Fitness Tips, Mindset and Confidence

Uncovering the 5 Mindset Traps Keeping You Stuck.

Welcome. Today I want to talk to you about five common mindset traps and how to avoid them.

When it comes to your fitness and health, if you’re a woman over 40 and you want to be fit, be healthy, and feel terrific in your clothes and have that lovely calm and inner peace, then there’s one thing that you need, and that’s consistency.

Hi, I’m Jessica Cooke, the fitness coach for women over 40, and it is my absolute mission to help women all over the world over 40 get fit, feel great, and find their inner peace and calm. I know one thing’s for sure, that one thing that always gets in the way is mindset.

In my years of experience, 14 years coaching women and through my own personal transformation, for those of you that don’t know me, I had a complete nervous breakdown in my 20s. I was three stone overweight. I was so unhealthy, I smoked, I drank too much, and I did not know how to take care of myself. I was the opposite end of the scale when it came to peace and calm. I had so much anxiety, so many panic attacks. I used to feel so stressed out.

Read my story here

I was, what you would call, a stress head. I was just extremely stressed out all of the time. It took me a long, long, long time to find my inner peace and calm. And even though I’m always a work in progress, it is really important to me to help as many people as I can feel good as quickly as I can with all the things that I learned, which I wish I had known earlier. And I meet many women on this journey. I’ve been coaching women for many years now, and one of the biggest things I hear women say when they’re starting a program with me or they’re starting out in their journey is that they are lazy, that they’re just not motivated and they struggle to stay consistent.

What I want to chat to you today is one of the reasons why it might be difficult to stay consistent. And like with all my pieces of content, if there’s one thing that resonates with you, then my job is done. If there’s one piece of content that you can take away from this and go, wow, okay, that has totally changed my perspective on it in a good way, then I’m absolutely delighted because all it takes is one mindset shift, somebody to tell you something good that you didn’t know for you to go, wow, okay, I get it.

(Grab my free Mastery Habits Checklist here)

So five common mindset traps, number one is you find fault.

Have you ever noticed that when you start a program or a course or you try to get fit that you can sometimes start to find fault with it or yourself or everything? All of a sudden you’re just finding fault all over the place, and that is fear. So you can be really terrified of change or really scared of getting out of your comfort zone, or really just uncomfortable and fearful about doing this out of your comfort zone thing. That can lead you to find fault. It’s like you just automatically, subconsciously resisting it.

The lovely thing about this mindset trap is that once you know it, you can see it for what it is. So the next time you’re starting a fitness program, and I’ve been there before, and I’m like, “Jessica, this is it. This time you are going to be consistent. This is the time you’re going to be different.” And then it could be to do with anything, learning, studying, anything new that I have done, getting out into the big bad world and the big good world and trying to make connections with people, trying to form friendships, which would be something that I have to work on that I can struggle with. It’s allowing yourself to do these things, allowing that vulnerability out, acknowledging that you’re out of your comfort zone and that your brain is going to be looking for fault because it doesn’t want you doing this because it doesn’t feel safe.

And once you know that the next time you’re starting a program and you’re searching for consistency and you’re trying to be consistent, you can just say to yourself, “I’m finding fault. That’s because I’m scared. I’m scared of change. I’m scared of being vulnerable, and that’s okay.”

The second mindset trap is that you compare yourself to others.

Now, this can really bring you backwards, and the reason you may be comparing yourself to others is again, because you’re scared. You don’t like being vulnerable, you don’t like doing something that you’re, you’re not great at. So you start comparing yourself to everybody else who you think is way more ahead of you in this journey.

And sometimes you will be right that people are ahead of you on your journey. But rather than that, just be, yeah, great they started before me, you can really use that as a stick to beat yourself with. Now remember the subconscious mind when you’re doing something new doesn’t like you out of your comfort zone. So it’s trying to find anything to drag you back, to drag you back to where you were. So for example, a woman called Joan, she is three stone overweight. She feels really uncomfortable in her clothes. Now Joan wants to change so bad, but her default behavioural patterns are sitting on the couch after dinner, comfort eating and not getting any exercise in.

That’s where she feels comfortable. That’s what she knows because that’s what the habit that she’s built up. Now, if Joan decides she wants to lose weight and get fit because she wants to be healthy getting older and she starts working out and avoiding eating after dinner, she’s going to be out of her comfort zone because she’s just doing something new. Now all those feelings are going to try and drag her back because your brain is in survival mode the whole time. We have like a 4 million-year-old brain that is designed to look for threats.

