Exercise in Disguise

     Good morning!  I hope your weekend was relaxing and rejuvenating for you. Sunday I went on a bike ride with my hubby in my favorite park in the world, Forest Park.  We are so lucky in St Louis to have the park, and I am doubly blessed to live so close to it. To learn more about my beautiful park read on here. ( Side note...it is 500 acres larger than Central Park :)  The bike ride got me thinking about how much my idea's on exercise have changed in the last year.

   This spring I invested in a new bike. I was feeling healthier, and I knew a few flat bike paths in St Louis that I could manage. I thought biking would be a nice addition to my lifestyle transformation. People on bikes look healthy. So I was going with the "fake it til you make it" motto and started my transition into one of those healthy looking bikers I see on the trails in the park. Advance forward to this past Sunday morning, and several of the past Sunday mornings. Sunday morning bike rides are becoming a tradition with my husband and I. We ride into the park, do about half the trail, pick one of the many beautiful scenic spots to take a water break.  We chat, I do a couple of yoga poses, he finds a sturdy branch to do pull up's on and we take in the sights, sounds and feel of being outside. It's been a really nice way to start Sunday.  I have noticed the path in Forest Park isn't nearly as daunting as it was the first few times I did it. It's a nice gauge for me of my own progress to be able to conquer the science center hill without wanting to quit like I use to. It feels good.

     One thing I have learned about myself is that I get bored with "exercise" really easily.  Going to the gym and doing the same thing over and over day in and day out is daunting to me. Changing my gym routine at this point has been equally as daunting. The learning curve in front of a room full of people is still overwhelming to me, and I use to work in physical therapy! I know a thing or two about exercise! It's on my list of things/fears to conquer. But for now I am lucky enough to have my summer gym....the outdoors. I have a gym rat routine that I try to get in and do if I feel like I am lacking a little on my physical activity. It just wakes me up a little. But for the most part I pick activities I like and I disguise my exercise.  I walk A LOT. So I pick activities that involve a lot of walking. I hike. As mentioned in a previous blog, I pick places to eat that are in the neighborhood, and that have healthy choices of course, and we walk.  I like to walk after dinner if we eat at home (which we do a lot more these days). I bike. I am always looking for things to do that keep my body moving.

 My wonderful friend Jill added the following exercise ideas to my  facebook page, facebook.com/NaturallyJulie  earlier in the week.
   "Summer is a time for taking the workout outside and doing things that make you happy-there is exercise in gardening, playing horseshoes, badminton, volleyball, hide and seek, tag. Take your dog for daily walks and spend playtime chasing a ball.
Do your workout in your pool, or borrow a friend's and do it together." ~Jill


     It's really all about finding out what you like to do, and doing it. Physical activity should be as individual as each person. Even more important, physical activity should be enjoyable to be sustainable. I personally don't run. I have actually told people if they see me running please call 911 because someone is obviously after me.  But my sister LOVES running! It is her therapy. But she is not about the biking at all. My hubby doesn't like gyms but gets up an works out in our basement almost every single day. I have another friend that is a kayak fan.  I have another client/friend that is into Crossfit. (shout out Brian!) You get the picture. Adults need to play more!

     Being healthy isn't about "diet " and "exercise". It is about being consistently physically active and fueling your body well.  It's a lifestyle. You dont' have to adopt all of the lifestyle at once. Just start small. Do all the cliche things you hear about. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Park far away.  Our ancestors hunted for the meat they ate.  They gathered plants, nuts and berries.  We aren't designed to eat some of the "food" we are eating or the quantities we are eating, and to be so sedentary. Our ancestors worked hard for their food. I figure the least I can do is take the spot furthest away from the grocery store door :)


Exercise doesn't have to be this dreaded task. It's about finding what you love and doing it! What do you love?

 ENJOY LIFE!

Be a Weekend Nutrition Warrior

The weekend is here and that means backyard BBQ's and being social.  It also means temptation with foods that are a struggle for you if you are trying to loose weight, have diet sensitivities, or have foods that despite being able to eat (or drink) just dont' make you feel good. It's still a struggle for me too but I have found a few things that work for me when the weekend rolls around.

Make a Plan: The first thing to do is try to make a plan in your head or even write it out. Are you going to have a partner who you can go to if your resistance is low?  Do you know in advance what foods will be offered where you are going and can you plan on what you will eat in advance? Can you stick to "real foods"? Veggies, protein, things that haven't been in a box? What works for you?

Bring a Healthy Dish to Share: BBQ's are usually a pot luck affair. If you are bringing a dish, pick your favorite healthy dish. Make an amazing salad. Bring some version of your favorite healthy veggie dish. Make it something nice and cooling for the body for a hot day. Fill your plate with it when meal time rolls around.

WATER: Take a water bottle or a cool thermal cup and keep drinking water. Sometimes you are thirsty versus hungry. Sometimes you are just looking for something cool to put into your body on a hot day. Fill up on water before you eat. You will eat less and the water will keep your cell metabolism burning. Skip the soda. Save yourself the empty calories and the bone depleting phosphoric acid!

