Living My Best Life with True Clarity

This blog entry isn’t going to be knocking fad diets.  It is going to be about what I have seen over the past 13 years with working with clients.  As we know there are so many fad diets that have become popular over the years.  Atkins, Paleo, Low Fat, Keto, just to name a few.  Most people see success at first but sustaining it tends to be the problem.  I have tried a lot of these as well.  Most do work but realistically life is busy, we are in social settings where it is not always sustainable, so it becomes a roller coaster of not only fluctuating weight but also emotions.  I am just talking about what I have seen and experienced with myself and the many others I have worked with.  Over the last two years it seems that nutrition and fitness have really taken off as hot topics.  I mean all over social media there are trainers, nutritionists and people that push all different types of programs.  Kind of frightening if you really think ...

Do you ever get that feeling that a change is in the air?  I have talked a lot in my blogs over the years about walking through fears.  As the years pass by the less fearful I am.  I have done a lot of work on myself over the years to get to this point and trust me there is still work to be done.  The change of seasons, especially Summer into Fall, always brings on motivation for me.  I started school in September, knowing deep down I really didn't have a lot of time set aside but felt like it was now or never. Over the next year I plan on re branding my business and this program is just what I need to be in so that I can do it.  At first fear did creep in and I asked myself what if I fail?  What if I get to overwhelmed and can't handle it?  Then I thought about where fear got me in the past?  Fear brought me to a place of anxiety, insecurity, and self medicated hell.  I have spent the past 13 years working on all those defects of charac...

Over the past 14 months I blogged a bit about my struggle and journey with Lyme disease.  I always felt a little funny about it because it isn't always easy putting myself out there.  I went a little silent as my health slowly improved.  Over the past 5 weeks I have seen a huge progression with how I feel. I have some really long stretches of feeling really good and healthy.  After 14 months + of not feeling great it is huge.  I slowly started to forget about how sick I once was.  Then over the past 2 weeks I was blessed to have met another woman with similar struggles.  Then 2 days ago another woman reached out to me after just being diagnosed and the flood of emotion came back to me.  I hear the struggles they go through with Dr's…..how sick they feel and I realize I can't forget.  I really need to be helpful to others that are trying to find their way through the crazy world of Lyme.  It isn't always easy to be fully up front about a...

I started blogging almost 7 years ago after I had my first child.  I felt a bit disconnected and wanted to find a way to connect to other Mom's that were feeling the same way I was.  There are times I feel super inspired to blog and other times I don't.  So when I don't feel inspired to blog, I just don't do it.  Then sometimes things happen or I read something and it inspires me to share a personal experience or to feed you some info I find helpful or interesting.  With that being said, yesterday was just one of those crappy days from start to finish.  It didn't start out great and it ended even worse.  Sometimes I find when something sets you off on the wrong foot you can sometimes change the way you respond or feel and end up turning it around and end up having a good day.  Yesterday that did not happen.  However, today is a new day and I have a new attitude.  I am 2.5 weeks into being back on a more regimented schedule with...

Being a Mom and exhaustion can go hand and hand.  We always have to be on.  Our minds are always going, and we have a lot of things to do and remember.  Add in a job, and all other responsibilities and it can get tricky to get all the things in we want.  School is starting in my house this week and I spent most of my late afternoon and night getting ready for my week.  After an awesome Summer it is time to get back to schedules and real life.  One thing I find is having a daily morning routine to set my day up for success is important.   I can tell that it even works better for my two children when I follow my routine.  I am less stressed which leads my kids to be less stressed.  My night routine is just as important as my morning routine.  I promise you I don't do either perfect, but I know for sure when I follow it, life is much more simple. On Sunday nights during the school year I always make sure I have my w...

As some of you know I have been working on writing a book since last December.  What I will do with it who knows....but I feel like I have a story to tell that can help many others.  The past few weeks I have not written as much because some of the stuff I am writing about is tough stuff, but I know how many people I can help by writing it.  Something I talk about a lot is how difficult change can be for me.  It is not nearly as hard for me as an adult as it was for me as a kid, but I still see some struggle.  As we age a lot of decisions we make just don't affect us.  If you have a family it can affect your significant others and your kids too.  It is not easy to make certain decisions.  Over the past few months I have had horrible anxiety.  I have come off an extremely difficult year health wise (you can look back at past blogs if you don't know this) that kicked not only my butt, but also my husbands and children's.  Ov...

One thing I always try to be is honest with my clients.  They know that I can struggle like everybody else when it comes to food.  I have always been a foodie.  I enjoy eating healthy but I also like the occasional good cheeseburger and fries followed up with a bowl of Far Far's ice cream (or even a whole pint)  There is no shame in my game when it comes to that.  If you are not in the fitness industry I can totally see how intimidating it can be when it comes to nutrition.  There are so many different people selling different things.  There are different kinds of shakes, to eliminating food group diets, Paleo, Keto, ...the list goes on.  What is right, what is wrong?   I know what doesn’t work long term.  I have approached nutrition so many different ways over the past years with clients....some very successful, some not so successful. Long term lifestyle habits are definitely something I try to teach my clients.  You need to enjoy...

