HOW I BUILT MY HEALTHIEST, STRONGEST, LEANEST, DREAM BODY & NOW EASILY MAINTAIN IT

Today I'm going to share how I built my healthiest, strongest and leanest dream body and how I now easily maintain it. I do want you to keep in mind that I have been on my fitness journey for just about 10 years now, so I have gone through all the different things… the fads, the restriction, the extremes, hating the process, hating my body, wanting it to change overnight, having unrealistic expectations, trying to do the most and get frustrated when nothing worked.

If you’d rather listen to this via the F4L Podcast, you can tune into the episode HERE (on Spotify).

I have finally found my way to now live in what I consider to be my dream body. Not only because I like the way it looks, but mostly because I am healthy, I am strong, I have energy, my body is very capable. I'm very grateful for all of the things that it does for me and that it allows me to do. And because I have found the perfect balance within my journey so that I can actually enjoy the process, I can show up each day and look forward to working towards my goals and have goals that are meaningful to me and not have this dread or this resentment, or even this feeling of like, I need to rush the process. So it's really helped me enjoy the process while also just enjoy living in my body and working on it.

One of the main takeaways from this, as we go through the 5 things that I want to share with you, is I really just want to highlight to you that you do NOT have to dread the process. You do not have to sell your soul to the devil to achieve your goals. You don't have to go to the extremes, and you absolutely CAN achieve your goals and your dreams when it comes to your fitness and your health.

A lot of it comes down to being patient and continually putting in the effort. And since this process is a long one, finding what works for you AND what you can enjoy really matters. Because happiness is actually a major part of your health (so it absolutely should be considered & a main focus on this process).

Here at Flourish for Life Coaching, we care about you as a whole. We care about your body. We care about it on the outside and the inside and all of the processes that go on. And we also care about your mind and your happiness and your well-being, because you are so much more than just how your body looks, and also your body is so much more than just how it looks. Right? We have to think about your body as a whole. You know, we have your metabolism, your gut biome. We have the strength of your muscles and your joints, but we also have your mental wellness and your interests and your overall happiness.

Before we get into how I personally changed my body and life, and now I fairly easily maintain my results (and how you can get there as well) I want to quickly add in - where I'm at now is is a bit easier to maintain than the journey it was to get here, because, like I said, I had to go through all of the trial and the error and find what works for me, and I had a lot of really, really hard times. But with that being said, you, you can work through that and eventually get past it.

So there are times when I've had to really grind and really push hard and really challenge myself, and it was not at all easy. So this where I'm at now doesn't come without those moments that were really testing and really pushed me and made me grow.

Your journey will likely be the same. But not every single phase, not 365 should be this insanely challenging, unbearable process that you are going through. That should be for periods of time and something that we teach our clients at Flourish for Life Coaching is about periodization and splitting your year up very strategically into these different periods that each have different focuses. So sometimes we will be in a deficit and we're going to be like “Hey, we are going to be really dialing things in for the next 16 weeks. This is the time to put on your blinders and stay the course. Do what you need to do to hit your protocols every single day. Take it seriously through the weekends, all of that. Then after that period, once we see the results we want, we reverse out and set up maintenance and we go, hey, you're in maintenance now. This means you have a bit more flexibility. We can enjoy some more events on the weekend”, so going through these different phases is really going to allow your body to transform in the most effective way. And it's what's going to bring a lot of enjoyment.

I went through those phases multiple times. I went through multiple cuts. I went through multiple reverse diets and maintenance phases, a few gaining phases. And that has, over time shaped my body and shaped my habits to where now I can maintain them. And in the future I'll go through another cut. But at the moment it's just not of something that I'm interested in or like I just have no desire to do so. I want to just focus on building muscle, fueling my body well, having optimal energy. So that's where I'm at right now, just to kind of paint that picture for you. So I did go through a lot of the phases and some really hard times and some, some really challenging times where I had to dial in, and now I'm at a point where, like I said, I've built my healthiest, strongest, leanest dream body and I can now easily maintain it. So you have to put in the reps and earn it. But once you do, I promise there is a time in the future if you go about it properly, where you can easily maintain your dream body.

