VNP Blog

When we get crushing through nutrition I often hear “When I work nights I have horrible sugar cravings, When I’m going to start my period… When I’m stressed… When I’m bored… The list goes on. Sugar creeps into our diets right from the start. Bentley was brought up on formula, I just wasn’t made for milking and that babe needed to eat so it is what it is, but yep SUGAR in the formula. What do you do right? Well, then it came time to start introducing real food and guess what, the little stinker didn’t care much for veggies, but boy did she love fruit… yep, more sugar… Anyways I think you get where I am going with this. Sugar is in everything. How do we beat it? Here are my recommendations.

#1. Don’t go cold turkey. Some of you may be shocked but seriously don’t. If you have been following along with my past posts I’m always hoping to give you the best long-term advice, so if your consuming ALOT of sugar from the foods your choosing set a goal of how much to CUT BACK by. Cutting back will allow you to slowly change over to not feeling like you need it all the time as well as keep you on your path of forming better habits. It will also help with the urge to binge out when your lips touch it.

#2. Eliminate processed foods with high sugar. I think you will be really surprised when you look at condiments, and bread, and yogurts, and the “healthy” bars your buying. Have a look and see, out of the carbohydrate content how much of that is sugar?

#3. Have a replacement. This one is huge for the timing of cravings. If you are someone who has craving based on stress, work, time of the month have a plan. For example, I recommend my nightshift workers USE those “healthy” bars I just told you to get rid of. Having a decent bar that tastes good and its a “treat” for those days can be really helpful in tricking yourself into having something you want while staying on course. Also quick go to’s rice cakes, and squeeze pack apple sauces!

#4. Figure out why you’re having those cravings. Most time cravings can be associated with nutrient deficiency. If your craving chocolate chances are you are needing some magnesium. Craving salt? Check out how much sodium you’re taking in. Our body is smart, it’s trying to tell us something we just need to listen but I can promise you, it doesn’t NEED a cupcake… haha, Sugar cravings are also associated with gut health, that’s a whole other post for its self, but check into it you might have inflammation or leaky gut and need to do a gut clean up!

#5. Drink plenty of water. Add some fruit or berries to your water! Staying hydrated will help with all things body. Sometimes when we feel hungry or bored and we want to turn to food, have some water. Again your body is lacking in something but start with the basics. Undereating, not enough sleep, piled on with stress, with no hydration is going to drive your body into a state where you feel like you need a pick me up.

#6. Take control. Last time I walked through the grocery store I didn’t see a bunch of ten-year-olds shopping, if you are having trouble controlling your cravings and bingeing out of junk, just don’t buy it. I know I know, what about your family? Well, what about YOU??? Getting healthy and staying healthy should be a family event! Make the time once a week or once in a while to go out for a small treat, don’t stock the pantry up and then suffer by trying not to touch it. It doesn’t work. Eventually, after implementing some changes you’ll have the willpower and other coping methods to not tough the junk but until then set yourself up for success.

Last but not least, once you feel like you have things under control and if you are chasing a certain physic you may have to cut out all sugar or most sugar. This is one step that sometimes needs to happen, and truthfully getting rid of processed sugar and processed foods with being very difficult at the start but when you start feeling so much better it makes it all worthwhile. Taste buds change and things you used to love will taste so gross and you really will find the enjoyment and taste bud pleasure in fruits and berries.

Create a lifestyle, not a fix.

I’m sure you just rolled your eyes and thought, um obviously, but this is a very in-depth conversation I have with my clients, not only in nutrition but also in fitness. We have all dreamt of the body image we deem perfect. We see it all over social media and we drool a little bit and think I want that! So we take that moment of motivation and save the image or show our friends and say I want this! It comes off the tongue so easily. We see professional athletes win the super bowl, or win a local CrossFit comp and we think to ourselves again, I WANT that! We dream of it. It consumes our whole being.

So now what?

That’s the hardest question to answer. Most think “whatever it takes” until you find out what it takes. When you are seeing those perfectly shaped abs and those champions you’re not seeing the HOURS they are putting in at the gym. You’re not seeing the supplements they are taking and the meal prep they are doing, you’re not seeing the no thank you’s to eating out with friends and having a happy social life. You’re not seeing the process you’re only seeing the success. Can you have that? Well, that is up to you! Are you willing to TRULY do whatever it takes?

