Now first things first, just calm down because what you’re experiencing is pretty common. And you do still have time to make it into that two-piece- I promise! We just have to figure out what you’re doing wrong and tighten things up. Here are 3 common reasons why you can’t lose weight:

Reason #1: You’re eating back all the calories you burn

When you want to lose weight, you’ll need to focus on creating a calorie deficit- which is basically an imbalance between the calories you’re eating and the calories you’re burning off. More calories out than calories in creates a calorie deficit. And sustaining this calorie deficit consistently over an extended period of time is what leads to weight loss.

Now let’s say you want to lose weight- say, one pound a week. Because one pound of fat is equal to 3,500 calories, it stands to reason that you should create a calorie deficit of approximately 3,500 calories per week (or a calorie deficit of 500 calories per day) to lose one pound per week. OK, so now that you know this, you confidently start your diet and exercise routine. For the first few days or weeks, you’re on top of things and keeping track of your calories in versus calories out. But then something happens. One day you hit the gym and then you use the ‘I exercised today’ excuse to overeat later in the day. Then another day you overeat and say something like, “I’ll just work out extra hard tomorrow to burn it off.” Then another day you make another excuse for overeating. And now guess what you’ve done? You’ve decreased your calorie deficit. And this is why you’re not losing weight. Because you’re eating (or even drinking) back all the calories you’ve burned. So the takeaway is this: Don’t fall into the trap of overeating because you’ve exercised (or plan to exercise later). Believe me, I know how easy it can be to rationalize having that extra bit of food after Zumba class, but don’t do it ladies. Remember exercise can help you lose weight, but not when you’re eating back all the calories you’ve burned.

Learn how to burn more calories faster and kick your body into fat-burning mode with HIIT.

Reason #2: You’re eating too much sugar and refined carbs

I have a weight loss motto and that motto is this:

You can’t ‘out-exercise’ a crappy diet

That said, one reason why I strongly advise keeping a food journal is because people have this incredible knack for totally underestimating the junk they eat. Plus, people like to delude themselves into believing that exercise will make up for poor food choices. But that’s just not how it works. Truth is, all calories are not created equal and all foods don’t affect our bodies in the same way. Take a diet that is high in sugar and refined carbs for example. Let’s say you’ve worked the numbers so you’re able to create a calorie deficit while still allowing yourself the pleasure of eating a diet that’s high in sugar and refined carbs like soda, white bread, white rice, and pasta. Sweet! Now you don’t have to give up your goodies, and since exercising too, everything should work out. Except when you go to weigh yourself after a few weeks of this “awesome” diet, you notice that you still haven’t lost any weight- or maybe even gained weight! Huh?! What gives?! 

Here’s what gives: A diet that’s high in sugar and refined carbs works to promote a condition called hyperinsulinemia- which is just the medical term for high insulin release due to too much sugar in the blood. And hyperinsulinemia prevents weight loss because it makes it harder for our body to burn fat. In fact, hyperinsulinemia puts your body in a state where it’s constantly wanting to store fat! Yeah, how do you like that? So going back to my earlier point, this is precisely why I say that exercise should not be used to make up for a bad diet. You have to exercise and you have to eat a diet that’s rich in whole foods, such as the Paleo Diet. And furthermore, if you want to help put your body in a state where it wants to burn fat and not constantly store it, you’re going to have to cut back on the sugars and refined carbs.

Reason #3: You’re not lifting weights

Now the last point I wanted to touch on is the importance of mixing in a bit of weightlifting with cardio, because it’s pretty much a given that when the average woman wants to lose weight, she’ll most likely put all her energy into things like the treadmill or elliptical. But here’s the thing about cardio: While cardio is good for burning calories, it doesn’t discriminate in the type of weight that’s lost. Meaning, cardio will burn muscle tissue as well as fat. So yeah, when you do lots of cardio you’ll lose weight, but you’ll also lose muscle mass. And less muscle mass will lead to a lower basal metabolic rate, which will lead to less fat burning potential over time, which ultimately means it’ll be harder to lose weight as you get older. This is one of the very reasons why it’s usually so much easier for men to lose weight than women- even as they age. It comes down to 2 things: 1) men naturally have more muscle mass than us, and 2) men focus on lifting weights and building more muscle (which helps improve their basal metabolic rate). So now that you know the fellas’ little secret, just make sure to also throw in a bit of strength training when you workout too. Do this and you’ll be approaching weight loss the super smart way: by using cardio for immediate calorie burning, and by using strength training to preserve and build lean muscle that’ll help you to continue burning more calories throughout the day. – Doc

Dr. Phoenyx Austin is a physician, author, owner of Dr. Phoenyx FitBody products, and creator of the fitness site, DrPhoenyx.com. Check out Dr. Phoenyx’s awesome natural hair care book If You Love It, It Will Grow – available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBooks. And don’t forget to say hello to the Doc on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!

