The Balance Method

Truth be told, I’m a massive foodie 😍

Food is cultural, it’s hedonic & it’s a fantastic way to bring people together & connect.

I don’t want my clients to avoid social settings when they work with me, in favour of achieving their health/weight-loss goal.

In fact, this only sets them up for failure when we stop working together.

Restrictive & polarising diets I.e super low calorie & mass elimination of food groups/social food settings; create a set of rigid conditions geared towards one outcome: typically, weight loss.

However, when the ‘diet’ is over. Clients then resume back to old familiar and comfortable habits 👉🏼that is, a way of eating that lead them to weight gain or an unhealthy status in the first place.

Welcome to the diet cycle/yo-yo dieting.

You need to learn / be educated on how to moderate your intake in social settings and balance it throughout the week to stay on track for your goals (or for maintenance post-fat loss phase). And also how to choose items on the menu that are going to support your health, not work against it (esp. women with PCOS). So you can enjoy the foods you love, without it creating an on-going cycle of issues for you.

You can only learn by actually going out & being social whilst following advice from your coach/dietitian and seeing how it goes & learning from the process.

So yes… within my coaching, I want you to eat & enjoy food 😍 it works.

It can be really easy to focus on the negatives as to why something didn’t work out for you and the commit to never trying again…

Or.

You can flip it on its head 🙃 and look at ways the next time can be different for you to create success, because you took the time to reflect & learn from the process 👏🏼

Leaving a doctors office and feeling like none of your concerns have been heard or remotely validated?

Yeah. We’ve been there.

We know how disempowering it can feel to not be given better solutions to your health issues.

We’re here to change that 😉💛.

Absolutely LOVE seeing the weekly reflections & feedback from my clients, plus the strategies they implement {themselves} to progress each week! Talk about building self-sustaining habits 😮‍💨😮‍💨

Sometimes it’s a focus on:
👉🏼Behaviour patterns & mentality
👉🏼Stress management & nervous system regulation
👉🏼Recovery practices like nutrition & sleep
Or
👉🏼Focusing more intention into training & daily activity

Each person is unique, and I LOVE seeing their weekly growth 😍

We are SO good at placing value on material items and status - but what if you were to apply the same mentality to the care of your health and your body?

Fortunately our bodies are VERY resilient, and constantly producing new cells to support the function and repair of our tissues.

However, just because it CAN tolerate abuse and misuse more than a car might…

1) do you really want to be driving around in a beat up piece of s**t everyday and 2) expecting it to perform like a Ferrari?

If you are constantly running yourself into the ground, regularly consuming poor food choices (take out & processed foods) and then throwing fuel on the fire by jacking yourself full of stimulants (i.e. coffee and energy drinks) and depressants (alcohol & medications) - it’s literally like running a car which has been stripped for parts.

It’s not going to take much until it breaks down completely.

Don’t be shocked when you start
👉🏼underperforming at work;
👉🏼are constantly getting sick;
👉🏼always feel tired and run down;
👉🏼& never get the results you want in the gym or in your body composition…
🚩 … but then keep repeating the same destructive patterns day to day. 🚩

You wouldn’t do it to your car… 👀

Introducing myself to new followers 💛

I’m Emma 👉🏼Online strength coach and dietitian recently moved to the Gold Coast ☀️☀️ from Melbourne.

I have 7+ years experience in the fitness industry and for over half of that I’ve also been serving as a nutritionist/dietitian.

In my early days I used to glorify training as the ‘be all and end all’ for client progress and success… Until my own personal perspectives changed as I grew personally and professionally. 🙌🏼

Now I practice holistically (our body & lives are a system of systems) and look at the way my clients interact with the relationship they have with themselves, with their immediate support network, and with their environment. These elements often present the most hurdles for achieving success within health.

I work with a number of people to achieve strength & body composition goals (getting people feeling really fu***ng good in their bodies 😉), but most importantly I thrive with high performing clients who are busy, burnt out or just simply those that want to keep functioning at a high level & know they need support to keep doing that. 🔥

In the last 2 years I’ve started to specialising as an integrative behavioural dietitian; helping my clients to unpack the pre-existing psychosocial dynamics which determine their behaviours around food, health, body image and general relationships within their environment.
👇🏼
A significant reason why some people can’t achieve success in health, performance, fitness programs, dieting, or energy sustainability (health maintenance) is due to poor behaviour patterns, whether intentional or unintentional (conscious or subconscious). Unfortunately, these can be really hard to navigate and develop from without understanding the source of these behaviours & developing the self-awareness required to overcome them in day to day interactions.

