Written by: Karisa J Adkins, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
In today’s world, It has become far too easy to put our own health and happiness on the backburner. However, with a solid game plan for success, a strong mindset, and a lifestyle full of healthy habits, you too can break through the BS and become unstoppable. It’s time to hit the Wellness Reset and Become the Healthy UNSTOPPABLE Leader that you, your family, and your business need you to be.
More and more research (from where do you have any sites/studies) is showing that the key to lifelong good health is what experts call “lifestyle medicine” making simple changes in diet, exercise, mindset, and stress management. To help ambitious professionals turn that knowledge into action steps that will help you break through your BS and step into the healthiest version of yourself.
To help you on your road to success, I've put together this manageable list of healthier lifestyle tips to help educate others about how to have a healthy body and a healthy mindset.
(since its an article your name will be above it by line so think you can just go into this) a former Marketing and HR professional turned 2X Entrepreneur, Certified Life & Holistic Health Coach, Board Certified NLP, Time-Line Therapy®, Hypnosis Practitioner, Personal trainer, and Champion for women's mental and physical health.
Conquering many of the personal life and health challenges that my clients face gives me a unique perspective on how to help other women overcome various roadblocks too.
Founding 365 Daily Hustle, global health, and lifestyle coaching business allow me to help mentor guide, and coach ambitious women, together we create healthy lifestyle habits which allow our clients to 10X their health, confidence, and mindset.
My mission and purpose in life are to mentor, coach, and guide women to feel empowered enough to follow their hearts and rock their healthiest life ever! I want every woman who struggles with food, energy, exercise, and stress to have a plan of action.
I am proud to have helped thousands of women confidently break free from their health limitations and become unstoppable when it comes to living their healthiest life and today my goal is to break down and give you 3 Game-Changing habits to help you Get Fit, Stay Healthy, and Create More Success.
3 Game-changing habits to embrace starting today!
Lifestyle Fitness
As a woman who trains and supports other ambitious career-focused women, I teach my clients to ditch the constant cardio and insane exercise challenges, and instead, I encourage them to take the lifestyle fitness approach. Plus, I encourage them to view exercise as body movement. What lifestyle fitness and body movement?
To me, Lifestyle fitness means creating a fitness plan that is tailored toward my personal and professional goals and lifestyle. When it comes to fitness there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Every woman's life, body, and goals are different. The women I work with are typically traveling the world speaking on stages, leading summits, running successful 6 & 7-figure businesses, and still trying to be the best wife to their partner and mom to their kiddos. They hire personal trainers that they never see and hold gym memberships that they rarely use. When women come to me they think they need more cardio to lose weight and they view exercise as another “task” on the list instead of looking at exercise as a body movement that they enjoy anywhere.
5 Tips to Help the “career-focused” woman create her own personal lifestyle fitness plan:
1. Find exercises that you enjoy. This is important when it comes to staying consistent and motivated with your workouts.
2. Be patient when it comes to reaching your physical goals. Remember, results take time. Your body is not Amazon Prime. You cannot simply set a goal and 2-days later expect your dream body to show up. I encourage my clients to take their big exercise goals and chuck them down into bite-size doable pieces. If their goal is to run a marathon one day, then they should probity start with a single mile run every day, then they can work towards a 5K, and boom, just like that they are running marathons.
3. Ditch the sweaty 5-days a week cardio plan and instead take a balanced approach to fitness. Meaning adding a little bit of everything to your fitness plan. Strength training +Cardio + Balance + Flexibility.
4. Don't compete with anyone. As women, we tend to compare and judge our bodies, fitness strength, and timed mile run with other women’s progress. Instead, focus on yourself, I encourage my clients to take their weight loss or wellness goals one day at a time. I teach them about the 1% rule, and I empower them to wake up every day striving to be a better healthier version of themselves.
5. Try new things. When it comes to lifestyle fitness and fun body movement, women need to be willing to try new things or things. I always remind my clients that our bodies are meant to move. Instead of boring cardio on the elliptical, I encourage them to take a Zumba or HITT class. I also encourage them to create a list of fun body movement activities like swimming, skating, rock climbing, etc.
Sustainable Nutrition
As a woman who used to eat when she was sad, depressed, happy, or celebrating the next major milestone. I was tired of jumping from diet to diet hoping that I would finally lose the weight and keep it off forever. But no matter how many diets I tried I always felt defeated by day 30. I finally realized that I didn't need the next “perfect” diet, instead, I needed to start listening to my body, and more importantly, I needed to create a healthier relationship with food.
Here are 3 tips when it comes to creating a sustainable nutrition plan for the women who is always on the go.
1. Eat the rainbow, simply put, eating the rainbow involves eating fruits and vegetables of different colors every day. Plants contain different pigments, or phytonutrients, which give them their color. Different-colored plants are linked to higher levels of specific nutrients and health benefits. I encourage my clients to add as many colors of food to each plate every day.
