#‘no one likes a negative attitude’ yeah i’m aware. i live this daily as i struggle to get by. thanks
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Naked Proposal [Gilbert Redford x Reader] SFW
Word Count: 2800+
Genre: Fluff (like.. really fluffy)
Pairing: Gilbert Redford x Reader
Rating: slight, very very slight sexual situations while being naked and a bit of touching, but it’s nothing
Notes: Please bear with my grammar and stuff. English is not my native language and this is merely translated from my wording of my native language, so some sentences may sound.. a bit weird. I apologize!
(This is a pairing with Gilbert, but you could say it is in the timeline of Dante’s best ending, because of the Lao-Shu being gone)
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It was another sunny day in Creta. The hottest day of the year, Gilbert and I still enjoyed our daily stroll through this lively district. No matter where we went, Gilbert was always greeted warmly by the people and almost every civilian was allowed to call him Gil.
Gilbert loved to show other people, expecially lonely men who try to woo any woman they see, that I belonged to him. He always put his arm around my waist and occasionally hugged me as the men greeted him. As soon as their eyes fell on me and how protectively my dear boyfriend had pulled me to him, they didn't even try to hit on me.
Our walk took us past Nina's shop, where we always made a short stop and talked a little with the her. And like always, Nina asked when we are going to bring our relationship to the final stage - i.e. marriage.
Gilbert always found a suitable answer, such as that we still had a lot of time and should not rush things. And that we already lived together anyway and didn't need a wedding to show everyone how much we love each other.
I largely agreed with his reasoning, but frankly ... I wanted to get married at some point ... Gilbert, on the other hand, seemed to want to remain to be a free spirit. Maybe he just wanted to leave all options open in case he wanted something better than-
"[Y/n] ..?"
Gilbert's slightly worried exclamation got me out of my thoughts and I looked at him questioningly.
"Uh .. yeah?" I asked, seeing that his face was a little alarming.
“You are so quiet today and you seem like you are not there mentally. Is everything all right? ”He asked, giving my hip an affected squeeze with his hand as he pulled me close and gave my forehead a loving kiss.
"I'm sorry. I have to get used to the fact that, after the whole thing and the problems that the Lao Shu have caused, peace has finally returned and it has become so quiet. I guess my head is still busy processing everything. ", I explained to him and hoped that he would believe me. Apparently he did, because his gaze softened.
"I understand. You don't have to worry anymore. Everything has become calm. Even Roberto doesn't cause us any more trouble. ", He assured me and put a strand of hair from my face gently. "Hey .. It's pretty hot today, should we head to our favorite ice cream parlor on the slope, from where you can see the beach?" He asked and I smiled at him. His attitude has helped me often to forget negative thoughts and so I nodded at his suggestion.
"Sure! But is it okay if you just take a day off today? Oliver will surely be mad when we come back. ", I sighed. Gilbert wasn't unreliable and usually he was more than aware of his position as mafia boss, but sometimes his spontaneity got in the way and he'd just kidnapped me out of here and left everything behind, including his duties.
“I've already considered that and settled it. I left him a message that we are with the Falzone and that I have a few things to discuss with Dante, how we want to regulate the division of the city, since the Lao Shu are no longer there. And we will probably need a few days and therefore even spend the night at the Falzone mansion. So that means we have time. ", He winked at me with a slightly childish smile and I slapped my hand over my forehead.
“And you think he'll buy that from you? Come on. Even though it's true that the Visconti and the Falzone are now allied, it sounds totally unrealistic that the Falzone Boss lets the Visconti Boss stay the night in his mansion. ”I said and just shook my head slightly. Gilbert laughed softly and shrugged.
“It's Dante. He only looks so cool and unapproachable on the outside. But actually he's a softie. Is it true or am I right? ”He asked me and I laughed softly. What he was talking about could not be denied. "And besides, I have you with me too. You're the convincing argument that he would let us stay the night, ”he added, winking at me.
"Gil ... It's still not okay to lie to your men like that .."
"I know .. But .. Hey, we haven't had so much time for each other in a long time and .. I just miss being alone with you. Is that bad? ”His question made my heart melt again. We'd been together for so long and his words still had such a big impact on me.
"Of course not .." I said softly and snuggled against his strong chest as we walked to the ice cream parlor. Gilbert smiled and stroked my back as he slowed down a little so that we could continue walking in this intimate position.
When we arrived at the ice cream parlor, we ordered our usual flavors: [favorite flavour] for me and coffee for Gilbert. And as usual, every now and then we bit off each other's ice cream while our arms were hooked. The people, who watched us, always had smiling faces and some even whistled at us.
“People still stare at us like that. They should have been used to seeing us so closely by now. ”Gilbert smiled and casually licked a piece of melted ice from the side of my mouth as if it were completely natural. I smiled and then closed my eyes.
“Seems like they have to get used at seeing you with the same woman over and over again. Since you've always been known as a playboy, who never wanted to commit. ", I answered him and it seemed as if the topic was a sore point for Gilbert too, because he became silent when we stood at a railing that went down to the Beach looked down from above. I felt a bit guilty and wanted to apologize, but my heart sank to my boots and I stood silently next to him and looked at the sea. The rest of our ice cream melted away until we finally looked at each other.
"Do you miss those times when you were still unbound and were able to flirt freely with everyone?" I suddenly asked, because of course I also noticed that Gilbert had hardly, actually not at all, flirted with the other women in Creta since we confessed at each other. Gilbert's eyes widened somewhat in surprise at this question and he tossed the cone into a nearby trash can so he could grab my shoulders with both hands.
"What are you talking about? Why should I miss it? I have never been so happy as with you in my life. So .. don't think I would ever trade that for anything again. ", He spoke resolutely and in such a serious voice that I swallowed lightly. Now I felt stupid for my negative thoughts and looked slightly ashamed to the ground.
"You're right. I'm sorry. “, I whispered and closed my eyes. Gilbert was silent for a moment before I felt a finger under my chin. I opened my eyes again and Gilbert lifted my head with his index finger and looked intensely into my eyes.
"No need to apologize. Hey, look at me. ", He spoke softly when I tried to avert my gaze from him again. At his gentle command, I looked him in the eye again and noticed how lovingly he was looking at me. "I love you. Only you. And I'd be the biggest idiot of all time if I let you go again. Was that understandable? ”He asked me in a tone that left no room for argument. All I could do now was a slight nod and Gilbert's mouth formed a big smile. "Good," he said and his face came closer. When our lips touched, I could still taste the caffeine from his ice cream on it. Mixed with the taste of his lips, it was so tantalising that I forgot all my worries when I put my arms around him and gently kissed him back.
After our lips parted, we looked deeply into each other's eyes for a while and smiled. I put my arms around him and hugged him tightly and gently as I buried my head in his chest.
"Sometimes.. I wonder how I deserved you .." I sighed softly into his skin through the open neckline and felt Gilbert laugh softly as he hugged me.
"I ask myself this question with you every day," he replied a little teasingly and stroked my back. "Mmm. But if we stand in the blazing sun for longer, the heat will melt me away. ”His spontaneous change of subject came in very handy before this got out of hand. After all, we weren't alone out here.
“It's really damn hot today. So hot that I could jump straight into the sea when I see it from here. ”I replied and pulled away from him.
"Then ... let's go there?" He asked naturally.
"What? Right now? ”I asked, slightly taken by surprise.
"Sure.", He just grinned at me.
“But we don't have anything with us. Neither towel nor swimwear? ”I frowned and when I saw Gilbert grin slyly. I knew EXACTLY what was he would answer..
“It's so hot that we don't need to dry off. The sun does. And .. we don't need swimwear either. We just go to an empty part of the beach behind the rocks. We are undisturbed there. And we don't need swimwear among each other, do we? ”He asked me with a mischievous grin and his hand ran along my sides in a provoking manner. I closed my eyes but then had to laugh quietly.
"Your spontaneity really knows no bounds," I said with a smile when Gilbert was pulling me down to the slope to the beach when he took my hand.
"I know, but that's exactly why you love me," he replied with a grin and I let myself be dragged along with a laugh. Fortunately, the negative thoughts had finally disappeared and I was sure: I didn't need a wedding. I already felt like the woman who was lucky enough to stay at his side forever.
And that was enough for me.
We found an isolated spot on the coast. It was well hidden by rocks so that no one could watch us from above. After we had made sure that there really wasn't a soul around, we began to undress. It was an act we were already more than used to, so I felt no shame as I undressed in front of him. We put our clothes far enough away so that they didn't get wet from the current and I took my first steps into the icy water.
"Waaah .. This is colder than I thought." I shook myself and stopped. Suddenly Gilbert grabbed me from behind and threw me over his shoulder. "Aaah? Gil? Let me down immediately! ”I ordered him and gently slapped him on the back as he laughed and ran into the water.
"The best way to get used to the water is to jump full pipe into it's coldness ~" he sang, and I suspected what this would lead to.
"No, don't-"
Too late.
Without warning, he threw me into the cold seawater, and I heard a dull laugh while I was under the water. After I reappeared, I gave him a pat on the back of the head and gave a slightly angry look.
"Idiot." I growled softly.
"I love you too." Gilbert countered amused and began to dive in front of me. He emerged a little further and floated on his back.
"Ah .. that feels good.", He said and closed his eye. I swam next to him, when I got used to the cold water it was really nice and refreshing.
"Oh yeah. We really need a large swimming pool in the garden of the Visconti mansion. ”I laughed.
"Naw. I've made this suggestion to Oliver many times, but then there is always a long scolding, what a waste of money that would be and we are here in the Mafia and blablabla. You know that. “, Gilbert answered with a slight pout and I had to laugh quietly. Gilbert could just be so incredibly cute.
"Yes, I know that very well." I smirked and looked at him when he leaned forward again and held out his hand to me. I grabbed his hand and he pulled me close to his naked body and put his arms around me. My eyes almost closed on their own as I enjoyed that hug. We lingered like that for a moment before he spoke again.
"I love you," he whispered softly and nibbled my cheek. Gilbert was an old-school romantic. He told me so many times a day that he loved me and other sweet things. I loved that side of him so much.
"I love you too." I replied smiling and catched his lips for a demanding kiss. Gilbert's hand grabbed my bottom under water and stroked my thigh to bend my leg around his waist. This made me feel even more of him and I pressed my body more into his through this hot kiss. The ice-cold water made our nipples perky and more sensitive than usual. “Should we go back to the shore? The water is a little too cold to stay in here longer. ", I asked and Gilbert nodded when he let go of me and we swam back to the coast. When I tried to sit down on the rock, he stopped me.
"Wait," he said and took his black jacket, which he usually wore casually around his shoulders. I have NEVER seen him ever wear the jacket. It was probably just about style. He spread it out on the rock and indicated that we should sit on it.
"Gil .. The jacket will get dirty.", I sighed and shook my head.
"Oh, but nothing that can be cleaned though." Gilbert waved his hand and I felt sorry for the maids .. Who knows what problems they had because of his 'You can wash everything' ..
After a quick glare with a raised eyebrow, I gave in and sat on the soft jacket. Gilbert did the same and sat cross-legged next to me. He pulled me close with his arm and our heads were snuggled together as we let the summer sun dry us off.
There was a pleasant silence between us and I was dozing off when I heard Gilbert mumble something.
"Now or never.."
His words made me look up and I blinked.
"What do you mean by that?" I asked and Gilbert looked at me with slightly red cheeks as if I had caught him doing something weird. He cleared his throat to maintain his composure and then straightened up in front of me. He took my hand in both of his hands and looked at me insistently but lovingly.
"All along I didn't know how to say it, but .. It's just a fact that you've enriched my life. Thanks to you I am so happy as I have never been in my life. And .. I also realized that I never want another woman by my side again. And also .. even if that sounds strange from my mouth, since I never wanted to settle down .. ", he began and my heart almost began to stop when I realized what he was getting at ..
" [Y/n] .. " he started again and one of his hands went to his pants, which lay next to us with our other things. He took out a small, red velvet box from his pocket and went down on one knee. He was completely naked, but he knelt in front of me and held my hand again. "[Y/n] .. Do you want to be my wife? Do you want to be by my side forever and lead the Visconti family into a better future with me? "
My jaw dropped down. I was completely overwhelmed. He actually proposed to me. Tears of joy began to stream down my face and I could only knock him over when I threw myself into his arms.
"Yes .. Yes, of course I want! Gil .. I never thought you'd ask me .. ", I mumbled into the crook of his neck and Gilbert kissed my tears away as he hugged me tightly and took a small gold ring out of the box. It was a diamond with two small [gems that has the color of your eyes] on their side. He took my hand and put the ring on my ring finger while looking at me happily.
"Thank you. You make me the happiest man on the planet. Although .. I was already the happiest one before the proposal. ", He winked teasingly and I smiled when I hugged and kissed him again.
And so my life was finally complete ..
THE END
Working on an extended lemon ending, lemme know if you wanna read this!
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What do you think the following kidswaps would be like: Rose Strider, Dave Lalonde, John Harley, and Jade Egbert
So I don’t actually engage with kidswaps a bunch because I don’t really get where most people are coming from with them, but my understanding of kidswaps is:
You take the canon kid but raise them in their surname’s household.
One of the cool things Hussie did with the guardians was that they fit fairly well into the four parenting styles Authoritative, Authoritarian, Permissive, and Neglectful. Quick psychology overview, there are two categories parents usually get defined by, Involvement (also known as support or warmth) and discipline (or demand). Authoritative parents give high support/involvement/warmth, and moderate discipline, which is sort of the ideal parenting, and that fits Dad Egbert pretty well. Authoritarian is low warmth/support/involvement but high discipline/demand, which Bro Strider fits. Permissive is high warmth, but low discipline, which goes well with Mom Lalonde. Neglectful parents are low warmth low discipline, and are often absent entirely, which our unfortunately dead Grandpa Harley was (and from evidence in Hiveswap, probably would have been even if he was alive). Lucky for us Jade had a radioactive dog to raise her in his stead.
So we’ve got a girl like Rose, raised in an authoritarian household, I’m just gonna go ahead and say Bro Strider because I don’t know how guardians usually work in kidswaps. So Bro “I got possessed by a demonic puppet at age 0 and have lived with that thing in my head all my life” Strider is aggressive, unreliable, attacks his kid on a dime, emotionally distant, and emotionally detached. Rose, who is already pretty embittered by her mother in canon, would become someone utterly infuriated with the world. She’d forgo her passive-aggression games in favor of being outright nasty and rude most of the time I’m talking full 90′s cliche delinquent here. Serious behavioral issues, “who’s going to make me” attitude, seizing control by force wherever she can because control is something that’s stripped from her in her home life. Distrustful of other people’s intentions, probably always sees the worst in others, the kind of person who’s just waiting for the other person to prove her right so she can point at them and say “Ha. I knew you weren’t that nice.” without full awareness that she was the one to push them to snapping at her in the first place. REALLY nasty downward spirals of aggression and more aggression and a paranoid survival-based hair-trigger set of reflexes. Probably useful as a Seer of Time, but not good for her well being by any stretch of the imagination.
Then we’ve got Dave, raised in a permissive household by Mom “I drink to forget that the world is about to end and also because I’m lonely and life is hard” Lalonde. On the upside, he’s got a parent who cares about him now, on the other, he’s still a kid who’s gotta grow up too fast, bc his mom isn’t really a mom. She adores him, of course she does, but she’s drunk off her ass eight days a week so Dave’s sorta gotta be his own adult, which doesn’t end well. He probably gets along with her though, thinks he’s got a cool mom when really she’s just an enabler to pretty much anything he wants to do. I’d imagine a Dave Lalonde would end up sorta spoiled, used to not being told no, raised a rich kid, he’s used to being able to get whatever he wants after a little whining and would likely have a bad reaction to being told “no” when he starts out. A well intentioned dude who wants to be soft, but believes he has to be the “mature” one of the group, just listen to him he’s the smart one here. Probably thinks photographing plants and collecting roadkill in jars makes him “cultured” and “refined” and tries to use that as an excuse for why everyone should listen to him. Part of that is just him being used to having to act the adult in his home life though, so it’s natural for him to think that he’s the mature one, the put together one, the one who’s too old for that sort of childish nonsense. Also likely knows he’s pan/bi before the Game even starts tbeh. His quest as Knight of Light would probably involve him mostly just figuring out how to be a kid again, something he’d initially resent, like Rose resents the girlishness of LOLAR in canon, but would warm to eventually as he comes to terms with the fact that he’s not an adult, he’s allowed to be a kid.
Then John, raised in a “neglectful” household as much as having a dead guardian can really raise him, left with First Guardian Bec and the carapacians of Prospit. He’d probably be really starved for attention. Even more of a class clown than he is in canon, but this time only on a deserted island. Just a boy with his dog, and his dream scape to make friends with strange white chess people, whose customs are very much not human customs but ah well. Depression likely sets in a lot sooner for him without a parent around, and it’s easier for him to lock himself away from the world when no one’s even in his world on that lonely little island. Laying in bed all day watching movies and texting his friends and playing online games are less “interests” as much as they are “the only hobbies he has access to AND energy for”, than in his canon timeline. He’s still a boy overflowing with love for his friends, and would probably maintain his goofy disposition, but he’d be lonely and tired and depressed and it would likely be hard for him to work up the energy for his childhood nonsense that we all love and adore so much from canon. Bec, at least, would get him up, because dogs are high-energy pets and need daily exercise, and John would never ever let his dear sweet Bec get affected negatively by his depressed moods. He’s a boy who wants to be in love with life but it’s really, really hard. His quest as the Heir of Space would be something of a spiritual journey, I think. Becoming one with the universe, coming to terms with the good and the bad, the highs and lows the desirable and the ugly, and, by extension, learn to balance his own inner joy and despair. Once he reaches an understanding with that which is whole, he is better able to handle his own cycle of depression, which never really truly leaves him but he is able to handle it, engage with his loved ones while maintaining his own illness.
Jade, raised in an authoritative household by Dad “I love my child more than my own life” Egbert. Probably gonna be the most well adjusted out of all of them, surprising literally no one. Might be a little less punchy than we see in canon, having had a parent to appropriately model reactions to things like annoyance and anger, and probably has less access to rifles than our girl in canon. Still buff as shit tho, that much hasn’t changed. A witty problem solver, someone who’s had the support needed to really help her flourish, added to her own genius self. Has less need for the dreambot, but is still interested in science and furry/wolfkin stuff and her dad is, of course, only supportive (even if he doesn’t really understand the wolfkin/furry stuff, he supports his child and her interests). Wins ever science fair ever held and Dadbert is just standing with a camera beaming in the background. A go-getter and a high-achiever, sharp-tongued and able to use wit and snark and humor in order to win her battles instead of just out-screaming Karkat, regional winner of the Screamer Award (to be fair, that moment in canon was ICONIC). Isn’t necessarily GOOD at rolling with the punches, but is capable of it when she feels inclined. Her quest as a Witch of Breath would probably be something of a spiritual healer for the rest of her group? Someone who can manipulate the Aspect of freedom and in turn give that to her friends and loved ones. Someone for Dave to joke around with and just be a kid with, someone John can look to for support and help him when life is just too heavy, someone Rose can rail against and see that there is indeed still kindness in this world and yeah Jade isn’t perfect, she’s tempermental and a compulsive liar but she’s good and she’s loving and she wants nothing more than for Rose to feel okay again and Rose does indeed want that and wow JadeRose would actually be exceptionally good in this kind of kidswap wow. And in helping her friends, that would be an act of liberation for Jade too, because sometimes “we” is easier than “me” and sometimes “let’s” is more doable than “I’ll” and “I’ll do this for you” is easier than “I’ll do this for myself.”
Anyway I got super long winded there but here are my Thoughts tell me what you think.
#Rose Lalonde#John Egbert#Dave Strider#Jade Harley#Homestuck#answers#Rose Strider#Dave Lalonde#John Harley#Jade Egbert#John#Dave#Jade#JadeRose#mentioned#long post#beta kids#homestuck meta#analysis
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Time has passed
Have I learnt anything recently? Have I grown in any way? Have I developed?
These words; ‘grown’, ‘developed’ and maybe ‘prosper’ have been some key words that could sum up my thought process within the past few months. I don’t believe I have become wiser. I must have expressed this before on these rambles, but I just haven’t been growing as a person much for about two years now. It’s somewhat - or rather becoming - very frustrating.
I’m not entirely sure what road, path or journey I must take next. Life right now is at a halt. I am trying to make a move with it but my attempts backfire and my nerves start picking up. I don’t really want to go into that as I have to deal with it too much on a daily basis and writing about it at 1:30am in the morning is probably a bad move because it will just serve as a reminder. And not the good type. It’s the sort of reminder that you are very well aware of. The type of reminder that eats away at you but you cannot do anything about. A lot of the issues are minor yet not so minor. It’s complicated. I am so dependent on trusting that others will be able to get stuff done, but they’re so utterly useless and.. oh fuck it, this is one thing I do not want to rant about.
Anyway, no surprise but this country is absolute garbage. I’ve been saying that ever since I moved back here. The economy, the visual state, the people, the attitude, the approach, the policies, the beliefs, fucking everything is terrible. And no matter how many times I have attempted to prove myself wrong on this notion just so that I can accept the situation I have been thrown into, I an ALWAYS proven RIGHT. Always. I have far too many proofs and experiences to name that back up my beliefs. It’s honestly a joke now. I tried brushing it off as nostalgia and homesickness or my childish ignorance but nah I’m right, always have been, always will be, and I should never doubt that. England. Sucks.
That’s not why I’m sitting here typing all this down. I don’t really care about politics. I do but.. I don’t want to care at this moment in time.
Sheesh what even is my train of thought?? Okay.
Something to do with... sleeping pills?? Idk i’ll start from there. Sleeping pills. I want some. Need some. I don’t know. I want to try them and see if they are of any use because my sleep schedule is shit, and yes that’s no surprise but I ought to fix it. And sleeping early doesn’t help at all. It ruins it even more. I also get negative, worrisome thoughts that keep me up and I really don’t need to deal with that additional baggage. I mean it’s all been seeping through into my god damn dreams now. I’m not sure if you call them nightmares because from my understanding, nightmares are supposed to scare you. These don’t scare me. Not always. These simply irritate me and make me feel restless during my period of rest.
I make it sound like my life is so hard and I’m the worst off in the world but nah I’m lucky and have a lot so I just want to show my appreciation somewhere.
But still those thoughts and dreams need to die off. Pills could help but doctors scare me (after that last incident eugh) and fuck the NHS now lmao Mr johnson’s baby lotion here will go and f that up. Woohoooo
Okay.... rest... sleep.. pills... life..
Yeah i’m quitting work and I have no education so I’m officially living up to the western dream of loathing off of my parents and disappointing them!! Sometimes idk if it’s a privilege to be Asian or not. On one hand, we don’t get kicked out of our house like whites, but on the other, no education and no direction means i’m a failure. lol. Well it’s not really wrong. I am a failure.
Anywho, I’m quitting work coz they’re shit and I need time to work on applications and all that crap. Hopefully it all goes well but I’m still so confused on how I’m going to afford it because I aint studying in this shitewhole of a country and I’m no millionaire who can buy a degree so yeah imma just undo all of my parents’ hard work of moving up the classes and jump straight back down and be broke.
This is what happens when you decide not to become a doctor. No direction :) <-
#personal#what am I even saying#first post in months this is dumb#kinda therapuetic i like it#excuse any spelling errors#i’m uneducated phahaha#this dumb bitch#gifted and talented my ass
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Podcast: Using Music to Spark Your Inner Hero
Are you a badass? Do you want to be? We all know that music has the ability to affect mood, and today’s guest takes that to the next level by helping you craft a personalized playlist to evoke specific feelings and emotions. Kelly Orchard’s unique program could help you find your inner badass. Using music and a variety of psychotherapy tools, Kelly helps individuals and groups become more confident, more productive and most importantly, more badass.
SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW
Guest information for ‘Badass’ Podcast Episode
Kelly Orchard is a professional speaker, author and trainer and Licensed Psychotherapist. In addition to more than 30 years in the business of broadcasting, she has a Master’s Degree in Psychology and a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Science with an emphasis in Organizational Leadership. Kelly specializes in working with businesses and individuals in times of trouble, turmoil and transition, by creating a positive and profitable workplace. Kelly’s strategic coaching and leadership tools are a reliable, repeatable process that has been proven in the workplace. Kelly is a powerful story-teller – a craft she honed with her three decades in radio as part of family-owned operation, FCC Compliance consulting, and visiting hundreds of broadcast facilities. She is the author of 5 books, including her Prescriptive Memoir, Heart Lessons and her series of self-help books, Kelly Orchard’s Apple A Day, for daily nourishment for wisdom, success and personal growth.
About The Psych Central Podcast Host
Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.
Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Music Hero’ Episode
Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.
Announcer: Welcome to the Psych Central Podcast, where each episode features guest experts discussing psychology and mental health in everyday plain language. Here’s your host, Gabe Howard.
Gabe Howard: Welcome to this week’s episode of the Psych Central Podcast. Calling into the show today we have Kelly Orchard, who uses her psychology education and her experience in radio to help people create their own badass soundtrack. In her own words, she uses a CBT, solutions focused, positive psychology, and neuroscience approach to helping people live better lives. Kelly, welcome to the show.
Kelly Orchard: Thank you so much, Gabe. I am thrilled to be here today.
Gabe Howard: I am thrilled to have you because I think that you might be the first licensed psychologist that I’ve ever worked with, that named what she does “badass.” Just the word badass is right there and I love that. Can you tell me why you decided to do that?
Kelly Orchard: Well, you know, my background is in radio. You know, you do a lot of stunts. You do a lot of things to create a buzz and get your name out there. And so, you know, becoming a psychotherapist, I do some stuff with my branding and whatnot, which we can talk about later. But I’ve always been called a badass. People have referred to me as, “Man, Kelly, you’re really badass.” I knew that it meant something significant. And so I decided, well, I want to work with badasses. So that’s how it first evolved, it was that I want to work with people who identify with that whole concept of themselves.
Gabe Howard: One of the primary reasons that I wanted to have you on the show is because I wrote a book called Mental Illness Is an Asshole and I got a lot of pushback. You know, they’re like, oh, that that’s that, you know, this is this is serious. Why are you talking about that? Why are you saying ass? They were always kind of whispering. And my reasoning for that was because I felt very strongly that when people lay awake at night, they’re not worried about themselves in psychological terms. They’re not thinking medically. They’re thinking in the words that all of us use. Did that have an effect on you? I mean, because people do want to be badasses. They don’t necessarily know that they want to be emotionally well off.
