Avoid the Holiday Blues With These Healthy Tips

26 Nov, 2015

With the holiday season upon us we thought this was the perfect time to speak with Hollywood Trainer Jeanette Jenkins-the force behind the bodies of Kelly Rowland, Pink, Alicia Keys and Terrence Jenkins. What’s good enough for our fav celebrities is good enough for us right?

Jenkins gave us a fool-proof plan on not only how NOT to pack on the pounds during the holidays but easy exercise tips, healthy living advise and the ‘cheat day’ rules  we can all live by.

On Staying Motivated:

The best piece of advice that I can give is to find activities that you love to do.  If you don’t know what you love then start exploring things.  Try spinning class, try different workout videos, try yoga, try kick-boxing, try working out with a trainer who will motivate you, try joining a running club, try Zumba or a dance class.

You won’t know until you try.  You’d be surprised at what you’ll end up loving to do. There are so many ways to stay in shape and to stay healthy that it’s important for you to find what it is that you enjoy. When you enjoy your workout there’s a higher likelihood that you will stick to it.

You Are What You Eat:

Start looking at food as a joy and as something that gives you the building blocks to build all of the cells in your body.  A lot of people don’t realize that every food that you eat makes up all of the cells of your body.  Those cells make your internal organs, your blood, your bones, your liver, your stomach and your digestive system.

So you are literally what you eat. It’s so important to eat healthy so that you feel good-both on the inside and out.  If you eat junk food consistently then you will have
a junk body.  It might not look like junk on the outside initially but it will be junk on the inside. When you eat right, you’ll have the energy that you need and the bonus is that you’ll also look great on top of it.

Dieting:

To think that something is a diet and you’re going to stay on it for a certain period of time (and get amazing results) can add some form of stress to your life.  At that point you’re actually doing more harm to your body than good.

The last thing you want to do is to feel stressed about the foods that you eat because that stress will have a negative impact on your body as well and a negative impact on the way your body releases it hormones.  You have to make a decision to live a healthy life style to see long term effects on your body and your health.

Get Others Involved:

Make it fun! You should cook and go grocery shopping and experiment with different recipes.  Let food be a healing part of your life and a part that you share with your loved ones-your children, family, friends and your boyfriend and girlfriend.  Instead of going out on a date, go to the grocery store and cook a dinner for two at home-that’s so much more romantic.

Cheating Is Okay If You Follow This Rule:

I use a nutrition rule that I preach to people that I call the 80/20 rule.  This allows people to feel like okay, 20% of the time you can have whatever you like.  Food should also be food for the soul.  Yes, sometimes you want fried chicken and mac and cheese.  While I’m in Chicago I want to have some garrets popcorn.  And that’s okay, if you’re having it 20% of the time.

So one or two days out of the week you’re having an item but the other 5 to 6 days, the other 80% of the time, you’re eating healthy food. You’re having some organic eggs with green salad or a side of sautéed spinach and some whole wheat toast.  You’re having foods that are whole foods from the earth that are organic with no pesticides and not processed.

That should be 80% of the food that you consume and the 20% should be those off snack items and things that you know are either higher in fat, processed, or things that aren’t whole and healthy for your body.

How Often Should I Exercise:

You should be working out every day.  We were put on this earth as hunters and gatherers.  Our body is designed to move.  You have to accept that exercise has to be a part of your day.  It has to be a part of your day, every day, just like brushing your teeth, just like taking a shower, just like having that cup of tea.

It has to be a part of your everyday regime.  Exercising is like the internal cleaning of your internal organs. So find a way to schedule it. You have to take care of your health first. Equate it to putting your mask on first before you help someone else. Your workout is like the mask for your health. If you don’t take care of your health first then

eventually you’re going to either have to be on meds, your healthcare cost is going to go up as an elder person, your quality of life will suffer.

But What About My Hair:

That’s a real thing that people say all the time but the reality is that it’s your heart before your hair. Heart disease is the number one killer of men and women of all ethnicities in America. It’s not just black women that are saying this-white women are saying it to.

If you spend hundreds dollars on your hair, of course you don’t want to mess it up, that’s understandable. But you have to start figuring out how you can wrap it up or find styles that you can do yourself that still look great.  You can’t feel crippled by your hair.

It would be a sad case for someone to get heart disease so they can have cute hair.  So have your cute hair and then die of a heart attack?  It’s really that black and white-what are you going to choose?

The Plan:

The truth is that there is not a magic exercise or magic pill. You have to create a plan that is going to make results.  There aren’t 3 exercises that you can do that is going to make some huge change on your body. You have to create a plan, a workout regime, where you’re training 5 to 6 days a week.

So here’s what I would say: Create a plan, and make sure that plan includes cardiovascular training, total body strength training and some flexibility work. You should be doing cardio at least 3 or 4 times a week, total body weight training or resistance training at least twice a week and some type of flexibility training like yoga or Pilates at least once or twice a week. Make your schedule, stay consistent and stick to it.

Then you will get results. If you try to just do a little quick fix of some exercise that’s supposed to be great, you’re not really going to see any results.

The Results:

When we see celebrities we always say I want those thighs, or abs or arms.  I get asked so many health and fitness questions and they almost always start with, “How do I?”  So I’ve created a series of DVD’s that are literally the same moves, the same exercises and the same workouts that I do with my celebrity clients.

Also, my clients do these same DVD’s when I’m not with them.  Pink and Alicia Keys do my Yoga DVD.  Kelly Rowland even taped a DVD with me-Sexy Abs.

And it’s not just the women Jenkins is whipping into shape.  She’s currently working with Terrence Jenkins for his role on the second edition of the movie Think Like a Man.

“The products are there for everyone. All you have to do it use them.”

B. Spencer

Mentioned In This Post: @JeanetteJenkins