Hello there friends, welcome to the podcast. Welcome to today’s episode, and very special welcome if it’s your first time, also a special welcome. If you’re here all the time, none, you know, no less special if you’re here all the time. Thank you for being here.
I am excited today to talk about momentum and what that means for our health, fitness. And really our lives in general, the momentum is so powerful, there is kind of an art to getting the ball rolling, where so today I’m gonna share with you five tips for gaining traction for kind of kick starting and getting that momentum going. So I think this is so important because and there’s like a ton of research that backs me up here. So it’s not just Brittany Pearson thinks it’s important. But we as humans need to see that what we are doing makes a difference. Or it’s just, it feels futile, right? We’re like, what is the point? Like, like, we’re banging our heads against the wall. And I’ve heard this from clients before. I’m like, I’ve been eating healthfully, like, I’ve been doing all the things I’ve been doing the workouts. And you know, that’s an interesting conversation, because sometimes that is like, what they’re actually doing needs to be tweaked. Right, that’s maybe the person who comes to me who’s just doing a lot of cardio or eating low calorie and like, well, we got to tweak a couple things here, we got to get your strength training, we’ve got to balance out what you’re eating, and not just, you know, be so in one category, maybe up your protein on and on. Okay, right. Sometimes we need actual tweaks here.
But that’s, the thing is like, we need to see progress, we need to feel some forward motion, in order for it to inspire us to keep going, especially when we are giving up or feel like we’re giving up something in order to attain these goals. So I’m going to share with you kind of a personal example, because for me, this was not in the health and fitness world. Because when I started kind of getting serious, I’d say for lack of a better phrase here about health and fitness. When I, when I found strength training, I stopped just doing a lot of cardio all the time, I actually learned about body mechanics and whatnot. And then in nutrition, when I segwayed, from just eating what I thought was, quote unquote, overall healthfully to finding out about balancing my macros, things like that, when I was starting to do all of this, this was not an intentional like, before and after, like I’m going to start out and I worked with a coach or something. And then here’s me after so I didn’t know really to track where I was starting from picture wise or number wise or anything like that. So I don’t have great documentation, because people will ask that, like, if I share a picture that I’m you know, can scrounge up just a random picture from, you know, in a group photo or something from that can quote unquote, be like the before, but I do know that I had to be around like 30% body fat just because I took it once, somewhere in my early 20s. And it was around 30. And then I was like 19, or 20 at that point. And then before my wedding was down around, like 18% is like the lowest I have gotten, and then probably ever will get, by the way, so I have no desire to do the sacrifice that it takes to get back to under 20. I’m happy around 2021. But anyways, um, so I didn’t like document it, I didn’t have the traction, the quick wins, it was kind of I just was really intrigued by what I was learning and the process. And then in that time, was also starting to study personal training and group fitness and get certified and get certified and more things and specializations and get a nutrition certificate. So it’s just like a whole process. And I didn’t you know, maybe I felt better from my workouts or saw results along the way. But it wasn’t like, Oh, I’m down a couple of percent. Like I don’t think I even checked in that much. It was just all of a sudden one day I was kind of like, oh, I look different, like I look leaner, you can like see muscle more and things like that. So I don’t totally relate in honestly the health and fitness way. But where I do relate to this is actually in which probably relates to a lot of you still are around my age range and younger, and maybe older as well, but in the student loan department so when my husband and I got married, we had about $100,000 in student loan debt.
And you know what, it seemed like there was no way we’re ever going to be done with that full disclosure. We’re not totally done with that. But we are we’ve married seven years. And we have we’re down to less than a quarter of what that once was right and that’s like many of us through the seasons of having babies and doing this and that and you know, home things and whatever buying a house all the stuff right
but this is something that I can relate to heavily because if you do not see, progress, if you do not see, traction happening like that is just defeating to think like, oh my gosh, we’re steering up this mountain. And we are never gonna dig our way out. And I’m sure a lot of you can relate to that, because that’s a very common thing in our society today. But you might feel like that, again, with health and fitness, if you have 50 pounds, 100 pounds over 100 pounds to lose, like, Oh, my goodness, how am I going to do this? Well, we’re gonna get there. All right, we’re gonna get you started. And if you’re not looking to lose a bunch of weight, you can still apply the power of momentum to many other areas, even health and fitness to just in a different way, not necessarily fat loss or weight loss. So according to Merriam Webster, we’ll start there, momentum is defined as strength or force gained by motion or a series of events. So an example a wagon gaining momentum as it rolls downhill. Alright, so how we gain traction is by action, right? We’re not going to it says by motion or a series of events, we’ve got to start something in order to get going like, and that’s a huge, that’s a pre tip to the five tips that we cannot ignore the importance of, because the fear is so big, like just being paralyzed by Will I don’t want to do or what if, or is this the right thing, where action is the best antidote to fear we cannot. Like, once you just take a step. Everything seems less scary, right? If it’s back to that example, if we just sat down and made a budget that first time like, which we did, do you know those kinds of like first steps, it starts to feel less scary when you start enacting some kind of plan or move in some way. Alright, so five tips to gain traction here.
