Category: Uncategorized

Adam Willis is both personal/online trainer with Lean Body Performance and podcast host of The Empowered Body Podcast and I’m honored to share the time with him this week. In this episode, we talk about the obstacles he helps his clients work through to overcome and how his own training has evolved now that he is a new father. There is a lot of great insight from a coach who has a great understanding of how to make life and fitness fit together. To learn more about Adam’s work, please subscribe to The Empowered Body podcast on your listening app of choice and follow him on Instagram at www.instagram.com/_adamwillis To learn more about your host, check out www.jasonleenaarts.com and www.revfittherapy.com You can also like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/revolutionaryou Download, subscribe, share with your friends and please take a moment to leave us an iTunes review.

iTunes OR Stitcher OR iHeartRadio

Throughout my entire life, my father was a Goodyear employee right up until he passed in 2011. As a result of his time there, we moved around a lot (on average every 3 years until I graduated in 1994.)

And maybe as a by-product of having to get settled in somewhere, make new friends, adjust to a given state/country and then move again, I think I struggled to find how to fit in and find my way.

As part of that struggle, even going back to elementary school, I started hiding my bad grades from my parents.

I told this story to my clients recently as well.

I just wasn’t all that interested in doing great in school. Sure, there were some subjects I had a knack for but, by and large, the motivation to excel was rarely there.

I coupled that with the fear of disappointing my parents which I never wanted to do.

Frequently,  I would find myself midway through a given semester and looking at C’s, D’s and the occasional F in class.

Mid-term reports would be handed out and I learned how to forge my parent’s signatures so they wouldn’t have to see how bad things were at the time.

If they asked (and they usually did) how things were going, I would always tell them the highlights. God forbid my parents find out the truth of the matter.

And it bought me some time over the rest of the semester to pull my grades back up and try to pull some miracle out of my ass by time they got the official report card.

A story my mother will still tell to this day is that she remembers sitting in a parent-teacher conference and being told: “Jason knows exactly what to do. But I can look in his eyes when giving out an assignment and know that he’s not going to do it.”

This might explain why I would never be a successful poker player…

And while I would love to believe that most of my clients were better students than I was and never resorted to this type of behavior, I see a similar thing happen with their respective weight loss challenges.

Rarely will a client tell me how they’re “failing” or only getting C’s, D’s and F’s on their diet.

Admitting that things aren’t ideal is hard. It’s not common to find the person who openly and candidly says: I can’t make the pieces fit right now.

As the coach, it’s these moments that I need to hear the most…exactly when they’re happening.

What many clients forget is that their training time is such a small part of their lives. At best, maybe it’s an hour of a given day. Which means there are 23 more hours to either screw things up in grand fashion or keep grinding away at those fundamentals to lock in better skills, better habits.

I shouldn’t be melodramatic about this though. It’s difficult (not impossible) to undo good progress in just one day.

What we (as coaches) see, is that the one bad day can turn into several and then weeks and then the client wonders why progress can’t be found.

Had my parents been more aware of my struggles, I could have had a tutor. I could have had better grades and felt more self worth within the school system by applying myself and reaping the rewards. I was smart enough to get by but honestly…who the hell just wants to get by?

If you’re a client of mine, this is just a kind reminder to show me the “bad grades” too. Those are the ones I really need to see. It’s great that you show me the “good grades” of coming in and acing your workout.

What about all the other “classes” you’re taking? You know, those LIFE classes?

And if you’re not a client of mine but a casual reader, think about your own grades: The ones you brag about and the ones you hide.

Which ones will get you closer to where you want to be?

“We Make Great People Greater”

(Here’s Coach Sebastian, warming up the deadlift platform for the other lifters. He’s too young to hide his grades from us…for now.)

 

 

 

It has literally been years since I’ve turned an episode into a client spotlight and those who are currently part of the RevFit family already know the force that is Erin Riffle. Without stealing too much of her thunder, Erin has seen some pretty amazing things happen for her since she started here. Tune in to hear the details. To learn more about your host, check out www.jasonleenaarts.com and www.revfittherapy.com You can also like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/revolutionaryou Download, subscribe, share with your friends and please take a moment to leave us an iTunes review.

iTunes OR Stitcher OR iHeartRadio

It’s a question I receive during consultations so frequently that I couldn’t deny writing something more elaborate about it.

Before I delve into my take on this question, one of the best responses I’ve heard to this is by Dr. Yoni Freedhoff. His response:

“…Whatever weight a person reaches living the healthiest life that they can honestly enjoy. Because truly there will become a point where a person cannot happily eat less and a point where a person cannot happily exercise more and their weight is what I’d refer to as their best weight.”

It’s really hard to find any disagreement with this statement.

When a potential client sits down with me and we begin to discuss where weight is currently versus where they would like it to be, that variance can be large.

This, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If there is considerable weight to lose, then the numbers are what they are.

…until they’re not.

Suppose Susan (not a real client) got married at 26 years of age, she is now 48. In the last 22 years she has had two kids, both of whom are either out of or on their way out of college and focusing on their career trajectories. Susan herself has settled into the routine of a fairly sedentary job and lifestyle. As time has passed, her eating habits have become more lax and her weight has steadily crept up.

She has embarked on several trendy diets over those last 22 years (especially the years after her first child was born) and nevertheless has reached a weight that she can no longer tolerate. Susan has now decided it’s time to take back control over her health and get this weight off once and for all.

The line of questioning might go something like this:

Me: May I ask, roughly or accurately, do you know what your current weight is?

Susan: Last time I checked, I was around 220.

Me: Thank you, and do you know where you would like to be?

Susan: Hmm…I think I’d really like to be 150.

Me: When was the last time you were at 150?

Susan: (laughs) Oh geez, maybe my junior year of high school when I was playing softball!

So, we’re looking at a 70lb journey with a woman who is likely in or near peri-menopause/menopause and has had two children since she was last at her proposed weight goal.

Is this weight goal possible? Sure.

Is it realistic? I really don’t know.

You see, what Susan may or may not be cognizant of is that her body has gone through a tremendous amount of change since that junior year of high school. Marriage happened, two kids happened, stress in all manifestations happened.

And so, if we play the whole calories in vs calories out game (which is the overly simplified version of how the ‘magic’ happens), Susan will lose weight.

If she is patient, continues to be mindful of her eating habits, trains responsibly, etc. she may very well get to her mind’s eye weight of 150.

But at what cost?

What will Susan have to sacrifice and compromise to lose 70lbs as she is inching closer to 50 years of age?

Well, for starters, it will affect much of her personal and professional life.

Her husband may or may not also be looking to lose weight and while he claims to be supportive, he has different motivations, goals, needs, etc.

Her co-workers may also ebb and flow with weight loss and weight gain. They all mingle together to talk about the next round of trendy diets to come across the newstands, social media, Dr. Oz, and late-night infomercials.

So, when Susan tries yet again to lose weight, she’ll have to determine which boats she is most willing to rock.

And let’s assume that Susan is really (no, really) ready to get serious and lose the weight this time.

If we take an industry standard weight loss timeline of 1-2lbs per week of loss, it could take Susan anywhere from 8-16 months to reach her goal weight. If we throw in every possible holiday, hiccup, work social, etc. into the mix, it could even double the timeline.

There’s a strange thing that can happen with weight loss that I wish more people considered before they started:

Sometimes the weight a client used to be no longer wears well on their bodies.

And while that arbitrary dream number that they tell themselves they must achieve sounds nice in conversation, it just isn’t a good place to be mentally or physically.

I’ve watched clients become so driven on the end goal (whether it be a goal weight of “X” or total pounds lost of “Y”) that they lose sight of other, more important markers like:

-How has my social life changed?

-How is my sleep?

-How are my energy levels?

-Can I “live” this way?

Not to mention, other things can change and not always for the better. The face may show more signs of creases/wrinkling. The cheeks can become more gaunt. The elasticity of the skin can be so much more dramatic that cosmetic surgery is the next elective in line after the weight goal is attained.

I should be fair in saying that none of these changes are inherently bad. A healthier body is a healthier body. But if we lead back to Dr. Yoni’s statement, are you living your happiest life?

The actual process of weight loss: eating in a deficit and training consistently is not easy and it can frequently be “not fun.” Once you’ve accepted that given amount of discomfort and displeasure to reach a healthier weight, you may have to ask yourself: Is my original goal the best goal for me now?

For Susan, she could get to 150 and look and feel like a million bucks. That is one reality.

And another, perhaps a more likely reality, is that maybe she gets to 170-180 and tells herself “You know what? I’m not at my goal but I feel pretty damn good. I like how I fit in my clothes, I like the luxuries I can now afford myself with food and even though I’m probably never going to see 150 again, I’m proud of myself for what I’ve accomplished.”

The journey is yours to succeed with. The outcome is yours to be satisfied with.

The numbers…well, let’s just say, they never tell the “whole picture.”

So, what should you weigh?

Ask your happiest self.

“We Make Great People Greater.”

(This is Heather, down 26lbs, healthier and happier than when she started and her journey is still going.)

 

 

 

 

Jay Ashman of Ashman Strength and Kansas City Barbell joins me this week for his debut on the show. Jay is one of the most open and candid people I know in the fitness industry and one of the things that has drawn me to him, is his transparency about his past and how he changed his life through those experiences. We cover a lot in this episode and, as I have tried to routinely do, we delve into some controversial topics. To learn more about Jay’s work, please visit http://www.kcbarbell.com and http://www.ashmanstrength.com To learn more about your host, check out http://www.jasonleenaarts.com and http://www.revfittherapy.com You can also like our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/revolutionaryou Download, subscribe, share with your friends and please take a moment to leave us an iTunes review.

iTunes OR Stitcher OR iHeartRadio

I grew up in a rock ‘n’ roll household. My father played bass and guitar throughout his adolescence and into adulthood. My mother was a singer.

