Amy's September Reset Plan: Getting Healthier for Herself...and for Her Kids
Are you kidding me…??? I’m going to help the owner of the fabulous store Red Barn Mercantile get healthy and find a love of fitness? This is going to be A-W-E-S-O-M-E!!!After meeting Amy, I was even more excited for this endeavor. Amy has a great attitude and a true desire to get healthy. Even more importantly, Amy wants to pass on a healthier lifestyle on to her young children.We’ve already met, twice, which to me says Amy is super motivated.At our first session, Amy and I got a chance to catch up one on one and I learned about her goals. Amy wants to make her health a priority again. She would love to shed a few pounds, increase her mobility, and through all of this introduce healthier habits to her kids.
Our first challenge: Amy really doesn’t like to exercise...but you might be surprised why. She’s not a fan of working out in groups. Call it anxiety, being self-conscious or whatever, but this one thing more than any other has kept her out of the gym for 20 years. There was clearly only one way to approach this: I need to make this fun and build her confidence in herself and her abilities.My specialty: FUN!Together, we came up with a plan of attack.
We are starting on the ground floor. Literally.
First, we discussed the benefits of starting every morning with a 5 Minute Flow – before anything, coffee, phones and/or email – to start her day on the right track.
I taught her one of the 5 Minute Flows that we teach all of our FOR clients. (Learn more about the 5 Minute Flow here.) Here's why we love it:
- The Flow gets you on the floor. We don’t spend enough time on the floor. Why is the floor so important? You can breathe best when on the floor; your body knows where it is in space, and mobility becomes easier to achieve. Believe it or not, simply being on the floor – and getting up – is exercise in itself!
- Think about it: we started there as babies and toddlers, slowly learning balance and gaining strength. So why don’t we spend more time there now, gaining hip mobility and improving core strength? Again, getting up is no joke when you use no hands!
- The morning is the one time of the day we control. By doing a Flow, we gain control. So even later on, when our schedule is hijacked, we’ve already done something for ourselves no one can take away.
I encouraged Amy to bring the Flow home with her and share it with her family. She can make a new one or three that are achievable and fun. I want her to redefine exercise for her family, too:
Exercise is PLAY. Exercise is FUN.Exercise is movement and you should feel good doing it.
Speaking of fun, I taught her a fun way to work her abs without actually doing a sit-up. We used the foam roll for this because we believe crunches are hard on the spine. Better to find tension to give those abs some toughness they deserve! She seemed to get a kick out of it.
And we used the mini bands (which she can throw in her purse) and we integrated a deadlift into her workout using the bands. You know, something simple she could do anywhere, any time!
We have struck a 75/25 deal
Our goal is to get Amy moving, feeling stronger and lifted when she leaves the gym. We will see each other twice a week. To keep our time together fun, I’m following a 75/25 rule with Amy. We are doing exercises she enjoys 75 percent of the time to build up strength, confidence, and rekindle her love for that exercise feeling. The other 25 percent of the time we will do something challenging that her body needs even if she hates it (like…drum roll…bear crawls).
Walking is not (just) for the dogs
When Amy is not hanging out with us at FOR, she will be walking more. Amy already walks her dogs regularly in the evening, but she needs to do more during the day. I’d like her to walk without her dogs – just Amy alone with no iPhone – and swing those arms to get her heart rate up and build her upper body strength and mobility…just through walking!
Step away from the desk, regularly
Another one of Amy’s goals is to get up from her desk and take a walk around the block during her workday. She realizes the danger to her body, heart, hips, etc., from sitting for too long. I tasked her to get a FitBit or an app that will shut down her computer at time intervals so she can get up and move.
Journaling, for gratitude...and kicking ass
We also chatted about the importance of mindfulness and keeping a bedside journal. Writing down three things nightly for which to be grateful, then first thing in the morning, upon awakening, writing down three things that she kicked ass at the prior day will help Amy keep a positive perspective and stay level-headed when things get hectic or she gets down.
Journaling, for nutrition...and accountability
Amy would like to lose a few pounds, but we first need to get her nutritional house in order. We both said, “HELL, NO” to the idea of a cleanse and agreed that clean eating and good old hard work will help her reach her goals and get her feeling fabulous again. We believe finding healthy habits that will last and are achievable and reasonable will always work. We are so confident Amy will win this battle and plan to guide her through the journey.I asked Amy to keep a food journal. Together, we will modify any habits that might be holding her back. She will also text me daily what she ate, how much sleep she got, and if she practiced her gratefulness in the morning and evening. Fitness on the Run is so psyched to work with Amy. I myself am floored at her progress already in just the first week. Stay tuned to hear about Amy’s progress next week!
Amy says...
After two days of working out with Heather at Fitness on the Run, I'm sore, as anyone who goes from zero to anything in a week would be, but feeling really good. Still a little anxiety prone about getting there, but once I'm there Heather makes it fun and is so encouraging that I feel like I can move mountains or rather a few more mole hills than I could last week. At Heather's suggestion, I will start a food journal this week and continue to move more, do a morning flow that she prescribed, and get 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep. Lucky for me, that last one is easy!