So when you’re designed to look for threats, when you’re doing something new, of course out of your comfort zone is going to feel like such a threat. So Joan may experience those feelings of finding fault. She might think the workout is really annoying, or her walk route is really annoying, or the playlist didn’t work or it’s a crap playlist. She didn’t feel in the form, but she will try to find fault. And running alongside of that, she might start compare herself to others who are in the same group as her if it’s an online program and she sees somebody that she thinks is doing way better than her or people out in the road, and you just get into that really comparing mindset.

Now, the next time you start to do this, say to yourself, “It’s just because I’m out of my comfort zone. I am trying to drag myself back, be aware of it and keep up the good work.”

Now the third mindset trap is that you can tend to overcomplicate things, especially when you’re starting something new.

(Grab my free Mastery Habits Checklist here)

And I’ve recently learned that for some people that they overcomplicate it, it’s because of a past trauma that they may have experienced and that they find it difficult to keep things simple because their brain can get very overwhelmed and very stressed out.

Now, have you ever noticed that when you start something new, I have definitely done this so many times. In fact, all of the mindset traps that I am talking to you about, I could write the book on it with myself and it’s something that I have to work on every single day and be aware that I have these mindset traps the whole time. But over complicating something is something that I have always done.

I want to do something really simple. I want to take action on it. So I start to write lists and write it out, and then all of a sudden I’m writing it so much and I’m trying to make it so good that I’ve overcomplicate it and I don’t know what to do. Now, I have done that for most of my life and I’m only really learning that action is the only solution for me to get me out of that overcomplicated thing. Now, if you can relate to what I’m talking about, the best thing for you to do when that happens is to just go and take a bit of action. Whatever it is that’s on your list, just start and you’ll start to get more cam and relax.

Now, my fourth mindset trap that I want to talk about is resisting reality.

You say to yourself a lot, what if, if only. And when you do that, it means that you’re not living in the present and you are scared to live in the present and you are sacrificing the present and you’re living in the future. And you’re saying to yourself, “When I’m dress size lighter. If only I had this, my life would be easier. When I do this, I will do this.” And that’s an absolute trap. And again, it’s a trap that’s going to bring you back. It’s going to drag you down, and it’s going to stop you from being consistent.

(Grab my free Mastery Habits Checklist here)

My fifth and final mindset trap is that your expectations are too high.

Your expectations on yourself might be too high, what you can get done in a day and you’re not allowing yourself to be human and have off days and deal with the stuff that’s thrown at you every day. So when you feel like your expectations are too high, lower them a little bit. Be kinder to yourself, accept that you’re human. Do what you can do. Maybe take a little bit off of your plate.

Now there’s another little bit of a tip that worked for me when I overcomplicate things, and that is to journal, just to journal out a few things about how I feel and it helps get it out of your head and onto paper, and it can be so super helpful if you are overcomplicating things in your head. So to sum up five mindset traps to avoid that might be getting in the way of you being consistent.

Number one, you’re finding fault with everything once you get started. Now remember, that’s going to take you off course. Just be aware of it, accept it for what it is and keep doing what you’re doing. The second one, you compare yourself to others. Again, trying to drag you back. Remember that we’re all on different parts of the journey and just take it nice and slow and steady and call it for what it is. I’m comparing myself to others. Let’s stop doing that. Is it helpful? No. The third thing is that you overcomplicate things. If you’re overcomplicating things and it’s all in your head, get it down on paper. If you’re doing too much on paper or you’re, you’re writing too much lists, just start taking action. The fourth thing is you resist reality and you notice yourself saying, “If only I had this, what if I had that? ”

The best thing you can do for that is to practice living in the moment. And the last mindset trap is that your expectations are too high. Lowering your expectations with yourself and being a little bit kinder and a little bit more gentle with yourself and not striving for perfection may really, really help you. I hope you find this helpful. If you need help, setting goals, setting visions, I have a goal and visions workbook. If you just go to JessicaCook.ie/vision and you can get everything you need out onto paper, your goals for the year, your action steps, and that’ll help you keep it really clear and simple.

Keep up the good work. Make sure to Join me over on TikTok and say Hi

Like with all my pieces of content, let me know what you thought in the comments.

All my love, Jessica Cooke X

 

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Fitness Tips, Weight loss

How I lost weight And Got Fit (Without Hating my Life)

For many years I struggled with comfort eating, weight fluctuation and too much drinking at the weekends. A kind of Jekyll and Hyde approach. Super healthy during the week, plenty of workouts, but a real all or nothing approach to food.

I used to be obsessed. Years ago, I was obsessed with calorie counting, food tracker apps and the weighing scales. When I realised that didn’t work, I moved on to just generally been obsessed about food. Restricting carbohydrates, having a tiny breakfast, eating very little during the day… I’ve truly done it all.