So in other words, if you’ve continued to put in miles upon miles on a treadmill, but you aren’t seeing much change in your body, it’s pretty much a telltale sign that your body’s hit a plateau and you need to step things up a notch. How do you do that? Well, I’m about to show you some ways, and even if you haven’t hit a fitness plateau per se, the following tips are still great ways to challenge your body and keep it guessing about what’s coming next- which will also break dreaded treadmill boredom curse too! Because at the end of the day, there’s no law that says treadmill workouts have to be as vanilla as just running or walking faster. Now here are a few ways you can step up your treadmill workout:

1.       Add interval training

If you’re familiar with things like HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) and Tabata intervals, then you’re well aware that a killer treadmill workout doesn’t have to take forever. Here’s one sample tabata treadmill workout: Warm up first, then set the treadmill to 10 percent to 12 percent incline, and then ramp up the speed so you’re at a full sprint. Continue the sprint for 30 seconds and then slow down the speed to a 15 second light jog/walk. Repeat these high-low intensity intervals for 8-12 sets. All in all this type of workout will take less than 30 minutes, and you’ll end up torching more calories in less time.

Learn how HIIT can help you burn more calories in less time

2.       The sideways shuffle

To do the sideways shuffle you’re going to set on the treadmill and face forward as usual. Then, with your right hand on the rail in front of you and your left hand on the left railing, turn out to the left so that the left railing is now in front of your body. Now, just as you would shuffle on flat ground, make the same shuffle motion- clicking foot to foot, moving sideways (do not cross your feet). The sideways shuffle is a really great way to improve balance, strength and your concentration. It’s also a nice way to work your hips, inner and outer thighs, calves, abs, and obliques. Just remember to spend an equal amount of time on your left side as you do your right side, and start at a slow pace. As you get better at the shuffle, you can bump up the speed and the resistance for a challenge.

3.       Walk uphill, backwards

This move will take a little more concentration and you’ll have to walk at a slower speed, but I guarantee you won’t find yourself drifting off into space. Walking backwards uphill will help strengthen your quads, glutes and calves, and if you want to make things more challenging just switch up the speed and incline every few minutes, while switching between forward running and backward walking.

4.       Walk with your arms above your head

You may end up looking a bit funny to fellow gym-goers, but speed walking with your arms overhead and/or moving your arms up and down throughout your session is an excellent way to get your heart rate up. And if you want to step things up even more, do this move with the added weight of 5-10 pound dumbbells in each hand.

Do you have a few non-traditional treadmill moves you could share? Let me know in the comments! – Doc

Dr. Phoenyx Austin is a physician, author, owner of Dr. Phoenyx FitBody products, and creator of the fitness site, DrPhoenyx.com. Check out Dr. Phoenyx’s awesome natural hair care book If You Love It, It Will Grow – available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBooks. And don’t forget to say hello to the Doc on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!

One of the most common excuses people give for not exercising is that they don’t have time. And if you’re one of those folks who swears up and down that you don’t have an hour (or even 30 minutes) to spare for a workout, then HIIT is the perfect solution.

What is HIIT?

HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training, and it involves alternating between periods of intense exercise and brief recovery. The idea behind HIIT training is that you don’t allow your body to adjust to exercising at just one level of intensity, which enables you to essentially turn into a fat-burning machine.

So what does an actual HIIT workout look like? Well first you start with a warm-up (you’ve got to get those muscles loosened up!).  Then you break into a very intense exercise to get your heart rate up so high that you are exercising in the anaerobic zone.  This intense exercising is done for a short interval, and after that time is up, you will switch to a less intense exercise for a short interval. These high intensity-low intensity intervals are repeated several times and altogether an entire HIIT workout can span just 20 minutes. Yup, no more whining about not having enough time to workout guys!

