High Intensity Hybrid Training

Short answer: yes. BUT, there are more things to consider, depending on goals.

First, the facts:

☝🏼Alcohol consumption at ANY DOSE is linked to many cancers, unlike sugar & artificial sweeteners which MAY cause cancer at VERY high doses. If you’re concerned with sugar/artificial sweeteners, yet have no boundaries with alcohol, you may want to rethink things.

✌🏼It’s common for less than ideal food choices to happen around alcohol consumption (hello 2am McD’s drive thru!). The calories from the alcohol + calories from the fast food add up fast!

🤟🏼 Alcohol disrupts sleep. Although it may make you feel more relaxed, that doesn’t translate to better sleep. Poor sleep inhibits good decision making around lifestyle habits.

Alcohol is its own macro. If you look at nutrition labels on cans of alcohol, you may see calories listed, but 0’s across the board for carbs/fats/protein. 🐝 Buzz kill: that doesn’t mean alcohol is a freebie - you still need to log it! I got chuuu - like, save, & share these cheat sheets for the next time you drink ’n’ log! Log as either/or, not both!

So, can you include alcohol in your nutrition plan? Maybe…
➡️ Want fat loss? Drinking affects the rate of loss. It may take longer to get where you want.
➡️ Want maintenance? Including alcohol in moderation is possible. But, be mindful about the amount & frequency, + do things like set a drink limit/event, & drink 1 glass of H2O between drinks.
➡️ Want to build muscle? Alcohol disrupts sleep patterns, & inhibits protein synthesis = essential for building muscle. So, like maintenance, including alcohol in moderation is key.

💫 Invitation: consider your WHY with alcohol. Why do you feel the need to finish a whole bottle of wine, instead of stopping at one glass? What are you afraid of if you don’t finish the bottle? What are you hiding from/avoiding via alcohol? If you don’t know WHY you consume alcohol, in the amount/frequency you do, trying to reduce it will be a struggle. This may mean going into a place that feels icky. Lean into it; be honest with yourself. Knowing your WHY around any habit/behavior is key to setting up the HOW to change it.

🧡 Keep coming forward - Coach K

What did I do?
➡️ Owned up to using food to numb my feelings
➡️ Curated other ways to cope with emotions
➡️ Stopped drinking alcohol
➡️ Learned about proper food quantity and quality to support my activity levels
➡️ Added regular daily movement, & treated those sessions like any other important appointment, rescheduling instead of cancelling, if something else came up

How did I do it?
✅ Hired a personal trainer, eventually transitioning to group classes at a strength & conditioning gym
✅ Hired a nutrition coach
✅ Went to a therapist
✅ Surrounded myself with like-minded people
✅ Didn’t do any quick fixes or fads

How long did it take?
🗓️ About a year to lose the weight I wanted to lose…& a lifetime of continued change to habits & behaviours. That is, once I lost the weight, I didn’t go back to doing what I was doing before. The changes I made are now my norm.

There are lots of individualized details involved with what I did & how I did it. I likely wouldn’t have been as successful without leaning on other, experienced people to guide & support me.

Tired of trying to figure this out on your own?

🔗 Link in profile to set up a complimentary, no obligation strategy call!

🧡 Keep coming forward - Coach K

Egg and Veggie Bento Box

A take on the Starbucks Bento Boxes, you’ll find this in the deli section of your local grocery store.

This one has a bit of everything:

✅ hardboiled egg - protein & fat
✅ cheese - fat & carb (with a tiny bit of protein)
✅ chicken - protein & fat
✅ veggies - carb
✅ hummus - fat & carb (w/ a tiny bit of protein)

And the bonus? Everything can be eaten finger food style!

Tradeoffs…

Similar to Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion (for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction), making a choice in life directly impacts something else.

Said another way, when you say “yes” to one thing, it means you’re saying “no” to something else. And, vice versa.

For example, you decide you want to start exercising regularly. Doing so will require things in other areas of your life to change.

Similarly, you decide that exercising is not a priority for you. Given all of the proven benefits of exercise, choosing not to exercise regularly will impact your ability to experience those benefits.

So, what are you willing to exchange, or trade off, in order to accomplish any goal that you set for yourself?

Netflix? Social media? Work? Time with friends &/or family? Money to pay a coach? Eating out/going to the bar less frequently?

This strategy works with every decision you might make in life:

Should I start eating better?
Should I get married?
Should I have kids?
Should I learn to play an instrument?
Should I volunteer for XYZ organization?
Should I read Pride & Prejudice?
Should I go on a trip to Bali?
Should I buy a house?

Tradeoffs are everywhere. If you want to see change, something’s gotta change. That may extend to the people you surround yourself with, the podcasts you listen to, the books you read, the amount of time you spend in front of the TV/diving into YouTube, the way you speak to yourself in your head, the reasons/excuses you default to instead of getting s**t done.

Making adult choices is one of the secrets to a rewarding, fulfilling, accomplished life. And, making adult choices is at the core of self care.

🧡 Keep coming forward - Coach K

You may have come across posts about what coaches or athletes eat in a day. There are both upsides and downsides of these posts.

The upsides:
👍🏼 They give you meal & snack ideas.
👍🏼 They give people who regularly restrict food permission to not only include a variety of foods in their diet, but also permission to eat at a level that supports their activity levels.

The downsides:

👎🏼 You don’t know what level of activity that person you follow on social media has. As such, they may be eating more food or less food than you need to eat each day.
You don’t know what food biases, disordered eating, or relationship with food that person has. You could fall prey to these same problematic things by doing what they do.

Unless you have experience in fiddling with your food intake & exercise output, as well as understanding your own relationship with food, your best bet, instead of copying a random person on social media, is to work with someone who can individualize your nutrition & exercise plan to best suit your needs, lifestyle, & activity level.

Need help with this? 🔗 Link in profile to get started!

🧡 Keep coming forward - Coach K