Denice Murray Health Coaching

This is the most common theme every new year – jumping into a “new” health and fitness routine, making resolutions to improve different aspects of your life, one of the primary areas being health and wellness. It’s not about the desire to change. It’s not about wanting to look or feel better. There are actually 3 important questions you should be asking yourself before you commit your time, energy, and hard-earned cash to ANOTHER diet or fitness program. Question 1 – What Has to Change In Your Life In Order to Meet Your Health Goals? It seems like the obvious question here would be “What Are Your Health Goals?”, but that’s not actually an important question. An Outcome Goal is an arbitrary thing: I want to lose 20 pounds; I want to eat healthier; I want to exercise more; I want to be less stressed. There is nothing wrong with having an outcome in mind.  But the harsh truth is, if you knew how to meet this outcome goal already, you probably would have done it by now. That’s ...

There is a movement going on in the nutrition world that is battling to conquer the harmful effects of “Diet Culture”. Where you are expected to look a certain way, be a certain size, be a certain weight, and follow restrictive and sometimes harmful diets. This culture can lead to eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia, etc.), disordered eating (being preoccupied with foods, weight, and body image to the point where it affects your quality of life), and mental health issues. But on the less severe side of that is the effect of not feeling good about yourself because you’re not eating according to certain “rules”. Whether it’s cutting out carbs, cutting out fats, only eating vegan food, etc., there are a lot of “rules” that we place around food. Some of these restrictions are medically necessary (ex. Cutting out sugar because of diabetes, cutting out gluten because of allergies, etc.); some restrictions are for personal or moral reasons (ex. Eating vegetarian or vegan to avoid animal p...

I wrote an article about this a while back, but I think with the holidays in full swing (at the time of this post) it’s important to revisit this topic. When it comes to your health and wellness goals, consistency is the KEY to success. By establishing habits and routines you are far more likely to achieve your goals than by starting a new diet/weight loss program/fitness routine every few weeks or months. But there are other benefits to consistency with your healthy habits and routines during the holiday season. It will Help with Stress and Overwhelm .  This is the time of year for our family that activities go into overdrive. This week alone Hubs and I are working our jobs, we have basketball games for Mini-Me 4 nights this week, we have Christmas celebrations, and one of my sons is coming for a quick visit from college before heading back for finals. With all the back and forth we are doing, it’s extremely helpful to know that we have our meals planned out and prepped fo...

Hard Truths About Changing Your Health and Your Life. Unfortunately, there’s an untold side to changing your nutrition and fitness, losing weight, or improving your health that not very many people talk about. That is the criticism that can and does come with these changes. Most people in your life will be happy for you . They will be excited that you are making healthy changes, and maybe even inspired to start a health journey of their own. But there are some who will not. Most of the random comments - whether from a nosy neighbor or “Sally” in the office who always has something mean to say about her co-workers - are going to bounce right off you. “That’s just how Sally is,” will be the fleeting thought before you move on with your day. However, there will be comments or remarks that are going to catch you off-guard, and those comments are going to come from people you didn’t expect – a family member, a close friend, even your spouse. Something is going to slip out; a snide o...

After my sons went to college, our household food routine changed. We were able to cook a more diverse array of foods at home. We no longer had to go to restaurants that the boys would eat at because they were EXTREMELY picky eaters and would only eat certain things at certain places (pizza, pasta, chicken strips, etc.). Once they started eating chicken strips more often, it actually took a LOT of stress off our family food dynamic. Then in college they started to branch out a bit more and have been willing to try a few more things – seafood, burgers, more types of vegetables, etc. Now we are faced with a new dilemma and that is picky eating for Hubs. Let me preface this by saying that this is not his fault . Due to medications, there are certain foods he can’t eat at all or things he must be really careful about so they don’t interact badly with his meds. But regardless of HOW it happened, we are still in the situation of having a limited set of options for him to eat. Some o...

This is probably going to sound a little contradictory, and quite frankly, it is. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, the 4 th of July, or any other holiday that revolves around food generally leads to overeating. This is not always the case, obviously, but many times it happens. So, what do you do? Do you give up and go all in on all the things you know you probably shouldn’t be eating? Do you swing the opposite way and try to avoid all the less healthy options? Or do you look for that balance somewhere in the middle between healthiest and least healthy? I feel like holiday meals are what you make of them, and with Thanksgiving only a couple of days away, these are a couple of tips and hints to make the holiday meal enjoyable without driving yourself crazy with guilt. Give yourself some grace .  Sweets and treats are going to be available more easily and you need to allow yourself to not feel terrible if you want to eat a piece of fudge. Giving yourself grace also means understa...

I’ve never tried a post like this before. I got this idea as I was talking to my daughter about cooking….mainly, what did she actually know how to cook? I know she can do some basics – scrambled eggs, pasta, anything frozen that goes in the oven, anything that goes in the microwave, and boxed baked goods (brownies, cakes, muffins, etc.). But what else did she actually know how to cook? She mentioned she’s not comfortable making meat. Like, any kind of meat. So that’s where we decided to start. I had a 3 pound package of ground turkey that I was planning on using for different recipes, but we decided that she would cook and season the meat, and then we would use it to make recipes she wanted to do. We decided on tacos, spaghetti with meat sauce, and sloppy joe’s. And that’s what got me thinking about this post.  What other proteins can you make a big batch, or just take part of a larger package and use it for several different recipes? Batch Cooking is not a new concept....