Kelly Orchard: That’s a good point. A really good point. But you’re right. Yes. A little bit of blowback when I first started toying with using the word. But the more I just kind of put it out there, anybody who had an adverse response to the word badass usually typically either, you know, the older generation and they’re used to you know, everything is polite and nicely worded. And you don’t use that kind of word. We can use my mom as an example. She’s very opposed to this. But she’s also in her 80s. Mostly, the response has been fantastic. I get where you’re coming from. It’s like Mental Illness is an Asshole. You’re absolutely right. So why not identify it that way? It is serious, but we can also kind of identify it enough in a way that we understand it.
Gabe Howard: Does this open up avenues of conversation for you? Are people much more willing to discuss their issues or concerns or problems when they know that they’re on the road to becoming a badass vs. considering themselves in like a patient modality?
Kelly Orchard: Well, you know, I work with two separate populations with that. In my psychotherapy practice, I do promote the badass acronym with my clients and they love it because they’re already in a program admitting that they have depression or anxiety. That’s primarily what I treat, along with comorbid issues like a long term chronic illness or stuff like that, maybe grief and loss. But in the general population, I would call that, like in the business community, yes, they love defining themselves as badass and being on the road to becoming licensed to be badass. When I say I certify badasses, they’re like, well, how can I get certified? I want that. It opens up the conversation on what it takes.
Gabe Howard: Which is where we want to be. We want people talking about this more. Now, you said that badass was an acronym.
Kelly Orchard: Yes.
Gabe Howard: What does badass stand for?
Kelly Orchard: I’ve taken a blend of some of these psychotherapeutic tools, you know, cognitive behavioral therapy, that’s the CBT, and some neuroscience, solution focused that I use and I put them into a program. So BADASS is an acronym. So the B stands for “Be bold, be brave, be confident, be yourself.” But if you don’t know yourself, how can you be yourself? So I teach different methods on how to really get in touch with who you are. Personality tests and temperament tests, and what are your strengths getting into your core values. Things like that.
Gabe Howard: And that’s just the B.
Kelly Orchard: That’s just the B, yes.
Gabe Howard: That’s just the B.
Kelly Orchard: That’s just the B.
Gabe Howard: The B, and then we then we move on to the first A.
Kelly Orchard: Right.
Gabe Howard: Because there are a lot of A’s in here.
Kelly Orchard: Well, there’s a couple of A’s. The first A stands for “Attitude is everything.” Because I’m sure, Gabe, you and I both know that a positive attitude will get you a whole lot further than a negative attitude.
Gabe Howard: Agreed.
Kelly Orchard: Part of what I teach is to flip that format on the negativity and increase positivity because your attitude determines your success. So there’s some tools that I use in how to create that positive attitude. Then the D in BADASS stands for “Decide.” Because, you know, that’s a big critical factor. You have to decide that you want to be well and you have to make that decision to do it. And so then we go through, you know, being determined and dedicated to the process and disciplined.
Gabe Howard: And then we get to the next A, right? We get to A number two.
Kelly Orchard: Yes, A number two that stands for “Awareness” or self-awareness. I teach a lot about emotional intelligence. Being aware of your surroundings, being aware of your feelings and your emotions at the moment, and then of course, acknowledging your weaknesses and your strengths. I also do a lot with “Amplify,” because I love to use music in my programs and then the first S is “Stay the course.” This is where a lot of us get hung up. If what we want doesn’t happen quickly enough, we give up. So this teaches you to stay the course and persevere and keep going. And I teach different ways how you can do that. And then, of course, the last S just means “Successfully BADASS.” So that’s the BADASS acronym. And so I have have a program that I just take them through the process so they get their license to be badass. You know, when you got your driver’s license, it felt pretty badass. Right?
Gabe Howard: Yeah, I did. It felt awesome.
Kelly Orchard: It did. It felt so awesome. So anybody can relate to that when you get your driver’s license. But the truth of the matter is that you’d already studied. You already knew the rules of the road and took the tests in order to pass to get your permit. Then you already got behind the wheel and practiced driving so that then you had some competence behind the wheel. So when you went to go take your license exam, you already knew all this information. But the license gave you credibility. It gave you confidence. So I take that whole concept into the badass program. You’re probably already badass because you’ve been through the storms of life. You’ve failed, you’ve lost something like a home, a job or a relationship. You stumble, you’ve had a health crisis, whatever it is. You’ve overcome it. You’ve gotten through it. And you’re badass because you’re not quitting. All you need is your license to give you the confidence and credibility to keep going.
Gabe Howard: So let’s be practical for a moment. So let’s say that I contact you and I say, you know, I’m anxious or I’m depressed. There’s something in my life that I don’t like. And I’m intrigued by becoming a licensed badass. What is my step one?
Kelly Orchard: The badass program starts out with I teach a workshop to get you certified, so that’s a badass certification class and think of it like CPR for your mental health, an instant attitude adjustment and then an injection of positivity to get you started. And that’s where I introduce and initially teach you how to create your badass soundtrack, which I already have used this several times and it’s proven to be really a great tool for an instant reduction of anxiety symptoms or improving the mood or confidence. So that’s where I usually start.
Gabe Howard: What’s interesting to me is you don’t actually get a license to be a badass. I mean, the state doesn’t send you a laminated card that you can show police officers when you’re driving your Ferrari. But when you say you create a soundtrack that helps with symptom reduction, that’s not an analogy.
Kelly Orchard: No.
Gabe Howard: You’re actually utilizing music on on devices that we all have in our pockets right now to find songs that speak to the person that help them feel better. I think that everybody understands that music is helpful, but nobody’s actually utilizing music to be helpful.
Kelly Orchard: Well, that’s why I think that my program is starting to really catch fire as people are starting to discover it. I’m actually even working with a licensed music therapist on this as well. Getting back to the whole, you don’t really get a license. The state doesn’t, no, but I do. When you do finish that certification class, I do give you a little I.D. card that fits in your wallet that says you’re a certified badass. It’s kind of cool.
Gabe Howard: Nice,
Kelly Orchard: Stick it by your driver’s license. So that’s fun. A nice daily affirmation. Every time you open up your wallet, you’re reminded. Oh, yeah, that’s right. I’m a certified badass. It’s awesome.
Gabe Howard: Sweet.
Kelly Orchard: And then when they go through my full program and they get to the end of it, I do send them like a diploma. It looks like an actual college degree diploma that says licensed to be badass with your name on it. So that’s part of the fun part, yes. Is it recognized by the state? No. I think you can put on your resume for sure though, you know.
Gabe Howard: That’s awesome.
Kelly Orchard: Yeah. Yeah. But the badass soundtrack. You know, I can say I discovered it doing some of my own psychotherapy work on myself, a little self-care and how I discovered this is, I got a new car and the car came with satellite radio. Now I’m a terrestrial radio girl. I’m a second generation broadcaster, so I would never pay for satellite radio. But while you have it, why not use it? So while I’m driving around in the car, I would scan through all these satellite radio programming that I could get and the stations. And I discovered the 70s on seven channels. Some of these songs you never hear any more because this format. Radio formats are all split up or you may not have access to them in your own streaming device or not even seek to go back to that particular genre, which for me was years of my childhood. So it’s starting to stir up memories as I’m hearing these songs, reminding me of an event that was going on or a timeframe in my life. And that’s what sort of prompted me and introduced me to hey, there’s something to this because I was going through a period of grief and working on some very personal struggles. But the music was making me feel better. And so I went back into some of my studies. And I loved studying neuroscience. And, you know, in 2009, there was a study by the National Institute of Health.
Kelly Orchard: They did a study on people practicing gratitude, writing in a gratitude journal. They did the study and found that the people who practice gratitude, their hypothalamus, was really fired up. And that’s the organ in our brain that regulates our hormones and our stress levels. And they said that these people had lowered stress levels due to the fact that they were practicing gratitude. Well, it’s the same hormone as you do when you have happy memories and nostalgia. So I thought, well, why not put together a badass soundtrack with songs that you personally can attach to a happy memory, that when you allow yourself, getting back to one of the A’s in BADASS, when you allow it to work for you, it can be an instant change of your mindset, like changing the radio station or, you know, flipping the format. And I started testing it out on some of my clients because I knew it worked for me. Tested that on some of my clients, works great for them, created a class. Now I’m teaching people how to do this by utilizing neuroscience, cognitive behavioral therapy, going back and doing some nostalgia and reminiscing, which is part of where the narrative comes in. And then the solutions focus. Now, what are we gonna do with it if this works? Let’s do more of it. So it does prove to be an instant attitude adjustment. You’re right.
Gabe Howard: We’ll be right back after this message.
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Gabe Howard: And we’re back speaking with Kelly Orchard about how to become a licensed badass. Kelly, I just have to know what is on your badass soundtrack.
Kelly Orchard: I’ll tell you one story that is really funny to me. And thank you for asking. So I was sharing the concept with a colleague of mine. In fact, he was my mentor as I was working toward getting licensed. So I respect him highly. He is also a professional musician, a guitar player. So we have that musical connection as well. So we’re sharing this with him, and he asked me the same thing. So what’s on your soundtrack? And I tell him, Joy to the World from the Three Dog Night, which is a song from the 70s.
Gabe Howard: Yeah.
Kelly Orchard: He looks at me because he’s a serious guitarist. He goes, Why? That’s not a badass song. I’m like, well, it maybe doesn’t make you feel badass. But it has, it means something to me. You know, we said when we had our radio station, we were an oldies station for a while. It was a family run radio station. And my brothers and I were also on the air. And so one of my brothers was doing the morning show and, you know, with a radio formatting, not everybody you hear on the air actually is in the studio, or works at the studio. You have, you know, you have different segments. Somebody will call in. So, for example, we subscribe to a traffic segment. So this gentleman would call in to do the traffic. And there was always some sort of a bumper of music. You know, in between the segments. So the traffic director’s name was David Jeremiah. And so my brother would play the song to the opening of Three Dog Night. He says, All right, everybody, we’ve got the traffic director. David, my good friend David, and it goes right into the lyrics, “Jeremiah was a bullfrog, was a good friend of mine.” And so for me, that reminds me of a really fun time when my family owned a radio station. Remember I told you when I first discovered the badass soundtrack, I was going through some of my own grief work. The brother that we were singing the song Joy to the World with, he passed away a few years ago. I was working through the process of grieving my brother. So when this song came up and it triggered that memory, of course it made me happy. And it reminded me of my brother and it had to make it on to my badass soundtrack.
Gabe Howard: Of course, I’m sorry to hear about your brother, but what’s interesting is, you know, to me, when you first started talking about a badass soundtrack, I was thinking of like all the, you know, the strong bass line and the upbeat music. And it sounds like the way that you pick these songs are things that elicit strong memories and strong happy memories. Not necessarily, you know, the boom, boom, boom, boom, you know, the things that get you excited to go to a sporting event.
Kelly Orchard: Right.
Gabe Howard: Is that true?
Kelly Orchard: Well, you know, basically what you’re doing is you’re stirring up different types of emotions which are sparking off different neurotransmitters in your brain, that dopamine in the serotonin levels. So depends on what it is that you need. If you need confidence, I’ve got a song for myself that builds that builds my confidence. It’s a reminder of a time I stood up for myself or I won. So, yes, I do encourage you to utilize those lyrics and those words that pump you up. But it’s much a different playlist. It’s going to help you with your workout or going to a sporting event is going to be completely different than one that’s going to help you reduce the symptoms of anxiety or improve your mindset or give you the confidence you need to walk into a meeting or have the conversation that you need to have with somebody different. So it’s just a matter of how you strategize it. And I do teach. I go through the steps on how to get to that point. It’s a fun. It’s a fun exercise. So when I tell clients it’s like to do your homework, it’s like who would will not want to do the homework for this — sampling music?
Gabe Howard: So you assign this to your clients, to your patients, you say what I want you to do is go home and make a badass soundtrack. What instructions do you give them?
Kelly Orchard: It really depends on, you know, who is there in my psychotherapy practice. One song at a time because I only see them. I don’t see them again for a week. When I teach my workshop. I have a whole section dedicated just for that. And I teach them basically how to stir up some memories. You can’t put the cart before the horse. You know, it’s like I can’t expect them to have these memories before they hear the music. It’s the music that usually triggers the memory. Right. That makes them feel good. So like, for example, that this is one of my first go-to ones is getting back to driving. Getting back to when you had your driver’s license. What was the first car that you were driving around? So then they’ll talk about the car that they drove around. Then the next step, the next question is what music might you have been listening to when you were that age and driving around in your car? Well, the next thing you know, they’re talking about the music of that era of when they were probably 16, 17, 18 years old, which is when your memories are really starting to take hold and you want to remember them. The ones that make you feel bad ass, such as graduating from high school, your first road trip, your first prom, falling in love, getting an A on a test. Getting your driver’s license. Things like that. So then I take them through that process of the first car, and then we start sampling the music of that era. And then once we start sampling a little bit of music here and there, then I’d say find one song that represents that particular incident. Like they’ll still tell a story. But I remember when my friends took a road trip up the coast in. What song were you guys been listening to on that road trip? And they find this song. Then they have that. Then they add it to their bed. That soundtrack helps them feel independent, autonomous, grown up.
Gabe Howard: How often should they listen to this soundtrack? And the reason that I ask specifically is because it just seems like if it’s going to work and make you feel better, just never turn it off. Just let it play 24/7. But but but obviously that’s that’s not going to work. So it it seems like there’s probably criteria for when it will work and when it won’t. And also kind of as a follow up question to that, we don’t want to not handle our issues because we’re too busy listening to music. And I know that’s not your intent.
Kelly Orchard: Yeah, that’s not the intent, and I appreciate you saying that. So first of all, how often should you listen to it? As often as you would need to have that positive mindset. You know, it’s like, well, we talk about you practice positive thoughts, gratitude. They’ll help you get through the day. But it’s not a matter of being Pollyanna. This is actually changing the brain chemistry. So when you think about it as often as you do it, it’s kind of like working out, you know, exercising your muscles while your brain’s a muscle, too. So the more you do it, the more it’s going to benefit you. But the benefit is it’s not like listening to music all the time to make you feel better. It’s actually the positivity that changing your brain chemistry is giving you an opportunity to see things in a different perspective and get fresh ideas to the solution to the problems that you have. So like for me, example, is if I’m having a stressful situation, I know that thinking about it and worrying about it isn’t gonna do anything. But if I listen to a song that’s going to shift my mindset, I’ll probably come up with a better answer to solve that problem. Either that or it’s going to resolve itself because, well, the song just told me that I got through this problem. I can get through this one, too. So that’s kind of what the soundtrack will do for you. I also cut it down and we break it down into different segments of your life. So at any given time, there should be at least 40 to 50 songs on your soundtrack. So there’s 20 different songs that you can play. So plan is not to get desensitized to certain songs. So having a decent soundtrack but listening as often as you’d like the same as when you go out for a walk as often as you want, write in your journal as many times as you need to practice gratitude all day long. You know, it’s like you can always flip back and forth.
Gabe Howard: And just to clarify, the music is supposed to spur action. The music isn’t the action. It’s supposed to get you pumped up to be active, to face the challenge and to be a badass, because after all, nobody can be a badass if they’re sitting at home listening to music. Right.
Kelly Orchard: Well, they really depends because, you know, part of that part of the badass is that in order for us to have fresh ideas, it’s like not to be busy all the time. So sometimes you just need to relax and even allow yourself to get bored because that’s when the fresh ideas come up in. The brainstorms really start to happen in your brain’s like free to do those things. But you’re right, it is to spur action. You know, I had a client who acknowledged that her life as a child was complete chaos. And, you know, the perspective was that she’d had a horrible upbringing and couldn’t really reconcile with that and couldn’t talk to her mother anymore because the mother had died. So we started working on about our soundtrack and got to some of the music that she listened to in her childhood. And when she rediscovered a song from the Go-Go’s, it took her back to a time period where she and her little friend would play, dance and dress up in the bedroom, even though everything was crazy going on outside that room. The two of them had that feeling of safety and bonding in a bedroom. And it helped her to reframe some of her childhood experiences just because of one song. So that’s how it can be helpful. It’s just a new method that I’ve been developing.
Gabe Howard: It sounds very, very cool. And again, I don’t think that anybody is surprised by the idea that music can take you on an emotional journey.
Kelly Orchard: Oh, no.
Gabe Howard: And your connection of using music for that emotional journey and then harnessing that to move forward in your life. I really think it’s just common sense. Right. So it’s amazing that it took so long to come up with it. But I’m glad that you did. And I think that our listeners are gonna be better off for it. Speaking of which, where can our listeners find you?
Kelly Orchard: Well, I have a Web site which is Licensed2BBadass.com, and it’s the number two, not the word to, Licensed2BBadass.com, and find me there. I’m on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. I’m everywhere on social media. I also have a podcast, Kelly Orchard’s Apple a Day listed on Apple, i-Tunes Stitcher and Spotify. Also a YouTube channel. Oh, my gosh. Almost forgot that.
Gabe Howard: What’s the YouTube channel?
Kelly Orchard: The YouTube channel is my name. Kelly Orchard. I have a little fun series that I do. I also drive a 2006 Mustang, so I’ve been doing little videos inside the car with people called Mustang Monday, Badass Tips from the Street so you can catch the videos on my YouTube channel.
Gabe Howard: Nice.
Kelly Orchard: Yeah, they’re just a little short, brief ones, business, mental health, personal development, me a conversation with somebody else in my car. Carpool. Karaoke for mental health.
Gabe Howard: Carpool karaoke for mental health. Well, I love it. Well, thank you so much, Kelly, for hanging out with us. I really appreciate it.
Kelly Orchard: Gabe it was truly an honor.
Gabe Howard: Thank you and everybody else, do you want to interact with the show on Facebook, suggest topics, comment on the show or be the first to get updates? You can join our Facebook group. A quick link is psych central dot com slash f B show. And as I ask every week, I’m basically pleading at this point. I would consider it a personal favor if you told a friend, referred us on social media, emailed somebody or hey, just left us a review. Give us as many stars as possible and use your words to tell people why they should listen. And remember, you can get one week of free, convenient, affordable, private online counseling anytime, anywhere, simply by visiting our sponsor. Better help dot com slash psych central. We will see everybody next week.
Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Psych Central Podcast. Previous episodes can be found at PsychCentral.com/show or on your favorite podcast player. To learn more about our host, Gabe Howard, please visit his website at GabeHoward.com. PsychCentral.com is the internet’s oldest and largest independent mental health website run by mental health professionals. Overseen by Dr. John Grohol, PsychCentral.com offers trusted resources and quizzes to help answer your questions about mental health, personality, psychotherapy, and more. Please visit us today at PsychCentral.com. If you have feedback about the show, please email [email protected]. Thank you for listening and please share widely.
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How Christina Lost 50 pounds, 31 Total Inches, and Did Her First Pull-up
I love inspiring success stories.
I especially love sharing stories from real people with busy lives who have struggled in the same way most of us struggle:
Multiple failed attempts at weight loss.
Mental baggage and challenges to overcome.
Negative self talk.
Yo-yo dieting.
Christina, a years-long member of the Nerd Fitness community, is somebody who has gained and lost the same weight more times than she can count. She grew up with negative self-talk, chased lose-weight-quick strategies, and struggled to love herself through the ups and downs.
After her husband stumbled across Nerd Fitness (smart fella), he told her to consider joining our community, and I’m so thankful she did!
Two years ago, we launched a beta version of our super fun 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, and Christina was one of our guinea pigs that signed up!
In those two years, she has transformed inside and out, and I’m so excited to share her story today. In these two years, she has had this great level of success without access to a gym without crazy dietary restrictions or calorie starvation, and finally loves herself in the way she deserves to be loved!
Although I’m very proud of the fact that Christina has invested in herself through coaching program month after month, I know you’ll learn a lot from her story.
At the end, I’ll share with you EXACTLY how to make your changes today. No more negative self-talk, no more reliance on motivation or willpower, but a focus on systems and progress and accountability!
Let’s see how Christina transformed…
How Christina lost 50 pounds and finally started loving herself
Steve: Hey Christina! Can you take us through a typical day before you decided to level up your life?
Christina: This is embarrassing to admit, but here’s a typical day when my husband would travel for work, which was about 2 weeks of every month:
Wake up, drink coffee, eat some string cheese, check emails, eat more cheese, drink more coffee, check more emails, watch a show or two on streaming media, check more emails, eat more cheese, switch to Diet Coke, grab some Taco Bell, tutor kids for a few hours, grab a beer or two with friends, eat pizza or some kind of horrible take-out, watch more TV until midnight or so, then head to sleep.
Steve: Taco Bell, pizza, beers, cheese on cheese on cheese, tons of take-out…sounds like a typical diet for many people struggling to lose weight.
Was there a specific moment when you decided to make a change?
Christina: It was more of a bunch of small things:
My blood pressure was kind of high.
My cholesterol was creeping up.
I struggled with being out of breath with the simplest of tasks.
Walking anywhere in Boulder for long periods of time meant open-mouth breathing. So embarrassing 🙁
Oh, and learning to snowboard was nearly impossible. There were days we’d drive the two hours to the mountains, I’d go down the bunny hill once, and be done for the day – I didn’t have the physical or mental stamina to try again.
I’d then sit in the lodge and drown my sorrows in chocolate brownies while my husband would go down the blue and black runs by himself.
Super fun for both of us. /sarcasm
Steve: Blah, yeah that’s no fun. So, you eventually decided that “enough is enough,” and ended up on Nerd Fitness! Was this the first time you had ever tried getting in shape?
Christina: Definitely not. I’ve kind of lost count of how many times I flirted with weight loss and getting fit. These are just some of the strategies I remember:
#1 Massive body shaming from my mom – including gems like “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” and “If you don’t lose weight before your wedding, you will always look back at your photos and feel terrible for how bad you look.”
#2 The single teacher income diet – I lost 50 lbs in six months only to gain it back when I could afford food again.
#3 Weight Watchers – I was used to body shaming from my mom, I figured, “Why not let strangers do it too?” Turns out this was less than ideal for my self esteem. I know WW works for some, but my particular experience wasn’t great.
#4 Various exercise VHS tapes from the 80s and 90s – My faves included Tony Little and It Figures with Charlene Prickett, because nothing motivates you like a built dude with a ponytail, or 80s leotards coupled with bad music!
#5 Beachbody shakes – I found the shakes to be excellent when mixed with a half pot of coffee, two tbsp of peanut butter, and a cup of half and half. No idea why I didn’t lose weight, hahaha.
#6 Cutting calories without tracking or learning – For some reason, I believed that even though I had no idea how much I was eating regularly, I could guess my way through calorie restriction. This did not work.
#7 Complaining – “Why am I so fat? Why can’t I lose weight? There must be something wrong with my metabolism. Why is exercise so difficult?”
#8 Wishing the fat away – “Maybe if I skip dinner I’ll lose a pound or two. Maybe if I skip dessert I will lose weight. If only a magical weight loss fairy existed…”
Steve: Thanks for sharing your struggles honestly with me (and now the world!). I’m curious: what made you decide to take the plunge and jump on board with Nerd Fitness and our coaching program?
Christina: Prior to NF Coaching, I mentioned to my husband I needed help.
After all of my failed attempts above, I knew I couldn’t do this on my own and wanted guidance.
I live in Colorado, land of the uber-fit, but I felt like none of the options available really meshed what I needed. I didn’t enjoy exercise and just couldn’t relate to fitness junkies.
The NF Coaching announcement came at a perfect time, and I was really pleased to see that the program wasn’t just personalized workouts, but also that my coach Jim would help me with my nutrition and mindset.
And you saw how I used to eat – I definitely needed help in that area!
Steve: Amen. We all know we need to exercise more and eat less, it’s actually DOING it consistently that’s challenging. So take me through your training schedule with Jim:
Christina: I told Jim about the equipment I had available (or lack thereof) and my goals, and my schedule, so he built a program that fit into that exact situation.
We did a lot of body weight to start with, no gym for me!
These days, I do a combination of bodyweight training (planks and wall sits), adjustable weights (overhead press, side rows), and anything Jim gives me that has to do with my pull-up bar and gymnastic rings (chin-ups, pull-ups, ring holds, etc.)
Steve: Let’s talk nutrition: What’s been your nutritional strategy?
Christina: Definitely more of an “if it fits your macros” (IIFYM) type of deal – I try to shoot for 130g of protein and under 80g for carbs and fat. I married an Italian who loves to cook; we quickly realized totally cutting pasta out of our lives wasn’t going to work.
So Jim helped me to be smarter about everything.
We time our big Italian meals on days we do a lot of physical activity, instead of every day which was always my problem in the past.
I also had to cut back my cheese addiction, which was super sad. It’s amazing how consuming 500+ calories of cheese a day can impact your diet. Again, who knew?
Steve: Yes! I too follow a “mental model” macros-type diet. What’s a typical day like for you NOW, after the changes?
Christina: SO Different!
Up between 5AM and 6AM, drink one cup of coffee with turmeric, cinnamon, and pepper, eat a small breakfast (normally an egg and some protein with one slice of really skinny bread).
I then do some work and housework, bodyweight training around 10am, drink a protein shake, drag husband out for a walk, then eat lunch around 12:30pm (lots of protein). We run our own company – a raw pet food company – and it keeps us both plenty busy
I then do more work, tutor in the afternoon, sometimes volunteer at a feral cat colony, and then dinner (protein and veggies), relax, and bed.
Much more structure in my life, and amazingly, I get things done. Who knew? 😉
Steve: What is your internal self talk like compared to 2 years ago?
Christina: There’s a lot less internal arguing about exercise or eating.
I’ll admit the first six months were miserable and really challenging. I cried my way through every workout – they were hard mentally, physically, and emotionally. This is what made it worse – I would tell myself “I deserve to suffer, because I let myself go.”
I then realized that this self-talk was unproductive, and through conversations with Jim, my husband, and myself, I changed my attitude about the whole thing.
I realized that exercise is something I’m lucky to be able to do.
It’s something that feels good and makes me feel good. My husband knows when I haven’t exercised yet for the day because my mood is lousy!
Thanks to these two years, I can now snowboard, I can hike, I can walk through downtown Boulder without open-mouth breathing.
