Health Coach | Speaker | Writer | Welcome to my digital diary! I'm here to help you blend life & fitness to find your health & happy! Thank you for being part of my family & allowing me to add value to your journey!
Q: “I’m trying to work calories up but I don’t feel hungry. I know I need to but I am petrified to gain weight because I only feel noticed when I’m skinny.”
Note what you said here: you fear weight gain because you only FEEL NOTICED when you’re a certain size.
The “health” I was constantly congratulated for: -weight loss -thinness -self control / dieting -exercising for calories burnt -a lower number on the scale -a lower number on my pants -*looking* healthy The health I rarely was congratulated for: -weight gain -acknowledging disordered eating -quitting dieting -exercising for body and mental health -ditching the scale -going up in size -*being* healthy External validation is like a drug. When you’re told how great you’re doing, how “healthy” you are, it feels like a high. Internal validation is like a daily vitamin. When you tell yourself it’s ok, that your health is not defined by what you thought it was, & it feels like comfort.
Let that sink in.
Eating more food can be uncomfortable, mentally & physically. It’s a mind fxck. Especially if you struggle with digestive issues like IBD, IBS, Celiac, etc. Especially when we’re told to eat less & do more.
The majority of my clients fall into this category. We need to reverse diet & heal before we even think about a cut.
It may take being strategic about the types of food you choose to aid in digestion, nourishment, & get those calories up so you can go on being a bada$$.
Things we work on if this is the case: ⁃ choosing lower volume foods to help get calories in if you have problems with feeling too full like adding fat butter/tallow/or bacon fat ⁃ choosing higher fat meat ⁃ choosing softer meat like seafood, ground meat, & shredded meat vs steaks & roasts ⁃ eating smaller more frequent meals, not fasting, being more active ⁃ protein shakes
Now repeat after me, WELL-FED HUMANS CHANGE THE WORLD!
I’ve talked about my CrossFit boobs plenty times before. I also grew up ashamed of my cellulite & stretch marks. I love & live in bralettes. They’re functional & more comfortable. I giggled as I tried on “real bras” for a boudoir shoot.
My biggest fears used to be getting fat & failure. I was ashamed to show my body in any way shape or form. I always wore a T-shirt over my bathing suit. I hated my legs.
Ya know what I learned? I earned my cellulite & stretch marks. My boobs may not be the size I’d like but my arms & shoulders are pretty spectacular. Hey, at least I got a handful
It used to really bother me being smaller. I felt being petite I looked like a child.
I’m grateful at 40 to have finally learned to love & celebrate the skin I’m in & show it proudly. I can’t wait till my next #boudoir shoot in August!
SWIPE for some hard truths about cellulite, stretch marks, social media & body image you may need to hear.
I’d love for you guys to share these with somebody else who needs to read them too!
Cringe: can’t you just give me a meal plan & tell me what to do?
I can but is that truly gonna change what you’re telling yourself?
Take fans of opposite teams, you’re going to get 2 different stories during a game depending on their perspective, right?!
Huge correlation between happiness & health. Happier people naturally make better food/lifestyle choices. Happier people also tell themselves a different story.
So how do we find your happy?
That’s what I’m here to help you discover. It’s not just about macros, workouts, & diets. There’s more to nutrition & helping someone gain their health back than prescribing a meal plan.
The one ability the most successful people & clients possess is the ability to forgive themselves, learn, & pivot.
I feel the root of most people’s unhappiness comes from unmet perceived expectations of society.
Social media for example: wonderful connection & education tool but can also be a dagger in someone’s heart & perception of themselves.
We confuse success & happiness. Really they’re 2 different things. The richest people in the world can be the most miserable.
The poorest can be the most content & happy. It’s all about your thoughts, perception, & the reality you create for yourself.
Happiness is knowing how to navigate through challenging times. That’s what we’re here for, to teach you
Flipping the script as I say.
I talked about gratitude showers a couple days ago, I don’t care what you have to do to get yourself in a more positive mindset, fucking do it.
