Hi Mags! Please tell us about yourself.
I was born and raised in the UK and emigrated to the US at the age of 26 to study American history.
I was a college professor for five years before changing careers and going to law school. I now work for the State of Alaska at the Department of Law, which is a fabulous place to work.
I literally never wake up in the morning wishing that I didn’t have to go to work. Unless it’s fishing season and the weather is great, in which case I want to be fishing!
How long have you worked with FF, and what initially inspired you to start working with us?
I started at FF three years ago. Because of Holly Spoth-Torres. She rocks and persuaded me to try boot camp and the rest is history.
What are a few things you’re most proud of accomplishing in the past year?
I spent the first part of the year really focusing on nutrition and getting that in order and that has really helped me to get into the kind of shape that I want to be in.
And I caught fish from my kayak, which I’m really proud of.
Who or what inspires you?
I have a lot of wonderful friends who like to do crazy things in the outdoors and they inspire me to get outside and enjoy Alaska. And I have great colleagues at work who encourage me to be the best lawyer I can be.
You’ve made a lot of progress lately. How has your nutrition changed over the past year?
At the start of the year, I began reporting weekly to Steph and tracking macros very carefully. It really works. It’s been harder to maintain the tracking over the summer because it’s not really possible to be accurate with macros unless you’re making most of your own food and all the weekends away from home definitely make nutrition a challenge.
But the lessons of the early tracking have helped me make generally good decisions even when I’m not able to make all my meals and that has helped me avoid too much backsliding.
What are a few of your favorite exercises? How about a few of your favorite muscle groups to train?
I really like the slide board — so much fun. And dead lifts. I like working legs, because that makes me feel strong.
Optimal health, what does that mean to you?
It means being able to say “yes” when people ask me if I want to engage in some outdoor adventure.
What are some of your favorite ways to rest and recover?
Hot tubs and massages.
What advice would you give someone looking for ways to motivate themselves to start or maintain a fitness program?
Start with short-term achievable goals. Success begets success.
I’ve found process-focused goals work better for me than results-focused goals. So instead of setting a goal of losing 10 LB or completing a particular event—goals that can be derailed by the mysteries of body chemistry or by injury or bad weather or whatever—I’ve been most successful with goals like lifting three times a week, or tracking my macros, because those things are more within my control.
Even if I don’t lose all the weight I want to, or complete the race I signed up for, having met my process goals still produces meaningful rewards. The other thing I’d say is don’t plan to accomplish your goals by doing things you don’t like to do, because that’s a recipe for failure. Getting fit, being fit needs to be fun otherwise it’s just work, and very few of us need yet another job in our lives.
I know you’re super ambitious! What new goals do you have planned for 2018?
Wow, 2018 still feels like a long way off. I don’t have really specific or “big” goals; at least not yet. Over the winter, I’d like to go back to tracking macros to see if I can lean up just a little more.
I want to ride my fat bike more than I’ve done the last few years. I’m thinking about picking a few specific weight lifting exercises to focus on getting stronger/better at. That’s a work in progress right now, but then that’s how goals work best for me.