front of your computer, some using easy to buy equipment, others without any equipment. You can find any workout you need here. There are some free sample workouts, but then series do cost a small fee.
  • TheBettyRocker, aka Bree Argetsinger, is a trainer who posts free kick-butt online workouts and group challenges. Many are free, some are for pay. I have done several of her challenges and they are HARD but fun. She gives plenty of modifications for beginning exercises. You will sweat blood, but be happy to if that’s remotely possible. Check out her youtube channel where she posts free workouts as well.
  • YogaToday posts daily yoga classes of all types. You can do a 2 week free trial before purchasing membership.
  • handstandingVegan calisthenics athlete Frank Medrano sells beginner to advanced calisthenics do-it-yourself programs from his website. I bought an earlier version of his beginner ebook and it got me hand-standing. There’s proof to the left…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apps:

  • Nike+Running is a free phone app that tracks your mileage, pace, gives you encouraging feedback and allows you to compete against others. This is what I use personally for running. I like that it allows podcasts or music to be playing while it’s running in the background.
  • Nike+Training Club (N+TC) is a free non-running workout app that gives you loads of workouts to follow with videos demonstrating each move, then voice cues while you are working out. You can workout at home or in the park or wherever. Some need equipment, some don’t. It’s a great app and I have used it a ton, but honestly the reason I don’t use it more is because I use an armband for my phone and if I can’t remember what an exercise is from the voice cue, it’s a total pain to unstrap my phone to look at it. Otherwise, it’s anything you could ever want.
  • MadBarz is a calisthenics app, also free, also amazing. So many apps, so little space on phone!
  • Freeletics, another free app, has a large European following which is fun to mix with other exercisers in foreign lands that have much worse weather than yours! (Hey look at those people doing burpees in the snow! Guess I don’t have any excuses…)

YouTube:

There are LOADS of free fitness programs on YouTube, just do a search. FitnessBlender and Zuzka Light are popular. BeFit is a storehouse for a ton of popular online videos.

Online Trainers:

Working with a trainer online sounds impossible, right? But for more experienced exercisers who know how to perform basics like barbell squats, deadlifts, and chest press with proper form, having someone remote write you a plan works just great. I worked for about 6 months with Vegan Body Builder Claudia Lailhacar and absolutely loved it. Claudia would send me weekly workouts and I would send her bi-weekly pictures of me in my undies (didn’t so much love that part) so she could see how things were coming along and make adjustments to my plan. If there were ever any exercises I wasn’t familiar with, or needed to make a substitution for, I went to bodybuilding.com’s video database (as mentioned above).

There are loads of online trainers, but be careful because this isn’t a well-regulated industry. 

If you read all of this and thought “Great, but too bad I can’t motivate myself to actually start exercising”, might I humbly suggest you book an Intro Session with me? We will talk through your resistance, blocks, obstacles, and fears, and map out a plan to get you on a consistent fitness path. There is no obligation to continue on past that first session. You can see my calendar and availability HERE.  Sessions are conducted via phone, Skype or FaceTime.

Being fit, full of energy, flexible, and strong is not only a healthy thing to be, but it greatly improves quality of life across the board. I hope the above resources help you in your pursuit of a healthy life!

The 5 Steps to Adopting Healthy Habits that will Stick

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Have you ever said this:

“I just want to be the kind of person who naturally eats right and exercises. I wouldn’t even have to think about it and make all this effort. It would just be automatic.”

That does sound good, doesn’t it? I’d also like to be fluent in Hebrew without ever having to work at it. Do you think that’s realistic? Probably not. To become fluent in a new language you need to practice it, right? Likewise, to become this natural eat right/exerciser person, you have to practice being just that.

It all boils down to habits.

When a client says to me “I want to lose 20 lbs”, my job as a coach is to unpack this desire into actionable steps. So I ask, “what kind of person weighs 20 lbs less than you? How does she behave on a daily basis? What are her habits?” The habits that my client then lists are the ones we generally start working on. For instance,

  • She exercises every morning (or evening, or lunch hour) without fail.
  • She plans some meals ahead and even cooks some things in advance so that healthy food is ready when she comes home starving at the end of the day too tired to cook.
  • She gets all the junk food out of the house so it can’t derail her when she experiences cravings or the drive to emotionally eat.
  • She learns to eat only when hungry and stop before totally stuffing herself.
  • She constantly remembers her goals and stays strong in the face of temptations.

