What Will You ALLOW In 2017?

Hi Motiv8ers,

Now that 2018 is upon us, I want to share a word with you that will be my mantra to help me accomplish my goals this year.

ALLOW!!

Many of us have dreams and desires. What are some of yours? Is it to go on a huge trip? Accomplish a huge goal? Start a business? Become the person you have always wanted to be both physically, mentally, and financially? Don't be realistic...

Be UNREALISTIC!

What is a dream you have always wanted to accomplish and would make you so happy?

Think about it...

How does the idea make you feel? Did you get a huge smile just thinking about it? Did you get overly excited by just the thought of doing that dream?

So why haven't you done it yet?

Why do you feel like it is out of your reach?

Back in 2015, I had a dream to run a 100 mile race. But every time I thought about running 100 miles, I would think about all the reasons or excuses why I couldn't run 100 miles!!

"I need to be more financially stable."
"I want to wait until I have been injury free for a while."
"I want to wait until I have enough time to train for it."
"I just don't feel strong enough to do it yet."

Motiv8ers, these reasons were all limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs that I came up with on my own.  No one else told me these things. No one else was telling me to wait. I was holding myself back and resisting the process. In the beginning of 2015 I finally got fed up and told myself that I had to make this happen. So I decided that I was going to do it and I allowed myself to adopt the process to prepare for it.

That's all it took. Making the conscious decision that I was going to do it and ALLOWING myself to not resist the process.

I thought about the steps I needed to take. I found a coach to help me, found support to keep me motiv8ed, and every day I executed. I stopped allowing negative self talk to prevent me from taking action. And since changing my mindset, I have completed two 100 mile races. =) Yes, there were struggles along the way, but I stayed focused on the goal and I found the way to make it happen.

My big point here is that I made it happen! I didn't wait for the right time and I didn't wait for someone to help me. I MADE IT HAPPEN! Yes, others gave me support and helped me with getting through the race, but I was the one that put that support in place so I could accomplish my dream. I didn't wait for the support to come to me.

In Motiv8, I hear from many clients who are new or who have stopped for a while and are interested in coming back:

"I am scared that I'll be the slowest in the group."
"Everyone else will be in better shape."
"I don't want to hold anyone back."
"I have just been tired and can't find the motiv8ion to start or start again."

My answer to this is: STOP. Stop holding yourself back. Why are you letting negative thoughts control you? No one cares about your insecurities, but they do care about YOU. They want you to become the best and strongest person you can be. Everyone has insecurities from time to time, but not everyone lets these insecurities stop them from being GREAT. So stop resisting and just ALLOW yourself to show up and follow the process. Your Coach and fellow Motiv8ers will lead you and guide you to becoming GREAT.

Motiv8ers, be right there with me! Stop resisting and start ALLOWING!

So, Motiv8ers, what are you going to ALLOW in 2018?

Post below about your dreams and let's get this wheel rolling. First step is talking about what your dreams are. Come to SET and we can talk more about it.  =)


Crew, Stay EPIC and Don't Forget to Be AWESOME!

Coach Ty Out!

The Alternative To New Year's Resolutions

You probably saw Coach Ty’s post on how he was successful with New Year’s Resolutions.  By creating goals he was really able to make a lot of his dreams come true which is great and I for one am really excited to see some of the things he’s accomplished!  

As Ty mentioned, some people make New Year’s Resolutions and some people do not.  I personally do not. 

Throughout my life and career I have always been pushed by others to make goals.  In most cases focusing on goals for me has not resulted in success, especially the kind of success that others wanted me to have.  Isn’t the success I envision for myself most important though?  I have found that people find success in life via different pathways.  Many who are successful in corporate environments or mainstream culture, for example, are that way because they thrive on having structure and analyzing their behavior to identify whether it falls in line with social norms.  These environments are where goals (and in-turn New Year’s Resolutions) are most common and often most effective.

But not everyone identifies with that mindset.  If your motiv8tion is historically driven more by emotion and intuition connected to a sense of personal identity, you may find that the mentality you experience from goal-setting can be counterproductive to accomplishing what you want out of life.   

