Hi friends!! If you follow me on Instagram then you have probably heard me blabbing on and on about #PROJECTCOMEBACK over the past 4 weeks, and while I originally created it as a little private personal challenge for myself to pull me out of a major funk, what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t share the process of it all with my tribe of babes?? You KNOW my favorite thing is to share the best of the best with YOU in hopes of inspiring YOU to create a life you love that allows you to thrive!!! And that is exactly what Project Comeback has been for me over the past 4 weeks… a total life makeover, goal shifting, ground breaking, habit making experience that has been guiding me to a “coming back” of sorts to my best (badass) self!!

WHAT IS PROJECT COMEBACK?

Project Comeback put simply is a challenge I created for myself on January 14th, 2019 to overhaul my bad habits and lame excuses that were holding me back from crushing my goals. I took an inventory of things that were causing distress in my life (whether they were caused by ME or not.. which admittedly most of them were) and decided that I would focus on shifting those areas for an extended amount of time. To start I decided I would commit to 3 months, but the overall goal is to create lasting habits that will far exceed 3 months. I want this to be a LIFESTYLE in the end.. not just a 3 month challenge. For me my main areas of focus for my personal Project Comeback are my eating habits, my yoga practice, my fitness goals, self-discipline, commitment, and becoming more mindful in all areas of my life. I call it Project Comeback because at the start of this whole thing I felt so far from where I wanted to be, and where I knew my potential was; I had to stage an intervention and create a major COMEBACK!

WHY I’M DOING PROJECT COMEBACK

In short: I want to feel better, do better, and truly thrive in my life. I got sick of falling “victim” to my impulses and bad habits that brought me momentary comfort while squandering my long term goals; I want to RISE to the occasion that is my life and make mindful intentional choices that make me feel GOOD and encourage me to THRIVE!

Over the last year I really developed some bad eating habits that birthed an insanely dysfunctional relationship with food. Let me first say this: I have no qualms with gaining weight, but I FELT like absolute shit.. and I was gaining weight in a very unhealthy way: I’d eat until I fell asleep (literally I’d wake up with cashews in my bed, who does that??), I’d binge eat when I was bored or emotional, I’d eat food I knew would make me feel like shit, I felt bloated all the time, I wasn’t listening to my body, and was not eating in a way that served my body or my mind. My workouts were all over the place, I rarely made it on to my yoga mat even though I was teaching yoga 6+ days a week, and on top of that I was traveling a lot and drinking more than usual (which is totally fine because BALANCE but it just wasn’t helping my situation) which made me feel like crap too; I was NOT truly prioritizing my health or making choices that support my overall goals and I basically hit a point where I got sick of feeling like a blob, I got sick of my complaining and whining, and I was so so SO over the lack of forward movement in my life.. enter PROJECT COMEBACK! . We have the power to create change. It is ridiculous to sit, whine and complain… but not take any action. We ARE in control of our lives – we can literally create anything we desire for our life; but, we have to get clear about what we want, strategize, commit and stay consistent. Nothing changes if nothing changes. How bad do you want your dream life? I know I want mine more than anything, and once I got clear about what I wanted a feeling of power and excitement ignited deep within me.. and now, well now I feel unstoppable.

WHAT I’M DOING FOR PROJECT COMEBACK

Like I said my main focuses for my Project Comeback fall into 5 categories: my eating habits, my yoga practice, my fitness goals, self-discipline and commitment, and the overall desire to become more mindful in all areas of my life. I came to these categories after listing out everything that was causing me distress in my life (I wrote down literally everything and then asked why after each statement and continued the process until I got to these categories) and was able to chip away at my list and ultimately came to these areas of my life that needed to change.

MY EATING HABITS

The first change I implemented was no eating after 8pm; now I just try to eat between the hours of 8am-8pm; the body NEEDS at least 12 hours over night to fully digest food from the day prior as well as time off from digesting food while you sleep to do its other important bodily functions! The next thing was no more eating foods that I KNOW make me feel like shit (gluten, wheat, processed sugar, processed foods in general), better portion control (I would literally eat an entire box of cereal or an entire container of dates in one sitting YIKES), no more mindless snacking/eating, and lastly I have committed to really listen to my body when it comes to eating (i.e.: am I hungry right now or am I upset about something or am I just bored?) My current motto is this: food is fuel, enjoy the fuel as much as you can but make it work for you, not against you. I am a big believer in balance but it has to be balanced, for example: I would go to Sprinkles Cupcakes 3x a week and say BALANCE BAYYYBAY! but that ain’t balance.. that’s not only overindulgent but irresponsible – knowing that sugar makes me feel like shit – and maybe even an addiction to sugar rearing its ugly head if we’re being honest here… let’s be real.