So how can you get these habits (or others you’d like) going in your own life consistently?

 

Step One: Decide on ONE habit to start with

I know, the desire to change EVERYTHING all at once is overwhelming and you are so sure you can handle it all! Well, you probably can for a little while. But then when you start to slip on this momentous change-everything-all-at-once reformation, you’ll drop ALL the habits, as they are all linked together, and be right back at square one, feeling like a failure. You aren’t a failure, darling, just an over-achiever! And in this case, over-achieving isn’t a helpful thing to be.

How to know which one habit to pick? Pick the one you are certain you can do with an at least 90% success rate. Where’s the challenge in that, you ask? (There you go again, being all over-achiever-ish!) Trust me, science bears this out. Change is harder than you think it will be. That’s why you haven’t succeeded at it yet.

You will keep going with something that you are achieving. Start with the one habit you are most confident you can actually do consistently and long-term.

 

Step Two: Link your new habit to a trigger

During a normal day, we react continually to triggers all around us. The alarm goes off and you get up and brush your teeth. You weren’t born doing that. Your parents taught you to do it. The clock strikes 4pm and you start roaming the office for chocolate or sweets to help you power through the rest of the day. Again, not a natural habit, but one you developed over time. (and you can un-develop it too!)

One of my long-term habits is daily exercise. For me, the best time to work-out is first thing in the morning before I can talk myself out of it. When my kids were babies, that meant waking up before they did and getting it done. Now, I get up early to make them breakfast and lunch – a task that I adore – so while I am doing that, I am also getting myself ready to head out to the gym. They walk out the door for school and I walk out the door to the gym.

Here are some other trigger ideas for you:

  • You hit the gym right after work, before you even get home.
  • You pack yourself a sandwich and an apple and when the 4pm munchies hit, you eat what you brought instead of the chocolates and sweets in the office.
  • Every Saturday night right after Havdalah (or Sunday night during your favorite TV show, depending on what country you live in), you sit right down and plan out some meals for the week.
  • When you start to feel hunger pangs, you set the timer on your phone for 30 minutes. You can eat your next meal when it rings. (this helps you get back in touch with hunger and allow your body’s natural signals to guide you).
  • Right when you sit down to eat, push about 3 bites of food to the side of your plate. Challenge yourself to leave those bites uneaten. (This helps you stop that habitual over-eating. You can eat them later on for a snack if you are still hungry).
  • Use a food tracking app like MyFitnessPal and enable notifications. This way, you will get a reminder to your phone that you will break your streak if you don’t log into the app.

 

Step Three: Track it

I make each of my clients a personal habit tracker in google drive. You can easily make one for yourself. Just write the habit(s) you want to work on across the top, and the days down the side.  Check off the days you get it done.

You want to keep working on your one habit until you are doing it for at least a week continuously at no less than a 97% success rate. When you feel solid in that one habit, you can add the next habit, following these same instructions. Honestly, the longer and stronger you can lock in each habit before adding in a new one, the better.

If you can’t get more than a few days going in your success streak, then your habit needs to be re-formulated. It is probably too hard. (see number one). If your goal is to get to the gym each morning, but you are feeling unsure of what to do when you get to the gym, or terrified of people judging you, you probably won’t go. You need to break this one down into smaller steps. The first habit might be to book 2-3 sessions with a personal trainer or find a friend to go with you to raise your confidence. If you are in the Facebook group, or working with me privately, you will get the support and accountability to work through these sorts of fears and obstacles.