I used to make New Year’s Resolutions all the time then, one year I thought, “Why are you choosing now to make a change in your life that you haven’t chosen to make the other 364 days of the year?”  If I had the mindset to change something about my life right now in the moment why did I need to start in The New Year?  Why not START NOW?  I was always connecting a future action to a future date, meaning I wasn’t really ready to change.  New Year’s Resolutions were my way of trying to connect a lack of action to an outward factor that I had no control over.  I didn’t get something done over the past year or several years that I “needed” to so I decided that things will be different NEXT year.  But, everything GREAT I’ve ever done in life started by me JUMPING and making a decision right then and there to do it, not waiting for a sign or a meaningful time to start.  I immersed myself in the experience of doing it.  The time to start is NOW, even if it’s a tiny step just start doing the work!

New Year’s Resolutions are all about goals usually.  But goals often focus on what you don’t have.  Live life thinking that your worth is always in accomplishing the next goal and you never truly value your current state of existence.  I used to have a burning desire to have an attractive body, have people admire (or be jealous of) me, have accomplishments to brag about, have a high-paying job, have a brand new, custom-built house, have 3 cars in the garage, have nice clothes and jewelry.  Want to know what happened once I finally obtained those things?  MISERY…because someone else always had something better, because by focusing on what I didn’t have there was always a NEW thing I didn’t have but mostly because I never valued the process that it took to get there.  Instead I just made new goals for “more”.  I was never present.  See the trend there?

What about making New Year’s Resolutions TRULY made me happy?  My goals, much like others’, often focused on improving some part of myself that wasn’t a strength for me, which meant I was never focused on using my strengths to better my life.  I can tell you from my first hand experience that a life lived doing what society expects you to in order to be “successful” is a one-way ticket to UNhappiness.  I’ve lived that life…it was awful.  Goals give us the impression that what we have today isn’t “enough”.  We have to achieve more, we have to obtain more, we have to earn more.  Why can’t we give ourselves the respect to know that what we experience today can give us all the joy we desire!?

Check out the most common regrets after a long life.  Making sure these are never on my list is my basis for success in life, not whether I achieved a New Year’s Resolution: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/03/top-5-regrets-of-the-dying_n_3640593.html

    

Which brings me to my final point about New Year’s Resolutions.  What is your reason for making them in the first place?  Are you choosing to make a change that other people define a successful person by?  Or are you choosing to make them because it fits your values as a person and helps you follow your passion?  It should feel right to you, that gut feeling (your intuition) should tell you what’s best for you rather than analyzing your life to create a goal which may be arbitrary to developing into your best self. If you truly know your values and what you WANT out of life, you shouldn’t need a New Year’s Resolution to do the things you feel you “NEED” to do.  It doesn’t take resolutions or even goals for me to evaluate whether my actions fit into my vision of life.  That’s the beauty of knowing who you are!  Every time I’m pushed by others or by social pressure to make a goal I ask myself, “Does this fit with my vision for what I WANT out of life?”  If the answer is “no” there is nothing in this world that will make me accomplish that goal.  So, I don’t waste my time on it!

Steps to creating success for 2017 without using New Year's Resolutions:

1. Start NOW, there's no better time!  You're either ready or your not!

2. Identify your strengths and place attention on developing them rather than weaknesses.

3. Determine who you want to be, define values that support that person and constantly evaluate your behavior against them.

I have a confession to make:  I have been unhappy for much of 2016.  That unhappiness stems from constantly placing pressure on myself to create something that doesn’t exist in this current moment.  I have made goals for myself personally and for my business, telling myself that what exists now isn’t enough.  BUT, the reason I’ve made decisions for the past 5 years to live my “dream life” wasn’t to make a bunch of money or to be the “biggest” or the “best”, it was to share my wisdom to help other people that I know are struggling with the same life that I used to live.  I have allowed a constant life of “lack” to drag me down into a pit of despair over what I don’t have, not what I DO have that’s right in front of me today.  I have been so focused on making goals that it caused me to drop out of a race for the first time in my life, that it led me astray in prioritizing my business over my family and friends, that it removed my passion for the values I hold dear in my life in pursuit of a vision of “success”.