I can do things I want to do, even if they’re hard, without beating myself up.
Just last month, we hiked up Mt. Sanitas in the rain, soaked to the bone! This would have never happened before. 3.1 miles, 1300 feet of elevation gain, and *wet* – but I did it!
And enjoyed myself! It was pretty awesome. 🙂
Steve: What was the toughest or most important change you made?
Christina: After asking my husband for his opinion, apparently the toughest change was cutting back on cheese! And I quote, “You complained the *most* about that.”
That was done fairly early on, maybe six months into working with Jim, so it’s difficult for me to remember how tough that was. Apparently it had an impact on my husband, though! 😉
Steve: Talk to me about your progress along the way. How have you measured your progress and what has helped?
Christina: I log all of my food daily and love the structure and awareness it brings to my life.
I can plan my day out based on what’s for dinner without feeling like I’m losing out on food. With food logging, it’s pretty easy to figure out what doesn’t agree with me, and I’ve gotten a lot better with portion control when it comes to items I want to taste but don’t want to gorge on (cake, gelato, etc.)
A bite or two of something is not going to ruin my day, but if I eat the whole thing, I know I’ll feel sick to my stomach and be useless the rest of the day.
As for tracking progress, I actually weigh myself daily. Weighing in used to be a source of shame; now it’s just a data point, and I can see how what I ate the day before affects me (I’m looking at you, salt).
I also take progress photos, track my body fat percentage, and track other measurements too.
Steve: Okay, so be honest: was NF Coaching worth the investment for you? Why stay 2 years even after having success early on?
Christina: Simple. I’ve lost weight in the past, and I knew that it would just come right back if I didn’t really change my ways. In working with Jim, I lost 40 pounds fairly quickly once the diet changed and exercise was done on a fairly regular basis.
However, it was really important to me that the changes stuck.
Jim knows exactly how to push things and how to tweak behaviors in order to get results. He’s had great ideas around food, and his experience with a wide variety of people has given him some great insight into how people work.
I get exactly the level of support I need, and Jim can totally read between the lines of what I say and what I really mean. There’s always a goal in mind, and I work well with that type of motivation. These are our current goals:
Climb a 14er (mountain) – climbing a mountain of at least 14K feet with 3K feet of elevation gain
Do a muscle-up
Do a handstand
Steve: LOVE IT. And you are working with the best coach ever when it comes to handstands – Jim wrote our Beginner’s Guide to Handstands, led our Handstand Course, AND has helped other clients get their first handstands too.
Steve: Do you have any nerdy passions or pursuits?
Christina: I cosplay, play the Dresden Files tabletop rpg with a group of friends across three time zones, read a lot of comic books, and play video games in a casual way.
Steve: Nerd credentials check out – you’re in the right place!
I want to ask you one final question: There are TONS of Nerd Fitness readers right now who are at your “Day 1” (or heavier). Do you have any words of advice for those folks?
Christina: Change is so personal. You need to look within yourself and ask if you’re happy with where you are physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Then you have to ask yourself if you’re okay with the way your life is currently “hard,” and if you’re willing to try a different kind of “hard” in order to get some different results.
My “hard” before was heavy breathing, the possibility of medication for various health issues, clothing not fitting correctly, feeling embarrassed going out in public, and not being able to participate in activities with my husband.
Now my ���hard” is more saying no to free food because I KNOW it’s not really free, trying to get in one more rep with a little more weight, and coming to grips with what my body and can’t do, despite how much I exercise.
Steve: Thanks so much for sharing Christina! Jim shares your updates with our team and I feel like a proud parent (that’s not weird, right? cool) watching you continue to transform every month!
When we meet in person we can practice our handstands! I’ll make sure to bring Jim too.
The 6 Keys to Christina’s Fantastic Transformation
As I’ve been following Christina’s story over the past two years, I can think of six specific things she did differently than most people who struggle and never succeed:
#1 CHRISTINA KEPT TRYING AND FAILING DIFFERENTLY
Weight Watchers, Beachbody, calorie restriction, negative self talk, dieting…Christina tried it all. Most people struggle with weight loss and assume that they’re broken. Christina eventually realized that she just hadn’t found the path that worked for her yet.
So she kept searching.
When she started working with us at Nerd Fitness, she went the route that sounded the most exciting to her: hiking with her husband, snowboarding, bodyweight training, and no gym membership.
There’s no ONE way to get in shape, and Christina found the perfect plan for her – the one she would actually STICK with.
#2 CHRISTINA COMMITTED TO HERSELF & INVESTED IN HERSELF
She had tried to get in shape before. Many times.
And failed. Many times.
Most people blindly chase the next fad or making half-hearted attempts to get in shape. They also give up at the first sign of adversity and can’t get any changes to stick.
Even worse? Sticking with a “healthy” plan for months only to discover that it doesn’t actually generate results (I see you low fat food, starvation, running endlessly on a treadmill).
Christina recognized that years of these strategies hadn’t resulted in permanent progress, so a different approach was needed.
She knew she couldn’t do this alone, so she hired a coach who knows her better than she knows herself.
Through her ups and downs, highs and lows, successes and struggles, her coach is there to set the right pace for her at that point in her life. When life changes, so does her workout and nutrition programming.
Certain things are worth investing in, and Christina decided that she was worth it.
#3 CHRISTINA DIDN’T LET SPEEDBUMPS BECOME ROADBLOCKS
Along the way, Christina struggled: this getting in shape stuff isn’t easy! One missed workout becomes two, which becomes six months off in the blink of an eye.
But she relied on her husband, her coach, and her knowledge that her coach had set her up to succeed, and all she had to do was stick to the plan.
Even after Christina managed to successfully build powerful habits and momentum, she was diagnosed with some serious health challenges: severe osteoarthritis in her left hip and moderate to severe osteoarthritis in her right hip.
Most people understandably fall apart when hit with a setback like this. They say “oh what the hell.” If their bodies are failing them, might as well eat junk food and stop exercising because, “What’s the point?”
Christina went the other way.
She said, “I am not my x-ray.”
While her diagnosis has put a damper on running, lunges, and squats, she worked with a physical therapist, doctor, and her coach to come up with other options to keep her physically active.
Because of her attitude change, Christina was able to turn these mountains into molehills and step over them.
And now she’s focused on climbing ACTUAL mountains.
#4 CHRISTINA STOPPED WISHING AND STARTED DOING
Why do we beat ourselves up when we run out of willpower? Why do we get mad at ourselves for not being “motivated enough”? Why do we rely on hope and wishful thinking when it comes to getting healthy?
Because we think successful people have more of this stuff than we do, and that’s why they’ve lost weight.
We then lament the fact that we’re not like them and thus are doomed.
Reality paints a much different picture: people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off stopped chasing motivation. They recognized that willpower was limited and motivation would abandon them when life got tough. So instead, they stopped hoping and wishing and instead start building systems:
They have somebody they can be accountable to.
They study past failures and change their approach.
They get started and course correct along the way.
They structure their environment and day so that willpower isn’t needed.
This is exactly what Christina did. She stopped expecting things to be different and took the future into her own hands.
She knew she couldn’t do this alone, so she enlisted help, she got her husband’s support, and she GOT TO WORK.
#5 CHRISTINA TRACKED THE PROBLEM TO CRACK THE PROBLEM
Here’s my opinion as to why Christina succeeded: She started tracking her food daily. She could then share this food log with her coach who could make small changes and suggestions that didn’t overwhelm her.
Christina also weighed herself daily, not due to OCD neurosis, but instead as a scientist collecting data points and adjusting her progress!
She’s now educated with how many calories she can eat each day, the makeup of everything she eats, and she can make much more educated and informed decisions guilt free with each meal.
By tracking her food and her macros and analyzing her relationship with food, she can still eat home-cooked Italian food regularly without screwing up her nutrition goals. She MAKES through timing and tracking rather than hoping it works out.
In addition to these successes, through tracking she was able to discover two areas that were holding her back: she quit drinking and cut back significantly on high calorie cheese consumption.
These changes might not have happened had she not been tracking so diligently!
#6 CHRISTINA FINDS NEW DRAGONS TO SLAY
Her journey began with a weight loss goal: “I want to lose weight and feel better about myself.” And she lost 40 pounds very quickly on her journey.
This is where the big change happened:
Instead of saying “all done!” like se would have in the past, she instead worked with her coach to ask, “What am I capable of now that I’ve done all this hard work? Maybe I can work towards pull ups and get better at hiking!”
“Okay I got pull-ups, now what do I want to do?”
She and Jim consistently updated her goals and missions so she always had a new target. She wants to climb a mountain. She wants to do a handstand and a muscle-up. And every day her workouts and her nutrition are set up in a way for her to get closer to those goals!
And if she ever reaches these goals? Perfect. She’ll get new ones!
There’s always another dragon to slay…
How will Your Next Attempt Be Different? Be like Christina!
Here’s how Christina transformed like Optimus Prime, and how you can too:
Keep at it. Christina didn’t find lasting success with Weight Watchers, Beachbody, or calorie restriction. Although those programs work for some people, they didn’t work for her. Nerd Fitness spoke her language, so she followed the process.
Track the problem, crack the problem. The most successful people that have lost weight and kept it off all track their progress and adherence in some way. Start by writing down what you eat for the next few days, calculate the calories, and educate yourself! See how your photos change, and make adjustments based on your data. Hope + action = win.
Invest in yourself, get help where you can. A lot of people think hiring a coach is a sign of weakness. Christina realized this is the wrong attitude, and has used her coach to change her life. Invest your time or your money into taking this fitness stuff seriously and get help or get educated. It’s your life we’re talking about here!
Always have another dragon to slay. Christina completely changed from “I want to lose some weight” to “What am I capable of? I want to do a handstand and climb a freakin mountain!” This is the key to sustained weight loss.
Train in the way that works for you. Christina does bodyweight exercises, hikes, and goes snowboarding with her husband. There’s no gym in sight! There are a million ways to get in shape, so pick the ones that fit your goals and make you happy!
This should get you started, regardless of whether or not you join any of the programs at Nerd Fitness!
You can start bodyweight training TODAY.
You can adjust your nutrition TODAY.
You can start to build your guild TODAY.
Now, if you’re somebody like Christina and seek 1-on-1 guidance and instruction, I’d love for you to check out our 1-on-1 NF Online Coaching Program and chat with us about it.
We schedule phone calls with everybody who wants to join the program to make sure we’re a good fit for each other – you can schedule your free call by clicking on the box below:
I want success for you the way that Christina found it – through healthier eating, a healthier mindset, and a complete overhaul of her attitude!
Two years seems like so far away, but think back to where you were 2 years ago – how much has changed since then? Look back at photos of you from two years ago. I bet TWO things are true:
“This feels like it was yesterday…”
“But I don’t really look much different.”
As they say, “The days are long, but the years are short.”
So why not start today? If you enjoy the journey, it makes the struggle worth it.
If you have questions for me or Christina, let us know in the comments!
Team NF is here to help you!
-Steve
PS: If coaching isn’t your thing, we also have a powerful online course that is self-paced and has helped 50,000 rebels level up their lives.
The NF Academy has a 1-time payment, 7 levels of workouts, 10 levels of nutrition, boss battles, quests, and the most supportive community on the internet.
How Christina Lost 50 pounds, 31 Total Inches, and Did Her First Pull-up published first on https://dietariouspage.tumblr.com/
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How Christina Lost 50 pounds, 31 Total Inches, and Did Her First Pull-up
I love inspiring success stories.
I especially love sharing stories from real people with busy lives who have struggled in the same way most of us struggle:
Multiple failed attempts at weight loss.
Mental baggage and challenges to overcome.
Negative self talk.
Yo-yo dieting.
Christina, a years-long member of the Nerd Fitness community, is somebody who has gained and lost the same weight more times than she can count. She grew up with negative self-talk, chased lose-weight-quick strategies, and struggled to love herself through the ups and downs.
After her husband stumbled across Nerd Fitness (smart fella), he told her to consider joining our community, and I’m so thankful she did!
Two years ago, we launched a beta version of our super fun 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, and Christina was one of our guinea pigs that signed up!
In those two years, she has transformed inside and out, and I’m so excited to share her story today. In these two years, she has had this great level of success without access to a gym without crazy dietary restrictions or calorie starvation, and finally loves herself in the way she deserves to be loved!
Although I’m very proud of the fact that Christina has invested in herself through coaching program month after month, I know you’ll learn a lot from her story.
At the end, I’ll share with you EXACTLY how to make your changes today. No more negative self-talk, no more reliance on motivation or willpower, but a focus on systems and progress and accountability!
Let’s see how Christina transformed…
How Christina lost 50 pounds and finally started loving herself
Steve: Hey Christina! Can you take us through a typical day before you decided to level up your life?
Christina: This is embarrassing to admit, but here’s a typical day when my husband would travel for work, which was about 2 weeks of every month:
Wake up, drink coffee, eat some string cheese, check emails, eat more cheese, drink more coffee, check more emails, watch a show or two on streaming media, check more emails, eat more cheese, switch to Diet Coke, grab some Taco Bell, tutor kids for a few hours, grab a beer or two with friends, eat pizza or some kind of horrible take-out, watch more TV until midnight or so, then head to sleep.
Steve: Taco Bell, pizza, beers, cheese on cheese on cheese, tons of take-out…sounds like a typical diet for many people struggling to lose weight.
Was there a specific moment when you decided to make a change?
Christina: It was more of a bunch of small things:
My blood pressure was kind of high.
My cholesterol was creeping up.
I struggled with being out of breath with the simplest of tasks.
Walking anywhere in Boulder for long periods of time meant open-mouth breathing. So embarrassing 🙁
Oh, and learning to snowboard was nearly impossible. There were days we’d drive the two hours to the mountains, I’d go down the bunny hill once, and be done for the day – I didn’t have the physical or mental stamina to try again.
I’d then sit in the lodge and drown my sorrows in chocolate brownies while my husband would go down the blue and black runs by himself.
Super fun for both of us. /sarcasm
Steve: Blah, yeah that’s no fun. So, you eventually decided that “enough is enough,” and ended up on Nerd Fitness! Was this the first time you had ever tried getting in shape?
Christina: Definitely not. I’ve kind of lost count of how many times I flirted with weight loss and getting fit. These are just some of the strategies I remember:
#1 Massive body shaming from my mom – including gems like “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” and “If you don’t lose weight before your wedding, you will always look back at your photos and feel terrible for how bad you look.”
#2 The single teacher income diet – I lost 50 lbs in six months only to gain it back when I could afford food again.
#3 Weight Watchers – I was used to body shaming from my mom, I figured, “Why not let strangers do it too?” Turns out this was less than ideal for my self esteem. I know WW works for some, but my particular experience wasn’t great.
#4 Various exercise VHS tapes from the 80s and 90s – My faves included Tony Little and It Figures with Charlene Prickett, because nothing motivates you like a built dude with a ponytail, or 80s leotards coupled with bad music!
#5 Beachbody shakes – I found the shakes to be excellent when mixed with a half pot of coffee, two tbsp of peanut butter, and a cup of half and half. No idea why I didn’t lose weight, hahaha.
#6 Cutting calories without tracking or learning – For some reason, I believed that even though I had no idea how much I was eating regularly, I could guess my way through calorie restriction. This did not work.
#7 Complaining – “Why am I so fat? Why can’t I lose weight? There must be something wrong with my metabolism. Why is exercise so difficult?”
#8 Wishing the fat away – “Maybe if I skip dinner I’ll lose a pound or two. Maybe if I skip dessert I will lose weight. If only a magical weight loss fairy existed…”
Steve: Thanks for sharing your struggles honestly with me (and now the world!). I’m curious: what made you decide to take the plunge and jump on board with Nerd Fitness and our coaching program?
Christina: Prior to NF Coaching, I mentioned to my husband I needed help.
After all of my failed attempts above, I knew I couldn’t do this on my own and wanted guidance.
I live in Colorado, land of the uber-fit, but I felt like none of the options available really meshed what I needed. I didn’t enjoy exercise and just couldn’t relate to fitness junkies.
The NF Coaching announcement came at a perfect time, and I was really pleased to see that the program wasn’t just personalized workouts, but also that my coach Jim would help me with my nutrition and mindset.
And you saw how I used to eat – I definitely needed help in that area!
Steve: Amen. We all know we need to exercise more and eat less, it’s actually DOING it consistently that’s challenging. So take me through your training schedule with Jim:
Christina: I told Jim about the equipment I had available (or lack thereof) and my goals, and my schedule, so he built a program that fit into that exact situation.
We did a lot of body weight to start with, no gym for me!
These days, I do a combination of bodyweight training (planks and wall sits), adjustable weights (overhead press, side rows), and anything Jim gives me that has to do with my pull-up bar and gymnastic rings (chin-ups, pull-ups, ring holds, etc.)
Steve: Let’s talk nutrition: What’s been your nutritional strategy?
Christina: Definitely more of an “if it fits your macros” (IIFYM) type of deal – I try to shoot for 130g of protein and under 80g for carbs and fat. I married an Italian who loves to cook; we quickly realized totally cutting pasta out of our lives wasn’t going to work.
So Jim helped me to be smarter about everything.
We time our big Italian meals on days we do a lot of physical activity, instead of every day which was always my problem in the past.
I also had to cut back my cheese addiction, which was super sad. It’s amazing how consuming 500+ calories of cheese a day can impact your diet. Again, who knew?
Steve: Yes! I too follow a “mental model” macros-type diet. What’s a typical day like for you NOW, after the changes?
Christina: SO Different!
Up between 5AM and 6AM, drink one cup of coffee with turmeric, cinnamon, and pepper, eat a small breakfast (normally an egg and some protein with one slice of really skinny bread).
I then do some work and housework, bodyweight training around 10am, drink a protein shake, drag husband out for a walk, then eat lunch around 12:30pm (lots of protein). We run our own company – a raw pet food company – and it keeps us both plenty busy
I then do more work, tutor in the afternoon, sometimes volunteer at a feral cat colony, and then dinner (protein and veggies), relax, and bed.
Much more structure in my life, and amazingly, I get things done. Who knew? 😉
Steve: What is your internal self talk like compared to 2 years ago?
Christina: There’s a lot less internal arguing about exercise or eating.
I’ll admit the first six months were miserable and really challenging. I cried my way through every workout – they were hard mentally, physically, and emotionally. This is what made it worse – I would tell myself “I deserve to suffer, because I let myself go.”
I then realized that this self-talk was unproductive, and through conversations with Jim, my husband, and myself, I changed my attitude about the whole thing.
I realized that exercise is something I’m lucky to be able to do.
It’s something that feels good and makes me feel good. My husband knows when I haven’t exercised yet for the day because my mood is lousy!
Thanks to these two years, I can now snowboard, I can hike, I can walk through downtown Boulder without open-mouth breathing.
I can do things I want to do, even if they’re hard, without beating myself up.
Just last month, we hiked up Mt. Sanitas in the rain, soaked to the bone! This would have never happened before. 3.1 miles, 1300 feet of elevation gain, and *wet* – but I did it!
And enjoyed myself! It was pretty awesome. 🙂
Steve: What was the toughest or most important change you made?
Christina: After asking my husband for his opinion, apparently the toughest change was cutting back on cheese! And I quote, “You complained the *most* about that.”
That was done fairly early on, maybe six months into working with Jim, so it’s difficult for me to remember how tough that was. Apparently it had an impact on my husband, though! 😉
Steve: Talk to me about your progress along the way. How have you measured your progress and what has helped?
Christina: I log all of my food daily and love the structure and awareness it brings to my life.
I can plan my day out based on what’s for dinner without feeling like I’m losing out on food. With food logging, it’s pretty easy to figure out what doesn’t agree with me, and I’ve gotten a lot better with portion control when it comes to items I want to taste but don’t want to gorge on (cake, gelato, etc.)
A bite or two of something is not going to ruin my day, but if I eat the whole thing, I know I’ll feel sick to my stomach and be useless the rest of the day.
As for tracking progress, I actually weigh myself daily. Weighing in used to be a source of shame; now it’s just a data point, and I can see how what I ate the day before affects me (I’m looking at you, salt).
I also take progress photos, track my body fat percentage, and track other measurements too.
Steve: Okay, so be honest: was NF Coaching worth the investment for you? Why stay 2 years even after having success early on?
Christina: Simple. I’ve lost weight in the past, and I knew that it would just come right back if I didn’t really change my ways. In working with Jim, I lost 40 pounds fairly quickly once the diet changed and exercise was done on a fairly regular basis.
However, it was really important to me that the changes stuck.
Jim knows exactly how to push things and how to tweak behaviors in order to get results. He’s had great ideas around food, and his experience with a wide variety of people has given him some great insight into how people work.
I get exactly the level of support I need, and Jim can totally read between the lines of what I say and what I really mean. There’s always a goal in mind, and I work well with that type of motivation. These are our current goals:
Climb a 14er (mountain) – climbing a mountain of at least 14K feet with 3K feet of elevation gain
Do a planche
Do a handstand
Steve: LOVE IT. And you are working with the best coach ever when it comes to handstands – Jim wrote our Beginner’s Guide to Handstands, led our Handstand Course, AND has helped other clients get their first handstands too.
Steve: Do you have any nerdy passions or pursuits?
Christina: I cosplay, play the Dresden Files tabletop rpg with a group of friends across three time zones, read a lot of comic books, and play video games in a casual way.
Steve: Nerd credentials check out – you’re in the right place!
I want to ask you one final question: There are TONS of Nerd Fitness readers right now who are at your “Day 1” (or heavier). Do you have any words of advice for those folks?
Christina: Change is so personal. You need to look within yourself and ask if you’re happy with where you are physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Then you have to ask yourself if you’re okay with the way your life is currently “hard,” and if you’re willing to try a different kind of “hard” in order to get some different results.
My “hard” before was heavy breathing, the possibility of medication for various health issues, clothing not fitting correctly, feeling embarrassed going out in public, and not being able to participate in activities with my husband.
Now my “hard” is more saying no to free food because I KNOW it’s not really free, trying to get in one more rep with a little more weight, and coming to grips with what my body and can’t do, despite how much I exercise.
Steve: Thanks so much for sharing Christina! Jim shares your updates with our team and I feel like a proud parent (that’s not weird, right? cool) watching you continue to transform every month!
When we meet in person we can practice our handstands! I’ll make sure to bring Jim too.
The 6 Keys to Christina’s Fantastic Transformation
As I’ve been following Christina’s story over the past two years, I can think of six specific things she did differently than most people who struggle and never succeed:
#1 CHRISTINA KEPT TRYING AND FAILING DIFFERENTLY
Weight Watchers, Beachbody, calorie restriction, negative self talk, dieting…Christina tried it all. Most people struggle with weight loss and assume that they’re broken. Christina eventually realized that she just hadn’t found the path that worked for her yet.
So she kept searching.
When she started working with us at Nerd Fitness, she went the route that sounded the most exciting to her: hiking with her husband, snowboarding, bodyweight training, and no gym membership.
There’s no ONE way to get in shape, and Christina found the perfect plan for her – the one she would actually STICK with.
#2 CHRISTINA COMMITTED TO HERSELF & INVESTED IN HERSELF
She had tried to get in shape before. Many times.
And failed. Many times.
Most people blindly chase the next fad or making half-hearted attempts to get in shape. They also give up at the first sign of adversity and can’t get any changes to stick.
Even worse? Sticking with a “healthy” plan for months only to discover that it doesn’t actually generate results (I see you low fat food, starvation, running endlessly on a treadmill).
Christina recognized that years of these strategies hadn’t resulted in permanent progress, so a different approach was needed.
She knew she couldn’t do this alone, so she hired a coach who knows her better than she knows herself.
Through her ups and downs, highs and lows, successes and struggles, her coach is there to set the right pace for her at that point in her life. When life changes, so does her workout and nutrition programming.
Certain things are worth investing in, and Christina decided that she was worth it.
#3 CHRISTINA DIDN’T LET SPEEDBUMPS BECOME ROADBLOCKS
Along the way, Christina struggled: this getting in shape stuff isn’t easy! One missed workout becomes two, which becomes six months off in the blink of an eye.
But she relied on her husband, her coach, and her knowledge that her coach had set her up to succeed, and all she had to do was stick to the plan.
Even after Christina managed to successfully build powerful habits and momentum, she was diagnosed with some serious health challenges: severe osteoarthritis in her left hip and moderate to severe osteoarthritis in her right hip.
Most people understandably fall apart when hit with a setback like this. They say “oh what the hell.” If their bodies are failing them, might as well eat junk food and stop exercising because, “What’s the point?”
Christina went the other way.
She said, “I am not my x-ray.”
While her diagnosis has put a damper on running, lunges, and squats, she worked with a physical therapist, doctor, and her coach to come up with other options to keep her physically active.
Because of her attitude change, Christina was able to turn these mountains into molehills and step over them.
And now she’s focused on climbing ACTUAL mountains.
#4 CHRISTINA STOPPED WISHING AND STARTED DOING
Why do we beat ourselves up when we run out of willpower? Why do we get mad at ourselves for not being “motivated enough”? Why do we rely on hope and wishful thinking when it comes to getting healthy?
Because we think successful people have more of this stuff than we do, and that’s why they’ve lost weight.
We then lament the fact that we’re not like them and thus are doomed.
Reality paints a much different picture: people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off stopped chasing motivation. They recognized that willpower was limited and motivation would abandon them when life got tough. So instead, they stopped hoping and wishing and instead start building systems:
They have somebody they can be accountable to.
They study past failures and change their approach.
They get started and course correct along the way.
They structure their environment and day so that willpower isn’t needed.
This is exactly what Christina did. She stopped expecting things to be different and took the future into her own hands.
She knew she couldn’t do this alone, so she enlisted help, she got her husband’s support, and she GOT TO WORK.
#5 CHRISTINA TRACKED THE PROBLEM TO CRACK THE PROBLEM
Here’s my opinion as to why Christina succeeded: She started tracking her food daily. She could then share this food log with her coach who could make small changes and suggestions that didn’t overwhelm her.
Christina also weighed herself daily, not due to OCD neurosis, but instead as a scientist collecting data points and adjusting her progress!
She’s now educated with how many calories she can eat each day, the makeup of everything she eats, and she can make much more educated and informed decisions guilt free with each meal.
By tracking her food and her macros and analyzing her relationship with food, she can still eat home-cooked Italian food regularly without screwing up her nutrition goals. She MAKES through timing and tracking rather than hoping it works out.
