86. How To Make Fitness Fit Into Your Life ... Not The Other Way Around

So I sound muffled , but hopefully , like I hear when I hear myself , I sound muffled , but hopefully on the podcast I'm sounding okay .

But regardless , I am going to be talking to you today basically about the importance of fitting fitness into your life and not the other way around , and I'm going to kind of talk about how to do that , what that looks like , my past experience , why a lot of people come to me thinking that they can't do something , or just a variety of things , I guess .

But the roundabout topic , I guess , is going to be the importance of how to fit fitness into your life , instead of trying to make your life revolve around fitness or even try to reschedule everything and dreading everything you do because you're so focused on your fitness journey , if that makes sense .

So I'm really excited because this is something that I have honestly mastered . It may take me a little bit of time when there's like a season change or a life change or something to get into my groove . But I'm very good at auto-correcting and taking inventory of what things look like and how can I adjust my schedule or my food to kind of make that work .

A perfect example of that was when I've been sick for 10 , 11 days now and I had to cut back on my food , my calories , a little bit , because I wasn't able to work out at all really , and the workouts that I did do were like so half-assed .

I mean they were just stretching or a little bit of weightlifting , but I couldn't get my heart rate up , I couldn't really be out of breath at all because then I would start coughing . So it's just , it's been a mess .

And so I was kind of thinking about this Honestly while I was sick and I'm so proud of myself I have to just say I'm so fucking proud of myself for how I've handled this sickness and like it's just because I just see like my confidence in my fitness journey shining through like , yeah , it really sucked to be sick and it really sucked to not work out , it

sucks to miss workouts , it sucks to not , you know , not feel good , like it sucks to be off track at all in life . But in regards to your fitness journey , like it sucks , but I was so good at just . I can't really walk . I can't because I couldn't get out of breath , literally , or I would just hack up along and it hurts so bad that I would cry .

I couldn't work out . I was super tired . I didn't feel good . My appetite stuck with me the whole time . So thank God , I was able to hit my macros . But then one day I'm like you know you need to start eating less if you're going to be moving less . That's why you're feeling a little bit heavier , bloated and all the things . So I cut back .

I just I adjusted so well to being sick physically that like I'm coming out of it now and I don't , I haven't missed , I mean , or I haven't what I want to say , I haven't lost any ground , I haven't lost any momentum , like I feel good , I'm good to go , like I did what I could and I just I think that's awesome and during that I was just , besides being

super proud of myself and like man . I wish all of my clients could feel this way . I hope all of my clients get to the point in their journey where they can just auto correct and feel so confident that their body is like fine that they can give it the rest and they'll be okay on the other side of missing a ton of workouts , right Like .

But as much as I want that for everyone , I need to explain how that works . So I was still able to fit fitness and health nutrition macros any kind of movement that I could actually get in . I was pretty good with my self care . I got my sleep .

I actually upped my game and was doing my Gua Sha and my lymphatic drainage situation every single night and that helps me . Actually , my skin is looking really good . So there were a lot of things that I was still able to do as far as , if you're looking at health and fitness as a whole , right .

So my self care , my skincare , my reading , my water , my sleep I could do so many things , even though I was sick . And a lot of times it's like , well , if it can't work out , then I might as well eat like shit , and then now I'm sleeping like shit and now I'm not drinking water and like all falls apart . It doesn't have to be like that .

You can just control what you can and do what you can , and that's a perfect example of fitting fitness and health into your life , no matter what , and not trying to fit it the other way around . So the comment , the most common reason I should say that people quit a fitness routine is because lack of time . I'm too busy , I can't make this work .

I don't have time to meal prep . I don't have time to meal plan . I don't have time to work out . This is too much , it's not working for me . I can't go to the gym , whatever right .

Like you , you don't have time to either figure out how to make it work or you literally don't have time to do the five to seven workouts a week or two hour workout sessions that you're supposed to do , right ? Which ultimately means you couldn't figure out how to fit fitness into your life .

If you don't have time and you can't figure out how to make time , then you can't figure out how to fit it into your life , and it's important that you do that .

So , which means you've probably tried a one size fits all program that your schedule didn't accommodate for , and that's fine , because there's a lot of programs out there that are one size fits all .

Mine are even , like you know , my tried program , for example , or different programs that I've had in the past , are set up as a , you know , 12 week interval and they're five days a week and you know they're structured . But like , please move the workouts to different days , please take a day off if you need to . Like , make it work , make it work for you .

