Bright Star Woman Holistic Fitness for Mamas: Bright Star Woman Holistic Life and Wellness, #2

By Mercedes Déziel-Hupé

Attention, busy, tired, out-of-shape and overwhelmed mamas, this is the book that will help you feel your best in a body that supports your life now.

 

In Holistic Fitness for Mamas, you'll learn that your wellness is a holistic system where your body, mind, heart and energy are connected. We're often told to strive for healthy lifestyles in a way that focuses on the physical. We're not taught about our energy and our emotions, and how well-being is a harmonious system. We live as though we're separate from our environments, as if our home, work and loved ones have no impact on our health, when they colour how we feel and make choices. Health isn't simply measured by body size and scale, it's about the shape of our life and the size of our joy, and it's measured in self-love, mindset, and small, supportive habits.

 

Can a mama really be happy, healthy, sexy, abundant and fulfilled?

 

Motherhood requires real trade-offs but happiness is about making the right choices for us in every season of life. You'll be equipped to create healthier habits that serve you, and start living the life that's most aligned with who you are, without resentment, because you are making the best choices for yourself. I want to help you deeply appreciate your body, fiercely enjoy your partner and kids, and fall madly in love with your life. And that, mama, is an inside job.

 

So let's grab a cuppa, and support each other.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mercedes Déziel-Hupé
• Release date: May 6, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224908370

Book preview

HOLISTIC FITNESS FOR MAMAS

A guide to loving your body and creating wellness to support your best life

Bright Star Woman

MERCEDES DÉZIEL-HUPÉ

Bright Star Woman

Copyright © 2024 by Mercedes Déziel-Hupé

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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Contents

About this book

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Who am I to write this holistic fitness book?

My Body Love Story

Feeling it to heal it

The wake-up call

Essential Grounding for Motherhood

How I used other healing methods to create the predisposition for change

A Personal Yoga Practice for Self-Care

Daily Meditation for Awareness and Clarity

Reiki Principles

Reiki Energy Healing to Support Wellness

EFT Tapping to Release Emotions

NLP for Mindset

Using Hypnotherapy to Level Up

Environment Matters

Why are we living unhealthy lives?

Causes for an unhealthy lifestyle and excess weight

Energetic Weight

Think Outside the Box

Embrace Simplicity

Health consequences of not caring for your body

The Keys to Wellness Success

Mindset

What we believe, we create

Action & Accountability

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. —Lao Tzu

Environment & Systems

We create the support we need around us

A little myth busting about health, fitness, and beauty

Beauty standards

Finding our own beauty and rocking it

Beauty Standards Are Smoke And Mirrors

Beauty shines from the inside out

Body Mass Index (BMI)

Ditching an archaic tool and learning our own body’s cues for wellness

BMI is bullshit

Calories

Shifting the focus from calories to fueling our life

Busting the Calorie Myth

Exercise

Learning to love moving our body is a tailored fit

Busting the Exercise Myth

Calories in, calories out…but not exactly.

We don’t all burn the same calories at rest

You exercise, but nothing changes—what gives?

How do you choose what movements, frequency, and balance are right for you?

Exercise simplified

Gestational Diabetes and Blood Sugar

What I learned from having it four times…

Glucose and Insulin

Strategies for stable blood sugar

The Myth of the Post-Baby Snapback

Birthing also births a mother

A Little About Our Postpartum Body

Your Postpartum Body

Breastfeeding

Pelvic Floor

Diastasis Recti (DR)

Birth Trauma

Postpartum Depression (PPD)

Pelvic and Ab Rehab

Healing From The Inside Out

My Pelvic and Ab Rehab Exercises

Moving With Your Cycle

Tapping into your feminine power

Where Change Happens

The Fitness Pillars

Health is built in our body, our mind and our energy

BODY

Nutrition, Hydration and Movement

Nutrition and Hydration Guiding Principles

Veg and Fruit, King and Queen

Eat the Rainbow

Eat Seasonally, and Locally As Much as Possible

The 80/20 rule

Macros, Portions, and Fullness

Water

Intermittent Fasting

Dust off that journal!

A note on eating disorders

NUTRITION AND HYDRATION SUMMARY

Movement and Body Care

Movement Guidelines

Are there better exercises for fat loss?

