Small Changes, Big Impact: Tangible Results in Just One Month

Niki Brazier knew it was time to “get back on track.”

The long-time fitness enthusiast and reporter prioritizes her two young children, but they also sent her down a path of “only wanting to eat garbage all the time,” Brazier admitted.

“I didn’t eat a vegetable in four years,” Brazier laughed. “My brain has been tangled up in being a mom.”

It all started when she was pregnant with her first child.

“During my first pregnancy, I was really craving English muffins all the time. I’d sit and eat a full-ass sleeve. My husband would cut up a big tray of vegetables for me at the start of the week, but all I wanted was English muffins.”

During her second pregnancy, Brazier felt nauseous all the time and any kind of protein “grossed me out,” she said. “Vegetables didn’t feel good either.”

The only thing that helped her belly feel calm were crackers and white bread, so that’s what she ate.

Since then, Brazier has been living in what she called “survival mode,” where there was no time to cook and dinner was often eating the bottom of the mac and cheese pot.

Enough was enough, Brazier thought.

So this spring, she contacted CBG and teamed up with coach Justyna Dapuzzo Sena, who is also CBG’s Chief Operating Officer.

So many things spoke to Brazier about CBG. The CBG approach meant that she wouldn’t have to weigh or measure food, track macros and they promised to meet her where she was already, as opposed to immediately overhaul all the bad habits she picked up in the last four years.

So although Brazier is committed to eating healthier again, she also knows that she can’t quite go “all in and dive into the deep end” right away or she won’t stick with it long term. Instead, what she needed was for Justyna to “tailor the level of intricacy” to what she needs: simple, small, step-by-step changes.

“Yes, I have performance and body composition goals, and wearing my old jeans again goals, but I want to give myself time to approach the goals with a clear head…I’m taking it a baby step at a time,” Brazier said.

Right now, Brazier is focusing on just two small things: consuming half a handful of vegetables with every meal, and eating a palm-and-a-half of protein.

“That’s it. That’s all I’m focusing on and I’m not tracking my carbs or fats at all,” Brazier said. “But I’m trying to be smart. I’m not finishing my meals with Oreos anymore.”

She added: “I feel like I can handle this plan for now. It was made for me in a way that I can handle it…And as things progress, we’ll make more changes.”

One Month In

After just one month of focusing on eating vegetables and adequate protein intake, Brazier is seeing results already.

The numbers on the scale are already changing even with the small adjustments she has made and “mentally, I feel so much less guilty,” she said.

Further, her recovery has improved and she’s finally able to workout more consecutive days in a row again, she explained.

“When I wake up and think about how my day is going to go, I feel more confident in the decisions I’m going to make,” she said, adding that she is still up a couple times a night nursing her baby.

Brazier credits this to the accountability piece of having a coach who checks in on her each week, as she doesn’t want to admit she ate an entire row of Oreos after dinner.

“I don’t want to eat a bowl of cereal at 10 pm anymore because I don’t want to put it in my food journal and have to explain it. And I don’t want to skip my workout or post-workout shake, because then I have to explain why I didn’t follow my plan,” Brazier said.

The Big Picture: Don’t Do it Alone

Ultimately, there’s no replacing a real live coach, Brazier said.

“I could go buy a template and make it work and lean out in 12 weeks, but that wouldn’t work with where I’m at mentally,” she said.

Having a coach, though, makes all the difference.

“There’s certainly something to having a buddy, a partner when you’re doing something that is consuming. It takes a lot of brain space, effort and mental willpower to focus on your nutrition, and it’s hard to do it on your own. My husband supports me, but he’s not reading my food diary,” she said.

Brazier added: “It’s true accountability that is in line with your goals. They work with you and your lifestyle. And that accountability has legs into other parts of your life and sets you on track.”