Life gets hectic — families, careers, and personal goals all tug at us in different directions. But carving out time to move your body doesn’t have to be another stressful item on your to-do list. Here are three strategies, friend to friend, to help you stay motivated and actually look forward to your workouts!

Want better sleep, a stronger body, and more energy throughout the day? They’re all related, and in this guide we’re talking about how to improve all of them all at once!

Ruts are normal, but they don’t have to stick. You can break free, and it often doesn’t take much to get started! Let’s take a look at 3 of the best ways to do it...1. Revisit your rootsWe all forget why we started sometimes — it’s normal. It’s even healthy — when we look back on the beginning of the journey, we realize how far we’ve come and whether we’re still aligned with our intentions. Ask how your goals and priorities have changed, and get super clear on what drives them. Then you can look at your current trajectory and see where you’ve been consistent (and where you haven’t). This makes it much simpler to find your motivation again and press forward with more excitement and energy than you’ve had in ages!

Consistency isn’t easy — between food temptations, finding time, and life’s inevitable bumps in the road, there are endless setbacks waiting for us. Let’s explore 3 simple ways to reclaim your consistency, make the journey more sustainable, and stay on track toward your goals!1. Pre-planOne of the simplest antidotes to setbacks is to see them coming from a mile away. You can’t plan for getting sick, but you can anticipate how you need to tweak your macros while you recover. You can’t know that you’ll have no energy on a random Tuesday, but you can plan your workouts around your body’s natural rhythms. You never know when a friend will call to make last-minute dinner plans, but you can plan out your macros a day ahead of time and still make choices that support your goals.Life is fullest when there’s spontaneity, but knowing your options in advance will ensure you have less room for error when stuff comes up!

Most people wing it when setting their resolutions — but not YOU. You want to see results and you’re determined to follow through... Isn’t that why you’re here, after all? Now let’s dive into how to do it!1. ConcreteIt’s not enough to want to ‘lose weight’ or ‘gain muscle’. Vague goals create vague results! The more specific you can be, the better (which clothes you want to fit into, how much definition you want to see, how many pounds you want to drop in fat or gain in muscle, etc.). Your brain does its best work when it has concrete objectives, because clearer intentions lead to clearer action steps. And those actions are what ultimately create the results you want! Speaking of...

Simple vs. complex carbs: Carbs are not all created equal, and this is especially true of the distinction between simple and complex carbs. Simple carbs are the ones that are broken down the fastest — sweets, fruits, etc. (dried mangoes are one of my FAVORITES). Complex carbs, on the other hand, take longer to digest and are found in sources like wheat, potatoes and other starches. I generally shoot for 90% complex and 10% simple in a given day, and the time of day matters here, as you’ll see shortly…

Start with “easy” meals Every meal plan should include some no-brainer dishes that you can make or even assemble in your sleep. Adding these in first creates momentum and allows you to write off a significant chunk of your week before you get into more complicated meals — or if you like, you can even stop at this step and give yourself an easy week! Don’t be afraid of “easy”; the faster it gets done, the more likely it is you’ll sustain solid eating habits without feeling like you’re constantly in crunch mode. No need to feel guilty as long as it works for you!

More sessions, not longer ones If you want to increase your cardio and it’s actually going to help you move toward your goals (i.e. you’re not overdoing it), don’t just extend your sessions — you’ll benefit more from distributing it more evenly over extra sessions. This helps mitigate against fatigue as long cardio workouts drain a ton of energy. By distributing the same total amount of cardio across more days of the week, you’ll typically notice more consistent energy levels and be able to enjoy life more in general! So don’t be tempted to go through it all at once.

The fitness industry has a dark secret hidden behind promises of quick-fix results and unattainable goals.It keeps women jumping from diet to diet, always starting something new and then bouncing back, even when they know deep down that nothing is going to change.The end result is that you can try going on keto, low-fat, intermittent fasting, whatever the latest trend is… And still be pulled into yet another program making the same promises, using a different type of restriction.Typically, it also comes with the promise of absurdly fast results, and it’s so cleverly designed that even if you never see lasting results after doing everything right, it’s nearly impossible to resist coming back over and trying again…No matter how frustrating or difficult it becomes!These companies pull women in by using complicated systems that only work under extremely specific circumstances.Keto is a perfect example: Ketosis only kicks in when carbs are almost completely absent from your body… And at the moment you reintroduce carbs to your diet, this fat-burning mechanism grinds to a halt.Intermittent fasting relies on avoiding all food except for within a very specific window of time. But outside of that time, you may be constantly battling hunger and fatigue until you’re even allowed a snack.While some women have the time and willpower to get everything absolutely perfect, this lifestyle isn’t realistic for the vast majority of women. Plus, it’ll make you miserable faster than you can say “low cal”!If you understand this secret and how it’s designed to keep you hooked on programs that never work, you can take back control and turn the tables on these unrealistic and unsustainable diets forever.I can attest to this… I was on brutally restrictive plans in my competition days, and once I discovered why I could never see the results I wanted unless I put my body through hell, everything clicked into place.Since then and for the past 7 years, I’ve worked out about 3-5 days a week, eating a sustainable and enjoyable diet that allows me to stay toned year-round without the ups and downs most nutrition plans are infamous for.I’ve never looked back since. Restrictive diets don’t work, plain and simple — look at what happens with those “success stories” months or years later and that will be abundantly clear.I can show you the same step-by-step process over 8,138 women have used and continue to use right now to make and KEEP progress they never found with any restrictive diets!