Walking

Dance

Low-impact HIIT

Resistance, strength, and bodyweight training

Reiki yoga

Yin yoga

Yoga Sun Salutation

Yoga Moon Salutation

Keep it simple, keep it fun!

Embrace Exercise Snacks

Micro-movements and The Soleus Push-Up

Face Yoga, Massage and Gua Sha

A 6-move Face Yoga Sequence

MOVEMENT AND BODY CARE SUMMARY

Rest, Sleep and Meditation

Quality sleep, the art of yoga nidra, and the power of breath

Quality Sleep

Yoga Nidra: Yogic Sleep, or Deep Relaxation

Meditation and Breath Work

PRANAYAMA (Breath Work)

SLEEP AND MEDITATION SUMMARY

MIND

Mindset is how we view and do everything

Setting Up Your Why

Mindset and Inner Voice

Examine the subtle messaging you allow into your mind palace

Reframing beliefs with new key phrases

Good habits don’t wait to start on Mondays or as a New Year’s resolution

Weight deadlines are a double-edged sword

Redefining success and what healthy looks and feels like

What level or type of fitness supports your life?

All bodies are worthy and beautiful

Measuring change

Actionable goals are your tried and true friends

SUMMARY OF THE MIND SECTION

Choosing the programs your mind run

NLP, Mantras, Ho’oponopono

Mantras and their role in mindset

Helpful mantras to inspire you

Helpful NLP reframing to try

Holistic Wellness Mantras From Yoga

One last thing about mantras…

Use positive language about your body

Ho’oponopono

Removing friction to make our lives easier

Decision Fatigue and Pain points

ENERGY

Hypnotherapy, EFT Tapping, Reiki, Meditation, Mudras, Reflexology and Acupressure

Energy Work and Alternative Modalities

The subconscious mind: Hypnotherapy and EFT Tapping

When talk therapy hasn’t gotten you the breakthrough yet

When Personal Training Doesn’t Crack It

Hypnotherapy

What is EFT tapping?

EFT tapping: releasing the emotions to release the energetic weight

Reiki, Meditation, Mudras, Reflexology and Acupressure

Meditation: Cultivating Presence

Reiki: Tuning into our energy field

Tapping Into The Body’s Energy Channels

Mudras, Reflexology and Acupressure Points

Mudras: Hand gestures to unlock potential

My Go-To Mudra List

Reflexology and Acupressure: Magic points to foster health

Meridian Yin Yoga

Hand and Foot Massages

Metabolism-Boosting Acupressure

SUMMARY OF THE ENERGY SECTION

Cultivating a Healthy Lifestyle

Loving ourself for the rest of our life

LOVING KINDNESS MEDITATION

Survival Mode

The Holistic Fitness Mama Principles for Lifelong Wellness

A MINDSET OF RADICAL SELF-LOVE

TAKING SMALL, ACCESSIBLE, CONSISTENT STEPS

SELF-SUPPORTIVE AND ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS

Notes

ANNEXES

Resources for Further Exploration

About the Author

Also by Mercedes Déziel-Hupé:

About this book

Attention, busy, tired, out-of-shape and overwhelmed mamas, this is the book that will help you feel your best in a body that supports your life now.

In Holistic Fitness for Mamas, you’ll learn that your wellness is a holistic system where your body, mind, heart and energy are connected. We’re often told to strive for healthy lifestyles in a way that focuses on the physical. We’re not taught about our energy and our emotions, and how well-being is a harmonious system. We live as though we’re separate from our environments, as if our home, work and loved ones have no impact on our health, when they colour how we feel and make choices.

Health isn’t simply measured by body size and scale, it’s about the shape of our life and the size of our joy, and it’s measured in self-love, mindset, and small, supportive habits.

Can a mama really be happy, healthy, sexy, abundant and fulfilled?

Motherhood requires real trade-offs but happiness is about making the right choices for us in every season of life.

You’ll be equipped to create healthier habits that serve you, and start living the life that’s most aligned with who you are, without resentment, because you are making the best choices for yourself. I want to help you deeply appreciate your body, fiercely enjoy your partner and kids, and fall madly in love with your life. And that, mama, is an inside job.

