Finance & Fitness: Being Real with Yourself
Finance & Fitness: Being Real with Yourself
I was on the stair master today and decided to watch some CNBC and Suze Ornan with her short blonde hair, bright blazer, and witty sense of humor caught my attention. I thought I’d probably last 30 seconds watching a show about finance while doing some hard core cardio but oh man!! Suze grabbed my attention and kept it for a good 45 minutes!
For those of you who don’t know, Suze Orman is a punchy, charismatic, and super smart female finance guru. She was once a waitress and now is one of the most influential people in business and media. Major respect. I always knew “of” her but never actually took the time to listen to her until today. Much to my surprise, she is just as entertaining as she is knowledgable!
Anyway, the reason why I am writing about finance on a fitness blog is because of something Suze said at the end of her show to one of her guests. The guest and Suze were going back and forth on whether she could retire from her normal job in 8 years and finally try to follow her passion and not worry about simply working to pay bills. They found that she could but the guest kept saying she felt like she wasn’t saving enough money. Suze said this:
“You filled out paperwork as to every single penny that you spend. And according to what you filled out, we came up with a $1,600/mo excess. So either you are not being honest about what you really spend or you’re frittering the money away. So I want you to look at the paperwork again, how you filled it out, and you may find that…ohhh I didn’t count down that we did this and that…” (Money & Power episode)
I hope you see where I am going here.
Everyday, I get questions asking “Cassey, I am doing your workouts and eating clean. Why am I not losing weight?”
Well let me go Suze on you.
I want you to write down what you eat and log your workouts. Find out what your net calorie loss or excess is at the end of the day. More calories eaten than burned? Gain weight. Less calories eaten than burned? Lose weight. (If you are confused right now and thinking that if you eat 1400 cals a day you have to burn more than 1400 cals to lose weight, please read my previous article on basal metabolic rate and how to lose fat.)
The thing about keeping a food journal is this…you must be honest with yourself!!! You don’t have to journal forever – yeah it’s a pain in the butt and takes time – but if you do it for a week straight, you will be able to diagnose yourself and find where you’re falling. Then you can treat it.
When someone asks me why they are not losing weight, it’s usually a person who is already working out. So I always say please take a second look at your diet. Are you eating clean? They usually reply yes and of course, I never go cray cray on a person and lean real close and open my eyes insanely huge and say “ARE YOU SURE???”
(That was a reference to my tweets yesterday regarding the PO Box story!)
But I know in my head that that is usually the culprit. Food is sneaky. Even though food is fuel, oftentimes you eat when you’re not hungry. You eat to socialize. To feel good. To taste. To experience. Unfortunately, for some of us eating for pleasure can become habit and begins to rack up before we even know it! That’s when the pants start getting tighter and the pounds start packing on!
So if you’re feeling lost and discouraged today…I encourage you to take an honest step back and be your own doctor! Write down what you’re eating and how you’re exercising. If things don’t add up the way you want it to, make a change. Really, try to journal for 7 days. It will make a huge difference in your mind-body awareness and also will give you a more confident grasp on nutrition.
—>QUESTION: Do you guys want me to make you a cute fitness/food journal thingy that goes along with your calendar?
And also…eating clean does not mean eating blandly! A really cool way to add flavor to your veggies and lean protein is to add herbs and lemon juice to your dishes! This works especially well for meats like salmon! Mmmmm. Here’s a vid from Livestrongwoman that explains how!
Also, updating the flash mobilates group daily, join here to read the deets. I am still trying to find a venue that will allow us to do this in the time we have left. I hear there is supposed to be a Carmageddon the weekend of the 29th so no one will be out and about in LA? Sadness. (If you don’t live in LA or are not familiar with it, this means that the city decides to close major freeways so residents are asked to not travel anywhere.) Will see how this plays out. I will be super flexible with dates, but I swear, this WILL HAPPEN!!!! So yeah, join the group if you live in SF or LA.
Okie dokie! Sleepy time for me! I am teaching tomorrow so I better not miss my class like I did last week! That was so bad…I’m feeling a lot more rested. Not 100% but much, much better.
Thank you guys and love you so much!!!!!
<3 Cassey
33 thoughts on “Finance & Fitness: Being Real with Yourself”
There are 33 comments posted by our users.
Hey
I just wanted too say that the food journal idea sounds fab!!! Please do it!!
Thanks!!!
Thank you for this! This is coming at the perfect time. I’ve been giving myself way too much leeway lately and eating poorly with lots of excuses (“Well… my BFF wanted fro-yo, and I don’t see her as much as I’d like, so it’s ok! Even though I ate a cake pop after lunch…”) You’re right, it’s time to be really honest with myself! I think I really needed someone to sit me down and tell me to knock it off, so thank you thank you thank you! I start using my food diary app again tomorrow, promise!
PLEASE DO THAT!!!! 🙂
Thank you Cassey for this post! I was feeling especially unmotivated today about my progress. Being honest with yourself is difficult lol! But you gotta do what you gotta do! Love the journal idea with the calendar! Totally loving Sweaty September! THANKS!!
xx
Please pleease pleeeaaase do the fitness / food journal idea!! that would be awesome!! 🙂
Great analogy, Cassey, I think a lot of us do that :p
I think a fitness / food journal would be AMAZING! I really have trouble logging the food I eat, but I’m starting to try. It isn’t easy though! You inspire me so much and always keep me motivated to stay on track. Love ya, Cassey!
