Goals

Your Holiday Survival Guide



The next two weeks are filled with fun, stress, fun, food, and perhaps a little more stress.  The best chance we have, I think, of getting out of it happy and joyful are to follow a few tiny tips.  Here are my top ten healthy holiday eating tips to help get you through the holidays:
  1. Set goals.  First things first – think about what you want to achieve. Where you want to be. How you want to feel.  Do you want to look back and think, “I never met a Christmas cookie I didn’t like”? Or do you want to think, “I had a season of moderation.”  There is no wrong answer.  Just set those goals, and figure out how to achieve them.  If you do have aspirational goals you want to accomplish over the next few weeks, WRITE THEM DOWN and put them somewhere that you will see them every day, like on your bathroom mirror or refrigerator door.  Even better, write them down and TELL SOMEONE. 
  2. Drink water.  Water is an amazing, filling, and calorie-free drink.  Drink 1 glass of water when you wake up each day, 1 glass of water before you go to sleep each night, and 2 glasses of water before you feast.  It will help curb your appetite and keep you hydrated, which is great for keeping your body running on strange food and less sleep, which brings me to my next tip . . . 
  3. Sleep.  Very few people get enough sleep in the best of times, but come the holiday season, we all cut into our sleep to gain extra time (she says while typing this way past her bedtime).  However, it’s sleep that will keep you feeling fresh and stress-free when you are in line at a store with hungry kids at the end of the day.
  4. Make a plan for the party.  There are so many ideas about how to approach a party, but the key is to have a plan.  A good start is to never go to a party hungry.  (Perhaps a nutrient dense shake would help curb your appetite.)  Fill at least half of your plate with foods from the veggie tray to keep away from the bacon-wrapped cheese.  Grab a smaller plate and fill that baby up – since it’s smaller, you’re already ahead of the game.  Take a healthy dish to potluck parties so you know at least one thing is good for you.  
  5. Don’t drink your calories.  But you love eggnog?  But you love champagne?  Great!  Drink it up.  Just don’t drink it all the time, every day.  Oh and those yummy, delicious, sugar-filled lattes?  Treat yourself to one.  Or two.  Just not one or two every single day.  
  6. Enjoy your food.  Wait, what?!  You just said to eat less on teeny, tiny plates and only drink water. Well, not really, but the fact is this lovely holiday season only comes around once a year.  Enjoy it!  Make a list of your favorite treats and let yourself enjoy each one once or twice rather than every day.  Eat only what you think you can’t – or don’t want to – live without.  Your Aunt’s favorite dessert that she only makes once a year? Definitely. A roll? Not unless it’s the best holiday roll ever and you only get it once a year.  It’s all about balance.  And speaking of balance . . . 
  7. Eat normally.  That’s right; when you’re not at a party, eat normally. If that means you eat healthy, then please do eat healthy.  Even better, make healthy substitutions when you’re cooking whenever possible. Don’t skip meals.  Just eat your food, fuel your body, and keep moving.
  8. Keep moving.  Stick to your exercise schedule.  If you’re taking a break from training, then keep moving every day in some way or another.  Plan to get in an early morning walk or workout before the day gets busy, or plan an after-dinner evening walk.  No excuses.  If you can’t get a 3-mile run in, get in a 10-mile walk.  If you can’t get your 60-minute body beast session in, do a mini at-home workout.  Heck, if you’re really desperate, park far away from the entrance from the mall when you’re shopping.  
  9. Take time.  Whether it is 5 minutes for a daily practice like reading, meditating, or stretching, or just a few stolen moments of quiet time to yourself, take it!  If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times.  You can’t pour from an empty cup.  Make sure you have something left to give by taking time for yourself. 
  10. Enjoy yourself.  Do not stress yourself out.  One piece of cake does not a huge weight gain make.  Moderation is the key in December, just as it’s the key every day of the year.  Keep your accomplishments in mind, as well as your goals.  Don’t waste your time weighing yourself – just keep an eye on making sure your clothes still feel comfortable.  If you’re tempted to go over what you planned, reach out to a buddy or a friend who knows your goals and will help you achieve them. That’s what friends are for: both sharing an appetizer and walking away from one. 