HIIT Torches Calories in Shorter Time

I’m sure many of you have already heard about HIIT, and the reason HIIT is so popular is because it doesn’t require a serious time commitment to yield incredible weight loss and muscle toning results. Plus, for those of you who get bored to tears on gym machines like the treadmill (or “the hamster wheel” as I sometimes like to call it), HIIT is a nice way to kill boredom and get you more actively engaged in your workout while burning more calories despite a shorter total workout time.

HIIT Burns More Calories After Your Workout

For those of you who track your daily calorie expenditure, here is another benefit of HIIT: It primes your body to continue burning calories after you’re done working out. How so? Well your body needs oxygen to workout. And when you exercise at very strenuous levels (like HIIT), you will end up pushing your body out of the aerobic zone and into the anaerobic zone. This basically means that your muscle cells will be deprived of oxygen, which will create an oxygen deficit within your body. Now this oxygen deficit doesn’t change the fact that your cells still need oxygen. So after doing HIIT, your body will work to balance things out later. And the elimination of the oxygen debt comes in the form of your body up-regulating its metabolism and releasing fatty acids that are used as fuel for recovery. This all happens in the time after a workout is complete, and interestingly enough, this won’t occur by doing low intensity exercise. You need to be working out in your anaerobic zone at maximal heart rates to create a significant oxygen debt and added fat loss effect. The entire process is called Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) and it is a pretty efficient way to burn extra calories and fat. As was found in a Baylor College of Medicine study which reported that subjects who followed a HIIT workout on a stationary cycle burned significantly more calories during the 24 hours following the workout than those who cycled at a moderate steady-state intensity.

HIIT Boosts Fat-Burning Hormones

Another benefit to HIIT is that it also helps stimulate Human Growth Hormone (HGH), which is responsible for regulating metabolism and maintaining fat burning lean muscle mass. Last but definitely not least, HIIT also helps improve insulin sensitivity and lowers insulin levels, thus improving insulin action. For those who don’t know, insulin is a very important hormone that triggers your body to store fat if insulin gets too high. And in cases where blood sugar levels get high and insulin is released but not able to do its job efficiently, the end result will not only be obesity, but also diabetes.

How to Perform HIIT

When setting up your HIIT workout you don’t have to follow one specific formula, although the original HIIT proponents set a 2:1 ratio of intense workout to rest. So you could create an HIIT workout where you say, alternate between a 30 second sprint and 15 seconds of walking. That 2:1 ratio is just a recommendation though and many people like to vary their HIIT ratios. If you’re a total newbie to HIIT here are a few examples of HIIT workout regimens you could try:

HIIT on the pavement:

• Sprint for 15 seconds and walk/jog for 30 seconds. Do this for 20 minutes.

• Sprint for 30 seconds and walk/jog for 60 seconds. Do this for 20 minutes.

• Sprint for 60 seconds and walk/jog for 90-120 seconds. Do this for 20 minutes.

HIIT on the track:

• Sprint the straightaways and walk/or jog the curves. Do this for 20 minutes.

• Sprint 200 meters (half way around the track) and walk/jog the other half. Do this for 20 minutes.

• Sprint 400 meters (1 lap) and then walk/job the next lap. Do this for 20 minutes.

HIIT in the gym:

* Note – Make sure you are using proper form when doing these exercises. The last thing you want to do is injure yourself from bad form!

• Squats reps for 1 minute and then rest for one minute, then repeat for 20 minutes.

• Deadlift reps for 1 minute and then rest for one minute, then repeat for 20 minutes.
• Circuit training – mix up squats, bench press, deadlifts, pullups, or any other combos of exercises, doing 1 minute of exercise for every 1 minute of rest. Repeat for 20 minutes.

How to Perform HIIT Safely

Alright, so now that you’ve read about some of the awesome benefits of HIIT, I’m guessing you’re going to want to give it a try asap. But before you do, here are a few precautions I’d recommend:

1)      Always stretch and warm up before an HIIT session. Also remember to stretch and cool down afterwards.

2)      Make sure you are eating properly and getting adequate nutrition before attempting HIIT. Even though HIIT training doesn’t take a lot of time, it does take a lot of energy. So for those of you who are cutting calories, be mindful you don’t cut calorie intake too low. Doing so could leave you severely exhausted or worst yet land you in a medical emergency.