Its a tough question to answer.

Some questions I like to ask are:

• Why are you setting this goal?
• What switch has flipped?
• Is this a goal you have always wanted but have never had the time to pursue?
• Do you want your best body because you want to look and feel your best?
• Have you dealt with underlying health issues?
• Why is there a timeline?
• Why do you want to be the top athlete at your gym?
• Are you working towards personal bests in the gym or just worried about beating everyone else?

Daydreaming is wanting something but not doing anything about it. Goal setting is having a plan and following through. We all need goals of some sort, whether in health, fitness, financial, or family, so don’t be scared to sit down and write that plan. Don’t be scared of failing or losing motivation, everyone goes through that. Don’t be afraid to say no to others so you can say YES to yourself. Step out of your daydreaming mode and get into your goal setting. Set realistic goals, find balance, and enjoy the process.

Guilt: the fact or state of having committed an offense, crime, violation or wrong, against moral or penal law.

Re-read that. Ask yourself, how many times have you felt guilty for drinking or eating foods? I know I have, and it sure seems silly because we haven’t committed any crimes or done anything morally wrong! I know that when I have set my laser focus on my goal and I have slipped up when I shouldn’t have, I have felt guilt about letting my emotions get the best of me and that shit needs to stop. We are all human we are going to have bumps along the way but you know what doesn’t help, the guilt. 

Lets talk about why we have the guilt. Well, we need to look at our relationship with food. Is it your security blanket when your emotionally drained? Is it your reward for an accomplishment? Is it your stress relief? Does it dictate your emotion? For most of us its all of the above. We reward ourselves with cheat meals so now we have labeled foods good and bad or can have, can’t haves. We have a bad day and we look forward to that bottle of wine and that chocolate cake because it will give us that quick feel good sensation. We starve ourselves all day because we are “too busy” to eat so once we start we can’t stop. We have turned our food into our emotional support system.

Food is meant to fuel and nourish our bodies. It’s the foundation of our ability to focus, exercise, sleep, keep up with our kids and have a good quality of life. It’s responsible for our moods, our hormones, our ability to cope with stress and excitement. It’s literally responsible for everything we ask, and don’t ask our bodies to do to function.

Indulging in favorite foods when we plan for it will give us the satisfaction of, we planned for this, we are ready for this, we know we might not feel great but I’ve been really looking forward to date night. There is no guilt. Why because we have not fallen off the plan. We have worked that meal or dessert into the the plan! We have not thrown our goals out the window for a moment of satisfaction. I made this decision when I was not emotional! For example I saved an opened bottle of wine that had one glass left in the fridge and I KNEW that after I completed this years Open I was going to celebrate my season by having that glass of wine! I was proud of myself for putting my best effort into my scores and I wanted to have a treat that I enjoy. It felt great. There were many nights I looked at that bottle and thought MAN what a day, I should have that, but I didn’t NEED it, and I knew I had planned to have it when I was finished the open. No Guilty feelings because it was in my plans!

Should we indulge once and a while… YES… a thousand times YES! Life is short and enjoying a date night, a child’s birthday cake, or a glass of wine in the bath is not going to hurt your progress but your mindset around that intake can. We need to start understanding our emotions and working on our stress management and time management vs dealing with the aftermath. We need to reward ourselves with other things like a pedicure, a new shirt, a pair of shoes VS eating so much pizza we cant move. We need to take control of our lives. We need to stop feeling guilty about wanting to enjoy our favorite treats once and while! If you do slip up, we need to move on. We need to know it happens and we are human but we need to move on, the guilty feeling surrounding your relationship with food needs a little TLC.

It seems like every time we start a “diet” a holiday or celebration pops up and we go into complete panic mode! I love when this happens because my goal is to educate my clients so that they know how to make smart choices that align with their goals for a life time. So let’s talk about  weekend holidays or family dinners! 