I’ve restricted and dieted for so many years but funnily enough, now, having giving all that up, I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been. I’m really proud to say I feel really fit and healthy but what got me here has been a complete revamp of my lifestyle.. and changing my whole approach.

It’s this new approach that I want to share with you with the hope, as always, that if you’re reading this or you follow me on social media that I can help you become. the fit and healthy person you truly want, to be if you’re not currently feeling that way now.

Too often we are looking at the wrong things to fix. We drink too much alcohol but focus on reducing or carbohydrates. We comfort eat at night time but ponder over the best breakfast choice to make. We don’t work out, but check the weighing scales every day. It hit me a few years ago that this is what I had been doing.

I’d been looking in the wrong places, I was trying to change habits that didn’t need to be changed and I wasn’t looking at the habits that did need to be changed.

For example, the habits that I did need to change were how I dealt with stress, how I spoke to myself, my inability to self soothe, my need for external validation, my lack of belief in myself, my tendency to drink too much at weekends to unwind, my tendency to eat big dinners for comfort… Moderation is something that I didn’t think I would ever achieve.

I’m really excited to tell you that calm, peace, fitness and health is there for you if you embrace change and are willing to go at it a new way.

Here are the things that have worked for me that may work for you too.

Nutrition

In order to move forward and to achieve true health, I believe you need to give up all forms of dieting and restriction. I believe you need to let go of everything you learned about weight loss and truly start to eat healthy. If you comfort eating or are overindulging, don’t let that affect what you’re eating in a day. Don’t let the fact that you comfort eight at night time make you restrict what you eat the next day. By that I mean focus on having a nourishing breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Focus on eating from all the food groups. Carbohydrates do not make you fat. If you’re overweight now, it’s not because of carbohydrates, it’s because you’re eating too much and that is what we need to address. Why are you eating too much. Which leads me onto my next tip.

Peace and calm

Finding peace and calm has been life changing for me. It has helped me embrace self soothing which means I no longer turn to food or anything outside of myself for comfort.

This has been huge and the effect of having peace and calm in my life has been one of the main reasons I have gotten so healthy. I do something with my clients called Thrive Time, which lasts between 10 to 15 minutes and we do it four days per week. It’s a combination of journalling, meditation, silence and affirmations and it’s through this thrive time that I have started to thrive.

If you’re over eating because of stress or anxiety or comfort, diet plans don’t fix that. You can’t fix comfort eating with a diet plan. You can’t be told what to eat, you know what to eat but we get scared of working on what we need to work on. Do you have the tools to manage stress, why are you stressed out, why do you feel anxiety? This is the stuff that takes longer to figure out, but once you have it figured out, you can learn to self soothe. Self soothing, for me,  is when you don’t need to look outside of yourself to feel better. When you crack this, comfort eating will no longer be needed in your life. You’ll realise it doesn’t serve you anymore and it doesn’t do anything for you anymore because you found a new way that makes you feel so good that doesn’t involve eating.

Strength training and water

Lifting weights three to four times per week will get you so fit and so healthy. Just working out four times per week for 30 minutes.  Lifting weights will get your metabolism nice and high, which means you’ll burn fat at rest, which means you’ll fit great in your clothes and feel fit and strong. Add in some walks for fresh air and stretching and you’ll be fit, strong and healthy.

A great bedtime and morning routine

When I figured out what kind of a bedtime and morning routine worked for me to enable me to grow and change as a person, I changed and I grew. Having a time in the evening time to go to bed at, the same time every night, doing small little rituals like putting your phone on Airplane Mode, getting into bed with a good book for 10 minutes, really bring about positive change to your life.

Realising that your bed is always going to be so tempting in the morning and that most of us  aren’t morning people, getting over that and then choosing to get up even when you’re not in the mood brings about real positive change.

I never want to get up when I get up, I always want to stay in bed. It’s a habit that I least like, but I do anyway. Being organised in the morning, getting up before you have to, having rituals like getting your workout in, your thrive time, drinking water, having a coffee, enjoying your shower will bring about so much positive change in your life. It’s difficult for me to describe just how much change these rituals will bring to your life because it’s so different for everybody but they’re all positive, that I can promise you.

Set up your own morning and bedtime routine what works for you you don’t need to follow anybody else’s. I used to try and follow other peoples and I never stuck with it because it was never my own. 

I hope you find this helpful. For me, life is great when I’m fit and healthy. I have spent too many years struggling with anxiety, stress, weight fluctuation and a deep sense of unhappiness. I love life now, I embrace life, I choose to surround myself with people who I trust and love.