MY YOGA PRACTICE

I absolutely LOVE yoga, yoga is my life! It makes me feel so so good and grounded, it changed my life!!!.. so why then, is it so dang hard for me to make time for something that I love so much? I know why: a LACK OF SELF-DISCIPLINE (more on that later though) There I was, with so many yoga goals but was practicing so little.. yet I would sit around disappointed that I wasn’t connected to or growing my practice.. sounds insane right? I’ll answer that: YES BB THAT’S INSANE… Enough already with the self-sabotage!!! No more feeling resentment when teaching classes (I would straight up get jealous that I wasn’t the one on my mat, which is so lame because nothing was stopping me from getting on my mat other than pure laziness. I have the time, I just needed to make it a priority!)  and no more putting my precious personal practice on the back burner. I am so grateful that yoga is now my means of survival ($) but I can’t let that take away from what brought me to my mat in the first place: the need for a deep connection with myself.. and i need that daily – I need to practice in order to be my best self for myself, and also for others. I now get on my mat at least 6 days a week. I try to get to a yoga class most of those days as I find it holds me accountable, plus I love learning new things from my fellow yogis; and actually as a teacher myself, I have found taking other people’s classes really inspires my teaching. If I don’t have time to get to a class for some reason I have a yoga mat rolled out at home right in the middle of my living room and I’ll get on and flow even if it’s just for 15 minutes (it ends up being more though because it feels so good!) I also set clear yoga goals for myself (pincha, a stronger core and splits!) which has been helpful because I am clear about what I want to work on! I also got a yoga wheel and blocks to play around with at home to bring more playfulness back into my practice, make it fun! Scheduling classes in advanced (and writing them down in my planner and blocking the time out) has also been so helpful in bringing me to my mat regularly. Another thing that has been a major game changer is what I like to call “clumping my day together” I find a class either before or after I teach, or near a regular appointment/activity so that I can block out that time and take the guess work out for myself. Here’s an example:

On Tuesdays I have a standing acupuncture appointment at 4:45pm.. there’s a yoga studio near by that I like to go to and they have a class at 6pm so every week after my acupuncture appointment I walk to the studio and take my class.

On Friday mornings I teach at 10:30am, there’s a class after mine at 12pm so I stay for the 12pm class every week.

Find ways to make your habits sustainable and take the guess work out for yourself! What I mean by that is leave no room for yourself to bail out. So many weeks I lay in acupuncture thinking “ugh I’m not in the mood, maybe I’ll skip it” then I walk out to my car, see the yoga studio and realize it’s ridiculous not to go.. I’m right here, I’m dressed, ready, prepared, the time has been blocked out… so I go. And then I feel like a million bucks after because I not only got time in on my mat, but I also stuck to my commitment.

MY FITNESS GOALS

Like I said earlier, my workouts were all over the place. I was working out here and there but I had no real plan. Guess where you go when you don’t know where you’re going? NOWHERE. Sorry if that sounds harsh but it’s true. Also, it’s true what they say… working out plays a small part when it comes to “fitness goals”…. if you’re eating like crap you will not see results. What you put in your body MATTERS. Anyways.. back to fitness. I tried to start BBG again on Jan 1st but literally could not get my butt to the gym.. no self-discipline, no motivation, no real commitment. I went to the gym a couple of times over the first 2 weeks of January but each time I went I either  half-assed it or left early. “Okay” I thought ” this is clearly not working for me, I need to come up with a different plan.. I am not strong enough MENTALLY to do this on my own, I need help.” Clearly going on my own was not working, I needed someone or something to hold me accountable. My first thought was hire a personal trainer, but I don’t have the funds for that right now so my next best option was committing to taking classes regularly. I decided that I would commit to Rise Nation 3 x a week and Barry’s Bootcamp 3 x a week. Luckily I have 2 fitness instructor friends that teach at both of those studios whom I not only love dearly, but feel so so inspired by, so I started scheduling in classes with them on the regular. If you decide to go the class route too be sure to take some time to try out some different instructors at studios that you are interested in and see who you vibe with, finding an instructor you vibe with is EVERYTHING!!! That brings me to my next tip: make friends with the instructor if you’re not already. Let them know who you are and what your goals are so that they are aware of what you’re working towards! Like I said I am friends with my trainers Taryn and Katie, and they both know my goals, so when I go to class I feel like I am getting a personal experience: they don’t let me slack and they both keep tabs on my progress so even if I am moving slower than the rest of the class but I am clearly doing my best they notice and encourage me (the encouragement helps tons!!)

SELF-DISCIPLINE & COMMITMENT

Self-discipline and commitment: the most important parts of this challenge for me. The reality is all of what I am doing here relates to these 2 things… essentially EVERYTHING I do in Project Comeback is helping me cultivate more self-discipline and a stronger commitment to whatever it is I decide to do in life, whether that be working out, yoga, or a business goal.

How do I want to feel? How do I want to experience this life? What do I want in the long term? Are my short term choices supporting that? I wrote a whole blog post about self-discipline which you can read my clicking here!

MINDFULNESS

From mindless to mindful: I really wanted to become more mindful about everything in my life: my choices, my actions, my time, the food I’m eating, the drinks I am drinking, the people in my life, where my energy is going, etc. It’s easy to fall into patterns that are not good for us, these habits can sometimes become so ingrained in us that it gets to a point where we are no longer making active choices, we start to mindlessly do _______, _______ and _______. (insert whatever it is that you mindlessly do on a daily basis that is holding you back). I got sick of falling “victim” to my impulses and bad habits that brought me momentary comfort while squandering my long term goals; like I said before, I want to RISE to the SPECIAL OCCASION that is my life (yes it is an occasion, and hell yes it is special!! Yours is too!!) and make mindful intentional choices that make me feel GOOD! Take control of your life, you’ll feel like a badass, I promise.

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PSA: my goals are not all driven by “physical change”, but the physical changes are sometimes easier to share and track ( I am aware of and feel the rest!) so they are definitely part of my process! With that being said, here are some of my recent Project Comeback progress photos that I shared on IG!! So crazy that these are just from 3 weeks of focus and commitment! It’s truly incredible the changes we can create when we just DECIDE!

 

That’s all I’ve got for today my loves! Should I do a blog post on how to create your very over Project Comeback?! Let me know in a comment below!! Also, don’t forget to follow me on IG.. I’ll be posting another body update for you this week that you don’t want to miss!!

PS: have you checked out my new vegan e-book?!