The first thing you need to do is pre plan for these. I always ask my mom “Whats for dinner?” I don’t think she really likes me asking that but it helps me plan and prepare. It also gives me the ability that if there isn’t something I can’t eat, I can bring a dish, I could bring my own supper. I also ask whats for dessert because depending on my training and goals if I wan’t to have some I’m going to need to plan for that. Some may think this is crazy but at the end of the day its about having a family meal and being together, not about what’s on the plate. 

Second, know that everyone cooks different, usually with things like butter, or oils and creams so I will pre-log my meals and I will keep my fat as LOW as I can leading upto the day. This way if there are some extra calories in there that I didn’t account for I won’t go over!

Third, again depending on my training and goals, I will consider wine. I really like wine. So if your like me and would love to have a glass or two, try to have them within a two hour window of eating. Logging booze is tricky because of how it metabolizes so if your eating food while drinking I always recommend my clients think of those booze cals as fat cals. That sure makes wine ALOT less fun!

Fourth Step, get a workout in before your holiday meal! If you goto a gym like mine, its shut down on the long weekend, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get out those running shoes or put yourself through a quick little at home body weight session!

Lastly, If your working with a coach who is giving you refeed days talk to them about allowing your refeed day to fall on the holiday! This way you have extra calories to enjoy but it won’t through you to far off your plan! Cheat days in my opinion are a thing of the past! I can honestly say from the hundreds of clients I have worked with saying cheat day creates a poor relationship with your nutrition plan and with how you view certain foods. Remember, there are no such things as BAD foods, everything in moderation will be fine!

If you do end up going over on your day, don’t sweat it! Our results come from what we consistently do! If you have been doing really well one day won’t KILL your progress, just know that is a bit of a set back and to keep moving forward the next day.

Okay! So you’ve decided your ready! You’ve been prescribed these magical numbers which will make all your dreams come true. Great, Where do you start? How do you balance them? What food pairings are you going to do? How much of each? How are you going to hit those magical numbers? Well here is my BEST advice

#1. Make your food lists of things you will NOT give up. Believe it or not, I do have clients that want to keep a couple glasses of wine/week in, so I tell them to log their 4 ounces at the start of the week. Now they also do this with the understanding the path to their goal might take a little longer and they might have to have tighter numbers leading up to that Friday night glass of wine.

#2: Make a list of foods you enjoy eating and put them under categories, proteins, carbs and fats. Write out a staple breakfast or lunch, a meal that will NEVER change over the week, most pick breakfast! Also pick a snack that will stay consistent.

#3: If your taking protein supplements and carb supplements log those RIGHT away so that you don’t forget about them!

#5: Open up your calorie counter and start putting your day in. Pick starting numbers. Scan your products. Log a “day” check out your numbers, did they work by throwing number in off the top of your head? Probably not, so NOW go in and change them around! Are you over in fat? Okay look at the breakfast, maybe you can cut down from two eggs to one egg with egg whites. Under on protein? Up your meal quantities. Its all a juggling act so cue the circus! 

#6: After you have balanced those days, GO back to your planning page and fill in the quantities. You can then print out your meal plan and put it on the fridge or somewhere you can easily see it.

#7: Meal prep things that you can. For example, rice, potatoes, cut fresh veggies, have high quality protein bars and deli meats and beef jerky always on hand. I personally recommend grocery shopping after you meal plan! It will help you have a better idea of how much food you’ll actually need! If you absolutely must do full meal prep, I suggest only 3-4 days of the same or before you have to re cook. Eating the same soggy food over and over will only lead you to fall of the wagon HARD. 

#8: If you are BRAND new to logging and understanding nutrition I do recommend keeping your food simple and try to avoid recipes for stews, chilli’s, paleo pizza ect. It makes it super difficult to track, OR use them once a week on a weekend and know that your numbers will be off a bit but do you best to enter the recipes! 

#9: Eating healthy does not give you to go ahead to consume crazy amounts of “paleo” treats. Sugar is still sugar, and it all add ups so be careful with the healthy versions of muffins, cookies and other treats!