3)      Give your body time to fully recover (atleast 24 hours). Though it’s not talked about often, recovery is an important component to fitness because it helps repair and/or prevent injury and helps your body become stronger. In the case of HIIT your body will need rest/recovery because this type of exercise will take a lot out of you. So just make sure to listen to your body and be safe when performing HIIT. Good luck!  – Doc

Dr. Phoenyx Austin is a physician, author, owner of Dr. Phoenyx FitBody products, and creator of the fitness site, DrPhoenyx.com. Check out Dr. Phoenyx’s awesome natural hair care book If You Love It, It Will Grow – available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBooks. And don’t forget to say hello to the Doc on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!

Today I wanted to chat a lil’ bit about sugar and how it’s making you fat. But first, check out the image above of the nutrition label of a very popular and “healthy” breakfast cereal, as well as a snapshot of sugar cane plants. I recently posted this on Instagram after a trip to the grocery store.

Now when you hear about going “low carb” what a lot of that means is cutting back on sugar. Sugar is a type of carbohydrate – a simple carbohydrate. And eating too much sugar (aka “simple carbs”) will make you fat. Why? Well, under normal circumstances, when sugar hits your digestive system, it immediately enters you blood and rapidly stimulates the release of insulin. Insulin then stimulates your cells to take up the sugar and use it. But in the case of excess sugar intake, the sugar gets stored in the liver in the form of glycogen. But the liver can hold only so much glycogen before it inflates like a balloon. And when the liver’s storage capacity gets maxed out, glycogen is expelled in the form of fatty acids that spill over into other organs and areas of the body- like your belly, hips and butt. And that’s how you get fat!

So what would be the simplest solution to the sugar/fat dilemma? To just watch sugar intake, right? Right! But in many cases that’s easier said than done. Because we as a nation are ADDICTED to sugar, and sugar is crammed into so much of what we eat. Even in the stuff that’s deemed “healthy.” Now the sugar from sugar cane is nothing like the sugar we eat, but most of the sugar we eat started out as sugar cane before it was processed into white sugar. Sugar from sugar cane is pure and unrefined (looks tan/brown when it crystallizes). Plus, pure sugar cane sugar also has vitamins, minerals and enzymes. On the other hand, refined sugar is completely devoid of any nutrients. It has been stripped of all its nutrients during the refining process. So with refined sugar, you simply get something that has no nutrients, will spike your blood sugar, will make your insulin go haywire, and will eventually make you fat (or even diabetic).

OK, so now that you understand how refined sugar makes you fat, let’s turn our attention back to the box of cereal. And knowing what you now know about sugar and getting fat, do you think this particular cereal is something I’d eat every day for breakfast?  In the famous words of the late, great Whitney Houston. “Hell, to the no!” Why? Because of all that sugar! 18 grams of sugar per serving is a lot folks! In fact, that’s equivalent to gobbling down 9 Hershey’s Kisses per serving! Now I must confess that I’m not even a cereal person (because I don’t drink milk). But still yet, if I did eat cereal, I would absolutely avoid regularly eating anything that has that much sugar. For me, a more reasonable number would be no more than 5 grams of sugar per serving. But hey, that’s just me. I like being fit, and I like not having diabetes. And if you do too, then I’d def watch it with the sugar. Got it? Good! -  Doc

Dr. Phoenyx Austin is a physician, author, owner of Dr. Phoenyx FitBody products, and creator of the fitness site, DrPhoenyx.com. Check out Dr. Phoenyx’s awesome natural hair care book If You Love It, It Will Grow – available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBooks. And don’t forget to say hello to the Doc on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!

“Are all carbs bad?”

This is one of the most common questions I hear from folks who want to lose weight, and I know that a lot of it stems from the huge popularity of diets like the Atkins diet and the Paleo diet, which both emphasize eating a high-protein/low-carb diet to shed pounds. That said, I want to go on the record with stating that I am a huge, HUGE  fan of both Paleo and Atkins because they are, in fact, low-carb diets. But I want to set the record straight on carbs because I think a lot of people are confusing the whole low-carb approach to mean that all carbs are the enemy. Which is totally not the case. Yes, cutting carbs will help you lose weight but it’s all about the type of carbs you cut. And truth be told, there are certain types of carbs that can actually help you lose weight. Yup, you read that right. Carbs can help you lose weight. It all comes down to eating the “good” carbs, are cutting back on (or totally cutting out) the bad ones.

Now when I tell people this, they still look at me a bit confused because they don’t know how to differentiate a good carb from a bad one.  But it’s not difficult at all to tell the difference between the two as you’ll soon see. Like I mentioned earlier, carbs can be broken down into 2 major groups: the good carbs and bad carbs- or good carbs and evil carbs depending how naughty you want to make yourself feel about eating the not-so-healthy ones. Now the good carbs are considered “good” because they are natural, unprocessed foods that are rich in nutrients, help you feel fuller longer, give you long-lasting energy, and help keep your blood sugar stable.