2. Follow the 80/20 Rule, The 80/20 diet lifestyle suggests eating nutritious foods 80% of the time and eating 20% of the foods that you crave. I like to think of 80/20 as a balanced approach to nutrition. This approach allows me to eat the cake, order the tacos, or dive into a juicy burger. I never feel deprived or de-energized.
3. Food prep, Learn to food prep your meals, food prepping has been a huge key to my 85lb weight loss success plan. Food prepping all of my daytime meals allows me to save money, eat 80% clean, and save so much time during the day. I have been prepping meals for over a decade now. I enjoy teaching my clients the dos and don’t of food prep.
Reducing Stress
In 2018, my hair was falling out, I had skin rashes all over my body, and my digestion was shutting down, to say that I used to be a chronic stressor was an understatement. In 2019, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease which is an autoimmune disorder affecting the thyroid gland. The constant stress and “always on-demand” mentally were literally killing me. The doctor looked at me and said “Karissa, thank goodness you are in great physical shape, but if you want to put your Hashimoto symptoms into remission, we need to lower your stress levels.” (EPIPHANY MOMENT) That was the day that I decided to no longer stress out about everything. Yes! This is still a habit that I have to work on.
But, not all stress is bad stress. Stress is a natural physical and mental reaction to life experiences. Everyone experiences stress from time to time. Anything from everyday responsibilities like work and family to serious life events such as a new diagnosis, war, pandemic, or the death of a loved one can trigger stress. For immediate, short-term situations, stress can be super beneficial. It can help you cope with potentially serious situations. Your body responds to stress by releasing hormones that increase your heart and breathing rates and ready your muscles to respond. Think about a lion chasing you in the zoo, your body goes into fight mode, and you start running for safety. (thank you stress response) Yet if your stress response doesn’t stop firing, these stress levels stay elevated far longer than is necessary for survival, it can take a toll on your health.
The problem is, In today’s world where stress, anxiety and overwhelm are common, more and more people are having a hard time sleeping, making healthy food choices, feeling motivated to go workout, and of course, all the stress is creating tons of mental health issues.
Here are 3 tips that I do every single day to keep my stress level low
1. Keep a tight schedule, a schedule gives me structure and structure gives me freedom. I set and honor boundaries around my calendar and teach my clients how to do it too. Having a schedule allows me to create space for my properties, and stay focused on business projects and deadlines, and the best thing about setting my own schedule is that I can create space in the middle of the day to STOP and take mini breaks which helps me feel less stressed throughout the day.
2. Spiritual Power Hour, every day from 8-9 am I make it a point to meditate, read, set intentions, read my affirmations, and envision my dream life and business. My spiritual practice is sacred and allows me to manifest my dream life. This spiritual power hour is a non-negotiable habit that is time-blocked into my schedule. I encourage my clients to start small. If I told them to block off an hour for a spiritual alignment practice, I think their heads would explode. Instead, I encourage them to start small. I ask them to set aside 5-10 minutes every day to either read a journal or meditate. Then as they start to reap the benefits of self-time they naturally want to increase the time block.
3. Use your breath to relax the body and reduce stress. Take a deep breath in. Now let it out. You may notice a difference in how you feel already. Your breath is a powerful tool to ease stress and make you feel less stressed and anxious. Let’s give it a try now, shall we?
Let all of your breath out with a big, open mouth.
Sit comfortably on the floor or in a chair.
Breath in through your nose. Fill your belly all the way up with air.
When you can't breathe in anymore, open your mouth as wide as you can. Breathe out with a "HA" sound.
Repeat several times.
I understand that It's hard to change everything all at once and let me remind you that YOU DON’T HAVE TO. In fact, I would encourage you to start small. Pick one healthy lifestyle habit to work on and, off you go. As the queen of habit change, I love helping my clients create a healthy life full of habits that support and nourish them.
Join me, for a fun free 31-Day Healthy Habits challenge. This challenge will include mini daily challenges that support a healthier happier you and I will help hold you accountable with daily check-in posts.
The 31-day Healthy Habit challenge will start on July 1st and end on July 31st.
For more information or to get signed up for this free challenge, Join the Healthy Hustle Facebook group today. (Queens and BossBabes only
Karisa J Adkins, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Karissa Adkins is a former Marketing and HR professional turned 2x Entrepreneur, Certified Coach, Personal trainer, and Champion for women's mental and physical health. Karissa is the voice behind the BossUp Babes Podcast, TV Personality, Award-winning International Speaker, and 2X International Best-Selling Author. She is a Senior Coach and Trainer for Power HER Alliance, and she is a member of the 100 Most Powerful Women's organization. Karissa has been featured on networks such as ABC, CBC, USA Today, and NBC for her expertise in empowering and motivating women to get fit and stay healthy. Karissa is an Executive Contributor for Brainz Magazine and has been featured on the cover of 2Inspire Health Magazine.
