VNP Blog

Earlier this week I took a poll asking about whether or not you thought you had a good relationship with food. I wasn’t surprised at all for many to say yes and by the end of the ongoing slides, your vote might have changed if I had asked the question again. While I wasn’t surprised I truly felt sad for you. I feel disgusted that we have allowed ourselves to hide our feelings, fears, and insecurities with food. We hide behind eating a “treat” and drinking alcohol instead of dealing with what is really going on with our lives. Let’s change that!

Your first step. Admit you have somethings you need to work out. Maybe your stressed because you feel the weight of running the house and kids, maybe you feel stressed because your working on top of that, maybe it’s because you have lost every good friend you had because you couldn’t juggle a high executive position and a social life without feeling like you’d need to sleep for a week. So you’ve picked food. I get it. I think we have all eaten our stresses away, for the time being, but how about this time, you don’t? 

What if you stop and ask yourself,

• “Is this going to make me feel better and fix my problem long term, or is this temporary?”
• “Will I be happy with this decision tomorrow or will I feel annoyed with myself”
• “How can I deal with my feeling/stress outside of food and booze”

What if this time you,

• Confide in your partner or friends. Let them know “hey! I don’t need you to fix anything I just need to vent” Be clear with what you’re needing from talking with them.
• Told your spouse you need a bit more help around the house and with the kids.
• Look into cutting back on some other expenses to have your toilets cleaned once a week for you.
• Looked at hiring an assistant or delegating more responsibilities to someone who can do them too.

When you start to acknowledge that you’re not in fact hungry and that eating half a dozen cupcakes won’t pay those extra expenses that came up, likely you’ll stop and think of a solution and put it into action. Find a solution that’s not at the bottom of a bottle or chip bag. 

Do you binge and then feel guilty? This one happens a lot to individuals who eat a very very strict diet and are constantly being told what they can’t eat. It’s like telling a child they can’t have ice cream or a cookie, they want it more, they obsess until they get it. We are very similar. The second you can’t have something you want it! For me, this happened when I was pregnant. Before I became pregnant I never drank but then when I couldn’t MAN I used to smell Matt’s wine glasses and curse him. Silly hey! But now here I am again able to drink whenever and I could give two shits. Anyways, back to you, so you created this OMG moment about what it would be like to have a pizza and ice cream and three bottles of wine and Chinese food, and then next thing you know you have eaten a week’s worth of calories and after that stomach ache goes away you now feel guilty. You feel embarrassed and ashamed when really you should have an “omg I’m not doing that again because it hurt my belly” no other reason. All of those foods are fine once in a while so if you love them to enjoy them once in a while, guilt-free.

Ladies… are you replacing sex with food? You laugh but it happens. You’re not in the mood to shave your legs and put in the effort, so you sneak to the pantry for chocolate or sugar trying to get that quick feel-good insulin spike and bedtime crash. Instead well, skip the pantry and shave your legs!

Learn the language. Eating carbs won’t make you “fat”. Eating uncontrolled amounts of calories, consisting of highly processed, high sugar, wheat, pasta, and pastries can contribute however fruits and vegetables are carbs too and last I checked eating mass amounts of veggies hasn’t made anyone fat. Knowing that you can have a balanced diet of carbs consisting of veggies fruits, starch, and minimally processed sugar will give you enough energy and give you a great body composition. 

Mindful eating. Everything you put into your body is a reflection of the life you want. Enjoying good whole foods 90% of the time and enjoying those other treat type foods 10% of the time will set you up for a long life of happy balance! Your mind is a very powerful weapon again your cravings, mood swings, and everything else life throws at you. Create positive self-talk, learn the difference between eating for survival, and eating for emotions. Balance your sleep, water, and stress and I guarantee your relationship with food will become much better! If your feeling overwhelmed and feeling like you don’t know where to start, just start somewhere. Start with the few tips I laid out for you and if your still needing more help, let’s work together.

I’ve been meaning to get around to sharing our birth story and a few details leading up to delivery, but the truth is I still feel a lot of emotions thinking and talking about it all. As someone who HATES asking for help or showing signs of “weakness”, it’s not an easy topic for me.