Embrace YOUR journey, make a plan and decide how you are going to move forward. If I could recommend one thing is that it would be to take one action step right now to bring you closer to your goals. if you’ve never lifted weights before I put workouts for you to try out on my YouTube channel which you can subscribe to here and you can also enjoy my free healthy habits guide that I made for you as a gift to get you started on your journey.

All my love, Jessica Cooke

PS I’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comment section below

 

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Fitness Tips, Weight loss

How To Start Getting Fit after 40.

 I’m talking to you, if you are currently sitting on the couch late at night, you’re eating shyte, your clothes are tight, you’re feeling uncomfortable in your clothes, you’ve done diets before and you don’t know what to do.

You’re stuck. You don’t know where to start, you’re feeling overwhelmed.

Life is busy, you might be going through a setback, and you just don’t know where to start. But what you do know is that you want to lose weight and you want to feel good in your clothes, and I don’t even want to say the December word, but you want to feel good for that period of the year, and you’re concerned now that you’ve left it too late. So I’m talking to you, if this is you.

The absolute first place to start is the exercise. Everything good comes from exercise. Everything. Better food choices, you’re more likely to be sleepy at nighttime, which is really good. You’re more likely to get to bed earlier, you’re more likely to wake up earlier. Not to mention the fact that, okay, the proper exercise if you’re a woman over 40 is low impact interval training, strength training, core work. We know that. That’s really good from a physical perspective because it builds lean muscle, it boosts your metabolism.

But if you’re overweight now or you’re feeling uncomfortable in your clothes, it’s not that you’re going to, in my opinion, start the workouts for those reasons, even though that’s absolutely brilliant. It’s that if you start with the workouts, everything else will naturally improve. It’s Joan versus Lisa. Lisa is  like, “No, no, no, no. I’m just going to really focus on restricting my food, and calorie counting, and I’m going to just focus on not eating bad food. I’m only going to eat good food.”

So she wakes up and she tries to eat healthy all day long, but she hasn’t changed her mindset at all. She hasn’t gotten any feel good release of endorphins out. She hasn’t changed her state from exercise. So she’s relying on willpower alone, and motivation alone, and focusing on the food so much. And you know what happens when you solely focus on the food. All you can think about is more food. And soon you start to go it, “Feck it.” And you either go way too restrict-ey, which means then you start to overeat, or you just pack the whole thing in.

Whereas if you start with the exercise and say to yourself, “Do you know what? The way I’m eating now, ”I’m not going to really analyse it too much. I’m just going to add in the workouts to my life.” Every single thing will change in your life for the better. Now, I know that’s a massive statement, but if you are doing the right type of exercise, not too hard, not too easy, and you’re feeling really good after your 30 minute workout, and you’re like, “I’m on fire, I can face any setback or challenge that comes my way,” you’re not going to go straight to the couch and eat a packet of crisps. You’re much less likely after your lunch to go and have biscuits with your cup of tea. You’re not going to want to, most of the time, ruin the buzz, ruin the feel good feeling of how amazing it feels to be healthy.

So that’s where I would start, and that’s where I tell everybody that ever asks me to start.

You start with the exercise and you let the exercise do its lovely work. And then when you’re in that lovely, consistent place of working out three times per week, just for 30 minutes, and you’re doing a couple of walks, 30 minute walks, and that’s a 10 out of 10 ticked on your movement, you can say to yourself, “Okay, what do I actually need to tackle”?

Am I eating too much at dinner? Am I eating after dinner? Am I leaving long gaps in the day, and then eating like a mofo at nighttime?” And you can say to yourself, “Yeah actually, I’m eating too much after dinner. So I wonder what would happen if I exercised and just for the time being cut out eating after dinner.” You know what? I’m telling you, you get brilliant results and you get them in a really non stressy, restrictive, diet-ey way.

You’d be living your life, having the craic with your family, going out for meals at the weekend, having drinks or whatever it is that you like to do. But you’d be working out consistently getting a couple of walks in, building lean muscle mass, getting your metabolism high, burning fat at rest, feeling amazing from your exercise, feeling like a successful person because you are, you’re being successful with exercise, and not eating after dinner.

And then, after a couple of weeks when the exercise is still making you feel amazing, you go, ” Do you know what? I am loving this. I’m loving not eating after dinner. Is there anything else that I can do? I’ll do one more thing.” And then you can say, “You know what? I actually leave long gaps between meals. So I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to not eat after dinner for most days of the week, during the week. The weekdays. Work out consistently, and I’m going to focus on having a really good breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” And guys, before you know it, you’re in brilliant shape, and you’ve done it the kind way to yourself, and you’ve done it through fitness. And that’s actually my mission statement. It’s to empower you to transform your life through fitness.