In addition to these successes, through tracking she was able to discover two areas that were holding her back: she quit drinking and cut back significantly on high calorie cheese consumption.
These changes might not have happened had she not been tracking so diligently!
#6 CHRISTINA FINDS NEW DRAGONS TO SLAY
Her journey began with a weight loss goal: “I want to lose weight and feel better about myself.” And she lost 40 pounds very quickly on her journey.
This is where the big change happened:
Instead of saying “all done!” like se would have in the past, she instead worked with her coach to ask, “What am I capable of now that I’ve done all this hard work? Maybe I can work towards pull ups and get better at hiking!”
“Okay I got pull-ups, now what do I want to do?”
She and Jim consistently updated her goals and missions so she always had a new target. She wants to climb a mountain. She wants to do a handstand and a planche. And every day her workouts and her nutrition are set up in a way for her to get closer to those goals!
And if she ever reaches these goals? Perfect. She’ll get new ones!
There’s always another dragon to slay…
How will Your Next Attempt Be Different? Be like Christina!
Here’s how Christina transformed like Optimus Prime, and how you can too:
Keep at it. Christina didn’t find lasting success with Weight Watchers, Beachbody, or calorie restriction. Although those programs work for some people, they didn’t work for her. Nerd Fitness spoke her language, so she followed the process.
Track the problem, crack the problem. The most successful people that have lost weight and kept it off all track their progress and adherence in some way. Start by writing down what you eat for the next few days, calculate the calories, and educate yourself! See how your photos change, and make adjustments based on your data. Hope + action = win.
Invest in yourself, get help where you can. A lot of people think hiring a coach is a sign of weakness. Christina realized this is the wrong attitude, and has used her coach to change her life. Invest your time or your money into taking this fitness stuff seriously and get help or get educated. It’s your life we’re talking about here!
Always have another dragon to slay. Christina completely changed from “I want to lose some weight” to “What am I capable of? I want to do a handstand and climb a freakin mountain!” This is the key to sustained weight loss.
Train in the way that works for you. Christina does bodyweight exercises, hikes, and goes snowboarding with her husband. There’s no gym in sight! There are a million ways to get in shape, so pick the ones that fit your goals and make you happy!
This should get you started, regardless of whether or not you join any of the programs at Nerd Fitness!
You can start bodyweight training TODAY.
You can adjust your nutrition TODAY.
You can start to build your guild TODAY.
Now, if you’re somebody like Christina and seek 1-on-1 guidance and instruction, I’d love for you to check out our 1-on-1 NF Online Coaching Program and chat with us about it.
We schedule phone calls with everybody who wants to join the program to make sure we’re a good fit for each other – you can schedule your free call by clicking on the box below:
I want success for you the way that Christina found it – through healthier eating, a healthier mindset, and a complete overhaul of her attitude!
Two years seems like so far away, but think back to where you were 2 years ago – how much has changed since then? Look back at photos of you from two years ago. I bet TWO things are true:
“This feels like it was yesterday…”
“But I don’t really look much different.”
As they say, “The days are long, but the years are short.”
So why not start today? If you enjoy the journey, it makes the struggle worth it.
If you have questions for me or Christina, let us know in the comments!
Team NF is here to help you!
-Steve
PS: If coaching isn’t your thing, we also have a powerful online course that is self-paced and has helped 50,000 rebels level up their lives.
The NF Academy has a 1-time payment, 7 levels of workouts, 10 levels of nutrition, boss battles, quests, and the most supportive community on the internet.
How Christina Lost 50 pounds, 31 Total Inches, and Did Her First Pull-up published first on https://www.nerdfitness.com
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How Christina Lost 50 pounds, 31 Total Inches, and Did Her First Pull-up
I love inspiring success stories.
I especially love sharing stories from real people with busy lives who have struggled in the same way most of us struggle:
Multiple failed attempts at weight loss.
Mental baggage and challenges to overcome.
Negative self talk.
Yo-yo dieting.
Christina, a years-long member of the Nerd Fitness community, is somebody who has gained and lost the same weight more times than she can count. She grew up with negative self-talk, chased lose-weight-quick strategies, and struggled to love herself through the ups and downs.
After her husband stumbled across Nerd Fitness (smart fella), he told her to consider joining our community, and I’m so thankful she did!
Two years ago, we launched a beta version of our super fun 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, and Christina was one of our guinea pigs that signed up!
In those two years, she has transformed inside and out, and I’m so excited to share her story today. In these two years, she has had this great level of success without access to a gym without crazy dietary restrictions or calorie starvation, and finally loves herself in the way she deserves to be loved!
Although I’m very proud of the fact that Christina has invested in herself through coaching program month after month, I know you’ll learn a lot from her story.
At the end, I’ll share with you EXACTLY how to make your changes today. No more negative self-talk, no more reliance on motivation or willpower, but a focus on systems and progress and accountability!
Let’s see how Christina transformed…
How Christina lost 50 pounds and finally started loving herself
Steve: Hey Christina! Can you take us through a typical day before you decided to level up your life?
Christina: This is embarrassing to admit, but here’s a typical day when my husband would travel for work, which was about 2 weeks of every month:
Wake up, drink coffee, eat some string cheese, check emails, eat more cheese, drink more coffee, check more emails, watch a show or two on streaming media, check more emails, eat more cheese, switch to Diet Coke, grab some Taco Bell, tutor kids for a few hours, grab a beer or two with friends, eat pizza or some kind of horrible take-out, watch more TV until midnight or so, then head to sleep.
Steve: Taco Bell, pizza, beers, cheese on cheese on cheese, tons of take-out…sounds like a typical diet for many people struggling to lose weight.
Was there a specific moment when you decided to make a change?
Christina: It was more of a bunch of small things:
My blood pressure was kind of high.
My cholesterol was creeping up.
I struggled with being out of breath with the simplest of tasks.
Walking anywhere in Boulder for long periods of time meant open-mouth breathing. So embarrassing 🙁
Oh, and learning to snowboard was nearly impossible. There were days we’d drive the two hours to the mountains, I’d go down the bunny hill once, and be done for the day – I didn’t have the physical or mental stamina to try again.
I’d then sit in the lodge and drown my sorrows in chocolate brownies while my husband would go down the blue and black runs by himself.
Super fun for both of us. /sarcasm
Steve: Blah, yeah that’s no fun. So, you eventually decided that “enough is enough,” and ended up on Nerd Fitness! Was this the first time you had ever tried getting in shape?
Christina: Definitely not. I’ve kind of lost count of how many times I flirted with weight loss and getting fit. These are just some of the strategies I remember:
#1 Massive body shaming from my mom – including gems like “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” and “If you don’t lose weight before your wedding, you will always look back at your photos and feel terrible for how bad you look.”
#2 The single teacher income diet – I lost 50 lbs in six months only to gain it back when I could afford food again.
#3 Weight Watchers – I was used to body shaming from my mom, I figured, “Why not let strangers do it too?” Turns out this was less than ideal for my self esteem. I know WW works for some, but my particular experience wasn’t great.
#4 Various exercise VHS tapes from the 80s and 90s – My faves included Tony Little and It Figures with Charlene Prickett, because nothing motivates you like a built dude with a ponytail, or 80s leotards coupled with bad music!
#5 Beachbody shakes – I found the shakes to be excellent when mixed with a half pot of coffee, two tbsp of peanut butter, and a cup of half and half. No idea why I didn’t lose weight, hahaha.
#6 Cutting calories without tracking or learning – For some reason, I believed that even though I had no idea how much I was eating regularly, I could guess my way through calorie restriction. This did not work.
#7 Complaining – “Why am I so fat? Why can’t I lose weight? There must be something wrong with my metabolism. Why is exercise so difficult?”
#8 Wishing the fat away – “Maybe if I skip dinner I’ll lose a pound or two. Maybe if I skip dessert I will lose weight. If only a magical weight loss fairy existed…”
Steve: Thanks for sharing your struggles honestly with me (and now the world!). I’m curious: what made you decide to take the plunge and jump on board with Nerd Fitness and our coaching program?
Christina: Prior to NF Coaching, I mentioned to my husband I needed help.
After all of my failed attempts above, I knew I couldn’t do this on my own and wanted guidance.
I live in Colorado, land of the uber-fit, but I felt like none of the options available really meshed what I needed. I didn’t enjoy exercise and just couldn’t relate to fitness junkies.
The NF Coaching announcement came at a perfect time, and I was really pleased to see that the program wasn’t just personalized workouts, but also that my coach Jim would help me with my nutrition and mindset.
And you saw how I used to eat – I definitely needed help in that area!
Steve: Amen. We all know we need to exercise more and eat less, it’s actually DOING it consistently that’s challenging. So take me through your training schedule with Jim:
Christina: I told Jim about the equipment I had available (or lack thereof) and my goals, and my schedule, so he built a program that fit into that exact situation.
We did a lot of body weight to start with, no gym for me!
These days, I do a combination of bodyweight training (planks and wall sits), adjustable weights (overhead press, side rows), and anything Jim gives me that has to do with my pull-up bar and gymnastic rings (chin-ups, pull-ups, ring holds, etc.)
Steve: Let’s talk nutrition: What’s been your nutritional strategy?
Christina: Definitely more of an “if it fits your macros” (IIFYM) type of deal – I try to shoot for 130g of protein and under 80g for carbs and fat. I married an Italian who loves to cook; we quickly realized totally cutting pasta out of our lives wasn’t going to work.
So Jim helped me to be smarter about everything.
We time our big Italian meals on days we do a lot of physical activity, instead of every day which was always my problem in the past.
I also had to cut back my cheese addiction, which was super sad. It’s amazing how consuming 500+ calories of cheese a day can impact your diet. Again, who knew?
Steve: Yes! I too follow a “mental model” macros-type diet. What’s a typical day like for you NOW, after the changes?
Christina: SO Different!
Up between 5AM and 6AM, drink one cup of coffee with turmeric, cinnamon, and pepper, eat a small breakfast (normally an egg and some protein with one slice of really skinny bread).
I then do some work and housework, bodyweight training around 10am, drink a protein shake, drag husband out for a walk, then eat lunch around 12:30pm (lots of protein). We run our own company – a raw pet food company – and it keeps us both plenty busy
I then do more work, tutor in the afternoon, sometimes volunteer at a feral cat colony, and then dinner (protein and veggies), relax, and bed.
Much more structure in my life, and amazingly, I get things done. Who knew? 😉
Steve: What is your internal self talk like compared to 2 years ago?
Christina: There’s a lot less internal arguing about exercise or eating.
I’ll admit the first six months were miserable and really challenging. I cried my way through every workout – they were hard mentally, physically, and emotionally. This is what made it worse – I would tell myself “I deserve to suffer, because I let myself go.”
I then realized that this self-talk was unproductive, and through conversations with Jim, my husband, and myself, I changed my attitude about the whole thing.
I realized that exercise is something I’m lucky to be able to do.
It’s something that feels good and makes me feel good. My husband knows when I haven’t exercised yet for the day because my mood is lousy!
Thanks to these two years, I can now snowboard, I can hike, I can walk through downtown Boulder without open-mouth breathing.
I can do things I want to do, even if they’re hard, without beating myself up.
Just last month, we hiked up Mt. Sanitas in the rain, soaked to the bone! This would have never happened before. 3.1 miles, 1300 feet of elevation gain, and *wet* – but I did it!
And enjoyed myself! It was pretty awesome. 🙂
Steve: What was the toughest or most important change you made?
Christina: After asking my husband for his opinion, apparently the toughest change was cutting back on cheese! And I quote, “You complained the *most* about that.”
That was done fairly early on, maybe six months into working with Jim, so it’s difficult for me to remember how tough that was. Apparently it had an impact on my husband, though! 😉
Steve: Talk to me about your progress along the way. How have you measured your progress and what has helped?
Christina: I log all of my food daily and love the structure and awareness it brings to my life.
I can plan my day out based on what’s for dinner without feeling like I’m losing out on food. With food logging, it’s pretty easy to figure out what doesn’t agree with me, and I’ve gotten a lot better with portion control when it comes to items I want to taste but don’t want to gorge on (cake, gelato, etc.)
A bite or two of something is not going to ruin my day, but if I eat the whole thing, I know I’ll feel sick to my stomach and be useless the rest of the day.
As for tracking progress, I actually weigh myself daily. Weighing in used to be a source of shame; now it’s just a data point, and I can see how what I ate the day before affects me (I’m looking at you, salt).
I also take progress photos, track my body fat percentage, and track other measurements too.
Steve: Okay, so be honest: was NF Coaching worth the investment for you? Why stay 2 years even after having success early on?
Christina: Simple. I’ve lost weight in the past, and I knew that it would just come right back if I didn’t really change my ways. In working with Jim, I lost 40 pounds fairly quickly once the diet changed and exercise was done on a fairly regular basis.
However, it was really important to me that the changes stuck.
Jim knows exactly how to push things and how to tweak behaviors in order to get results. He’s had great ideas around food, and his experience with a wide variety of people has given him some great insight into how people work.
I get exactly the level of support I need, and Jim can totally read between the lines of what I say and what I really mean. There’s always a goal in mind, and I work well with that type of motivation. These are our current goals:
Climb a 14er (mountain) – climbing a mountain of at least 14K feet with 3K feet of elevation gain
Do a planche
Do a handstand
Steve: LOVE IT. And you are working with the best coach ever when it comes to handstands – Jim wrote our Beginner’s Guide to Handstands, led our Handstand Course, AND has helped other clients get their first handstands too.
Steve: Do you have any nerdy passions or pursuits?
Christina: I cosplay, play the Dresden Files tabletop rpg with a group of friends across three time zones, read a lot of comic books, and play video games in a casual way.
Steve: Nerd credentials check out – you’re in the right place!
I want to ask you one final question: There are TONS of Nerd Fitness readers right now who are at your “Day 1” (or heavier). Do you have any words of advice for those folks?
Christina: Change is so personal. You need to look within yourself and ask if you’re happy with where you are physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Then you have to ask yourself if you’re okay with the way your life is currently “hard,” and if you’re willing to try a different kind of “hard” in order to get some different results.
My “hard” before was heavy breathing, the possibility of medication for various health issues, clothing not fitting correctly, feeling embarrassed going out in public, and not being able to participate in activities with my husband.
Now my “hard” is more saying no to free food because I KNOW it’s not really free, trying to get in one more rep with a little more weight, and coming to grips with what my body and can’t do, despite how much I exercise.
Steve: Thanks so much for sharing Christina! Jim shares your updates with our team and I feel like a proud parent (that’s not weird, right? cool) watching you continue to transform every month!
When we meet in person we can practice our handstands! I’ll make sure to bring Jim too.
The 6 Keys to Christina’s Fantastic Transformation
As I’ve been following Christina’s story over the past two years, I can think of six specific things she did differently than most people who struggle and never succeed:
#1 CHRISTINA KEPT TRYING AND FAILING DIFFERENTLY
Weight Watchers, Beachbody, calorie restriction, negative self talk, dieting…Christina tried it all. Most people struggle with weight loss and assume that they’re broken. Christina eventually realized that she just hadn’t found the path that worked for her yet.
So she kept searching.
When she started working with us at Nerd Fitness, she went the route that sounded the most exciting to her: hiking with her husband, snowboarding, bodyweight training, and no gym membership.
There’s no ONE way to get in shape, and Christina found the perfect plan for her – the one she would actually STICK with.
#2 CHRISTINA COMMITTED TO HERSELF & INVESTED IN HERSELF
She had tried to get in shape before. Many times.
And failed. Many times.
Most people blindly chase the next fad or making half-hearted attempts to get in shape. They also give up at the first sign of adversity and can’t get any changes to stick.
Even worse? Sticking with a “healthy” plan for months only to discover that it doesn’t actually generate results (I see you low fat food, starvation, running endlessly on a treadmill).
Christina recognized that years of these strategies hadn’t resulted in permanent progress, so a different approach was needed.
She knew she couldn’t do this alone, so she hired a coach who knows her better than she knows herself.
Through her ups and downs, highs and lows, successes and struggles, her coach is there to set the right pace for her at that point in her life. When life changes, so does her workout and nutrition programming.
Certain things are worth investing in, and Christina decided that she was worth it.
#3 CHRISTINA DIDN’T LET SPEEDBUMPS BECOME ROADBLOCKS
Along the way, Christina struggled: this getting in shape stuff isn’t easy! One missed workout becomes two, which becomes six months off in the blink of an eye.
But she relied on her husband, her coach, and her knowledge that her coach had set her up to succeed, and all she had to do was stick to the plan.
Even after Christina managed to successfully build powerful habits and momentum, she was diagnosed with some serious health challenges: severe osteoarthritis in her left hip and moderate to severe osteoarthritis in her right hip.
Most people understandably fall apart when hit with a setback like this. They say “oh what the hell.” If their bodies are failing them, might as well eat junk food and stop exercising because, “What’s the point?”
Christina went the other way.
She said, “I am not my x-ray.”
While her diagnosis has put a damper on running, lunges, and squats, she worked with a physical therapist, doctor, and her coach to come up with other options to keep her physically active.
Because of her attitude change, Christina was able to turn these mountains into molehills and step over them.
And now she’s focused on climbing ACTUAL mountains.
https://ift.tt/2JWKsc9
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How Christina Lost 50 pounds, 31 Total Inches, and Did Her First Pull-up
I love inspiring success stories.
I especially love sharing stories from real people with busy lives who have struggled in the same way most of us struggle:
Multiple failed attempts at weight loss.
Mental baggage and challenges to overcome.
Negative self talk.
Yo-yo dieting.
Christina, a years-long member of the Nerd Fitness community, is somebody who has gained and lost the same weight more times than she can count. She grew up with negative self-talk, chased lose-weight-quick strategies, and struggled to love herself through the ups and downs.
After her husband stumbled across Nerd Fitness (smart fella), he told her to consider joining our community, and I’m so thankful she did!
Two years ago, we launched a beta version of our super fun 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, and Christina was one of our guinea pigs that signed up!
In those two years, she has transformed inside and out, and I’m so excited to share her story today. In these two years, she has had this great level of success without access to a gym without crazy dietary restrictions or calorie starvation, and finally loves herself in the way she deserves to be loved!
Although I’m very proud of the fact that Christina has invested in herself through coaching program month after month, I know you’ll learn a lot from her story.
At the end, I’ll share with you EXACTLY how to make your changes today. No more negative self-talk, no more reliance on motivation or willpower, but a focus on systems and progress and accountability!
Let’s see how Christina transformed…
How Christina lost 50 pounds and finally started loving herself
Steve: Hey Christina! Can you take us through a typical day before you decided to level up your life?
Christina: This is embarrassing to admit, but here’s a typical day when my husband would travel for work, which was about 2 weeks of every month:
Wake up, drink coffee, eat some string cheese, check emails, eat more cheese, drink more coffee, check more emails, watch a show or two on streaming media, check more emails, eat more cheese, switch to Diet Coke, grab some Taco Bell, tutor kids for a few hours, grab a beer or two with friends, eat pizza or some kind of horrible take-out, watch more TV until midnight or so, then head to sleep.
Steve: Taco Bell, pizza, beers, cheese on cheese on cheese, tons of take-out…sounds like a typical diet for many people struggling to lose weight.
Was there a specific moment when you decided to make a change?
Christina: It was more of a bunch of small things:
My blood pressure was kind of high.
My cholesterol was creeping up.
I struggled with being out of breath with the simplest of tasks.
Walking anywhere in Boulder for long periods of time meant open-mouth breathing. So embarrassing 🙁
Oh, and learning to snowboard was nearly impossible. There were days we’d drive the two hours to the mountains, I’d go down the bunny hill once, and be done for the day – I didn’t have the physical or mental stamina to try again.
I’d then sit in the lodge and drown my sorrows in chocolate brownies while my husband would go down the blue and black runs by himself.
Super fun for both of us. /sarcasm
Steve: Blah, yeah that’s no fun. So, you eventually decided that “enough is enough,” and ended up on Nerd Fitness! Was this the first time you had ever tried getting in shape?
Christina: Definitely not. I’ve kind of lost count of how many times I flirted with weight loss and getting fit. These are just some of the strategies I remember:
#1 Massive body shaming from my mom – including gems like “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” and “If you don’t lose weight before your wedding, you will always look back at your photos and feel terrible for how bad you look.”
#2 The single teacher income diet – I lost 50 lbs in six months only to gain it back when I could afford food again.
#3 Weight Watchers – I was used to body shaming from my mom, I figured, “Why not let strangers do it too?” Turns out this was less than ideal for my self esteem. I know WW works for some, but my particular experience wasn’t great.
#4 Various exercise VHS tapes from the 80s and 90s – My faves included Tony Little and It Figures with Charlene Prickett, because nothing motivates you like a built dude with a ponytail, or 80s leotards coupled with bad music!
#5 Beachbody shakes – I found the shakes to be excellent when mixed with a half pot of coffee, two tbsp of peanut butter, and a cup of half and half. No idea why I didn’t lose weight, hahaha.
#6 Cutting calories without tracking or learning – For some reason, I believed that even though I had no idea how much I was eating regularly, I could guess my way through calorie restriction. This did not work.
#7 Complaining – “Why am I so fat? Why can’t I lose weight? There must be something wrong with my metabolism. Why is exercise so difficult?”
#8 Wishing the fat away – “Maybe if I skip dinner I’ll lose a pound or two. Maybe if I skip dessert I will lose weight. If only a magical weight loss fairy existed…”
Steve: Thanks for sharing your struggles honestly with me (and now the world!). I’m curious: what made you decide to take the plunge and jump on board with Nerd Fitness and our coaching program?
Christina: Prior to NF Coaching, I mentioned to my husband I needed help.
After all of my failed attempts above, I knew I couldn’t do this on my own and wanted guidance.
I live in Colorado, land of the uber-fit, but I felt like none of the options available really meshed what I needed. I didn’t enjoy exercise and just couldn’t relate to fitness junkies.
The NF Coaching announcement came at a perfect time, and I was really pleased to see that the program wasn’t just personalized workouts, but also that my coach Jim would help me with my nutrition and mindset.
And you saw how I used to eat – I definitely needed help in that area!
Steve: Amen. We all know we need to exercise more and eat less, it’s actually DOING it consistently that’s challenging. So take me through your training schedule with Jim:
Christina: I told Jim about the equipment I had available (or lack thereof) and my goals, and my schedule, so he built a program that fit into that exact situation.
We did a lot of body weight to start with, no gym for me!
These days, I do a combination of bodyweight training (planks and wall sits), adjustable weights (overhead press, side rows), and anything Jim gives me that has to do with my pull-up bar and gymnastic rings (chin-ups, pull-ups, ring holds, etc.)
Steve: Let’s talk nutrition: What’s been your nutritional strategy?
Christina: Definitely more of an “if it fits your macros” (IIFYM) type of deal – I try to shoot for 130g of protein and under 80g for carbs and fat. I married an Italian who loves to cook; we quickly realized totally cutting pasta out of our lives wasn’t going to work.
So Jim helped me to be smarter about everything.
We time our big Italian meals on days we do a lot of physical activity, instead of every day which was always my problem in the past.
I also had to cut back my cheese addiction, which was super sad. It’s amazing how consuming 500+ calories of cheese a day can impact your diet. Again, who knew?
Steve: Yes! I too follow a “mental model” macros-type diet. What’s a typical day like for you NOW, after the changes?
Christina: SO Different!
Up between 5AM and 6AM, drink one cup of coffee with turmeric, cinnamon, and pepper, eat a small breakfast (normally an egg and some protein with one slice of really skinny bread).
I then do some work and housework, bodyweight training around 10am, drink a protein shake, drag husband out for a walk, then eat lunch around 12:30pm (lots of protein). We run our own company – a raw pet food company – and it keeps us both plenty busy
I then do more work, tutor in the afternoon, sometimes volunteer at a feral cat colony, and then dinner (protein and veggies), relax, and bed.
Much more structure in my life, and amazingly, I get things done. Who knew? 😉
Steve: What is your internal self talk like compared to 2 years ago?
Christina: There’s a lot less internal arguing about exercise or eating.
I’ll admit the first six months were miserable and really challenging. I cried my way through every workout – they were hard mentally, physically, and emotionally. This is what made it worse – I would tell myself “I deserve to suffer, because I let myself go.”
I then realized that this self-talk was unproductive, and through conversations with Jim, my husband, and myself, I changed my attitude about the whole thing.
I realized that exercise is something I’m lucky to be able to do.
It’s something that feels good and makes me feel good. My husband knows when I haven’t exercised yet for the day because my mood is lousy!
Thanks to these two years, I can now snowboard, I can hike, I can walk through downtown Boulder without open-mouth breathing.
I can do things I want to do, even if they’re hard, without beating myself up.
Just last month, we hiked up Mt. Sanitas in the rain, soaked to the bone! This would have never happened before. 3.1 miles, 1300 feet of elevation gain, and *wet* – but I did it!
And enjoyed myself! It was pretty awesome. 🙂
Steve: What was the toughest or most important change you made?
Christina: After asking my husband for his opinion, apparently the toughest change was cutting back on cheese! And I quote, “You complained the *most* about that.”
That was done fairly early on, maybe six months into working with Jim, so it’s difficult for me to remember how tough that was. Apparently it had an impact on my husband, though! 😉
Steve: Talk to me about your progress along the way. How have you measured your progress and what has helped?
Christina: I log all of my food daily and love the structure and awareness it brings to my life.
I can plan my day out based on what’s for dinner without feeling like I’m losing out on food. With food logging, it’s pretty easy to figure out what doesn’t agree with me, and I’ve gotten a lot better with portion control when it comes to items I want to taste but don’t want to gorge on (cake, gelato, etc.)
A bite or two of something is not going to ruin my day, but if I eat the whole thing, I know I’ll feel sick to my stomach and be useless the rest of the day.
As for tracking progress, I actually weigh myself daily. Weighing in used to be a source of shame; now it’s just a data point, and I can see how what I ate the day before affects me (I’m looking at you, salt).
I also take progress photos, track my body fat percentage, and track other measurements too.
Steve: Okay, so be honest: was NF Coaching worth the investment for you? Why stay 2 years even after having success early on?
Christina: Simple. I’ve lost weight in the past, and I knew that it would just come right back if I didn’t really change my ways. In working with Jim, I lost 40 pounds fairly quickly once the diet changed and exercise was done on a fairly regular basis.