So here we go.

With some past history, I was induced with Bentley at 38 weeks. I had high blood pressure and symptoms of preeclampsia that kept me going into the doctors every other day for NST tests until finally, the doctors said enough it’s time to get the baby out!

With this pregnancy I was exhausted and sick ALL the time, right around the beginning of May my blood pressure started to get high and I knew to continue to coach at the gym and work a lot of hours with Vital while trying to grow a healthy baby would be too much so at the end of May I had to swallow my pride and quit coaching. With a lot of time spent working from bed I was doing a great job managing my blood pressure. You all saw I did get cleared to attend Wheel Wod very last minute which was great! A week after we got home I felt like I had to flu all the time I could feel the waves of high blood pressure and low pressure. I started tracking my blood pressure a few times a day.

At 37 weeks at my checkup I told the dr that I had had a headache for a week with holes in my vision and was just feeling horrible. The night before the appointment I woke up with a racing heartbeat, like I had just done a CrossFit wod, I was concerned things weren’t going too well. Matt was in Texas and Boo was just trying to take care of me. For a little history again my blood pressure is usually 120/58 with a resting heart rate of 48bpm and when I was suddenly woken up that evening I put on my monitor and had a 136/94 with a heart rate of 97. While at the doctor’s office I had numbers of 138/104 and 130/110, once I heard this I was sure I was going to get sent to red deer for induction immediately. 

So it began! I was sent to olds to be monitored and then transferred to red deer for 24-hour observation. Because of the headaches and vision loss, the Drs were concerned about seizure and stroke. I called Matt and he started his stretch home. The next day at red deer hospital I was told I would be having an ultrasound and a few more tests and then would decide what to do. As the 24 hours progressed my pressure was up and down and Bauer seemed happy as pie so we set the date for the following Thursday with the instructions to come back to red deer for tests every other day.

Thursday morning arrived and we called to make sure it was still set to go. We went in and the induction started around 9 am! I was started on cervidil and within 10-15 minutes I was having a lot of contractions and horrific back pain. I had back labor with Bentley so I was not surprised, the major difference this time was I lost a lot of feeling down my right leg because of nerve pain, the pain was so strong I couldn’t walk around I just needed to lay down. The pain was so overwhelming that I wasn’t even focused on the contrActions. At about 11 am my deliver nurse went over my pain options and we decided to try the gas however I forgot I don’t like snorkeling so that really wasn’t working! Next option a shot of morphine! Give me all the drugs! So the shot was delivered and nope nothing! So next up the epidural! At about noon the anesthesiologist came in to get me going! I was happy to have any relief! Once It started up it was quick to work but unfortunately only on the one side, the side with the leg pain! A few minutes later I started to taste metal in my mouth, Nicole went running out to get the anesthesiologist and she came back in saying that we needed to keep it on the lower side! Honestly, I was fine with that because like I said something is better than nothing. At about 1 o’clock the cervidil was removed the dr broke my water and started me on an aggressive dosage on the drip! Things got real spicy real fast! From hot flashes to cold chills that was a whole new level of pain. At about 4 o’clock a second anesthesiologist came in and asked if we should remove the first one and try again, like I said give me all the drugs so I was fine with that plan! Shift change had happened and my new girl Heidi was taking good care of me and the Baby! At about 4:30 I was ready for the second epidural, I assumed the position with Heidi and Matt helping hold steady while I started to feel the pressure!! I yelled “umm Heidi, something changing, I feel a ton of pressure” she’s like “hold still do not move” the contractions were INTENSE!!! The anesthesiologist was working as fast as he could while I contributed to yell at everyone telling them that I was sure I was now sitting on Bauer’s head… the baby was coming… the epidural was in and the Dr appeared out of nowhere and was ready to go. I yelled a few times that I refused to push I refused to have the baby right now but Heidi told me to stop in and focus on my breathing! The dr told me to stop wasting the good contractions, Matt was Matt! Cheering me on with all the excitement! 8 Minutes or pushing and yelling I can’t do this and he was out! Pure joy… I was so excited to see his hairy tiny body, Matt looked so proud. Then the chaos started,

