The Green Door Life

James Clear says, “The power of community cannot be overstated: the people you spend time with…

• can lengthen your life (or shorten it)
• can make your goals seem achievable (or impossible), and
• can fill you with energy (or suck it out of you).

In other words, the people around you are either your greatest asset or your greatest challenge.

One study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that if your friend becomes obese, then you have a 57% chance of increasing obesity yourself — even if your friend lives hundreds of miles away!

It sounds simple, but if you have close connections with unhealthy people, then it’s more likely that you’ll be unhealthy yourself.

In other words, illness isn't just something you catch, it's something you imitate as well.

Thankfully, there is good news: healthy lifestyles are contagious too.

Every goal becomes more achievable when you hang out with people who are already achieving it.

The...

one of our greatest challenges is teaching clients that there is so much more to fat loss than just cardio.

And, more often than not, too much cardio can backfire.

Here's why... 

[Side note: TWO days left  Click here to join our group coaching program and save $500 before Dec. 31st. Next cohort opens after April 2023.] 

Before we get into the exact formula that we've seen help our clients the most, let's review the types of exercise in terms of how they impact the body.

Exercise can be categorized into 3 categories based on intensity:

• LISS: low intensity steady state
• MISS: middle or moderate intensity steady state
• HIIT: high intensity steady state 

Each type of exercise impacts your heart rate differently + uses a different muscles and energy systems in the body.

This is extremely important to understand so that you're fueling and recoverying properly for your specific activity.

Additionally, your body type (ectomorph,...

I absolutely ate less than 1 minute into an easy run two weeks ago. 

[Side note: there's only a few more days to save $500 on our group coaching program. The next opening will be after April 2023. Click here to reserve your spot for January.] 

As I tried to apply meaning to the experience, it stood out to me because I'd like to think that I'm not a clumsy person.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've experienced a physical injury, exercise-induced or not.

In fact, the last time I fell was over 5 years ago during a run (yep) while newly pregnant with my second son.

Cardio, I tell ya  

I remember waking up that Saturday morning, placing 3 different Instacart orders for my son's last minute 6th birthday party planning for 40 people because the nutrition coach in me just couldn't do the pizza-and-cake-only thing, trying to recover after pulling five 14+ hour works days in a row that week, just...

hi, my name is Lisa, and I'm a recovering cardio junkie. 

And, I'm a former cookie addict, but I digress.

When I think back to my 20's, all I see is: lots of alcohol + lots of cardio.

When I look back at old pictures of me when I was my "smallest", I see someone in pain. 

I see someone who spent her formative adolescent years in the 1990's, bombarded with impossibly thin beauty standards on every printed magazine when those were a thing.

Kate Moss. Calvin Klein ads. "Heroin Chic" (cringe).

I paid no attention to the fact that my default genetic body type is an endomorph with strong Norwegian legs, a hearty Italian appetite, and an Irish tenacity that won't quit.

I just found out from my aesthetician that the skinny trend is making an eerie comeback thanks to the Kardashians.

Apparently, Kim has taken an off-label diabetes drug to lose massive weight quickly, with long-term effects unknown to users without diabetes....

check out one of our most favorite wins we've ever heard from a client, who is now wrapping up her training to coach with us: 

"I realized that I don't actually hate people anymore... I was just hungry."

[And this was coming from someone who had studied nutrition in a higher education institution + various certification programs for YEARS, which just goes to show that knowledge without guided practical application can be maddening.]

Not everyone who works with us mentions weight loss as a primary goal.

In fact, one of the main reasons people seek us out is a strong desire to gain back the energy of their youth.

What they find, often surprisingly, are additional improvements in:

• mood
• emotional resiliency
• awareness
• relationships
• boundary setting
• stress management, and more

So, when we share progress pictures of our incredible members to demonstrate what is actually possible in just 12 weeks...

... we do so with a giant asterisk attached to...

One of our clients shared that her friend is doing a $99/mo nutrition coaching program because it's cheaper than what we charge.

It's a typical IIFYM (if it fits your macros) program.

While not everything more expensive is always worth the investment...

...we've heard stories like this many times before, and we can guess how this situation will end up for our client's friend.

The changes the friend will make will likely be temporary because she's not learning the WHY behind the choices that she's making.

She may see short-term results in terms of weight loss, but she won't know:

• how to get herself out of a plateau
• how to change gears if she sees weight loss on the scale but actually feels more flabby (hint: she could be losing muscle, not fat)
• how the type of food she's eating is impacting her long-term health, organs, hormones, etc. 
• why she's moody all day when she's following her macro coach's recommendations...

Have you tried to post a cute pic with your dog on Instagram only to be bombarded with ads for general lab tests, hair analysis tests, blood tests, glucose monitors, food sensitivity tests, hormone tests, heavy metal tests, and more?

We thought it was just us, but apparently not.

Several of our newest clients have come to us paralyzed with decision-making fatigue, feeling a doomsday outlook on their health according to some piece of paper that says they should barely be walking with all the toxins and lack of vitamins and minerals in their bodies.

They're told they have too much bad gut bacteria.

They're overloaded with toxins and can't eat 95% of food found at the grocery store and must make everything from scratch.

They're told that they need to do a cleanse or a 7-day (or longer) detox. 

They're told that they need to implement intermittent fasting without asking them about their 4x/week high intensity...

We're implementing more Q&As in our newsletters, so be sure to mark us as a safe sender for answers to the most common questions we get each week

Given the time of year and collective feedback we've received from so many members, this week's question is: 

Q: Should I workout when I'm sick? 

A: It depends... 

Before we dig in, we have to mention the following disclaimer: this is provided for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute providing medical advice or professional services. (duh!)

When it comes to training when you're sick, it depends on the type and severity of illness in addition to your type of training. Here's what we recommend:

SYMPTOMS MAINLY ABOVE THE CHEST: 

• If your primary symptoms are confined to your upper respiratory system, such as congestion, runny nose, sinus pressure,...

Do you feel like Black Friday has reached an all new level of extreme, starting earlier and earlier each year... and now lasting the entire month?

The more hyped something becomes, the more I pause before taking action.

I want to make sure that I'm not being controlled.

I want to make sure that this big thing is actually something that I want to do / have / be / see.

If you are done with the in-your-face Black Friday marketing and are intentionally choosing to spend your time differently than the masses during the holiday season, kudos to you and welcome to the awareness club  

Here are some questions to ask yourself before making big purchases: 

• What is the short-term and long-term return on investment?
• Will it be valuable to me in 1 week, 1 month, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years?
• What is the cost if I wait to get this thing / service?
• What are the tangible benefits I'll get out of it now and later?
• If I...

Did you know that cortisol is naturally high in the morning upon rising?

(This is a good thing. If we produce too little cortisol, we'll have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. But too much cortisol is not great either.)

Here's what you may not know:

Drinking black coffee on an empty stomach creates more cortisol.

It also acts as an appetite suppressant.

So, even though you likely don't feel inclined to eat in the morning if you start off with coffee, food is actually the very thing you need to lessen the negative impact of coffee on its own.

If you don't have any real energy (i.e. coming from food) to go with your coffee, your blood sugar elevates and you may feel anxious.

After a couple hours of wired energy, you'll likely crash and crave sweets.

That's because drinking coffee without any food in your stomach is like pushing the gas pedal in your car while the emergency break is on.

And no surprise... this impacts...