As I mentioned in my last blog, I wrote a book! It is called Finding Your Fit. It hits stores October 1st — which for the record is SO soon!
To catch you up, Finding Your Fit is "A Compassionate Trainer's Guide to Making Fitness a Lifelong Habit: it provides readers with practical tools that will allow them to connect the dots between wanting to make a health and fitness change and actually making it. Finding Your Fit is the "anti–Biggest Loser" handbook for realistic, lifelong health: a motivational handbook with realistic strategies and practical information to help readers initiate and then follow through and adopt a long-term healthy lifestyle."
In the first 10 chapters of Finding Your Fit I outline various tools, motivation tricks, and philosophies that readers can use to put together their "unique recipe." In chapter 11 I help readers apply all the information outlined in the book so that they finish with a tailored and effective exercise program.
I dedicated my previous blog to outlining the main take-aways from the first five chapters. Curious? You can read the blog here.
Today, my plan is to outline the main take-aways from chapters 6 through 10. My next — and final — book-centric blog (out October 1st) will outline the main take-aways from chapter 11. I lovingly call chapter 11 the "chose-your-own-adventure" chapter; in it I connect all the dots. I give readers the practical guidelines they need to create and then implement their individual health recipe. One of the main take-aways from the book is that if you want to adopt a healthier lifestyle for life, you need an individualized plan. There is no one-size-fits-all health plan; everybody is different. Everyone requires a tailored recipe for success.
We all have to stop trying to follow someone else's version of a "perfect" program. For long-term success, put together a unique and realistic plan tailored to fit your individual lifestyle realities.
Five main take-aways from chapters 6 through 10
1. Our eating habits are tied to our emotions, our established habits, our lifestyle, and our childhood eating habits.
Maintaining a healthier lifestyle long term involves figuring out the WWHH of your eating habits — WHAT you eat, WHY you eat, HOW you eat, and HOW MUCH you eat. The operative word is you.
2. For long-term success consider setting up a "health entourage."
A health entourage is a personalized network of support; it can include supportive friends and family, a fitness buddy, an accountability buddy, a nutrition buddy, or even an entire fitness club. Everyone needs to find ways to set themselves up for health and fitness success. A health entourage helps you do just that.
3. Stop fixating on reaching a certain weight and/or conflating thinness with health.
Fixating on the weight on the scale — and using "thinness" interchangeably with "health" — is ultimately not healthy or helpful. The scale doesn't differentiate water or muscle loss from fat loss, and losing weight in an unhealthy way — even when weight loss is needed — is not beneficial to your long-term physical or psychological health.
4. Stop unknowingly sabotaging your health progress.
It is one thing not to reach your goals if you are eating fries every day and skipping workouts, but it is extremely frustrating to work hard and still not succeed. In chapter 9 I outline four reasons why you might not be seeing results despite your best efforts: not doing strength training, not getting adequate recovery, ignoring the importance of high-intensity interval workouts, and not being mindful of your eating and exercise habits.
5. One way to stay motivated — and avoid the dreaded fitness plateau — is to mix up your workouts
If you always spin, try yoga. If you always do weights, try running. If you always work out alone, join a group.
For more info on the book, read the first review here (hyperlink https://www.flamanfitness.com/blog/how-to-get-off-the-sofa-and-out-the-front-door). For more information on how to put together your unique recipe for health success, check out my website kathleentrotter.com, or follow me on Instagram, Facebook (www.facebook.com/KathleenTrotter), Pinterest (www.pinterest.com/KTrotterFitness), or Twitter (@KTrotterFitness), or order Finding Your Fit here https://www.amazon.ca/Finding-Your-Fit-Compassionate-Trainer's/dp/1459735196/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1471442503&sr=1-1.