He started to turn blue. I said to Heidi what’s happening he is turned blue I turned to look at Matt and by the time I looked back at Heidi the room was full of dr and nurses. There was a lot of LOUD chatter about oxygen and breathing. I told Matt to get me a picture and follow our little baby. The room became silent with just myself Heidi and Dr. Casis. They did their best to comfort me but no body knew what was going on. The anesthesiologist came back in and told me he was impressed with how still I sat and I said “you had a fucking needle in my back” a little Abby humor of course. A couple of hours flew by as I was moved to another room, Matt came back I think but honestly, it was such a blur.

Once I was finally able to go to the NICU I was told that Bauer was having trouble breathing on his own. He never went without oxygen he just had to work very hard. At this point he was hooked up to a CPAP to help with breathing, he had a feeding tube, monitors for heart and oxygen and an IV.

Now one fact I had left out was I tested positive for step B, I’m deathly allergic to penicillin so they had to go with the second option of clindamycin but the catch is you need two doses but they need to be 8 hours apart, so b cause they don’t give the antibiotics until active labor I only received one dose. With Bauer symptoms they were concerned he was septic on top of the breathing so they needed to complete 48 hours of antibiotics while we waited on his test results to come back.

Okay so we are in the NICU seeing our baby but not being able to hold him, just looking at him, talk about torture. Every decision I made about my body about everything I started going over and over. I felt so helpless. I was told to get some rest but if things changed they would come and get us.

We slept for a couple of hours but at 3 am I wanted to go back. As we entered we saw the nurses trying to get another IV in him. They told us his IV has blown and they needed to get one in ASAP. The dr decided to go in through the umbilical cord. The first attempt we watched and it was no successful, they asked us to go rest. So we went back and were woken up at 6 am by the Dr saying that they were transferring us to Calgary we just didn’t know if it was by ambulance or chopper yet. They told us on the second attempt it looked like the line was in the liver and the dr in Calgary wouldn’t recommend using it or not using it by only the scans and at this point he had not had fluids or meds for awhile because of the blown IV. 

I went into full meltdown mode. My poor nurse tried to comfort me while Matt filled out the paperwork and packed the truck. As we headed back to the NICU to wait we walked in a new dr came on shift and they managed to get the IV in Bauer’s head, and the peds team showed up to take us to the children’s hospital. At this point, Bauer was breathing on his own but had oxygen just in case. His color was much better and he really looked a lot better. The peds unto let me come to their work station and rub his little face and hold his tiny hands.

We arrived at children’s hospital and with the new Xrays they saw that there was water in his lungs, they think because he came so fast he didn’t get the squeeze he needed, he had some air around his lungs that was much less than the scan in red deer. At 3:30 pm we finally got to hold our little man and Matt got to give him his first bottle. Everything just kept getting better. Boo was able to come in and meet her brother and stay with us. His tests kept coming back clear of infection, it was such a huge relief. After we received the news at 48 hours that he, in fact, was not septic they were able to take the IV out. Our little man was tube free and ready to come home and be cuddled.

We are so thankful for all the amazing Drs and nurses specialists and peds team. I counted over 38 medical staff and I’m not even sure I remembered them all. Things could have been much worse and our little man is doing really well!

If you have made it this far you now know all the details. Thank you to everyone who respected our time and our privacy! Now we are onto the fun part, bottle feeding, getting peed on and allllll the baby cuddles.

You have 100% control over what you put into your body, it is literally the only thing you have control over. I have been asked many times if I choose not to eat vs eat the shitty food and the reality is yes I have. I respect my body and the hard work I have put into it.

Before you all freak out to remember, you absolutely can go and enjoy but you don’t have to use social events as the reason you fall off your plan. Eat before you go. Offer to bring something then you know you can eat it! Instead of stopping at fast food restaurants goto a grocery store. Buy a cooler that you can bring in your car to hockey, dance, and baseball or the mall!