Through my father I learned to appreciate classic rock and 70’s folk music, through my mother I learned to love Top 40 pop/rock and some of the 80s hair metal that was so prevalent on MTV back then.

And when you grow up like that, it’s easy to understand how the classics like The Beatles, The Stones, Bowie, and Clapton could all be heard throughout my life.

If there was a common thread, I would say The Beatles probably won the lot. I recall when Paul McCartney was touring in the early 2000’s, I went on two separate occasions to see him. Once with my Mom (and Jackson’s mom who was my girlfriend at the time) and once with my Dad.

This tour fell shortly after the death of George Harrison (who coincidentally died on my birthday in 2001.)

During that show, Paul sang tributes to Lennon and Harrison. There was hardly a dry eye in the arena. My mother cried. My father cried. And I think the shared sentiment between them was that since they missed hearing the Beatles in their heyday live in concert, a show like this was a good as it would get.

In the late 90s, a band very much inspired by the Beatles became a huge sensation in the U.S. with their hit Wonderwall. That band (in case you don’t already know) was Oasis.

I turned my Dad onto Oasis and I had a feeling he would really like them. I wasn’t wrong. Dad loved the spin that the Gallagher brothers put on a very Lennon-inspired modern take of The Beatles. Some critics couldn’t look past the similarities. But I have been an Oasis fan ever since and Dad loved everything of theirs I ever played for him.

When Oasis split in 2009, I was disappointed but not completely surprised. The Gallagher brothers were known to have a volatile relationship and it finally hit it’s peak.

Liam (the lead singer) took the majority of Oasis with him and formed a group called Beady Eye. Noel, the primary songwriter of Oasis, struck out with another band he called Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. It didn’t take long before each group started to put out their own material.

Not surprisingly, Beady Eye sounded nearly identical to Oasis save for some less than spectacular lyrics and something of a one-dimensional approach to their music.

Their second single from the album was a song called “The Roller.” It was released in February of 2011.

On February 16th, 2011, my father was admitted into the hospital. He was in the last stages of his short battle with bone marrow cancer (multiple myeloma.)

He would spend (almost to the day) one month in the hospital until the doctors released him to come home. We knew our time was running out.

When Dad got home and was settled into bed, I was talking with him and I asked him if he remembered Oasis. He said he did and I told him about the splintering of the group. I asked him if he had any interest in hearing Beady Eye’s new song. I climbed into the bed with him and fired it up.

If you’ve never heard the song before, it kicks in with a piano, a guitar and Liam’s voice. The first line begins:

“You didn’t know what to say, but I’ll come at you today…”

And my father started crying.

“Dad, are you okay?”

And my father’s words to me were:

“It’s like a dream. When the music and the words come together, it makes my pain go away.”

I’ve never seen music touch him as much as that song did then.

On Wednesday, March 23 2011, I came home from work and played him the song again. He was having trouble opening his eyes but he could hear perfectly fine.

His voice had faded to a whisper.

He nodded his head and smiled as he listened to the song from beginning to end.

My Dad passed away about 2 hours later.

Like my mother, there are certain bands and certain songs I have difficulty listening to after all these years since he passed. When I hear them, I only see my Dad. It’s not necessarily a bad thing as I believe I think of him multiple times a day anyway.

I can tell you, it’s really hard to listen to the Beatles without my Dad around.

But this song, “The Roller“, it still punches me right in my gut when I hear it.

It was the last song my father heard before he left this world.

I miss him. I loved him.

As our family spends the next several days remembering who my father was to us as this anniversary rolls around for yet another year, I have a favor to ask of those of you reading this today.

If you knew my Dad, play a song that reminds you of him. If you want to play “The Roller“, you can. But it probably won’t have the same effect on you as it did for he and I.

And if you didn’t get the chance to meet Dad when he was still here with us, I apologize. You would have loved him.

In that case, play a song that reminds you of the gift we have of life.

My Dad loved that gift and he shared it with everyone.

It would be my hope that you cherish that gift not just today but for the remainder of the time you are here in this world as well.

