Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Where Are You?



People, I hope this post finds you all doing well! My eyes have been opened further with the help of my beautiful partner and side-kick, Mrs. Jami Lynn McCormack.  She has again shown me more evidence as to the importance of optimal nutrition and a functioning, healthy, steam-engine body.
I recently, under Jami's instruction/persuasion/motivation, completed the Whole30 Challenge
( http://whole9life.com/category/whole-30/ ), a month-long nutrition lifestyle eliminating all sugar from your diet unless it comes from fruit or vegetables.  Maybe this seems somewhat easy to you, but my friend I'm here to tell you, so many products out there have man-made, artificial sugar, sugar-cane, sugar in the raw, whatever....sugar, to make it sweet and taste so good to our impressionable palates.  Like you I'm sure, I like sweet, I like things that taste good, and once I opened my mind to this challenge, I discovered that there was a lot for me to eat (really).  And, frankly, very happy about the food I was throwing down.  I still had access to my bananas, my sweet potatoes, all of my proteins, but quickly discovered I needed to make sure I had my good fats too.  I would get hungry pretty quickly after my meals and Jami helped me understand I needed to be consuming good fats like:  avacados, nuts, olive and coconut oils with my meals to insure satiation.
I took away from this experience the fact that this way of eating really works for me.  Physically, I felt very good with my energy and my body responded very well (I've never really been this lean and cut in all my years of working out).
Mentally, my clarity and focus seemed generally good on a daily basis and I feel like my quality of sleep was consistently good.  I could expand on this more, but these are highlights.

There is a lot of talk out there about sugar and it's negative effects on our health, and I'm not going to get into that here, but what I can say pretty confidently is that sugar is something I need in my diet on a very seldom basis.  I know my self-experimentation was only for a month, but I'm gearing up for another run at the month-long challenge.  Here lately, I've been doing my best to string along days of no sugar here and there.  I feel like it's going well too.

Doing this challenge, I feel like I've opened up, put myself out there a bit, and discovered something new and very beneficial for my own health and well-being.  I had the benefit of Jami's instruction, motivation, education, and coaching.  For whatever reasons it has taken me a while to listen to her words, but I'm where I am now and the results speak very loud and clear to me.
Jami and I come from different backgrounds - me:  I played sports growing up and now am a personal trainer; fitness is my passion and she draws from that - Jami: did not grow up with sports and fitness but her strength and passion is in the nutrition and Holistic Health arena, and I draw from that.  We are a team, a partnership, and I feel lucky for that.  Because she didn't have a sporting background, she struggled with the fitness stuff.  I write her programs and help keep her motivated and supported there.  My struggles over the years has always been the nutrition side of things.  My thinking in the past was that I could always eat whatever I wanted as long as I worked out (typical dude thinking).  Oh how wrong I was on this; so, I lean heavily on her knowledge when it comes to the nutrition aspect of wellness and she leans on me for the fitness.  With that being said, know and recognize where you need help and don't be afraid to ask for it.

So, I asked the question in the title, "Where Are You?".   Is there something that's been on your mind in relation to your nutrition or fitness? Listen to these words you're reading in this message and just get started with figuring out what works for you.  Take my stepping out there as a jumping point for you.  These cookie-cutter models out there set people up to fail, and it's going to take courage and self-experimentation to figure out what works for you.  Find an accountability partner, use Jami and I as your motivation/inspiration, whatever you have to do to get started.  The ultimate goal for us as people is to function at our most optimal, healthy way on a daily basis.  We want to feel our best so that we can get the most out of ourselves and be the best for those around us.
I hope you get started on your journey to figure out where you are and where you're going.  Find what works for you and your unique body.

Take this quote to heart:

"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step."     Lao-tzu

Be Well,
Keith and Jami