Coach Lucy Hendricks of Enhancing Life joins me this week. In this episode, we discuss how each of our respective businesses have transitioned from face-to-face training over to the virtual landscape. Lucy and I saw a lot of similar responses across the board not only for ourselves but for our clients. As we in the fitness industry are in uncharted territories, it’s uplifting to see how others are making the best of a less than great situation. Download, subscribe, share with your friends and please take a moment to leave us an iTunes review.
Last week, I wrote about some things that were working for myself and my clients as we all learn to acclimate and navigate our lives due to limitations with quarantines and the virus.
This week, I want to touch on the kind of goals worth setting during a time like this.
Something I’ve made a point to mention over each passing week is the fact that certain people can take our current set of circumstances and truly thrive when it comes to weight loss goals. For these people, they have just enough predictability in their schedule and routines and very little distractions or chaos to slip them up.
For others, chaos is the new norm. There is the fear and uncertainty of how long this will all last as well as the adjustment of family dynamics when many are spending time with their loved ones and children far more than they had before crisis hit.
My friend, fellow coach and podcast host, Heather Robertson of Half Size Me, recently made a comment on her show about the notion of thinking of your future self. In other words, maybe now is a time that you think your goals for your health need to go on the backburner. Heather offered an affectionate alternative. Think about your future self and where you want your health to be when things begin to resume some semblance of normal again.
Do I think things will go back to the way they were prior to March 2020?
No. Not for a while and not the way we’re used to.
However, that’s not a doom and gloom statement. I think we will be reevaluating the importance of our health and the way we engage with others in close proximity for quite some time.
I was speaking with one of my clients on our weekly coaching call last week. While she has been doing an excellent job of keeping up with her training while at home, her diet has been less than spectacular.
Many foods she normally has no problem moderating in her diet are now being consumed in copious amounts. Much of this has to do with not just heightened anxiety with what’s happening in the world but the fact that she is around this food all day long being at home (as opposed to being at her office where it wasn’t readily accessible).
I reminded her that what she’s going through she isn’t alone with. Many of my clients are in exactly the same position. One thing I asked her to consider was just trying to focus on maintaining her weight right now. That may be all of the effort and time she can place on herself without shutting down completely.
I do think that now is a great time to focus on other goals though. I noticed after we were ordered to temporarily close RevFit down, that my daily step count went from about 15,000 steps a day to barely 5,000. That’s a huge decrease. I now make it a point to close the gap and get myself closer to 10,000 so I can keep my body moving as much as possible even though it’s not on the training floor.
So, here are some goals (in no particular order) I’d like you to consider that you feel you can implement right now:
Add in a workout. No matter where you with your current training plan, look at where you can increase it. We’re not looking at things like from 1 workout per week to 5. We’re looking at 1 workout per week to 2, 2 workouts per week to 3. Ideally, you want to space your workouts so that you have ample time to recover. This won’t always be the case. If you absolutely have to train two days in a row, go for it. Otherwise, spread the days out so you have a day of recovery (or light cardio) in between days of resistance training.
Set a water goal. During normal life, many of my clients struggle to get in enough water. Now is a really great time to change that. Similar to my thoughts on training, you’re not necessarily going from 20 ounces a day to 120 ounces. If you’re starting with 20 ounces, try doubling it and going for 40 ounces. Stay there for a couple of days and add in another 20 ounces. Try not to get the majority of your water intake towards the end of the day (otherwise you’ll be dealing with the issue of interrupted sleep).
Reduce your news/social media exposure. With frequent updates on both state and federal levels, there is absolutely no shortage of news which means there is no shortage of stressful and anxiety provoking stimuli. For myself, I don’t watch any news at all. I skim headlines and I find one or two sources of information that don’t make my skin crawl. If you were to guess on the amount of time you spend taking in mindless social media scrolling or news watching, make a goal to reduce it in a quantifiable way. Maybe you limit yourself to 15 minutes (set a timer) each day to get what you need and get off. Limiting the things that make you anxious or stressed can do worlds of good for your mindset right now.