So let's grab a cuppa, and support each other.

About the Author

Author Mercedes Déziel-Hupé, also known as Bright Star Woman, sits in sukhasana (easy seated pose) with hands in anjali mudra (prayer pose), on rocks in a forested area.

Wife and mama of four little ones, Mercedes Déziel-Hupé is a holistic life and wellness coach. She is an accredited life coach and Reiki master with the CTAA, a registered yoga and meditation teacher with the Yoga Alliance (RYT), and a holistic nutritionist and author of Bright Star Woman Reiki Yoga Manual. She is also a certified reflexologist, and an EFT tapping, NLP, and hypnotherapy practitioner. She lives in Eastern Ontario with her family and cats, and she enjoys cozy mysteries, gardening and watercolour painting.

Disclaimer

Please consult your trusted healthcare provider before starting any mental, emotional

and/or physical health and wellness practice or program.

The word healing and variations thereof, as used in this book, is meant to refer to the process of cultivating and/or returning to a state of wellness (homeostasis) and a lifestyle of harmony (healthy and life-honouring practices), and is not, in any way, a cure claim.

The information in this book is a collection of the author’s personal and professional opinions and experiences and is not intended for diagnosis or treatment, but merely as a support to your holistic wellness journey.

You are recognizing your role and responsibility in your own health and well-being, and you are acknowledging that the author and publisher can not be held liable for any personal, health-related, relational or financial consequence that may arise from following the advice and practices described in this book.

Trigger warning: some strong language is used and though not described in detail, some passages relating to birth experiences, mental health or toxic societal messaging may be uncomfortable to read for sensitive readers.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to my family, my husband and children, you are my love and my joy. You challenge me to be the best version of myself. I love you every day, with all my heart.

Thank you to my mama friends and early readers, for validating this book idea and giving me great feedback.

Thank you to all of my students and teachers, who keep me learning.

Introduction

Welcome fellow mamas and parents looking for a holistic approach to mental and physical health and fitness. This isn’t a fad diet or exercise book. To the best of my knowledge and experience, I share an honest and kind approach to body love, overall wellness, and healthy weight maintenance.

This book is about how to get healthy and fit (by your own personal definition) without losing yourself in the process. It’s about realizing that there’s no one size fits all solution to health and fitness, there’s a you-size solution, and it takes a little self-awareness, some exploration, and a little holistic guidance. That’s the idea behind this book.

I had tried a bunch of fitness fads and alone, they didn’t solve my struggle, because I wasn’t A-looking at the big picture of my wellness and B-I wasn’t thinking about a long-term lifestyle that suited who I was, at this given season of my life, but I was trying to fit successful molds. I never liked diets, calorie counting, and exercise regimens. I could never stick to them!

I probably disliked them so much because the very reason they are popular is their ephemeral, time-limited implementation. And that’s exactly why they fail us, time and again. No one solution will work for everyone because we’re all different.

This guide isn’t a strict rulebook or even a manual of how to lose fat and get smokin’ hot (which you already are, by the way!). If you want a plan, this is not the book for you. If you want specific results or guarantees, this is not the book for you. If you are looking for an input/output approach (meaning, I do this diet and this routine, I get this body), or a step-by-step instruction with a promise you’ll get a prize after an arbitrary deadline (I’m looking at you, 21-day challenges and 28-day detoxes!), you should probably put this book down.

I define ‘wellness’ as the philosophy and state of being that fosters physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Therefore, within my approach to wellness, I define ‘fitness’ as the ability to practice what we want to practice in our daily lives and cultivating a lifestyle that supports our body, mind, and spirit, so they can together continue to help us live all the experiences that bring us joy and fulfillment. If you look up definitions of these words in dictionaries, you might notice that only secondary definitions involve physique and attractiveness. That’s because it’s only part of the whole picture of wellness and fitness. This book is about approaching both of these concepts in a holistic way.

If you are looking for a way to understand your body (there are some basics after all), and have some routes to investigate when you suspect there’s something more at play, then you’ll get some good tips here and probably many that can apply to you personally. If you are looking to drop the weight of societal pressures of beauty, weight, and size, and free yourself to be who you know you are as a woman and a mama, then lady, let’s talk. If you want to develop self-honouring beliefs about yourself and your body and create sustainable, supportive health and fitness habits in a holistic way that fits your life… then we can put the tea on and chat, mama to mama.