Good carbs are things like:

Fresh vegetables

Fresh fruits

Legumes

Whole grains (like quinoa)

On the other hand, the bad/evil carbs are unnatural and processed foods like pasta, white bread, bagels, white rice, french fries, cake, cupcakes, and all those other goodies that taste awesome but have little nutritional value, wreak havoc on our blood sugar and ultimately lead to weight gain, as well as other problems like Type 2 diabetes.

So now it should come as no surprise why a diet that’s low carb (actually low refined carb) is good for you. And essentially, that is what diets like Paleo and Atkins are. They are low-to-no refined carb diets. They are not low carb diets in the total sense because they do heavily encourage eating things like veggies.

So the take home message is this: All carbs are not the devil and you don’t have to totally eliminate carbs from your diet to lose weight. Carbs should be thought of as belonging to 2 groups: good and bad. If you stick with the good, you’ll be cool. And if you very seldom pick from the bad, you’ll be ok too. It really just boils down to getting a diet that is rich in whole foods, rather than processed and refined foods. This is what your body needs to best fuel itself and to keep your weight in check.

Do you eat a low-carb diet? – Doc

Dr. Phoenyx Austin is a physician, author, owner of Dr. Phoenyx FitBody products, and creator of the fitness site, DrPhoenyx.com. Check out Dr. Phoenyx’s awesome natural hair care book If You Love It, It Will Grow – available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBooks. And don’t forget to say hello to the Doc on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!

Happy Friday guys! The week is coming to a close and that means we’ve got another Weekend Workout Challenge on deck! The above workout is meant to target your entire body and it’s a full body workout that you can do anywhere. So no need to hit up the gym or grab any equipment. Also this is a nice lil’ workout for all you folks who’ll be chillin’ out on the couch and catching the 2 hour (yes!) season premiere of Mad Men this weekend.

Now let’s go through the exercises: 15 pushups, 15 walking lunges, 15 tricep dips, 15 squat jumps, and 15 bicycle crunches. In all, should take about 10-15 minutes. We’re going to do this (at least) twice a day on Saturday and Sunday. And if you’re feeling real superwoman-ish, feel free to up that rep to 3 or more times Saturday and Sunday. Also, don’t forget the stretch beforehand and make sure to get some water in after.

Have an awesome weekend guys and I’ll cya next week!

Btw, are you as excited about the return of Mad Men as I am!? Will you be tuning into the season premiere this weekend? - Doc

Dr. Phoenyx Austin is a physician, author, and creator of the fitness blog, DrPhoenyx.com. Check out Dr. Phoenyx’s awesome natural hair care book If You Love It, It Will Grow – available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBooks. And don’t forget to say hello to the Doc on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!

Alright Walking Dead fans, as I’m sure you know, this Sunday will be the incredible season finale of The Walking Dead! And I’m sooooo amped! Folks have been training, loading up the ammo, corralling up the zombies, and no doubt the showdown between Woodbury and The Prison is going to be ridiculous. So in celebration all things zombies and fitness, I decided to have a bit of fun with this Weekend’s Workout Challenge.

WORKOUT WARNING: I have a strong feeling that this episode will have tons of blood and zombie brains flying, so I apologize in advance for any sore muscles that are a direct result of this episode. Enjoy!

Will you be tuning into The Walking Dead season finale this weekend? – Doc

Dr. Phoenyx Austin is a physician, author, and creator of the fitness blog, DrPhoenyx.com. Check out Dr. Phoenyx’s awesome natural hair care book If You Love It, It Will Grow – available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBooks. And don’t forget to say hello to the Doc on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!

Q: Hi Dr. Phoenyx, how long should I wait after eating before I workout? I want to run right after breakfast, but wasn’t sure how much time I should give myself to digest. – Sidney

A: Hi Sydney, that’s a good question that I’m sure many others have had too. And the fact of the matter is the answer really isn’t very cut and dry. But I’ll try to make things as simple as possible by explaining why the average person should wait a bit after eating before they exercise. So let’s start off with what happens to our bodies after we eat.

