5 Steps To Change Bad Habits


1. Identify The Habit.

Is your bad habit consuming junk foods filled with sugar? Gorging on your favorite bag of potato chips? Cracking your knuckles? Engaging in too much social media? Working too many hours?

There are undoubtedly many bad habits out there.

Identifying and recognizing these bad habits and realizing how damaging they are to your health, longevity, and overall well being can be the first step towards change.

2. Recognize What's Causing The Bad Habit.

Understanding the triggers of your bad habits is crucial to understanding how to break them.

Is the trigger external, like someone chewing too loud, or internal like stressing over a job project? Is it a dirty kitchen counter, or the smell of your favorite dessert in a restaurant? Once you identify your trigger you can become more aware of the bad habit associate with it and then make small adjustments to improve.


3. Switch

Once you identify the trigger for your bad habit then you can begin switching the bad habit for a good one. This replacement of negative with positive habits helps fill in the gaps left behind. You must switch these bad habits with more positive ones to truly be successful. Examples of Healthy Coping Mechanisms (Good Habits) Are:

  • Going for a walk.

  • Snacking on veggies, instead of sweets.

  • Using Breathing techniques to relax.

  • Turning digital screens off 1-2 hours before bed.

  • Eating dinner at the dinner table (with no screens allowed).

  • Calling a family member, or friend to chat.

  • Creating a stretching routine every day.

  • Reciting positive affirmations every morning.

  • Drinking 12 ounces of water before meals.




4. Keep it Simple & Take It 1 Day At A Time

Make sure your healthy habits are simple enough to be effective. Don’t set your expectations too high. These habits take time to build. Give yourself 3-4 weeks to make these new habits part of your routine. You brain needs time to form these new neural pathways. So don’t be so hard on yourself if you slip back into your old habits. Just take it 1 day at a time.

5. Create a Supportive Team Around You.

Surrounding yourself with positive people is the key to your long-term success! Reconnect with childhood friends, join an online chat group with similar interests, or even start a fitness contest a work with your colleges. The point is to get rid of poisonous people around you and create a more positive environment for you to flourish in!

So if this means you need to do some “spring cleaning” on your Facebook account, then so be it. Life is too short.

Helpful Tips To Stay Active & Sane This Winter

1. Practice Breathing & Meditation Techniques at least 10 minutes a day. Try using Youtube Videos, join online yoga classes, or simply plan some time for yourself everyday to focus on your inner thoughts.

2. Turn off the TV, Tablet,Phone, etc.- Do yourself a favor and unplug from all of your devices everyday for at least 30-60 minutes. Nowadays there is too much tech noise all around us. Take some time away from your devices and go for a walk outside and reconnect with nature.

3. Commit to Being Active Everyday- Set goals for yourself every week and try and reach them. For example, try going for a walk for 15 minutes everyday, or riding your indoor bike 30 minutes for 3 times a week. Be specific. This helps you organize your thoughts and focus more on the present moment.

4. Plan Local Excursions with Family- Try and get out of the house with your family a couple times a month. Plan some fun hikes, walks, or local road trips. Catch up with your family and do something everyone in the family would enjoy. Experience everything your local community has to offer.

5. Create a Supportive Team Around You- Make sure your surround yourself with positive and motivating people. With all the negative things happening in the world right now, there is no room in your life for people who don’t support your healthy lifestyle. Join online fitness communities on Facebook, listen to uplifting Podcasts, or start a community forum with like- minded individuals. Make sure you distance yourself from the naysayers out there.

What The World Is Craving Right Now

In a social media and celebrity world, it’s can be hard to know how to show up.

Should you look perfect?

Should you speak flawlessly?

Should you show how you’ve got your whole life together – that you are truly one of the Jones’s?

I’m here to tell you that NONE of that matters.

There’s no one to keep up with, and in fact, people want the real version of you more than they could possibly want anything else.

The world is craving authenticity in a way we’ve never seen.

We’re tired of admiring the perfect wealthy celebrities.

We’re tired of the pressure of being anyone but ourselves.