I hope you found this blog post helpful. If you did, I would love you to share it with a friend If you would like to try some of my free workouts, download my free fat burning workout series, and I’m telling you, you may just really enjoy them, or else you can subscribe to my free newsletter that goes straight into your inbox. All you have to do is click this link and don’t forget to say hi. Have a really great day.

Go out and smash the day. All my love.

 Jessica Cooke 

 

 

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Fitness Tips, Mental Health

Take Care of These Three Key Components of your Health If You’re a Woman over 40

There are three key areas to look after when it comes to your health. And very often, we can get very wrapped up in weight loss or fitness. And it’s a really, really nice idea to take care of yourself and take care of the three main components of your health.

Your fitness, your nutrition and your mental health. And if you can tap away at all three every week, you’re going to become a really healthy, more calm, more feelings of capability and in control, if you focus on the three things and not just more one than the other. Because you see, when you focus more on one than the other, other things start to drop.

If you go all crazy out on the fitness, you’re going to get really exhausted and feel really cranky. Same thing goes with the food. If you go all out with the food, you’re going to end up getting really frustrated and annoyed and it’s going to make you feel like you’re going around in circles. Because when you focus too much on the food, you get really obsessed, right? You have your breakfast and you’re thinking about what to have for lunch. You have your lunch, you’re thinking about dinner. You have what you think is a bad night and you get so annoyed with yourself that you feel like you’re starting over.

And the same thing when it comes to your mental health. If you’re only focused on meditation or journaling and you’re not getting any movement and you’re not taking care of yourself from a food perspective, again, you’re going to have a bit of a knock on negatively in other areas of your life. So in my opinion, the best way to take care of yourself is just to look at those three components of your life and ask yourself, “How am I getting on with the food? Am I nourishing myself well most of the time? Am I eating healthy most of the time? And am I having a nice, balanced, healthy day?”

The same approach when it comes to the workouts. “Am I getting good movement throughout the week? If I’m a woman over 40, am I taking care of my body? Am I doing some form of strength training? Am I building lean muscle? Am I making my bones strong? Am I actually moving, getting sweaty and getting good cardio fitness?” And then when it comes to the food, you would just want to ask yourself, “Am I eating healthy? Am I actually taking care of myself?” And forget the unhealthy habits for the minute. Because you can be healthy and have unhealthy habits. And I think that’s where a lot of people go wrong in the sense that they quit or they give up on themselves because they have these unhealthy habits.

Whereas actually, it’s a really, really good idea to focus on your healthy habits and see where you could improve. And then over time, focus on any unhealthy habits that you feel are holding you back. For example, you might leave long gaps between meals. So you might decide to yourself, “Okay, well next week, I’m going to make sure I have a good breakfast lunch and a dinner.” Now, you might be comfort eating alongside of that, but that’s okay. That doesn’t have to take away from the fact that you’re going to focus on having more regularly well-balanced meals throughout the day. So the two can go hand in hand.

So just don’t worry if you are eating crap on the couch late at night and you haven’t figured that out yet, or if you’re going crazy still at the weekends and you haven’t figured that out yet. Just remember that that doesn’t take away from the good work that you do during the day with your food. Keep it nice and simple. Keep it so simple and keep focused on being healthy. And over time, you’ll feel so good, you’ll get brilliant results and it’ll really empower you to want to do more if needed.

If you’ve any feedback or just want to say Hi, please post in the comments and you can also grab my free 5 Day Workout Series of my 5 Favourite workouts of all time here

Jessica Cooke X

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Fitness Tips, Mindset and Confidence

How To Get & Stay Motivated To Exercise

Motivation is a little bit like your mood. If you’re chasing motivation it’s a little bit like chasing a good mood. You can’t be guaranteed to be in a good mood and you can’t always be guaranteed to be motivated. For some people they feel motivated when they hit actual rock bottom. 

When all your habits go out the window, and you’ve gained weight, and you feel rotten, and you feel really unfit, and you find climbing up the stairs tough, that’s when a lot of people can go ‘right, Ok,  I better get to work. I better get to do something about this’. And they get motivated for a couple of weeks, feel a little bit better, and go right back down.

Have you ever wondered why you do that? 

If you ever wonder why you feel like you’re circling and circling… that you’re motivated, you do a good spurt and you pull back, it may be because you are relying on motivation and you are using motivation as your tool to get fit, lose weight and improve your quality of life. And I don’t blame you. It’s pushed out there so much. ‘Get motivated’. ‘How to stay motivated’. ‘Once you’re motivated you’re all good’.