And I think that it's just so important that you find a way to modify a program or modify , you know , whatever you're thinking your fitness routine has to look like . You have to be able to change that , go against the grain or whatever , and make it work for you , because your schedule is not accommodating these one size fits all .

And then you're like , oh , I can't do that . Right , try that program . It doesn't work for me , I can't find time for it , I'm too busy , I'm too stressed , I'm too whatever . And it's like you're not , you're just trying to do more than you need to , or more than you literally can , and that's okay .

So what that looks like on the opposite side of like trying to make your life revolve around fitness is you think you know you start a fitness journey and you're like , okay , I got 12 weeks , I'm gonna get up earlier and I'm gonna work out , you know , monday through Friday , and I'm gonna take time on the weekends to meal prep and meal plan .

And you know , do all these things right . You've got all these goals and you can do it . You can do it even for 12 weeks . You can make it work .

Well , eventually get tired , or eventually something comes up , or you get sick and you're just like I'm actually sick of meal prep , like I don't wanna take three hours on the weekend to prep and plan my meals , like it . That's just not working . You think you'll you know , quote unquote make it work Like I'll figure it out , I'll make it work .

This is what I have to do , you know , to lose weight or whatever your goal is , and usually that just doesn't happen . You end up not just making it work because it's not convenient . And I did this too when I first started out . We were doing our P90X Beachbody program and I was able to stick with that program spot on for a month .

I think I say spot on . I'm pretty , I'm pretty sure that it was spot on , because I was like I'll make it work . I'll meal prep , I'll meal plan . I'll separated all the stuff out , I'll read the list , I'll check the labels . I'll do every single workout , right .

It's only 90 days I can do this , and I did it for a month and then I realized something had to give . I can't . And I think it was five to six . I think it was more than five workouts per week , but I'm not positive . I'll say five . I don't know , I think it was more than that , but anyway it stuck to it pretty closely .

But I definitely started to slack after that and at first , like I said , I was doing , we'll say , five workouts a week and I had a six month old and an almost three year old at that time . Is that right ? Yeah , almost six month old and an almost three year old at that time . So little kids , and I just couldn't do it . So eventually I quit the yoga .

So there , I liked the weightlifting workouts and I quit the yoga day because I just I didn't enjoy it and I was like no , I need to go to sleep . And then I also quit planning and prepping , since I didn't really enjoy that .

I still stuck to the food list and everything that Beachbody gave me for that program , but I quit planning and I quit prepping because I didn't enjoy that and I didn't have time , so slowly things started dwindling from what I was supposed to be doing , right .

So what I noticed was cause I'm very good at like what's going , you know what's wrong , what's happening , what can I change ? And what I noticed was that I didn't mind doing the weightlifting workouts , so I kept doing those . I didn't like the yoga , so I quit . Am I saying you should do that ? No , that's just what I did .

I'm like well , wednesday's yoga day was an hour and a half . Oh my God , so quickly . That was like well , we'll just take that off , take that off the to-do list for the week . And I didn't have a problem , like I said , with the nutrition or , you know , hitting all the checked boxes .

I guess for the day at that point it wasn't really macros , but I did have a problem eating what I was supposed to be eating . My problem was that I didn't like prepping and planning and I didn't have the time for it .

I had little kids , I was traveling , you know , out of town to work and I was working all day and , like you know , real life stuff , like I didn't have time for it . So something had to give and those were the things that gave . And what I noticed was I gave up the things that I didn't enjoy doing .

I didn't have a problem hitting the foods I was supposed to hit . I just didn't want to prep and plan for it . I can do it . I'll get it in by the end of the day Somehow . I'll make it work . I'm still like that , to be honest , and I'll do the weightlifting workouts , but I'm not doing that stupid hour and a half yoga , Like I'm not doing that .

So I didn't quit altogether . I modified it to make it work Once I realized what I could stick to . It was smooth sailing and then from there on out , basically that's when I realized that I loved weightlifting . That's when I realized , like I didn't really have a problem hitting protein and hitting my carbs and fats .

It's just that I didn't want to prep and plan and I haven't really done yoga and I haven't really planned and prep my meals since then . It's just that's what fucking works for me and that's what I'm going to do . I don't rip on people for doing the other thing . I don't rip on people for doing cardio . I don't rip on people for planning and prepping .