My 2016 To-do List



Okay, this is beyond embarrassing.  I'm miss, set goals, gof or it and it is March 1st and I still haven't written all of my goals down and I started this before January 1st.  Aaaahhh....so back where I started.

 This to do list is particularly exciting for me to put together.  Last year I was a little lost when it came to this sort of thing.  My husband wasn't overly happy with his occupation and we were sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop to see what what happened.  We were also undecided as to whether we were going to go for a third child.  So as much as I loved 2015's to do list it was a little sketchy.  This year however is launching us into the new world.  My husband has started his own general contracting business and we're expecting our third child in any day now.  

 (One of the reasons that I was dragging my feet on this was simply because I couldn't figure out how to organize it...duh.  Just do it.  Its a to-do list for heaven's sake.)

 Focus on: 
Be Mindful of Sleep
Practice patience, with meditation
Integrate EO into cleaning and immune
Be Mindful of my body as a strong vessel that carries babies, feeds them and can be strong
Be Mindful of Food as Fuel

 Organize drawings/pictures by kids
Put grandmother's recipes into cookbook
Start playing music again- As in the oboe. 
Learn how to use a real camera, get a real camera.  Take on line course in photography.  
Finish hanging things in the house
Renovate kitchen
Organize photos (specifically, photo albums, discs, etc.)
Implement use of Passion Planner

 Complete the following:
Instagram Impact
Chalene's Push
John Maxwell Leadership Group
Franklin Covey Course
Know Myself Better
De-Clutter My Life
Cope with a Difficult Person
Quit Yelling at My Kids
The Relationship Challenge
Take a Camera Course
Workshop with Cara
Workshop with Gabrielle, Miracles

 Read 40 books

 Business goals:
$1000 per week
5 star Diamond
2 coaches per month
Move Nick to Diamond 
Circle of Excellence
Pay down debt (I've written these specific goals for myself)
Hire a cleaning lady by years end
Monthly pedicures

 Fitness goals:
Complete PiYo
Complete Hammer and Chissel
Complete 22 Minute Hard Corp
Complete 3 5k races
Complete 1 5 mile/10k race
Complete RW Half Marathon
Certify as PiYo Instructor
Average 10,000 steps per day (Post baby)



Setting goals! Making Vision Boards!

Did you miss our vision board party?  Don't worry!  Here are the steps that I outlined at the party for how to approach your vision board.  Its not a complete list but it is a good place start.

Tell me.  Do you use a vision board to help you focus on your goals and meet your goals?

If not, what's holding you back?  

Tip one: Figure out what you want your vision board to be. Inspiration. Goal centric. A combo.
For example I'm going to include all three of these visuals. I want to drink more water. I want to practice finding joy (which goes with my word of the year: engage). I want to take the worry away from money by being fiscally responsible AND increasing my income.



 Tip 2: Be specific.
The genius of a vision board is that (a) you are putting your wishes out to the universe but also (b) you are reminding yourself. The more specific the better.
How are you supposed to get exactly what you want if you don't know what that is?



Tip 3: Stay focused.

 As you lay out your board it may be helpful to do it in bunches so you can look at one spot and be focused.













Tip 4:  When is your vision board focused on?

Figure out the time frame for your board. I like to keep mine focused for the next year but I do come across photos that are part of my 5 year plan that may happen on this board or go to a notebook I have to use later.
The photos on the left are for a new kitchen we are going to renovate in our house this year. The photos on the right have to do with my dream house entry way.


Tip 5: Be free!
There is no wrong way to do a vision board. Don't limit yourself. If magazines don't do the trick write your own. Glitter is fun. This is yours. Be proud. Be confident. Put the vision board out and look at it daily!




(Its still a work in progress but I'm so excited to get as far as this!)

Do you have tips that I'm missing?  Share them with us!

2016: The year to be engaged.



In my dream world I would go to bed earlier to get up an hour before my kids.  I would spend a few minutes meditating, then reading, I would workout while listening to personal development.  I would make a cup of tea and drink it before the kids woke up.  Then, probably in my workout clothing I would be ready to go and face the day with a positive and energetic attitude when the kids wake up.

