I have some confessions to make.

Again.

People tend to make assumptions about health & fitness coaches and think that we don’t struggle like everyone else. Well, I’m here today to give you some truths!

Here’s part II of Confessions From a Fitness Coach. Click here for part I

These are my confessions…

One things for certain. I have food cravings that are probably just as bad as yours; possibly worse.

If someone gives me pizza, cookies, or something else delicious that might lead to heart disease, it’s very hard for me to say no and most of the time I just give in and indulge.

Once I start eating, I can’t be stopped.

If I have a big ole plate of food in front of me and I feel like a starved lion during feeding time at the zoo, I’ll eat until I’m uncomfortably full.. You know that type of full you get when you finish eating at Benihana and you’ve just had your 197 course dinner with an extra side of chicken fried rice and you have to grab grandma’s walker just to stand up and get your sorry ass out of that place?

No, just me?

It’s hard for me to know when enough is enough because my mindset goes back to thinking that I need to eat as much as I possibly can in order to get jacked and build muscle. ⬅️ Old mindset.

I look in the mirror and I’m unsatisfied.

I always want more. Larger muscles, a tighter stomach line, and more weight on the bar. I have to remind myself to look in the mirror, smile, and remind myself that I’m making progress and I’m grateful for what I have.

It’s difficult for me to find balance.

I have stages where I’m extremely strict on myself and other times where “anything goes!”. When I’m strict, I refrain from eating things such as sweets, dairy, or bread, and I tell myself I have to eat 3,000+ calories of “healthy” food per day to build muscle.. And other times when “anything goes!” I tell myself that I’m not following any sort of plan right now so I can eat whatever I want and as much as I want. Neither scenarios are ideal.

My plans change once I see the menu at a restaurant.

Oftentimes I enter a restaurant with the right intentions, “just get one entree, make sure I get my veggies in, and skip the appetizers, desserts, and anything with bread or dairy. Then reality kicks in and I go overboard with the appetizers, cheese, bread and all! But I try not to feel too bad about it because what’s the fun in enjoying food if you’re feeling guilty about it?

I enjoy strength training but strongly dislike doing abs and cardio.

I RARLEY do cardio. It’s just not appealing to me and I’d rather focus on the strength training. And for abs, I typically save it for the end of the workout and at that time, I’m beat so I’ll either just do something quick or just skip it altogether. If my cardio and core had a rating it’d probably be a 2.3 out of 10.

But as much as I struggle with these things, little by little, I keep making changes in the right direction and I’m getting closer to a more balanced and realistic approach to living a healthy lifestyle.

I wanted to share these confessions with you today so we can relate.

It’s likely that you can relate to some of these but just remember, we all have our own struggles whether we wear it on our face or not.

What’s important is sticking to a routine that is realistic and works well for you consistently.

Think about three, maybe four things that you can do on a regular basis that will move you in the right direction to living a healthy lifestyle. Things you can do whether you are home, traveling, or out of your environment.

Things you may consider could be making sure you intermittent fast and eat a giant salad every day and do strength training for 40 minutes four days per week.

Maybe it’s eating vegetables at every meal, going for a walk at lunch every day, and only consuming alcohol once every few weeks and sticking to two drinks at a time.

It could also be as simple as committing to eating vegetables once per day for a couple of weeks then every other week you add in something new.

Whatever it is for you, I encourage you to create a system that works for you. Something that is realistic to do on a regular basis and isn’t too inconvenient. Want to take it a step further? Write your three things down and make a commitment to stick with them for the first month of the new year and reevaluate from there.

What could your three things be? Let me know in the comments section below.