Episode #325: 5 Tips for Staying the Course & Keeping Motivation STRONG

Intro:

Welcome to The Healthy Catholic moms podcast where we make moving and nourishing our bodies the priority, so that we not only fulfill our vocations, but excel in our callings. I’m Brittany Pearson, a Catholic wife, mom, personal trainer, and I’m here to help you build healthy habits that actually fit your life. I am here to teach you how to get the results that you want and maintain the results that you want. Without spending hours at the gym, or meal prepping all weekend long. I understand I am right here with you getting my workouts done in the nooks and crannies of time, looking up recipes, while nursing babies and trying to prioritize my own health amidst everything else going on. But I have really good news for you, you can get the results you want. In less time without doing hours of cardio and restrictive dieting. I’m going to teach you how to use strength training and eating in a macro balanced way to get you feeling so good and your skin full of energy, and strong to carry out your life. Okay, on this podcast, we’ll delve into how to lose fat in a simple, sustainable way. What your workouts and nutrition should look like during different seasons of life, like during pregnancy and postpartum times. We’ll also discuss healthy quick meals, and how to get them on the table make foods that kids will actually want to eat. Mom hacks for making your day run more smoothly, and so much more. All the while with continuous encouragement to stay the course and live with discipline. This is a place where we’re striving to steward our bodies. Well, in order to joyfully serve. I am so happy you’re here. Let’s dive in.

Main Episode:
Hey there beautiful people. How’s it going? As I bring this podcast to you, I cannot believe we are almost wrapping up July. I know we still have some time. So like, get us out of the month before we’ve fully been able to enjoy it. But crazy because this month makes it halfway through the year. So although I do not dedicate a whole podcast episode to revisiting goals or anything like that, I wouldn’t encourage you to take this time to kind of assess where you’re at with those goals you might have set or those things that you set out that you wanted to do this year. This is about the halfway through the year point.

So as I said that, I’m second guessing it so let me count January, February, March. April, May, June, July. Okay. Technically, I guess that was the end of June. Yeah, I was like, Wait a second. I think I’m a month off. Apparently I need to assess where I’m at. Because a month behind. But either way, it’s always good. I think there’s so much emphasis on starting the year and having these you know, intense goals and all these things. And then they can fizzle out actually, that’s pretty on topic with what we’re going for today, which is about staying the course. So maybe pop back I talked about it. I think back in March was last time I talked about that revisiting those goals and seeing what still applies what needs tweaking, you know, make sure you have something you’re shooting for. You’re not just in health and fitness. But in general.

What do you want to learn before the year is over? What do you want to get better at you know, just fun things to make sure you’re not being stagnant. Okay, we want to keep moving forward. Now. perfect segue. Look at that. It’s almost like a bye. Bye by being a month off. I brought us perfectly on to the topic of five tips for staying the course. Okay.

Being healthy is hard. Pursuing health is hard. It’s very, there’s a lot of low hanging fruit around, hey, it’s just easy to watch a movie. It’s just easy to grab processed food. It’s just easy. There’s a lot of things are a lot more easy and convenient than getting in workouts than purchasing planning for and cooking healthy food. And as humans, we want to do the easiest thing we want to default to what’s comfortable, what’s easy. And it’s not what’s best for us. Okay, so, and like there’s a lot you could say about that. I would even argue you know, some of these things seem easier at the time. But it’s not easy to be 100 pounds overweight. It’s not easy to have a really difficult time moving around walking upstairs like there’s a lot of things that on the other end of the spectrum are not easy if you were looked at it like that. It’s a lot easier to just get in a 20 minute workout every day.

Okay, so putting things into perspective here, but it’s true that it’s good we get tired we hit a wall we think like why can’t I just do what I want to do? I’m like this there’s a Justin Moore song that what is it? How does it go? Tonight? I kind of don’t care is basically the gist of it. I can’t remember the title but it’s basically about like how he’s been so good all week. Now he just wants to mix a little crown and his coke and have a little smoke and I’m like yeah, that’s no I do not. I don’t even drink crown and coke and I don’t smoke but you know that vibe is like have been so good all week. And I just want to say whatever. I’ve been so good for weeks or months and like I’m just like, we got to stay the course which is why our shameless plug for my own style of, you know, if you guys have been here all the time you’ve heard this, but if you’re newer, I always promote an 80/20 lifestyle 80% whole clean foods 20% treats, because it is just more sustainable. It’s easier to stay the course when you’re living balanced all the time.

