Healthy Active Living And Weight Loss In this podcast episode, I discuss the unique differences between healthy active living and weight loss. The truth is, most people easily confuse the two. But in reality, healthy active living and weight loss are quite different from each other. Healthy living and weight loss are two sides of the same coin. You do many of the same activities, and you have many of the same mindsets, however, you don’t do things in the same order or with the same intensity. Healthy active living should be considered maintenance mode, “home base”, or the place you always return to. Weight loss mode is, of course, where you actively work to lose weight. Weight Loss Phase The weight loss phase is where you actually put in the true work. For example, healthy activing living activities such as walking, dancing by yourself, or hot yoga are great forms of body movement! These types of activities are great for being healthy and maintaining weight loss. But if you want to actually lose weight, you need to do consistent exercise that includes both strength training and cardio. The weight loss phase doesn’t have to be hard! It’s only hard […]
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Do you have body intuition? Body intuition is a game-changer. Let me ask you, who knows your body best? Your doctor? Your partner? Family? Society? Diet culture? SURPRISE! It’s none of the above. The only person who knows your body inside and out is YOU. YOU know your body best. YOU are the true authority on your body and your health. Why do we ignore our intuition? So, why is it that we ignore our own intuition about our bodies? Why do we listen to everyone else and their opinions about our bodies when really what we need to do is tune in and listen to our own intuition? Chances are you’ve forgotten how to listen to your body, and no longer feel in tune with its needs. And this is not your fault! Without being consciously aware of it, many of our parents started training us to ignore our bodies and their signals from a very young age. Being trained to ignore our bodies came in the form of delaying snacks, set and rigid mealtimes, being asked to clear our plates, needing to clear our plate before dessert, and more. And as we got older, we were taught by […]
Introducing my self-paced course, the Body Love Mindset Connection Method! This is the ULTIMATE self-love, body-positive, healing companion to any weight loss journey. Click HERE for details! Sometimes I still can’t believe I’m writing this. You see, almost 7 years ago I weighed in at roughly 250 pounds. And 4 years ago I celebrated accomplishing an over 100-pound weight loss. And I achieved this weight loss naturally without diets or surgery. I wrote a blog post about 3 years ago about this weight loss and some of the basic steps I took to get there. You can check out that post here. Anyway, 4 years later I’m still here maintaining my 100-pound weight loss! However, over the past year, my health journey (for real, a health journey is constantly ongoing) has started to change. You see, I’m not 30-years-old anymore. And my body has begun to respond differently to things compared to how it responded several years ago. It’s slowly beginning to age and I’m starting to slowly experience the effects of aging in different ways. And I know this part of my journey is just beginning. I talk about this change in my health journey and my health/life update […]
Not to be dramatic, but learning about mindful eating changed my life. Before learning how to eat mindfully, food could never just be food. I was constantly demolishing my meals in record time, eating way past full, clearing my plate regardless of how I felt, and overall, blindly eating. It was like the food was something to be conquered. And the worst part was for the longest time, I thought this was the “normal” way to eat. Like many people, I turned to diets when first trying to change my relationship with food. But restriction of any kind simply didn’t work for me. I knew a diet was not something I could maintain for the rest of my life, and I wanted to have a lifelong, healthy relationship with food. Dieting Was Not For Me I’ve dieted many times in my life. I often joke that I’ve literally tried every diet available. My first time being on an official diet, I was 13 or 14, and it was at the suggestion of my parents that I try the Atkins diet. And that experience was my first time feeling like a complete failure. For me, dieting made me hate everything about […]
The lifestyle that I have now didn’t happen by accident. I truly believe that the lifestyle I have now is one that I manifested into existence. I went beyond dreaming and wishing for a new life, and instead, focused on manifesting the life I knew was meant for me. I talk about changing my mindset and mindset habits in a few other posts but let me start by saying that changing my mindset about the outcome of my efforts was number one. This time, I absolutely had to believe. Doubting myself simply couldn’t be an option anymore. Because doubting myself was like having one foot out the door. Doubting myself meant I wasn’t actually committing to anything. So, doubt was no longer an option! I had to replace doubt with unwavering belief in myself. This post contains affiliate links. See Disclosures for details. Wishing vs. Manifesting For the longest time, I would simply wish and dream about having a healthy lifestyle that I loved. I would wish for lfie to be different and I would dream about how I thought things would be when I finally hit my goals. I would go shopping and wish that I was shopping for […]