This is where I thrive & what I absolutely love. ♥️

It’s an incredibly freeing and gratifying moment when you’ve felt stuck within your own body/mind for years and you can finally achieve some balance & health in the truest sense of the word.

Then; health (whatever that looks like to you as the client) becomes easy x

Aesthetic changes are amazing, but to be honest… THIS is what I love to see more of 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 BEHAVIOUR & MINDSET SHIFTS 😍

Behaviour change is incredibly powerful & the fundamental key to sustainable, long-term health management (& results!).

These aren’t ‘jaw-dropping’ facts or statements; but it highlights significant progress in the mindset & behaviours of my clients.
Which in turn… leads to those jaw dropping results 😏

And I want to CELEBRATE THE HELL OUT OF IT 🥳

I prompt my clients to inform me of their ‘weekly wins’. Why? Because it changing habits and behaviour is a pretty dry process and often actually goes unnoticed until wayyyy down the track.

These statements are actually HUGE progress wins 🙌🏼 and we need to give more recognition to celebrating the little things while we go through the ‘process’ which will eventually give us the ‘results’.

S**t yeah fam love your work ♥️👏🏼🥳

🚩 Signing up for a program does NOT automatically equal success 🚫


It can be incredibly empowering to decide to create change for yourself and take the first step to sign up for a program that delivers the support, strategies and tools required for you to achieve your goals. 💯

However, it’s important to recognise that to create change typically means 👉🏼 a discontinuation or modification of your current habits and behaviours that are not serving you (i.e. excessive work hours, overconsumption of junk food, binge drinking, unstructured approach to daily eating) and 👉🏼 intentionally replacing them habits that are positively geared to the goals you want to achieve (i.e. boundaries around work hours, routine training schedule, better sleep hygiene, structured eating patterns).

Similarly, it’s like opening a savings account.
The savings account is a tool to help you track the growth of the money you save. It’s also a visual cue and reminder that you are intentionally trying to save money right now, so your actions and behaviours should reflect that. 👇🏼
Unless you stop excessively spending your money paycheck to paycheck and start making more modest financial choices, your savings will not grow. Nor should you expect it to. You also can’t expect the bank to pay interest into that account if there is nothing there. In similar terms, you can’t expect your coach to ‘get you results’ if you are not changing your behaviours/doing the work that’s required.

WHAT IS IN YOUR TOOLKIT TO AUTO-REGULATE YOUR EMOTIONS & MANAGE PEAK STRESS PERIODS? 🤔

The number one place you can find me when I need to re-charge my batteries & mentally decompress 👇🏼👇🏼
Outdoors somewhere ☀️ in nature 🌱, usually walking & typically with my horse 🐕 ♥️.

Managing priorities for daily performance: 👇🏼
Walking & time outside in the sun & fresh air is a daily fundamental that I safeguard in my routine as a necessity & an absolute priority for my own optimum health & functioning (boundaries around priorities are important for high-performance individuals wanting to excel in their field).

Practising Daily Gratitude & self-awareness: 👇🏼
This part of my daily routine is also something that I express gratitude for quite regularly because I know it always brings feelings of stress-relief & enjoyment and an element of ‘my time’ I.e something that I do just for me (well… & my dog of course 🐶). So, whenever I am experiencing a ‘low’ day or a high anxiety day, I am aware that this is in my ‘toolkit’ to help me to better auto-regulate my nervous system to prevent heightened states of emotional stress from spiralling out of control.

Using food as a crutch:
The rapid & voluminous ingestion of food can become a crutch to help you work through or distract you from your experienced emotions and stress in such times. However, this behaviour tends to only heighten these emotions & make said situations worse. Bingeing is not a solution for the problem at hand and offers a temporary distraction/nervous system shift to make you {briefly} feel better about your unregulated emotions.
If this resonates with you, please message me for help 🆘 & I can help you. 🤞🏼

Nonetheless, begs me to ask the question: 👇🏼
What is in your go-to ‘toolkit’ to help you to better auto-regulate your emotions or manage peak periods of stress?

Hope everyone is enjoying a Happy Easter 🐰

Just some food for thought x

I get it…

you’re busy!