In my reality world I go to bed too late just about every night so excited to get those extra few minutes at night kidless.  I'm sucked into books, projects or television shows with my husband.  I wake up as I hear the bedroom door open, frankly I usually wake up before then and wait to hear the bedroom door open.  At that point I grab my glasses and try to get whichever kid woke up first to go back to sleep or at least stay quiet enough as not to wake the other kiddo.  I have about 1.5 seconds to warm up from sleep to Ready-to-go Mom and Girl Boss.  I've decided that I needed a mantra or a word that would get me in the mindset that the extra hour of me time would give.  One word to focus me for the day and get my head right.  

This proved to be more challenging than I thought it would be.  For starters I have a lot of goals and a lot of things I want to get done in 2016 and although they do work together they don't exactly fit into one word.  On one hand I want to work on being patient and calm with my kids.  I want to suck up each moment the best I can and enjoy the little special times we have together, both these little ones and the one on the way.  On the other hand I have big goals from a business perspective and want to be fierce and focused and make this a big year for our lives and our family.  I will be stepping out of my comfort zone and I will be aggressive and I am ready to go.

So you see my dilemma.  Is there really one word that can focus me to do those things both the first thing in the morning and all day long.  Finally I landed on the word engage.  As in pledge myself to that moment with my children.  Focus myself to the task at hand.  (The more I read the more it is evident to me that we can't really multitask.)  Give attention to my goals and the people on my team that I work closely.  To take part in things greater than myself.  

I want to be engaged.  Engage others.  Give attention.


He said, "Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep.  Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might and when you laugh, laugh like hell.  And when you get angry, get good and angry.  Try to be alive.  You will be dead soon enough." ― William Saroyan

Goals...Just some dreams but with steps


Oh my goodness.  How did it get to be the end of January already I haven't even made my goals official?  This year I have big plans, mainly because last year I had big plans and by putting them out there I actually reached so many of those goals.  It was sort of amazing.  Last year was the first year that instead of just saying something like "I want to be more healthy" or even "I will run more" I actually laid out plans and made a to-do list.  I started super big, and broad with my thoughts and then just made them more specific with steps.  So without further adieu, in no particular order, although bunched together in the way my mind works, here are my goals for this year.

Complete 2 Half marathons, 1 15k, 3 5ks, 1 10k  (All but the 10k are on the calendar.)
Complete 21 Day Fix Extreme and Insanity Max 30
Run 730 miles.
Walk 10,000 steps per day.

Use all of my volunteer/pro bono days at work.  
Involve my family in 1 community service project per month.  

Incorporate essential oils into our families lives, at the very least into cleaning supplies.
Create a dream board.
Incorporate meditation into my daily routine.  

Take better care of my skin, specifically, hands, face, and neck

Organize boys memory boxes.
Update the baby books,
Make the following photo books:  Alexander year 1, Year of 2014, Honeymoon, European vacation.
Organizing filing,

Start playing the oboe again

10 minutes of Personal Development Each Day
Complete nutrition/diet courses.
Learn how to take good photos of the family with more than just an iPhone.
Be consistent with posting on this very blog more often.

On a side note, these are my personal goals.  My professional goals and financial goals will be in another post when I talk more about my dream board...or when I figure them out.  Well okay, here are a few.
Take my Beachbody business to the next level (One Star Diamond) by continuing to help others.
Evaluate my current job to make sure I find it fulfilling. 
Pay off Private Law School loans.
Figure out where the extra payment from the law school loans should go.
Incorporate Dave Ramsey's Plan into our house.

A To-do List for My Subconscious


I have read over and over again that writing your goals/resolutions down make them more likely to be achieved.  Even better, telling someone else will help you accomplish those goals.  This is why people keep journals and create dream boards.  Like I said, I have read this over and over again.  Its all about visualizing what you want and then getting it.  Whether you are consciously working towards your goals or not, your subconscious is...as long as it knows what you want.  The purpose is to fill your subconscious with positive thoughts, goals and images.  Writing your goals down, making a dream board, these are tangible representations of where you want to go.