 

Step Four: The Reward is the Result

If you engage in any of the above habits consistently for two weeks, you will definitely be feeling healthier, slimmer, less stressed, and more confident. Pay attention to these rewards. Reward yourself further in ways that support the continuation of your good habits – new workout clothes, a trip to the sauna or jacuzzi for those sore muscles, an expedition to a gourmet food market to buy the prettiest berries or the greenest kale, a new healthy cookbook…

 

Step Five: Get support

Consistency, consistency, consistency. Even though things are going great now, it’s all too easy to get thrown off course by a special event, holiday, trip, work deadline, or family calamity. How will you be able to stay on track or get back on track if you’ve fallen? They say your level of success in anything is mirrored by the people you surround yourself with, so if you current circle isn’t practicing healthy habits, you’ll need to add some new folks:

  • Form an exercise group or healthy habits group with friends (Just know that when one person falls in these groups, everyone seems to go down like dominoes!)
  • Pair up with someone who already has the habits you want down pat. Ask your friend the marathoner if you can send her daily emails of your running progress. Ask your friend who has successfully maintained her weight loss if she will support you in a few changes you’re trying to make.
  • Hire a health coach, especially one who has accomplished what you want to accomplish.

 

Making habit changes isn’t easy. If you are like most of us, you will feel all kinds of resistance to change. But by following the above steps, you can sneak up on yourself a little. Practice the habits of the person you want to become for long enough, and you will become that person it just comes naturally to!

(If you find yourself totally unmotivated to make the changes you know you need to make, check out the 5 Stages and Change post.)

 

How to Afford a Health Coach

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It happens now and then, during an Intro Session, that a potential client will say “You seem great, and your program seems wonderful, but I can’t afford it.”

What I hear when someone tells me they can’t pay for coaching is that a.) they aren’t really thinking about what solving this problem is worth to them (hint: priceless) and/or b.) they doubt either their own ability, or mine, to actually achieve the solution. Often they have already paid other coaches or spent loads on countless books, programs, special foods, etc etc, and still haven’t healed their food relationship. I know, because that was my story too. How can I convince them that this time would be any different? See this post for that answer. As for what it’s worth….

What is it worth?

  • Imagine a world where you are immune to the daily barrage of food temptations and saboteurs
  • Imagine making healthy choices 2nd nature without struggling or stressing
  • Imagine your children following suit
  • Imagine feeling healthy, strong and confident in your skin. What would you accomplish if you didn’t have body shame holding you back?
  • Imagine your children living in healthy bodies and having a positive relationship with food and their self-esteem, because you can only teach them this if you are doing it yourself. You getting healthy creates ripples on the pond. Healthy you → healthy families → healthy communities
  • Imagine managing your time and your priorities so well that eating healthy and exercising regularly just flow naturally
  • Imagine the feeling of following through on what you said you would do and on what you know is important to you.
  • Imagine wearing the kinds of clothes you have always wanted to wear.
  • Imagine the feeling of success and joy at FINALLY putting this body/food beast in it’s place, kneeling at your feet.

So, what is it worth? I don’t know about you, but to me, that is all absolutely priceless.  When I hired my health coach, I got my life back. There is no monetary value I could ever assign to that.

Now, the hidden costs of staying where you are, struggling with food and weight:

  • Having a million sizes of clothes in your closet and not really fitting into any of them. How much have you spent on clothes that sit in your closet unwearable and accusatory?  Learning to lose weight and maintain it for life will allow you to finally build a wardrobe of beautiful clothes all the in the same size, saving you money, time, and stress each morning.
  • Spending money on take-out food, restaurant meals, and mad binge-runs. Learning healthy meal planning and time management skills will substantially cut down on your food budget.  Bringing your own healthy lunch to work can be a huge money saver, as can ditching a daily candy or bakery habit.
  • Despite what you might think, healthy food is cheaper than junk. Beans and grains are crazy cheap, for one!  You don’t have to buy all special, organic, gold-dusted whatever food in my program. I don’t believe in “super foods”. You will learn to buy what you need from your regular supermarket, prepare it, and not have it rot in the fridge.  And yes, your picky kids will eat it too!  I promise you it’s not all kale burgers and tofu!  You want mac and cheese, you’ll make mac and cheese and it will still work.
  • Medications, medical bills, the time spent going to doctor’s appointments – all lessen when you get healthier!

 

The Frank Money Talk

One-on-one coaching is currently $100-120 for a one-hour session and the two-week follow-up period when we are in touch via email, whatsapp, text message, etc. Most clients are in touch with me somehow every single day.  That is a heck of a lot of support and contact!  (The price difference depends on whether you pay in monthly payments or all up front).  So roughly $200/month, which I don’t think is very much for all of the benefits above and this level of support.  But hey, I don’t know your financial situation, and I know sometimes things are tight (especially for families here in Israel paying in shekels).