Purge, purge, purge. We could all take a page from a Marie Kondo style of living. There’s certainly an upside to it even if you don’t go to her extents. Purge your fridge, your pantry, your freezer, your closet, your attic, the guest room you keep saying you’ll get to, the subfolders in your email, your car, your garage, etc. If you want to sell something, sell it. If you want to throw it away, do so. Occupy your mind and your hands so you’re not thinking about the plethora of other things that might be leading to your stress levels. One thing most of us seem to have an abundance of right now is time. Use it. Wisely.
Set a recovery/rest goal. I mentioned the abundance of time. I actually have several clients who are extremely busy right now. The pandemic has not decreased their workload, rather they are busier now than ever. In that case, and for individuals like that, I would set 1-2 days (or half days) as rest/recovery/self-care days. No work, no exercise (unless stretching is relaxing), no stressful environments. Take that time to do your nails, take a bubble bath, read a book or take a nap. Do the things you don’t normally do because you’re already busier than you can handle. Take the time to decompress.
Slow your pace. This is one that affects me personally. I have always been a painfully fast eater. It stems back to the years I spent in retail when I wasn’t sure I would get a proper break and I would spend 5 minutes standing and wolfing food down as fast as possible. I haven’t worked in retail in 12 years and I still have an issue with this. Over this past weekend, despite always knowing better, I practiced putting my fork down in between bites. I actually spent time chewing and tasting and smelling and just experiencing food rather than inhaling and swallowing faster than my system could catch up with me. The added bonus for those who need it? This can be a fantastic way to cut back on calories consumed because your body can register fullness better. Make a goal of slowing your eating pace down each day. Don’t eat in front of screens (TV or phone) if you can help it.
Set a goal for gratitude. No matter how this pandemic has affected you, if you’re reading this blog right now, chances are you have things pretty good: a roof over your head, food to eat, internet to use, and a life worth being grateful for. Write down daily the things you’re thankful for. Refer back to them as often as possible. Many of us are aware, especially now, that others are in a more dire position than we are. Be grateful for what you have, how you have it and why it matters.
Below is a shot taken of our clients well before the virus hit. Ending this blog with a note on gratitude, I know I’m thankful we still get to train these folks virtually. We are all working with similar degrees of “less than ideal.” We’ll come out of this better for it.
(L to R: Brandon, Kelvin, Jean, Adam, Charlie, Eric and Anthony)
It has been since Episodes 7 and 33 that board certified endocrinologist Dr. Karl Nadolsky has been on the show. I still recommend the shows we did back then (nearly 4 years ago). For this week’s bonus episode, I bring him back inspired by an article he shared on the internet positing that the key to better weight loss is through a larger breakfast. Due to the hype behind tools like intermittent fasting and the wide array of opinions on how dieting affects your hormones, I knew Dr. Karl would be a great source to chat about these things. Download, subscribe, share with your friends and please take a moment to leave us an iTunes review.
I’m covering more pandemic-inspired content with the debut on this show of Dr. Emilia Thompson. She is a nutrition consultant and university lecturer. In this episode, we talk about how the current global crisis of COVID-19 is affecting our clients and their behaviors with food. Dr. Emilia discusses what could be negotiable and non-negotiable at times like these and how mindfulness plays into our dietary choices. Download, subscribe, share with your friends and please take a moment to leave us an iTunes review.
It’s going to be difficult for me to write about much else except the way the Coronavirus has been affecting not only me, but my clients, for as long as it’s currently going on.
If you’ve been struggling, as many of my clients have, to gain some footing and some momentum while we have all been dealing with quarantines and business closures to varying degrees, I hear you. It’s been a struggle.
My own motivation has ebbed and flowed throughout all of this as well.
I want to give some thoughts into things that may help you because they’ve either been helpful for me or for my clients who need to feel as if they’re still in the driver’s seat as much as possible.
