And now –  we move onto my personal favorite. . .

F – Faith!! Faith comes first. The first of the Ten Commandments tells us to put God first in our lives. You will have a much healthier mindset if Christ is your focus. Spend time daily in prayer and in His Word. Everything else will tend to fall into place with His guidance. And never forget, if you are saved, His Holy Spirit lives in YOU! Your body is His Temple – Honor Him with your choices and take the best care of His temple! 

Remember, my beautiful friends – you are daughters of The King! Divinely designed and created with great purpose! For me, Faith + Fitness = victory.

Remember our “R”? Remove negative thoughts. Let’s just give any doubt, fear, and guilt or shame to Him. God is in every, single detail! He wants you to fulfill His purpose, so rest assured that He has ALREADY EQUIPPED you for it. Yup – read that again.  

Never underestimate the importance and power of prayer. Lift it all to Him. Then straighten your crown, prep those meals, be intentional about what you feed your body, and get serious about your workouts. No one can stop you or what God has already designed to be!  

Faith is such an important part of this journey to Transform.  2023 was an incredibly busy, chaotic year for me and my family – full of SO much change and growth.  In reflecting back over this year, especially now between Christmas and New Years, I can tell you with the utmost confidence, that I saw God at work BIG time in every, single detail.  I can only imagine the same is true for each of you.  Please know that, in serving Christ and fulfilling your purpose for HIm, taking care of yourself is most certainly NOT selfish!  In order to care for others well, your personal well being is essential.  We need to be fit to serve; emotionally, mentally, and physically strong enough to endure and to shine for Him for others to see.  

Let’s continue to invest in our own health and wellness; now is not the time to grow weary and/or give up.  So many others are counting on you, and you CAN achieve the very best version of yourself!

As part of our journey to Transform, let me remind you that this transformation is about SO much more than aesthetics or looking a certain way. Of course, that’s a big goal for us. However – becoming healthier and more fit is the big goal here. For example – we had a big health scare in the spring with my precious mama and her heart.  There are four factors that contributed to her heart problem: she is 1) female 2) older/elderly (78) 3) diabetic 4) she has high blood pressure. These things combined are the perfect storm leading to AFib and potential for stroke.  

So, you see how important it is now to invest in your health! We all want to maintain our health, fitness, balance, mobility, etc., as we age.  

Keep in mind that Faith and Fitness go hand in hand. Jesus needs us fit to serve!

We’re moving on to the letter S this week. S is for Shape.

It was at this point in our Transformation journey back in the spring that we released the butterflies after boot camp one Saturday morning! Just because we won’t be able to watch them anymore didn’t mean their journey was over. This was just part of their Transformation. Very similar to us! Where are you in your Transformation? I sincerely hope you’re journaling and/or tracking your progress. You’ll love being able to look back & see how far you’ve come!

 I hope you’re all having a wonderful holiday season so far.  Every phase of any transformation is part of the journey! We don’t start at “ground zero” and just “arrive”. . . there are so many experiences, lessons, and victories that are every bit as important as where we end up!

T – Time

R – Remove

A – Add

N – Nutrition

     ALL of these things have been experiences, lessons, and victores (sometimes failures that become lessons) that have been our first steps of this transformation journey. Moving right along –

S – Shape: Shape your body by changing its composition. Building lean muscle gives you a firm and healthier appearance. Your clothes will fit better, and you’ll feel better. Resistance training is key here! No amount of steady state cardio truly builds muscle. Walking is a great way to fight stress, soak up fresh air and vitamin D, and is much healthier than sitting in front of a phone or tv. However, it doesn’t engage all of your muscles. Your joints as well as your muscles will reward you for strength training!

  I completely understand that many of you are not seeing the outer changes fast enough. So we have two things on our plates here: 1) Look at what we can tweak in our daily routines. Can we drink more water? Add more protein? Add more weight and intensity in our workouts? Add in more HIIT circuits for fat-burning? Cut something(s) in our diets? 2) Go back to your journal. Think back on previous workouts and interaction with other people. Look for those non-scale victories. Are you sleeping better? Are you lifting heavier weight weekly? Do your clothes fit a little differently? Have you gotten improved blood work results or doctors’ visits? Maybe you’ve received random compliments from co-workers or friends? THAT is PROGRESS!! So remember to take the progress pictures. Write down those measurements, and journal things weekly about your workouts, your nutrition, your sleep. This is the best way to track your progress. We see ourselves in the mirror every single day, so small change really doesn’t stand out. But comparing pictures every four to six weeks speaks volumes!

Here we are. . . 5 weeks into our transformation journey!  Please keep the things we’ve seen and learned in your heart! Not only to remember just how INCREDIBLY AWESOME our God is, but that all these things hold even more true for each of us than the caterpillars/butterflies.  

Let’s recap:

T – Time ~ True transformation takes TIME. We have to trust the process, keep grinding while making the most of the time we’re given. Time management is a huge component to success!

R – Remove~ We’ve talked about removing bad habits and foods, as well as negative thoughts. They simply are NOT helpful, and they are definitely not productive.

A – Add ~ Add in positive thoughts, good habits, and clean healthy foods. We not only talked about replacing sodas with more water, sugary foods with healthy foods and snacks, but we also talked about replacing time-wasting activities with productive ones such as meal prep, and creating/using night time and morning routines.

N – Nutrition ~ Healthy nutrition is 100% crucial to any transformation. Creating healthy eating habits will not only aid with losing body fat, it also heals our bodies from the inside out! Stress management, digestive issues, energy levels, and decreases chronic inflammation.

S – Shape ~ Sooo many things wrapped up in this one word! The shape of our bodies IS changing. Even if we don’t see it happening fast enough. . . remember all the change happening inside those cocoons that we can’t see? YOUR body composition is changing. 

Remember, if you’ve noticed that you’re lifting heavier weights, moving faster, some workouts are a little easier, that means your muscles are growing, and your body is a fat-burning machine. (Take the progress pictures! I promise you’ll see changes when you compare them) As always, I am here to help you with nutrition and/or workouts.  If you find that you’ve hit a plateau, or just don’t really know where to start and/or what to do, I would love to help you!  Feel free to email me at Fitteachermom@aol.com or click on the “Contact Me” tab!.