Well, I "know" all this, but I must say I have never really, completely bought into this theory.  Until a few days ago that is.  A few days ago I was rereading an old journal (Have you ever done that?  Very humbling, and pretty funny.)  This particular journal focused on my husband and my honeymoon to Australia.  I was simply reading it to find out the places we ate at so I could make suggestions to a friend traveling to Australia.  It was all well and good until I came across this statement:


 "For me, Lizard Island and Australia, made me want to take better care of my whole self, both inside and out.  Listen to more music- do tai chi and yoga, eat healthier.  Less concern about calories and more about healthy food.  

 I am also more interested in finding a fulfilling job.  Law, yes, but a different, better kind of law."

So this is what I was thinking and what I wrote down on November 1,2008,  I don't know that when I went back to work and home that I was actively reaching these goals.  In fact, I went back to work and eventually changed jobs to a position that was decidedly not more fulfilling and my focus moved not toward me but to starting a family.  All along, my subconscious has been working because as of today I do in fact have a much more fulfilling job.  A job I love in fact.  And not just my day job, but my time spent as beachbody coach helps me live a healthier life.  I might not be as thin as I was but I am healthier.  No more sweetners in my life.  I focus on eating whole foods for both my family and myself.  We live a greener life, with the main cleaner in our house being vinegar vs. chemicals.  I pay attention to what comes into my home, perhaps because of the little people who also inhabit it but the result is the same.  We do live healthier lives.  As we speak, my work out program is a combination of yoga and running.  And yes, I do listen to more music.  (My little buddies are huge music fans.)

Perhaps it took 6 years, but for those last 6 years my subconscious has been quite busy.  If writing a random comment in my journal could do so much what would some focused writing do?  What would, dare I say, a dream board do?  I suppose there is only one way to find out.  If you're looking for me this weekend, I'll be the one cutting pictures out of magazines, making a to do list for my subconscious.  


I give up.

A trip to Nantucket in 2006.

I'm not much of a quitter.  In fact, other than transferring schools in college (which isn't technically quitting), I don't quit.  I don't give up.  Until now.  Now, I give up.  I give up on trying to get my body "back".  There is so much talk everywhere, all day long, about women getting their body back after they have a child.  As if it went somewhere.  As if I lost my body somewhere along the way.

Well, if Jennifer Garner can say it, I can say it too.  This is my body.  Time to get used to it.  That's not to say that I'm just going to sit on the couch and eat bonbons (you know, cause I have all this time to do that.)  Its not to say that I'm going to stop exercising.  I'm just telling the world (and myself) that I'm not eating healthy or exercising to get my body back.  I give up.  

The fact is that I give up, because I don't want it back.  Don't get me wrong, that body was pretty awesome.  It could get me down a double black diamond ski trail.  It could participate in a few triathlons.  It could even run a few marathons.  What that body couldn't do, or what I wasn't sure if it could do, was have a baby.  For some reason, I always feared that I wouldn't be able to have a baby.  It was one thing in my life that always wanted.  So while that body was a pretty phenomenal body its nothing compared with the one that I have now.

7 months with Baby no. 2 (courtesy of Ronice Kay Photography)
I know not everyone wants to have a baby.  And this isn't to say anything about that.  Instead this is to just address me, worrying about getting into my pre-baby jeans.  This is to address myself who looks into the mirror with shame.  I'm done, I give up.

Instead I choose to exercise because I want to be stronger than I am today.  I want to be healthier than I am today.  I turn on a work out video with my two boys playing at my feet each morning so that they can see healthy habits.  I push them in a stroller day in and day out so I can run races, and so we can spend time outside together.  I eat healthy and my family eats healthy so we are all around for a nice long time.

Taken a few months ago as a "before" photo.  Let's be honest.  This is really an "after" photo.
Do I want to get back in my old clothing so I can avoid buying a whole new wardrobe?  Of course.  Do I care if I am the size I was in high school?  Of course not.  That high school body was good to me,but this body I have now is spectacular and I will no longer disrespect it by trying to get back to the old one.  