Tip One is you have got to start. Okay. Debt example. We just had to start paying toward it, right. So in whatever way that looks like that could be by cutting back on expenses, that could be by increasing income that could be both in the health and fitness department. Start something. Okay, so tip one is just a start. If you’re not moving at all right now, start doing one workout a week. Okay, if you’re not eating any vegetables right now, start eating one serving a vegetable a day, like it sounds silly. But you’re not going to wake up one night, most of us are not going to wake up and just totally one at everything. Some people’s personalities are like that. And sometimes you’re lucky enough, or I don’t know, consistent enough that it sticks. A lot of times, that’s when we see like the yo yo or the bouncing around, like, I’m all in, I’m all off, I’m all in, I’m off. But starting somewhere and building upon it is a really good sustainable way to do something like that, if you’re eating out five days a week, maybe cut off just one, get it down to four days a week, get it down to three days a week, like just start something. And then like, I’ve heard this example before with cleaning and organizing this same tip, like just start somewhere. And I’ve heard the advice given of start with what’s bugging you the most, because that kind of gives you a quick win. That’s what we’re looking for. When we’re talking momentum, we’re talking traction. So maybe if you’re like, I don’t know what my one thing would be to start in health and fitness, what do you think is gonna give you like, the quickest return so that you feel really good from it. I feel really good when I am eating three to five servings of vegetables a day. So if I’ve been slacking on that, getting back to that, it’s gonna make me feel less bloated, more energetic, you know, things like that, if I have been eating out a lot, then yeah, cutting out eating out, in general, just as my whole thing is going to help me feel a lot better right away. Because, again, we’ll be feeling less bloated and whatnot. So that’s tip number one.
Tip number two, is to keep visual reminders and revisit your goals often. So that example, we would keep a little tracker on the side of our fridge that showed what our loans were, what they came down to what they currently are, there’s lots of different ways people like to do this little thermometers or pie charts or, you know, whatever people have, you know, this is a whole, there’s a whole world out there that people get really into. I’ve seen people like paper chains around the house, that’s not us. But we do like a good little, you know, visual of what the sum was and what it is down to. And that helps me because when, you know, I think part of the reason that we don’t reach our goals sometimes is we forget about them. And we forget that our little daily actions are affecting that goal. So when I’m scrolling through Instagram, and I just get a bunch of ads for frowny face, they target me a lot, actually. Not that much lately. I’ve been looking up actually more clothes lately for postpartum times. Say you know, the comfy is PJs and the best lounge pants and whatever, whatever. I can think like, whoa, well, if I’m seeing visual reminders elsewhere in the house, like you’ve got goals here, we’re not just blowing money on the latest Instagram ad, right? So keep visual reminders. You can do the same thing in health and fitness you could do This with pounds loss if you are going for weight loss, not everyone needs to do that fat loss is usually more appropriate. But maybe you’re also looking for things like performance goals. So how many pull ups you got or push ups or how many miles you ran a gold date for something I just had a client recently who set a goal of like clothes size that she wanted to be at, for her an upcoming trip that was like six months away, so a lot of time. And that was a fun goal for her to kind of track and and keep a visual reminder of somewhere like where you’re at the progress, you’ve done all that. So that’s tip number two.
Tip number three, is to just just focus on your next step, and stay in your lane. This is like back to that mountain thing. We just looked at, oh my gosh, we have 100k in that. And we’re just staring at this mountain like, we might as well not even start climbing because it’s too steep, you know. So just look at the very next step, look at how you’re going to get to the next benchmark, get to the next if say your goal, one of your goals is like to be able to do 10 bodyweight push ups, and you’re at one like great, the next goal is to try to do to tomorrow. You know, it’s one thing at a time, when we take our eyes off and look at the whole thing. It’s overwhelming. It’s impossible. And again, for people who have, you know, a significant amount of weight to lose, or really need to change a lot of unhealthy habits into healthier habit habits. Step by step like work the plan of what you’re doing right now, when I work with clients, one on one, which, and healthy Catholic moms.com, you could book just a coaching call with me, just for a very limited time because I’m taking off on I have the baby of these. But we’ll come up with a game plan where you have like one thing you’re focusing on per week, week one, you are just focusing on getting your water intake where it should be week two, you’re focusing on getting your workouts going like one thing at a time. So it doesn’t all seem so daunting. And then stay in your lane stay where you’re at, watch where you’re going. It’s like if you’re running a marathon and you’re thinking like oh my gosh, I have to do 26 miles, no run the mile you’re in, then worry about the next mile.