So who am I to write this holistic fitness book?

Who am I to write this holistic fitness book?

I’m an accredited life coach and Reiki master with the CTAA, registered yoga and meditation teacher with the Yoga Alliance (RYT), a holistic nutritionist and author of Bright Star Woman Reiki Yoga Manual. I’m also a certified reflexologist, and an EFT tapping, NLP and hypnotherapy practitioner. Though there is always more to learn, integrate and master, I’d say I’ve come to understand fairly well how the mind, body, and energies work.

I’m a holistic coach, author, wife, and mama of four, and for a long time, I took my own health and fitness for granted. Being all this and having all my training, I am also a real person, who enjoys food and wine and sometimes swears. I forget myself and bring myself back into balance. I’m not perfect. I’m also not a size 0 (or even the size 5 I used to be in my early 20s), I don’t fit into my high school jeans (they’re long gone), and I’m not a fitness model or a social media influencer.

I wouldn’t even describe myself as sporty since I didn’t play team sports outside of gym class and don’t gravitate to sports in general. But I have always been active. As a kid, I played on the structures and climbed and jumped and ran for fun. I spent my childhood and teens dancing, even competitively for some time. Otherwise, I walked, cycled, and swam, because that’s what I enjoyed doing. I’m not skinny or jacked, so if your wellness advice needs to come from someone fitting that mold, that’s too bad because you’ll likely miss out on some helpful guidance.

I love chocolate and I don’t always work out, and I don’t train for hours weekly, and when I do my exercise bites and grazes (more on that later!), it’s not usually in a cute outfit. I know I’m not alone… I’m not better than you, I’ve just had some experience with weight challenges, pregnancies, and motherhood. So how about we hang out in this book, and I share what I can to help?

I am not a personal trainer or a dietitian, but I have significant wellness training and experience. You won’t find a lot of formulas and complex chemistry here. If you’re looking for that, there are many books, blogs, and YouTube channels out there by highly qualified trainers, dietitians, and doctors. I’m sure there are qualified professionals local to you, too, and you could hire directly. I wrote this particular book because it’s the one I would have wanted to read on my journey.

In this holistic guide to health and body love, you will find guiding principles of holistic wellness and fitness, and these will help you find your own tailored approach to being healthy in body, mind and spirit.

My Body Love Story

FEELING IT TO HEAL IT

Before I had children, I got sick with hypothyroidism in my mid-twenties. It was the beginning of years of yo-yo-ing with my weight and feeling frustrated and unworthy of feeling good. I felt trapped in a body that, as far as I was concerned, was betraying me. Having danced my entire life until that point, I had been fit as a fiddle and my body could do athletic things that felt easy for me. I met my husband on a competitive swing dancing team where we performed aerials and danced routines at 300 bpm (that’s really fast). I had incredible cardio, despite a teenage diagnosis of asthma. Though I had always fluctuated around 15 lbs between seasons, those winter pounds always just effortlessly melted off in the spring and summer, or with a bit more walking. I felt shocked that my body was suddenly packing on pounds and no matter how much I exercised and how well I ate, I ended up gaining 60 lbs at my heaviest. I was dancing six nights per week, and commuting by bus or bike to work, so I knew something was off when the needle kept going up on the scale.

The thing was though, I used it as an excuse to give up responsibility for my well-being, at least temporarily, because there was too much going on in my life, more on that later. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be the first to tell you that hormone imbalance is serious, and a real challenge for healthy weight maintenance, but I just quit dancing and tried to tell myself this was just my body from then on.

When I finally got my hypothyroid diagnosis, my then-family physician told me the medication would only stabilize my system, it wouldn't help me proactively lose the 60 lbs I'd put on from the hormonal imbalance. Well, FUCK.