Unhappiness caused by focusing on what I lack or am not good at isn’t success to me.  It’s failure!  And if I truly want change in my life, the time is NOW, not in The New Year! J

How to Change Your Life in 2017

Whats Up Motiv8ers,

Today I want to talk to you about a tool that I have kinda forgotten about over the past 5 months.  I was going back through some of my old emails and I came across an email that I wrote at the end of last year entitled, "How I changed my life in 2015."

I clicked on it instantly forgetting I had even wrote it.  Reading it brought tears to my eyes because it reminded of just how passionate I was about setting goals and not letting anything stand in the way of what I wanted to accomplish.  It reminded me of how aggressive I went after my dreams in 2015.

Reading this email got me fired up to get off my butt and start getting ready for 2017.

Motiv8ers this email was about New Year Resolutions and about what I did at the end of 2014 to make 2015 such an EPIC year.  2016 has been just as special but over the past few months I haven't been following the steps below that I followed every day in 2015.  

Check out the story about my 2015 below....

How I changed my life in 2015!
 
  All through out my life I have never been a person to set New Year Resolutions.  Every one around me just always complained about how they would set a few but would always fall off after just a few weeks.  So I labeled it as rubbish and went into each new year without much direction.  I just lived day to day just wondering what my future was going to look like not really taking control of my life.  Yeah I have accomplished a little bit.  Received two bachelor degrees, joined the Army, ran a few marathons and ultra marathons, and later became a group fitness trainer.   But I always felt kinda lost not really understanding what exactly I wanted to do with my life!
   
Then around the middle of 2014 something clicked.  I started paying attention to a ton of podcasts and self help audio books.  I used to think these things were rubbish as well but the people around me kept pushing me to pay attention to them.  So I did.  After a few months of listening and studying I began to notice that they all started to say the same thing! 
   
If you want to be successful and live your Dream life you have to first know what that dream life looks like and what is it that you want to accomplish.  If you don't know what you want.... how are you ever going to figure out what to do or how to be successful!
   
So I asked myself what did I want?  That was a really hard question.  It felt like I had never asked myself that before.  But for the Next two weeks I asked myself every day.  Then on New Years Eve, before 2015, I wrote all of those wants and goals down.  I took two big poster boards and wrote down everything that I wanted to accomplish and posted them up on my wall.  Check it out.....

 

These posters have been on my wall all year.

 

Then Motiv8ers over the next year I practiced these steps every day!

 

1. Decide what it is you want to accomplish in all areas of your life  
2. Write those goals down and put them somewhere where you can see them every day  
3. Review them every day for at least 5 minutes.
 4. Figure out what you need to learn and practice daily in order to accomplish your goals!
 
  So what happened?.........
 
2015 became my most productive, emotional, EPIC, painful, roller coaster ride, Enjoyable, Loving, rewarding, exhausting, Exciting....year of my whole life!...... 

NEVER IN MY LIFE HAVE I LIVED AS MUCH AS I HAVE IN 2015.
   
Crew I have made some friggin amazing relationships, I ran a 100 mile race, Been killing it in other races, went on some killer trips to the mountains, have met some of my closest friends, found a life that I love, I feel the drive to try and help as many folks as possible, and the biggest accomplishment so far is......Building a business with my closest friends.   

Motiv8 has been a dream come true.
 
Crew my biggest year ever in my life all started with me writing down my goals on two poster boards and posting it up on my wall and looking at it every day!
 
Did I accomplish every thing I put on my board.  No.....But that doesn't mean I am going to stop trying.  That goal just might take a little longer than the others.  =)

So take your 2016 New Year Resolution planning seriously.  I sure am. 
 
 I am going to put even more details and goals down this year and see what I can make happen in 2016!
   
Crew if you found this message helpful then please check out this quick video from one of my Idols Brendon Burchard on how to learn Faster!  Promise you will love it!  

 
   
So Crew are you going to SET some New Year Resolutions for 2017?

You should!!

But don't just mentally say to yourself on New Years Day I am going to do this or that.  Start now with reflecting on your year.  What went well?  What didn't go well?  Then over the next two weeks start writing out your dream life.

This is important.  What is your DREAM LIFE?  Ask yourself every day for the next two weeks and each morning for about 5 minutes sit down and write out what your dream life would look like.  Then write down what you would have to do every day to make that dream life happen.