-Schedule your training. Pre-COVID, anyone who cared about their fitness likely had some degree of scheduling in place. Take for example, one of my newer clients, David. David would train with me every Tuesday and Thursday around 4pm. When the closures came into effect, he kept the same schedule. He knew that if he could keep that element of his life consistent, he could make the transition back when our studio reopened. While this may be easier for some than others, especially for parents of young children, see if there are any days and times that you can consistently show up for yourself. One day a week is better than none. Two days is better than that. Do the best you can (maybe the second best mantra I’ll provide you in this article).
–Fine tune your diet. I offer this with a caveat. You don’t necessarily need to use this time as a way to lose weight. If you feel that you reasonably can do so, great! If not, look at simple ways to make your eating habits healthier even if all you do is maintain weight at this time. Focus on simple recipes that take very little time to make. Try Googling “Quick Healthy Dinner Ideas” as a place to start. Right now, fancy can take a backseat to easy and practical. The great thing about this is that these are skills you learn now and you’ll have recipes you can file away for future reference. This should make it easier to transition into your lifestyle once the chaos has settled down.
–Really celebrate your non-scale victories. This is a big one, especially if you don’t feel confident focusing on fat loss right now. Look at other places where you can stage a win. I have clients who are teaching themselves new coping strategies or picking up old ones that are still purposeful. I have one client spending more time playing guitar, another is taking the time to bake with her children, many of my clients are going out for hikes so they can enjoy the nicer weather but still keep safe distances from others. Me? I’m spending more time reading and on continuing education. Not every good thing you’re doing has to be related to weight. However, there are so many things you can do that don’t require eating. If you’re struggling with frequent, unnecessary trips to the pantry and fridge, look for other things that make you feel good OR don’t exactly stimulate your appetite. Celebrate these things. They matter. And they will still matter when we all start to resume our previous “normal”.
–Make movement count. When I mentioned scheduling your training above, there’s another consideration to make. Break the thought process that you have to train for 60, 30 or even 20 minutes. Sure, in a perfect world, one of those time periods would be great. However, we’re not living in a perfect world right now. It is anything but. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have purposeful movement. Take something as simple as 1-3 exercises and do enough reps that you feel you did something good for yourself. That could be 3 sets of 15 bodyweight squats or it could be 1 set of push-ups to failure. Your benchmark for what feels good is all that matters. I wrote something about this when I referenced the “minimum effective dose”
–Just try. Now, more so than any other time that I’ve had this business (almost 11 years), motivation is not at an all-time high. Not for me and not for many of the amazing people we service. It’s okay to not be tremendously motivated right now. As a complement to the tip mentioned just above, the most important thing you can do is “something”. My own training has been less than spectacular over the last few weeks but I still manage to get some kind of work in every day. It’s nothing to brag over and I won’t be breaking any records any time soon. For me, for my mental state and for a sense of accomplishment, every day has to have something over nothing. For you, maybe now is not the time to make aggressive strides with your health but if you focus on the next pound down and replicating the effort it took to get there, you’ll make marginal steps of progress that seem attainable and practical. That’s a good place to be. However, you won’t get there if you don’t try.
Just try.
Below is Sebastian, who for the last 2 years has been getting plenty of time around the barbell because it makes for good pictures. Normally, he just wants to roll the bar around and walk away. On this picture, he actually wrapped his hands around that barbell and attempted to move that 135 pounds off the platform. He grunted (when this picture was taken) and said “That’s heavy!” You’re right little man, it is. You’re not ready for it yet. But you tried and someday you’ll get there.
This week, I welcome Maui Athletics own: Beth and Dr. Allan Bacon. In this episode, we talk not only about how to form healthy habits but how to understand the dynamics of how it affects our relationships and how to do it when we’re not in the easiest environments. Download, subscribe, share with your friends and please take a moment to leave us an iTunes review.
To learn more about the great work Beth and Allan are doing:
There’s an adage in the small business community: evolve or die.
And as the world around us responds, reacts and navigates the efforts of international requests on the Coronavirus pandemic, every small business owner I know is learning the painful process of evolving or dying.