 You can keep going. But what I ask  you to possibly reframe in your mind and maybe think about it a bit differently is rather than ask yourself how can I stay motivated, ask yourself instead how can I become consistent? 

How can I become consistent with exercise? And anytime you hear somebody talking about motivation just switch that word out for consistency.

There’s five steps.

 Five steps to becoming consistent in exercise in your life, but you can imply them to absolutely everything in your life. 

The first one is to create a really good morning routine. 

Now you don’t have to go absolutely crazy with the morning routine and start straight off meditating and doing affirmations and all that good stuff. You can simply start by getting up 10 minutes earlier than you need to, with a cup of coffee, sitting for five minutes, and just being a little bit ahead of yourself. It is absolutely mind blowing the power of being ahead of yourself first thing in the morning, rather than get up and scramble around and then by about one o’clock feel like, okay, now I’m in the zone.So the first one is to create a good morning routine.

 The second one is to create a good bedtime routine. 

To be consistent with everything in your life you need to think of yourself as an athlete. You need to be taking care of yourself in small ways to make sure that you are prepping yourself and priming yourself up for the good stuff. So if you want to become consistent with exercise, not only do you need to have a good morning routine, but you’ve got to have a good bedtime routine. 

And that can simply mean getting to bed by 10:30 at night, putting your phone on airplane mode and having a good page turning book, something that you know that’s so simple to read that you can just pick it up, like a Marian Keyes book that sucs you right in…you’re straight in.

The third thing I would do is plan your workouts. 

So how to get and stay consistent in your exercise, plan your workouts to an absolute tee. Make sure that you have your exact times, your exact days and leave it alone. Follow your plan. Set an alarm clock in your phone 10 minutes before you have to workout. And every single time your workout comes into your brain and you start to think, oh my God, I’ve got my workout in four hours, just go, no, I’m not doing that. 

I’m going to think about my workout five minutes before, because my workout’s only 30 minutes long and I’m not turning that workout into a four hour workout because if I do I know what will happen. I’ll start to get really demotivated and not in the mood. So really try to put your workout time into your workout times and leave it alone. And you’ll find your mind wandering, your mind always looking for the negative thing to focus on, go, no, I’m not doing that. I’m focusing on something else

The fourth thing is to not overstretch everything, and we as women have a tendency to do that. 

OK, you’re right, Jessica, I’m going to get into the groove of workouts. I’m going to stay consistent. I’m going to do five. And I really, really think that three workouts per week done consistently over time would give you so much better results than being sporadic and getting five, and then getting zero, and then getting five. So you’re giving yourself all these gold stars one week and then beating yourself with a stick the next week. So if you’re consistent you’ll focus on doing that little bit less, little bit less than what you think you can totally fit in, and you’ll feel so much better. And you’ll start to build up your confidence too around the consistency issue.

And my last one is to journal.

And journaling simply means getting out a pen and paper. And in this instance, every day writing out what your plan of attack is for the day. Three things that you’re going to get done this day. And then in the evening time, or at some point later on in the week, reflecting how it’s going and tweaking if you need to. So think of your goals and your action steps like an airplane, course correcting the whole time it’s in flight, and it gets to its destination.

Think of you not as failing or succeeding or winning or losing. Think of yourself as just consistently course correcting. 

You do a little bit. You get a bit of feedback. That feedback is either, yeah, Jessica, you’re going great guns here. You’re going well. You keep on going. You go to something else. Or it’s like, oh no, that’s not working out so well for me and you do a little bit of course correction. Just think of your health and fitness and your weight loss and fitting good in your clothes, just like that. And that’s why I hate those weighing scales and tracker apps because they’re giving you all this immediate feedback, whereas life isn’t like that. You go, you go, you take action. Over time you see how you’re going. You go a little bit this way. You correct a little bit that way. You take the pressure off.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post! You can subscribe to my Newsletter to get my posts straight into your inbox

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Jessica Cooke X

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Fitness Tips

Get Fit Over 40 By Rejecting 5 Fitness Myths

There is a lot of fitness myths out there that can make things seem very confusing at times. So I wrote this blog post to remind you to keep it simple! Results come with consistency not with hard line dieting for 3 weeks! You are so much more than what you weigh. Focus on being fit and healthy, and you’ll stop obsessing over that last 5-7lb. Enjoy your workouts, enjoy your healthy food and enjoy your weekends!

Myth 1:

You need to spend hours at the gym.

