'And what do YOU do?'

My name is Jaime, and I'm Canadian. I’m in the process of getting my Greencard. As a function of the immigration process, I haven’t been allowed to work since March. I haven’t been allowed to go ‘home’ to Toronto since then either. I'm kind of an in-between legal alien. At 31 years old, I'm finding it exceptionally difficult not to have a vocation; not to have something to be proud of, professionally speaking. Not to have a 9-to-5 to call my own when someone asks, “And what do you do?” It’s hard to say, “Well, I used to be the Editor-in-Chief of Canada’s biggest bodybuilding magazine… but now I'm a happy housewife.”

Recently, however, I had a paradigm shift. Or rather, my wife shifted my paradigm. Since we moved to Florida, I’ve taken on the responsibility of coaching and programming at Crossfit ABF – our home Crossfit box in Clearwater; 5 days a week I coach, and I plan out the week’s worth of workouts for all the members. On top of that, the gym recently moved locations, which meant building a new gym from scratch … In only 3 weeks. I helped the owner tirelessly for days as we got the place ready. 

In my country, I have a Bachelor degree with Honors
in Kinesiology. But "This is America."

I was also doing all the domestic things around the house: Cooking, laundry, cleaning, fixing, buying. Whatever needed to be done in our little apartment I did. I made our food for the week, packed her lunches the night before, and made sure there was dinner on the table when she got home from work. And lastly, I was our social events coordinator; any plans that had to be made, any time we wanted to go out, or see what our friends were doing, I set up the date night. I arranged our calendar, and planned weekend trips, staycations, day trips, and nights out. 

When I told Katie that I felt like I lost my purpose when I lost my job, she said, "Are you forgetting that you took on the job of coaching for free? And that you're building an entire gym from scratch? And the fact that we have more friends now than ever?! Baby girl, I don't know how you do all of it in a day." And boom! Just like that, I realized my value wasn't in what I did for work, or even what I did during the day, but rather, it was in the effort I put into my days. It was in the love that I poured into my friends and the members of the gym. I am, in fact, 'busier' than when I worked as a journalist, but I'm not getting paid. And that's okay!

Moral of the story, although it took me about 5 months to come to terms with my 'forced unemployment', I honestly couldn't be happier. It’s reminded me, and really reinforced the fact, that my worth isn’t in what I do, it’s in who I am.

Why You're Not Losing Weight

I have so many clients coming to me asking for a program that will "fit" with their lifestyle. I also have people telling me that they're not going to renew with me because my plan didn't fit their lifestyle. It was either too complicated, too mathematical, or not realistic for them.

Let me explain something:

Fat loss is not a lifestyle. Being in a calorie deficit is NOT a way of life. It's a short term solution to a problem; you're unhappy with your weight, or your fat:muscle ratio, or how you look, or how your pants fit, and you want to do something about it.

Only people who have a lot of weight to lose can get away with doing some cardio, some weight training, and 'eating clean' (instead of tracking macros). People who don't have a lot of fat to lose, or who want to take their fitness to the next level, cannot just 'eat clean.' Fat loss is a numbers game; you NEED to burn more calories than you consume. With that said, how will you know how much you're burning (or eating for that matter), if you don't count?

You won't see results if you don't put the work in hard and fast at the beginning. That slow, 'lifestyle' plan is great once you've actually accomplished the fat loss part, and you just want to maintain what you've done. In order to accomplish that though, you NEED to do the annoying, tedious short term work - Like counting your calories, eating out of tupperware, and making sure you don't skip your cardio sessions.

So when you tell your trainer that you want to lose fat, and they give you a program, don't look at it and say, "There's no way I can maintain this ...", I hope they say, "That's the point." 

Maintenance = Lifestyle. Fat loss = Short term. 

Why Bother Challenging yourself?

I have never hosted a guest blog, but this one touched me and spoke to me on a number of different levels, so I had to share it. I used to be a deeply religious and observant person, but now I just consider myself more spiritual. Though there's a religious connotation in this blog, the message applies to all of us. Please read through, and like/comment/share. I know I'm going to take this to heart, and apply it to my own life. I hope you all see the value in it too, and do the same. 

"In a famous story from the bible, Joseph (son of Jacob) fled from the house of Potifar, where he worked as a slave, when Potifar’s wife tried to seduce him.

As it came to pass, the bible ended up rewarding subsequent generations of Jews. So the question is, why was the particular aspect of Joseph “fleeing” so special, and deserving of such a great reward? Joseph withstood temptation as a teenage boy in a foreign country. This itself was truly heroic. What was so significant about the fact that he fled?

A famous Rabbi explained that through this, we are taught a fundamental and critical rule about religious life: we are to run away from challenges. We should not be looking for “tests,” to put ourselves in situations that arouse temptation or make religious observance difficult. A recovering addict does not keep a container of drugs on his kitchen table to prove to himself that he is capable of abstaining. Similarly, we are taught in another ancient text that if a man has two paths he could follow to reach his destination, and deliberately chooses the more difficult one with temptation, he is considered as having done "evil" even if closes his eyes. Voluntarily choosing situations of challenges is wrong – even if one successfully hurdles the challenge. Joseph's greatness was not just in resisting temptation, but in running away from temptation. He refused to stay there for even an extra moment, lest the "evil inclination" figure out a way to overcome him.

The rationale behind this rule is simple. Namely, we’ve got our hands full as it is. We already have plenty to deal with. Any conscientious person knows that the tests that God/The Universe sends us are enough for us. We should not be in the business of subjecting ourselves to further tests.

But there is a deeper reason for this principle, as well. Anytime we are subjected to a test, we can rest assured that we have the wherewithal to succeed. This is a basic rule that we should all know: We are not sent any challenge that we cannot overcome. If the situation is brought upon us, we can and must assume, unquestioningly, that we are capable of passing the test. However, we have no such guarantee regarding tests that we bring upon ourselves. There is no justification for voluntarily placing oneself in spiritually, physically, or emotionally challenging situations. Indeed, we often pray that we should not be subjected to tests. Certainly, then, we should not be subjecting ourselves to tests." Rabbi Eli Mansour

So, there's that. Thought provoking, right? Stay away from the hard stuff, and you'll be better off for it. Take the path of least resistance, and you'll be rewarded. Interesting perspective.