Nutrition Archives - CrossFit Erie

Keeping the Focus

Last week, I wrote about hiring my first nutrition coach. I hired someone to give me a fresh perspective. I thought I was also hiring someone to give me some accountability. What I have really gained through these last few months is how to keep focused.

Websters definition of accountability: an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions

Your lack of success in nutrition isn’t your goal or motivation. It is a lack of where to focus. I am a coach. I give people nutrition advice, tips, and recipes for a living. I wasn’t lacking the motivation or even knowledge. When the day went south or life/pandemic stresses would come at me, I would lose my focus for a bit.

Websters definition of focus: to concentrate attention or effort

: to adjust one’s eye or a camera to a particular range

True change, in any area of our life, requires getting down to the root of the problem. Food, in and of itself isn’t the problem. Donuts don’t jump off the tray at the store into your cart. A second helping doesn’t magically appear on your plate. A glass of, insert your favorite alcoholic drink here, doesn’t poor itself at the end of a stressful day. If success came down to knowledge and motivation, most of us would already be successful.

What I learned and what we do at CrossFit Erie, is a three step process:

First- We need to define what your goal is. This is more than “I want to lose fat, or tone up.” We want to get a realistic and specific goal.

Second- We create a strategy. We will discuss a plan for you and teach you what a great day looks like.

Third- We give you tactics for success. This is where the focus comes into play.

What happens when you want the cookies? What happens when you’re hit with bad news? What happens when your business is mandated a second shut down? Having a coach becomes more than someone looking to see if you did well on a test. We are teaching you how to change your self talk, how to celebrate the small win of not eating a cookie today and instead grabbing a healthy snack. We aren’t sitting back checking boxes. Did they eat protein? “check” We are giving you the tools to succeed with the obstacles life will continue to throw at you.

If we just held you accountable, we would check in and see if you followed your plan. While this question might come up, we want to offer more. We can help you adjust your focus to your goal. We want to teach you how to put your attention not on the now, but on the end prize; day in and day out. A plan that fits your everyday life.

If you are ready to change your life through a nutrition overhaul, click here, then select free intro. We would love to share with you how to reach the goals you have always wanted.

Why Everyone needs a coach?

In case you aren’t aware, we are in a pandemic. 😅 This pandemic has been especially challenging for small business owners across the globe. While I feel like I handle stress decently; there have been many opportunities to exercise my abilities.

Most often when people look to hiring a coach, they want direction. I usually hear things like, “I don’t know what to do” or “I don’t want to hurt myself” . Why would someone who “knows” what to do need to hire a coach? For me it came down to one thing…..

FOCUS

Ironically, just two months ago, I would have told you I was hiring someone to keep me accountable. It is true that I needed accountability. As the owner of a gym, it is really easy to lock the doors after a long morning when you’re tired and hungry, and not workout. It is easy to overeat a snack food in-between a long to do list. It is also easy to go more than half a day eating 250 calories to be ravenous in the early evening. All things I was guilty of doing.

It is easy, especially in these times, to get stuck in a rut of telling myself how I am not measuring up, where I need to do more, or that once again I broke a promise to myself. This cycle is hard to break, that is why I hired a nutrition coach for the first time in my life.

I knew someone would be checking in on me and keeping me accountable. Looking at my entries in my fitness pal, and looking at my body scans, these are all things I expected. However, what I gained the most from my nutrition coach was focus.

I mean seriously, this is what I do for a living…. I knew what good foods were, I knew the benefit of a workout and I knew how to implement things. This almost worked to my detriment. Instead of giving myself grace and making a small correction, I would beat myself up for not making the right decision. Does that sound at all familiar?

If left to my own devises, I would have tried to change everything all at once. Then, when the week was busy and I failed, I would tell myself it was another week of not making progress. With a coach by my side the week begins to look different.

Instead, during a stressful week, I would reach out to my coach and give a list of what was ahead of me. She would then send back two focus points for the week. This was doable. Measuring my food, tracking every ounce, killing every workout, was not maintainable. Having two action points were maintainable. Because I only had to focus on two things, I also took them seriously. I tried even in the low moments to really check those things off the list.

Over the next few weeks, I will share with you some of my focus points. At the end of the day, we are all human. We do need accountability but beyond that we need to know where to keep our FOCUS.

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