Alright, tip number four is to use micro goals or daily lists. I am a huge fan of the mentality of just winning the day. And I’ve shared this before, it’s Andy for sellers idea, not mine, that you just want to set out to win the day. And then those days add up. And yeah, at the end of the month, you might have lost five days, quote unquote, and 125 days, but that’s still winning the month. Okay, because we cannot win every day every time. And I use by when I mean accomplishing the things that you set out to do that day, you know, and like, Oh, silly example right now, started drinking red raspberry leaf tea, for this third trimester of pregnancy. And I wrote it out. I think it’s September like September goals drink red raspberry leaf tea daily. And this and that couple of other things. I probably drank it twice in September. And then I was like, oh, shoot, okay, I really got to actually start doing that in October. So no, I do write that on like my daily to do’s and I have still missed some days, but I have one more days than I’ve lost. So that’s working towards you know, the goal of having, hopefully, a safe, quick healthy delivery, and, you know, recovery from that and whatnot. So, my neighbors weed whacking sorry, you probably heard that.
So use micro goals or to-do lists and micro goals are just, you know, breaking your bigger goals down to smaller goals. So if you have the goal of saying my client who needs who was trying to go down like three sizes in six months, you know, she would have every two months been hoping to be a size down, right? Or, for US debt wise, like hoping to hit different numbers by the end of each year, or by the end of each quarter by the end of each month. micro goals like that.
Okay, and last tip for this we’re getting traction here is to reward yourself for hitting milestones along the way. So for us, I shared in that example, you would not serve as well to have a money related goal. But some people do do this. I’ve heard on different, you know, finance podcasts and things like that, where they’re saying if you are working toward even a goal of paying off debt, to let yourself celebrate when you hit certain milestones like hit whatever milestone you were shooting for, and then you spend money to go out to dinner, or go away for the weekend or whatever, like take little kind of breaks to get your, you know, to just keep yourself in the game. There’s also another approach of saying like, okay, Don’t set yourself back from that. And I think in the food department. That second approach of Don’t set yourself back is better and personally that’s what we do for money as well. We’re not like yay, we paid off five grand more. Now let’s go, you know, below 500 bucks on Sunday. But all in good things, it also would be fine to spend 50 bucks go out to dinner to celebrate that. So I get that mentality. But say food and whatnot. Like if you I’ve used this before with clients or talked with clients about this, like a lot of us are extrinsically motivated or motivated by outside factors. So saying, if I hit all my workouts this month, I get to go have a pedicure. Now that’s a money related thing. But we’re talking back about health and fitness here. Or say, if I stick to my 8020 Clean Eating Plan 80% whole clean foods and 20% treats for this week, I will get to read a book and have a bubble bath at the end of the week, whatever, like that’s totally free to do. But if like say for example, yours was nutrition related, I would not make your reward food related is my point like, Yeah, cuz I have seen people do that I worked very briefly at a place that very strict nutrition plan for its members to follow. And I was not down with it. And it just was not a great fit. Because it was definitely one of those extreme like six week extreme transformation kind of vibes or eight week I forget what it was. But it had people eating very low calorie, very clean foods, no moderation really working out five, six times a week so that they could hit their targets and then they’d hit their targets. And then what a lot of people did, who needed to lose like 100 or more pounds, would do a six week one, then do a little like reward day, then hop back and do another six week one and like continue on and that till they got to their goal weight. But then majority of people who I saw once they hit their goal weight, and I wasn’t even working there long enough, but I already I was there long enough to see that most people cannot sustain that fat loss or weight loss beyond like a couple of weeks, because they were just in this, they didn’t really change. Well, they didn’t learn to how like how to be able to live with it. So that’s why I teach a more balanced approach. But I remember one member saying to me, like after Friday, like it was ending on Friday, and then away and like I’m going out and getting pizza and wings and couple pitchers of beer, and I’m thinking like, man, and then you’re gonna happen to this again, you know, next week, so I would not recommend doing that. But rewards are great. He could have done like, once I get to Friday, I’m gonna go golfing for the day, or I’m gonna go for a nice hike or something like that. Something else that he enjoyed that would have rewarded himself that was not, you know, ingesting a whole lot of calories by making himself sick. At that point, he wasn’t used to it. So those are my tips for you. I’m gonna recap them real quickly.
We’re talking about momentum and traction today. Number one is just start number two is keep visual reminders. Number three is focus on the next step and stay in your lane. Number four is use micro goals or daily lists. And number five, is to reward yourself for hitting milestones along the way. So I hope this was helpful. I hope it gets you thinking. Next episode we’re going to talk about what to do about cravings. And this is a very real conversation. Many of us battled cravings wonder what to do with cravings? Like do they mean our bodies missing something? Do they mean we’re just having this random, you know, desire? Did we see it or hear about it, all of that we’re gonna get into that next episode. All right, so until then, I hope you have a great rest of your day. If you want to join the email list, and for some reason you are not on our email list. Just you could sign up on the website for the free macro download that’ll give you that’ll get you on the email list. But you also could just DM me or email and I’ll add you over on Instagram if you want to just DM me it’s healthy Catholic moms. Or my email is Brittany and healthy Catholic moms.com. Every Thursday, I dropped new emails that are all recipes are full workout videos, all just fun stuff. And then you are the first people to know if I’m doing another challenge or have spots open up for something, that kind of thing too. But that’s like once or twice a month and the rest of the time is all just fun freebies. So all right. I hope you have a great rest your day. I’ll talk to you next time. Bye
