Being a personal trainer for quite some time now, I've helped dozens of clients with their fitness and health goals.  I've had my clients achieve their goals, and helped them maintain.  I've also had clients who have struggled to reach their goals and they couldn't seem to figure out why. It's my job to help give my clients a path to follow to achieve their health/weight loss/fitness goals.  It's a lot of work, but I love it.  I do consultations with my clients, find out where they need help, I make the workout program, get them working on their nutrition, if they do in person I schedule sessions with them, if they are online I check in multiple times per week, schedule check-in phone calls, update their training programs, etc, etc.   However, I have discovered much to my dismay, although I put in a lot of effort and work on my end to help my clients work towards their goals, I cannot force people to do the work on their end.  I cannot force my clients to sh

Postpartum is quite an interesting journey that one cannot really know about until they experience it.  In Part 1, I wrote about my personal experience with labor and delivery ( HERE for part 1) and now I wanted to talk about my experience with postpartum after we brought our girl home.  Really at the time I write this, we are barely 8 weeks into our postpartum journey, and still, have so long to go. We were released from the hospital on Thursday, August 15th the day after Anna was born.  We were so anxious to get her home, but the funny part was once we got home, all I could think was now what ?!  What do I do with this baby?!  I was so tired from only having maybe 2 hours of combined sleep since Tuesday and so emotional from hormones, and everything else.  I mean, who's idea was it to just send us home with a child?  Don't they know I know absolutely nothing about babies?!   I've heard many times that when you have a baby, instincts naturally kick in and you jus

I had been debating on whether or not I was going to write this blog.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk about my birth story of our little girl.  But after receiving many questions about it from people and encouragement from some friends and family, I decided that I would write about it and make it a 2 part blog.  First, my labor and delivery story. On August 14th, at 1:01pm my life was turned upside down when a little 6lb 5 oz girl came into the world after over 26 hours of labor, and 5 days overdue! My journey through pregnancy, labor, and delivery was nothing crazy or too special.  I was very fortunate to have a complication-free pregnancy and labor.  Even going 5 days overdue, I was thankful that I wasn't horribly uncomfortable.  I was not happy going 5 days overdue, the smallest of walks or anything would exhaust me, but I wasn't bedridden so for that, I am grateful. In the early morning of August 13th, I woke up with what felt like mild period cramps.  Noth

Being a personal trainer, it's literally my job to help people through their struggles in their journey's to achieve their weight loss and health goals. Sometimes when I talk to my clients, they are under the assumption that I was always fit and have never struggled with my own fitness journey. I've had the assumptions of "well it must be nice to not have struggled and just always be fit" Which couldn't be farther from the truth! The truth is, it wasn’t easy, my journey was full of ups and downs, as well as a lot of trial and error. I didn’t know what I was doing. I had some major struggles and things that I had to work on in my fitness journey. I thought I would share some of the biggest struggles I’ve had because I realize everyone can probably relate to them at some point or another. Struggle #1- I sucked at committing and consistency Yes, it's true. It took me a loonnnggg time to figure out how to actually commit to the process and stay consistent

When I found out I was pregnant, I wanted to make sure that I stayed as active as I possibly could during those 9 months.  As a personal trainer, maintaining my fitness and health are of utmost importance to me. I also wanted to show my clients, the majority of them being women, that it is possible to stay active and have a healthy pregnancy.   Women who are active and continue to workout during pregnancy have been shown to experience many benefits.  A healthy weight gain during pregnancy ensures the baby grows at a proper rate. Gaining too much weight during pregnancy can lead to larger babies as well as more difficult deliveries and longer recovery after birth as well as other complications. Being active during pregnancy helps women maintain their core muscles better, as well as helps to keep their endurance and stamina, which aids in delivery as well as recovery post-birth.   There are also several other benefits such as reduced nausea and mood swings, healthier eating habi

Motivation to stick to your workout regime is one of the biggest reasons why people fail.  It's not that the workouts are ineffective, its that people have a hard time sticking to their program long term. Maybe this is/was you; you decide it's time, you’re going to workout and get fit.  You get the home equipment or gym membership. You get cute clothes for the gym and you make it your mission! You are all excited and hit the gym for 2, maybe 3 weeks of hard working out. You feel great, tell all your friends about your new workout plan and how you’re working on a “new you”. Then, after a couple weeks, you think, man this is hard.  Maybe you feel overtired from work and decide, I’ll skip for today, but I’ll go tomorrow!  Tomorrow comes and going for drinks with the girls sounds WAY more appealing than the gym!  Then the next day you just don’t feel like it, so you skip then too. Before you know it, two weeks have gone by since you’ve worked out and you think, Ugh I’m ju