However, it was really important to me that the changes stuck.
Jim knows exactly how to push things and how to tweak behaviors in order to get results. He’s had great ideas around food, and his experience with a wide variety of people has given him some great insight into how people work.
I get exactly the level of support I need, and Jim can totally read between the lines of what I say and what I really mean. There’s always a goal in mind, and I work well with that type of motivation. These are our current goals:
Climb a 14er (mountain) – climbing a mountain of at least 14K feet with 3K feet of elevation gain
Do a planche
Do a handstand
Steve: LOVE IT. And you are working with the best coach ever when it comes to handstands – Jim wrote our Beginner’s Guide to Handstands, led our Handstand Course, AND has helped other clients get their first handstands too.
Steve: Do you have any nerdy passions or pursuits?
Christina: I cosplay, play the Dresden Files tabletop rpg with a group of friends across three time zones, read a lot of comic books, and play video games in a casual way.
Steve: Nerd credentials check out – you’re in the right place!
I want to ask you one final question: There are TONS of Nerd Fitness readers right now who are at your “Day 1” (or heavier). Do you have any words of advice for those folks?
Christina: Change is so personal. You need to look within yourself and ask if you’re happy with where you are physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Then you have to ask yourself if you’re okay with the way your life is currently “hard,” and if you’re willing to try a different kind of “hard” in order to get some different results.
My “hard” before was heavy breathing, the possibility of medication for various health issues, clothing not fitting correctly, feeling embarrassed going out in public, and not being able to participate in activities with my husband.
Now my “hard” is more saying no to free food because I KNOW it’s not really free, trying to get in one more rep with a little more weight, and coming to grips with what my body and can’t do, despite how much I exercise.
Steve: Thanks so much for sharing Christina! Jim shares your updates with our team and I feel like a proud parent (that’s not weird, right? cool) watching you continue to transform every month!
When we meet in person we can practice our handstands! I’ll make sure to bring Jim too.
The 6 Keys to Christina’s Fantastic Transformation
As I’ve been following Christina’s story over the past two years, I can think of six specific things she did differently than most people who struggle and never succeed:
#1 CHRISTINA KEPT TRYING AND FAILING DIFFERENTLY
Weight Watchers, Beachbody, calorie restriction, negative self talk, dieting…Christina tried it all. Most people struggle with weight loss and assume that they’re broken. Christina eventually realized that she just hadn’t found the path that worked for her yet.
So she kept searching.
When she started working with us at Nerd Fitness, she went the route that sounded the most exciting to her: hiking with her husband, snowboarding, bodyweight training, and no gym membership.
There’s no ONE way to get in shape, and Christina found the perfect plan for her – the one she would actually STICK with.
#2 CHRISTINA COMMITTED TO HERSELF & INVESTED IN HERSELF
She had tried to get in shape before. Many times.
And failed. Many times.
Most people blindly chase the next fad or making half-hearted attempts to get in shape. They also give up at the first sign of adversity and can’t get any changes to stick.
Even worse? Sticking with a “healthy” plan for months only to discover that it doesn’t actually generate results (I see you low fat food, starvation, running endlessly on a treadmill).
Christina recognized that years of these strategies hadn’t resulted in permanent progress, so a different approach was needed.
She knew she couldn’t do this alone, so she hired a coach who knows her better than she knows herself.
Through her ups and downs, highs and lows, successes and struggles, her coach is there to set the right pace for her at that point in her life. When life changes, so does her workout and nutrition programming.
Certain things are worth investing in, and Christina decided that she was worth it.
#3 CHRISTINA DIDN’T LET SPEEDBUMPS BECOME ROADBLOCKS
Along the way, Christina struggled: this getting in shape stuff isn’t easy! One missed workout becomes two, which becomes six months off in the blink of an eye.
But she relied on her husband, her coach, and her knowledge that her coach had set her up to succeed, and all she had to do was stick to the plan.
Even after Christina managed to successfully build powerful habits and momentum, she was diagnosed with some serious health challenges: severe osteoarthritis in her left hip and moderate to severe osteoarthritis in her right hip.
Most people understandably fall apart when hit with a setback like this. They say “oh what the hell.” If their bodies are failing them, might as well eat junk food and stop exercising because, “What’s the point?”
Christina went the other way.
She said, “I am not my x-ray.”
While her diagnosis has put a damper on running, lunges, and squats, she worked with a physical therapist, doctor, and her coach to come up with other options to keep her physically active.
Because of her attitude change, Christina was able to turn these mountains into molehills and step over them.
And now she’s focused on climbing ACTUAL mountains.
https://ift.tt/2JWKsc9
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How Christina Lost 50 pounds, 31 Total Inches, and Did Her First Pull-up
I love inspiring success stories.
I especially love sharing stories from real people with busy lives who have struggled in the same way most of us struggle:
Multiple failed attempts at weight loss.
Mental baggage and challenges to overcome.
Negative self talk.
Yo-yo dieting.
Christina, a years-long member of the Nerd Fitness community, is somebody who has gained and lost the same weight more times than she can count. She grew up with negative self-talk, chased lose-weight-quick strategies, and struggled to love herself through the ups and downs.
After her husband stumbled across Nerd Fitness (smart fella), he told her to consider joining our community, and I’m so thankful she did!
Two years ago, we launched a beta version of our super fun 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, and Christina was one of our guinea pigs that signed up!
In those two years, she has transformed inside and out, and I’m so excited to share her story today. In these two years, she has had this great level of success without access to a gym without crazy dietary restrictions or calorie starvation, and finally loves herself in the way she deserves to be loved!
Although I’m very proud of the fact that Christina has invested in herself through coaching program month after month, I know you’ll learn a lot from her story.
At the end, I’ll share with you EXACTLY how to make your changes today. No more negative self-talk, no more reliance on motivation or willpower, but a focus on systems and progress and accountability!
Let’s see how Christina transformed…
How Christina lost 50 pounds and finally started loving herself
Steve: Hey Christina! Can you take us through a typical day before you decided to level up your life?
Christina: This is embarrassing to admit, but here’s a typical day when my husband would travel for work, which was about 2 weeks of every month:
Wake up, drink coffee, eat some string cheese, check emails, eat more cheese, drink more coffee, check more emails, watch a show or two on streaming media, check more emails, eat more cheese, switch to Diet Coke, grab some Taco Bell, tutor kids for a few hours, grab a beer or two with friends, eat pizza or some kind of horrible take-out, watch more TV until midnight or so, then head to sleep.
Steve: Taco Bell, pizza, beers, cheese on cheese on cheese, tons of take-out…sounds like a typical diet for many people struggling to lose weight.
Was there a specific moment when you decided to make a change?
Christina: It was more of a bunch of small things:
My blood pressure was kind of high.
My cholesterol was creeping up.
I struggled with being out of breath with the simplest of tasks.
Walking anywhere in Boulder for long periods of time meant open-mouth breathing. So embarrassing 🙁
Oh, and learning to snowboard was nearly impossible. There were days we’d drive the two hours to the mountains, I’d go down the bunny hill once, and be done for the day – I didn’t have the physical or mental stamina to try again.
I’d then sit in the lodge and drown my sorrows in chocolate brownies while my husband would go down the blue and black runs by himself.
Super fun for both of us. /sarcasm
Steve: Blah, yeah that’s no fun. So, you eventually decided that “enough is enough,” and ended up on Nerd Fitness! Was this the first time you had ever tried getting in shape?
Christina: Definitely not. I’ve kind of lost count of how many times I flirted with weight loss and getting fit. These are just some of the strategies I remember:
#1 Massive body shaming from my mom – including gems like “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” and “If you don’t lose weight before your wedding, you will always look back at your photos and feel terrible for how bad you look.”
#2 The single teacher income diet – I lost 50 lbs in six months only to gain it back when I could afford food again.
#3 Weight Watchers – I was used to body shaming from my mom, I figured, “Why not let strangers do it too?” Turns out this was less than ideal for my self esteem. I know WW works for some, but my particular experience wasn’t great.
#4 Various exercise VHS tapes from the 80s and 90s – My faves included Tony Little and It Figures with Charlene Prickett, because nothing motivates you like a built dude with a ponytail, or 80s leotards coupled with bad music!
#5 Beachbody shakes – I found the shakes to be excellent when mixed with a half pot of coffee, two tbsp of peanut butter, and a cup of half and half. No idea why I didn’t lose weight, hahaha.
#6 Cutting calories without tracking or learning – For some reason, I believed that even though I had no idea how much I was eating regularly, I could guess my way through calorie restriction. This did not work.
#7 Complaining – “Why am I so fat? Why can’t I lose weight? There must be something wrong with my metabolism. Why is exercise so difficult?”
#8 Wishing the fat away – “Maybe if I skip dinner I’ll lose a pound or two. Maybe if I skip dessert I will lose weight. If only a magical weight loss fairy existed…”
Steve: Thanks for sharing your struggles honestly with me (and now the world!). I’m curious: what made you decide to take the plunge and jump on board with Nerd Fitness and our coaching program?
Christina: Prior to NF Coaching, I mentioned to my husband I needed help.
After all of my failed attempts above, I knew I couldn’t do this on my own and wanted guidance.
I live in Colorado, land of the uber-fit, but I felt like none of the options available really meshed what I needed. I didn’t enjoy exercise and just couldn’t relate to fitness junkies.
The NF Coaching announcement came at a perfect time, and I was really pleased to see that the program wasn’t just personalized workouts, but also that my coach Jim would help me with my nutrition and mindset.
And you saw how I used to eat – I definitely needed help in that area!
Steve: Amen. We all know we need to exercise more and eat less, it’s actually DOING it consistently that’s challenging. So take me through your training schedule with Jim:
Christina: I told Jim about the equipment I had available (or lack thereof) and my goals, and my schedule, so he built a program that fit into that exact situation.
We did a lot of body weight to start with, no gym for me!
These days, I do a combination of bodyweight training (planks and wall sits), adjustable weights (overhead press, side rows), and anything Jim gives me that has to do with my pull-up bar and gymnastic rings (chin-ups, pull-ups, ring holds, etc.)
Steve: Let’s talk nutrition: What’s been your nutritional strategy?
Christina: Definitely more of an “if it fits your macros” (IIFYM) type of deal – I try to shoot for 130g of protein and under 80g for carbs and fat. I married an Italian who loves to cook; we quickly realized totally cutting pasta out of our lives wasn’t going to work.
So Jim helped me to be smarter about everything.
We time our big Italian meals on days we do a lot of physical activity, instead of every day which was always my problem in the past.
I also had to cut back my cheese addiction, which was super sad. It’s amazing how consuming 500+ calories of cheese a day can impact your diet. Again, who knew?
Steve: Yes! I too follow a “mental model” macros-type diet. What’s a typical day like for you NOW, after the changes?
Christina: SO Different!
Up between 5AM and 6AM, drink one cup of coffee with turmeric, cinnamon, and pepper, eat a small breakfast (normally an egg and some protein with one slice of really skinny bread).
I then do some work and housework, bodyweight training around 10am, drink a protein shake, drag husband out for a walk, then eat lunch around 12:30pm (lots of protein). We run our own company – a raw pet food company – and it keeps us both plenty busy
I then do more work, tutor in the afternoon, sometimes volunteer at a feral cat colony, and then dinner (protein and veggies), relax, and bed.
Much more structure in my life, and amazingly, I get things done. Who knew? 😉
Steve: What is your internal self talk like compared to 2 years ago?
Christina: There’s a lot less internal arguing about exercise or eating.
I’ll admit the first six months were miserable and really challenging. I cried my way through every workout – they were hard mentally, physically, and emotionally. This is what made it worse – I would tell myself “I deserve to suffer, because I let myself go.”
I then realized that this self-talk was unproductive, and through conversations with Jim, my husband, and myself, I changed my attitude about the whole thing.
I realized that exercise is something I’m lucky to be able to do.
It’s something that feels good and makes me feel good. My husband knows when I haven’t exercised yet for the day because my mood is lousy!
Thanks to these two years, I can now snowboard, I can hike, I can walk through downtown Boulder without open-mouth breathing.
I can do things I want to do, even if they’re hard, without beating myself up.
Just last month, we hiked up Mt. Sanitas in the rain, soaked to the bone! This would have never happened before. 3.1 miles, 1300 feet of elevation gain, and *wet* – but I did it!
And enjoyed myself! It was pretty awesome. 🙂
Steve: What was the toughest or most important change you made?
Christina: After asking my husband for his opinion, apparently the toughest change was cutting back on cheese! And I quote, “You complained the *most* about that.”
That was done fairly early on, maybe six months into working with Jim, so it’s difficult for me to remember how tough that was. Apparently it had an impact on my husband, though! 😉
Steve: Talk to me about your progress along the way. How have you measured your progress and what has helped?
Christina: I log all of my food daily and love the structure and awareness it brings to my life.
I can plan my day out based on what’s for dinner without feeling like I’m losing out on food. With food logging, it’s pretty easy to figure out what doesn’t agree with me, and I’ve gotten a lot better with portion control when it comes to items I want to taste but don’t want to gorge on (cake, gelato, etc.)
A bite or two of something is not going to ruin my day, but if I eat the whole thing, I know I’ll feel sick to my stomach and be useless the rest of the day.
As for tracking progress, I actually weigh myself daily. Weighing in used to be a source of shame; now it’s just a data point, and I can see how what I ate the day before affects me (I’m looking at you, salt).
I also take progress photos, track my body fat percentage, and track other measurements too.
Steve: Okay, so be honest: was NF Coaching worth the investment for you? Why stay 2 years even after having success early on?
Christina: Simple. I’ve lost weight in the past, and I knew that it would just come right back if I didn’t really change my ways. In working with Jim, I lost 40 pounds fairly quickly once the diet changed and exercise was done on a fairly regular basis.
However, it was really important to me that the changes stuck.
Jim knows exactly how to push things and how to tweak behaviors in order to get results. He’s had great ideas around food, and his experience with a wide variety of people has given him some great insight into how people work.
I get exactly the level of support I need, and Jim can totally read between the lines of what I say and what I really mean. There’s always a goal in mind, and I work well with that type of motivation. These are our current goals:
Climb a 14er (mountain) – climbing a mountain of at least 14K feet with 3K feet of elevation gain
Do a planche
Do a handstand
Steve: LOVE IT. And you are working with the best coach ever when it comes to handstands – Jim wrote our Beginner’s Guide to Handstands, led our Handstand Course, AND has helped other clients get their first handstands too.
Steve: Do you have any nerdy passions or pursuits?
Christina: I cosplay, play the Dresden Files tabletop rpg with a group of friends across three time zones, read a lot of comic books, and play video games in a casual way.
Steve: Nerd credentials check out – you’re in the right place!
I want to ask you one final question: There are TONS of Nerd Fitness readers right now who are at your “Day 1” (or heavier). Do you have any words of advice for those folks?
Christina: Change is so personal. You need to look within yourself and ask if you’re happy with where you are physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Then you have to ask yourself if you’re okay with the way your life is currently “hard,” and if you’re willing to try a different kind of “hard” in order to get some different results.
My “hard” before was heavy breathing, the possibility of medication for various health issues, clothing not fitting correctly, feeling embarrassed going out in public, and not being able to participate in activities with my husband.
Now my “hard” is more saying no to free food because I KNOW it’s not really free, trying to get in one more rep with a little more weight, and coming to grips with what my body and can’t do, despite how much I exercise.
Steve: Thanks so much for sharing Christina! Jim shares your updates with our team and I feel like a proud parent (that’s not weird, right? cool) watching you continue to transform every month!
When we meet in person we can practice our handstands! I’ll make sure to bring Jim too.
The 6 Keys to Christina’s Fantastic Transformation
As I’ve been following Christina’s story over the past two years, I can think of six specific things she did differently than most people who struggle and never succeed:
#1 CHRISTINA KEPT TRYING AND FAILING DIFFERENTLY
Weight Watchers, Beachbody, calorie restriction, negative self talk, dieting…Christina tried it all. Most people struggle with weight loss and assume that they’re broken. Christina eventually realized that she just hadn’t found the path that worked for her yet.
So she kept searching.
When she started working with us at Nerd Fitness, she went the route that sounded the most exciting to her: hiking with her husband, snowboarding, bodyweight training, and no gym membership.
There’s no ONE way to get in shape, and Christina found the perfect plan for her – the one she would actually STICK with.
#2 CHRISTINA COMMITTED TO HERSELF & INVESTED IN HERSELF
She had tried to get in shape before. Many times.
And failed. Many times.
Most people blindly chase the next fad or making half-hearted attempts to get in shape. They also give up at the first sign of adversity and can’t get any changes to stick.
Even worse? Sticking with a “healthy” plan for months only to discover that it doesn’t actually generate results (I see you low fat food, starvation, running endlessly on a treadmill).
Christina recognized that years of these strategies hadn’t resulted in permanent progress, so a different approach was needed.
She knew she couldn’t do this alone, so she hired a coach who knows her better than she knows herself.
Through her ups and downs, highs and lows, successes and struggles, her coach is there to set the right pace for her at that point in her life. When life changes, so does her workout and nutrition programming.
Certain things are worth investing in, and Christina decided that she was worth it.
#3 CHRISTINA DIDN’T LET SPEEDBUMPS BECOME ROADBLOCKS
Along the way, Christina struggled: this getting in shape stuff isn’t easy! One missed workout becomes two, which becomes six months off in the blink of an eye.
But she relied on her husband, her coach, and her knowledge that her coach had set her up to succeed, and all she had to do was stick to the plan.
Even after Christina managed to successfully build powerful habits and momentum, she was diagnosed with some serious health challenges: severe osteoarthritis in her left hip and moderate to severe osteoarthritis in her right hip.
Most people understandably fall apart when hit with a setback like this. They say “oh what the hell.” If their bodies are failing them, might as well eat junk food and stop exercising because, “What’s the point?”
Christina went the other way.
She said, “I am not my x-ray.”
While her diagnosis has put a damper on running, lunges, and squats, she worked with a physical therapist, doctor, and her coach to come up with other options to keep her physically active.
Because of her attitude change, Christina was able to turn these mountains into molehills and step over them.
And now she’s focused on climbing ACTUAL mountains.
https://ift.tt/2JWKsc9
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Still the anon about airport security. What would you do if you had to take a flight? Would you go through the full body scanner? Or if don't want to, you can opt for a pat down. You know the pat down has to be done by a officer of the same gender as yours. Would you be worried about being misgendered? I was misgendered once, so I am really unsure if it's better the body scanner putting your biological sex to avoid to find anomalies or the pat down where they could misgendered you.
Well, I’m most definitely going to have to take flights in the future. Idk when or how soon. I’m guessing it’ll be 2019 so I’m guessing they’ll not make any progress by then and they’ll not have made any advancements past full body scanners.
Just saying now, most trans people are not going to align with my views on this, but that’s perfectly fine. I have very specific views and very specific reasoning and very specific quirks. And that’s all perfectly okay. So. . .don’t worry about how weird this is all going to sound and how this is all going to be exactly opposite of what most trans people would think. Trust me when I say I am not most trans people. When I first came out about being trans on tumblr (a year or two after discovering I was trans), the LGBT community literally attacked me (trans people specifically) trying to tell me I wasn’t trans enough to be included. Lmao. So don’t worry that I’m going to be the opposite on most people. It’s not you, it’s me. Haha. I’ve come to learn that I am a seriously awesome individual and that I just have very unique quirks and that I just don’t align well with the LGBT community like majority of my fremily, who are all LGBT. Which is perfectly fine. Coz no one needs to. As long as we are all comfortable with ourselves. And as long as you’re comfortable with yourself? You don’t need to worry about being misgendered, honestly. Which is why I’m not.
But anyways. . .
If you’re asking my PERSONAL opinion like I THINK you are, like I said, on a personal level, I don’t worry about that stuff because I don’t have anxiety attached to my dysphoria like most people do. Public anxiety isn’t an issue for me and it never has been and I’m a 200% attention whore. I do worry about being misgendered but I take the opportunity to correct everyone and anyone I see as long as it’s not medically oriented. And since this isn’t a medical issue, I would already have been correcting them from the start and if someone dared pulled an attitude with me (ESPECIALLY a police officer), I’d be talking over them. As I normally do. I correct people on my gender already unless I want something from them (ie; I’m not really outing myself to my professors at school until I can feel around on whether they’re transphobic or not unless they specifically ask. I only make sure to correct them on my name. As for pronouns, I’m only going to tell them about it eventually. Whereas, in a PUBLIC situation where I will only be seeing these people once and it’s a one-time incident? Nbd).
I mean, I’ve seen that people normally tend to dwell on bad social interactions. You mention that you’ve been misgendered once as though you remember in vivid detail this one instance. I just don’t get those effects from negative social interactions. It’s generally intimate, private, negative interactions that have vivid memories for me. I don’t tend to really have vivid memories of negative, public interactions because they don’t stick with me and I think I have less than zero amount of social anxiety. I’m less than neurotypical when it comes to social anxiety. I’m whatever the opposite of social anxiety is. I enjoy the spotlight. I don’t tend to ENJOY it persay in a negative way but I’d rather have it than not have it. I don’t want the spotlight BY CHOICE. But I want it... by chance. If you get what I’m saying? Idk how that exactly works. So if I get picked out for a pat down... I guess that’s all the better?
As for pat-downs...Well, I’m a 200% brutally honest person so here we go. If a male officer were called to pat me down, I would have a hard time not having a breakdown. I have had so much sexual assault and rape history that has lead to PTSD and panic disorder that even if I didn’t have a female officer, I would request one and wait for one. If I had to have a male, I would specifically request that he not be white. All of the males that have sexually assaulted me have been white cis males (and to my knowledge, heterosexual or claiming to be bi and lying about being bi to manipulate me).
Also, if you know anything about me and have followed me for even 2 seconds, you know I’m the brattiest of all brat subs. And I quite enjoy toying with my dommes. So if a female officer were to just COME to me, it would make things a LOT easier, because then I would be able to just automatically avoid all the flashbacks and heart racing and feelings of fear that would flood back from PTSD. And I wouldn’t have any of that to deal with so I would be able to be my normal self and would be able to toy with her and tease her like I normally would and enjoy myself. If you’ve followed me for 2 seconds, then you’ll also know I’m ace. I’m not sexually attracted to anyone. But I do appreciate the female form and I am romantically attracted to females. I consider myself biromantic (or panromantic, I really don’t know) because occasionally there’s a male or other person thrown in there, but it’s heavily leaning towards females. Always has been. But I quite enjoy when females of authority pat me down because it brings out my bratty side and gives me the chance to make snarky remarks and toy with them under my breath and it’s just a lot of fun for me, tbh.
This is all my personal opinion, though. I’m really not your average transguy, as you can probably tell. I’m quite the opposite and no one should ever follow my lead coz I’m a bad example. I mean... I’m your typical brat sub but I’m not your typical person. Like I’ve said many times before, I live the bdsm lifestyle, but I’m not a sexual person because I’m ace. I’m not into bdsm sexually at all. I just live the lifestyle. Which a lot of people don’t understand unless, y’know, they’re in the lifestyle, too, either both sexually/fully or just fully.
I get misgendered on the daily so it’s all part of daily life for me. It’s part of the norm right now. When getting misgendered becomes odd for me---I mean, really odd---then, we can talk. But that probably won’t be for long down the HRT line if it’s all even safe to do what we’re talking about and, er, whenever BRCA testing gets done and the state can pay for my surgery. But that’s hopeful thinking. I doubt if we try out what the doctor and I are talking about, it’ll work. I don’t wanna give out details because if I type it out, I will get my own hopes up and I don’t wanna do that. Coz when I get defeated and have to continue doing what I’m doing, that’ll be really sad. And BRCA testing will probably come back positive, but even if it does, I won’t have the time to go through with the surgery until, er. . .who knows when. :| The only thing that will happen FOR SURE is a name change. Maybe one day I can do what my doctor and I are talking about, but probably not. Ergh. I don’t wanna get my hopes uppppp. Do not want. But if my BRCA test comes back positive, at least I can keep it in my file so that I have it as evidence.
But honestly?
The machine wouldn’t bother me and a surprise pat down wouldn’t bother me. I’m 200% comfortable with how other people see me and how I hold myself. And I’m ALMOST comfortable with how I see myself. Almost. . .
You know what WOULD bother me? A strip search. You know why? Because it’s EXTREMELY uncomfortable to take my binder off. I even wear a sports bra to bed. I take super short showers simply because it’s uncomfortable to not have something binding the girls down. They’re fucking annoying. I barely have a B cup. BARELY. They don’t even really fit into B cups, but they’re slightly too large for A’s. But they don’t fit any A’s. So it’s hard to judge. But then again, any bra that isn’t a sports bra is too loose, imo, coz I’m wearing a binder as long as I can all day, but I wear a sports bra at night. I mean, ever since I started wearing training bras, I started wearing bras to bed. You know what’s also uncomfortable for me? People seeing my belly. That bothers me. That scares me to death. Because of my parents growing up. Which is why I turned to ana when I was a child and didn’t even know what ana was and still keep ana in my life. But having to take my shirt off in front of someone and not cover my tummy with my arm? That terrifies me. Hell, even when I’m sitting down or laying down, there’s always a pillow or blanket or stuffed animal or SOMETHING over my tummy. Even when I’m driving, I keep a jacket or something in my lap simply because it bothers me to not have pressure on my tummy. The only time I don’t have something is when I’m walking, working, exercising, or taking a test. Even when I’m sleeping, I have a long stuffed animal that I keep between my legs that I keep up close to my tummy that I keep pressed to myself because it scares me to not have pressure on it. Because of my parents. Again, thing in the shower. And also why I hate summer. Fucking can’t do layers that help with that feeling of pressure that helps keep my parents voices in my head at bay.
So THAT is the only thing that would bother me. A strip search. A pat down and a machine? Nah. Wouldn’t bother me for reasons stated above.
That is all going on the fact you just asked my personal opinion, yes? At least, that’s how I read it. I’m hoping I explained that thoroughly enough that it all made sense.
I know all my reasoning is kind of weird and I have very, er... specific reasoning for every little thing but. I tried to explain everything without going into too much detail. So, uh... yeah. Not gonna apologize for being me, but I am aware that I am a very specific character with very specific quirks about me and that most other trans people are not going to align with my views on this. And that’s perfectly okay.
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More Blogs. Yay (For Me At Least)!!
