Grace & Grit Podcast

Man, I have worked with a ton of clients over the years who want to elevate the state of their health without honoring their body’s need for adequate restoration and recovery. And it simply doesn’t work…ever. Recovery should NOT be underestimated when it comes to improving the health of your body. If you are expecting more from your body (more energy, more strength, more endurance, more performance, more fat loss, more muscle) you are going to have to RESPECT the fact that your body will need MORE rest. Remember you are in a RELATIONSHIP with your body, not a dictatorship. You have to GIVE in order to GET. If you are training hard and eating well, but neglecting to give your body the downtime it needs and deserves, don’t be surprised if you are lacking in the “progress” department. Episode 57 of the Grace & Grit Podcast is all about Recovering Like a Boss, so can reap the benefits of your hard work more quickly. Click the link to listen now! Loving this podcast? 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

There are two things that are absolutely essential to any transformation process (yeah, I know… I talk about them a lot because I believe in them THAT MUCH): 1. Awareness 2. Consistent Action Last week, Mary O’Malley and I had a great conversation on the podcast about what it takes to stay awake in your life, so you can change habits that are not serving you into ones that do. This week’s podcast is all about the second point: consistent action. There is a lot of talk these days about changing our thoughts to change our actions, but what if taking action more consistently is what actually lead to more positive thoughts and beliefs around what is possible? Check out this episode to hear my experience with taking action around what I wanted to change in my own life despite how I felt or what I believed about those actions. Loving this podcast? 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

The longer I am in the profession of helping women to improve their health, the more I am convinced that improving health boils down to awareness and consistency. Before we can change anything about our health, we must be aware of the things we are doing to either nourish or deplete our health. But honestly we are living in such a frenetic time, most women are so busy, they are reacting to life with habits that don’t serve their health rather than choosing to respond to life in a healthy fashion. We absolutely must slow down to become more aware and be able to focus. And there are lots of buzz words linked to awareness: mindfulness, consciousness, being present, staying awake. Whatever you want to call the practice of becoming more aware…awareness is the linchpin to improving our health. And to help us better understand this topic of staying more present in our lives, I have invited back to the Grace & Grit Podcast my dear friend, Mary O’Malley. Listen now and find out more about Mary here. Loving this podcast? 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 don’t know about you, but I grew up clinging to the myth that once a woman turned 40, life would be over (the black balloons at my mother’s 40th birthday made quite an impression apparently). And having turned 40 myself a week ago, I have to say my experience has taught me something quite different: Life is really stinking good at 40. Unfortunately, our media culture cultivates a lot of fear around aging for a woman. Aging gracefully and optimistically, I believe, has a lot to do with the level of respect you have for your mind, body, and soul and I am a firm believer that the earlier we can start this conversation with our daughters and granddaughters, it is likely that we will save them from a lot of unnecessary pain and frustration has they grow older. Loving this podcast? 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

We are now a full month into 2017 and I am curious how you are doing with your intentions to take better care of yourself this year? I know many women charged into the New Year vowing to themselves that this year would be different; this year they will put their self-care at the top of their to-do list. A few weeks in many of these same women are recognizing that making themselves a priority is not as easy as it sounds. It means you have to make time and room in your schedule for yourself. And… Making time and making room in our schedule is no small task for most of us, life is really stinking full. So where do we start? How do we simplify and organize, so we can dedicate more time and energy to the things we say matter the most to us? To help us confront these questions head-on, I have invited back to the Grace & Grit podcast, Evan Zislis, professional organizer extraordinaire to help us out. Find out more about Evan here. Loving this podcast? 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

Last week on the podcast I told you about the 1 thing you can remove from your diet to radically improve your health and happiness levels. That thing? Refined sugar. This week on the podcast I talk about the 1 thing to ADD to your diet to dramatically improve your overall wellbeing. That thing? More vegetables. If you don’t eat many veggies (a lot of people say they do, but they don’t) and you are looking for some inspiration, tips and tricks to eat more, check out this week’s podcast which is all about Veggie Power. Loving this podcast? 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  

This is the time of year people are looking for the quick fixes that can unravel the damage they did over the past few months. And we are being honest about it, people are really looking for the quick fixes that will unravel not just a few months but years (even decades) of neglecting their health. If you know anything about the message and mission of Grace & Grit, you know I can’t stand the notion of quick fixes, mainly because habit change takes time (and quick fixes are short on time). That being said, the body is an amazing organism and will respond quite quickly when shown a bit of TLC. When you purge from your diet the things that deplete you and replace those things with more of the stuff that nourishes you, you feel better, you look better, and you are motivated to keep doing better. So in today’s podcast, I talk about the one thing that is toxic to everyone’s health and how to get it out of your diet for good. That thing is refined sugar. Loving this podcast? 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

A New Year is dawning, which for many women is a popular time to set or recommit to goals. Unfortunately, when it comes to health goals, many women are thinking too small…literally. Far too many health goals are based on aesthetics alone specifically, ones revolving around weight loss, which doesn’t create a ton of traction in the motivation department (at least not traction that extends beyond a few weeks). In this week’s podcast, I dish out some “food for thought” when it comes to establishing health goals that are weighty enough to carry you all the way home to sublime health. (As mentioned in the podcast, here is the Bit by Bit link.) Loving this podcast? 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 may sound strange but a common thread I have witnessed (and personally experienced) with women who are trying to reclaim their health, is that they often struggle to allow happiness to enter fully into their life. Women seem to be really good at sabotaging the “feel good” in their life in one of two ways: They are more focused on doing than being; often maintaining schedules that are so busy, they simply do not have the time or awareness to feel happiness. They have limiting beliefs around how much happiness they deserve, what is possible for their life, or even the belief that life must always be hard (and so it is). Many women are especially good at robbing themselves of the joy of food when it comes to their efforts to improve their health. This episode explores some strategies to help women to embrace the joy of healthy food and to help them build a tolerance for happiness in their lives in general.   Loving this podcast? 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

Many women have a tremendous amount of resistance around exercising regularly, and I think there are two primary reasons for this: #1: The diet and fitness culture has made exercise VERY difficult to navigate #2: Many women solely exercise as a way to maintain or lose weight. What if you started viewing exercise as a way of respecting your body’s nutritional needs rather than as a way to force your body into submission? This episode of the podcast introduces the reasons we should really be giving our body a healthy dose of movement nutrition every single day and offers strategies for conquering the resistance you may have around it. Loving this podcast? 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