There are twelve businesses in the plaza where RevFit is located. Due to Ohio government demands, half of them have temporarily closed down (us included). Two of the businesses are restaurants and have had to suffer the effect of only being able to offer take out service instead of allowing patrons to come and sit down.
The plaza itself looks like a graveyard.
We’re fortunate that we can transition our clients to an online training platform in the interim. It hasn’t been easy but it has been absolutely worth it. Historically, my online training business has only been about 10% of my revenue stream. Now, it’s 100%, at least until the government gives us permission to re-open our doors.
It helps that our clients have been tremendously understanding. Since nearly every single industry has been affected, everyone is suffering in some way. Our clients, like us, are hoping this is all a short-term situation and we’re all trying our best to maneuver this new terrain together.
As a result, it’s forced me to focus more on our client check-ins and personalized workouts that clients can do at home with the equipment (or lack thereof) that they have on hand.
In addition, I’ve been uploading daily workouts to send them just for some extra variety to add into the mix should they desire to do so.
We’re all just trying to keep some sense of normal in each other’s lives because any other options are basically limited.
I found that, while phone calls were helpful, FaceTime and Zoom were much better. I miss my clients faces. I like being able to see their expressions: to watch them when they smile or laugh or actually see their tears when they need to cry.
And yes, at times like these, people are crying.
The good thing, is that many of our clients are retaining their sense of humor and ability to be lighthearted despite what’s happening. We all know that no matter what occurs, it’s short-term. We’ll learn more about each other and we’ll have a better appreciation for what happens in this client/trainer relationship once “normal” business resumes again.
The first week after the studio closed many of my clients were in a complete state of disarray. Despite knowing that we had a plan to move forward, the change was so disruptive to their schedules that many had to pause their workouts from home and diets got a little out of control.
By the end of the second week, most of my clients were in a greater place of acceptance and I saw better dietary adherence and more consistency with the at-home workouts.
I took the tip from some others I saw trying it and decided to roll out the option for a Virtual Happy Hour over this past weekend. I know many of my clients like to have a drink and since we’re all practicing our social distancing skills, I set up a Zoom meeting to make a toast to health, safety and a community together (distanced at least six feet apart).
It was my first time trying to host a virtual event like that and while there were certainly some logistics to work out with regard to muting and crossover conversations, it was still great to see the attendees outside of the gym setting. It also allowed clients who don’t normally train together to make connections beyond the gym floor.
Like so many of my fellow trainers and gym owners, the “normal” we had before the pandemic began looks very different now and we are all still trying to find our footing to deliver some type of quality service to our clients.
I can say that nothing about the transition has gone quite as expected but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As my clients are learning the limitations of scheduling regardless of whether or not they can work from home, the entire landscape has shifted.
We’re looking beyond now, collectively, to what the next several weeks will feel like since it will continue to mirror some degree of what the last two weeks have been.
Below, you’ll find a picture of most of the attendees from our Virtual Happy Hour. We will very likely do more of these to help get through what we’re all experiencing.
I should probably take this time to reiterate what others before me have likely said in a better way: let’s find a way to take care of each other now. It will happen through communication, candor, and an overabundance of patience.
Come to think of it, we need those same things whether we train in person or we train in a virtual environment. The basics haven’t changed, the format (for the moment) has.
Coach and author, Steph Gaudreau, joins me this week on the show. We talk about some of the concepts from her book, “The Core 4” and some lessons from intuitive eating. In addition, Steph and I discuss not only how we prioritize our health goals but the costs and benefits of doing so within the framework of our lives. Download, subscribe, share with your friends and please take a moment to leave us an iTunes review.
To learn more about Steph’s work and to purchase “The Core 4”:
Do you hop on daily (sometimes several times a day) to check and see the fluctuations that can happen during your waking hours or do you hide it, taking days and even weeks away before stepping on to see what the “verdict” is?
I have clients that do both and everything in between.
Myself? I weigh once or twice a week. Sometimes more if I’m doing something crafty with my diet but that doesn’t happen too often.
