Grace & Grit Podcast

For years women have sought me out to help them improve their health, and often they come expecting a list of “what” they should be doing (via specific meal plans, calorie loads, foods to avoid etc.). They are often surprised when I ask them to start questioning HOW they might need to show up differently for themselves to elicit a different response. How you greet the day is just as important as what you plan on doing in the day. How you eat is just as impactful to your health as what you eat. How you move is just as important as what modality you choose to up-level your physicality. HOW should proceed the WHAT, because how you do anything has everything to do with the impact “the what” will have in the long term. >>Are you loving the Grace & Grit Podcast? Help us keep the mic on! Then head over to iTunes and leave a review so the Grace and Grit message can spread to more women who need to hear it. Looking for more Grace & Grit? Visit GraceandGrit.com

I have had several guests on the show to discuss the power hormones have in the health equation because honestly, I do not think this is a topic we can discuss enough. Hormones influence and govern everything about our physiology: weight fertility, mood, energy, sleep and sex drive…just to name a few things. And their disruption can cause havoc on our tissues, our systems and ultimately our sanity. While there may be a time and place for pharmaceutical intervention to help balance extreme hormone challenges, there are a lot of ways to balance our hormones naturally, which are often overlooked. So today, I have invited to the show, Madeline MacKinnon the founder of Natural Hormone Healing to give us some insight into the wild world of hormones and how to create a state of hormonal bliss.   Click here to learn more at Madeline and listen now.   >>Are you loving the Grace & Grit Podcast? Help us keep the mic on! Then head over to iTunes and leave a review so the Grace and Grit message can spread to more women who need to hear it. Looking for more Grace & Grit? Visit GraceandGrit.com

Exercise inspires a host of emotions in people including: fear, dread, resistance and frustration. It is a shame that something that has been proven time and time again to be so good for us, can feel like such a hardship at times. If you have every struggled to stay consistent with your exercise program, you are not alone. Everyone struggles at some point. So, in this episode of the Grace & Grit podcast I deliver my best tips for staying the course, even if you don’t feel like it (because to be honest, there will be many days you won’t feel like it). Enjoy and please share it with the women in your life who you feel might benefit from listening too! >>Are you loving the Grace & Grit Podcast? Help us keep the mic on! Then head over to iTunes and leave a review so the Grace and Grit message can spread to more women who need to hear it. Looking for more Grace & Grit? Visit GraceandGrit.com

“Cheat meals” and “cheat days” are an integral part of the diet culture vocabulary. And while many people could argue that it is just “semantics” and, therefore, no big deal… I beg to differ. Cheating implies dysfunction and deep health is not born out of dysfunction (not by a long shot). If you have every found yourself in a position of trying to make amends with food choices that aren’t necessarily in line with what you say you want for your health, check out this episode of the Grace & Grit podcast for tips and tricks that can help you rework the “cheat meal” mentality. Click here to see the links from this week's episode. >>Are you loving the Grace & Grit Podcast? Help us keep the mic on! Then head over to iTunes and leave a review so the Grace and Grit message can spread to more women who need to hear it. Looking for more Grace & Grit? Visit GraceandGrit.com

You may have the best intentions for improving how and what you eat, but if you don’t have some strategies in place for doing so easily, you will never take action on it, or you will fail to take action with it consistently. I get it. Been there done that. Through my own process of working to elevate my health over the years, and hundreds of women to do the same, I have a few (okay…more than a few) suggestions for making shopping, meal prep and even meal time more simple and even fun, so you can easily turn those intentions in to REAL ACTION. If you could use a few new ideas for how to organize your shopping, cooking and meal prep to live a more health-FULL life, check out this episode! >>Are you loving the Grace & Grit Podcast? Help us keep the mic on! Then head over to iTunes and leave a review so the Grace and Grit message can spread to more women who need to hear it. Looking for more Grace & Grit? Visit GraceandGrit.com

Sometimes I think we have come so far in the conversation of what it means to be a healthy woman, and other times it feels like we are having the same exact conversation we have always had using different words. We have gone from: Atkins to Ketogenic Diets Aggressive cardio to aggressive strength training Cosmopolitan Magazine to Instagram “Skinny is sexy” to “Strong is the new sexy” (as my friend, Steph Gaudreau would say, “No! Strong is just strong.) The platforms for these conversations may be new, but the underlying threads of the conversations are, sadly, the same: You MUST go to extreme measures to return to health. Health is a look. Then there are women like, Rebecca Scritchfield, who are working hard to change the conversation and expand the definition of what it means to be a healthy woman. “Most people mistakenly focus on their appearance as evidence of good health (or lack there of), but looks have very little to do with it. You can be healthy and have cellulite, thick thighs, junk in the trunk or virtually any body shape. Health is not just measured physically. Emotional health is an equal part of the equation. What people really mean when they say they want “ health and happiness” is they want to be WELL. The secret to being well is treating yourself well and establishing healthful habits you can feel good about.” – Rebecca Scritchfield, RDN If you are ready to be a part of a different kind of conversation, make sure you check out this week’s episode of the Grace & Grit Podcast and share it with the women in you life who you feel could benefit from listening too! >>Are you loving the Grace & Grit Podcast? Help us keep the mic on! Then head over to iTunes and leave a review so the Grace and Grit message can spread to more women who need to hear it. Looking for more Grace & Grit? Visit GraceandGrit.com