Then, when New Years Eve comes, write all of those goals, dreams, and daily tasks down and once New Years Day hits, you take off running.  Every day for about 3 to 5 minutes remind yourself and look over those goals so you can generate the Motiv8ion you need to take action daily on making your dream life happen.

Motiv8ers that is what it takes to get Motiv8ed for 2017 and make EPIC SH$T Happen.  =)

Crew if you found this post motiv8ional then post below and let us know how you set your New Year Resolutions.

Lets Stay EPIC Together.

Crew Stay EPIC and Don't Forget to Be AWESOME!

Coach Ty Out!

 

What Motiv8es You? December Challenge!

Whats up Motiv8ers.  

Lets make December our most EPIC month to date.  And, we are going to do that with a new challenge.  Check it out below.


Crew the holiday season is here and for many of us Lazy Town has it's full grasp on us. Especially just coming off of Thanksgiving break.  Holiday breaks can make jumping back into your normal routine of exercise and clean eating darn right hard and a chore.  But, if you have a couple of tools in place to help jump start you back on track, once those breaks are over, then your chances of falling off the EPIC Train drop drastically.  

But, we have a problem.  What tools am I talking about?  How do you find a tool that works for you?  Everyone is different and what motiv8's one person might not work or motiv8 another.

So, that is why this month's challenge is called 'What Motiv8's You?"

What Motiv8's you to stay on track and stay motiv8ed towards making your body super healthy.

Like I said above everyone gets motiv8ed differently.  So what works for me might not work for you but it is so important that you find a tool that helps you stay on track and motiv8ed so you can stay EPIC and CONSISTENT over the most busiest time of the year that usually sends everyone to Lazy Town.

So here is the Challenge.  Starting tomorrow I want you to think back on your past and think about what fired you up to conquer your day.  What helped you get motiv8ed to workout consistently and eat healthier in the past.  Was it a friend? Was it signing up for a race? Was it being healthy for your family?  Was it dropping a few pounds?  Find that Motiv8ion again.  Then write it down.  Next, think back on how you stayed consistent on your new workout routine and eating habits.  Did you create a schedule? A calendar? Did you have an accountability buddy? Did you have a goal vision board?

What ever it was revisit those tools.  Now if you can't think of any tools then make sure you make it out to your Motiv8 SET this week and next.  Our Motiv8 Coaches are going to make an effort to talk about this with you and share what tools Motiv8 them and helps them stay consistent.  Also, in the Motiv8 Blog we will be trying to share a few tools from each of the Coaches over the next few weeks.  Once you have your tools share those tools with your fellow Motiv8ers at your Motiv8 SET.  use them to help you stay consistent to your new accountability tools to help you stay consistent to working out and eating right.

Alright Motiv8ers before I let you go I want to share with you what my tool is.  But first I want to share a passage from a book I am reading.  This addressed I problem I didn't know I had.   The book is called "How to Be Here" by Rob Bell.  It states this.

"In a moment I am going to say a word. And when I say it, I want you to notice your first feelings that comes to mind.  Ready?  INBOX!   Were you instantly at ease?......probably not. If you are like me then your first thought to that word is a number.  The number of emails that have come in since you last checked your inbox.  Emails are stacking up as you read this book.  Emails you will respond to later.  You see what just happened? In a course of a few sentences. You went from interacting with this book but also thinking about your emails which you will deal with in the future. When do you deal with your email? All the time? Three times a day? Constantly? Is how you spend your day determined by who sends you emails when they send them? or do you have set times when you deal with your email?  When is your Cell Phone on or off? When can people get a hold of you? When are you working and when are you not working? Creating a life worth living is understanding that you have more power over your time then you realize.  You create the rhythm that helps you do the work that you are here to do.  Everyone I know who has been on their path for a while, and is successful, has details and routines that they take seriously."  Rob Bell 

 The problem it addressed was...... I just didn't feel in control of my time once reading that passage.  

I am already a pretty structured individual with following a calendar, eating right, and working out regularly.  But, after reading this I wanted to take it a step farther. 

First a got a notebook.