The past few weeks have been pretty interesting for me.  I have been living every day trying to stay as positive as I can but I need to keep it real.  Since I was hospitalized the last week of June, I have been living with constant headaches and dizziness.  I have had them on and off for the past year but they have intensified.  It isn't always horrible but it is always there and at times can be pretty intense.  It can be a little nerve wracking and it definitely can get in the way of living life to the fullest.  However, I will not let it stop me.  Tomorrow morning I will meet with a Neuro Surgeon to see if I need Chiari Decompression surgery soon.  If I do I really hope to get it over with right away.  Most people do not know what Chiari Malformation is...I didn't.  I talked about it in my prior blog entry.  The surgery takes anywhere between 3 to 6 hours.  The surgeon goes in through the back of the head an...

It sounds so easy when I type it out.  How can you train your mind to stay positive?  When you go through the hardest times in life, how can you soldier through and come out stronger?  I am asking for a friend...just kidding.  Fitness and staying active has always been my outlet.  I am writing a book about it now.  It has saved me through my struggles in my late teens and early 20's with alcoholism. Fitness also saved me through a dark depression with post partum after my second child.  That is when I started training for fitness competitions.  My son was 5 months when I started training for my first one and it helped me crawl out of that black hole.  It really did.  I got stronger both mentally and physically and I have to admit I grew a lot as a Mom.  I saw how strong I am both physically and mentally.  Fast forward a few years and my struggle with Lyme was the first time I couldn't turn to exercise to help m...

So I was planning on taking a longer break from blogging while I worked on some other things this Summer, but after speaking with even more people diagnosed with Lyme over the past month I had a few things to talk about.  First off, the amount of ticks in our area is out of control.  One of my brothers who was diagnosed with Lyme a few years ago on Martha's Vineyard has picked off 5 ticks just this week.  I was there this past weekend and watched him pick off a nymph tick the size of a poppy seed that was attached to his arm.  He has experienced how horrible Lyme Disease is and to watch him panic made me feel so bad for him.  I know its a sad case that we have to worry about so much in this day and age, but I can't stress enough the importance of checking yourself and children for ticks on a daily basis.  I don't like to talk about it to much on social media because I don't want to seem like I am preaching, but those that do read my...

This day and age it is more common to see women having a job of some sort instead of staying home full time.  Life is super expensive and it doesn't seem to be getting any easier in the future.  The one thing that is great about being a Personal Trainer is I can make my own hours.  The only tough part is the hours can be at weird times of the day....super early or at night is the most popular time slots for people wanting to get their workout in.  Although I am a morning person it can be tough to book those slots daily because of my husbands job and him having to travel.  I have always made it work but it can be super stressful having to ask clients to move schedules around or hiring babysitters at night.  As most of you know in the past year I cut my hours in half because of that exact reason.  He was traveling more and I was struggling finding balance.  Then getting sick with Lyme I was fortunate I had already cut my hours and I could ...

Lyme So I wrote this blog entry about 10 days ago and didn't post it.  I just wasn't feeling it.  I didn't want to be negative so I waited. I didn't want to post again about how crappy I was feeling.  I wanted to wait til I felt more positive and had some happier news to share.  I will catch you up quickly with how I have feeling since my last post.  I had talked about how I had an important Dr's appoinment in Boston coming up a week ago.  That appointment ended up really changing things for the better even though we got some bad news (if that makes sense)  I found out I have an Inflammatory disease on top of the Lyme and co infections but finding that out is now a huge help in getting me better.  The disease is something genetic that would have come out probably when I was much older but the stress of the Lyme on my body brought it out.  The good news is I have a great recovery plan in place for my Inflammatory disease with a great Dr...

Well it is Saturday which is awesome, but it is also another day that I am waking up feeling like something foreign has taken over my body and mind.  This blog entry is not meant to seem dramatic or to get that I feel bad for you from anybody.  I am writing it because people need to know the epidemic that is going on in our area that is not being talked about.  Now I am living it and I am living proof of a 40 year old women who went from feeling like I was the healthiest, fittest, happiest version of myself with a great husband and 2 great kids to a woman that has trouble getting up, has too many symptoms to list and is carrying something in my body that has turned my world upside down.  Frankly, I am pissed off.  I have always been an extremely caring person who has always wanted to help people struggling.  Whether it be alcoholism/drug addiction, cancer, mental illness or obesity, I have been a listening ear.  Well now I want people to he...

If you have been around me over the past 5 months you probably know that life has changed for me in many ways.  I have gone from an energetic, positive, and lively person to somebody that struggles to get out of bed on a daily basis.  Over the past few years I have had strange symptoms which I have sought medical advice for.  One being uveitis in my eye that kept coming back which has affected the sight in my right eye.  I always blamed my exhaustion and sore joints on a majorly active lifestyle however if you know me you know I take very good care of myself.  I don't drink. I go to bed early 7 days a week, I eat healthy and I workout (yes I know I sound boring) While I was in prep for another fitness competition this Summer I really started to get sicker.  So much sicker that after 8 weeks of training I had to stop.  For the first time in my life I started having headaches on a daily basis on the right side of my head.  So painful in December tha...

Ahhhh where do I begin? Why are we so hard on ourselves?  I see it daily, I hear it daily and I can be my own worse critic too.  Life isn't easy, I mean we all know that.  We all have hard times.  We all go through things that make us stronger.  Being a trainer and a confidant to many, I hear women and men being hard on themselves.  I work with women more and have worked with all ages.  I am a girls girl.  I love supporting other women.  I love building them up and helping them get strong.  I love pointing out their strengths instead of weaknesses.  I feel it is important to give to others.  If I could make every person in my life feel good about themselves I would.  A lot is expected of people these days.  Better and more are words that people describe when I speak to them about their goals.  We all want to look better, feel better, be better.  It is a great thing to want all these things.  I li...