So let's jump into the 5 things that have helped me get here and help me stay here.

1. MINDSET

Your body will only go as far as your mind can go.

This is true really for any aspect in life which I have taken a long time to learn. For my fitness journey, I had to work really hard on focusing on long-term outcomes versus instant impulses. In the beginning of my journey, I would give into every impulse in that moment and then later beat myself up, feel guilty, ask myself, why did I do that? It's really not easy for myself having ADHD to focus on those long-term outcomes. I want that instant gratification, I want that little boost of dopamine. But I have trained my brain and shifted my perspective to get really good at pausing and asking myself, is this something that future Jamie is going to thank me for? Is this something that's going to greatly impact future Jamie?

Maybe it's having ice cream out one time during the week. That's not really going to impact future Jamie too much, so I can go ahead and enjoy it. Now, if it was eating pizza 7 days a week, that is going to greatly impact current and future. Jamie. So I have to really focus on my mindset and making sure that I'm making mindful decisions and that I just am not going through life kind of just doing whatever I want. I have to really think about my future goals and my current body.

So if you are working towards your fitness and health goals and you are not putting any effort into your mindset, I want you to start there because there's probably a lot of work that needs to be done. We need to rewire some all-or-nothing thinking habits. We need to rewire some limiting beliefs. We need to rewire what you are focused on.

2. DITCH ANYTHING I CAN NOT SEE MYSELF DOING IN 5-10 YEARS

This means back in college when I slashed all carbs. I could never do that for the next 5 days, much less the next 5 years. So I ditched that way back when.

Another thing I ditched is no sugar. I went through that whole phase of no added sugar, just fruit and the cleanest ingredients. But honestly, I can't see myself doing that for the next 5 to 10 years. So that is not something that's going to help me reach or maintain my dream body and my healthiest self. Because honestly, I stressed way too much about what sugar intake I was having and where it was coming from, and tracking it all and counting it like that doesn't bring anything to my overall health, and it's just to the extreme that it's not beneficial.

Honestly, we can flip the script too. There was a point where I was with my one of my first nutrition coaches. I was doing really well in a deficit, and she bumped my protein up to like 180, which is a lot over my body weight, and it wrecked my gut. I have some previous gut issues that I think started to flare up. So in the same like in an opposite sense of instead of cutting something out, we added too much of something that's “good”. And there's no way I could do that for the next 5 to 10 years. So like that was an immediate NO. We reverted back to my previous protein target and that, you know, kept working much better.

Basically, if you're doing something that you can't imagine yourself doing for the next 5+ years, it's probably not a good fit because it's it's not sustainable. And even if it gets you to your dream body. How are you going to maintain it if you can't keep up with it, or if you don't have a plan that comes after? So ditch it. Let it go. Let's find something new for you.

3. follow a Periodized plan & worked towards ONE THING at a time 

No more trying to lose 10-lbs while you also gain muscle, get bigger glutes and have bigger quads and biceps. But you also want visible abs. And to lose those 10-lbs like that is just way too many things at once…

You're likely just going to go around in circles and not actually get anywhere. So usually what we recommend to clients, if they especially come to us under eating or kind of just trying to do it all at once and they are not working towards one specific thing, is we will start to have them focus on one thing.