Start acting like your goals matter. Will people question you, yes! Will they make fun of you, probably, should you give a f*ck, nope!! If you want to reach your goal so badly it hurts then stop being embarrassed about it and make the choices that support your goals.

There is always an excuse to not be prepared, how about you start acting like you give a damn about your own happiness and see what happens.

These two situations sound like the same but really they aren’t. For example, right now I am logging my food, I have an idea of where I would like to be and how those macros break down but at the end of the day if I’m hungry I am GOING to eat more. My goals right now are NOT weight loss or performance, just living life, growing our baby bear and trying to get through the day.

Counting macros is logging BEFORE you eat. As a coach, this is the FIRST advice I give but honestly, it’s probably the last thing the client complies with.

We have this idea that if we have GOOD food quality and we LOG the food then it works and that’s really not the case. You see if you’re trying to hit certain numbers you will need to pre-log and then juggle to make them work. This isn’t to discourage this is to set you up for success sooner than later. 

It can feel very overwhelming to sit down and think MAN how do I even start? So this is what I always recommend.

Eat & log a few days, see where you end up. From there go back into your logger and add foods or climate foods, and then play with the qualities until you hit your numbers. Once you have done that, USE that day as a template. For some clients they like to write it out on paper for others they prefer to just transfer it to the day they plan to use it and then log it over. Either way have worked for myself.

When you log before you eat and you pre-plan again it will help you take the stress away of being SO hungry and then just eating and realizing you overate or you ate too much of one thing.

As you become aware of what makes your macros work you will be able to go through periods of knowing how much to roughly eat to hit your macros and then this will give you the freedom to eat/log as you go, remember learning a new skill is always a bit overwhelming but it does get easier and you’ll be hitting those targets and think back and wonder why you ever thought it was hard, to begin with!

Let’s discuss two scenarios, 

#1: You are late all the time, You never know what day it is, you order in or rely on fast food more than you would like to admit, You constantly feel anxious, behind, and scrambled, you buy your coffee because you didn’t have time to make it, You don’t exercise because you don’t have time, You feel like your the only one constantly cleaning up after yourself and your family and the THOUGHT of adding a new exercise routine or nutrition plan is completely out of the question because there just isn’t ENOUGH TIME and you constantly feel tired and overstressed. 

#2: Your family sets their clothes out the night before, school bags are packed for the morning lunches are made while clean up from supper is happening, You have scheduled the time to exercise, you meal plan for the week ahead to purchase the groceries you need, and you go through like happy. 

Which option sounds better?? Routine can absolutely feel boring, so boring in fact I have actually been fired as a personal trainer because my client didn’t like having set appointments and wanted to live each day differently. Of all the OTHER clients I have helped hearing “once I got into routine things were so much easier”.

Somewhere between wanting to achieve our goals and wanting to live each day like our last we are in limbo. We struggle to find the balance of enjoyment and feeling like we live the same day each day. But the truth of the matter is your right we don’t know how many days we have left so we could have 1 or we could have 60 years, so let’s say you have 60 do you really want to go through the next 60 years feeling stressed and tired?? Do you really think that’s the best option for you, and better yet for your family?

Starting new habit can be difficult so I suggest starting small and even make yourself a checklist for example this week’s tasks: Set a reminder in your phone:

• Prepare coffee pot the night before
• Have kids and myself pick out our clothes while getting ready for bed
•  Have your gym bag/back backs packed.

After a couple of weeks of successfully creating these routines set new ones

• Make lunches the night before
• Set time block to meal plan for the next week/or make your grocery list
• Check social media for 30 Minutes total

After a couple of weeks of successfully adding those to your plate you’re now creating a more organized feel to your day and your stress if going to drop. I find that having a routine also allows time and energy to be spent on things that “pop” up. Yesterday I had about 30 extra emails on top of an already busy day but by knowing how my day was laid out it was totally manageable and I got through without and major problems.