I specialize in helping people change their bodies and get healthier, but not for the sake of those Jones’s…

No, no…

It’s so they can live their best, healthiest, and most vibrant lives for themselves and their families.

That’s what matters to me and it’s why I do what I do.

Vanity is secondary.

Authenticity is everything.

But the truth is that when you take care of yourself, you have more confidence to show up authentically you, whether it’s a shot of you and your significant other on a date night or you’ve just rolled out of bed after a sleepless night.

The world wants YOU. Both in your put together moments and your wildly imperfect ones.


What have you been holding back? What have you been afraid to share with the world?I encourage you set yourself free and step further into your authenticity by opening up and sharing it today, for better or worse.

The Most Giving Thing You Can DO

I talk to busy people and parents all the time that struggle deeply with creating balance in their lives.

They struggle desperately with guilt.

Guilt of never doing enough.

Guilt of not enough time with kids or their spouse.

Guilt of not having a clean enough house.

Guilt of not being fit and healthy.

Guilt of not being enough.

Can you relate?

So much of the guilt often stems from doing what it takes to take care of yourself.

We “should” ourselves so much that we have intense levels of shame.

But the least selfish and most giving thing you can ever do is prioritize taking care of you.

Because you taking care of yourself does not mean you’re neglecting anyone else.

Have you experienced this struggle? Have you overcome it or does it still linger anytime you think of taking that time to take care of you?

Let me know in the comments below!

When You Just Don't Wanna

We’ve all been there.

An alarm clock ringing too early.

Complete physical and mental exhaustion after a long day.

That moment when you simply can’t bear the thought of getting your workout in.

Those are the moments that we typically cave.

When we give ourselves permission to say “tomorrow.”

And the cycle repeats.

To make it even worse, it’s also usually the scenario that involves making quick, convenient, and often less than healthy food choices.

This cycle causes consistent weight gain, poor health, and months or years of shame and frustration.

It leads us down a road that can be incredibly hard for people to return from.

So, I want to tell you what will make all the difference when you have that experience of just NOT wanting to…

It’s doing it anyway.

Because hitting snooze and sleeping in or driving to the gym vs home after work is all a choice.

The key to serious success in most areas of life is feeling resistance and pushing through it anyway.

Because pretty much everything that’s going to give you life-changing results is hard work.

If it was supposed to be easy, everyone would be healthy, strong, fit, successful, in the perfect marriage, etc.

So, the next time that resistance pops up for you, OWN your choice, feel the resistance, and do it anyway.

The Hateful Eight

Dr. Cate Shanahan has been extremely vocal, especially since the pandemic hit about the havoc seed oils are wreaking on the human body.

She’s one of the topic metabolic experts in the world, and she knows a thing or two about how the human body functions.

Before processed food was a thing less than 100 years ago, fat made up a huge portion of the human diet.

But it was natural fats that do our bodies good – from animals and plants.

Since the low-fat crazes in the 1980s, we’ve been gradually eliminating naturally occurring fats from foods and replacing them with unnatural, toxic, chemical-laden oils and sugars.

Dr. Shanahan calls these oils specifically “The Hateful Eight,” and she recommends avoiding them at all costs to reduce toxicity and inflammation in the body, and thereby, reduce your risk of metabolic diseases like diabetes.

And she even believes cutting these oils will enable to you to combat the coronavirus with much more ease.

The problem is that these oils are in TONS of prepackaged foods from salad dressing to bread to processed foods to foods prepared in restaurants.

Whether you attempt to avoid these oils entirely or simply start taking a closer look at labels to reduce your consumption, I wanted to provide this quick list for you today from her website drcate.com to increase your awareness and enable you to make informed decisions for yourself.

These oils are:

  1. Soy oil

  2. Sunflower oil

  3. Safflower oil

  4. Canola oil

  5. Corn oil

  6. Cottonseed oil

  7. Hydrogenated oil

  8. Refined palm oil

Are these oils as harmful as many of the experts believe? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

The Hard Truth: Sugar is sugar is sugar

“But what about honey?”