Usually (not always) but many times, we focus on growing first, building some muscle if they really want to grow their glutes or their quads or their back. We will focus on that through their training, and we will increase their food to optimize their metabolism, to give them more fuel, to train harder, to allow them to enjoy more food and to enjoy life and to manage hunger and cravings. Then, after we focus on that one thing of increasing food and building muscle, which work together beautifully, we then can shift into focusing on something like fat loss for 12-16 weeks. That's the main focus during that phase if strength increases a little bit. Awesome. If muscle maintains or feels a bit fuller during that time, awesome. But that is not the MAIN focus. We are not going into it saying we're going to keep trying to grow your glutes, and we're going to try to shed 10-lbs of fat over these next 16-20 weeks. No, we then shift into fat loss and focus on that and let everything else play out how it does. But we have one main focus. Then after the fat loss phase, we reverse up. Our main focus is getting food back up, optimizing metabolism, getting things back to normal like energy, hunger, sleep, anything that's been negatively impacted from the fat loss phase. That was super effective because we focused on just that, and then we get back up to maintenance and maybe we focus on building muscle again. Or maybe we focus on some performance goals, like completing your first bodyweight pull up or push up or deadlifting a certain amount.

So periodizing your plan and working towards ONE THING at a time is going to just prove to be so much more effective than trying to do multiple things at once. And ever since I changed my mindset back to the first point and really worked on my mindset to focus on that bigger outcome in the bigger picture, I was able to accept going through these different phases multiple times because I wasn't trying to rush everything and accomplish everything at once.

4. Get really good at the basics

This is likely not the thing you want to hear because it's not sexy, it's not fun and glamorous, but it's what works. It's why as coaches, we just stay on our clients a lot of the times about the basics. And it's why I have coaches for myself who stay on top of me to show up daily. Even with practicing it for years, I still need the support because it's very redundant, it's very repetitive, but it's what works.

When I'm talking about the basics, I'm talking about things like your daily movement, your water intake, & your sleep - and also your nutrition & your training.

And when I say I show up daily, I'm not saying that I every single day 365 hit my targets. I don't hit my step goal 365 days/year… But I do hit at something more like 345. I don't hit my water goal 365… but I do hit it 355.

It's all about what you do MOST of the time & a lot of us think that we're doing things most of the time, but when we actually look at the data (when we actually pull it up in your training app, when you're a client with us) we can see how many days in a month you checked off hitting your water, hitting your steps, and sometimes it doesn't quite line up with what you tell yourself.

Sometimes we look at the numbers and you convince yourself you hit your targets 90% of the time… but in reality, you only hit them about 60% of the time. Let's go back to school. What grade would you get if you got a 60? Pretty sure that was like a D or an F. So your health report card isn't quite looking so good, right?

So it's NOT about being perfect, but it really is about being on top of things and showing up and putting in the work most of the time.

5. Viewing fitness coaching as a main investment in my life because it gives me the support and accountability that I need to keep myself a priority

I know that when I feel SO much better in my daily actions and my habits and I show up and I eat my protein, I show up and go for my walks, I show up and get in my workouts. This allows me to show up better everywhere else. I am more present at work. I'm a better leader, a better coach. I am a better partner, daughter, friend.

So just like you see other things as a regular investment, maybe it's getting your nails done or your hair, or getting a facial that just helps you feel your best and look your best. Or maybe it's honestly like regularly putting money into a retirement fund so that you can live your best life in the future. You see that as an investment. Well, I see coaching as an investment into living my best life right now as well in the future.

Another thing you probably see as an investment is like if you're paying for a mortgage or rent or making car payments, those are just a part of your monthly payments, right? Like it is just something you know is going to come out of your bank. That's how I see coaching. I make it fit into my budget, and it's kind of just like my electricity bill, like it just is there because it comes with so many benefits and rewards, and it brings so much value to my life.

Back when I did not have a coach, when I didn't see the value, when I didn't think I needed it because I could “do it on my own”. But then I never did it on my own. I didn't have someone to push me, to hold me accountable, to guide me and to give me support.

On the hard days, I spent a lot of time trying but didn't see results. I spent so much time getting frustrated and feeling down because I was just winging it and guessing and using all this energy and felt like I was getting nowhere. None of those things improve my quality of life. They really, really brought me down. So now I just see coaching as such a necessary investment into my life, into my health, into my wellness. To avoid those things and show up as my best self, consistently.

So, those are the 5 main things that have helped me tremendously in building my dream body and now maintaining it. I hope this was helpful and brought you some new insights!