Ah, summer: Prime time for chips and guac and margaritas at rooftop bars; rosé poolside almost literally all day; barbecued burgers and brats and buttered-up corn on the cob. We're outside! We're socializing! We're making almost any excuse to spend time outside with friends or go out of town and a lot of the time this can revolve around food, drink and more food.

So what if you don't want to GAIN weight this summer but still want to have fun? This is NOT a post about what to eliminate during this glorious season. It's not about deprivation or missing out or letting the YOLO monster come out and play. Enjoying the summer treat bounty every once in a while will not derail your health status! You can easily end up feeling wrecked by the time fall comes around, though, when "every once in a while" becomes a daily to multiple-times-a-day practice and self-awareness is nowhere to be found.

In the spirit of a fun-filled summer that won't leave you angry, here are my top four summer nutrition skills to practice, whether you want to maintain or you still want to lose weight this season.
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• Track snacks and drinks. Why? Because tracking snacks and drinks gives you the opportunity to pause and make sure you really want the them. Like I said, this isn't about deprivation. And it's not about shame, either; there shouldn’t be ANY judgement associated with this tracking practice. It’s just a way to stay aware. Because, come on. It’s easy to forget you’re on glass number four of that rosé by the pool.
  • HOW TO: You can do this any number of ways but the one that fits YOUR needs will be the best one. Do you use your phone's Notes app a lot? Or are you more of a pen and paper person? Do you only want to track snacks in the evening? Or all of the snacks and drinks all day and night? It's really up to you and how you'll best set yourself up for success.
• Pre-determine meal portions. Why? Because we tend to eat what’s in front of us. Think about the BBQs you might attend in the summer. If they're anything like the ones I've gone to, tables are lined with all of those BBQ items I mentioned above, along with tasty dips and chips, and cheese and crackers, cookies and brownies and... You get the idea. If they're right in front of you, you'll likely go to town, right? It's often an invitation to graze and overfill the plate. But what if you had a game plan ahead of time? Choosing how much of what ends up in front of us will be consumed helps us eat to contentment rather than eating to the point of feeling really full and gross.
  • HOW TO: You can do a few things here. You can decide ahead of time that you will share a full portion of something with a friend. You can decide that you'll go up to the spread a certain number of times the whole time you're there (for example, make an appetizer plate, a main course plate and a dessert plate and stay away from the grazing). If you're headed to a restaurant, you can choose to eat half of your plate and then pack up the rest. There's no wrong way to do this as long as you're making active choices.
• Drink more water. Why? Because it’s hot out! The more you sweat the more you should drink water. Drinking more water can also keep us from feeling hungry (when we're actually just thirsty) and can stave off the craving for calorie-containing beverages or snacks!
  • HOW TO: Increasing water intake can take trial and error but above all, increase your intake by a reasonable amount day by day. In other words, don't go from drinking one 8-oz cup of water to all eight immediately or you'll be spending a LOT more time in the loo. Beyond that, make sure you carry a water bottle with you wherever you go (these are great for travel since they get smaller and smaller as you drink) or keep a tall glass at your desk. I personally know I drink way more with a straw so I fill up a mason jar and sip sip sip until it's gone! (Then I refill.) Again (and I hope you're seeing a trend by now), there's no wrong way to do this as long as it works for YOU.
• Choose the best option in front of you. Why? Because summer brings with it vacations and BBQs, places we often think we have no “best” option at all. The practice of making active choices, though, means we take responsibility for our actions. In fact, clients have reported enjoying their choice of the "best" food more than if they'd consumed it thinking they had no good options to begin with. So whether you're left with the decision to eat either a brat or a burger, choose which one you feel is best for you at that particular time and savor it!
  • HOW TO: I pretty much summed it up above. Remember: We're not running out of food here. You WILL have a chance to eat another brat one day if you chose the burger this time. The choice doesn't always have to be what we think is the "healthiest". Sometimes "best" doesn't mean "healthiest" and that is OK! YOU'RE in charge, you're the one making the decision. That's got to feel pretty powerful, right?

At the end of the day, you want to be able to look back at a summer when memories were made, the company of friends and family was enjoyed and let the food and drinks take a back seat. I hope these nutrition skills and habits can make it easier to enjoy this season as wholeheartedly as you can.

Cheers to y'all!

If you have any questions or comments or are looking for nutrition coaching, please leave them in the comments section below or reach me directly at izzy@izzyfit.com!