Shortly after we’ve eaten a meal, our body will begin to use a good amount of energy to digest the food we’ve just eaten. First, to facilitate the digestive process, the body directs more blood flow to the stomach and other internal organs like the pancreas, gallbladder and colon. This is one reason people often feel sleepy following a large meal. Because all that blood flow that is now being directed to our internal organs for digestion means that there will be less blood flow available to our large muscle groups, like our legs and arms. And when we exercise, the opposite occurs – blood flow is redirected from internal organs to our muscles to provide the necessary energy for muscle contraction. So basically, our body is not designed to do both digestion and exercise at the same time. That’s why people can get things like stomach cramps and stomach aches when trying to run/exercise on a full stomach.

Now there are some athletes who do eat and exercise at the same time – particularly endurance athletes (like marathon runners) who have trained their bodies to eat on the run. Still yet, even with endurance athletes, you’ll hardly see them down a huge meal right before training because they may end up with the same stomach cramps and other digestive problems. So taking all this information in, my recommendation for the average person would be to wait at least 60 minutes to exercise after eating a large meal. And I define a large meal as at least 600 calories.  Furthermore, if your exercise routine requires a lot of intensity, you may even want to wait up to 2 hours after eating a large meal. Now that said, I want to emphasize that my recommendations are not set in stone because every situation isn’t necessarily the same. Meal sizes vary and people train differently. So depending on how much you end up eating and the intensity of your upcoming workout, I would definitely encourage you to do a bit of experimenting to see how long it takes for your body to feel comfortable with exercising after a meal.

OK, so now that I’ve offered my recommendations I want to open up the floor to other readers. I’m curious guys- How long do you wait to exercise after eating? – Doc

Dr. Phoenyx Austin is a physician, author, and creator of the fitness blog, DrPhoenyx.com. Check out Dr. Phoenyx’s awesome natural hair care book If You Love It, It Will Grow – available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBooks. And don’t forget to say hello to the Doc on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!

The month is almost over, but before we close out March, I want you finish out the month strong by upping your water game from here on out. The above infographic includes 10 really great reasons why you need to drink more water. So share it, pin it, and re-visit it. I tell women all the time that one of the easiest ways to wreck your fitness plans is by “drinking empty calories.” Remember, sugary drinks are filled with empty calories. And empty calories are something you want to limit because they have little to no nutritional value. Plus, those empty calories can add up pretty quickly and make it even harder to lose weight. So start substituting those sugary juices, sodas (and yes, even diet sodas) with more water. This is one of the easiest ways to cut back on your daily calorie intake and you’ll be able to get in shape a whole lot easier.

How many ounces of water do you drink a day? How many ounces of juice and/or soda do you drink a day? - Doc

Dr. Phoenyx Austin is a physician, author, and creator of the fitness blog, DrPhoenyx.com. Check out Dr. Phoenyx’s awesome natural hair care book If You Love It, It Will Grow – available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBooks. And don’t forget to say hello to the Doc on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!

This weekend I had the honor of attending the Radical Women’s Conference in DC to see a talk by one of my biggest fitness inspirations and all-around girl crushes. The fitness diva herself- JILLIAN MICHAELS!

And honestly, words can’t even begin to express how awesome the experience was, or how beautiful this woman is inside and out. As anticipated, Jillian’s talk was filled with lots of energy and the tough no-nonsense-kick-butt-take-no-prisoners approach to fitness and wellness that she’s so famous for. But on the flip side, Jillian also her softer and even funny side show that not so many other people (unfortunately) get to see. And overall, it was so refreshing to see a woman that is so beautiful, confident and self-assured,  yet unafraid to make fun of herself and even show her flaws. That said, I loved every minute of Jillian’s talk- from beginning to end. And my only criticism (if I had to give one) is that I was bummed that she couldn’t talk even longer.

So ladies, in the spirit of today’s Monday Motivation post, I wanted to give you a question to ponder. It’s a question that was posed by Jillian during her talk, and this is especially for the self-doubters. All the women who dream big or small, but don’t take action because all they see are the reasons why their dreams won’t come true. It’s a question you need to always ask yourself, no matter what you want to do- whether it’s to have a better body, or a better life in general. And that question is: “Why not you?”

Do you tend to doubt yourself? Why? Have you found ways to conquer self-doubt that you could share with others?  – Doc

Dr. Phoenyx Austin is a physician, author, and creator of the fitness blog, DrPhoenyx.com. Check out Dr. Phoenyx’s awesome natural hair care book If You Love It, It Will Grow – available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBooks. And don’t forget to say hello to the Doc on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!