The client of the month for April is one of the OG clients of Strive Fitness and Performance....Jenn Puggini. She has rocked her nutrition over the last 6 weeks and has lost an astounding 65 lbs within that time.....Before everyone asks; "What did she do", lets talk about Jenn's journey thus far.

Jenn has been with us on and off for about 3 years now. She is one of the most positive and bubbly personalities we have here at Strive. Although she is insanely strong, she has struggled with her weight and overall confidence over the last couple of years.

She has gone through a couple of challenges, but the consistency was not there.

Over the last year, her confidence took a hit and her life stress became very apparent. As always, she put up a great front, but she became dependent on food to feel better when it came to her emotions. She even had to take a break from the gym.

About a 2 months ago, she reached out again to me to say that she needed help and that now was the time for change.

65 lbs in 6 weeks is amazing!!! Everyone's first reaction is of course,

What diet was she on?

What work outs was she doing?

So on and so on...

It was not a 21 day or 6 week challenge that promised her a fast weight lost. It was not a restrictive meal plan that put her in a miserable spot and almost guaranteed a rebound later on (most do).

To be honest, I wish I had a perfect or special product that she did, so I could promote it.

What got her the results then?

She became honest with her snacking and emotional eating and she checked in with me weekly to talk about her progress and what she was struggling with.

She became honest with her struggles (unlike before when she said she was following the plan when she was not....Most people fall into this category), and she was not a lone, she was consistent with her check ins and she followed our plan.

Our plan was simple....

Pay attention to the snacks and fast food. She sent me a picture and a written document every week (when she did not, I sent her a text) and she made sure she was getting protein in.....That is it

SIDE NOTE: Jenn has returned to the gym and PR'd her bench press and her 1 arm snatch 🙂

I am super proud of everything Jenn has done and still is doing....Keep on rolling

One of the biggest threats to someones weight loss goals is the dreaded holiday weight gain.  The weeks following Halloween through January 1st can feel like a sugar and and stress party that most people just try and "get through".

Two responses to that:
– You do not want to set yourself back or undo all the hard work you’ve already put in. If you’ve done this long enough, you know dropping body fat is a slow and steady process, but putting it on is certainly easier.
– You can avoid holiday weight gain with just a bit of strategy.

HERE’S HOW TO STAY ON TRACK DURING THE HOLIDAYS

Pick three to five days during the season where you’re not going to focus on your nutrition at all
There are some days during the season where it’s more important that you are just present, enjoying time with friends and family. These are not “cheat days” but an opportunity for you to just enjoy the spirit of the holidays and the company you’re keeping. If you have an extra half slice of pie, we won’t tell.

Examples include:
-Thanksgiving
-Christmas Eve
-Christmas
-New Year’s Eve

During these events, one should not worry too much about tracking or going through DIET MODE.  Instead, they should focus on enjoying time with loved ones.  Their goals should not be completely forgotten however.  Possible tactics on these days can include.

•  Eat until you’re 80% full
• Fill approximately 1/2 your plate with veggies, 1/4 with lean protein, and 1/4 with starches/grains
• Don’t hit the dessert table until you’re mostly full
• Don't make it about food.  Realize that these events are about spending time with your friends and family.  The food is great, but it should not be the focus.

 Keep it tight on other days
Realize that the "holidays" do not last for 2 months (even though that is how long we treat them).  They are in fact, single dates on the calendar.  Saying "whatever" during the holidays will for sure equal that 7-10 lb holiday weight gain that is the usual.  If you truly are focused on obtaining your goals over the season (even if the goal is to maintain), you should focus on being on point the rest of the time outside of the holiday events.  Staying on track with your nutrition on the days you don’t have an event is a major help in keeping you progressing during the holidays. Focus on self-care Sundays where you get food prep done and set yourself up for a less stressful week. This will make hitting your macros a breeze.

Think about this: if you follow the strategy above, you’ll have 6 to 10 less-than-perfect days with your nutrition during the entire holiday season. If you were to say “screw it” until January 1st, you’ll be looking at about 40 days of completely off-track nutrition. That’s 40 days to do some serious damage, undo some of your progress thus far, and set yourself up to be further away from your goals come January 1st, 2019.

 Mind your wine
Eating more indulgent (likely, less nutrient-rich) food, getting poorer quality sleep, and extending yourself with more responsibilities and to-dos is stressful on the body.  Adding alcohol on top of all that will only make stress, cortisol and inflammation more amplified.  Not to mention, when your inhibitions are low, that cheese plate and assorted dessert tray starts looking pretty tempting

KEY TIP:  Try NUTRITION CHECKS AND BALANCES:  You can still have your wine, but if you are committed you will find a way to not have much of the other indulgent foods like pie, candy etc.

A little bit of effort and strategy will go a long way this holiday season!