Plan a Treat, Not a Cheat: For me sugar is a real temptation. In the past if it had sugar in it I would eat it.  Sugar is addictive and I don't want to open that can of worms for myself again so I made a pact with myself.  My favorite sweet treat is chocolate and peanut butter. If I am going to treat myself I am only going to treat with something truly worth it. So unless they are serving chocolates with peanut butter I (85% of the time) skip the sweet treats out. But I do not skip treats all together! Once a week I treat myself to a little chocolate/ peanut butter concoction. Which leads me to the next tip.

Work For It. WALK! Once a week my family and I splurge on a small treat. We don't keep sugary things in the house anymore. Too much of a temptation and too many of us have bad reactions to sugar. But if we are going for a treat, or maybe out to dinner over the weekend, we pick somewhere that is within 2 miles from home and we walk there. We meet friends there. We see friends along the way and say hi. It's become a fun family thing to do! If you can't walk to and from your outing, make sure you fit in a walk or some other form of physical activity sometime over the same weekend.

Have Inspiration at Your Fingertips: What motivates you? Are you working toward a new dress? A new swimsuit? Is there an inspiring saying? Is there a picture of that fitness model you admire? Keep a picture on your phone something you are working towards and when you are staring a struggle in the face, whip out your inspiration and make a decision. Would you like to be a step closer or a step further from your goal? Make a decision and move on:)

Just remember that none of this is about diet, and it isn't about deprivation. Be gentle with yourself. Guilt and judgement only precipitate the cycle of eating, feeling guilty, eat to feel better, more guilt, addiction to what your eating, more guilt.  This is about changing habits over time. This is about planing treats and feeling like you are making a conscious choice when you eat, and not letting addiction and cravings make the choice for you.  This is about living a healthy lifestyle and finding the best version of you hidden under mood altering foods and drinks. This is about finding out for yourself what works for YOU and enjoying life!

How I Became NATURALLY JULIE

I thought the for the first blog post it might be nice to explain how I got to where I am on my health journey. 

This is me about 4 years ago. If you look closely you can almost see the effort I am making to hold my eyes open. I was exhausted all the time. Not that good, I just did a lot of physical activity, sort of tired. Just that mental, physical, tired I thought was "normal" for a busy mom of two kids.  I was cold all the time. It was hard to get out of bed in the morning. I CRAVED sugar. Anything sugar. If I didn't have sugary food I would walk into the pantry and eat brown sugar straight out of the bag. I was always carrying 15-20 pounds more than I wanted and unhappy about that. Maybe I was just tired from all that time I spent straightening my hair! :)




Some friends of mine came to dinner one night and they had done a detox and looked great! While I will say not everything is for everybody, this detox is just what I needed. I decided instead of being miserable thinking about my weight every day for the next who knows how long, I would be "miserable" for about a month and do the detox. It was strict and it was what I need. I am all or nothing personally.  I admire people who can take one bite of something and walk away. I am not that (yet).  So I did the detox and the weight came off. But even more than I expected happened. I started to feel clear headed. I had more energy. The strictness of the detox helped me identify habits I had with eating. Bored, emotional, because the trash can was in the pantry and every time I walked in I grabbed a handful of something.....It was crazy what I started to discover about myself. I felt so good I didn't want to go backward.


As I felt better I wanted more from life.  My head was clear and I knew that just existing and going through the motions wasn't going to work for me. I searched for some sort of spirituality and came across Kabbalah. The principles I have learned help me to remember that I am the cause of everything in my life. It also echoed something I had learned in massage school, which was, in giving you receive. I have learned the meaning of that working on my wonderful clients. Kabbalah started teaching me that I need to give what I want to get in life. That is when I decided to merge it all, my desire for health, my belief in holistic healing, and my passion of sharing a better life with anyone who is ready.  I signed on to become a holistic health coach.


This picture is me about a year ago.  I have dropped weight since but this is a pretty great picture of what my life is like now versus when I use to fall asleep on the couch every chance I got.  I started living my true authentic self.  I got back outside and started hiking and biking and doing things that made me happy. I found that the universe sent me people and situations that supported who I was now.  And I threw away my flat iron and embraced my naturally curly hair.  For me my hair kind of symbolized my journey from a stressed out people pleaser to being real me...being Naturally Julie. I will succeed greatly. I will mess up royally. But I will do it all being only me, naturally ;)


My future is unknown and exciting! "I am better that I was but not as good as I am going to be" :) I have big dreams to "be the change I want to see in the world" ~Gandhi  I want people to feel OK being exactly who they are at the moment, while working on being the person they are meant and want to be.  I want to be the resource where people can get guidance on living a more natural and healthy life. I want to open people's eyes onto the fact that feeling tired, stressed and struggling doesn't have to be a way of life. I want to  coach people back to the healthy happy lives they are meant to live.


I am exited you are with me on my journey. Whether it is reading, coming to hear me speak, or letting me be your health coach, I am excited we are here together!  I hope Naturally Julie makes a positive impact in your life in some way!


PEACE!