Since reading the Fit Quickies 5-Minute Targeted Body-Shaping Workouts just a few short weeks ago, I have gone from a tight size 8 down to a loose size 6 pant size.
But what’s even more important than that is that I’ve changed for the better ten-fold on the inside compared to the outside!
I started my plant-based journey last August and frankly I was “lost in the sauce” concerning nutrition. This book, as well as Lani’s Plant-Based Blueprint opened my eyes to how truly easy and beneficial this lifestyle can be.
Lani doesn’t just stop with nutrition like so many other books, but comes at you with an amazing trifecta approach she calls the Three Essential Pillars: Exercise, Diet & Mindset. Being mindful of all three pillars keeps me from focusing too much on one area and reminds me to stay in balance…
A solution for anyone who has ever struggled with their weight
In a recent interview Lani did with Vegan Mainstream she said, “This book provides a solution for anyone who has ever struggled with their weight and longs for the day when they can be full without being fat and knows there must be a way to be trim without exercising like a maniac, but who just hasn’t found it, or been able to stick to a plan, yet.”
This really hit home with me. I had an ahaaaa moment when I found Lani and her site. The Plant-Based Blueprint drove it home.
And now, reading Fit Quickies drove it home even more that this doesn’t have to be complicated.
I was really impacted by the part on page 203 where Lani quoted Matthew Lederman about the simplicity of it all. She said, “And if you ever get too caught up worrying about the food on your plate, return to this quote and take comfort. With these words as your foundation, the doors to eating freedom and enjoying a trim body are wide open.”
Amazing! Lani said the quote was worth framing for your kitchen, and I plan to do just that!
I also really connected with her writings about meditation.
She states that, “It diffuses stress and brings calm, explores the mind-body relationship, expands your sense of who you are beyond your fears and self-judgment and awakens your capacity for insight and wisdom.” I love how she’s given us a guideline to get started.
The way Lani explained food weight, stomach stretch, sufficient calorie intake and hunger satisfaction was a completely new concept for me, despite being on a diet or program most of my teen and adult life. Her analogy in the book of “shifts in thinking” being like small shifts in the flight of an airplane made it come alive to me that as she put it,
All it takes is a few nudges…
“All it takes is a few nudges of what you eat, how you move and how you think-onto a new course-and you open the opportunity to landing in an entirely different place. Small shifts can result in big change.”
This girl is on a new flight plan! Fit Quickies also shone a light on some completely false ideas that I had about food, such as thinking that a richer meal that’s higher in fat would be more satisfying, and that “Intuitive Eating” was good for me.
But rather than beat myself up for past mistakes, Lani reminds me that, “Mastery is characterized by practice. Simple steps, that might seem quite small, become skills that become a scaffold upon which you can build.”
Brilliant! She says, “Your choices become your habits. Your habits become your lifestyle. Your lifestyle becomes your destiny.” Choices, habits, lifestyle, destiny is my new mantra indeed!
The 14 Fit Quickies are amazing. Each Fit Quickie Exercise is explained in detail and illustrated with pictures, which really helps. Every Fit Quickie is broken down into The Problem, The Facts, The Fit Quickie Fix, How to Do It, How to Anchor your body, How to Isolate the muscles, Repetitions, Stretch, Common Errors and Tips and Modifications. The modifications she offers make these exercises doable at any fitness level.
To me, tackling a new Fit Quickie per day, gave me the freedom to browse through the Fit Quickies, but then read ahead. This allowed me to read each Fit Quickie more in-depth on the day I actually did them. Each Fit Quickie holds such a nugget of wisdom, that at least for me, my brain needs to soak up the material, accomplish the skill, and then reflect on it for a while before moving on to the next.
This book, as well as Lani’s Plant Based Blueprint (which I had spiral bound at Staples for $4) are my go-to books where I find not only information, but inspiration!
Thank you Lani for changing my life!
D’Ann Martin
