The #1 trick to starting a smart, simple fitness routine

I see you boo!

Believe me I get it. You’ve tried it all, right? Low carb, no carb, keto, WW, you name it. You’ve popped all the supplements and tried all the smoothies. You follow the health gurus and you know all the latest and greatest in health and wellness. Though you don’t look like you know a fucking thing about fitness much less wellness because you’re fat. It’s so frustrating! You weigh, you measure, you’re diligent about tracking your food and calories, yet nothing seems to be working.

If you’re like me you probably scoured the internet for hours at a time looking over the latest diet news. You scan the front pages of magazines in line at the grocery store. Hoping that maybe, just maybe, that article on the cover holds the secret key to the wonderful yet illusive world of weight loss we’re all seeking to find.

So you buy the magazine and you try the things. You search your state yet still can’t find the eye of newt and the dried rabbit jerky that you simply must have for this to work. You order them on amazon instead, and don’t blink at the ungodly price because It’ll be worth it, you’re gonna get healthy! You brew up detoxifying elixirs and force yourself to suffer through the gag fest of getting them down. Only to find that the explosive diarrhea is a good thing. Yeah, it is. You swear you’re dying but the magazine says it’s just toxins leaving the body. You’ll feel better in a day or two.

One week, one new hemorrhoid and a raw asshole later and somehow you look bloated as f*ck, you absolutely cannot trust a fart (maybe ever) and you have gained 3 unbelievable pounds! You look away from the magazine in shame and whisper to your framed photo of Gwyneth Paltrow “I’m not as strong as you my queen”. You put the picture face down. You can’t bear for GP to see you this way.

So you get discouraged. You fall off the wagon. But it’s never that simple is it? You don’t just lightly tumble off said wagon, you run the muther into the side of a mountain and light fire to the wreckage. You probably buy out the bakery isle or maybe make a DQ run of shame while you wait for them to deliver your pizza, wings and cheese bread.

My people….I have found a way and I’m gonna share it.

The thing is, we tend to focus heavily on the eating portion of a “diet” to help us lose weight, right? All of the magazines, the articles, the books, the talk shows, the “experts”, everything they talk about and focus on is mainly (ok totally) focused on the eating aspect.

(Fat girl propaganda) no really, its truth peeps.

It boils down to this, after a helluva lot of research and almost two years of being my own guinea pig I may have just helped us all crack the code and it’s a whole lot easier than you think.

So before you completely freak out and think I’m gonna throw you into some kinda hardcore boot camp torture bullshit, just know, I will never do anything of the sort. This is my vow to you my peeps. My entire goal in life is to make it simple and enjoyable in every single capacity. This includes my fitness.

I know what you’re thinking,

1. This bitch is nuts.

2. I swear to god if she starts preaching beachbody bullshit I’m OUT.

3. Exercise suuuucks.

4. I don’t own any exercise equipment and I’m not getting a gym membership to be judged and feel uncomfortable.

Here’s the deal Lucille. I hear you, I get it. Yes exercise sucks and yes I hate getting sweaty and heart racy and all that unnecessary shit too. So, I don’t want to do it and I don’t want you to feel like you need to do it either. Exercise is a boring, lame, solo activity that most of us dread and wish was over before it even started. Am I right?

But…..

What if you could?

 Stop dreading exercise?

 Watch TV while you do it?

 Ease symptoms of depression?

 Burn fat and tone at the same time?

 Boost mental focus and mood in minutes?

 Make it a family affair, even the littles can do it!

 Actually discover you enjoy fitness and look forward to doing it each and every day?

 Immediately feel some of the benefits not just during the workout but for several hours after?

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying that you don’t need to exercise, I’m saying it doesn’t need to be as brutally punishing as the rest of the fitness world would lead you to believe. To put this in perspective I’m going to give you a little background info on me, health wise, so you know exactly what I was up against.

When I started this adventure I was 41 and I weighed in at 306 pounds. I was incredibly fat yes, I was also unhealthy in several other aspects. I was a smoker, I hadn’t exercised in years, I had little to no range of motion, and I had absolutely no energy. On top of that I also struggle with Hashimoto’s Disease which is an autoimmune thyroid disorder. The autoimmune issue unfortunately means that my metabolism is very slow (almost at a standstill) and I gain weight easily and rapidly.

I had done the hard core workouts in the past, HIIT, lifting, treadmills, every fitness DVD you can imagine and all the exercise weight loss infomercial bullshit. I pushed my body hard believing that the harder I worked and pushed myself, the better the payoff. Though the payoff never came. I was sore and tired and pushed to the brink. I might even build some muscle but my body composition never changed much.

I counted the carbs, the calories and the sugars and I worked my ass off (not quite) and I would do it for months at a time, to no avail at all.

I decided with this journey I was going to do things different and I was going to do it my way. So that’s exactly what I did. The rules were simple:

• I would only do what felt good and what made me feel good. Period.

• I would eat what I wanted and be smart about it.

• I was going to make sure that no matter what I chose to do, it was going to be simple and bring me joy.

I was no longer going to punish my body into bending to my will. I was going to try and nurture it instead and see what happened.

I know, I know, as my son says “Mom, you sound like a complete hippie and I can’t even take you seriously”. The joy of teens.

I realize it sounds too ridiculous to actually work but I’m living proof and I’m here to tell you, it really did work for me when nothing else in the world did and believe me, I tried it all.

I started by simply listening to what my body needed. I was always sore and achy carrying around so much extra weight on what should have been a petite frame that my joints were in constant agony. My muscles ached and I suffered pretty frequent tension aches and headaches from being so large. So, one night while we all gathered around the TV for our evening family time, I decided to skip the couch and I sat on the floor instead.

If I was going to sit and watch TV, I might as well sit and try to stretch a little. Why not? I could watch tv and I wasn’t in anyone’s way or blocking the view. I was just quietly moving and stretching my body and surprisingly, I stayed down there for over an hour without much thought to it.

It made sense to start with working on my flexibility as I was already in my early forties and flexibility is supposed to be one of the keys to graceful aging. Though I also noticed a few other things right away.

• I didn’t break a sweat.

• I didn’t feel my lungs burning like they were on fire as I normally did when I did any HIIT workout or cardio based workout.

• I didn’t hate life for that hour and watch the clock waiting for it to be over.

• I felt really good the next day and I looked forward to doing it again the next night.

That was almost one and a half years ago and I have had my butt on that floor every night since. I enjoyed my stretching workouts so much that I invested in a very inexpensive set of fitness bands and I incorporated those into my workouts for added strength and flexibility. Still watching tv or movies with my family each and every night, though now, they join in too.

As my body got stronger my mind also became more focused. The depression that has plagued me most of my adult life has significantly decreased just with these simple, gentle yet effective movements. I enjoy it all so much that I decided to start looking for additional workouts on YouTube and I have found several Yoga or Pilates workouts that are even more effective with incredible benefits far beyond just the physical benefits.

The lesson here is..

Start small keep it simple and don’t think that you need to bust into a shirt drenching sweat and give it your all to get to the health and fitness goals you have for yourself.

Listen to your body, and stretch it out. It’s a starting point to a simply new, joyful you!

As your body gets stronger and you become more capable, you’ll want to do more and more but you will do it at your pace and you’ll still see the physical and mental benefits.

Above all else remember, keep it simple and no matter what you do, make sure that it puts a smile on your face while you're doing it. Progress is so much more important than perfection.

All my love and best wishes-

Ss