#10: ALWAYS log the night before or before you eat!! Eating and logging on the go will not go in your favor when your learning! You need to have a plan! Once you have some foods that repeat a lot you will be able to eat a little more on the fly but still I suggest pre-logging, You can’t take back what you have already digested and trust me nothing sucks more then missing your numbers after you have worked hard in the gym, fixing your sleep and getting that water in!

Last but not least, mentally prepare yourself to make mistakes and screw up! Cut yourself some slack! This is new for you! Leaning new skills takes time! Putting in the effort right at the start will give you a lot less heart ache and frustration and know it always gets easier! Weighing and logging is like breathing for me, I don’t even think about it anymore and since I eat things similar they always show up in recently eaten which makes my logging take less then 3 minutes/day! Hang in there! I can promise you that first drop in the scale, or your first PR, or the first time you sleep through the whole night and feel amazing you will not regret ONE second that you spent being organized and disciplined. Enjoy the process or its not going to work out in the long run!

Create a lifestyle, not a temporary fix.

Fitness and Nutrition are constantly changing. We live in  a fast pace society and through social media we are given so much information it’s hard to really know whats legit. During my time at Red Deer College you could talk to one professor who would swear up and down about whats best and turn around and talk to another that had a way different opinion. At the end of the day it’s just that opinion. Now don’t get me wrong there is a lot of science and research in nutrition and exercise but at the end of the day each coach is going to develop a bias. I have a bias but I still know what my goals are and what my clients goals are…Health and Fitness.

Upon opening the gym I would have agreed with you that if you ate clean and exercised you would get the results your wanted. I was one of those people myself! I was doing what every other gym owner/CrossFitter was doing, following Zone/Paleo diets. Don’t get me wrong I was happy to do so because just like any nutrition plan when you start and make changes to your nutrition you will see results! I saw such good results I was convinced this was the only way!

Two years into it I started to feel really crappy! I wasn’t sleeping, I had terrible anxiety, I was dealing with depression without knowing it and on top of that I was training 2-3 hours a day and NOT really getting anywhere. I went to a local competition and got my ass handed to me and started crying. My dad looked at me and said “what are you missing?” I said, I needed to find my own coaches.

I signed up for some programming which was great! I loved the new challenges! I loved having a coach in CrossFit, I had never had that before, I was my own coach! Lastly I researched the top athletes, and noticed they all had the same nutrition coach. I sent an email and it was the hardest because your nutrition is like your SIN number, It tells everything about you.

Mike was so open and honest with me, we did some tests to put to rest the guess and test and I had my work cut out for me. I was severely under eating causing my hormones to be a complete wreck. I wasn’t sleeping or consuming enough water adding to the mess. I wasn’t ready to give up any of my training, which delays your response to fixing adrenal fatigue and then on top of that like most people who reverse diet I gained weight.

I have been 3+ years working at fixing the mess I created. Mind you, I got pregnant and had Bentley so that’s whole new ball game being a Mom with little sleep and a lot of stress but through it all I was so happy to have Mike helping me and supporting me. He has taught me that its more important to be flexible and to be consistent then to push ourselves to the point where its so unbearable that we fall off and can’t maintain everything we have worked for.

Working with Mike and having such a positive relationship and long lasting results is the reason I have been working on all things nutrition. He’s the reason I decided to work on certifications and open a second business.

So what is so special about this? Well you have a coach. A real life coach. Someone who is going to help you work through it all. We are going to start by looking at your current lifestyle from training to food, to stress to sleep and everything else in between. We are going to work on stress management, time management and figuring out what it really holding you back. We are going to prioritize your health over your abs. We are going to talk weekly and make sure your staying focused on your plan while understanding life doesn’t always go according to plan. We are going to work together at achieving your results! Your coach keeps you honest and accountable. While showing compassion, reality checks are always needed! A good coach knows to look a the data and make rational decisions vs prioritizing what you think you want/need in the heat of the moment.

Coaches need coaches because like you we are all human. We all have moments of self doubt and frustration. We all have times where we need a helping hand to remind us to keep going! Coaches who have coaches are great because we can relate to the fact that we to did not want to trust the process, we did not want to take the slow and steady, we wanted it all and we wanted it now, BUT because of our AMAZING coaches we are there to talk you through it because we have been through it.