The stories you are about to hear are true. The names have been changed to protect the not so innocent. I have a reputation for telling it like it is. The truth is that not everyone who walks in the door loses 100lbs. Our members get results because of the accountability, coaching, atmosphere, and education we provide. It’s more than exercise. We can learn more from our failures so check out a few below. If you are one of these people then HIT REPLY and I am here to help!
PERFECTIONIST PEGGY– I met with Peggy on December 23rd. She told me she wanted to get started on the first Monday of the new year. Peggy had not exercised in 7 months and was eating pretty bad when we met. She was ready to make a change. A big change! She was going to go from eating McDonalds and drinking coke daily to eating organic broccoli and grilled chicken. Her plan was to work out 7 days per week. For the rest of her life.
Peggy was doing great, for 3 weeks. She went on a work trip and had one “bad meal.” The meal snowballed into another 7 months of doing nothing in regards to exercise or diet.
LESSON LEARNED – All she had to do was make a few small changes and put her improvement in perspective. She was on pace for huge transformation if she just remained consistent. I was proud of Peggy but I think Peggy felt like a failure because she did not “stick with the plan.” I told Peggy up front her perfectionist mentality was the complete opposite of every transformation I had coached in the past.
GETTING RESULTS REBECCA– Rebecca is getting results so how does she fall under the fail list? Rebecca had no patience at all. She was not tracking her results accurately. Rebecca was in the program for 4 weeks. One week she was sick so lets not even count that. She is down 4 lbs of fat during the last 4 weeks which is amazing! The problem with Rebecca is she is just looking at the scale, all the time, which was the same.
She had some issues with fluctuating water weight. She also gained back a pound of muscle which is improving her metabolism, but she did not see it this way. Rebecca gets frustrated and just gives up because of the stupid scale! She was on pace for an amazing transformation but that scale got into her head.
LESSON- Have some patience. Track results with an accurate assessment. Pay attention to how your clothes are fitting. But don’t obsess over the scale. I see people who are actually getting results stop because of unrealistic expectations. All of those transformations signed up for the long term, so we can coach them through the ups and downs.
KNOWLEDGE KIM– I was talking with Kim and she knew more than I did! Kim had enough diet books to pay for her son’s first year in college, but failed to get results. The only problem was none of that information was going to help her get results. She had too much information. She could not distinguish between what was important, and what was not. She would get Results for a few weeks and then switch over to the next book which was supposed to be better. One week she was putting butter in her coffee, and the next week she was on the sweet potato diet.
LESSON- Education is one thing. Execution of a solid plan is another thing. Execution trumps everything.
CRUSH IT CARY!– Cary was making a few changes to her diet but she was all about smashing it at the gym! A former athlete whose plan was to hit it hard and get that “afterburn.” She thought she was burning 800 calories per session based on what the sales people and overnight certified trainers were telling her. She took this information and justified eating a cupcake, or 4.
Cary was obsessed with feeling like she had been run over by a truck after each session. She would take pre-workouts and prep for each session like it was the super bowl. She could not even work out unless she was hooked up to 95 gadgets that tracked her performance. In the past week alone she posted 37 memes on Instagram about crushing it at the gym and how sore she was. If there was no soreness then the session did not even count to her.
One day she had a “bad session” and ending up depressed and not going to the gym for a week. Her gadget (which was off 99.49% of the time) told her so, so she believed it. She could not even enjoy going for a walk with her dog without tracking every single thing. Cary was depressed because after all that hard work she had no results to show for it. She was beginning to notice that her workouts became her life. She was also injured all the time. She was jumping on boxes and mastered below average technique on Olympic lifts, but not one pound lost.
LESSON- You will never out train a bad diet. Working out is supposed to enhance your life, not take away from it. Do exercises the right way or you will get hurt. Have some fun with this! Look at the big picture!!
SUPPLEMENT SALLY- When I met Sally she was spending more on supplements than food. Her coach would tell her to eat a 1000 calories per day, and work out every day. Her coach would tell her that taking so and so supplement would also speed up the results. Sally lost weight but destroyed her metabolism. She could not connect the dots and thought the supplement was the reason for her results. She continued to take the supplements even though the weight piled back on. Sally was spending more on supplements per month than for quality training, but did not see the value in coaching.
LESSON- The scam artist are out to take your money. Watch out for them! Supplements don’t do much at all. The trainers who push these things get a decent paycheck from affiliate sales, but can’t train their way out of a wet paper bag. Lots of these scams will find people who transformed their lives with a solid method, then pay them to say it was because of the supplement.
FIGHT THROUGH IT FELICIA – Felicia came to me with a messed up knee. I told Felicia “I am going to have you stay away from jumps, lunges, change of direction stuff, and getting up and down.” Felicia came to session one and did not listen to a thing I said. She did not modify a thing even though I told her over and over again to stop it! This was one of the rare cases where I had to tell someone Bye.
LESSON- We are all different. There is a reason we take the time to offer adjustment for each person. You will get hurt if you don’t listen to your coaches and try to fight through the pain.
Detric Smith, CSCS, ACSM-HFS
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P.S. – Anyone who is willing to take your money without knowing a thing about your goals, previous exercise history, schedule, budget, injury history, class size preference, etc is probably not that great at their job. Email us at info@