Creating routine allows you to walk through your days moving forward, you can feel more relaxed and less stressed, once you start feeling better now your sleeping better, once your sleeping better you have more energy, more energy makes you feel like you have more time, more time allows you to take care of YOU! While this all seems boring, I encourage you to choose “boring” for a while and see how much better you feel!

Earlier this week I posted about heading over to Shelley’s to meal plan, grocery shop and then prep some of her meals for the week. We had a lot of fun and it got me to thinking about how important meal planning is. Here are my top five reasons I think you should take the time to sit down and plan!

#1: It provides you with your grocery list and you will actually buy fewer groceries. Having that very specific list will keep you on task of what you are needing for your meals vs buying everything and not knowing what to do with it all. 

#2: Less food will be wasted. By having your sheet on your fridge and buying only the groceries you need for recipes or meals that week you will have less go bad. Instead of buying every fruit and every veggie, this can help you to rotate through your flavors based on the meals you have chosen.

#3: It allows you to have a couple of quick and ready to go options! This week on Shelley’s menu she mentioned they bought half a beef so they have a lot of ground beef so we bought the supplies for Mexican rice bowls. Everything can be prepped and really easy to through into one container and be out the door. Also buying frozen beef burger and turkey burgers are her other option for having something quick!

#4: It cuts down your time. Instead of thinking oh man, What are we having for dinner you have everything you need, and you won’t have to waste time with an extra stop at the grocery store or catch your self-eating out because your running late and don’t know what you make. On your busy or late evenings having planned that crock pot dinner will keep you organized.

#5: It can allow you to meal prep without taking your weekend to meal prep. This works for individuals who have the time to cook supper daily. Cooking extra prepares your lunch, and now its as quick as weigh measure and log the night before and you are one step ahead for the next day.

Planning your meals doesn’t have to take hours on end, in fact for Shelley and I to sit down and plan her 5 meals, 2 snack ideas for the week, make her grocery list, and go through her fridge and pantry it took us less than an hour. Creating that template takes all the guess work out of the week and not eating the same thing for five days will keep her successful. While cooking a few items we prepped some of her other items to keep her time minimal for the rest of the week. It may seem a bit overwhelming at first, but just like anything the more you do it the faster you will become at it!

Will it be worth it? Right now all over social media, we are bombarded with promises of quick weight loss tips, pills and whatever bullshit products someone has created. Unfortunately, we feel so desperate to change we pay for these products only to leave us in worse condition, so the cycle continues. Then one day you decide to take a leap and hire a coach. You’re completely motivated and hopeful but things take longer than you want and are a bit harder then you expected, and then the mind games start, is this worth it?

Many times I found myself asking the same thing until I really got it together and started seeing the results. When you diet all year round or bounce from one fad to the next it will feel like you have spent your whole life dieting and when your coach tells you to gear up the old thought process of “is this worth it?” comes back. Let me tell you it is!

As a gym owner and nutrition coach there comes a certain amount of expectation about how I perform and how I look. I have felt this judgment for the past 12 years of being in the industry, the good news is I like to work hard and I like the be super fit and I like to look a certain way, but I’ll admit that when I go through pregnancies i find it hard not to let that judgment get to me. 

Time spent on nutrition is where most struggle or have the wonder of if it’s worth it. We have used social events and celebrations to revolve around food and drinking. We feel as though if we don’t indulge in the food or drinks we won’t have fun. Ask yourself is it about the food and drinks or the company? Next, we talk ourselves into “balance” But is that balance really the cause of your problem? For example, you want a six pack but you want balance in a cut, that’s not going to work. You have to pick your first goal, is it the six-pack or is it balance? What if you had to give up “balance” for a few months to reach your goal and then you could achieve balance again? Sounds good hey, so why are you talking yourself out of it?

For me, nutrition is the key to life. Having a good quality nutrition plan allows me to sleep better, train more, enjoy health benefits and most importantly it gives me the body I want. There is nothing wrong with wanting to look a certain way and feel comfortable in your own skin. It doesn’t mean you have to be completely shredded, you deserve to feel good and what that looks like can be different for everyone! If you lose 100lbs but don’t have a six pack you’re going to feel awesome! If you finally lose that last ten and have a six pack you’re going to love that too! So find out what you really want and go for it.

