Working as a nutritionist and personal trainer

I'm not big on following any strict diet, everything in moderation I say! As long as majority of the food we put into our bodies is good for us there is no harm in having a little treat every now and then. This is something I follow, if I really want to have a piece of chocolate then I have one, and I go out for wine and cheese nights with friends, because who doesn't love a good wine and cheese night? However, working as a nutritionist and personal trainer I need to think more about what I eat and the exercise I do. I mean who is going to trust  someone to help them lose weight and have a healthy life if they themselves don't follow it themselves. Be a product of the product!!!

Doesn't mean I don't get people constantly asking me what I eat? They say I take it you never eat anything unhealthy and would never have take away? Or I guess you are the food police and will tell me off for what I'm eating? Or the one I love the most and get the most often is please don't look at what I'm eating today it's just a bad day, or I'm stressed out and need comfort food. Well I am not the food police. I will not tell you off for what you are eating as everyone has a choice of what foods they eat and don't eat and I can't force anyone to eat a particular food, or follow a particular lifestyle and nor would I want to because if you are not interested or committed to a lifestyle then you will not be successful in it. So I do follow a relaxed healthy meal plan which has little to no added sugar in it, very little carbs and a lot of fresh whole food. In particular I love a good farmers market which I will tell you all about in another post as I could talk about that for ages so  I'll move on to personal training side.

Anyone who knows me knows growing up and in my early 20s as not really into exercise. I didn't enjoy going to the gym, still don't really, but I found myself in a job where I got the opportunity to study and become a personal trainer surrounded by people who were passionate about it and passed on that infectious passion to me. I still don't love going to the gym, I much prefer being outdoors and doing exercise there, but I love the feeling you get from a really hard workout where you are dripping with sweat, can barely move and want to throw up. There is a feeling at that point that you are stronger than you ever thought you could be, and for that moment it's not about anyone else but you achieving something AMAZING! That's how I look at exercise now, I don't look at it as something I have to do, though I do need to workout most days of the week to maintain the right body shape and fitness level  to be able to help other people achieve their goals, but I look at it as keeping myself strong and healthy.

So really as a nutritionist and personal trainer I live and breathe exercise and good healthy food. It's hard as I have people in my life and even strangers who make me feel guilty for looking the way I do and it took me a long time to be able to let those opinions go and not let it get me down. But what I need to remember and what I tell myself everyday is that I need to be look how my clients what to be and this is my job, my passion and my income so it is what I live and breathe everyday and I won't let people have a negative impact on that.

I look forward to helping more and more people increase their self-esteem, improve their health and live the lifestyle they want

Have a great day!!!!

S x

Where do I start for my small business???

So getting started with a small business is not an easy task, add in having a business partner and you have someone else to consider in decisions you make! I am really lucky in that my business partner is a lot like me, she is driven and passionate about what we do which really helps. However, having a business partner means that you need to make sure you are always in contact with each other, making sure you both have the same goals/vision for your business and in what can be a negative or a positive depending on who you are in business with you MUST carry your weight. For me this is a great thing as it drives me to do more and more everyday so I keep up with my business partner and all the promotion she is doing to grow our client base. I count myself lucky that it isn't the other way around with a partner who expects you to do all the work. I love this picture as it shows how I am feeling right now plus I love dancing so fits me perfectly

But the biggest thing I've struggled with is being overwhelmed with everything I need to do, particularly being a single mum who has her child 90% of the time with me. And anyone who has a 3 year old boy knows they have boundless energy and you can't just sit down for hours to do emails, marketing, promotion, etc. So what have I done???? Well I am big on lists and a little OCD, I know in this digital age everyone has everything on some form of technology but I am big on physically writing down what I need to do each day, mostly so I get the satisfaction of crossing it out once I have completed it!

So first things first for any new business working out who is your target audience? For us it is corporate businesses in Adelaide to begin with and hopes to expand later on to other states. For me I need to identify what are the major businesses in Adelaide, especially those where employees are sitting down for hours on end each day and struggle to have a lunchbreak. These are the clients I am going to target for quick corporate personal training and nutrition consultancy sessions. Now we have identified this we need a marketing strategy on how are we going to get these clients to realise they NEED our service? Social Media? Letter Drop? Face to Face? This is where I am currently at in my business is the marketing strategy and how I am going to turn my list of potential clients into actual paying clients.

So I am going to leave you with one final picture of me, I'm so excited as we now have our uniform tops and business cards! Until next time. Thankyou for reading and if there is something in particular you want me to write about send me a message or follow me on Instagram: scaj12

Getting Fussy Eaters to Eat a Rainbow

So as part of the business we have started a Facebook page and as part of this I am sharing tips on how to get more vegetables into your meals and sharing meals that I make at home. I have never really been one for social media and it's something I am having to think more and more about to try and promote the business and increase delivery of programs. It has got to the point I make sure I put a note in my diary each day to post something either to the business page or to Instagram. It's been great sharing my experience with people on all platforms around food which is something I am extremely passionate about and now also fitness. So today I am going to talk about getting more vegetables and fruit into fussy eaters meals!

I have 2 fussy eaters that I cook for, one is my almost 4 year old who is refusing to eat all vegetables the other an adult who since being a child is very limited in the vegetables they consume!! It makes for eating a wide variety of foods, or a rainbow really difficult. So here is what I do and my family have all worked it out but will still eat it anyway as they claim they can't taste it, or the veggies are chopped up so finely they can't actually pick it out anyway.

I finely chop up veggies and put into my pastas, lasagna, slow cookers, chicken and rice dishes and always into stir frys. I always make sure to put whatever vegetables I have in the fridge or freezer and pack them full of nutritious veggies. I personally love veggies I used to be a vegetarian so having a meat free meal doesn't bother me in the slightest but it does others so I always make sure to have meat in the meals as well, this also adds protein which helps me feel fuller for longer!!

For my son I make him smoothies as he no longer has bottles before bed so his milk intake went down significantly as he refuses to have glasses of milk but he loves 'chocolate smoothies' what he doesn't know is I also add in fruit to the blender too and the small amount of chocolate topping that goes in covers up the colour and the taste.

Last night we had a beef stir fry. Something not everyone loves but everyone in my house will eat. As it's close to the end of the week we had limited selection of vegetables to choose from but it came together, everyone ate it and there were no complaints.

Introduction

So I'm going to write about a lot of different things on here. In particular what it's like to be a single mum trying to start your own business and the interesting things that come along with my daily life. I am a qualified nutritionist and personal trainer who has recently started my own company with a business partner which focusses on professional development for staff, fitness and nutrition programs utilising a holistic health approach.

My main focus is on supporting clients to have a balanced and healthy lifestyle. There is no point cutting everything out as most people will fail with this approach and it is not sustainable. It's important to have things in moderation and not to deny ourselves little amounts of what we want be that chocolate, lollies or alcohol.

I will talk a little about the things I make as I'm big on whole food with very little packaging in our day to day lives. My son loves nothing more than making things from scratch and eating them as we make them as opposed to opening up a packaged bar marketed for kids. So that's a little about me and I will leave you with a little picture of what I had for breakfast this morning. Muesli, yoghurt and frozen fruit!!