I personally go on an abundance rampage.
Its where I tell myself out loud how beautiful I am, how abundant my life is, how grateful I am for every single thing no matter how minuscule. Instantly I’m in a better mood.
Get rid of the what if‘s & I should‘s. Quit shoulding on yourself. Get to a place of forgiveness & acceptance. That’s contentment.
Just like in business, done is better than perfect. What you think you want, or what you think will happen may not be the thing that you need right now. You still need to take action, however, to move the needle forward.
The Universe is in control & it gives you what you need. It also gives you what you attract, so the energy you put out is very important.
Who and what do you want to attract?
You always end up where you’re supposed to be & it always turns out better than what you thought in the end.
No one can take away what you put in your mind. Create your own reality. The greatest prison is the one you create in your own mind.
To me, I’m living in a castle. I have the healthiest happiest body ever. I am the most beautiful girl in the world. I am surrounded by the most magnificent people. My life is joyous and fulfilling. I’m rich in so many ways more than just monetary in nature.
That’s the story I tell myself. Am I all of these things? Who knows. Does it matter? Fuck no.
All that matters is what I think.
If you see your life as a list of achievements, titles, & what you look like — you’re missing the meaning of life.
You’re not being present & you’re not enjoying the journey of the story writing & connecting with others.
You don’t live, goals, you live the journey.
Katie Kelly, @lil_bit_of_fit
Stop being a victim in your story. Be the hero.
Exercise:
I want you to write down 3 things that if you did them each week would bring you a deep sense of happiness.
It could be working out. It could be spending time with loved ones. It could be creating things. It could be teaching your kids something or taking care of the household. It could be spending time outside in nature, in the sunshine. Reading a book by the pool. It could be writing Blogs. It can be anything.
That’s where you start and you build from there. One brick at a time.
Stress really is a killer. It affects your physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health.
“How do I lose the belly fat?” – a question I receive almost every day.
Often times this comes down to you doing WAY too much. More is not always better.
Stress & belly fat are absolutely connected, we cannot address one without the other. I never realized the stress I was putting on my body with poor habits & a negative mindset.
They affected both my aesthetic & health goals.
Tips: 1. Manage your Emotions Thoughts become things. Our brains don’t know the difference of whether an event actually happened or if we only imagined it. The physiological reaction is exactly the same.
If you don’t learn how to navigate, mitigate, & work on your emotional fitness – you’re fighting a losing battle regardless of whether you have the perfect diet or not.
2. Calories & food matter. Eat in a MILD calorie deficit while maximizing nutrients. Cut the fake diet food. EAT YOUR MEAT. The better quality the food, the easier it is to stay satiated & nourished with minimal digestive distress. You’ll also have less sweet cravings, more stable energy, & mental clarity sticking with meat & healthy fats vs carb centric meals.
3. Walk! It lowers cortisol, helps manage stress, burns calories, reduces hunger & cravings, aids in digestion & mental clarity/happiness.
4. Sleep! Even if exercise & diet are perfect, without quality sleep, it is extremely difficult to function at your best & lose body fat. Sufficient sleep means less hunger, cravings, balanced hormones, & a better mood. Not to mention you’re more likely NOT to eat like an a*hole when you’re rested.
5. Lift weights! Y’all you have to build the body first. Under eating paired with chronic stress & excess cardio will lead you to what we call skinny fat.
When it comes to losing fat, “emotional fitness” will always be your 1st priory, followed by sleep, movement, & eating in a way that HELPS not hinder fat loss.
New Facebook Community Support Group Coaching is a go!!!
Listen Linda, I dieted A LOT & did a ton of cardio in my teens, 20s, & early 30s.
I had never back squatted or even fathomed stepping into a squat rack until my early 30s.
I did pump classes and ran until my a$$ fell off, literally.
When I started CrossFit I gained about 10 pounds of muscle. I hated it. I didn’t like the scale creeping past a certain number I had in my head that I thought made me worthy and beautiful.
