By Emily Saunders

You know what we love at Momsanity?  Women who are super smart, super real, and share their encouragement and knowledge with others.  Enter my friend and long-term mentor Jill Coleman.  Back when I was a cardio queen and thought I had the fitness/nutrition world all figured out Jill invited me to try a different way.  She shared with me about metabolic conditioning first and then about hormonal based nutrition later.  If it weren’t for Jill I would probably be exercising for 4 hours per day, eating “low-fat” everything and wondering why my body still wouldn’t change.  I would have hated my body while I was pregnant and probably would be going crazy because – well let’s face it- you can’t exercise that much with a newborn/toddler/pre-schooler…. etc.  I’m so very thankful for the blessing of JILL in my life!!

Jill is the brain and substance behind Jillfit Physiques.. She holds a B.S. in Health and Exercise Science, an MS in Human Nutrition and is an ACSM-certified personal trainer.  Jill is also the Director of Instructor Training for Metabolic Effect Inc., and a business and lifestyle coach for women, via her annual Best of You Coaching Club.

1) In your opinion what is the biggest challenge that women face when trying to lose fat?  

I think it’s not so much WHAT to do, but instead actually doing consistently what we know to do. I think we spend a lot of time pouring over the different nutrition “rules” and best workouts and though I think continuing to learn is great, at some point you have to consistently DO. And implementation is always a lot harder than learning because habit change is hard. It’s not a coincidence that research shows that people are more excited about the idea of STARTING a new diet than they are of actually doing it. The biggest challenge is implementing, and to be able to overcome that, we need to make small changes over time, since habits are what help us implement, and by nature of habit change, our brains can’t handle too many changes at once. The best way to begin is with one single new change, like eating protein at every meal. Practice that until it gets easy and effortless, and then tackle the next thing.

2. What is the most common misconception when it comes to fat loss?  

A common misconception is that in order to lose weight, you just have to exercise more. Most people think that if they just “work out more,” that they will get the body of their dreams. The truth is that nutrition is the gross control when it comes to losing fat, while exercise is the fine control. In other words, spending time and energy getting your diet to 90% tight 100% of the time will help you lose fat way faster than exercising more. I like to think of exercise as something that shapes the body instead of causing fat loss. Weight training gives us curves in the right places and help us “build a body” but nutrition will always be superior for fat loss.

 3. Give us one unconventional piece of advice for women trying to lose fat for good!  

I don’t know if this is unconventional or not, but I think we have to stop following every tiny nutrition “rule” and instead look at what will work FOR US long-term. An example is eating every 2-3 hours. For most people, that’s 5-6 times a day. We hear that this helps us keep our energy stable and hunger at bay, which is does. But nobody talks about the psychological effects of prepping and eating SIX TIMES A DAY. This takes a TON of mental energy, and it can become a full-time job. So we should always be weighing “what works” for fat loss against what will work FOR US. For me, eating 6 times a day is miserable, so I’ve worked to figure out how to get the results I want with less frequent eating, and many times, it’s simply about honoring your process and questioning “the rules.” Rules give us a false sense of control, when I think the long-term consequences of killing yourself to follow every single one perfectly can lead to misery and more neuroses than ever 

 4. What’s your favorite way to spend a Summer Saturday?

Well, after many years of working in the trenches as a trainer and group exercise instructor, working up to 80 hours a week in the gym, my business is now 100% online and as silly as it sounds, I’m lucky enough to be able to spend Saturday and Sunday the same way I spend Monday and Tuesday–reading, writing, going for leisure walks with my family, spending time with friends, grabbing dinner out and working on my business, not because I have to but because I love to. But, if you’re asking what I do to relax, it’s definitely reading with a glass of wine :)