 When I have a body composition I’m happy with I never look back and think damn I wish I didn’t cut for the past 16 weeks and give up all that shitty food, I think man!! I am so happy I did that cut! I feel good in my jeans, tights, crop tops, and bathing suits! I feel happy so my family is happy! I feel confident and healthy and my family feels that! The benefits outweigh the sacrifice every damn time! The trick is to buckle down, get it done and move on!!

It’s time to get off the hamster wheel of diet, quit, diet quit because all your doing is making your journey feel like a waste of time! Stop listening to your bullshit and just do what your nutrition coach tells you! It’s that simple! If you have to log before you eat to be successful do it if you have to drink more water, do it if you have to go to a gym or workout at home, do it, because the only regret you should ever have is the regret of not doing it sooner!

It drives me so crazy when every year around Christmas and New Years you see all the NEW YOU Bull shit. Like how is that going to work? The clock strikes midnight and because you decided this year again you just turn into someone new?? How about you don’t waste your time on that shit and set some real goals and intentions.

Have you ever tried to create a new habit? Or break a bad habit? It takes some time and SERIOUS work. It’s great to have that January motivation but hey, how about trying to continue into February and that require routine and discipline. Discipline and support is what is going to keep you going,  your motivation will run dry.

So start with goals/intentions

#1: For most of you that will be exercise. You’re going to set a goal of exercise EVERYDAY, yeah… Don’t do that UNLESS you’ve been exercising. If you have NOT, start out with 3 times a week. Schedule it into your planner or on your calendar and treat it like any other appointment. Better yet, if you can afford classes or a private coach sign up for that!

#2: “Eat Better” Like come on, what does that mean?? Like, make better choices? Not eat out? Pick up a fad diet? Make it clear. My suggestion, start logging your food so you can see where your calories are coming from and how many your eating. For some of you, this might be a huge eye opener for you and you may need to just juggle where those calories are coming from. Typically I see HIGH processed Carbs, HIGH fats, and NO protein. Your protein should absolutely be higher in grams then your fat.  DON’T START A DIET YOU CANT GO ON FOR MORE THEN 30 DAYS.

#3: Setting unrealistic goals and putting expectations on yourself. Some clients come to me eating less than 1000 calories and they have 30-100lbs to lose, and 0ne of their goals is to lose 30lbs in one month! That is scary shit because that is NOT going to happen. This topic is a huge rabbit hole. If you aren’t familiar with reverse dieting, you’re going to want to check that out! Set a goal like, I am going to start focusing on my sleep, stress management by meditating 10 minutes a day and drinking all my water. Those are great goals because when you start your process of reverse dieting A LOT of great things happen but I have yet to see someone lose 30lbs in one month.

#4: Create a no bullshit policy with yourself and be ready to take responsibility for the situation you have created. The worst thing you can do is blame your inability to lose weight on EVERYTHING and EVERYONE else. Like I tell my clients, I help you with the path, I draw you the map but you have to follow it. You actually have to do the work. It doesn’t always come easy, and every week we may need to adjust the map but YOU have to work and admit your shortcomings. 

#5: What works for one doesn’t always work for the next. I see this A LOT. “My Friend Suzie ________, and I tried it and it didn’t work” Set yourself up to BE OUT of the comparison game. Everyone’s lives are so different! Everyone deals with stress and their lives differently. Don’t expect things to happen as fast or as slow as someone else. Focus on your own accomplishments. Having my clients fill in biofeedback forms allows us to ACTUALLY see the progress on a number scale! So if you’re needing something to keep you on track create your own checklist in relation to how your feeling, sleeping, mood, energy and if things are always getting better and you’re quality of life is getting better it will help keep you motivated despite what the number between your toes says!

I’ve said it a few time. Nutrition and Fitness is like a relationship leading to marriage. It’s exciting at first and comes easy but after a while, you have to be willing to put work in through the good times and bad times and when you do, it’ll be the greatest thing you have ever done.