“Don’t you ever just take a BREAK”??

I receive messages like these often:
“Don’t you ever just take a break?”
“Do you ever just have cheat meals?”
Here’s the truth…when you truly make this a lifestyle, you don’t take a break from it.
Other things that are part of my lifestyle include: feeding my dogs in the morning and night each day, brushing my teeth, showering…you get the picture 🙂
I’m at the point in my journey where this is not a “program” or a “diet”. Both of those terms imply that there is an end point.
For me, this is now just simply how I live.
And, just like I don’t take a day off from feeding my dogs or brushing my teeth, I don’t take days off from prioritizing my nutrition and fitness.
Does this mean I don’t have rest days or foods I enjoy or indulge sometimes?
Absolutely not! I train 4 days per week and the other 3 days I focus on my steps and movement in general. If there’s a more “indulgent” meal I’d like to have, I plan it into my macros. And, I make sure I eat food I truly enjoy every day so there’s never a sense of deprivation or suffering.
I truly enjoy the lifestyle I have created.
Are there days I don’t track on vacation for example? There are days where I focus on hitting my protein and calorie goals roughly from estimating / eyeballing my food. I’ve done this long enough to know what my plate needs to look like to maintain my goals. And, this should be the goal for most people…not tracking / weighing your food for the rest of your life but eating intuitively based on the knowledge you receive over a period of time. But, I’m always aware of what I’m putting into my body and focus on what serves me and helps me to feel my best.
As Midlife Women, creating a lifestyle around our health and fitness routines is necessary if we want to have the fullest lives possible as we age. No more diets. No more programs.
A LIFESTYLE
And, a lifestyle takes real time to create. It’s not something that will be present in your journey in the beginning or even after a number of months.
Once you start your journey, you will over time make your new actions become HABITS
Your new habits then become a LIFESTYLE
And once this is a new lifestyle, it becomes part of your IDENTITY
And, you’ll no longer think in terms of cheat meals or breaks.
It will simply become WHO YOU ARE
How long does this take? Give yourself a year.
You deserve a year to experience the fullness of your potential and to fully step into the new person you are creating.
It will happen…day by day, brick by brick…you lay the foundation for your new life and one day you look back and you realize you are truly transformed; body, mind and soul.
You can do this.
Always in your corner, Denise