So here I am to explode your last excuse: I have a scholarship program!  This means that if you want my help and are in such dire financial straights that you cannot afford it, all you have to do is email me Emily@TriumphWellness.com and ask.  I won’t shame you for your money situation or anything. I have learned over the years that people who pay for something value it way more than those who get it for free though, so together we will work out an amount you can comfortably pay that also empowers you to make the changes in life you wish to make.  Don’t be shy, email me.

In the meantime, if you finally do see the value and worth of working with a coach like moi and want to explore the possibility of one-on-one coaching, you can go right to my calendar HERE, put the time in your local time zone, and just book a trial session to see what it’s like. Three little words, baby: Totally Worth it.

Macro-Friendly Gluten-Free Vegan Protein Waffle

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OK, OK, so I put up a waffle recipe last month that was relatively higher in carbs and fat and lower in protein, and although I defended it bitterly, the truth is, that sometimes you DO need a waffle with better macros. (Macros being macro-nutrients, namely carbohydrates, protein and fat).

Some of you have no idea what I’m talking about and knowing the macro-nutrient content of your food is totally bizarre and you couldn’t give a hoot. That’s fine, eat the waffle I posted here.  It’s absolutely delicious and always comes out great.

For those of you who track your food and count your macros, today’s waffle will fit your numbers much better. And for those of you who live in the US, you can BUY a version of these waffles and not have to make them at all. Vegan chef and power lifter, Holly Works, has created the Fit-Quick Waffle and sells them through Vegan Proteins. They’ve got vanilla, java chip, double chocolate brownie, pizza style and a soon to be released new flavor, lemon poppyseed.  I have never had Fit Quick because although Vegan Proteins is willing to ship to Israel, their shipping rates were not feasible for me the last time I checked. So I looked at the ingredient label and did my best to create my own. I have no doubt that Holly’s are a hundred times better and I haven’t graduated to all those fancy flavors and probably won’t, so order if you can, make if you can’t.

I tinkered a ton to get these to come out right. I scraped what seemed like thousands of stuck waffles out of my waffle maker (the recipe has no added fat). Different protein powders yield entirely different results, so depending on what you use, you may have to give this a few tries before getting it right yourself.

The protein powder I usually use is Pro Pea, made here in Israel and available at Eden Teva market. But during Eden Teva’s downfall and buy-out, I have not been able to get it. Let’s hope new owners, Tuv Ta’am, get all our products back in stock! In the meantime, you can order many vegan protein powders from Vitacost, but be aware that my last TWO orders never arrived.  Vitacost did give me a full refund, which is amazing considering I’m pretty sure the fault lies with the Israeli post.  As one of my friends says “your packages will show up right before Pesach.” Of course they will.

The protein powder used in this picture is Earth Blends, (pea, hemp, rice) from Vitacost. The combination of the chickpea flour and the dark-hued protein powder, gives the waffle a dark appearance, but it’s really tasty.

macro-friendly vegan protein waffle

Print
Macro-Friendly Gluten-Free Vegan Waffle

Serving Size: 1 waffle

Calories per serving: 232 cals, 21gC/5gF/24gP

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup chickpea flour
  • 3/4 scoop (about 25g) vegan protein powder
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 Tbsp ground flaxseeds
  • 1/2 cup water
  • stevia to sweeten as desired
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla, if your protein powder isn't already flavored
  • dash cinnamon

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients in a small bowl.
  2. Let sit while you spray your waffle iron with cooking spray and preheat it.
  3. When the indicator light says the machine is ready, place all the batter onto it.
  4. Cook for 8-10 minutes.
  5. Remove carefully and enjoy.
http://triumphwellness.com/macro-friendly-gluten-free-vegan-protein-waffle/

 

How to Cultivate Consistency

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In the last post, I explained how making common dieting mistakes, will keep you dieting forever rather than succeeding at permanent weight loss. Today I want to boil it down to really the number one thing you need to do to succeed at ANYTHING ever in your life, weight loss included. Weight loss, especially!