After exercising, doing some cleanses and elimination diets, I did lose 20 lbs. And then, after two miscarriages in the same year, I finally had my first baby. And another and a fourth within 5 years of each other. With each pregnancy, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. And for those who don't know, it's a higher risk condition of pregnancy and it's a hassle to manage with diet and exercise. I did it though, for my first three babies. Even though dietitians told me my weight and BMI put me in the obese category (come on!!!) and that with each pregnancy, it would become harder for me to manage naturally (meaning, without prescribed insulin). As I birthed my fourth child at the beautiful age of 37, this last gestational diabetes (GDM) did require support from metformin.

You may not know this, but metformin is a prescription offered as a midway solution for pregnant mothers with GDM, who would otherwise be prescribed insulin. I was informed that metformin is only offered to mamas who follow the dietary and movement recommendations rigorously and who have demonstrated a mostly controlled blood glucose, but who seem to have slightly eleveted glucose (just over 5.3 mmol/L fasting, or 7.8 mmol/L post meals) or a pattern of a specific draw being elevated (ex: always after lunch). In my case, I advocated for this prescription rather than insulin for multiple reasons I won’t get into here.

Many women, despite education and best efforts, still need prescribed insulin to regulate glycemia. I came really close, but managed the instances of my gestational diabetes naturally until my fourth. I needed a little insulin support during my second labour and birth due to a placental infection and fever… So I want to be clear that taking medication for a condition is not a failure; it's acceptance of what is, while you make decisions that help you eliminate the causes of disease, or at least, alleviate them.

A hundred years ago, our ancestors might have better known how to care for themselves naturally, especially in preventing illness and disease, or caring for minor ailments and natural events such as birth, but medicine was also not advanced enough to assist in more serious conditions or complications. We now have the opportunity to utilize the best of both worlds: natural, alternative and energy medicine for prevention and long-term wellness, and allopathic medicine for birth complications, accidents and trauma, and serious life-threatening diseases. Whatever health camp you normally find yourself in (pro alternative or pro allopathic), do yourself a favour and don't reject the support you need; use all the tools, and do so with your eyes open to their purpose, uses, risks and consequences.

Anyway, I have personally birthed four amazing humans, and respectively gained 40 lbs (18.14 kg), 25 lbs (11.33 kg, 13 lbs (5.9 kg) and roughly 15 lbs (6.8 kg, but I left the weight monitoring to the OB-GYN) with my pregnancies and shed it all in between. Full disclosure, I was still considered medically overweight when I got pregnant with each of my children (i.e. after losing the baby weight), but I was healthy and managed to lose some of the pre-baby weight too and stay stable. I am currently postpartum with my second daughter, my fourth baby and focusing on my ab and pelvic rehab. For those trying to do math, I have yet to lose part of the 60 lbs I’d originally put on, and I tell you this out of transparency, not because I doubt whether I am healthy or capable of dropping more.

I am still not the size or weight I was when I was 25 years old and pre-babies, pre-hypothyroidism, and pre-burnout. Maybe I won’t be. Maybe I will see that same number on the scale eventually, but my body won’t look or feel the same for having children and the passing of time. And that’s not only ok, but it’s also wonderful! My body is serving me and I am caring for it.

My relationship with my weight and my body has evolved through motherhood, I’d say for the better. When I look back at photos of my younger, fittest self, I can see now that I was beautiful, and I had no idea! What a shame that I felt so unworthy and that I didn’t just love myself then the way we all deserve to love ourselves…

I know that I was not happy and I was deeply insecure about myself and my looks. In a photo now, a stranger would see that I am older and softer, but inside, I feel stronger, more confident, self-assured, and more beautiful now than when I was younger, smaller, and more insecure about who I was. Maybe my perspective can help you love yourself more as well. I have a feeling it will…

The wake-up call

I started caring about my weight, for real, not because of the scale number, though it was a wake-up call, but because of the injuries and premature aging I was experiencing. I had joint pain, poor sleep and bouts of insomnia unrelated to my children waking me, duller skin and a weaker immune system. I was losing mobility and flexibility in my tissues, and I struggled to play with my children, and to dance like I once had, and otherwise do things I loved that made life sweet and worth living. Let’s be real that not feeling good and not feeling attractive also impacts intimacy and relationships… I was sick of feeling unattractive and like I was hidden under excess weight and frumpy clothes.

Essential Grounding for Motherhood

Another thing that we don’t talk about is how important emotional regulation is