 Now here is my challenge.  Every Sunday I plan on writing out my projects for the week.  Then every night I revisit that list and then write out my schedule for the next day.  I want to write out every hour and what I am going to be doing during that hour.  My goal is to only do one thing during each of those time frames.  I am a horrible multitask er and when I try I never get anything done.  So to be more productive I want to plan out when I workout, when I eat, what I eat, when to do emails, when to relax, when to run.  I want to take all of my guess work out of my day and make sure that what is important to me gets done so I don't procrastinate.   I am starting tonight.  So lets see how this works on getting me even more productive.



Crew by me sharing this I want you to help me stay accountable to my goal and I hope you do the same so I can help you.  Share below or share at your Motiv8 SET what tools you are using to help you stay motiv8ed over this holiday season.

Crew do you accept the Challenge? Lets do this!

Lastly Crew, I want you to check out this short Tedtalks video.  It is really interesting and reinforces the fast that in order to stay motiv8ed you need a goal or something to work towards.  Check it out.

Why some people find exercise harder than others | Emily Balcetis

 

 Crew that is all for today!

Stay EPIC and Don't Forget to Be AWESOME!

Coach Ty Out!

Only A Sith Deals In Absolutes!

Hey Motiv8ers!

I've got to share something with you all...

I told myself for the month of November that I would not eat any free sugar.  I had an idea that the absolute removal of free sugar from my diet could jumpstart me back into focusing on my ultramarathon training and healthy eating habits which have both suffered because of my focus on Motiv8 as a business.

So what has happened?  Well some would say I have been UNsuccessful! 

I look at it more fluidly than that.  While I fully support the concept of creating healthy habits and sticking to them, I have come to the realization that my goal, which was grounded in an absolute, was flawed and unreasonable in the first place. 

Why couldn’t I see that I could still be healthy and successful in my training while having a little free sugar (World Health Organization's suggestion is no more than 25g per day) in my diet?  Why did I let myself get caught up in a goal that wasn’t based in any realistic regular habit?  There was no way I would stick to this long term, so what was I proving to myself or even others?

My idea of ZERO free sugar was an absolute and one sure way to fail at things in life is to focus on absolutes which are often developed from an egotistical standpoint.

I let my ego determine my actions, which in my experience in ultramarathons is RARELY a winning strategy.

But we do this all the time:

I will absolutely not eat sugar

I will absolutely not eat anything that doesn’t fit into my diet

I will absolutely only train the way I think is right

I will absolutely never talk to that person again

I will absolutely not allow viewpoints different than mine

I will absolutely disagree with anyone else’s ideas about how to solve a problem

Here’s the problem with absolutes: absolutes create a black and white lense thru which we see the world.  If it doesn’t fit into our philosophy or with our “camp”, more worryingly, it’s wrong.  If it isn’t what we have experienced or want to see it’s wrong.  If we can see it on the surface and don’t like it, we reject it or do the opposite instead of being curious about what value might lie below the surface.

Not only do we do this to ourselves but we let others' idea of absolutes control us into making decisions that may not be best for our unique circumstances!

This looks a lot like another common problem those “OTHER” people have: close-mindedness.  It’s one of the ugliest and least likeable characteristics a person can possibly possess.

Now…before we start to pat ourselves on the back for being open-minded, think about how YOU view the perspectives of others who see the world differently than YOU DO!  Can you accept that a perspective that isn’t the same as yours or your friends’ has merit?  Can you even differentiate between a person’s ideas and their personal character? 

If not, perhaps you aren’t as open-minded as you want to give yourself credit for?

Some of us get so caught up in our idea of the right way to do things that we undermine, mock or even hurt others to assert our point of view.  When we do this we often lack the realization that WE ARE close-minded by failing to see our lives and circumstances from others’ perspectives.  We dismiss what other people say or do as close-minded without even acknowledging that we are being closeminded ourselves for not accepting their reality.  It can be especially dangerous when we refuse to accept that someone other than ourselves could have a life experience that makes them a valuable source of knowledge, wisdom or the prevention of our own future mistakes.

Why would we let our ego allow us to refuse the advice of someone who only wants to see us succeed?

