In the world of fitness, we love to talk about the "sexy" stuff—the heavy lifts, the latest training blocks, and the PRs. But if you've been around my coaching long enough, you know that performance isn't built just by what happens in the gym. It is built on a foundation of recovery, gut health, and consistent, daily optimization. I get asked constantly about what I take to stay fueled, recovered, and ready for my next training session. While supplements should never replace

As a coach, I often get asked, "Elizabeth, is one drink really going to ruin my progress?" The honest answer is: it depends on your goals, your frequency, and how you define "progress." In the fitness world, we talk a lot about protein intake, sleep hygiene, and progressive overload. But often, the missing link in a client's performance plateau is the Friday night cocktail or the weekend wine. Let’s pull back the curtain on how alcohol actually interacts with your body’s abil

If you scroll through Instagram, you’ll see thousands of "Before and After" photos. They are side-by-side snapshots meant to inspire, showing inches lost and muscle gained. But what you rarely see—and what nobody really talks about—is the reality of what happens to the skin and the body when you undergo a massive transformation. After maintaining a 100-pound weight loss for 16 years, I’ve learned that the journey doesn’t end when you hit your goal weight. In fact, that’s ofte

For sixteen years, I have lived in the body I built after a 100-pound weight loss transformation. It is the most significant physical undertaking of my life, a journey that defined my career and my philosophy as a coach. But there is a part of this journey that we rarely talk about in the fitness industry—a side that isn't captured in "before and after" photos. We talk about the discipline of the diet, the intensity of the progressive overload, and the transformation of the m

We often use the word "trying" as a shield. It feels safe, doesn't it? When we say we are "trying" to get to the gym, "trying" to eat cleaner, or "trying" to build a new habit, we are essentially building ourselves an exit ramp. "Trying" provides us with a comfortable cushion; if we fail, we can easily blame circumstance, a busy schedule, or a bad day. It keeps the pressure off because it keeps the expectation of success at arm's length. But there is a vast, unforgiving chasm

Maintaining a 100lb weight loss for over 16 years has been the most significant physical undertaking of my life, but looking back, I realize that the physical transformation was actually the "easy" part. For a long time, I was caught in a dangerous trap: I truly believed that if I could just make my body smaller, I would finally fix what I felt was broken inside of me. I lost myself in that chase. I spent years convinced that my worth was tied to the number on the scale or th

We have all been taught to value perfection. We strive for the "perfect" body, the "perfect" routine, and the "perfect" life. We spend an exhausting amount of time trying to patch our perceived cracks, ashamed of the parts of ourselves that feel like they are "leaking"—the moments we didn't hold it together, the goals we missed, or the vulnerabilities we try to hide from the world. But I want to invite you to look at those cracks differently. Perfection is not the only path t

We have long been told that nutrition is a simple equation: calories in versus calories out. However, this outdated perspective reduces the human body to a passive container rather than the complex, dynamic, and endocrine-responsive system that it actually is. Your body is a highly sophisticated chemistry lab, and how it processes fuel is determined by hormonal signaling, not just numerical values. The Problem with the "Calorie Is a Calorie" Myth When you consume 100 calories

We live in a culture that has mastered the art of "body-first" living. From the moment we wake up and check our notifications, we are bombarded with images of curated aesthetics, filtered physiques, and the relentless pursuit of the "perfect" body. Fitness has become synonymous with appearance, and self-improvement is frequently reduced to the pursuit of shrinking, sculpting, or altering our physical form. It is easy to fall into the trap of believing that your worth is tied

We have all been there. You sit down with a coach, a trainer, or even just a notebook at the start of the year, and you rattle off the "right" answers. "I want to lose 10 pounds." "I want to get stronger." "I want to be healthier." But what if those aren't your real goals? What if, deep down, you’re chasing something else entirely—and that disconnect is the exact reason you keep spinning your wheels? In a recent insight, fitness coach Cody McBroom dropped a truth bomb for cli