So if Justin Moore just mixed a little crown in his coke on a Wednesday night, he probably do, okay, by the weekend, you wouldn’t feel like you need to cut loose so much, you know what I mean?

All right, number one. This is the number one tip actually, I didn’t rank them in that kind of order. But this absolutely is, this could be the only tip and I could turn off the mic and be done. But I’ll still probably talk for another 20 minutes. But here it is.

Number one is to have a zero option mentality. The person that talks about this, this is not my idea is Andy Frisella and He’s highly motivating, but highly vulgar. So I never say his name. I always say the one podcaster that I have listened to before I think is the first podcast I honestly ever listened to in my life is like 2015. And he had an entrepreneurial podcast. I just found it very motivating. I like his tell it like it is manner because that resonates with me. And that’s how I honestly want it to be. And I think I skirted around things a lot more when I first had a podcast and I just also don’t care. I was like, you know, I think I try to tiptoe too much. And if people you know, the people will be here who want to be here and probably a lot of you appreciate it felt like it is as well because that’s what I liked about his podcast. So anyways, he talks about all the time zero options mentality, where like people like Andy, I can’t believe you, you know, get up early and do work out. He’s like, What do you mean? Like you can’t believe it. Like I don’t have an option. I just You just do it. And I think a lot of successful people who have who are really disciplined and who have accomplished a lot of things in the way of like they set goals and they crush them. They usually have this attitude and live this lifestyle. This approach like Jocko Willink is another one I love his podcast, his books, and he’ll share openly that he gets up almost every day at 4:30am.

It ranges but no matter where he is in the world, like that’s his thing. He gets up he does his workout he does whatever he does in the morning, but people like Jaco, how do you do? Like, what do you mean? I just do it? You know, so this, I was just sharing with a friend recently who also listens podcasts. So shout out to you if you’re listening. We’re talking about you know, during pregnancy, she’s like, pretty, like, how do you feel motivated was the way she worded it she used the word motivate? I don’t know if she was the word feel. But it was something about like, how do you how are you motivated to workout while pregnant, because that’s something I’ve never been able to do before. Like, to be honest, I don’t worry about feeling motivated. Like it sounds stupid, it sounds a little bit actually stuck up. But I don’t mean it that way. It’s just I truly do not see another option. And you that’s how you have to act like if you give yourself a backup plan, you’re going to take it in pretty much anything. If you’re like, I need to run 12 miles today. But if I can’t, I can always call so and so to pick me up like don’t plan for it. Just set your mind that you need to do it. And you’ll figure out a way to do it, then obviously, if something crazy happens, and like because you’re brand new, and what if I break my ankle, right? Then you figure it out? And you’ll figure it out at that point, right? But in general, we have so many outs and so many Well, I could do this or we like bargain with ourselves and barter with ourselves. That just causes more decision fatigue like oh, well, if I don’t do my workout in the morning, I could do it later. No, you’re gonna do you plan to do work at 6am.

So set your alarm get up when it goes off. I’m sure you feel tired. I never want to wake up to my alarm when it goes off. Probably never ever, ever, ever in a day have I been like, yay. Like I do like the quiet. I do like getting up for that. But I’m never pumped to get out of bed or was off. So just this tip of having a zero options have been telling you will take you so far apply this to every other area. I don’t feel like praying right now. It’s irrelevant. How you feel is irrelevant. Like, you need to pray. So pray. You need to prepare dinner for your kids and your family. prepare dinner like zero options, and I now would eradicate so many bad behaviors to like, if you like, well, then I actually would have just DoorDash something I would have had my husband pick up takeout. Okay, fine. Like you have a really bad day and you’re like, I’m going to ask my husband and pick up whatever. Some people do that somebody will say it’s fine. I think the intention there and the context matters. Like if you guys plan for it, you’re you’ve worked in the budget, you’re alright with having a night out like cool, or you’re really like this is a once in a blue moon, you’re at your wit’s end kind of day, you’re potty training, you have a newborn, like whatever you call your husband, ask them to fast food. Otherwise, if it’s always in the back of your mind, you’re never gonna get your stuff together. You’re gonna be a hot mess all the time. So it’s like, oh, I didn’t get dinner together today. So we’ll just do like zero options. Don’t have a backup plan, just make it happen.