Go forward in life with the understanding that while you may have learned a lot, there is always something you don’t know.  Even experts (with an open-mind) can discover something new, now and again.  Like discovering that a ZERO free-sugar diet is miserable and unrealistic!

Replace your thoughts of what is right or wrong with a true sense of curiosity and watch how quickly you grow!


~Coach Joe

How to Adopt a New Habit.....Breakfast Recipes!

What's Up Motiv8ers,

Coach Ty here with another Motiv8ing blog post.  I have some great stuff here to share with all of you and then some recipes down below.  So check it out!!  =)

First Motiv8ers this week in my SETs I've been talking about how to be successful with our November Motiv8 Challenge.   With our November Challenge under way there are a ton of habits and actions we are trying to adopt.  But it is hard to adopt a new action or habit when our bad habits or addictions are so ingrained into our daily routines.

Even I have been struggling with counting my calories everyday and making my green smoothies.  So I thought this would be a great time to bring up the habit talk again.

So Our topic for today is how to Adopt a New Healthy Habit!!

In order to conquer the bad you have to first adopt the GOOD!  Before I go any farther let me ask you some questions.

 All of you want to be successful right?.....  
-You want to be strong and healthy  
-you want your business to be running smoothly  
-You want your relationships to be strong
-You want to be happy, positive, and so full of awesome energy.
   
We all want those things and many of you might be living your dream already which is so great.  But many times many of us just are not as successful as we fill like we should be.  We know how to be successful but we can't seem to get the work done or adopt the discipline to make our dreams happen.

Why is that?  What is holding us back?

Well Motiv8ers take a moment and watch this video from Bob Proctor that talks about how our results and actions are caused by our daily routines and habits.  If you don't have daily habits and routines that support what you are trying to accomplish then you will not be successful.  Check out the video below:

Ok now that you recognize you might have some bad habits that are not supporting you, lets now talk about how to adopt some new ones.  But doing that is difficult and it takes a lot of mental strength to force yourself to make a new change to your daily routin
Well Crew that is why Motiv8 is here.  Check out this tool. 

Set up Trigger Moments.......
 
Do you know what those are?  If not find 10 minutes in your day today to watch this short video.....

Trigger Moments use an existing habit, an alarm, or an object to remind you to do your new habit.

And The best triggers you could set up are.........Alarms or Reminders on your phone.

Here is an example....Lets say your new habit is to make healthier food choices at lunch time when you go out with work friends.  Set up a daily reminder on your phone that says 'Make a Healthy food choice today' and it goes off 5 minutes before your lunch break.

Sounds simple and silly right but it will work. 

Set up little reminders all throughout your day to help you stay on task.

It is important to your success that you have daily habits that you practice consistently that will help you to reach your dreams!

Motiv8ers take this message to heart because it has helped me so much with my diet and my training for my races.  If you have questions post below.

Alright last thing Crew.  Lets talk about some RECIPES!!!  =)

 Remember each week I am trying to find recipes of dishes that are usually extremely bad for you but find a much more healthier options.  Check this out.

Today I found a meal that everyone loves for breakfast.  PANCAKES!  Now this is definitely a processed food and your green smoothies are a much better choice but if you are going to make them for your family then this recipe is a great option.

Spelt-Blueberry Pancakes

But if you want a meal that is super energizing in the morning check out this quinoa bowl.

Hot Lap Bowl 

Motiv8ers that is all for today.  if you have any recipes that you love please post below.  Also if you are loving these topics post below as well.  If you have any topics you want us to focus on please post below.  Your feedback is so important to us and will only help you grow stronger.  So send us your thoughts!

Alright Crew Stay EPIC and Don't Forget to Be AWESOME!

Coach Ty Out!

P.S....Take these tips to heart and try the RECIPES!! 

Ty's Personal Experience with the Clean Eating Challenge

Motiv8ers,

Today's blog post is a reflection on how I did with October's 28 Day Motiv8 Clean Eating Challenge.   Was it easy for me? NO!! Did I have some struggles? YES!

Am I going to say some embarrassing things in this post?  Embarrassing from my point of few? YES!

Crew check it out. But first.....