I was afraid to eat anything, carbs especially. Everything hurt my gut. I followed whatever diet Insta famous Sally was doing or my favorite CrossFit athlete.
Tried to eat Paleo forever because that was the CrossFit thing. Everything besides meat that is on the Paleo diet I cannot digest because of my Crohn’s disease. Dumb
My sleep was terrible. Cortisol was jacked up. I never rested. I worked out 2-3 hours a day.
It’s taken me almost 40 years to find my sweet spot & the physique you guys see you today. It took me a decade to build muscle & look like I actually worked out.
Stop saying you’re too old, or you don’t have time, or it’s too late to make a change. Unless you’re freakin dead, you have time.
The biggest shift you can make is your mindset and the belief that you can achieve whatever you want to.
Swipe for a list of truths you may or may not wanna hear, but they’ll change your perspective. Save & share on IG!
What would you add to that list so we can build an Army of well-fed humans & a stronger community?
Hailing from Fishers, Indiana, Katie is an aficionado of health, mindset, human connection, & entrepreneurship. Writer, speaker, doer of many things, she grew up on her family’s beef cattle & crop farm where agriculture was her first love. She is a Purdue University graduate well known for her storytelling of life lessons & personal transformation through her own relationships, Crohn’s Disease, disordered eating, CrossFit, & adapting a carnivore diet lifestyle. Katie also has over 16 years experience as a Registered Radiologic Technologist, Nutritionist, & Sales Consultant. You can catch her via Instagram @lil_bit_of_fit & blog, Lilbitoffit.com
I used to plan big binges on purpose. They were a high. I believed that if I could “get it out of my system” & cultivate enough shame, I would “get my sh*t together.”
It didn’t work. No change ever came from me shaming myself when I kept reliving the same story.
I realized I was hungry all the time – from under eating, eating too many carbs, sugar, & gut trigger foods. The Carnivore way of eating saved my life in more ways than one. Not only did it heal my disordered eating & put my Crohn’s in remission, it helped me find more purpose in my life. You see I was hungry in a much different way than just food.
I realized my worth & my mess was my message. That if I kept my mind busy, fed my soul, & stoked my hunger in more ways than one, I had more enjoyment & satisfaction, not just in my belly, but in my whole life. Somewhere as a kid between farm chores, playing with my little ponies & my 1st diet, I lost the simple enjoyment of my body, my food, & just being me.
Don’t underestimate the value of having purpose & simply staying busy. Tasks & movement engage our bodies & brains to redirect in more positive ways. They offer a sense of structure & boundaries that give comfort to most abstainers when it comes to food/sugar addiction. Along with eating enough food to fuel my body, this was one of the most useful tools in recovery.
Most days, especially when my emotions feel ginormous & suffocating, I create a “to do” list of things to execute during my day.
(I freaking love lists, how bout you?)
It gives me a sense of control, direction, & inner peace.
For a busy bee like me, there is grounding in the “doing,” especially for those of us who have to keep our minds busy.
During times when my disordered eating & binge eating were at their worst, I found correlation in the times when I was bored, restricting more food, eating more carbs, &/or lacked a sense of purpose.
Ways I redirected away from binging: Coffee with a friend, drink more water Go for a walk, get out in nature, sun Go to CrossFit or a group fitness class Clean & purge my home Design something for social media Write a blog, read, listen to a podcast Go for drive & listen to music Color
Until I reached my weight “safe place” or “set point,” my body was still hungry & not losing body fat even on Carnivore. I wasn’t underweight, but my body did not feel safe. It was hard to sense fullness & true hunger. I gained 15lbs when I started Carnivore 3 years ago. It took me a year to heal, adapt, & lose fat. I’m now 20lbs lighter, maintaining my weight eating 2,000+ calories/day.
When I allowed my body to heal & gain the weight it needed to restore my health, a switch went off & I felt capable of eating foods I knew I needed, in amounts I needed without feeling fear. For those of us with a disordered eating history & one of chronic restriction/exercise abuse, safety is everything. Your body decides when you’re ready & recovered.
