I’ve been in self-isolation and lockdown for 4 weeks now. At the start of it all, I had already had a long conversation with myself about how I was going to be kind to myself and nurture my mental health through this process. My plan was to not hold myself accountable for anything over this period. I was going to eat, drink and be merry and deal with whatever the fallout of that, whatever that may be, after lockdown had ended. Then stupid JEFF Together appeared on my timeline and before I knew it, not only was I hooked on the workouts, but a plan started to form in my stupid head.

The More I Exercised The More Conscious I Became

Conscious that I didn’t want to be putting in such amazing work on daily routines with the EFF Together group and then ruining it all with a bag of crips as an afternoon snack and chocolate after dinner while I lay in bed watching TV. I don’t know if you guys are anything like me, but the workouts give me such an endorphin high which is completely ruined by eating crap. When I’m training properly, I’m way more focused and conscious of what I’m putting into my body. And the more I thought about it, the more convicted I became! So on a whim and without overthinking it all, I signed up for their 1-on-1 Personal Coaching program.

And then I had a panic…..

I had a Whatsapp Video call with the coach assigned to me, Coach Dee, she’s a total powerhouse and I feel she’s exactly what I need. During our first conversation, she recognized the competitor in me. The Type A that likes to compete and win at all costs! And this lady has an amazing bio too. I am super excited to have her on my team, holding me accountable and pushing/encouraging me all the way:

And then I almost backed out of the entire thing….

After Dee and I had had our initial conversation and I’d received my personalized exercise and eating plan, I almost bailed on the entire thing. Guys, remember when I was the woman who did this:

I mean, it was insane but I did it!

And that woman is coming back!

So what happened?

Well, after Dee sent me my eating plan, I started to freak out and I really did want to back out of the whole thing. The honest truth is that Low Carb High Fat does work for me. It works best for me, and when some people say it isn’t sustainable, I say it is. I sustained it for almost 5 years and maintained my weight perfectly.

But then…. I fell off the horse and injured my back, tore my calf and damaged my Achilles tendon. Then I quit smoking and then I hit peri-menopause and I gained a whole bunch of weight back. Pretty much almost all of it.

Those reasons seem reasonable right?

WRONG! Those are not reasons, those are excuses. Those are the excuses I used to stop holding myself accountable. Those are the reasons I used to stop practicing self-discipline on a daily basis. The real reason I gained all the weight is because I started eating too much of the wrong food. I stopped practicing the 80/20 principle and I sabotaged myself! And after a sleepless night of panicking about all of this, and realizing I’d been lying to myself for a while now about what was going on and why I was gaining weight, I got in contact with Dee and she pep talked me out of my self sabotaging ways on Saturday.

Reasons To Love The 1-on1 Coaching

The accountability for sure is the biggest one for me. I have a customized training routine that I have to complete 5 days a week. After each training session, I have to send my coach, Dee, a photo of my training watch showing my heart rate and calories burnt. I also have to send her a video straight after each training session to tell her how the training went, how I felt, if there was anything I struggled with etc. Check out my Instagram to see my first video after my first training session today.

I also have send her a photo of all of my meals every day. And I must also add that I loved that the JEFF Team were so willing to work with me to customize an eating plan that I was happy with. I explained my stance on low carb high fat, how I felt on it, the health benefits it gave me, how sustainable it was for me and Dee was totally willing to work with me to customize my eating plan to embrace my core values around food and health, based on what had and hadn’t worked for me in the past.

Here is what else is included:

So guys… here I go again…. I hope you’re all going to come along for the journey, last time I did this, there were two things that kept me going…. all of you encouraging me to keep going, holding me accountable and checking in and then the peeps who were here with their bag of popcorn just watching and waiting to see me fail!

Let’s do this!

via GIPHY