In fact , I teach my ladies to do those things . If they love yoga , we incorporate it . If they love meal prepping and planning and they love recipes and they love that stuff , I give them sites to go to to figure that out . But I am not your girl . I will tell you that that'll work for you .

If that's the kind of personality you have , we'll work with that and I'll . It's not that it doesn't work , it just doesn't work for me . So and that's what I want you to hear , it's not that something doesn't work , it's that it doesn't work for you and you have to figure out what works for you in this stage of life that you're in .

So I have a lot of ladies come to me saying they want to start a fitness program but they're a brand new mom and they're sleep deprived and they don't eat right and they don't have help . You know , throughout the day they're significant others at work and they're home with the baby and they just don't have time .

Or it can just be , in general , like I've tried these programs that are five days a week and they've never worked for me in the past . But I really want to try yours and I really think it'll work for me . But I'm like no , it won't , like don't do it , you have to modify it . It won't just automatically work this time . Like , that's not how it happens .

You can't just not have any time in your schedule and then sign up for a program and then all of a sudden , you have all this ambition to wake up early and find time to work out five days a week . It's not going to work . I'm just being honest and I'll be honest with you .

If you come to me and say that , like , well , these programs never work for me , but I'm going to try this one and hope that it works , because I don't want to be another program that you purchase , that you didn't do and that didn't work for you , like I'm just going to be straight up and tell you , yeah , sign up for the program if you want to , and

I'll help you modify it and tell you which workouts every week to take out . Like , if you can only do three workouts a week , I'll tell you which three workouts a week to do from that program . But I'm going to be honest and say , if you don't have time to work out five days a week , don't try to work out five days a week .

And I honestly used to be the person that's like no , you do have time . You're just not finding it . You're not you're making an excuse or whatever . But now I realize that some people just literally don't have time or won't make the time and honestly , who cares ?

If you only want to make time three days a week to work out , do three full body workouts a week , push hard , know exactly what you're doing in those workouts , workout with purpose and hit your macros and you're good , like that's fine , you can do that . So it's just making fitness fit into your life and not the other way around .

It's so important that your health and fitness routine fit seamlessly into your life . Otherwise it feels like work and there's nothing wrong with hard work . Like , let's be honest , it takes hard work to do hard things . Like hard work is great , but in reality , are you gonna do that weekly for the rest of your life ?

Was I going to do an hour and a half yoga session every Wednesday , plus four or five more workout weightlifting sessions , plus meal prep and meal plan , and put it all in portion control containers and take it with me to work in my cooler ? Was I gonna do that for the rest of my life ? Absolutely not . So what , I shouldn't have had any shame .

I don't think I did . Maybe I did . For a little while , since I was a Beachbody coach , I probably felt like the outsider , but at the same time I'm like this doesn't work for me , so why would I do it ? Like this other stuff works for me and as I went on with it , I've now have the best body I've ever had .

So clearly I don't need to do all those other things . We'll get into that in a minute . But otherwise it feels like work , and if it always feels like work , you're not gonna enjoy it , you're not gonna look forward to it and you're gonna quit . And that's just the reality and it is what it is .

I think a lot of people would argue with me like no , it does take hard work and you have to just grit through and you have to do the hard things right and never miss a Monday and all that shit . And it's like , no , no , I'm just not , I'm not taking part in that .

So you have to take your schedule , you have to figure out what will work for you , you have to modify the programs that are out there for your accessibility and change them if it doesn't fit your schedule , if you don't understand weightlifting or macros in your first starting out a program . I suggest learning one at a time .

Understand your workouts first and get really good at those workouts and your understanding and you're showing up with purpose and you're lifting and you're enjoying them and it's a habit . Then start to work on understanding macros and foods and making that a habit right . If you only have three days a week to work out , only work out three days .

Don't sign up for five days . If you can only show up for three , just don't . It's better that you don't lie to yourself and feel like a failure . It's also better because you'll know exactly what workouts to do to make those three days count and that's so much better in the long run .

If you have little babies that are home with you all day and you can only work out the three evenings or nights a week when you have someone there to help , you do that . Don't say I'm going to get up at 4.30 in the morning to work out when you have a six month old who doesn't sleep . That's not going to work . It's not going to work .

So do what you can . If you don't like meal prepping and meal planning , don't do it . Eat pre-packaged chicken . Eat the rotisserie chicken that someone strips off of the bone and puts in a container for you . Eat pre-packaged veggies , hire a meal service to deliver food to your door , like , figure it out and do whatever you have to do and don't be ashamed .