I was having a conversation with a client last week about her weight loss goal. This client -- let's call her Amy --  has lost 20 pounds over this last year and wants to lose those "last five pounds" in a month, just in time for a beach vacation. 

First, I'd like to point out: Amy has CLEARLY demonstrated that she can put in the work, both with exercise and nutrition, to lose weight safely and I have no doubt she can reach her goal. Girl's got skills! So why not say, "More power to you, let's do this!"?

Here's Thing One: Like me, Amy enjoys yummy food and an occasional cocktail and summer in Chicago is full of those.

Here's Thing Two: Like I said, it's summer. We're out of hibernation, being more social and therefore presented with more opportunities to accept (or decline) the offer of the aforementioned food and cocktails. And after this LONG winter we had, I personally don't want to limit my frolicking time being out and about.

Here is Thing Three (and the most important): I want Amy to set herself up for success. Success being getting to her goal feeling happy and whole, NOT feeling deprived and frustrated. You know what happens when people's diet/lifestyle regimen leave them feeling deprived and frustrated? Weight gain boomerang/depression/feeling isolated and miserable. WHO WANTS THAT?

So my first question to her was: What are you willing to do to lose just over one pound a week for the next month? 

As Gary John Bishop explains in his book, Unf*k Yourself (I highly recommend the audiobook), we often lament about what we don't have, who we aren't. One example he uses is "Why aren't I rich?" His answer, posed as a series of questions, went something like this:
"Are you willing to put in the work it takes to make it to become the next [insert name of a millionaire here]?"
"Are you willing to miss major holidays with loved ones to make the extra money?"
"Are you willing to put the most important relationships in your life aside to put work first?"
"Are you willing to never have a vacation without emails and phone calls for an extended period of your life?"

Obviously for some people the answer to those questions is "yes" and that's awesome! Just as awesome as it is for people to say "no" because then it is an active and informed choice. 

When it comes to fitness and aesthetic goals, we are very good at stating what we want and lamenting what we aren't. We want to lose the last five pounds; we want six-pack abs; we want to run a marathon. 

What we're not so great at is asking ourselves what we're willing to do to reach those goals.

Here are some questions I asked Amy regarding her goal of losing five pounds in a month:
"Are you willing to cut back on portion sizes during all of your meals?"
"Are you willing to feel hungry for 30-60 minutes before each meal?"
"Are you willing to cut out all snacks out for the next 4 weeks?"
"Are you willing to keep alcohol consumption to maybe 1 drink per week or 1 dessert per week?"
"Are you willing to put in 4-5 workouts per week, 2 with me and 2-3 on your own?"
Like I said before, this girl's got skills. I know she CAN do all of the above. But is she WILLING.

I don't know what her decision is yet and that's frankly neither here nor there as far as this story is concerned. The point is, we often set goals for ourselves that make us feel like losers when we don't reach them. And that's sad because it doesn't have to be that way.

I want to leave you with four ways to set a goal and reach it:
1. Write down your goal and by when you'd like to reach it.
2. Break the goal down into multiple actionable steps (ex. to lose 1 lb per week I need to cut out/burn 3500 calories; to do that I will need to do x, y, z and a, b, c).
3. Put the steps into a timeline.
4. Assess your timeline and actionable steps. Can you execute your plan while still feeling happy and whole? Yes? Great! No? Can you make the goal more realistic? (ex. lose the last 5 pounds in 2 months or lose 3 pounds in one month) Can you make the actionable steps more appealing and doable? (ex. I can happily limit my summer rosé intake to 3 glasses per week rather than 1 glass per week) 

Friends: Rethinking your goals and what you're willing to do to reach them (also known as taking a good, hard look at your values) does NOT make you a failure. It makes you a rockstar who might be finally freed of the shoulds and coulds and the why-am-I-nots. 

(Usually) we don't reach our goals because we don't do all that we should have done to get there in the timeline we gave ourselves.

(Usually) that happens because we don't know how to break down the goal and make a plan and timeline.

And we don't know what we don't know until we know it! So take the steps above and run with them! Set yourself up for the win! Be the rockstar you are ON YOUR TERMS.

​Or, as Gary John Bishop bluntly says, unf*k yourself. ​

Have something to say? Please leave a comment below!
Want to chat about how IzzyFit can help? Shoot me an email at izzy@izzyfit.com or call 312-497-8999!