10- 7- 17 -
More blogs I’ve made. More ways to compartmentalize my thoughts, goals, etc... And try to make myself focus on one thing at a time and commit and follow through, because I took the time to make a freaking blog on the goal itself, come on now, self! Lol So,.. the blogs:
A blog about spirituality, as in what I’d most like to share with others, if I was to share “my spiritual path”, instead of just random daily life tidbits and convoluted practices that are spiritually-relevant (yet vague, too complex or perhaps totally unnecessary or confusing, even misleading, like this blog and some of my others can be),... Yeah, just sharing what spirituality is, more to the point, or what it is, to me:
pathsaremade.tumblr.com
A blog about silence, and practicing silence, and things that enhance and facilitate silent meditative states, silent energy and guidance that comes through, healing and so on, during these silent times,... Or quiet, not necessarily just pure silence (as silence is difficult for me to obtain and sometimes to bear, in its pure sheer blank state),...
And what silence is useful for, when it is useful, or important and needed, when it can help with certain kinds of problems, can be like a form of meditation (even without formal meditative techniques) etc...
Attempting to motivate and focus myself to practice silence more, is what this blog is for, and possibly also contemplating silence, writing about its relevance to other things in my life or life in general:
divingdeepintosilence.tumblr.com
A blog about the shadow, and healing of the shadow. Healing trauma, aversion, fear, anxiety, avoidance, judgmental attitudes,...
I started this blog because I feel a lot of trauma about being other peoples’ living walking shadows, or so it feels. I also have my own shadow and I want to heal that. I think part of my shadow is accepting that they see me as their shadow, and accepting the part of them that represses, rejects, denies, pushes my reality out of sight.
So, this blog is for helping me to help myself those ways, and also to try to explain and find a way to bridge a gap to others who see me in such a fearful, negative light, and the backlash I have had of being so withdrawn, prickly and cringing away from all affection and kindness and presenting this kind of dark, imposing, threatening, confusing persona,...
Which I do to prevent people from getting close, because I’ve had it with exhausting, meaningless interactions that end in being misinterpreted, told what to do, and at last, rejected, often even having my character attacked severely... Arghh!! So here is that blog:
shadowsantidote.tumblr.com
A blog for dealing with the fact that I want to mortify my flesh, and my mind and heart, my human self... Both in spiritual ways that are tried and true for certain religions and paths and also just my going it on my own, outlet for my self-flagellations of criticism and such, even if they don’t always make sense, but I feel there’s a reason and a rhyme that may become apparent in these urges to put myself down. I think there’s a message, a useful one, at times, and it may be exaggerated, distorted, even completely warped and misdirected...
But if I just get the feelings out, without obsessing on them or amplifying them... Just release it...
Then I think the feelings underneath or the reasons or thoughts will get more of a chance to rise up and make themselves known to my awareness, or my subconscious, till I sense it out and get to the root of all this need and desire to mortify and shame myself,... for some purported higher moral objective...
And sometimes I think there really is a benefit to quieting, restraining the flesh, weakening it, like with fasting and even pain and other ascetic paths...
I’m not sure what all practices like that I’d like to try, but some of them, at least, and here is a blog to explore all that:
https://falltoclimb.tumblr.com/
A blog to create a friend-like feeling when I feel a sore need of a friend to confide in about my issues and feelings and dreams and vulnerabilities that I feel a friend would support, be open to, be enthusiastic about, and care about the best. But I have to create that feeling for myself, oftentimes, and a blog can help me do that better, though... It’s own separate space, set aside with the intention of accessing and building up and exalting that state of mind and heart that lets flow my need and desire and deservingness of a good, deep, truest, super close friend,... Even if I don’t have a friend I really feel most comfortable with in this way and have the ability to talk to right now:
friendofmyheart.tumblr.com
A blog of prayers and answers to those prayers, and also practices of spirituality, art and offerings to spirit, and things like that, which I see as related to or various kinds of prayer, to me... And as far as the “answers to the prayers” thing...
I have another blog with questions to the universe, and possibly answers, too, but this is to be more overtly focused on tracking, noticing, and receiving the answers, than I had in mind with that other blog...
Trying to track and see and notice if I can see actual answers to my prayers. Because I think I can sometimes receive the answers to my prayers and not even notice them. Sometimes I actually act on those answers, not realizing it is the answer to my prayer. I worry sometimes I might not act on them at all, not notice that I got the answer, and let it slip by, too sometimes.
I want to keep track, either way, just so I can be more aware and grateful and acknowledge the answers and help from spirit that I do get. Also to give others examples and encourage them in their own prayer and spiritual life. So, here is this blog:
drinkthedivinenectar.tumblr.com
Then I made two other “outlet” blogs, for things that felt even worse than that which I felt able to confide in a friend, easily or comfortably, or necessarily at all... But that depends, I guess... Anyway, I felt it would flow more easily if I created a “safe space” for expression, of these things, in their own separate blogs, and they are about shame, my worst of shameful things I have to face and deal with and try to address and overcome.
Things I feel no one would want to support or listen or care or validate or help me with, in an honest way. They would judge or expect more of me than I can offer, and thus I have to face my shame, purify, love, tolerate and be my own supporter in that way. I haven’t written the first post yet for this blog.
Then another blog, also shame-centric... About abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, and psychological, manipulative abuse, and so on... And the feeling of being trapped.
The feeling that I also harbor tendrils of abusive patterns, even though I don’t think of myself as an “abuser”, but I see it as a potential, if pushed to bad enough limits of misery and inability to cope with my illnesses, mental illnesses and spiritual illnesses and traumas and psychological conditions, behavioral conditions, personality conditions. Generally these things are not a problem and I feel proud of myself, proud in my shame, actually...
That I can be honest about these things, things I think are far, far more common than most people will admit to, and those who do admit generally shift the blame, instead of admitting they too can be a part of the abuse cycle, and those who admit to being a part of the abusive decay themselves often turn to helpless resignation or complaining, banding together with others of their kind, criticizing the victimes, minimizing their harmful actions, distorting the facts.
I will not fall prey to that because it would eat a hole in my soul. I never wanted to feel the way I feel, to feel driven to be this way, to be cornered into a position where I feel so without better options and the ones left are so dark and insidious and threatening...
I know a few things about the social institutions that would try to relieve my problems for me, if I tried to partake and they’re rife with dysfunction and abuse themselves. My husband is the product of that system, taken from his parents when he was a teenager along with his many siblings.
So we both have seen a lot and it’s no clean, clear, safe, good and reliable solution, and considering the level and frequency (low level and very infrequent for a very long time now) of the “abuse” (arguments with verbal abuse, and complex manipulative games and covert mental abuse, from him to me, with me only rarely lashing back in retaliation, when I can hold it back no more)... Considering all that, we’re better off the way we are until I heal enough to have any better options. I cannot support myself, etc. So, it is what it is.
I haven’t written the first post of that blog either. But here they are anyway:
https://underthewingsofspirit.tumblr.com/
https://sacredprofane.tumblr.com/
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Charlie Ford’s (MFA 2017) performative actions both allude to everyday life—the objects, costumes, and bodily movements—and disrupt their familiarity through pacing, gesture, and tone. Within this choreography, the stage is set to reconsider the world around us through the space between: stillness and action, object and body, seriousness and humor, control and failure.
This artist conversation frames Ford’s practice through his visual and performative background and his experiences in SFAI’s MFA program—and through the changing notion of “gesture.” Originally from Greater Manchester in the UK, dance, choreography, and visual arts were intertwined in Ford’s life: a required subject in high school led to a bachelor’s degree from London’s Middlesex University in Dance Studies—read on below.
Stephanie Smith (SS): Tell me about that leap from dance to visual in your practice.
Charlie Ford (CF): After university I was performing quite intensely with some choreographers—both dance and physical theater I would say. Although I loved it, I lost interest in being someone else’s performer, I think I was probably tired as well. I wanted to make my own solo work, and somehow bring in visual art. I wanted to look at choreography around visual artists, which was kind of always the plan, and to not think about movement in a dance environment or context anymore. I wanted to perform choreography as performance art, not dance.
Another shift was working in the furniture design business with my dad and brother for a couple years. It really made me pay attention to the designing of space. I would be visualizing spaces from a bird’s-eye view, even empty space became extremely visual...and that’s when something changed for me.
SS: Furniture also actively shapes and constructs space, and I see that the way you construct your performances too.
CF: Yeah. I think that clearly informed the first year of my MFA—I was making performance work that tracked and measured space with the body. I remember measuring my house in my hand’s width and making floor plans from that exercise. As I said I was looking at space from above and then seeing how my body could fit into it architecturally and mathematically, and how this process can make performance. I think that's how I got where I am.
SS: What are some overall ideas that you explore in your work?
CF: I always think of my work exploring tension. The positive and negative tension of things like intimacy, failure, control and precision, which we can all experience on a daily basis. My work’s not necessarily a personal narrative, I don’t think it's anybody else's narrative either. I just think we all have feelings of tension that we don’t like to talk about, especially failure. But we do all feel them, sometimes for no reason at all, they’re hard to control.
SS: I think your approach is open enough that different parallels can be drawn—and felt.
CF: Yeah. There’s a funny balance in my recent work between precision and the risks of failing. I like that line where it's kind of serious, but humor can be felt as well.
SS: Does that precision come from your choreographic background?
CF: Yeah, I suppose it does, and from fitting furniture as well. In the dance training that I had, you're taught how to move in a certain technique or a certain way, so you learn about different types of precision. The choreographers I like to watch the most work site-specifically and away from the stage. They base their movement on the architecture of a space, so it seems reactionary, quite neat and rigid. That precision within space is important to me: an awareness of width, height, and depth.
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SS: Can you walk through your process of approaching a new space?
CF: So often I look at the components of a room—the sound, texture, light, and the overall architecture—to dictate not just the choreography, but also the duration of the work. For example, with sometimes, that piece only exists because the length of wall exists. I like to think of it like that anyway. And wherever I go and do it again, the piece will have a specific duration that is specific to the room, and that's it.
I’ve performed the shelf piece four times—I don't know why it's not called the shelf piece because every time I speak about the work, I call it the shelf piece. It always starts with an assessment of the length of a room to achieve the longest time frame possible.
Another video work, like experiments in the resonance of control or TWO, THREE, FOUR, started with the process of looking at a room’s sonic properties. It was made in the graduate studios, which have cold concrete floors, high ceilings, and you can hear the traffic outside. So there was potential in the sound I could make with each object I worked with.
SS: Another striking thing I find—both as a viewer watching your performances live or on video—is the amount of effort that comes through. It’s very vulnerable, I think. How does your work relate to the history of dance and performance, such as Yvonne Rainer?
CF: The Judson Dance Theater is the area of dance history I’m most interested in. They were a collective of choreographers, such as Trisha Brown, Steve Paxton, and Yvonne Rainer, who really took the expressiveness out of dance but injected it back through simpler gestures. Suddenly we were questioning if walking was dance, if breathing was dance. And if these pedestrian like gestures are dance, and are they enough of a performance?
You're right though that there’s so much vulnerability in those simple gestures and in our pedestrian or almost mundane activity. There is so much risk. I’m interested in how much effort can possibly be put into an activity—like the real, physical effort of moving a shelf on the wall. I often think about what it looks like to an audience to see this simple, slow gesture over a long period of time. I suppose I'm interested in that daring tension: what the audience is feeling towards me and the whole space.
SS: Yeah, and then the viewer experiences these objects—shelves, clothing, and bricks—and actions in a new way that’s simultaneously objective and personal, relatable and foreign. Speaking of objects, you work often with the brick, why?
CF: I have a love affair with bricks. It started when I was feeling tense during the MFA program, confused and almost lonely. I took a screen printing class and started to work with what I call one-word poetry - using words like heavy, still or extent. The word “heavy” took on a new meaning because that's exactly how I was feeling—and I saw a brick. It's made its way into every one of my works since. I'm interested in its weight: how it looks, what it feels like, if it can be thrown, if it can be balanced.
But also I’m glad you picked up on the clothing actually. I realized that I was working within a certain color palette when choosing costume, green top and with khaki trousers, and started seeing my performances as colorful for the first time. My aesthetic is usually quite muted, so the clothes bring something interesting from a color point-of-view, and from a durational one. As I wear the same costume in different works, they survive and live through different things.
SS: They probably wear too…
CF: Yeah, totally. They get dirty. Sometimes they hang in the space after the performance to show that there was some sort of action left behind. They are an object, just like the brick, the stone, the paper, and the jar. And now I’m excited about exploring how those objects live as sculpture—rather than just remnants or artifacts from a performance.
SS: On a related topic to performances “living on,” how do you use documentation and video editing to mirror your performances? There’s a similar kind of presence in your videos and performances, especially how you use pacing and sound in an almost sculptural way.
CF: I like to think of my video work as performed documentation, it’s very intentional. Editing has become something that I never thought it would. I can build tension, silence, stillness and pacing with the cut of the camera - all without performing live. Live performance and video are equally important, to me anyway. I don't necessarily perform live all the time, but I also realize when performances need more than just video. But there’s a gray area in between that, there's always a gray area, which I like.
I want the documentation to look a bit makeshift as well, less than this perfectly filmed, cinematic thing. It sits in between the both. There's effort put into but not enough effort to make it perfect. Sometimes I just use myself, a camera, and a tripod; other times I have two people just document me with really simple camera movements.
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SS: How else have your experiences and critiques at SFAI changed your work?
CF: There was a sudden shift of work halfway through the program, my third semester, when I took a sound class with Laetitia Sonami. We had to come into class with a sound piece prepared almost every week, whether it was recorded or to be performed live. There was just this emphasis on making, making, making, on trying, and on being in a safe space to critique. I felt this emphasis in a New Genres class I took with Tony Labat as well, it was a like a laboratory.
I took that into choreography—just trying, actively making, and showing. That might sound simple, but the first half of my MFA experience was very much, "How do I make perfect work? How do I make MFA-worthy work?" When actually I have no fucking clue how to do that in general, like I don't know if anybody does or if that even means anything. Once I got rid of that pressure it really helped me out with my confidence, and so my attitude changed. I was suddenly performing work in critiques that was half finished. Sometimes I'd make a performance the night before. That’s what it was all about to me.
SS: Can you talk about the progression of what gesture has meant in your work in the past to present?
CF: In my previous body of work a gesture was a mark. I was mostly making durational drawings - I would move on large sheets of paper with graphite attached to my hands and toes. A gesture was a movement that was drawn and captured.
In my time at SFAI, I started to work with gestures as dialogue between the body and objects: how a brick or microphone can dictate or almost perform the choreography. "How do I move with the brick in my hand? How do I move with a piece of paper on the head? Or with a microphone wrapped around my leg?"
Interestingly enough, sometimes there are these drawn marks left in the space after a performance—marks unintentionally drawn in the space. A faculty member actually pointed this out to me: that my action of dragging a brick across the floor created a line that somehow then makes all the objects as a collective, or as one.
SS: The body becomes a conduit for the objects.
CF: Right. It's like what's controlling what? Is the body controlling objects? Objects controlling body? Personally I think the objects are controlling me, and I am just a body that they're almost passing through. What was the word you used? Conduit. I am. I don't just feel that though, there are moments where I think I regain control, but very, very few. In a way I think about it like letting those objects do the work for me, and I'm just moving them around. Giving them a new life, you know?
SS: Absolutely. You felt this in your installation at the SFAI MFA/MA Exhibition at the San Francisco Mint: the spatial layout, placement of the video monitors, and your performance within and around. And you won best in show, congratulations!
CF: Thank you. Yeah The Mint had a lot of restrictions to work around, but that actually guided the composition of the space. With much help I built two pedestals that housed video screens, playing experiments in the resonance of control and a version of sometimes made specifically for the camera. The pedestals were built at a height where the viewer had to almost look in and have a more intimate experience with the videos. I wanted them to have a similar kind of objecthood to the objects that were situated in the space around them.
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On the public opening, I performed five still positions that are echoed in the videos and I wore the same costume. I performed throughout the building—pushing the plank on my head through the crowded main corridor and laying with my face in the gravel in the doorway. Stillness is a huge part of my work—not just how long you can hold stillness for, but how tense that is, how calm it is, how peaceful it can be. The gesture of stillness when there are people moving around you.
The still positions I held were an ode to the video works, which move at a pace and keep an act going until there’s a kind of climax. But those moments of stillness after are my favorite because it cuts the tension right down again to the point that it’s funny.
SS: I think there is a little bit of humor in your work too that people can pick up. It's kind of seriously funny.
CF: No I agree. I only figured it out when I've been watching it back. But actually there is ... It's not sarcasm, is it?
SS: Maybe dry humor? In the mundanity of the movements and the objects, it's not overt by any means, but you can find humor in it.
CF: Yeah, finding humor in objects that have a lot of seriousness to them, like those that construct our life—a glass of water, wood, or pipes. A lot of my work is having fun with those things, to get the full potential out. I'm so obsessed with the brick. I don't think I've reached any sort of boredom with it yet. That's just something that's going to be ongoing.
Explore more of Charlie Ford’s work »
Image credits: 1. GIF of performance stills from Body Language, 2016; 2. Gesture, 2016; Performance for video, duration variable; 3. THREE, 2016; 4. GIF of performance stills from sometimes, 2017; Photos by Marco David; 5-6. Courtesy of the artist; 7. experiments in the resonance of control, 2017; 8-11. Installation view of the 2017 MFA/MA Exhibition; Photos by Dana Morrison; 12-14. Performance stills from the 2017 MFA/MA Exhibition; 15-16. Installation view of the 2017 MFA/MA Exhibition; Photos by Claudine Gossett; 17. Remain, 2016. All images and videos courtesy of the artist.
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How to Stop Ruminating: Leave Your Past and Live Your Future
It’s easy to get yourself ruminating about something. It just replays over and over in your head. But, what’s hard is how to stop ruminating.
Think of ruminating like playing a broken record. It just keeps playing that one part of the song, again and again, making you literally go insane. You overthink every detail, every facial expression. But we’re all guilty of this. Understanding how to stop ruminating helps you move forward.
How to stop ruminating
Ever been dumped? Yeah, I’m sure you replayed that a thousand times in your head, and it’s normal because it was a traumatic event.
I was in love with a guy who I expressed my feelings to and I was rejected, flat out. It’s been over half a year, and I still think about it. Now, do I think about it constantly? No. But when it happened, for the next couple months, it’s all I thought about. I ate, breathed and slept the rejection—I was dreaming it.
What happened is that it started to affect my work, my relationships, and my ability to meet new guys. I was stuck in this endless loop. Ruminating isn’t something you want to be stuck in. Ruminating puts a halt to your life. It keeps you living in the past. Don’t let the past eat you up inside.
#1 Why are you ruminating? What are you ruminating about? Is the issue solvable? If yes, what can you do? If it’s not solvable, what are you going to do to help you move past this? You need to become self-aware in your actions and thoughts, this way, you won’t get stuck in the negative cycle of ruminating. [Read: Feeling stuck in life? How to change directions and live your dream]
#2 Ruminating isn’t harmless. You may be thinking, oh, well, it doesn’t really affect me. Bullshit. It affects you. We all ruminate to a point, it can be a great tool for problem-solving. However, if you find yourself unable to move past these thoughts, this is when ruminating becomes harmful.
According to Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, PhD, a professor and psychologist at Yale University, ruminating leads to depression, feelings of hopelessness, and frustration.
#3 Work on positive thinking. Ruminating is usually more often than not associated with negative thinking. What you need to do is change your goals, beliefs, and attitudes.
Instead of staying home alone after work, join a class or go for a walk. Incorporate positive habits into your life. You’ll notice your behavior changing for the better and those negative thoughts slowly fade with time. [Read: 20 positive ways to live in the now]
#4 Try to problem solve. Instead of focusing on questions like, “why me?” or “what’s wrong with me?” look at how you can overcome the issue you ruminate about. You don’t need to create a pity party for yourself, instead be proactive. So, no, “why me” questions. Ask yourself, what can I do to make this situation better?
#5 Look at yourself in reflection. Self-reflection is absolutely essential when it comes to ruminating. What happens is how people tend to focus on the actions of others, ignoring their own. Though looking at other’s actions is essential, if you exclude your own, you won’t be able to see where it all went wrong. [Read: 10 self-reflective questions to stay true to yourself]
#6 Be aware when ruminating. If you want to actually stop ruminating, you need to notice when it happens, what triggered it, and how long it lasted. It takes a little work, but it’s worth it. Without self-awareness, you’ll never stop ruminating. Once you notice triggers, make a conscious effort to change your daily routine.
#7 If possible, remove triggers. Maybe you spend most of your time ruminating when you lay in bed in the morning. So, to prevent ruminating, instead of lying in bed, get up and start your day.
Ruminating usually happens when you’re inactive. So, change your routine if you notice environmental factors that promote rumination. But, in order for you to do this, you must be self-aware of when you ruminate.
#8 Let yourself ruminate. Now, ruminating for long periods of time isn’t healthy; however, you shouldn’t prevent yourself from ruminating. You have to release these thoughts or else they pile up in your head, and you end up with an emotional breakdown. So, please, do ruminate.
But, and this is a big but, schedule a time to ruminate. Allow yourself 20 to 30 minutes a day to ruminate. Once the time’s up, you keep going with your day.
#9 Write everything down. Writing really does help clear your mind. You don’t need to write some sort of Plato essay. Honestly, it doesn’t matter what you write, as long as you do it. Eventually, you find yourself opening up and writing in more depth and detail. Try to at least write one paragraph a day. [Read: How to find your zone of perfect calmness]
#10 Learn from your mistakes. You probably made a mistake in the situation that you’re ruminating about. Listen, we all make mistakes. But the only way to progress is to learn from them. If you don’t admit your fault and accept what you did, how will you be able to prevent the same mistake from happening again?
#11 Talk to a professional. We all ruminate, but the difference is whether ruminating controls our lives or not. If it’s not interfering with your daily activities, then perhaps using some of these other strategies will work for you.
However, if ruminating is affecting your daily life, you should seek therapy. You’ll be able to unleash everything in a safe space and then receive tools to help you move through this phase.
#12 Sweat it out. This is one of the best ways to get your mind off of things. You need to sweat. Go for a walk, change the scenery. This helps you gain a new perspective on the situation. Plus, working out stimulates endorphin and serotonin production in the body, so you finish your workout feeling more positive. [Read: 12 benefits of exercise on your mind, body, and libido]
#13 Talk to friends and family. Your family and friends are going to be the ones that support you through this period. What you need to remember is that this is a phase you’re experiencing.
If you’re having these emotions and thoughts, why not talk it out with your friends and family. They may have seen the situation and will be able to give you an outsider’s perspective on what happened.
[Read: Feeling defeated? How to overcome the things that keep you stuck]
Now that you know how to stop ruminating, it’s time you took a solid try at it. You don’t want to be that person stuck in the past. You still have your entire future ahead of you.
The post How to Stop Ruminating: Leave Your Past and Live Your Future is the original content of LovePanky - Your Guide to Better Love and Relationships.
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How Christina Lost 50 pounds, 31 Total Inches, and Did Her First Pull-up
I love inspiring success stories.
I especially love sharing stories from real people with busy lives who have struggled in the same way most of us struggle:
Multiple failed attempts at weight loss.
Mental baggage and challenges to overcome.
Negative self talk.
Yo-yo dieting.
Christina, a years-long member of the Nerd Fitness community, is somebody who has gained and lost the same weight more times than she can count. She grew up with negative self-talk, chased lose-weight-quick strategies, and struggled to love herself through the ups and downs.
After her husband stumbled across Nerd Fitness (smart fella), he told her to consider joining our community, and I’m so thankful she did!
Two years ago, we launched a beta version of our super fun 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, and Christina was one of our guinea pigs that signed up!
In those two years, she has transformed inside and out, and I’m so excited to share her story today. In these two years, she has had this great level of success without access to a gym without crazy dietary restrictions or calorie starvation, and finally loves herself in the way she deserves to be loved!
Although I’m very proud of the fact that Christina has invested in herself through coaching program month after month, I know you’ll learn a lot from her story.
At the end, I’ll share with you EXACTLY how to make your changes today. No more negative self-talk, no more reliance on motivation or willpower, but a focus on systems and progress and accountability!
Let’s see how Christina transformed…
How Christina lost 50 pounds and finally started loving herself
Steve: Hey Christina! Can you take us through a typical day before you decided to level up your life?
Christina: This is embarrassing to admit, but here’s a typical day when my husband would travel for work, which was about 2 weeks of every month:
Wake up, drink coffee, eat some string cheese, check emails, eat more cheese, drink more coffee, check more emails, watch a show or two on streaming media, check more emails, eat more cheese, switch to Diet Coke, grab some Taco Bell, tutor kids for a few hours, grab a beer or two with friends, eat pizza or some kind of horrible take-out, watch more TV until midnight or so, then head to sleep.
Steve: Taco Bell, pizza, beers, cheese on cheese on cheese, tons of take-out…sounds like a typical diet for many people struggling to lose weight.
Was there a specific moment when you decided to make a change?
Christina: It was more of a bunch of small things:
My blood pressure was kind of high.
My cholesterol was creeping up.
I struggled with being out of breath with the simplest of tasks.
Walking anywhere in Boulder for long periods of time meant open-mouth breathing. So embarrassing 🙁
Oh, and learning to snowboard was nearly impossible. There were days we’d drive the two hours to the mountains, I’d go down the bunny hill once, and be done for the day – I didn’t have the physical or mental stamina to try again.
I’d then sit in the lodge and drown my sorrows in chocolate brownies while my husband would go down the blue and black runs by himself.
Super fun for both of us. /sarcasm
Steve: Blah, yeah that’s no fun. So, you eventually decided that “enough is enough,” and ended up on Nerd Fitness! Was this the first time you had ever tried getting in shape?
Christina: Definitely not. I’ve kind of lost count of how many times I flirted with weight loss and getting fit. These are just some of the strategies I remember:
#1 Massive body shaming from my mom – including gems like “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” and “If you don’t lose weight before your wedding, you will always look back at your photos and feel terrible for how bad you look.”
#2 The single teacher income diet – I lost 50 lbs in six months only to gain it back when I could afford food again.
#3 Weight Watchers – I was used to body shaming from my mom, I figured, “Why not let strangers do it too?” Turns out this was less than ideal for my self esteem. I know WW works for some, but my particular experience wasn’t great.