I'm always giving out permission slips . I feel like here's your permission to do less , to make it work , to go against what everyone else is saying . It's okay to not do things like everyone else is doing around you .

If everyone else is joining whatever fitness thing is out there right now , like Weight Watchers I don't even know if that's still a thing , but let's , all your friends are signing up for Weight Watchers or CrossFit or whatever there is right now , then and that doesn't work for you , don't do it .

Don't do it when you try to make your journey look like someone else's or you try to make something work that simply can't or you don't enjoy , you will quit .

Every time I see constantly on social media , particularly Instagram , because that's where I am a lot for work you know these girls that are like have their perfect morning routines or at least they're posting that they do . They have their perfect night routine , perfect skincare routine , perfect meal prep , perfect workouts , perfect , fucking everything .

I'm like good for you , that's amazing , not for me . Block by . I can't do that . That's not going to work for me , right ? It's okay to go against the grain there . How do you actually do this ? Like I mentioned a minute ago , you have to take a look at your calendar .

You literally have to see what your week looks like , lay it all out there and be brutally honest with yourself . What are some things you can give up ? What are some things in your week that you're doing that are like not serving you , that you don't enjoy , that you don't have to do ? Right ? What days work for you to actually get a workout in ?

Aka , what days do you have a little free time right now ? Not . What days can you make time ? What days do you have time ? Is it on the weekend ? If you can only work out Saturday and Sunday right now , cool , start with that right . What days work for you to get some things done in your health and fitness journey ?

Then , and only then , schedule some workouts in , schedule in some meals out , even schedule dinner out if you have to schedule in some food prep .

If you want to schedule in what days you're gonna pick up your groceries and you're gonna bring them home and you're gonna chop all the veggies and maybe cook all the meat , but don't schedule workouts and then schedule everything else around it . It won't work .

Your life won't fit into your workout routine , trust me , you have to make your workout routine fit your life , and if that means starting smaller , then so be it right . For me , this looks like missing every single Monday . It's like that , saying that I just said that never miss a Monday .

I miss every Monday for my workouts because I'm able to work out Saturday and Sunday . Those are days that I can almost always find time , even well , when we had , like travel , baseball and stuff that was different . But on a normal , quote , unquote normal week . For me , saturdays and Sundays are pretty chill .

My kids are in high school , so we have games during the week , sports events , stuff like that during the week . Saturday and Sunday I'm off , so I work out Saturday , sunday . I take Monday off as a rest day to recover , to have my muscle grow right . So Monday I'm resting . Then I work out Tuesday , wednesday , thursday .

I have Friday off because , honestly , who doesn't want a Friday off ? That's amazing . So that's what my schedule looks like . Honestly , this will probably change with sports coming up .

I remember I don't remember what sport it is exactly we just finished up volleyball , which is a whole thing that I could get into with my daughter being a senior and like we literally finished volleyball , as in no more school volleyball for my daughter ever , which is surreal .

But anyway , a lot of times we have super late games on Thursday nights and that's why I think I actually also started taking Fridays off was because we were out super late on Thursdays .

If we have an away game or something , we're not getting home till 10 by the time we get home and all get round down and did homework or food or whatever , clean up the dishes , clean up the kitchen , whatever , whatever you're doing , when you get home mama's , dad's , whatever by the time I got to bed I was like I'm not getting up early in the morning .

So this might change for me . Just being honest , like this will always change what works for you two years ago will not work for you now most of the time , and so it always changes .

So I will , when I get schedule coming up for my son for his sports , I will look ahead and see what games , what nights games , are on and I will change my schedule if necessary and there's a good chance that I will have to do that .

So , whatever night we're out late on , I will not work out the next morning , because if I schedule work out there and I don't do it , I feel like a failure , right , I'm not gonna make my life fit , I'm gonna make my workouts fit . So that's a prime example of that . I'm just I'm used to that and that's what it looks like .

So this will change Just about the time you get really used to a schedule and it's working for you . Sports will change , school will change , life will change and you're like well , that's not really working anymore . I have to change it again , right ? So also know that .

That's another reason why it's so important , because if you're just trying to work out Monday through Friday for the rest of your life , it's not gonna happen . It's just not going to happen . Life changes , you change , your body changes , your goals change , shit changes and you have to be able to change with it .

I think in health and fitness it's not talked about enough the amount of flexibility you have to have , the amount of times your journey will change and you will have to change with it . That's not talked about enough , because that's one of the biggest things is like well , this used to work for me and now it's not . This workout program used .