“I really love being a diet”, said no one ever. Dieting sucks. You know it and I know it. Being in a constant battle with food and exercise is downright exhausting, deflating and not a spectacular use of our 1 shot at this thing called life. I am a huge fan of nutrition and exercise science, AND I think that a big part of dis-ease in the human body has stemmed from people seeking so much outside perspective about what is best for them, that they have become completely detached from their own awareness and insight. Thank goodness there are people in the world like Samantha Skelly, who help women repair the bridge between their body and their mind, so they can stop being a hot frustrated mess and step into being the unstoppable, confident being they are meant to be. If you are ready to care for yourself from a place of possibility and expansion rather than one of fear and shrinking… If you are ready to dive deeper into what you are truly hungry for, do not miss this episode. Click here to learn more about Samantha. >>Are you loving the Grace & Grit Podcast? Help us keep the mic on! Then head over to iTunes and leave a review so the Grace and Grit message can spread to more women who need to hear it. Looking for more Grace & Grit? Visit GraceandGrit.com

Compromising, negotiating and rationalizing your way out of your good intentions to improve your health goals are behaviors that can all too easily become habits. Quitting can also easily become a habit. In fact, the diet industry has been benefitting for years off of people going from diet to diet to diet; it has thrived off of its customers making a habit out of quitting. Gyms too make money on the predication that you are going to quit on yourself. They know that after your initial burst of inspiration to sign-up for a gym membership, it is highly likely that at some point you will stop showing up for yourself (but still pay on the contract you committed to). It is a sad reality, but much of the diet and fitness industry benefits financially from you making a habit out of quitting on your way to your health goals. Which sucks! And, while, the diet and fitness industries need to develop better systems and processes to prevent people from quitting, the quicker solution is found in learning how to break the habit of quitting on yourself. And that is the topic of this episode of the Grace & Grit podcast. >>Are you loving the Grace & Grit Podcast? Help us keep the mic on! Then head over to iTunes and leave a review so the Grace and Grit message can spread to more women who need to hear it. Looking for more Grace & Grit? Visit GraceandGrit.com

It seems we have become a culture of wanting the solution to all of our health woes to be delivered in 1 nice (and cheap) little package and, man, have a lot of people designed products and programs that promise just that. Look, I get it… It is easier to have someone tell you exactly what to do all the time: what to eat, how to move, which meditation to do, how much sleep to get, etc. And I am not trying to diminish the tremendous benefit of coaches, trainers, and processes that can make the road to stellar health a bit straighter, but at the end of the day… The depth of your health is really dependent on the depth of your relationship with YOURSELF. YOU are the only person who knows if you doing something because it is truly enhancing your life, or because you are just really comfortable settling into the standards of the circles you travel in. YOU are the only person who knows if the things you were doing 5 or 10 years ago to elevate your health are in line with this stage of your life. YOU are the only person who really knows if your body, mind, and soul are being nourished or depleted by your lifestyle choices. YOU are the only person who knows how happy and fulfilled you truly are. Over the past decade of coaching women to reclaim their health and happiness, one of the most common obstacles I see women bumping up against is that they chase so much outside perspective on what they should be doing that they forget to go inside and fetch their own insight. Check out this week’s episode of the Grace & Grit podcast to find out how to start getting reconnected with your own body’s wisdom. Mentioned in this episode: Grace & Grit Signature ProgramWomen’s Health & Empowerment Weekend >>Are you loving the Grace & Grit Podcast? Help us keep the mic on! Then head over to iTunes and leave a review so the Grace and Grit message can spread to more women who need to hear it. Looking for more Grace & Grit? Visit GraceandGrit.com

Living life in the 21st century is a blessing in so many ways. We have education at our fingertip and more freedom to choose than ever before. And… Having so many options at our disposal has increased overwhelm, the time, energy and money we spend on this that just aren’t all that important and we are more distracted than ever before. None of which leads us to a more health-FULL life. Many women I have coached through the years are so busy managing their stuff and schedules that they have lost themselves along the way. Personally, in my own life, I have been on a journey to simplify my life to amplify the things that matter most. It has been no small feat, but every item I decide to purge, every thought I chose to release, every moment I choose to line up my actions with my values… allows me to breathe more easily. So, once again I have invited my friend Evan Zislis to the show to give us some practical tips for releasing the unnecessary things in our life to make room for the things that will help us create true abundance, health, and freedom in our lives. Click here to learn more about Evan. >>Are you loving the Grace & Grit Podcast? Help us keep the mic on! Then head over to iTunes and leave a review so the Grace and Grit message can spread to more women who need to hear it. Looking for more Grace & Grit? Visit GraceandGrit.com