That's right.  I respect the strength and power of my current body.  I might not love the extra skin, or stretch marks but I love what they prove.  They are proof that this body of mine grew, housed and nourished two little boys for many, many weeks.  (Yes more than 40 for both of them.)  This amazing body of mine was able to do amazing things and I will not disrespect those who cannot do those things anymore, by lamenting over it.

I am awed by this body.  I have seen what it has already accomplished.  I can't wait to see what it can do in the future now that I know its strength.  I don't want my old body back.  I give up.

During a run.  A selfie. At this point most of my photos have two other little people in them. 

Motivational Monday: Halfway there!

Today is the last day of the first half of 2014.  Its time to look back on the goals you set for yourself for the year.  The resolutions you made.  Have you started to try to reach them?  If not, what do you have to do to reach your goals?  Sit down and write out your resolutions and make a plan so that those resolutions turn into achievable goals.

(Stay tuned until tomorrow for more about how I did with my June goals, my July goals, and how I'm doing for 2014.)



Ask yourself if what you're doing today is getting you closer to where you want to be tomorrow. #quote

Motivational Monday: What are your goals for the week?

Each Monday I set out to reach new goals for the week.  Some are small, simple goals and some are large goals that must be completed this week.  Different goals have different purposes for my life and famliy and thus different effects on my life and family.  No matter what the goals,  I take inspiration from the words of others.  What are words that inspire you?


My Monthly Goals/To-do List

How do you set goals?  What do you?  We are 5 months into the year already.  Can you believe it?  That means we have had 5 months to reach our New Years resolutions.  How many have you completed?  How many have you kept up?  Are you still doing what you said you are going to do?



I'm all for goals.  I love them.  They are like big to-do lists and I LOVE to-do lists.  Nothing is as satisfying to me as checking something off my lists.  But resolutions put this weird focus on timing and sometimes I think we put other peoples ideas of what our goals should be rather than our own.  You know, pay off debt, lose weight, etc.  While that is often my goals the cliche of it at the new year steals some of the fun.  I also like my goals to be very specific.  Not just lose weight, but get fit, get healthy and do that by completely X work out program.

This was my 2014 To-do List.

  1. Complete T25.
  2. Complete P90X3.
  3. Complete a combo work out of T25/P90X3
  4. Run a Labor Day 5k.
  5. Run the Walk for Wishes in October.
  6. Run the Beauty and the Beach 5 miler in November.
  7. Read the following: Passage to India, Beloved, Team of Rivals, The Good Earth.  (All books I've started and haven't finished.
  8. Continue to pay down loans and debt without creating new debt.
  9. Write more.  

These are great resolutions.  In fact I've already crossed the first one off the list and I'm actively (as I type this) working on the 9th.  But these resolutions are short sited.  Since I wrote this list, I have returned to work from maternity leave, started a new business venture, signed up for another 5k (in two weeks, wish me luck!) and added a number of books to my list.  I've also added a bunch of other personal development goals.  This list just doesn't do the trick.

Recently I had the opportunity to be part of an organizing challenge lead by Morgan from www.morganizewithme.com  It was a fantastic experience and while I learned many things, one of my favorite tips I noticed was setting monthly goals.  Not just monthly goals in our heads but ones I write down and post next to my bed.  This practice is something I can get my head around.  Goals written down are more successful than goals you keep in your head.  Goals you tell your friends are even better.

With that in mind, here is my to do list for the month of June.


  1. Complete The Valerie Fund 5k
  2. Continue eating a clean, dairy free, grain free, sugar free diet.  
  3. Complete reading one (just one) of the above books.
  4. Complete reading one of my personal development books.
  5. Some personal matters- get the family dental appointments scheduled.  (not exciting, but necessary)
  6. Continue to write, write, write.  Both here and on our Healthy Living Facebook page.  
  7. Fill my freezer!  

That seems like enough to keep me busy.  Of course, I have weekly and daily goals (make the bed!) but these are for another day.  For now, it is June 1st and I have written down my goals and shared them.  I'm halfway there.

What is on your to-do list for the month of June?

- Tovah