And sometimes food (and making healthy food choices) can be the absolute LAST priority for you!

So here are some of mine & my clients’ quick go-to snacks to keep them nourished between meals and performing at their best (either in the gym or in the office 🤓).

Eating well doesn’t have to be hard, or boring! It’s just finding foods that you really enjoy and that you can be consistent with, daily 👏🏼👏🏼

Protein pancakes 🤤🤤… name a better way to start your week 🥞

1 serve:
1 egg
30g protein powder
1 banana
1/2 tap baking soda
1/4-1/2 cup nut milk (depending on how thick/thin you like them
👇🏼
Blend 🌪

Toppings:
Maple syrup / Sugar-free Maple Syrup
Honey
Nut better
Berries / Apple / Banana

Macros:
347kcal
36g P
36g C
7g F

I LOVE the moment when my clients see the potential in themselves that I could see in them from the start 🙌🏼🤩. That creating the healthy body & and lifestyle they always wanted, is ACTUALLY possible and well within their reach.

🔥 To create a body that they are connected with, that they LOVE to develop and care for (hint: we don’t seek healthy/constructive solutions if we hate our bodies…)

🔥 To create change in their daily behaviours that draw them away from burnout & acts of self-sabotage; to balance & acts of self-service that optimise their health & daily performance .

🔥 And to simply feel confident in their own skin 🙌🏼

Integrating education & mentoring with an in-depth onboarding system means my clients have actionables from day 1 🤩. These expand as they get more confident in themselves, as they become more empowered to keep changing and as their health & nutritional literacy develops - starting to become more and more self-sufficient as we go.

The crux of what I do 👉🏼 Performance dietetics & coaching for food and behaviour change, neuroplasticity & lifestyle management.

Mission 👉🏼 Empowering clients to achieve their highest potential & perform in all aspects of their life.

Props to who’s already added another 15kg to the trap bar in the last two weeks since this pic was snapped 🔥

📸: .metaxas

Thank you to those who have recently applied or enquired for my coaching services while my books have been closed - I appreciate you reaching out!

I’ll be opening 8-10 new coaching spots (Hybrid coaching or Nutrition/Dietetic Coaching) in the next month.

~3 in person & 7 online.

If you are interested in my services, please follow the link in my bio and we can set up a call in the coming weeks.

I’ll touch base with you soon to provide you with more details. I appreciate your patience.

Em 💙

ADVENTURE LOOKS GREAT ON YOU 😍

The sciences in, it is not uncommon or unheard-of to know that getting outside - away from your screen - & connecting with nature and connecting with yourself will automatically improve your mood. Some of the best ways to reduce your stress is to prioritise sleep 😴, sun ☀️, nutrition 🌱, and stress reduction activities, which can be as simple as going to your local park for 10 minutes!

Research has shown reduced levels of cortisol in saliva samples of participants who engaged in as little as 10 minutes outside sitting (yes… even just sitting!) while avoiding unnecessary stimuli like social media, phone calls, conversations and reading.

The benefit of this correlated to improved perception of mood, improved focus, improved productivity and overall reduced symptoms of excessive stress and cortisol in the body.

Sometimes, the answer you need can be THAT simple. 👏🏼👏🏼

However, if you need more of a helping hand or want to improve your diet to assist with boosting your daily mood… Here are five key nutrients I highly suggest for you to incorporate into your daily food intake ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Magnesium
Zinc
Vitamin D3
EPA & DHA (omega 3’s)
Tryptophan (amino acid)

See the slides on which foods to find them!

Eat yourself happy 😉

THE IMPORTANCE OF WEIGHING IF YOU ARE TRYING TO HIT A CALORIE TARGET

Typically all of my nutrition programs have phases, and generally it is a top mission of mine to get all of my clients to a point of self-sufficiency and independency, where they no longer need me to help navigate their own nutrition. However, we need to get educated and experienced with your food intake first.

Weighing your food is a part of that process and something I discussed with my clients on our group coaching call last week.

Why? Because the Australian & westernised diet has grossly abused the volume in which foods were designed to be consumed. Both in the sense of processing for hyper-density and sheer volumes of portions consumed (and lack of ability to factor in the actual recommended serving size).

