Having now coached close to 400 people in almost a year, I have surely heard my fair share of goals, expectations and fad diets that range from the strange and deranged to just flat out far-fetched, deserving of a good flying kick to the head or a few rounds of upper cuts. Bouncing around ideas, educating members, questioning how they view training and eating, and trying to help them positively change their perspective on things is such a huge part of my job and role as their coach. It's often as eye-opening as it is amusing and thought-provoking. It's also both encouraging as it is discouraging because often it's so frustrating and hard to change people's perspectives. Some members hear but they don't listen.
I do hear them and I do listen but it's hard not to feel like sometimes the things they say are a tape on repeat.
Please don't tell me you're goal is to be the stereotypical "dream weight" among Korean girls, 49kgs, without expecting me to ask you "why?!" I have trained numerous females who sport this oddly fantasied weight number but who have more body fat than girls much heavier than them. We call them "fat-skinny" girls. Goals should be fat percentage focused or muscle percentage focused because the number on the typical home scale -- a scale that only reads body weight and not muscle or fat weight like the one we and other professionals use -- really means nothing. I weigh about 54kgs but if I were to drink a liter of water I could weigh closer to 55kgs. Does this mean I'm fatter or more out of shape? Of course not. It simply means my weight is heavier but it doesn't tell me what this extra weight really is. Moreover, and back to the 49kgs issue here, I'm not too sure what they think they'll achieve when they get down to this number. Will it mean they're prettier, smarter, more likely to get a boyfriend, or get that better job?! Oh please, that's just nonsense. If a guy is only attracted to you if you are such a low number on the scale than you really shouldn't want to be with such a guy. Also, he's really not going to honestly know if you're that specific weight or not, unless you tell him.
Please don't tell me you can't do an excercise if you haven't yet even tried it. You'd be surprised at what your body can and could do if you just gave it a chance. The body is a miraculous freak of nature machine that can do amazing things if you put your mind to it. Impossible is nothing until it's done. "Impossible" can be "I'm possible" if you just change your mind and try.
Please don't tell me you are going to train five days a week but aren't going to back up that training with clean eating. What you eat is 80% responsible for the way your body looks, feels and works. Training is 20%. You can't out train a bad diet. So while you're scoring high points with the 20%, you're failure with successfully addressing the 80% and it takes no math genius to realize that 80 is a bigger number than 20. A one hour workout may be hard but it's what you put in your mouth during the rest of your 23 hour day that's the real challenge. Don't ignore the 80%.
Please don't complain to me about your hatred for veggies, it's called getting a cookbook or looking online. There's a whole cyber world full of free and helpful recipes and tips for making veggies delicious and super easy.
Please don't tell me you're going to train like a beast and then not eat after training. Training hard and eating clean go hand-in-hand. You're actually better off not to exercise if you're not going to even eat after training. And yes, I know saying this is bad for business but I vouch it isn't. My business field is health and fitness, it's coaching people in boxing, weight training and clean eating, it's in helping them become healthier and stronger. My business has never been in scamming money from people or selling something that I myself don't practice or believe in. Starvation has never been an answer for anything as far as I am concerned. Food is not the problem, people's misconceptions of if are. You wouldn't expect to run your car on no fuel so why do you expect your body to work with none?! But a body isn't a car, you say. That's true so why do you treat your car better than your car? Keep your car fueled and it's works. Keep your body fuelled and it'll work great too. Food is fuel.
Please take out all your "buts", "ifs" and "can'ts" because all it tells me is that you really don't want it bad enough. Excuses are for those who don't want it and don't deserve it. Don't complain about the results you don't have for the work you didn't do. I know it's hard and I know it's going to stay hard but it does get easier. The challenge is what makes it so great though because if it were so easy to get a healthy body and be all fit then everyone would have that so-called "perfect body". Nothing worth it comes without a fight but I'll always be the biggest cheerleader for anyone who is willing to give an honest attempt. And even if you fail in your attempt, it's not a fail unless you refuse to get back up. The other week a Hulkie took a whiteboard marker and wrote on one of the mirrors "Fall 7, get up 8" and I thought that was great because even when you fall you learn. You learn what not to do next time but you get up and start your "next time".
I by no means have anything even remotely close to a perfect body nor do I think there is even such a thing, but I know everyday I am consciously working on mine. Where I want to take my body and where it currently is are two different places but everyday I am trying. I can't complain if I don't work on it and even then when I do, I often have to remind myself that I am still very much a work in process and that I am better than yesterday. Sure I have my bad days, I am no more immune to them than the next person, but I consciously pick myself up, dust myself off and work on my rebound. I am constantly refocusing myself, rechecking my goals, and tweeking my clean eating. And I see many of our members doing this too, coming into training, committing to workout hard, and then picking my brain about what to eat after or packing a post training meal. I think that's awesome. I know many of what they say, their misconceptions with food and training, seem to be on repeat and I know I really can't blame them for that. They just don't know and that's my job, to help them know. They're changing, both with what they think about food and with their bodies, and I have nothing but respect and props to them for that and for their attempts. And though I think that yes, I am hard on some of them for the lack of cleaning eating or whatnot, I am only hard because I do want them to succeed. Sometimes I think I want it more for them than they do. I too get nervous when members have their monthly weigh-ins and you can best believe that when members succeed and pull body-changing numbers on their weigh-in that they are bragged about, not only amongst Snickers and I but also with our sponsors and often other members too.
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