I used to be able to do it and fit it into my life . I used to be able to stay up late and get my workouts done . I used to be able to get up super early and get my workouts done . And if you can't , then stop trying to do it because it's not working , so something else has to give right .

So that's kind of the general idea of Fitting your fitness into your life and not the other way around . That's how to do it . I know it's not that extravagant , it's not very sexy . You literally just get out a calendar and write down your life . What does it actually look like ?

Because sometimes , when you write it down , you're like oh , this is a lot of stuff that I could not be doing . Or you look at it You're like no freaking wonder I can't fit in workouts . I'm actually busier than I thought . Right , so seeing it all on paper is actually really , really helpful .

And Then scheduling things inside of there , figure out what you're able to do and what you're not able to do , what you're willing to do and what you're not willing to do . That's important too . I'm not willing to , honestly , meal plan and meal prep my little heart out .

I we did that for years and I don't remember if I had this conversation with my husband or if it was just in my head , but I was like I'm sick of spending my Saturdays and Sundays in the kitchen Meal prepping food , cooking everything , chopping it up , putting it in containers and then , quite frankly , not even hardly eating it during the week Because I'm like

I'm sick of this food , I don't even want it anyway . I'm sick of not spending time with my family doing things I enjoy and Spending time on meal prepping and planning when I can go to the store , spend a little bit more money . Yes , you're either spending time or you're spending money . Choose your heart , right ? I choose to spend a little bit more money .

If you choose to spend time and you enjoy that , more power to you . But for me it just it wasn't working .

I would sit down with a pack of Oreos Before I would meal prep chicken and I got sick of fighting myself on it and I'm like , okay , nope , I'm buying the chicken pre-cooked , pre-shrighted , done , bam , good , like , just figure out what that looks like for you .

If this is hard , and it is hard to do this on your own because a lot of times you overestimate , you are too hard on yourself . If it's hard for you to figure out a routine that works , do that first of all . Write it all on a calendar and Get it all out there and look at it .

If it's still hard for you , when you're not understanding it , ask a friend , hire someone to help you . Like , get someone in your corner that you can say like I am really struggling with how to set up my workouts . If I can only work out two to three days a week , what workouts should I be doing ? Right ?

Should I be maybe getting in some extra walks at work around the building ? Like , how can I get ? What are some ways we ? I walk through this with my one-on-one clients all the time . If they ask me , like what are some ways I can you know up my movement ? Do I need to get a walking treadmill at my desk ?

Do I need to take more breaks and take some phone calls away from my desk and walk around the building ? Do I need to take a nightly , just 20 minute walk ? I mean , there are so many different ways that you're not maybe thinking about how you can get movement in that I can help .

Or do we need to just switch your macros to Account for your movement , like there's so many different ways that you can auto correct this , that again , just to make it fit into your life and not the other way around .

So my hope for you after hearing this episode is that you know that just because something hasn't worked for you In the past doesn't mean that you should give up all together . Keep trying , start small , start with less and work your way up .

Think positive , know that I Haven't worked out in two freaking weeks pretty much and I'm fine like I'm auto correcting through that and there is a way to , I say , auto correct a lot .

But there is a way to change it all and auto correct your way through the life transitions and and , honestly , the fact that I've been doing this since my son was Six months old and he's now almost 15 and a half , so 15 years I've been doing this .

I mean just imagine all of the times that I have Auto corrected my own life like I have changed my routine , I have changed my goals , I have changed Everything and when I say everything , I'm not exaggerating . I have changed everything about my health and fitness journey back and forth , back and forth , over and over .

It's very simple for me to hear a story that you have , or the situation that you have , or the story You're telling yourself , or the excuses or the reasons . Whatever right , it's very easy for me to hear what someone tells me and Know exactly how to change it or what to do better or what to sneak in , because I've done it all . So I'm here .

I'm here for it . If you have any questions about this , feel free , as always , to shoot me a DM . I love hearing from you on Instagram and I'm always up for some conversation on health and fitness and I'm always trying to answer your questions the best I can Over there also .

I would love it if you well , I'd love it if you did send me a DM , just because I love sharing that and getting the word out there about the podcast .

I would love if you took a screenshot of your screen on your phone right now that you're listening this podcast on , share it on your social media and tag me , and if you could leave a rating and review on the podcast . That would mean the world to me as well . Thank you for being here and listening , and I will talk to you next week .