It is imperative not just to ‘eyeball’ and cal it accurate or precise.
Eyeballing is NOT accurate because I guarantee you will not be even close to the target measurement when you first start to weigh your foods.
And NOT precise because I guarantee you will rarely hit the same value twice when weighing freely without scales.
Two VERY important factors when it comes to scientific measurements; and yes, it is a science.
(My co-science nerds will enjoy these definitions).

The impact?
1. 30g vs 80g - sure not a big deal right when it’s just this one time and one food (106kcal vs 283kcal, respectively).
2. But now let’s extrapolate this error to 7 days this week, we’re now comparing an intake of 742kcal to 1981kcal…
3. That’s a weekly difference of 1239kcal. Which is typically a third of most 500g fat loss deficits (~3500kcal weekly deficit).
4. Let’s put that into reality for you; that’s now a fat loss of ~330g this week instead of 500g.
5. And that is provided that all of your other meals are ACCURATE & PRECISE.

Not losing weight?
Buy kitchen scales, weigh your foods, be consistent and don’t bulls**t your coach (or yourself) if you haven’t.


via .app

Mindset talk👇🏽

If you are constantly being esteemed by the external world, or waiting for someone to come along & provide you with the fulfilment you’ve been waiting for… you’ll be waiting a very long time, if ever.
And even then, this will never be secure, because that someone or something can disappear faster than it arrived.

Cue 👉🏼 constant internal crisis mode, emotional extremes & destructive behaviours.

As a dietitian, why do I address this with my clients? What is my role here?

The relationship with yourself on a deep and fundamental level absolutely affects your relationship with your body, body image and your relationship with food & exercise. All of these factors affect your daily lifestyle choices and how you carry yourself and how you value your health.

if we only ever feel good within ourselves or about ourselves because of (let’s say) a partner, and the way that partner makes us feel in good times and or how secure we feel within ourselves because of being in that relationship (because someone loves you)… When you go through a rough patch in that relationship, your self-esteem will hit the floor. When you potentially break up from that relationship, it’s not uncommon to have a total internal crisis.
Why? 👇🏽
Because you spent so much time esteeming yourself from that relationship [or the external point of validation] and so little time in finding things in your lifestyle that you are internally esteemed by (I.e what are the things that make YOU feel happy & secure that you do for yourself and no-one else).

What happens next?
If your self value and self-worth is so low, how do you think you are going to treat yourself? How do you think you are going to manage your health? Do you really think you are going to be be motivated and disciplined to stick with healthy behaviours?

[…. no 🚫]

And then come the emotional distractions and a driving need for instant gratification/validation I.e good/binge eating, alcohol/binge drinking, drugs, s*x, social media, temporary toxic situationships.
NONE of which are conducive to health on any level.

Know this feeling? Talk to me instead 👏🏼 & let’s fix this.

What do you do to unwind, decompress and unpack your stress?

If you lead a busy, high performance & typically stressful life or ‘thrive on a busy routine’… 🙋🏼‍♀️hi, yep I do!… Then being aware of your total collective stress loading & time spent hyper-stimulated (governed by the sympathetic nervous system) is pivotal to maintaining balance & preventing burn-out (sound familiar??).

I’ll be unpacking a whole lot more of this in coming posts but personally, I love getting outdoors, connecting with nature & soaking up the sun ☀️ one of my best go-to remedies (paired with a little breath work or meditation) to decompress, switch systems, get off the screen) & slow down.

WHY YOU DIDN’T GET THE RESULTS YOU WANTED… 🧐

It is not uncommon to start coaching, or any project for that matter with the intention to achieve x,y,z results or outcomes.

But unfortunately for a lot of people who lack the right support, education or the right systems; results are a lot harder to come by and we eventually lose traction and give up. 😢

In the health a fitness industry, I see a LOT of ‘outsourcing of responsibility’, almost daily, when it comes to clients being accountable for their actions (which in turn affects their results).
What does this look like?
“Oh my friend wanted to grab a bite to eat and it was last minute so I wasn’t prepared” i.e. it’s not my fault
Or
“I was meant to train at 6pm but then work ran overtime so it got too late” i.e. it was not my fault, it was work’s fault.
Or
You know you didn’t do the work (training, nutrition, steps etc) but you don’t want to be held accountable to your actions, so you avoid your coach completely and miss check-ins etc. (Let’s keep in mind, we put these in place so we can troubleshoot and HELP YOU). It is literally what we are here for.