I think it would be really cool to have a food calendar, but it would be even cooler if it were included in the app that you’re working on. That way it could calculate all the calories and keep track of everything. All we’d have to do is enter the food we ate. By the way, I’m starting the 90 day challenge. I bought all the food today and I can’t wait to try it out. The food looks so delicious!
that is totally my problem 😛 there’s just too many temptations! but yes, i think a food calendar would be a great idea 🙂
Do the fitness journal thing!
I would really love it if you made a fitness/food journal that goes along with the calendar, but I’m vegetarian…
Hey Cassey,
I´m a huge fan of blogilates!Since I discovered your vids I workout nearly every day, at least half an hour and it feels so good! I do that since one week and I already see little changes in my body aswell (beside feeling better in generell). CRAZY!:D
Well, I would like to bring my boyfrind into my “fitness mania” and, you know, try to let him get some motivation, just as I got through your vids. So do you maybe know a MALE fitness guru on youtube or with a blog that you could recommend? That would be sooo great!!!
Best regards from Germany!
P.S.:I love the egg-banana-pancakes!:D
YES!Please make a fitness/food journal thingy!I really really really love your calendar!
Yes!!!! Please make a food journal thing!!!! 😀
Food-watching is really helpful! Thanks, Cassey! 🙂 BTW, photographing your meals is also super helpful in making the diet good and healthy! 🙂
Yes! I would love a food journal thing. I keep on meaning to start doing a food journal to see what I actually eat throughout the day but need a little motivation!
but skipping meals or eating MUCH less than you’re use to in order to loose weight in the ideas of cutting calories is also very bad! If you’re body is use to eating 3,000C and you jump to 1,400 suddenly for a week or so won’t it just keep the fat thinking that there’s a famine?
You’re right! Starving is stress for the body and the body begins to gain fat. When I began eating more often but smaller portions, my weight finally moved off from the plateau.
I would love love love a super cute food journal to go with the workout calendar. I’m definitely guilty of lying to myself about what I eat. I have a tendency to give foods a “free pass” because they’re good for me (ie. fruit, soy milk, etc) but I really do need to pay more attention.
Hello! Thank you, Cassey for this great post. I was waiting it about a day. I will try to write down what I eat:) Today`s workout was so hard for me! I was tired:(. I have been working out for 8 months, and I can actually see my progress. Yesterday was my rest day, and I thought it would help me to gain my strength. But no, no. What happened to me & why I am so tired? And after reading your post, I feel much better)). Thank you, Cassey
Interesting article!! Thanks for sharing this 🙂
Honestly I do write down everything I eat along with the calories and I also put it in an app I downloaded… AND I DO lose weight. It’s going slow now, but I already lost 30lbs.
Beside all this , It would be nice if there was a plan you put with the normal workout calender,maybe with the normal BMI formula ,so we can always reasure us how much calories we have to burn over the day or something.
If it’s too much work just leave it. You got enough work to do already.
PS: YOU ROCK!! <3
Hi Cassey,
A fitness/workout journal thing would be go great to accompany your workout calendar! Not to mention the ones you make are designed so cute!! 🙂
A huge fan,
Mariah
I’m so excited for more Pilates Bootcamp! But please don’t make them any harder, I was really looking forward to having a good beginners series 🙂
I really enjoyed reading this article. You are absolutely right! People have to be honest. And as an answer to your question: Do you guys want me to make you a cute fitness/food journal thingy that goes along with your calendar?
YES, I really want you to! It would be awesome.
Best from me,
L.
Yay, thanks for this awesome post Cassey, I just ate a whole heap of chocolate and had an awful week of bad eating! This week is going to be so much better, I’m so inspired 🙂 And I have the Eat Clean Diet Recharged book coming in the mail any day now!! 🙂
And YES a nutrition calendar/journal thingy would be so awesome! 😀
x
Everything you just said regarding food being super sneaky is completely true. I always notice if I get comfortable with my weight I seem to eat more carbs or ‘naughtier foods’, which horribly enough means I put on a little weight each time. This post is really quite inspiring to keep trying to eat clean and not let those sneaky eats get the better of me! Thanks Cassey!!!
p.s The meal plan/diary idea would be a really excellent way to keep on track!! 🙂
Great post! But sometimes the weight on the scale is not all that counts!
I’ve noticed that my weight actually stays basically the same, but I’m still getting thinner somehow! People are asking me, if I’ve lost weight and they tell me that I look skinny. And my clothes are not as tight as the used to be.
But my weight on the scale hasn’t changed in months!! It’s so weird! Do you know how this can be? Maybe you could do an ‘ask cassey’ vid on that?
And also:
Sometimes I get lower back pain after working out. Am I doing something wrong? How can I avoid it?
Thanks so much Cassey! Love your blog and your videos!
it’s because muscles are “heavier” than fat….you burn fat and get thinner, but you also gain on “muscle-wait” 😀
Muscle weighs more than fat – you still lose inches, but the scale might stay the same. Screw the scale, go by inches lost!
I know what your mean! I would constantly have lower back pain after working out for many years. It turns out it’s all able watching your form and keeping a properly neutral posture when needed and supporting your lower back with your abs. As well as not strainingit when youstretch I hope this helps!
Thanks so much for this post Cassey. You’re right: you have to be honest with yourself. This was a real eyeopener. 🙂
By the way, I hope to start with the 90 days challenge next week. I will be honest with myself and of course I will share the results with you!
Keep up the good work!