Okay, number two is can decide what I was either in the tips for staying the course is to surround yourself with good influences. Okay. I chatted about this a little bit in the episode recently about how to be the healthy friend if you don’t have a lot of healthy friends or what to do about that and My whole scenario I delved into this a little bit. Books, friends podcasts like surround yourself with motivating people. Like I just mentioned, Andy and I said obviously don’t recommend him because he’s like, so vulgar and things like that, that everybody would send me emails me like, I can’t believe you listened to him BrittanyYes. Okay, off and on. I didn’t for years, I didn’t 2015 That I didn’t for years. And actually recently I did again, and was like, Oh, you’re still great. But you also are still very vulgar. But, you know, books are huge. I talk about that a lot. Like if this is my I personally try to have different books in my rotation at all times. Like I usually have a book on either marriage or kids that’s usually either marriage or parenting, something like that. And then something on finances is usually in the rotation. Something on business might be marketing might be, I don’t know, sale, something like that. And then some kind of nonfiction I’m interested in or fiction like a memoir. I really like cooking memoirs, actually, to be specific. I do like historical fiction, too. But it’s been a while. Since I’ve gotten back into that. I think I my brain does not want to work that hard when I’m reading now. But did I even say health book? No, I didn’t. But that’s usually in there’s like some kind of, for me, in the beginning, it was more like a not a how to book but more knowledge based, like I wanted to read about nutrition and working out and workout styles. So I read books like intuitive eating or like
the flexible fat loss diet or something. That’s one all about macros. Like those kinds of things. I was seeking knowledge. Whereas now I read more things like inspiring people and inspiring stories. But that’s a really great way to stay motivated. The whole reason I read my 50 mile marathon last summer was because when I was pregnant with my third, I read two of Ross Edgley’s books with Thank you, which thank you so much, because a good friend and member of the chasing greatness group suggested his books to me. And she suggested the art of resilience. But then I went when I looked up and saw that he also had written the world’s fittest book. That was his first book. So I read that and then I read the art of resilience. They’re both great. And I read them both while I was pregnant, and was like, Yep, I gotta do something hard. Like right after his baby comes out, we’re doing something hard, which is not what I did. Because I recover. I do think safely. But then about a year later, yes, I ran 50. So keep things like that, in your rotation. You know, what is on our mind is what we think about it influences the way we act in our decisions. And it’s true when I’m reading a parenting book, all of a sudden, instead of being like, now my kids are gonna want me to play with them for the 900th time today. I’m like, Oh, what are you constructing with those Legos? You know, how do you think of that? Like, that’s really cool. Can you show me what it does or not? So voelkel Might just be sitting there observing them. But I’m more aware of what I’m doing parenting, I’m more aware of them, their developmental phases and how fleeting everything is if it’s like, sentimental mom book, like oh, man, like in my head, like, they only have 18 years with me, like, I’m already five years in that whole thing. So what we surround ourselves with is then what’s on our minds. Okay, number three, woo, I have been keeping these episodes short and sweet lately. So hopefully you’re liking it, I just feel like it’s a good vibe for summer.