As much as we can point the finger elsewhere; all of the above examples are still you making a choice to not prioritise your health and affecting your own timeline towards results. They are not my results, they are yours. I will support you and keep doing my job either way, but it is you who is not getting the results.

Unfortunately, there are times where the coach/PT/professional is actually just bad at what they do… or perhaps it’s just no longer for you. Nonetheless, communicate it. 🆘

If you don’t follow the process and be consistent, don’t expect the results for the work that you didn’t do. 
And, don’t blame your PT/Coach/Dietitian etc. because that mentality is also not going to help you be accountable to your own lack of action elsewhere (present or future). 💯

GET CLEAR ON YOUR ‘WHY’ 🔥🔥

If you are wanting to achieve something different in your lifestyle, health, body composition, strength, performance, business etc.
Then your lifestyle and the daily decisions that make up your lifestyle need to be geared towards the success of exactly that.

if you were to stay in the same patterns of behaviour, including a sedentary routine, poor food choices, binge drinking, late nights, unproductive work hours, and skip training sessions - then you will produce the same outcomes, the same body composition (or even gradual increased body fat), the same performance markers (work & training), unhealthy blood work etc. 🩸

If you are not doing anything different, why should you expect anything to be different? 👀🤔

Change is inconvenient and requires sacrifice; sacrifice of your current behaviours and routines, sacrifice of your current social calendar, sacrifice of your current flexible approach and unhealthy food/drink consumption, sacrifice of extended hours of Netflix and social media keeping you awake at night and/or stuck to the couch. 🙅🏼‍♀️

While I believe you can achieve a balance while going after things that you want, a lot of these ‘time wasting’ activities will need to go or will be significantly reduced (more than you think). 🚩

So, if you're not clear on your ‘why’, you can bet that it will be hard to be consistent when it comes to making these sacrifices. To create inconvenience for yourself in service of the long term.
It will be hard to sticking to the boundaries required to achieve the goal that you are after if you are not sure WHY you are doing it, or why you want it.

It allows you to put aside & re-prioritise what you want NOW (the short term), for what you want MOST (the long term).

Commit. Plan. Follow through. Win 👊🏼

I battle with myself on this just about every day, because I am so fortunate to fu***ng love what I do and be able to show up for this career (and my clients) every day ♥️.

I have a phenomenal bunch of clients who are currently working with me towards making some pretty incredible changes in alignment with what they want to achieve for their health, fitness, stress management & mindset, and their overall relationship with their body (and all that ensues).

I have my sights set on some bigger, more long-term plans, and so with a lot of gratitude, I am unfortunate to report that I have reached my current capacity for coaching clients (both in person & online), especially as I get some new (& returning clients) completely supported within their coaching protocols & reach new limits!
💯👏🏼

On that note, if you have heard of my coaching services and what I have achieved with past clients and the level of knowledge and self-sufficiency they have achieved under my coaching; my suggestion would be to still apply on my waitlist because I may very well have something that will be a perfect fit for you in the coming months!
🤩🤩🤩

Meals >>> Prepped ✔️

It can take all of 15 minutes to make 4 ready to eat meals that fit your macros/meal plan. 🥦🌶🥕

I am not someone who preps 16+ meals at the start of the week (being a foodie, I love fresh food/freshly cooked meals and have the luxury to eat most of my meals at home). However, I do believe in being informed with my meal’s nutritional composition if I am targeting body composition (yes, your macro consumption will affect your body composition). 💯

This is how easy it can be to ‘follow a recipe/meal skeleton’, which in turn targets your macros.

Know your portion sizes per meal, as an example:
160g lean meat
300g low starch Veg
7g fats (70kcal)
& 80g of cooked grains e.g rice

Times this x 4 = 4 servings

Slide 1: What this looks like as ingredients weighed in their multiplied portions (x4 for 4 serves):
160g becomes 640g (chick breast)
300g becomes 1.2kg (veggies)
7g becomes 28g (EVOO)
80g becomes 400g (steamed rice)

Cooking method: Stir Fry 🥘
Heat a wok & oil, diced chicken goes in first & the passage to Asia low calorie sauce (35kcal per serve factored into the carbs allocation), toss in the vegetables & stir until cooked through.

Slide 2:
The portioned-out meals (equated by averaged out food weight), ready to take for work and one to consume now (post-cooking). I portion out my rice separately and pair together when I re-heat. Or use microwave rice!

Macros per serve: slide 3!