For years, the gold standard of weight loss advice has been a simple equation: Calories In, Calories Out (CICO). If you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. It’s basic thermodynamics, right? While the math is technically sound, it is a woefully incomplete picture of human biology. If you treat your body like a simple calculator, you’re missing the complex hormonal, neurological, and metabolic systems that actually dictate how you lose weight—and, more impor

We’ve all been there: the gym is packed, you’re short on time, and you feel like if you aren’t dripping sweat or gasping for air, you isn't working hard enough. The temptation to "superset" everything—jumping from squats to push-ups with zero break—is real. But if the goal is true strength and muscle growth, constantly chasing "the burn" might actually be holding you back. While circuits have their place for conditioning, they can be the enemy of progressive overload. To get

I see it every week in the studio: a client walks in, eyes heavy, clutching a shaker cup filled with neon-colored liquid, asking, "Coach, I’m so tired and my lifts are stalling. Should I switch to a stronger pre-workout?" My answer is usually a hard no. If you’re operating on five hours of sleep and trying to "fix" it with 300mg of caffeine, you aren’t biohacking—you’re just putting a bandaid on a bullet wound. You’re asking your central nervous system to perform a miracle wh

In my years of coaching, I’ve realized that most people focus on the fat they can see in the mirror. We call this subcutaneous fat—it’s the stuff you can pinch. While that’s often the motivation for starting a fitness journey, there is another type of fat that deserves much more of your attention. It’s called Visceral Fat, and it’s the fat you can't see. It lives deep within your abdominal cavity, wrapping itself around your vital organs like your liver, pancreas, and intesti

If I had a dollar for every time a woman told me, "Elizabeth, I don’t want to get bulky, I just want to look toned," I’d probably be retired on a beach by now. I get it. The word "toned" feels safe. It sounds lean, firm, and athletic without being "too much." But here’s the truth I tell my clients every single day: "Toned" isn’t a real physiological state. It’s a visual outcome.And that outcome only happens when you stop fearing the muscle and start building it. "Weight loss

In the fitness world, we talk a lot about "mind-muscle connection." We focus on the intentional squeeze of a glute or the bracing of a core. But recently, I’ve been diving into a different kind of connection—one that happens deep within the subcortical brain. As I’ve progressed in my own journey as a coach and an athlete, I realized that some "blocks" couldn't be coached away with better form or a stricter diet. That realization led me to Brainspotting , a powerful, focused t

In the world of high-performance fitness, we often focus on the "grind"—the heavy lifts, the progressive overload, and the metabolic conditioning. But here is the truth: You don't grow in the gym; you grow in your sleep. Recovery is a physical and neurological necessity. If your sleep hygiene is an afterthought, you are leaving gains on the table and keeping your nervous system in a state of perpetual high alert. To perform like an athlete, you have to recover like one. Here

We’ve all been there: Your heart is racing, you’re sweating, and you feel like you’ve put in a massive shift at the gym. You leave feeling exhausted, assuming that the harder you breathe, the better your results will be. But here is the hard truth: Feeling tired is not a measurement of a productive workout. If you want to actually change your physique—building lean muscle and dropping body fat—you have to understand the physiological difference between Fatigue and Failure .

When we think about "burning fat," we usually picture the sweat-drenched floor after a heavy lifting session or the gasping breath after a treadmill sprint. But as we enter Week 4 of our Fuel & Fire Challenge , I want to let you in on a secret: the 60 minutes you spend with me in the gym is only a small piece of the metabolic puzzle. If you want to see radical changes in body composition and energy levels, you need to master NEAT . What is NEAT? (The Science of the "Other" 23

If you walk into most gyms, you’ll see people performing "bilateral" movements—exercises where both limbs work together at the same time. Think of the standard barbell squat, the bench press, or the deadlift. While these are fantastic for moving heavy loads, they often mask a hidden problem: imbalance. At Elizabeth DeHart Fitness, we believe the "secret sauce" to a body that looks as good as it performs is unilateral training . Simply put, this means training one side of the