There’s absolutely no need to spend hours at the gym, you’re only wasting the precious time you have. You only need to dedicate 30 minutes, 4 -5 times per week to get brilliant results, if you’re doing the right type of exercise in that time. .. and you can do it all from the comfort of your own home! You can do anything in your twenties to get results, but once you hit 40, it’s a little different. You need to be more strategic as you’ve a lot more going on that used to. Hormonal fluctuations, a decrease in lean muscle mass, a decrease in your metabolism… these are things you need to take on board when you’re designing your workouts.

Myth 2:

Dieting & Restriction is necessary.

When you get into your forties and fifties, you start to realise that dieting really doesn’t work . Seriously restricting calorie intake for a few weeks only leads to more weight gain once you’ve stopped. Omitting food groups only makes you feel miserable. I think when you get beyond forty, you realise life is for living. Life feels so precious and wonderful, why would you want to spend it obsessing about your weight.

Myth 3:

You need the weighing scales to stay on track.

You don’t. What would happened if you gave up the weighing scales entirely and accepted that it might be a bit of an addiction, or a stick to beat yourself with.  Two things. Your weight is going to fluctuate due to water retention and your hormones. If you do weight training, you’ll have more lean muscle mass, which is heavier than fat, but takes up less space. What would happen if you focused on feeling great in your clothes, and being fit and healthy? Your mood would improve because you’re only focused on positive things!

Myth 4:

Weights make you bulky.

No they don’t! They make you lean, trim and fit! You’ll get into great shape, while also building strong muscles and bones. It’s recommend that every woman over the age of 40 do strength training a few times per week to protect and prevent issues like osteoporosis and brittle bones.

Myth 5:

It’s all about the cardio.

No, it’s definitely not. A good combination of strength training, interval training and core work is what’s important. Hours and hours of cardio will not increase your metabolism, or build lean muscle like strength training will. Also interval training is really effective at burning fat!

I hope you found this article helpful.

You can go to inspirefitnesstraining.ie/freetools and download lots of helpful stuff to help you on your journey

To your success,

Jessica Cooke

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Fitness Tips

Game Plan For Staying Fit Over 40

Once you hit 40, you may find that it is more easy to gain weight. Or maybe you’re at a point where you never got to lose the weight you wanted and now you feel stuck.  Maybe right now you’re feeling unfit, sluggish, tired and with no energy. Your 40’s and 50’s can be some of the most demanding years of your life. Working hard while also feeling bad about yourself is tough going.

When you hit 40 and beyond you experience many hormonal changes. It’s easier to gain weight around the middle. Your metabolism slows because your lean muscle mass decreases. You may experience hight stress and low mood. Does this sound familiar?

Here’s your game plan to fitting great in your clothes, having tons of energy and feeling good about yourself again.

  1. Do the right type of exercise. Your workout regime should consist of strength training, interval training and core work. I do 30 minutes with my clients,  3-5 times per week. This type of training gives you the best results in the shortest space of time. A high metabolism, lean muscle mass, strong muscles and bones, tons of energy and leaves you feeling really good.  Read more about why you  should be lifting weights
  2. Start the morning right! A great breakfast, packed with protein will leave you feeling full, satisfied and when you’re lifting wights, you need to get the protein in to you to help with the lean muscle building. I love to have a nice break from carbohydrates and have a protein only breakfast to start my day post-workout.
  3.  Fill up on veggies and salad when you’re eating dinner. Do you have a big appetite? Not a problem. Load yourself up with the healthy extras! Salad, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, heap your plate high and it’ll help you stop reaching for more potatoes.
  4.  Get out in the fresh air. You need to stay on the top of your game when you’re managing so many things in your life. Having ‘workout time’ and ‘walk time’ is so important.
  5. Focus on consistency not perfection. Move every week. Sometimes you’ll move loads, other times a bit less, that’s OK!
  6. If you’re skipping meals, you think you’re doing great. ‘WOW I haven’t eaten all day’. But then what happens? You overeat, maybe not that day, but it’s coming down the tracks! Eat regularly. Three meals and two small snacks is best.
  7. Give up the weighing scales and try on your skinny jeans. The weighing scales are painfully frustrating when you have hormonal fluctuations, water retention and when you’re lifting weights. Pick your ideal dress size and stick with it.

Remember you’re not what you weigh! Life won’t be perfect when you’re 7lbs lighter. Focus on loving yourself now and focus on being healthy.

My second biggest tip is to do 30 minutes of the right type of exercise, 3-5 times per week week (depending on how much movement you’re already getting)

It will transform you, inside and out! (and it can be done from your own home!)

To your success,

Jessica Cooke

P.S check out the free tools section of my website

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Fitness Tips

The 10 Habits of Fit Women Over 40

Ok, so 10 habits of fit women over 40. Read below or watch video:

Strength training.