 “I heard agave nectar is so good for you!”

“Coconut sugar is definitely super healthy!”

I’m here today to be the loving bearer of bad news, my friend. ☺

No matter how you slice is, all sweeteners are still SUGAR.

Sure, different sources of sugars are made of different compounds and interact with your body on somewhat different levels, but at the end of the day…

SUGAR IS SUGAR

And we can’t change it.

Sugar negatively affects our health from our waistlines to our teeth to our hunger, energy, & cravings all the way to our hormones.

Our biology simply hasn’t caught up to deal with this.

We eat more sugar in a week now than humans used to eat in a year just a century ago and it gets worse by the decade.

I’m not here to convince you to give up sugar.

I am here to tell you that there’s no “healthy” sugar or sugar substitute no matter how you slice it.

So, if you’re trying to reduce sugar or give it up entirely, there’s no real alternative aside from naturally sweet substances like fruits that also contain fiber.

It’s also true that the less sugar you eat, the less you’ll crave.

While you don’t have to cut sugar entirely overnight, every single one of us should be aiming to have sugar in our diet as minimally as possible for optimal health.

Be The Change

Did you know that research shows that literally just taking care of your health for a few DAYS drastically improves your immune response?

That’s right – healthy food, getting exercise, sleeping enough, and managing your stress for even a few days shows positive impact on your overall health and ability to fight disease.

Given that we’re living in a time where people are more acutely aware of their health and immune systems than ever before, I want you to know that it doesn’t take years or even months to turn things around.

Although no one likes living in times of a global pandemic, my hope is that people begin taking their health more seriously than ever before.

From the food they choose for each meal to the amount they’re moving their bodies each day.

It’s so easy to let life pull you in every direction with its chaos and busyness.

The gift given to us in all of this is the opportunity to slow down. To prioritize what’s important.

And my hope for you and your loved ones is that, like me, you value your health more than ever before.

That we all step up to take care of ourselves in ways that will not only strengthen our immune systems for immediate times but so that we can extend our lives and increase the quality of them for many years to come.

How You Think Affects Your Weight

We all know that a big part of losing weight or maintaining our health comes down to things like exercise, eating right, getting enough sleep, and managing stress.

But did you know that what you think also affects how your body looks and feels?Let me explain…

There’s a strong link between what you think and the outcome you achieve in any area of your life because of this sequencing…

What you think affects how you feel.

What you feel affects how you take action.

And ultimately, how you take action (or not) creates your result.

When you feel good and motivated and take action on all things health and fitness, you get a positive result.

And of course, the alternative is also true.

So, if you’ve been struggling, make sure to check in on your thoughts.

Do they support the outcome you are looking to achieve?

If not, remember that you’re in control and you get to choose your thoughts.

Be sure to choose the ones that serve you.

Is There Too Much Negative News Right Now?

In these crazy times, we have a drive and desire to stay informed.

We want to know if things are getting better or worse, if the lockdown orders are extending or lifting, and if everything is going to be ok.

Being plugged into the news is addictive.

Would you like to know why?

It’s because your brain is perfectly designed to protect the multi-millennia old you.

That’s right – your brain is confusing the danger of the virus and global restrictions with a saber tooth tiger chasing you.

Because that’s what it’s designed to do – to keep you safe at all costs.

And unfortunately, our biology hasn’t really caught up to the modern world.

So, we are all on red alert for danger like never before…and your brain is CRAVING the constant updates to know whether or not you’re safe.

It can be truly paralyzing.

I always think that knowing a bit of science and how it dictates your emotions is helpful so you can have a better sense of control.

My best advice for you is to stay MINIMALLY INFORMED.

Know what you need to know and turn off the rest.

And remember that news channels are competing for your attention, so the more scary and dramatic they can present their stories, the better for them.

Next time you’re feeling anxious through all of this, just remember the truth of what’s happening biologically and in regard to creating intentional hysteria – then turn off the news, get out and feel the sunshine, and remember that this will pass.

We got this.