Like most people, I first started exercising to lose weight. At the time, I weighed just under 250 lbs and I was consumed with weight loss. Everything I did centered around losing weight or trying to lose weight. I had zero appreciation for my body or what it could do. So, when I picked up my first exercise program, weight loss was the primary goal. But even as I went into my first fitness program, I had my first big mindset shift. I promised myself that I would complete the entire program even if I didn’t lose a single pound. I told myself that my goal was to complete the program without quitting. If there was weight loss, great, if not, I would prove to the world that I could start and finish something without quitting. And shifting my mindset even slightly away from my body and weight loss put me on the path toward loving fitness and exercise. More Than Weight Loss When I committed to doing that fitness program and committed to completing it whether or not I saw “results”, my mindset began to shift away from weight loss for the first time ever. Over the course of […]
By Mark Fisher as told to Shannon Clay Hey! My name is Mark Fisher and I’m 29-years-old from Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Currently, I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been in my adult life! But that wasn’t always the case. A few years ago my life looked very different. I was unhealthy and miserable and I knew I needed a change. Overall, it took me roughly three years to lose 90 pounds. And I’ve kept that weight off for over two years! This post contains affiliate links #ads. See Disclosure for details. I receive a small commission from Amazon purchases are no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting Shannon Elizabeth Fitness! Why a change? The truth is, I just wasn’t happy with myself. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t like what I saw looking back at me. That wasn’t the person I knew myself to be. And I reached a point where I just didn’t want to feel like crap anymore. I knew I had to address my self-image if I wanted my life to be better. I realized that the only thing I can control in life is myself. Who I am and what I do is […]
I’ve learned a lot about emotional eating over the years. It’s something that I’ve come to realize will always be a part of my life in some way. It’s something that will always keep me on my toes. For me, one of the hardest parts about emotional eating was the feeling of powerlessness that I always felt. I didn’t feel like I had control over my emotions or any control around food. Which is why I’m sharing some of my emotional eating tips to take back your power. Just a reminder that these are tips that have work for me. At the end of the day, if you feel you need extra help to deal with emotional eating therapy is a fabulous tool that I highly recommend. But if you want some emotional eating tips that you can start implementing right away then keep reading! This post contains affiliate links #ads. See Disclosure for details. I receive a commission from Amazon purchases at no extra cost to you. Emotional Eating Tips To Take Back Your Power Sit With Your Negative Emotions For 5 Minutes For me, 9 times out of 10 if I’m feeling the urge to eat emotionally, it’s […]
I talk about how key mindset changes were a part of my huge weight loss in another blog post, but here I want to discuss the mindset changes that transformed me as a whole person. Changing your mindset is about taking ownership of how you experience the world around you. Choosing how you react to your own thoughts and feelings can be a very powerful practice. But it is important to remember that mindset is like a muscle and it needs to be exercised regularly to be effective. So what are some of the key mindset changes I made that completely transformed my life? Check them out below. This post contains affiliate links #ads. See Disclosure for details. I make a small commission from Amazon purchases at no extra cost to you. Thoughts Aren’t Facts When I first read that thoughts aren’t facts I felt like I had been smacked in the face. It was like glass shattering in my brain. Honestly, I think my jaw fell open a little bit. It was so obvious and so simple yet not something I had really ever thought of before. Why do we automatically assume our thoughts are true? And that if […]
If you’re a regular reader of mine, you know how much value I place on a healthy mindset. I truly believe that it was changing my mindset and how I viewed my life that helped me lose over 100 pounds. Changing how I viewed my problems and situations was what made my final weight loss journey truly stick. Prior to my weight loss, I had spent two decades dieting and trying anything to lose weight. I literally tried every diet you could imagine. And doing all these things with little to no results was soul-crushing. For many years, I was stuck in a very dark place. Unchecked, my depression and anxiety started to reach new depths. My mindset was stuck in a vicious cycle of self-loathing, being a victim, and low self-esteem. I would beat myself up, binge eat, and beat myself up again. If I exercised, it was always as a punishment or because I disliked my body. There was nothing positive about how I was treating myself and my health. So what changed? At one point, I remember looking in the mirror and just being tired of hating myself. I literally remember looking in the mirror and being […]