If you need more accountability during this season to avoid the common holiday weight gain, you can also partake in our ZERO POUND CHALLENGE and work to key your weight where it is and maintain your gains.

Here at Strive Fitness and Performance, we have made a huge impact in the Macomb County are in a very short time. In that time, we have worked with a variety of different clients.  We’ve seen what works, what doesn’t work, common struggles, and as coaches, we are constantly looking for ways to improve our clients’ results.

We fit our programs around our clients instead of fitting the client around a specific program.  We pride ourselves in treating people like people, not just another number, so we pay close attention to everything going on. We can see the signs, and we can usually tell in those first few weeks with someone new to the program whether it’s going to be smooth sailing, or if a new client needs to take a step back and take it little by little.

Your coach is always here to help, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have your own responsibilities. Your daily habits and actions dictate your results, and while we can give advice, support, and help along the way, the day to day execution is where the magic happens.

Looking at the common trends among our most successful clients, it’s pretty easy to tell within the first few weeks how well this is going to go. There are common habits and behaviors that let us know a client is probably going to see great success early and often.

Before we dive in, remember that you do NOT need to be perfect to see amazing results. Nobody is perfect, not even coaches, and we don’t expect perfection from our clients either. The best results don’t come from the people who hit their macros perfectly every day for 12 weeks; the best results come from those who build the proper habits and mindsets. After all, those habits are what help you keep your results for the rest of your life.

The following habits and actions are the things that are most successful clients do right away and often.  Even if you are not currently accomplishing these actions,  they are a stepping stone to reach for in the near future if you want to see success and results.

1. Successful Clients Own Their Mistakes

Any diet that expects perfection is simply setting you up to fail. You’re going to mess up, and that’s okay – success doesn’t require perfection.

What it DOES take are honesty and accountability. If you slip up and have a bad weekend, log it anyway and tell your coach what happened. Hiding it from us means we can’t help you.

If you leave a day blank or just decide not to log that piece of cake you ate from guilt or shame, while that may feel like a way to not confront what went on, it’s important to remember that’s not giving yourself, or your Coach, accurate information. Us as coaches, can only work with the information giving us.  I mean, imagine going to the doctors and not giving all the symptoms or your medical background, they may give you the wrong prescription and hinder your progress rather than help it.

2. Successful Clients Ask Questions

We are an open book here at Strive Fitness.  We education our clients every day with emails, facebook posts, videos and documents.  There is so much information out there about nutrition and exercises, and the majority of it is wrong or misguided.  This has led to the majority of the population following the wrong information and hurting their long term results.

We want our clients education and to ask questions so they understand.  The more educated you are, the better results you will get.  Happy clients, happy business....Make more of an impact 🙂

Eventually, you’ll reach a point where this is second nature, and you understand how to plan and track your macros. But in the beginning, as you’re still learning and building those habits, we expect you’ll have a lot of questions, struggles, concerns, victories – and we want to know about all of it.

Whether you have a super busy schedule, travel a lot, or are responsible for feeding a family of five, tracking macros can work for you.  Macros give us control of our diet, instead of depending on meal plans.  They also allow us to find ways to get past plateaus when they present themselves. (Read more about why we track macros)

Here at Strive, we help our online nutrition coaching clients adjust their nutrition to their lifestyle.  Through our coaching we help our clients get past their obstacles.

Below are some common obstacles our clients come across and how we suggest to overcome them.

I have a busy life and don’t have a ton of time for food prep

Create a ‘Sunday ritual’ (doesn’t have to be on Sunday) in which you set aside three hours to write out a menu for the week, grocery shop, and prepare meals for the week. If you don’t want to prepare all your food on Sunday and have time in the morning, create a ‘Breakfast Ritual’ where you prepare all the day’s meals and snacks in the morning.

If you’re not into full meal preps (like myself), try and figure out what meals can be fast and easy and what meals need to be prepped (watch me explain more here)

If cooking is not an option, use a meal delivery service that provides macronutrient information (Michigan Meal Prep Company for example).

I eat out frequently

Choose restaurants that have nutritional info in MFP or on their website. Otherwise, choose a meal with nutritional info that could be easy to estimate. For example, order a roasted half chicken with a side of vegetables and eyeball the amounts.  Instead of worrying about calculating numbers, worry about what your plates look like

Try to avoid meals that have breading or sauces. Otherwise, if you go to dinner with the knowledge that you still have lots of protein and carbs left to eat and not very much fat, choose something off the menu that could generally work (a lean protein and generous source of carbs, like chicken with rice and beans).

I travel a ton

It can be tough to make healthy food choices when travelling. However, you could choose restaurants that have nutrition info in MFP or on their website. Otherwise, it’s almost always a good idea to bring high protein, nonperishable snacks (jerky, protein bars, protein powder, dry roasted edamame, etc.) with you on the road.