Your set point & maintenance ranges are not static, like your body & LIFE, they’ll shift & change over time. Genetics, medical history, dieting history, training modalities, food needs/preferences, digestion, body goals, etc will all differ.
Live your life & listen to your gut.
So maybe the question you should be asking is “How do I start satisfying my hunger living a life of purpose authentic to me?” vs “How do I stop binge eating?”
Hailing from Fishers, Indiana, Katie is an aficionado of health, mindset, human connection, & entrepreneurship. Writer, speaker, doer of many things, she grew up on her family’s beef cattle & crop farm where agriculture was her first love. She is a Purdue University graduate well known for her storytelling of life lessons & personal transformation through her own relationships, Crohn’s Disease, disordered eating, CrossFit, & adapting a carnivore diet lifestyle. Katie also has over 16 years experience as a Registered Radiologic Technologist, Nutritionist, & Sales Consultant. You can catch her via Instagram @lil_bit_of_fit & blog, Lilbitoffit.com
For me, I have a solid success routine foundation already in check. They are the big rocks like sleep, hydration, eating foods that suit you, being an active individual of life, at least 10K steps a day at least. You should have one too!
When you’re wanting to progress the needle forward or pursue different body goals, experimenting & switching things up will provide valuable information to base adjustments.
I truly believe I maintain a leaner physique utilizing a few simple techniques. They provide mild metabolic stressors that have helped boost my fat loss. A reminder these won’t do anything if you do not have the basics nailed down, FIRST.
⁃ Fasted workouts ⁃ Intermittent fasting ⁃ Infrared sauna: got mine off amazon ⁃ Red light therapy & getting in the sun: I use an EMR Tek light, here Discount Code: lilbitoffit20 ⁃ Cryo or cold baths ⁃ Fat Cycling ⁃ Protein Cycling ⁃ Sleep as much as possible (this is not a new concept)
You don’t have to do all of these at the same time, experiment and see how switching one or two of these things up affects your fat loss goals.
These are strategies we craft together in your success protocol as clients.
The things that helped me lean out the most were intermittent fasting, fasted workouts, throwing OMAD in there every once in a while, quality SLEEP, & fat cycling.
Everyone is different!
We can get you set up with your success protocol, too.
Hailing from Fishers, Indiana, Katie is an aficionado of health, mindset, human connection, & entrepreneurship. Writer, speaker, doer of many things, she grew up on her family’s beef cattle & crop farm where agriculture was her first love. She is a Purdue University graduate well known for her storytelling of life lessons & personal transformation through her own relationships, Crohn’s Disease, disordered eating, CrossFit, & adapting a carnivore diet lifestyle. Katie also has over 16 years experience as a Registered Radiologic Technologist, Nutritionist, & Sales Consultant. You can catch her via Instagram @lil_bit_of_fit & blog, Lilbitoffit.com
I’ve struggled with body dysmorphia, orthorexia & disordered eating. Swipe for some things you may relate to like I did.