#4 Various exercise VHS tapes from the 80s and 90s – My faves included Tony Little and It Figures with Charlene Prickett, because nothing motivates you like a built dude with a ponytail, or 80s leotards coupled with bad music!
#5 Beachbody shakes – I found the shakes to be excellent when mixed with a half pot of coffee, two tbsp of peanut butter, and a cup of half and half. No idea why I didn’t lose weight, hahaha.
#6 Cutting calories without tracking or learning – For some reason, I believed that even though I had no idea how much I was eating regularly, I could guess my way through calorie restriction. This did not work.
#7 Complaining – “Why am I so fat? Why can’t I lose weight? There must be something wrong with my metabolism. Why is exercise so difficult?”
#8 Wishing the fat away – “Maybe if I skip dinner I’ll lose a pound or two. Maybe if I skip dessert I will lose weight. If only a magical weight loss fairy existed…”
Steve: Thanks for sharing your struggles honestly with me (and now the world!). I’m curious: what made you decide to take the plunge and jump on board with Nerd Fitness and our coaching program?
Christina: Prior to NF Coaching, I mentioned to my husband I needed help.
After all of my failed attempts above, I knew I couldn’t do this on my own and wanted guidance.
I live in Colorado, land of the uber-fit, but I felt like none of the options available really meshed what I needed. I didn’t enjoy exercise and just couldn’t relate to fitness junkies.
The NF Coaching announcement came at a perfect time, and I was really pleased to see that the program wasn’t just personalized workouts, but also that my coach Jim would help me with my nutrition and mindset.
And you saw how I used to eat – I definitely needed help in that area!
Steve: Amen. We all know we need to exercise more and eat less, it’s actually DOING it consistently that’s challenging. So take me through your training schedule with Jim:
Christina: I told Jim about the equipment I had available (or lack thereof) and my goals, and my schedule, so he built a program that fit into that exact situation.
We did a lot of body weight to start with, no gym for me!
These days, I do a combination of bodyweight training (planks and wall sits), adjustable weights (overhead press, side rows), and anything Jim gives me that has to do with my pull-up bar and gymnastic rings (chin-ups, pull-ups, ring holds, etc.)
Steve: Let’s talk nutrition: What’s been your nutritional strategy?
Christina: Definitely more of an “if it fits your macros” (IIFYM) type of deal – I try to shoot for 130g of protein and under 80g for carbs and fat. I married an Italian who loves to cook; we quickly realized totally cutting pasta out of our lives wasn’t going to work.
So Jim helped me to be smarter about everything.
We time our big Italian meals on days we do a lot of physical activity, instead of every day which was always my problem in the past.
I also had to cut back my cheese addiction, which was super sad. It’s amazing how consuming 500+ calories of cheese a day can impact your diet. Again, who knew?
Steve: Yes! I too follow a “mental model” macros-type diet. What’s a typical day like for you NOW, after the changes?
Christina: SO Different!
Up between 5AM and 6AM, drink one cup of coffee with turmeric, cinnamon, and pepper, eat a small breakfast (normally an egg and some protein with one slice of really skinny bread).
I then do some work and housework, bodyweight training around 10am, drink a protein shake, drag husband out for a walk, then eat lunch around 12:30pm (lots of protein). We run our own company – a raw pet food company – and it keeps us both plenty busy
I then do more work, tutor in the afternoon, sometimes volunteer at a feral cat colony, and then dinner (protein and veggies), relax, and bed.
Much more structure in my life, and amazingly, I get things done. Who knew? 😉
Steve: What is your internal self talk like compared to 2 years ago?
Christina: There’s a lot less internal arguing about exercise or eating.
I’ll admit the first six months were miserable and really challenging. I cried my way through every workout – they were hard mentally, physically, and emotionally. This is what made it worse – I would tell myself “I deserve to suffer, because I let myself go.”
I then realized that this self-talk was unproductive, and through conversations with Jim, my husband, and myself, I changed my attitude about the whole thing.
I realized that exercise is something I’m lucky to be able to do.
It’s something that feels good and makes me feel good. My husband knows when I haven’t exercised yet for the day because my mood is lousy!
Thanks to these two years, I can now snowboard, I can hike, I can walk through downtown Boulder without open-mouth breathing.
I can do things I want to do, even if they’re hard, without beating myself up.
Just last month, we hiked up Mt. Sanitas in the rain, soaked to the bone! This would have never happened before. 3.1 miles, 1300 feet of elevation gain, and *wet* – but I did it!
And enjoyed myself! It was pretty awesome. 🙂
Steve: What was the toughest or most important change you made?
Christina: After asking my husband for his opinion, apparently the toughest change was cutting back on cheese! And I quote, “You complained the *most* about that.”
That was done fairly early on, maybe six months into working with Jim, so it’s difficult for me to remember how tough that was. Apparently it had an impact on my husband, though! 😉
Steve: Talk to me about your progress along the way. How have you measured your progress and what has helped?
Christina: I log all of my food daily and love the structure and awareness it brings to my life.
I can plan my day out based on what’s for dinner without feeling like I’m losing out on food. With food logging, it’s pretty easy to figure out what doesn’t agree with me, and I’ve gotten a lot better with portion control when it comes to items I want to taste but don’t want to gorge on (cake, gelato, etc.)
A bite or two of something is not going to ruin my day, but if I eat the whole thing, I know I’ll feel sick to my stomach and be useless the rest of the day.
As for tracking progress, I actually weigh myself daily. Weighing in used to be a source of shame; now it’s just a data point, and I can see how what I ate the day before affects me (I’m looking at you, salt).
I also take progress photos, track my body fat percentage, and track other measurements too.
Steve: Okay, so be honest: was NF Coaching worth the investment for you? Why stay 2 years even after having success early on?
Christina: Simple. I’ve lost weight in the past, and I knew that it would just come right back if I didn’t really change my ways. In working with Jim, I lost 40 pounds fairly quickly once the diet changed and exercise was done on a fairly regular basis.
However, it was really important to me that the changes stuck.
Jim knows exactly how to push things and how to tweak behaviors in order to get results. He’s had great ideas around food, and his experience with a wide variety of people has given him some great insight into how people work.
I get exactly the level of support I need, and Jim can totally read between the lines of what I say and what I really mean. There’s always a goal in mind, and I work well with that type of motivation. These are our current goals:
Climb a 14er (mountain) – climbing a mountain of at least 14K feet with 3K feet of elevation gain
Do a muscle-up
Do a handstand
Steve: LOVE IT. And you are working with the best coach ever when it comes to handstands – Jim wrote our Beginner’s Guide to Handstands, led our Handstand Course, AND has helped other clients get their first handstands too.
Steve: Do you have any nerdy passions or pursuits?
Christina: I cosplay, play the Dresden Files tabletop rpg with a group of friends across three time zones, read a lot of comic books, and play video games in a casual way.
Steve: Nerd credentials check out – you’re in the right place!
I want to ask you one final question: There are TONS of Nerd Fitness readers right now who are at your “Day 1” (or heavier). Do you have any words of advice for those folks?
Christina: Change is so personal. You need to look within yourself and ask if you’re happy with where you are physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Then you have to ask yourself if you’re okay with the way your life is currently “hard,” and if you’re willing to try a different kind of “hard” in order to get some different results.
My “hard” before was heavy breathing, the possibility of medication for various health issues, clothing not fitting correctly, feeling embarrassed going out in public, and not being able to participate in activities with my husband.
Now my “hard” is more saying no to free food because I KNOW it’s not really free, trying to get in one more rep with a little more weight, and coming to grips with what my body and can’t do, despite how much I exercise.
Steve: Thanks so much for sharing Christina! Jim shares your updates with our team and I feel like a proud parent (that’s not weird, right? cool) watching you continue to transform every month!
When we meet in person we can practice our handstands! I’ll make sure to bring Jim too.
The 6 Keys to Christina’s Fantastic Transformation
As I’ve been following Christina’s story over the past two years, I can think of six specific things she did differently than most people who struggle and never succeed:
#1 CHRISTINA KEPT TRYING AND FAILING DIFFERENTLY
Weight Watchers, Beachbody, calorie restriction, negative self talk, dieting…Christina tried it all. Most people struggle with weight loss and assume that they’re broken. Christina eventually realized that she just hadn’t found the path that worked for her yet.
So she kept searching.
When she started working with us at Nerd Fitness, she went the route that sounded the most exciting to her: hiking with her husband, snowboarding, bodyweight training, and no gym membership.
There’s no ONE way to get in shape, and Christina found the perfect plan for her – the one she would actually STICK with.
#2 CHRISTINA COMMITTED TO HERSELF & INVESTED IN HERSELF
She had tried to get in shape before. Many times.
And failed. Many times.
Most people blindly chase the next fad or making half-hearted attempts to get in shape. They also give up at the first sign of adversity and can’t get any changes to stick.
Even worse? Sticking with a “healthy” plan for months only to discover that it doesn’t actually generate results (I see you low fat food, starvation, running endlessly on a treadmill).
Christina recognized that years of these strategies hadn’t resulted in permanent progress, so a different approach was needed.
She knew she couldn’t do this alone, so she hired a coach who knows her better than she knows herself.
Through her ups and downs, highs and lows, successes and struggles, her coach is there to set the right pace for her at that point in her life. When life changes, so does her workout and nutrition programming.
Certain things are worth investing in, and Christina decided that she was worth it.
#3 CHRISTINA DIDN’T LET SPEEDBUMPS BECOME ROADBLOCKS
Along the way, Christina struggled: this getting in shape stuff isn’t easy! One missed workout becomes two, which becomes six months off in the blink of an eye.
But she relied on her husband, her coach, and her knowledge that her coach had set her up to succeed, and all she had to do was stick to the plan.
Even after Christina managed to successfully build powerful habits and momentum, she was diagnosed with some serious health challenges: severe osteoarthritis in her left hip and moderate to severe osteoarthritis in her right hip.
Most people understandably fall apart when hit with a setback like this. They say “oh what the hell.” If their bodies are failing them, might as well eat junk food and stop exercising because, “What’s the point?”
Christina went the other way.
She said, “I am not my x-ray.”
While her diagnosis has put a damper on running, lunges, and squats, she worked with a physical therapist, doctor, and her coach to come up with other options to keep her physically active.
Because of her attitude change, Christina was able to turn these mountains into molehills and step over them.
And now she’s focused on climbing ACTUAL mountains.
#4 CHRISTINA STOPPED WISHING AND STARTED DOING
Why do we beat ourselves up when we run out of willpower? Why do we get mad at ourselves for not being “motivated enough”? Why do we rely on hope and wishful thinking when it comes to getting healthy?
Because we think successful people have more of this stuff than we do, and that’s why they’ve lost weight.
We then lament the fact that we’re not like them and thus are doomed.
Reality paints a much different picture: people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off stopped chasing motivation. They recognized that willpower was limited and motivation would abandon them when life got tough. So instead, they stopped hoping and wishing and instead start building systems:
They have somebody they can be accountable to.
They study past failures and change their approach.
They get started and course correct along the way.
They structure their environment and day so that willpower isn’t needed.
This is exactly what Christina did. She stopped expecting things to be different and took the future into her own hands.
She knew she couldn’t do this alone, so she enlisted help, she got her husband’s support, and she GOT TO WORK.
#5 CHRISTINA TRACKED THE PROBLEM TO CRACK THE PROBLEM
Here’s my opinion as to why Christina succeeded: She started tracking her food daily. She could then share this food log with her coach who could make small changes and suggestions that didn’t overwhelm her.
Christina also weighed herself daily, not due to OCD neurosis, but instead as a scientist collecting data points and adjusting her progress!
She’s now educated with how many calories she can eat each day, the makeup of everything she eats, and she can make much more educated and informed decisions guilt free with each meal.
By tracking her food and her macros and analyzing her relationship with food, she can still eat home-cooked Italian food regularly without screwing up her nutrition goals. She MAKES through timing and tracking rather than hoping it works out.
In addition to these successes, through tracking she was able to discover two areas that were holding her back: she quit drinking and cut back significantly on high calorie cheese consumption.
These changes might not have happened had she not been tracking so diligently!
#6 CHRISTINA FINDS NEW DRAGONS TO SLAY
Her journey began with a weight loss goal: “I want to lose weight and feel better about myself.” And she lost 40 pounds very quickly on her journey.
This is where the big change happened:
Instead of saying “all done!” like se would have in the past, she instead worked with her coach to ask, “What am I capable of now that I’ve done all this hard work? Maybe I can work towards pull ups and get better at hiking!”
“Okay I got pull-ups, now what do I want to do?”
She and Jim consistently updated her goals and missions so she always had a new target. She wants to climb a mountain. She wants to do a handstand and a muscle-up. And every day her workouts and her nutrition are set up in a way for her to get closer to those goals!
And if she ever reaches these goals? Perfect. She’ll get new ones!
There’s always another dragon to slay…
How will Your Next Attempt Be Different? Be like Christina!
Here’s how Christina transformed like Optimus Prime, and how you can too:
Keep at it. Christina didn’t find lasting success with Weight Watchers, Beachbody, or calorie restriction. Although those programs work for some people, they didn’t work for her. Nerd Fitness spoke her language, so she followed the process.
Track the problem, crack the problem. The most successful people that have lost weight and kept it off all track their progress and adherence in some way. Start by writing down what you eat for the next few days, calculate the calories, and educate yourself! See how your photos change, and make adjustments based on your data. Hope + action = win.
Invest in yourself, get help where you can. A lot of people think hiring a coach is a sign of weakness. Christina realized this is the wrong attitude, and has used her coach to change her life. Invest your time or your money into taking this fitness stuff seriously and get help or get educated. It’s your life we’re talking about here!
Always have another dragon to slay. Christina completely changed from “I want to lose some weight” to “What am I capable of? I want to do a handstand and climb a freakin mountain!” This is the key to sustained weight loss.
Train in the way that works for you. Christina does bodyweight exercises, hikes, and goes snowboarding with her husband. There’s no gym in sight! There are a million ways to get in shape, so pick the ones that fit your goals and make you happy!
This should get you started, regardless of whether or not you join any of the programs at Nerd Fitness!
You can start bodyweight training TODAY.
You can adjust your nutrition TODAY.
You can start to build your guild TODAY.
Now, if you’re somebody like Christina and seek 1-on-1 guidance and instruction, I’d love for you to check out our 1-on-1 NF Online Coaching Program and chat with us about it.
We schedule phone calls with everybody who wants to join the program to make sure we’re a good fit for each other – you can schedule your free call by clicking on the box below:
I want success for you the way that Christina found it – through healthier eating, a healthier mindset, and a complete overhaul of her attitude!
Two years seems like so far away, but think back to where you were 2 years ago – how much has changed since then? Look back at photos of you from two years ago. I bet TWO things are true:
“This feels like it was yesterday…”
“But I don’t really look much different.”
As they say, “The days are long, but the years are short.”
So why not start today? If you enjoy the journey, it makes the struggle worth it.
If you have questions for me or Christina, let us know in the comments!
Team NF is here to help you!
-Steve
PS: If coaching isn’t your thing, we also have a powerful online course that is self-paced and has helped 50,000 rebels level up their lives.
The NF Academy has a 1-time payment, 7 levels of workouts, 10 levels of nutrition, boss battles, quests, and the most supportive community on the internet.
How Christina Lost 50 pounds, 31 Total Inches, and Did Her First Pull-up published first on https://dietariouspage.tumblr.com/
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How Christina Lost 50 pounds, 31 Total Inches, and Did Her First Pull-up
I love inspiring success stories.
I especially love sharing stories from real people with busy lives who have struggled in the same way most of us struggle:
Multiple failed attempts at weight loss.
Mental baggage and challenges to overcome.
Negative self talk.
Yo-yo dieting.
Christina, a years-long member of the Nerd Fitness community, is somebody who has gained and lost the same weight more times than she can count. She grew up with negative self-talk, chased lose-weight-quick strategies, and struggled to love herself through the ups and downs.
After her husband stumbled across Nerd Fitness (smart fella), he told her to consider joining our community, and I’m so thankful she did!
Two years ago, we launched a beta version of our super fun 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, and Christina was one of our guinea pigs that signed up!
In those two years, she has transformed inside and out, and I’m so excited to share her story today. In these two years, she has had this great level of success without access to a gym without crazy dietary restrictions or calorie starvation, and finally loves herself in the way she deserves to be loved!
Although I’m very proud of the fact that Christina has invested in herself through coaching program month after month, I know you’ll learn a lot from her story.
At the end, I’ll share with you EXACTLY how to make your changes today. No more negative self-talk, no more reliance on motivation or willpower, but a focus on systems and progress and accountability!
Let’s see how Christina transformed…
How Christina lost 50 pounds and finally started loving herself
Steve: Hey Christina! Can you take us through a typical day before you decided to level up your life?
Christina: This is embarrassing to admit, but here’s a typical day when my husband would travel for work, which was about 2 weeks of every month:
Wake up, drink coffee, eat some string cheese, check emails, eat more cheese, drink more coffee, check more emails, watch a show or two on streaming media, check more emails, eat more cheese, switch to Diet Coke, grab some Taco Bell, tutor kids for a few hours, grab a beer or two with friends, eat pizza or some kind of horrible take-out, watch more TV until midnight or so, then head to sleep.
Steve: Taco Bell, pizza, beers, cheese on cheese on cheese, tons of take-out…sounds like a typical diet for many people struggling to lose weight.
Was there a specific moment when you decided to make a change?
Christina: It was more of a bunch of small things:
My blood pressure was kind of high.
My cholesterol was creeping up.
I struggled with being out of breath with the simplest of tasks.
Walking anywhere in Boulder for long periods of time meant open-mouth breathing. So embarrassing 🙁
Oh, and learning to snowboard was nearly impossible. There were days we’d drive the two hours to the mountains, I’d go down the bunny hill once, and be done for the day – I didn’t have the physical or mental stamina to try again.
I’d then sit in the lodge and drown my sorrows in chocolate brownies while my husband would go down the blue and black runs by himself.
Super fun for both of us. /sarcasm
Steve: Blah, yeah that’s no fun. So, you eventually decided that “enough is enough,” and ended up on Nerd Fitness! Was this the first time you had ever tried getting in shape?
Christina: Definitely not. I’ve kind of lost count of how many times I flirted with weight loss and getting fit. These are just some of the strategies I remember:
#1 Massive body shaming from my mom – including gems like “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” and “If you don’t lose weight before your wedding, you will always look back at your photos and feel terrible for how bad you look.”
#2 The single teacher income diet – I lost 50 lbs in six months only to gain it back when I could afford food again.
#3 Weight Watchers – I was used to body shaming from my mom, I figured, “Why not let strangers do it too?” Turns out this was less than ideal for my self esteem. I know WW works for some, but my particular experience wasn’t great.
#4 Various exercise VHS tapes from the 80s and 90s – My faves included Tony Little and It Figures with Charlene Prickett, because nothing motivates you like a built dude with a ponytail, or 80s leotards coupled with bad music!
#5 Beachbody shakes – I found the shakes to be excellent when mixed with a half pot of coffee, two tbsp of peanut butter, and a cup of half and half. No idea why I didn’t lose weight, hahaha.
#6 Cutting calories without tracking or learning – For some reason, I believed that even though I had no idea how much I was eating regularly, I could guess my way through calorie restriction. This did not work.
#7 Complaining – “Why am I so fat? Why can’t I lose weight? There must be something wrong with my metabolism. Why is exercise so difficult?”
#8 Wishing the fat away – “Maybe if I skip dinner I’ll lose a pound or two. Maybe if I skip dessert I will lose weight. If only a magical weight loss fairy existed…”
Steve: Thanks for sharing your struggles honestly with me (and now the world!). I’m curious: what made you decide to take the plunge and jump on board with Nerd Fitness and our coaching program?
Christina: Prior to NF Coaching, I mentioned to my husband I needed help.
After all of my failed attempts above, I knew I couldn’t do this on my own and wanted guidance.
I live in Colorado, land of the uber-fit, but I felt like none of the options available really meshed what I needed. I didn’t enjoy exercise and just couldn’t relate to fitness junkies.
The NF Coaching announcement came at a perfect time, and I was really pleased to see that the program wasn’t just personalized workouts, but also that my coach Jim would help me with my nutrition and mindset.
And you saw how I used to eat – I definitely needed help in that area!
Steve: Amen. We all know we need to exercise more and eat less, it’s actually DOING it consistently that’s challenging. So take me through your training schedule with Jim:
Christina: I told Jim about the equipment I had available (or lack thereof) and my goals, and my schedule, so he built a program that fit into that exact situation.
We did a lot of body weight to start with, no gym for me!
These days, I do a combination of bodyweight training (planks and wall sits), adjustable weights (overhead press, side rows), and anything Jim gives me that has to do with my pull-up bar and gymnastic rings (chin-ups, pull-ups, ring holds, etc.)
Steve: Let’s talk nutrition: What’s been your nutritional strategy?
Christina: Definitely more of an “if it fits your macros” (IIFYM) type of deal – I try to shoot for 130g of protein and under 80g for carbs and fat. I married an Italian who loves to cook; we quickly realized totally cutting pasta out of our lives wasn’t going to work.
So Jim helped me to be smarter about everything.
We time our big Italian meals on days we do a lot of physical activity, instead of every day which was always my problem in the past.
I also had to cut back my cheese addiction, which was super sad. It’s amazing how consuming 500+ calories of cheese a day can impact your diet. Again, who knew?
Steve: Yes! I too follow a “mental model” macros-type diet. What’s a typical day like for you NOW, after the changes?
Christina: SO Different!
Up between 5AM and 6AM, drink one cup of coffee with turmeric, cinnamon, and pepper, eat a small breakfast (normally an egg and some protein with one slice of really skinny bread).
I then do some work and housework, bodyweight training around 10am, drink a protein shake, drag husband out for a walk, then eat lunch around 12:30pm (lots of protein). We run our own company – a raw pet food company – and it keeps us both plenty busy
I then do more work, tutor in the afternoon, sometimes volunteer at a feral cat colony, and then dinner (protein and veggies), relax, and bed.
Much more structure in my life, and amazingly, I get things done. Who knew? 😉
Steve: What is your internal self talk like compared to 2 years ago?
Christina: There’s a lot less internal arguing about exercise or eating.
I’ll admit the first six months were miserable and really challenging. I cried my way through every workout – they were hard mentally, physically, and emotionally. This is what made it worse – I would tell myself “I deserve to suffer, because I let myself go.”
I then realized that this self-talk was unproductive, and through conversations with Jim, my husband, and myself, I changed my attitude about the whole thing.
I realized that exercise is something I’m lucky to be able to do.
It’s something that feels good and makes me feel good. My husband knows when I haven’t exercised yet for the day because my mood is lousy!
Thanks to these two years, I can now snowboard, I can hike, I can walk through downtown Boulder without open-mouth breathing.
I can do things I want to do, even if they’re hard, without beating myself up.
Just last month, we hiked up Mt. Sanitas in the rain, soaked to the bone! This would have never happened before. 3.1 miles, 1300 feet of elevation gain, and *wet* – but I did it!
And enjoyed myself! It was pretty awesome. 🙂
Steve: What was the toughest or most important change you made?
Christina: After asking my husband for his opinion, apparently the toughest change was cutting back on cheese! And I quote, “You complained the *most* about that.”
That was done fairly early on, maybe six months into working with Jim, so it’s difficult for me to remember how tough that was. Apparently it had an impact on my husband, though! 😉
Steve: Talk to me about your progress along the way. How have you measured your progress and what has helped?
Christina: I log all of my food daily and love the structure and awareness it brings to my life.
I can plan my day out based on what’s for dinner without feeling like I’m losing out on food. With food logging, it’s pretty easy to figure out what doesn’t agree with me, and I’ve gotten a lot better with portion control when it comes to items I want to taste but don’t want to gorge on (cake, gelato, etc.)
A bite or two of something is not going to ruin my day, but if I eat the whole thing, I know I’ll feel sick to my stomach and be useless the rest of the day.
As for tracking progress, I actually weigh myself daily. Weighing in used to be a source of shame; now it’s just a data point, and I can see how what I ate the day before affects me (I’m looking at you, salt).
I also take progress photos, track my body fat percentage, and track other measurements too.
Steve: Okay, so be honest: was NF Coaching worth the investment for you? Why stay 2 years even after having success early on?
Christina: Simple. I’ve lost weight in the past, and I knew that it would just come right back if I didn’t really change my ways. In working with Jim, I lost 40 pounds fairly quickly once the diet changed and exercise was done on a fairly regular basis.
However, it was really important to me that the changes stuck.
Jim knows exactly how to push things and how to tweak behaviors in order to get results. He’s had great ideas around food, and his experience with a wide variety of people has given him some great insight into how people work.
I get exactly the level of support I need, and Jim can totally read between the lines of what I say and what I really mean. There’s always a goal in mind, and I work well with that type of motivation. These are our current goals:
Climb a 14er (mountain) – climbing a mountain of at least 14K feet with 3K feet of elevation gain
Do a muscle-up
Do a handstand
Steve: LOVE IT. And you are working with the best coach ever when it comes to handstands – Jim wrote our Beginner’s Guide to Handstands, led our Handstand Course, AND has helped other clients get their first handstands too.
Steve: Do you have any nerdy passions or pursuits?
Christina: I cosplay, play the Dresden Files tabletop rpg with a group of friends across three time zones, read a lot of comic books, and play video games in a casual way.
Steve: Nerd credentials check out – you’re in the right place!
I want to ask you one final question: There are TONS of Nerd Fitness readers right now who are at your “Day 1” (or heavier). Do you have any words of advice for those folks?
Christina: Change is so personal. You need to look within yourself and ask if you’re happy with where you are physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Then you have to ask yourself if you’re okay with the way your life is currently “hard,” and if you’re willing to try a different kind of “hard” in order to get some different results.
My “hard” before was heavy breathing, the possibility of medication for various health issues, clothing not fitting correctly, feeling embarrassed going out in public, and not being able to participate in activities with my husband.
Now my “hard” is more saying no to free food because I KNOW it’s not really free, trying to get in one more rep with a little more weight, and coming to grips with what my body and can’t do, despite how much I exercise.
Steve: Thanks so much for sharing Christina! Jim shares your updates with our team and I feel like a proud parent (that’s not weird, right? cool) watching you continue to transform every month!
When we meet in person we can practice our handstands! I’ll make sure to bring Jim too.