How did you do?  Did you do the challenge? Did you try to conquer some bad habits by bringing in some good habits?  If you tried out the challenge please post below and share your experience.  Let us know if it helped you or not?  If you forgot about the challenge, or didn't see it, then check it out here:

28 Day Motiv8 Clean Eating Challenge!

Alright Crew lets get into the dirt.

Note:  Motiv8ers I am going to share some details about my way of living that is a little embarrassing for me but I am definitely not shy to share.  If you feel like commenting on this post please do no matter what you want to say.  Feel free to be as blunt or as open as you want.  We are here to support each other and help each other grow.

Ok lets get started........

Before October hit I new I wanted to start a food challenge with Motiv8.  A challenge that would  push folks to make some positive changes in their eating habits and get people really uncomfortable.  And through this want, I developed the 28 Day Motiv8 Clean Eating Challenge.  I was so excited to launch this challenge with everyone.  It was definitely the biggest challenge we have done with Motiv8 to date.  But, little did I know that this challenge was going to push me as well.  On October 1st I fully excepted the challenge 100% and my struggle began.  And oh was it a struggle!

Ok, before I go any further let me lay out my history for you.  Before the month of October, before the food challenge started, I was not a food prepper.  I lived day to day.  Meaning I would only buy my food for that day and wouldn't prep for the next.  As many of you know I do eat healthy and my diet was good for the most part but, there were a few problems which I didn't really consider were problems at the time.  But through this challenge I found out that they were a problem.  Those problems were....

1. I bought a lot of pre-made food like vegan burritos, stuff from whole foods salad bar, central market salad bar, expensive granola, and canned soups.  These items can be healthy depending what you pick but the problem was that they are crazy expensive and really eat up the checking account.
2. I ate out almost every day after my 7pm Ramsey SET.  I would either go to chipotle, Zens, Casa de Luz, and sometimes Tacodeli in the mornings to get a meal.  These meals are healthy but eating out for at least one meal a day started to really add up in the check book.
3. Almost every day after my 7:30a Ramsey SET I would go to Central Market to grab food for the day.  The problem here is that instead of having food ready to go I would waste some of my day and time by going to the grocery store.  I have learned through this challenge just how valuable food prepping is now on my schedule.
4. I found myself relying on sport energy foods to help keep my energy up through out the day.  Sport food like caffeinated running gels and the Clif Shot bloks, which are gummy chews.  I got in the habit of eating a whole package of the shot bloks once before my 5:30a SET and before my 5p Zilker SET.  Not because I needed it but because it became a habit and eventually an addiction that I developed through using them for my running workouts.  I found myself eating 2 to 3 packages of these things a day.  Not only is that expensive but they aren't the healthiest of things either.  And on top of that I started to get addicted to the caffeine.  When I didn't eat them I found myself getting a small caffeine headache.  
   
   
   
   
   
   So the problems here were time management, spending way to much money on food, not eating as healthy as I should and trying to shake a sugar and caffeine addiction.

Here is how I did.

First Week....EPIC FAIL!.....So that Monday I told all of you at our motiv8 SET that I was taking on the challenge 100%.  But I didn't do any planning or prepping.  I thought I could just go to the store, buy some fruit for the day, and everything would be great.  But as Monday and Tuesday rolled by I just wasn't getting in enough calories because I told myself not to eat the items in problem number one.  By the end of Tuesday I was extremely exhausted from not eating enough and I gave in and went to Chipotle for dinner.  Then the next morning I was still worn out. No energy and not feeling great plus the headaches from no caffeine started sitting in.  Then I did what most do when things get hard I broke the challenge.  I bought some vegan burritos and ate a package of shot bloks.  I said I would get back on the challenge tomorrow and I just needed to eat these things to relieve some stress.  I was stress eating!  WHAT!?!?!  I've never seen myself as a stress eater.  I couldn't believe I did that.

That Wednesday afternoon I realized I had some problems.

So what did I do next?  First I acknowledged what my problems were.  Then I told myself that I had to make some changes.  Lastly, I got out my calendar out and a notebook and started planning.  Here are the steps I took in that moment.