Number three is to keep visible goals around. So if you have goals, that’s awesome, the more specific, the better. But if you don’t have any reminders of them don’t have any. You know, they’re just in your journal, and you never really look at your journal, then that’s gonna be a problem. So find a way to fix that. Maybe they are in your journal and every single day, you look at your goals before you start your day. I used to do that with I’ve talked about this a couple times on the podcast, I wrote in the front of my journal years ago, a little list for myself that said, like, yes. And on one side and no on the other side. And I wrote like, I think I did it the other way around. No. And then yes, so it was like no to constant cleaning my house yes to playing with my kids. Because that was a struggle of mine at the time was like always cleaning up after them. I didn’t have any designated times. And then I wouldn’t play I would just clean all day. And then like no to constant productivity, yes to recreation, all those kinds of things. And then I liked the list so much that I cut it out, and I glued it to the front of whatever my current journal is. So every single day, I look at that after I do my prayers, I look at that list. So I can think about what my priorities are for that day, and how I want my life to look and how I want to live. So same thing here with if you have different physical health, any kind of health related goals, you know, put them somewhere, put it on a post it put it where you’re gonna see it every day, put it as your phone wallpaper, you know, could be something like very straightforward, like eat more vegetables, eat five servings of vegetables a day, then you have to see it. Or maybe you make yourself a chart, maybe you’re training for something I did this last year with a 50 like made a chart of my mileage so that I could cross it off each week or just be mindful of it. It was like Oh man, I’m not gonna eat a brownie sundae tonight because I have to run 20 miles in two days, like I don’t want to feel that rolling around. So it helps drive the rest of our actions to see the big picture places. Okay, number four, this one. Okay, the tip, I’ll get out first and tell you where I got this one from pair your healthy habits with other things you’re already doing or enjoy doing. So this is gonna be really effective when you’re trying to establish new habits. This came from Gretchen Rubin, who is like an expert in habits. I’ve mentioned her books before. And she talked about, you know, if you’re trying to establish a habit, go with something you’re already doing, I teach my ladies this in the eight week challenge, when we need to input our food for at least the first couple of weeks, so I can see what they’re eating. And I’ll say, I know it’s new to you, you’re not logged your food before, it’s not going to be an established habit. So try to pair it with something you’re already doing. Like when you brush your teeth at night, then plug it in for the next day or every night when you make dinner. Go ahead and plug in the next day or every day, when you eat breakfast, go ahead and log the rest of your day coming up whatever something you’re already doing. I think this also can work for those of us who already have established habits to help us stay motivated and stay basically staying the course. So for me, this is like, I don’t do this often because I’m typically recording a lot of my workouts and things. But I used to let myself like the only time I could watch a show. I was really into great British baking show many seasons ago. And again, I think extra weird, but I haven’t watched in a while. But I used to watch great British baking show, ironically, while I exercised. Yes. It’s like watching the Food Network at the gym. That’s what I would do. But I would only let myself watch it then. So it’s like, okay, well, if I want to watch it, then I better get on the treadmill, get some walking in and things like that. You could do this with anything else, you know, just pair something that is healthy, and is going to move you in a good direction with something that you are already doing. Like if you’re going grocery shopping, like parking for our way, and things like that. Okay, lastly, tell somebody about your goals. There’s a lot of research to show that if we have accountability to someone else, if we’ve said it out loud, it’s going to cause us to feel responsible and feel that we need to be held accountable to whatever we’ve said, I found this myself, because last year, I was terrified to tell you guys that I was training for the 50. And I kept using the excuse of like, well, it’s just because if I get pregnant, then I don’t want to have to say like I was training for it. No, I’m not. No, I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to have to commit to actually running it. I wanted to kind of test out the training and then see how I felt. And then if I panicked, you know, a couple months before No harm, no foul, because the only person that knew about it was my husband. But I had to get away from it. I had to tell you all and I had to hold myself accountable. And it really is important. So no, you might not have a whole little network of friends you can chat about it with like I did. And thank you all for being my accountability. But could you tell your spouse, could you tell a friend, maybe you have like a workout group, maybe you’re in our chasing greatness group or in the beginning of the year, we shared with each other our goals, you know, those kinds of things, you have a friend that you can just talk about these things with and say like, Hey, I’m really gonna try to hit 20 workouts this week or this week, this month, you know, would you kind of like check in with me or hold me accountable to that, or can I like, let you know how it’s going. And again, probably a spouse or close friend or a sibling or something is going to be more than happy to do that for you. And a lot of times we don’t even need that actual external accountability, sometimes we just need to have said it and to know that somebody knows, rather than even the checking in as much as you can always work with somebody to, you know, I will do coaching calls with ladies, you can always sign up for one of my website is under the work with me, it’s all the way at the bottom of the page. And we’ll do a zoom call or sometimes you just do it via email, but get out what we need to get out. And then it’s somebody to check back in with I’ll check back in with them like, Hey, how’s this month going? Did you hit those goals we talked about last month, you know, to have somebody that you’re kind of reporting back to can be really helpful. All right, so that’s the list. Those are the five ways to help stay the course these have all helped me out from time to time. And we all need that we’re nobody is exempt from that. If you think that you’re the only one that goes through this year incorrect. And a lot of times I think we think that about people like oh, well they’re, you know, a fitness professional like they never get sick of working out or well this person really likes eating healthy. No, I’m sure other people that you know, get tired of it. I can attest for myself. Yes, I go through ruts I go through hard times just like everybody else. So test these out. I hope some of them work for you and help you out. And next episode, let’s say we’re talking about we are going to talk about you are in control of more than you think you are that’s gonna be really good one I’m excited for that. So make sure you tune in and check that out.

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