I have a busy social schedule

Before you go out, try pre-eating a meal leaving over enough macros for the nibbling you plan on doing and drinks you plan on having. Otherwise, become the host! That way you can control the foods and portion sizes that are being offered. At the very least, eyeball and estimate the foods you eat while you’re at social events!

I get bored eating the same things over and over

So don’t! It’s called flexible eating for a reason. While some people prefer to eat the same things everyday to make things easy, it’s totally doable (and even encouraged) to have variety in your diet. Our suggestion is to MACRO PLAN.  Try to enter what you’re planning on eating early in the day so you can adjust portions to make everything fit. Then, all the thinking is done and all you have to do is eat what you entered into MFP!

I cook for a family and don’t have time to make separate meals

Thankfully, we have resources like SkinnyTaste.com and other food blogs that include all the macronutrient information for their recipes. SkinnyTaste is great because it has a recipe index and a huge database of recipes that can be made in under 30 minutes or thrown into a slow cooker for easy prep.

You could also go for convenience during that time.  Instead of cooking elaborate meals, go for easy.  Plan a meal with all the macros (protein, carbs, veggie and fats)

If you are really on point with your macro planning.  You could plan the rest of your meals, make them perfect and leave some room for the family meals.  That way you can still have mac and cheese (only a little) with your kids and still be within your numbers.

On paper, fall is just about the worst possible time for someone to start a diet. Seriously. When you think about it, fall is basically designed to get us to overeat.

Gone are the days of lounging by the pool in a swimsuit and fighting off the anxiety of whether or not you can take off your cover-up. All the fall clothes are flattering, warm, and don’t dream of being revealing.

At the very same time, it’s like all of the food that gets popular is about as calorie dense as possible. It’s like all of the sudden everyone agrees that people need to increase the pie baking production per capita by 10-fold. Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s toss cookies and pumpkin-spice-everything into the mix.

Seriously – when it comes to building a season that should wreak havoc on a diet, it’s hard to do much better than fall.

It’s not hard to see that I’ve got a lot of thoughts on fall, which partly for the reasons listed above, is my favorite season.

But here’s the great irony of my thoughts on fall: I actually think right now is the best time of the year that you can start dieting.

Really. I’m not being sarcastic.

Maybe it’s because fall follows summer, a season that we all look forward to from about February on – but once late July hits we’re about done with. Grilling out and having cookouts with friends and family is fun, but it’s hard to eat and drink with reckless abandon for too long without feeling bloated and exhausted.

Or, maybe, it’s that fall coincides with back to school time. Back to school is like this phenomenon that impacts just about all of us, no matter if you’re actually going back to school or not. The signs, the ads, the school-supply aisles popping up. It’s impossible to ignore, and I think that’s a great thing. It’s a chance for all of us to take stock of our year up to this point. A natural moment of reflection plopped about ⅔ of the way through the year. That is my favorite thing about fall.

Fall is the time for children to return to school and use what they learned the previous year and expand their knowledge and experience.  I like to think about fall as the same thing for all of us who have weight loss, muscle gain, or performance goals. Especially those of us who are tracking and paying attention to what we eat.

It’s hyperbole to say that for most of us, we tend to slack off a bit in the summer. That’s not a criticism on anyone because I can absolutely say that’s true for me. It is a time to enjoy the progress we made, maintain our weight and live in LIFESTYLE MODE.

How can you not ease off the gas a bit whenever it seems like every weekend has some cookout, some outdoor event built around food and drinks, or some other social plan that seems to always pop up? Those are all just normal things that come along with summer, and for most of us, they’re things that we’re fortunate to be able to take part in – so why wouldn’t we enjoy that?

Fall,on the other hand, is a natural place to go back to the basics, reflect and make a better diet. It is a time of year in which it makes sense for us to take stock of our processes, our daily behaviors, and make sure those are lining up with our goals. It’s that very process of regularly auditing yourself that sets successful dieters apart.

It’s that very process of regularly auditing yourself that sets successful dieters apart (see life long learner)

For some of us, taking stock of things might mean renewing your focus on how you’re weighing and measuring your food. For others it might be auditing how you’re going about logging your day to day food intake, to make sure you’re not missing anything. And still, for others, it might be a matter of looking at what your planning looks like and identifying ways in which you can improve your process to make your life easier.

The actual behavior we’re talking about doesn’t really matter. What does matter is the spirit behind it. The knowing that you’re actively working to take control of your health and your behaviors to become a little bit better each and every day.

At Strive Fitness and Performance, this is something that we not only encourage, but want to actively support as much as we possibly can.

Are you ready to make a change this year?

Are you a life long learner?

Do you want to become 1% better?

Committed to your success,

Derek Ledwidge