Be Consistent.

Tada!

The thing that almost everyone says to me is that they want to be the kind of person to whom eating healthy and exercising comes naturally. But if you look at the people to whom it DOES come naturally, all you will see is that they practice a series of habits and have been doing so regularly for so long that it has become second nature. That’s it. They are not stronger than you or better than you or more self-disciplined or whatever. They just have practiced their desired habit over and over and over.

For example, I started exercising in the mornings 14 years ago when I began my weight loss journey. It was really hard at first to establish that habit! But as you can imagine, after FOURTEEN years of practicing it pretty nearly every single day, I don’t even have to think about it anymore. I wake up and I work out. Yes, I still get all kinds of mind monkeys trying to talk me out of it, but because it is so ingrained in who I am and what I do, it generally just happens despite the resistance. Plus, I don’t negotiate with monkeys. EVER.

When you think back over past weight loss attempts, you probably remember that you were so on track for awhile. You were just burnin’ it up! Staying on plan with food, going to the gym every day… And then one day you missed the gym. The next day you fell off the wagon with food. Hey, it happens to everyone!  But for the person with the ingrained, consistent habit, or accountability system, picking herself back up and getting right back on track is likely to happen pretty quickly.  For the person who is lacking in consistency and accountability, well, that can be the end of the diet right there.

So, how can you build consistency? Basically by deciding on one or two habits you want to pursue, doing them over and over, and tracking your results somewhere (like a spreadsheet or planner).

But do you know what works even better? Hiring a coach. Seriously. I know that for me, I could never have become consistent with my healthy habits alone. I needed a coach to report to – someone to hold me accountable, as well as help me pick appropriate habits (people tend to over-reach, then crash and burn).

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Are You Setting Yourself Up to Fail on your Diet?

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“Why will this time be different? How can I know that this time I will succeed when I never have before?”

I get that question a lot.

And I understand it on a very personal level. I too, had a million and a half failed attempts at losing weight and keeping it off before I finally succeeded.

But before I began that last attempt that ended with success (70 lbs gone, 14 years maintenace), I consciously decided that I would do everything completely different from all prior attempts. I decided that first of all, I was D-O-N-E-done, stick-a-fork -in-it done with dieting! After 30 years of diets, I didn’t have to be Einstein to understand that diets are temporary solutions that always bring the weight back.

I decided I was done with anything not entirely sustainable for life. I decided that I would rather it take LONGER if it meant it would be LASTING. And I looked at everything that had failed before (doing crazy diets, losing weight fast, not eating enough calories, not addressing the emotional reasons I was eating, being in isolation with no support, white-knuckling, being mean to myself, feeling stress about it all…) and I decided to do everything opposite.

Instead of

…doing crazy diets with all sorts of food restrictions, I decided to eat the things I love.

…losing weight at a rapid pace, I took my time to learn how to EAT, not how to not eat. As well, as how to actually BE smaller. No one ever talks about that but it’s so important!

…not eating enough calories, I ate the most I possibly could eat while still losing weight (this took trial and error to find but was so worth it!)

…not addressing the emotional reasons I was eating, I devoted time every day to mastering my emotional state

…being in isolation with no support, I hired a supportive health coach, joined an online group, and a fitness group

…white-knuckling, I stopped doing anything that felt like force

…being mean to myself, I worked at accepting and loving myself exactly as I was

…feeling stress about it all, I decided it would be an easy and joyful journey, and it if it wasn’t, that I needed to simplify things and make it more fun

 

So just to re-cap that for you because it’s super important: If you were to ask me “Emily, how did you lose 70lbs and keep it off for 14 years?” I would answer:

-I ate/eat foods I loved/love

-I ate/eat as much food as I could/can

-I learned strategies to control my emotions, which stopped the emotionally-led binging

-I let it be easy

-I was nice to myself

-I made it FUN.

In other words, if you are thinking that weight loss has to be hard, boring, painful, and you’ll be hungry all the time and not be able to enjoy the things you love, you ARE setting yourself up to fail.

Change it all around and finally succeed. If you’d like to learn how to do this for yourself, book a breakthrough session. Let’s talk.

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