Depending on which coach you follow (and there are many great ones out there), some will say to weigh yourself daily if you’re trying to lose fat.
Some lean towards once a week, others opt for every other week.
I’ve even seen some coaches encourage their clients to throw the scale out and focus on how the body feels, how clothes fit, and maybe some tape measurements since they can unveil composition changes that the scale might not pick up on.
I say, weigh as often as you can psychologically handle that allows you to make progress but still correct your course if things aren’t heading the direction you want.
A little over a year ago, I highlighted the game my father played when I helped him lose weight. I always loved his philosophy for daily weigh-ins. You can read about that HERE.
Beyond your frequency of weighing, there’s another area to consider and that’s the lengths you’ll go to get the scale number to drop.
For those who are new to my writing, I’m not a fan of aggressive diet deficits. I think they can be helpful for certain individuals but in many cases, I’d prefer a doctor is involved especially if the caloric intake is extremely low just to make sure nothing funny is happening with the thyroid, the hormones, or just general recovery.
However, I do find that some clients get seduced by the number. There’s something about instant gratification that gets people doing all sorts of wacky things with their diets just to keep that number scaling down.
-Drastically reducing/eliminating carbohydrates (including fruits and vegetables)
-Drastically reducing/eliminating sodium
-Drinking at least a gallon of water a day
-Drastically increasing fiber/taking laxatives
-Embarking on 24+ hour fasting protocols
Now, before I get the wrath of those who utilize any of these tactics, I’d say they can all be used effectively depending on the individual. Also, if a lower number on the scale is all that matters and you don’t care whether you’re losing fat or muscle, then maybe more extreme measures are your cup of tea.
I like a more methodical approach to dieting because I find that people learn more about themselves, their habits/routines, and gain better insight into how they want to live their lives after they reach their desired weight.
The other problem I encounter, is that many people who diet with no regard for macronutrient breakdowns or a strategic strength training plan, end up losing more muscle mass than they ever bargained for.
This isn’t just about aesthetics either. The less muscle you have, comparatively speaking, the less metabolically active you’ll be when you reach your desired weight and that will have an effect on your maintenance calories.
You’ll also find a decrease in NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) levels which can contribute to less movement throughout the day. I wrote more about that HERE.
In addition, you may find your recovery from your workouts to be compromised, as well as sleep, libido and your levels of strength (assuming you’re strength training).
I have to remind the “seduced” that the body will do all it can to find homeostasis and temporarily halt fat loss. This tends to happen even more when dieters take their given deficit and drive it more aggressively down.
It’s times like this when you may want to ask yourself: what’s the most important thing, a healthier body or a smaller body? Yes, you can have both if you’re patient and consistent.
So, this is a kind plea: treat your body better. If the scale has taken over in your weight loss plan, ask yourself how you can eat in a healthier way as opposed to being simply a smaller version of you.
In light of the current Corona virus pandemic, sticking with a more modest deficit could make a big difference with your immune system. A more aggressive diet creates a more stressful physical/mental environment for you, which in turn, can affect your body’s immune system.
In many ways, working methodically towards a healthier body can benefit you at a time like this. Just pay closer attention to how you’re approaching it:
-Eat minimally processed foods
-Aim for lean proteins in every meal
-Focus on fibrous fruits, vegetables and whole grains
-Feel challenged (not crushed) after workouts
-Maintain consistent and restful sleep habits
-Learn your body’s signals about when to push your training and when to pull back
Most importantly, stay healthy and stay safe. Fat loss may not be the most crucial priority in your life right now.
Lift The Bar’s Chris Burgess returns for this week’s bonus episode. He and his team have been working feverishly to prepare personal trainers across the globe to transition and ramp up their clients to train virtually as we deal with the pandemic. This is affecting the fitness industry on an international level and all trainers are experiencing this simultaneously. Lift The Bar has arguably the best resources to dive into so you can make the transition successfully as well. Download, subscribe, share with your friends and please take a moment to leave us an iTunes review.
Jason Leenaarts 