1. I wrote out the foods and meals that I knew I could cook and prepare that would sustain me for at least 3 days. I also made sure that these foods fit into the Clean Eating Challenge guidelines.  The bulk of my diet over these past few weeks consisted of bananas, dates, oranges, strawberries, lemons, sweet potatoes, brown rice, pinto beans, black beans, lentils, Swiss chard, spinach, salsa, raisins, avocados, carrots, and hummus.  Here are some pics of the meals I ate.
   
   
   
   
2.  I then mapped out how much food I would need to buy to sustain me for 3 days.  How many bananas do I need to buy.  How much potatoes, rice, and beans do I need to buy.  I worked hard on the details so I had a plan once I entered into the grocery store.  Note: Crew if you know me I don't count my macros.  But I do count my calories.  I believe that as long as you eat real whole foods with no process junk and you eat enough calories from great nutrient dense foods, all of your macros will fall into place and you will see the results you are looking for.  But the key to this way of eating is you have to take out the junk.  100%. Below is three days of food that I bought on a Sunday. 
   
   
3. I wrote into my calendar and schedule when I was going to go to the grocery store and when I was going to cook my food.  It came down to shopping on Sunday and Thursday.  And I would try to cook either in the afternoon between my Noon SET and my 5pm SET or at night.  Since I didn't have a lot of time in my day I kept cooking to a minimum and simple.  I only used a rice cooker, my ninja blender, and I cooked sweet potatoes in the oven.  This allowed me to keep working without having to watch my food.  It also allowed me to cook in bulk, save me time, and have enough food for one or two days.  But Note: I had to plan it into my day to make this process happen.  If I didn't plan and put it into my schedule I would almost always not make enough time to cook or shop and I would end up going to a restaurant at night which was not what I wanted to do.  But it did happen a few times over the challenge. But I tried my hardest to make a plan and stick to it.

So how did I do with my new plan?  Better.

For the next three weeks I followed my plan almost to the tee.  Shopped for my groceries on Sundays and Thursdays.  Forced myself to put food in the rice cooker and oven when I got home from workouts.  Made sure I had food available at all times to help prevent me from going to restaurants or buying that pre-made junk.  And, I tell you what things really started to turn around for me.  Here are some of the benefits that I felt and saw.

1. I started to feel my energy come back.  Because I had plenty of the right food available to me I was definitely now eating enough calories to support the amount of exercise I was doing and that started to make me feel really good.  My runs started to feel better.  I had more energy to give all of my Motiv8ers. I was having a lot of fun again at the workouts.  My energy felt stable and I felt like I had plenty of it.  Waking up in the morning became a little easier as well and my caffeine headaches only lasted about a week.
2. I still had some big carvings for the bad stuff but as long as I had food available I could stay away.
3. I started to form some new habits that I have never really had before.  I have cooked in the past but never have I ever cooked consistently.  This challenge has forced me to cook and has given me a great new habit.  Also I found that my energy felt better with the food I cooked then the foods I bought at the store.
4. HERE IS THE BIG SHOCKER FOR ME.  I saved a ton of money.  Not just a few dollars but hundreds of dollars.  almost 500 dollars to be exact.  I've been using MINT to help me budget my spending but I haven't been paying attention to it.  But I went back to September and between September and October there was a huge difference in the amount of money I was spending on food.  It was a huge shocker to me.  I never thought that my food spending habit was a problem but eating out and buying pre-made food adds up fast.

So Motiv8ers was this challenge a success for me?  YES!

Did I learn a little bit about myself?  YES! I learned a lot!

Did I grow from this challenge and am I going to continue my new habits?  You better believe I grew and darn straight I am going to continue these habits.  This habit is going to save me a good amount of money. =)

Motiv8ers remember challenges are not just something you do because your friends are doing it.  You want to pick a challenge that will have a positive impact on your life.  Use these challenges as a way to help you form those habits that you know you should have. I have picked a new challenge for this month.  Follow our emails and follow us on Facebook to learn about our new challenge!

Motiv8ers if you have read this whole post and if it has inspired you, then post below and share what you are thinking.  Sharing my problems with you was hard for me but I know by sharing that it will help me keep my new habits going.

Thank you Crew.

That is all for today.  Stay EPIC and Don't Forget to Be AWESOME!

Coach Ty Out!