Lately I’ve been experimenting, reflecting, & redefining what “beauty” & physical beauty mean to me. At 40, beauty is a feeling & state of being that becomes from knowing I’m listening to, honoring & taking really good care of myself. In my teens, 20’s, & early 30’s beauty meant a certain size, weight, body fat %, barbell PR, & things like how many compliments I got about how I looked… Beauty encompasses the whole body & soul. To me, beauty also has a visual, aesthetic element too (if you want that to be part of your definition) that includes who I want to embody AND see in the mirror. How do I want to feel? For me, the emotions around my body & mind were the pivotal helping or hindering factors on redefining the identity & relationship with my body AND other people. Going carnivore significantly healed my gut issues & relationship with food. Life dramatically improves when you simply honor yourself & stop trying to fit into somebody’s box. As for other people, life dramatically improves when you start seeing people for who they truly are & what they show you instead of romanticizing about what they could be. If some of these sound like you, know you’re not alone. Things won’t get better until you really “do the work” & that starts from within. Sending love & hugs 🤗
Hailing from Fishers, Indiana, Katie is an aficionado of health, mindset, human connection, & entrepreneurship. Writer, speaker, doer of many things, she grew up on her family’s beef cattle & crop farm where agriculture was her first love. She is a Purdue University graduate well known for her storytelling of life lessons & personal transformation through her own relationships, Crohn’s Disease, disordered eating, CrossFit, & adapting a carnivore diet lifestyle. Katie also has over 16 years experience as a Registered Radiologic Technologist, Nutritionist, & Sales Consultant. You can catch her via Instagram @lil_bit_of_fit & blog, Lilbitoffit.com
Just like getting up early ☀️⏰ Just like writing for myself & y’all ✍🏼👩🏼💻 Just like expanding my mind, via podcasts, books, YouTube 🧠 Just like doin chores 🐈⬛🧹👚🧼 Just like eating well, all the meats🥩 Just like getting workouts in🏋🏼♀️🏃🏼♀️ Just like spending time with friends & family 👨👩👧👦 Just like taking time for ME 💝
Still woke up at 6 AM despite getting home at 1 from the @MorganWallen concert #earlybirdproblems
I take pictures, snap stories, & write to connect emotions & memories of my everyday’s — to remember, reflect, learn, & connect. My IG is my digital journal. Stories. Stories are important. They create your identity.
I’ve read ‘Atomic Habits’ twice, a section talks about stories.
What stories are you telling yourself? Who do you want to embody? What systems do you have in place to help you achieve goals? 3 areas of life affected by the stories we tell ourselves ⏬
- Money stories ⁃ Relationship stories ⁃ Food & Body stories I fxcked up over the years, too.🤷♀️ Like my IG bio says, “𝙁𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙚𝙧 𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘸𝘵 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘬𝘦 𝘣*𝘵𝘤𝘩” 😆
In some form I told myself I wasn’t worthy in all 3 of these areas, setting blocks instead of boundaries — there’s a difference. Example, with Relationships: if I was asked to do something & really liked a person, I’d lose myself & completely change my plans to suit them. Or shxt like settling for a booty call🫣
I know, I know…shxt happens, y’all. Dust yourself off.
Learn your lesson.
(Steps off soapbox 📦😂)
This was me not valuing my worth. A block. Now, instead of denying myself of my plans/needs I simply say, “Let me get my workout in (insert whatever task or commitment I had) & I will connect with you & confirm plans because I would like to spend time with you.” This is setting a boundary not a block. Example, Food & Body: instead of saying, “I’m not a morning person, I don’t have time to meal prep.” Set a system & a worth affirmation. “I don’t like to get up early but I will commit to 3 mornings this week & meal prep lunches because I want to be healthy.”
Now repeat & build from here. These are all pivotal changes we work on via coaching. They will get you to your goals, I promise.
✍🏼 📖 Journal exercise for the day: write down the identity you want to embody around money, relationships, food & body. Mine👇🏻 💰MONEY: I am safe, able, successful, abundant, & provided for.
🥰RELATIONSHIP: I am special, loved, seen, heard, safe, understood, & chosen. I allow mental real estate for the people in my life giving me the same respect.
🥩FOOD & BODY: I am healthy, safe, strong, & beautiful in every season. Inner calm, outer order😉
Xoxo Coach K
Hailing from Fishers, Indiana, Katie is an aficionado of health, mindset, human connection, & entrepreneurship. Writer, speaker, doer of many things, she grew up on her family’s beef cattle & crop farm where agriculture was her first love. She is a Purdue University graduate well known for her storytelling of life lessons & personal transformation through her own relationships, Crohn’s Disease, disordered eating, CrossFit, & adapting a carnivore diet lifestyle. Katie also has over 16 years experience as a Registered Radiologic Technologist, Nutritionist, & Sales Consultant. You can catch her via Instagram @lil_bit_of_fit & blog, Lilbitoffit.com