It is so super important that you are building lean muscle in your workouts because lean mass makes your metabolism high and makes you burn lots of calories at rest. Now we lose a lot of lean muscle mass, over the age of 30, so it’s really important that you reverse that, by doing strength training a few times a week.

The second one is to not rely on cardio.

There is far too many women coming to me and telling me they’re not getting result and they’re running on the road. They’re doing the treadmill or cross-trainer only. And they’re not getting any results. And you simply can’t rely on cardio to get the results. You have to do strength training and you have to mix that up with some interval training. Forget those long steady state cardio for good results.

The third thing is to stop obsessing over the number on the weighing scales.

The weighing scales can’t tell whether you have muscle on your body or whether you have fat. So when you’re working out and eating healthy and you’ve got lean muscle mass on your body the weighing scales don’t actually know that you’re fit and healthy and feeling great in your clothes so forget that number on the scales and remember that muscle weighs more than fat. So the slimmer you are, the harder It is to see what you want to see on the weighing scales, so don’t use the weighing scales for tracking your progress, use something else.

Next up is to eat real food.

It’s really important to eat from all food groups. Dieting and omitting different food groups isn’t going to get you anywhere. That might have worked in an unhealthy way in your 20s, but it’s not going to help you once you hit 40 and beyond. And it’s really important that you focus on your health, rather than just Dieting and Omitting stuff out. And the next one is to stop Calorie counting or weighing your food or counting or doing points It can get you down a very obsessive rabbit-hole obsession and you don’t need that because all that’s going to do is make you not want to do it anymore. Remember focus on eating healthy and Omitting the junk the alcohol during the week, but you’re you’re focusing on healthy food, three meal, two snacks.

 The next thing is to stop being so hard on yourself because you’re keep to keep going around in circles if you only focus on all the things that you’re not doing, or what you think you should be doing so try to get your wins and your momentum from focusing all the things that you’re doing right. And you’ll find that you’ll break your plateau, you’ll stop cycling and you’ll actually make progress.

The next thing is to work out and eat healthy because you love yourself not because you hate yourself and eating healthy because you hate yourself because you’re calling yourself fat all that sort of stuff then it’s time to work on the self-love part while you’re working out and eating healthy. Listen to your body, especially as we get older we can get more tired, stress can get to us, life can become more stressful, so listen to your body, rest when you need rest, get to bed at a good time don’t scroll on your phone and take care of yourself.

And the second last thing is that fitness is a lifestyle choice so you should be having fun and a laugh. Don’t be going into your workouts the whole time beating yourself up and hating on yourself and thinking you should do better because life is short and it’s a lifestyle choice. so you want to be happy! And the last thing is to

Embrace the discomfort.

Don’t worry sometimes if you’re sitting on the couch at night and you fancy having a crisps and chocolate and you feel uncomfortable and you’re wondering ‘oh is this just me,why am I craving that’ Don’t worry about all that stuff. And embrace discomfort in your workouts too. Everything that’s tougher to get, the harder the climb, is more rewarding,

So keep up the good work you can do it and I promise you’ll be feeling good if you follow these tips in no time at all.

 To your success,

Jessica Cooke

P.S Free tools section here

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Fitness Tips

“Feeling Like It” Isn’t a Requirement

When you feel motivated, exercise can feel amazing, You throw on your trainers, pumped and ready to go. If you go through cycles of being ‘on it’ and ‘off it’, you’ll know what I mean when I say it truly sucks when that feeling goes away.

The biggest problem I see people face is consistency. It can be struggling to stay the same weight, workout every week, apply the same amount of commitment it takes every week… it’s different for everyone.

To me consistency means doing what you need to do, to get the results you want, most of the time. It’s why I love to take weekends off to relax and rest. I’ve spent 5 days moving, so I spend 2 days resting.

If I had to pick one piece of advice to you about consistency, it would be this.  If you’re always waiting to be in the mood, you have a problem. And that problem will be that you will never become consistent. You need to get to a point where you’re not fighting with yourself about your workout. 5 minutes, pre session, robotic like, you get your trainers on. You don’t need to think about how it’s going to feel, you just need to do Step A, which is trainers on. 5 Minutes pre-session is when you think of the workout ahead.

While you’re getting ready for your workout, think of what you are doing… getting a high metabolism, burning fat, taking care of your body, building strong muscles and bones.

5 minutes in to your session, you’ll start to get in the mood. Motion creates emotion, so just by moving, you’ll start to feel better.

“Feeling Like It” Isn’t a Requirement. Give that up now. Focus on planning your workouts, sticking to your schedule, and only thinking of your workout 5 minutes before.

You can download recipes, my FREE 7 day workout series here

To your success,

Jessica Cooke

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