The 6 Keys to Christina’s Fantastic Transformation
As I’ve been following Christina’s story over the past two years, I can think of six specific things she did differently than most people who struggle and never succeed:
#1 CHRISTINA KEPT TRYING AND FAILING DIFFERENTLY
Weight Watchers, Beachbody, calorie restriction, negative self talk, dieting…Christina tried it all. Most people struggle with weight loss and assume that they’re broken. Christina eventually realized that she just hadn’t found the path that worked for her yet.
So she kept searching.
When she started working with us at Nerd Fitness, she went the route that sounded the most exciting to her: hiking with her husband, snowboarding, bodyweight training, and no gym membership.
There’s no ONE way to get in shape, and Christina found the perfect plan for her – the one she would actually STICK with.
#2 CHRISTINA COMMITTED TO HERSELF & INVESTED IN HERSELF
She had tried to get in shape before. Many times.
And failed. Many times.
Most people blindly chase the next fad or making half-hearted attempts to get in shape. They also give up at the first sign of adversity and can’t get any changes to stick.
Even worse? Sticking with a “healthy” plan for months only to discover that it doesn’t actually generate results (I see you low fat food, starvation, running endlessly on a treadmill).
Christina recognized that years of these strategies hadn’t resulted in permanent progress, so a different approach was needed.
She knew she couldn’t do this alone, so she hired a coach who knows her better than she knows herself.
Through her ups and downs, highs and lows, successes and struggles, her coach is there to set the right pace for her at that point in her life. When life changes, so does her workout and nutrition programming.
Certain things are worth investing in, and Christina decided that she was worth it.
#3 CHRISTINA DIDN’T LET SPEEDBUMPS BECOME ROADBLOCKS
Along the way, Christina struggled: this getting in shape stuff isn’t easy! One missed workout becomes two, which becomes six months off in the blink of an eye.
But she relied on her husband, her coach, and her knowledge that her coach had set her up to succeed, and all she had to do was stick to the plan.
Even after Christina managed to successfully build powerful habits and momentum, she was diagnosed with some serious health challenges: severe osteoarthritis in her left hip and moderate to severe osteoarthritis in her right hip.
Most people understandably fall apart when hit with a setback like this. They say “oh what the hell.” If their bodies are failing them, might as well eat junk food and stop exercising because, “What’s the point?”
Christina went the other way.
She said, “I am not my x-ray.”
While her diagnosis has put a damper on running, lunges, and squats, she worked with a physical therapist, doctor, and her coach to come up with other options to keep her physically active.
Because of her attitude change, Christina was able to turn these mountains into molehills and step over them.
And now she’s focused on climbing ACTUAL mountains.
#4 CHRISTINA STOPPED WISHING AND STARTED DOING
Why do we beat ourselves up when we run out of willpower? Why do we get mad at ourselves for not being “motivated enough”? Why do we rely on hope and wishful thinking when it comes to getting healthy?
Because we think successful people have more of this stuff than we do, and that’s why they’ve lost weight.
We then lament the fact that we’re not like them and thus are doomed.
Reality paints a much different picture: people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off stopped chasing motivation. They recognized that willpower was limited and motivation would abandon them when life got tough. So instead, they stopped hoping and wishing and instead start building systems:
They have somebody they can be accountable to.
They study past failures and change their approach.
They get started and course correct along the way.
They structure their environment and day so that willpower isn’t needed.
This is exactly what Christina did. She stopped expecting things to be different and took the future into her own hands.
She knew she couldn’t do this alone, so she enlisted help, she got her husband’s support, and she GOT TO WORK.
#5 CHRISTINA TRACKED THE PROBLEM TO CRACK THE PROBLEM
Here’s my opinion as to why Christina succeeded: She started tracking her food daily. She could then share this food log with her coach who could make small changes and suggestions that didn’t overwhelm her.
Christina also weighed herself daily, not due to OCD neurosis, but instead as a scientist collecting data points and adjusting her progress!
She’s now educated with how many calories she can eat each day, the makeup of everything she eats, and she can make much more educated and informed decisions guilt free with each meal.
By tracking her food and her macros and analyzing her relationship with food, she can still eat home-cooked Italian food regularly without screwing up her nutrition goals. She MAKES through timing and tracking rather than hoping it works out.
In addition to these successes, through tracking she was able to discover two areas that were holding her back: she quit drinking and cut back significantly on high calorie cheese consumption.
These changes might not have happened had she not been tracking so diligently!
#6 CHRISTINA FINDS NEW DRAGONS TO SLAY
Her journey began with a weight loss goal: “I want to lose weight and feel better about myself.” And she lost 40 pounds very quickly on her journey.
This is where the big change happened:
Instead of saying “all done!” like se would have in the past, she instead worked with her coach to ask, “What am I capable of now that I’ve done all this hard work? Maybe I can work towards pull ups and get better at hiking!”
“Okay I got pull-ups, now what do I want to do?”
She and Jim consistently updated her goals and missions so she always had a new target. She wants to climb a mountain. She wants to do a handstand and a muscle-up. And every day her workouts and her nutrition are set up in a way for her to get closer to those goals!
And if she ever reaches these goals? Perfect. She’ll get new ones!
There’s always another dragon to slay…
How will Your Next Attempt Be Different? Be like Christina!
Here’s how Christina transformed like Optimus Prime, and how you can too:
Keep at it. Christina didn’t find lasting success with Weight Watchers, Beachbody, or calorie restriction. Although those programs work for some people, they didn’t work for her. Nerd Fitness spoke her language, so she followed the process.
Track the problem, crack the problem. The most successful people that have lost weight and kept it off all track their progress and adherence in some way. Start by writing down what you eat for the next few days, calculate the calories, and educate yourself! See how your photos change, and make adjustments based on your data. Hope + action = win.
Invest in yourself, get help where you can. A lot of people think hiring a coach is a sign of weakness. Christina realized this is the wrong attitude, and has used her coach to change her life. Invest your time or your money into taking this fitness stuff seriously and get help or get educated. It’s your life we’re talking about here!
Always have another dragon to slay. Christina completely changed from “I want to lose some weight” to “What am I capable of? I want to do a handstand and climb a freakin mountain!” This is the key to sustained weight loss.
Train in the way that works for you. Christina does bodyweight exercises, hikes, and goes snowboarding with her husband. There’s no gym in sight! There are a million ways to get in shape, so pick the ones that fit your goals and make you happy!
This should get you started, regardless of whether or not you join any of the programs at Nerd Fitness!
You can start bodyweight training TODAY.
You can adjust your nutrition TODAY.
You can start to build your guild TODAY.
Now, if you’re somebody like Christina and seek 1-on-1 guidance and instruction, I’d love for you to check out our 1-on-1 NF Online Coaching Program and chat with us about it.
We schedule phone calls with everybody who wants to join the program to make sure we’re a good fit for each other – you can schedule your free call by clicking on the box below:
I want success for you the way that Christina found it – through healthier eating, a healthier mindset, and a complete overhaul of her attitude!
Two years seems like so far away, but think back to where you were 2 years ago – how much has changed since then? Look back at photos of you from two years ago. I bet TWO things are true:
“This feels like it was yesterday…”
“But I don’t really look much different.”
As they say, “The days are long, but the years are short.”
So why not start today? If you enjoy the journey, it makes the struggle worth it.
If you have questions for me or Christina, let us know in the comments!
Team NF is here to help you!
-Steve
PS: If coaching isn’t your thing, we also have a powerful online course that is self-paced and has helped 50,000 rebels level up their lives.
The NF Academy has a 1-time payment, 7 levels of workouts, 10 levels of nutrition, boss battles, quests, and the most supportive community on the internet.
How Christina Lost 50 pounds, 31 Total Inches, and Did Her First Pull-up published first on https://dietariouspage.tumblr.com/
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How Christina Lost 50 pounds, 31 Total Inches, and Did Her First Pull-up
I love inspiring success stories.
I especially love sharing stories from real people with busy lives who have struggled in the same way most of us struggle:
Multiple failed attempts at weight loss.
Mental baggage and challenges to overcome.
Negative self talk.
Yo-yo dieting.
Christina, a years-long member of the Nerd Fitness community, is somebody who has gained and lost the same weight more times than she can count. She grew up with negative self-talk, chased lose-weight-quick strategies, and struggled to love herself through the ups and downs.
After her husband stumbled across Nerd Fitness (smart fella), he told her to consider joining our community, and I’m so thankful she did!
Two years ago, we launched a beta version of our super fun 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, and Christina was one of our guinea pigs that signed up!
In those two years, she has transformed inside and out, and I’m so excited to share her story today. In these two years, she has had this great level of success without access to a gym without crazy dietary restrictions or calorie starvation, and finally loves herself in the way she deserves to be loved!
Although I’m very proud of the fact that Christina has invested in herself through coaching program month after month, I know you’ll learn a lot from her story.
At the end, I’ll share with you EXACTLY how to make your changes today. No more negative self-talk, no more reliance on motivation or willpower, but a focus on systems and progress and accountability!
Let’s see how Christina transformed…
How Christina lost 50 pounds and finally started loving herself
Steve: Hey Christina! Can you take us through a typical day before you decided to level up your life?
Christina: This is embarrassing to admit, but here’s a typical day when my husband would travel for work, which was about 2 weeks of every month:
Wake up, drink coffee, eat some string cheese, check emails, eat more cheese, drink more coffee, check more emails, watch a show or two on streaming media, check more emails, eat more cheese, switch to Diet Coke, grab some Taco Bell, tutor kids for a few hours, grab a beer or two with friends, eat pizza or some kind of horrible take-out, watch more TV until midnight or so, then head to sleep.
Steve: Taco Bell, pizza, beers, cheese on cheese on cheese, tons of take-out…sounds like a typical diet for many people struggling to lose weight.
Was there a specific moment when you decided to make a change?
Christina: It was more of a bunch of small things:
My blood pressure was kind of high.
My cholesterol was creeping up.
I struggled with being out of breath with the simplest of tasks.
Walking anywhere in Boulder for long periods of time meant open-mouth breathing. So embarrassing 🙁
Oh, and learning to snowboard was nearly impossible. There were days we’d drive the two hours to the mountains, I’d go down the bunny hill once, and be done for the day – I didn’t have the physical or mental stamina to try again.
I’d then sit in the lodge and drown my sorrows in chocolate brownies while my husband would go down the blue and black runs by himself.
Super fun for both of us. /sarcasm
Steve: Blah, yeah that’s no fun. So, you eventually decided that “enough is enough,” and ended up on Nerd Fitness! Was this the first time you had ever tried getting in shape?
Christina: Definitely not. I’ve kind of lost count of how many times I flirted with weight loss and getting fit. These are just some of the strategies I remember:
#1 Massive body shaming from my mom – including gems like “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” and “If you don’t lose weight before your wedding, you will always look back at your photos and feel terrible for how bad you look.”
#2 The single teacher income diet – I lost 50 lbs in six months only to gain it back when I could afford food again.
#3 Weight Watchers – I was used to body shaming from my mom, I figured, “Why not let strangers do it too?” Turns out this was less than ideal for my self esteem. I know WW works for some, but my particular experience wasn’t great.
#4 Various exercise VHS tapes from the 80s and 90s – My faves included Tony Little and It Figures with Charlene Prickett, because nothing motivates you like a built dude with a ponytail, or 80s leotards coupled with bad music!
#5 Beachbody shakes – I found the shakes to be excellent when mixed with a half pot of coffee, two tbsp of peanut butter, and a cup of half and half. No idea why I didn’t lose weight, hahaha.
#6 Cutting calories without tracking or learning – For some reason, I believed that even though I had no idea how much I was eating regularly, I could guess my way through calorie restriction. This did not work.
#7 Complaining – “Why am I so fat? Why can’t I lose weight? There must be something wrong with my metabolism. Why is exercise so difficult?”
#8 Wishing the fat away – “Maybe if I skip dinner I’ll lose a pound or two. Maybe if I skip dessert I will lose weight. If only a magical weight loss fairy existed…”
Steve: Thanks for sharing your struggles honestly with me (and now the world!). I’m curious: what made you decide to take the plunge and jump on board with Nerd Fitness and our coaching program?
Christina: Prior to NF Coaching, I mentioned to my husband I needed help.
After all of my failed attempts above, I knew I couldn’t do this on my own and wanted guidance.
I live in Colorado, land of the uber-fit, but I felt like none of the options available really meshed what I needed. I didn’t enjoy exercise and just couldn’t relate to fitness junkies.
The NF Coaching announcement came at a perfect time, and I was really pleased to see that the program wasn’t just personalized workouts, but also that my coach Jim would help me with my nutrition and mindset.
And you saw how I used to eat – I definitely needed help in that area!
Steve: Amen. We all know we need to exercise more and eat less, it’s actually DOING it consistently that’s challenging. So take me through your training schedule with Jim:
Christina: I told Jim about the equipment I had available (or lack thereof) and my goals, and my schedule, so he built a program that fit into that exact situation.
We did a lot of body weight to start with, no gym for me!
These days, I do a combination of bodyweight training (planks and wall sits), adjustable weights (overhead press, side rows), and anything Jim gives me that has to do with my pull-up bar and gymnastic rings (chin-ups, pull-ups, ring holds, etc.)
Steve: Let’s talk nutrition: What’s been your nutritional strategy?
Christina: Definitely more of an “if it fits your macros” (IIFYM) type of deal – I try to shoot for 130g of protein and under 80g for carbs and fat. I married an Italian who loves to cook; we quickly realized totally cutting pasta out of our lives wasn’t going to work.
So Jim helped me to be smarter about everything.
We time our big Italian meals on days we do a lot of physical activity, instead of every day which was always my problem in the past.
I also had to cut back my cheese addiction, which was super sad. It’s amazing how consuming 500+ calories of cheese a day can impact your diet. Again, who knew?
Steve: Yes! I too follow a “mental model” macros-type diet. What’s a typical day like for you NOW, after the changes?
Christina: SO Different!
Up between 5AM and 6AM, drink one cup of coffee with turmeric, cinnamon, and pepper, eat a small breakfast (normally an egg and some protein with one slice of really skinny bread).
I then do some work and housework, bodyweight training around 10am, drink a protein shake, drag husband out for a walk, then eat lunch around 12:30pm (lots of protein). We run our own company – a raw pet food company – and it keeps us both plenty busy
I then do more work, tutor in the afternoon, sometimes volunteer at a feral cat colony, and then dinner (protein and veggies), relax, and bed.
Much more structure in my life, and amazingly, I get things done. Who knew? 😉
Steve: What is your internal self talk like compared to 2 years ago?
Christina: There’s a lot less internal arguing about exercise or eating.
I’ll admit the first six months were miserable and really challenging. I cried my way through every workout – they were hard mentally, physically, and emotionally. This is what made it worse – I would tell myself “I deserve to suffer, because I let myself go.”
I then realized that this self-talk was unproductive, and through conversations with Jim, my husband, and myself, I changed my attitude about the whole thing.
I realized that exercise is something I’m lucky to be able to do.
It’s something that feels good and makes me feel good. My husband knows when I haven’t exercised yet for the day because my mood is lousy!
Thanks to these two years, I can now snowboard, I can hike, I can walk through downtown Boulder without open-mouth breathing.
I can do things I want to do, even if they’re hard, without beating myself up.
Just last month, we hiked up Mt. Sanitas in the rain, soaked to the bone! This would have never happened before. 3.1 miles, 1300 feet of elevation gain, and *wet* – but I did it!
And enjoyed myself! It was pretty awesome. 🙂
Steve: What was the toughest or most important change you made?
Christina: After asking my husband for his opinion, apparently the toughest change was cutting back on cheese! And I quote, “You complained the *most* about that.”
That was done fairly early on, maybe six months into working with Jim, so it’s difficult for me to remember how tough that was. Apparently it had an impact on my husband, though! 😉
Steve: Talk to me about your progress along the way. How have you measured your progress and what has helped?
Christina: I log all of my food daily and love the structure and awareness it brings to my life.
I can plan my day out based on what’s for dinner without feeling like I’m losing out on food. With food logging, it’s pretty easy to figure out what doesn’t agree with me, and I’ve gotten a lot better with portion control when it comes to items I want to taste but don’t want to gorge on (cake, gelato, etc.)
A bite or two of something is not going to ruin my day, but if I eat the whole thing, I know I’ll feel sick to my stomach and be useless the rest of the day.
As for tracking progress, I actually weigh myself daily. Weighing in used to be a source of shame; now it’s just a data point, and I can see how what I ate the day before affects me (I’m looking at you, salt).
I also take progress photos, track my body fat percentage, and track other measurements too.
Steve: Okay, so be honest: was NF Coaching worth the investment for you? Why stay 2 years even after having success early on?
Christina: Simple. I’ve lost weight in the past, and I knew that it would just come right back if I didn’t really change my ways. In working with Jim, I lost 40 pounds fairly quickly once the diet changed and exercise was done on a fairly regular basis.
However, it was really important to me that the changes stuck.
Jim knows exactly how to push things and how to tweak behaviors in order to get results. He’s had great ideas around food, and his experience with a wide variety of people has given him some great insight into how people work.
I get exactly the level of support I need, and Jim can totally read between the lines of what I say and what I really mean. There’s always a goal in mind, and I work well with that type of motivation. These are our current goals:
Climb a 14er (mountain) – climbing a mountain of at least 14K feet with 3K feet of elevation gain
Do a planche
Do a handstand
Steve: LOVE IT. And you are working with the best coach ever when it comes to handstands – Jim wrote our Beginner’s Guide to Handstands, led our Handstand Course, AND has helped other clients get their first handstands too.
Steve: Do you have any nerdy passions or pursuits?
Christina: I cosplay, play the Dresden Files tabletop rpg with a group of friends across three time zones, read a lot of comic books, and play video games in a casual way.
Steve: Nerd credentials check out – you’re in the right place!
I want to ask you one final question: There are TONS of Nerd Fitness readers right now who are at your “Day 1” (or heavier). Do you have any words of advice for those folks?
Christina: Change is so personal. You need to look within yourself and ask if you’re happy with where you are physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Then you have to ask yourself if you’re okay with the way your life is currently “hard,” and if you’re willing to try a different kind of “hard” in order to get some different results.
My “hard” before was heavy breathing, the possibility of medication for various health issues, clothing not fitting correctly, feeling embarrassed going out in public, and not being able to participate in activities with my husband.
Now my “hard” is more saying no to free food because I KNOW it’s not really free, trying to get in one more rep with a little more weight, and coming to grips with what my body and can’t do, despite how much I exercise.
Steve: Thanks so much for sharing Christina! Jim shares your updates with our team and I feel like a proud parent (that’s not weird, right? cool) watching you continue to transform every month!
When we meet in person we can practice our handstands! I’ll make sure to bring Jim too.
The 6 Keys to Christina’s Fantastic Transformation
As I’ve been following Christina’s story over the past two years, I can think of six specific things she did differently than most people who struggle and never succeed:
#1 CHRISTINA KEPT TRYING AND FAILING DIFFERENTLY
Weight Watchers, Beachbody, calorie restriction, negative self talk, dieting…Christina tried it all. Most people struggle with weight loss and assume that they’re broken. Christina eventually realized that she just hadn’t found the path that worked for her yet.
So she kept searching.
When she started working with us at Nerd Fitness, she went the route that sounded the most exciting to her: hiking with her husband, snowboarding, bodyweight training, and no gym membership.
There’s no ONE way to get in shape, and Christina found the perfect plan for her – the one she would actually STICK with.
#2 CHRISTINA COMMITTED TO HERSELF & INVESTED IN HERSELF
She had tried to get in shape before. Many times.
And failed. Many times.
Most people blindly chase the next fad or making half-hearted attempts to get in shape. They also give up at the first sign of adversity and can’t get any changes to stick.
Even worse? Sticking with a “healthy” plan for months only to discover that it doesn’t actually generate results (I see you low fat food, starvation, running endlessly on a treadmill).
Christina recognized that years of these strategies hadn’t resulted in permanent progress, so a different approach was needed.
She knew she couldn’t do this alone, so she hired a coach who knows her better than she knows herself.
Through her ups and downs, highs and lows, successes and struggles, her coach is there to set the right pace for her at that point in her life. When life changes, so does her workout and nutrition programming.
Certain things are worth investing in, and Christina decided that she was worth it.
#3 CHRISTINA DIDN’T LET SPEEDBUMPS BECOME ROADBLOCKS
Along the way, Christina struggled: this getting in shape stuff isn’t easy! One missed workout becomes two, which becomes six months off in the blink of an eye.
But she relied on her husband, her coach, and her knowledge that her coach had set her up to succeed, and all she had to do was stick to the plan.
Even after Christina managed to successfully build powerful habits and momentum, she was diagnosed with some serious health challenges: severe osteoarthritis in her left hip and moderate to severe osteoarthritis in her right hip.
Most people understandably fall apart when hit with a setback like this. They say “oh what the hell.” If their bodies are failing them, might as well eat junk food and stop exercising because, “What’s the point?”
Christina went the other way.
She said, “I am not my x-ray.”
While her diagnosis has put a damper on running, lunges, and squats, she worked with a physical therapist, doctor, and her coach to come up with other options to keep her physically active.
Because of her attitude change, Christina was able to turn these mountains into molehills and step over them.
And now she’s focused on climbing ACTUAL mountains.
#4 CHRISTINA STOPPED WISHING AND STARTED DOING
Why do we beat ourselves up when we run out of willpower? Why do we get mad at ourselves for not being “motivated enough”? Why do we rely on hope and wishful thinking when it comes to getting healthy?
Because we think successful people have more of this stuff than we do, and that’s why they’ve lost weight.
We then lament the fact that we’re not like them and thus are doomed.
Reality paints a much different picture: people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off stopped chasing motivation. They recognized that willpower was limited and motivation would abandon them when life got tough. So instead, they stopped hoping and wishing and instead start building systems:
They have somebody they can be accountable to.
They study past failures and change their approach.
They get started and course correct along the way.
They structure their environment and day so that willpower isn’t needed.
This is exactly what Christina did. She stopped expecting things to be different and took the future into her own hands.
She knew she couldn’t do this alone, so she enlisted help, she got her husband’s support, and she GOT TO WORK.
#5 CHRISTINA TRACKED THE PROBLEM TO CRACK THE PROBLEM
Here’s my opinion as to why Christina succeeded: She started tracking her food daily. She could then share this food log with her coach who could make small changes and suggestions that didn’t overwhelm her.
Christina also weighed herself daily, not due to OCD neurosis, but instead as a scientist collecting data points and adjusting her progress!
She’s now educated with how many calories she can eat each day, the makeup of everything she eats, and she can make much more educated and informed decisions guilt free with each meal.
By tracking her food and her macros and analyzing her relationship with food, she can still eat home-cooked Italian food regularly without screwing up her nutrition goals. She MAKES through timing and tracking rather than hoping it works out.
In addition to these successes, through tracking she was able to discover two areas that were holding her back: she quit drinking and cut back significantly on high calorie cheese consumption.
These changes might not have happened had she not been tracking so diligently!
#6 CHRISTINA FINDS NEW DRAGONS TO SLAY
Her journey began with a weight loss goal: “I want to lose weight and feel better about myself.” And she lost 40 pounds very quickly on her journey.
This is where the big change happened:
Instead of saying “all done!” like se would have in the past, she instead worked with her coach to ask, “What am I capable of now that I’ve done all this hard work? Maybe I can work towards pull ups and get better at hiking!”
“Okay I got pull-ups, now what do I want to do?”
She and Jim consistently updated her goals and missions so she always had a new target. She wants to climb a mountain. She wants to do a handstand and a planche. And every day her workouts and her nutrition are set up in a way for her to get closer to those goals!
And if she ever reaches these goals? Perfect. She’ll get new ones!
There’s always another dragon to slay…
How will Your Next Attempt Be Different? Be like Christina!
Here’s how Christina transformed like Optimus Prime, and how you can too:
Keep at it. Christina didn’t find lasting success with Weight Watchers, Beachbody, or calorie restriction. Although those programs work for some people, they didn’t work for her. Nerd Fitness spoke her language, so she followed the process.
Track the problem, crack the problem. The most successful people that have lost weight and kept it off all track their progress and adherence in some way. Start by writing down what you eat for the next few days, calculate the calories, and educate yourself! See how your photos change, and make adjustments based on your data. Hope + action = win.
Invest in yourself, get help where you can. A lot of people think hiring a coach is a sign of weakness. Christina realized this is the wrong attitude, and has used her coach to change her life. Invest your time or your money into taking this fitness stuff seriously and get help or get educated. It’s your life we’re talking about here!
Always have another dragon to slay. Christina completely changed from “I want to lose some weight” to “What am I capable of? I want to do a handstand and climb a freakin mountain!” This is the key to sustained weight loss.
Train in the way that works for you. Christina does bodyweight exercises, hikes, and goes snowboarding with her husband. There’s no gym in sight! There are a million ways to get in shape, so pick the ones that fit your goals and make you happy!
This should get you started, regardless of whether or not you join any of the programs at Nerd Fitness!
You can start bodyweight training TODAY.
You can adjust your nutrition TODAY.
You can start to build your guild TODAY.
Now, if you’re somebody like Christina and seek 1-on-1 guidance and instruction, I’d love for you to check out our 1-on-1 NF Online Coaching Program and chat with us about it.
We schedule phone calls with everybody who wants to join the program to make sure we’re a good fit for each other – you can schedule your free call by clicking on the box below:
I want success for you the way that Christina found it – through healthier eating, a healthier mindset, and a complete overhaul of her attitude!
Two years seems like so far away, but think back to where you were 2 years ago – how much has changed since then? Look back at photos of you from two years ago. I bet TWO things are true:
“This feels like it was yesterday…”
“But I don’t really look much different.”
As they say, “The days are long, but the years are short.”
So why not start today? If you enjoy the journey, it makes the struggle worth it.
If you have questions for me or Christina, let us know in the comments!
Team NF is here to help you!
-Steve
PS: If coaching isn’t your thing, we also have a powerful online course that is self-paced and has helped 50,000 rebels level up their lives.
The NF Academy has a 1-time payment, 7 levels of workouts, 10 levels of nutrition, boss battles, quests, and the most supportive community on the internet.
How Christina Lost 50 pounds, 31 Total Inches, and Did Her First Pull-up published first on https://dietariouspage.tumblr.com/
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