To credit any one person for the growth my writing has seen over the last year or so, it would undoubtedly be Stephanie Lee. Rather than hoard her expertise to myself (and those who have also hired her services) I had to bring her on the show so more people could connect with her as well. Stephanie is firing up the next round of her already successful class, “Write For Impact.” This is a time-sensitive link so make sure you act soon! Listeners can find out more through the special link http://www.stephanielee.me/hello-revfit-radio To learn more about Stephanie, visit her website at http://www.stephanielee.me and connect with her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/superlee7 To learn more about your host, visit http://www.jasonleenaarts.com and http://www.revfittherapy.com You can also like our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/revolutionaryou Download, subscribe, share with your friends and please take a moment to leave us an iTunes review.

iTunes OR Stitcher OR iHeartRadio

I can’t believe it’s been since way back at Episode 59 that Fat Loss Foodies’ Leslie Ann Quillen was last with me! We had a great conversation back then and she returns this week to give updates on all the great things she has been doing with FLF since then. In this episode, we also chat about taking our power back over the food we eat and some strategies for metabolic flexibility in dieting. To learn more about Leslie’s work, check out http://www.fatlossfoodies.com and follow them on Instagram at http://www.instagram.com/fatloss_foodies To learn more about your host, visit http://www.jasonleenaarts.com and http://www.revfittherapy.com You can also like our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/revolutionaryou Download, subscribe, share with your friends and please take a moment to leave us an iTunes review. 

iTunes OR Stitcher OR iHeartRadio

My body hates me.

I remember when I first got certified as a personal trainer (circa 2007), I tore my rotator cuff. Here I was, barely two months with my certification and I couldn’t even do my normal workouts.

Instead, I spent about six months alternating between physical therapy and some prescription painkillers until the recovery was finished.

Fast forward twelve years and due to the nature of my work here, I am constantly moving, demoing exercises, twisting, turning, squatting, lifting, OH AND I also have to fit in my own training.

So, I am pretty much always fighting some type of injury/soreness/vulnerability/you name it and it pisses me off.

There is a certain individual who says “The Hell With It” and just powers through the pain. (That normally doesn’t end well.)

There is the other individual who is probably more hyper-sensitive to these things and would rather stay home and mope about it. (That sounds pretty awful also.)

I can’t really afford to be either one of those people.

You see, I HAVE to be able to do my job. And I also HAVE to find a way to train my body effectively.

Which means, in the grand scheme of things, some priorities may have to show some slack.

It may mean that some exercises are temporarily or permanently out of the mix.

It may mean that I have to modify the range of motion to perform an exercise so that I can execute it in a pain-free manner.

When I quit expecting perfection from myself, I gave myself new benchmarks that could ebb and flow based on how I feel.

If my elbow starts bothering me, I change my grip on certain exercises or I remove them temporarily and focus on other less painful variations.

If my knee starts barking at me, I take a break on lower body work for a few days.

When my back (the area that has suffered the most trauma) is really flared up, I know what to remove until it’s settled down again.

I am NEVER without ways to make progress no matter what is bothering me.

Part of this mindset, this arguably more effective mindset, is the ability to not expect perfection from your body.

My client, June, was recently on a skiing trip. A freak accident occurred and she tore her ACL and MCL. Even when she was on crutches and laid up with the injury, she texted me and asked “Are there things I can do for my upper body? Because there’s NO WAY I’m going to stop working out!”

That was music to my ears. Despite what could have been a huge detriment to her training progress, June knew there was another way to keep progress going.

I went through a similar thing with Ken a couple of years ago when he was taking a leisurely run outside of his home and broke his foot. We found a way to work around it.

But what does this mean for you?

Your body will sometimes behave when you ask it to.

Other times, your body will do whatever it damn well pleases despite your not so subtle urges otherwise (ask a dieter how they feel about this!)

Maybe you’re one of the fortunate ones who never or rarely has to deal with an injury in the gym (I envy you, by the way.)

Maybe what you’re dealing with has less to do with what the gym does to you and more to do with your conversations in the mirror.

Do you agonizingly flap your “batwings?”

Are crunches and planks the solution to whittle away at your “muffin top?”

Can any amount of push-ups and bench presses get rid of your “moobs?”

The answer to those questions is typically NOT what people want to hear.

It generally involves some combination of caloric restriction and depending on how your body has changed with the ups-and-downs of weight plus giving birth to children, menopause, etc. you may actually be looking into cosmetic surgery as well.

I would LOVE to tell you that diet and exercise fix everything but that would be dishonest.

Diet and exercise fix a lot but they don’t fix it all.

If you’re anything like me and you feel that aggravating urge to berate your terrible, awful, worthless body (which in reality is none of those things) having a more open dialogue with yourself helps.

If your challenges with your health go beyond a given injury or vulnerability, ask yourself “What within your power can you change?”

If you have “batwings”, how can you continue to modify your eating plan and training plan to focus on overall fat loss (for the physique) and stronger, leaner arms? Are you willing to get cosmetic work for the things that diet and exercise cannot directly change?

Often, we misplace our frustrations with ourselves to the things we cannot change on our own but continue to live in misery with. Or we recognize something is within our control and just opt out and do nothing.

Ultimately, we determine our own misery and frustration with our bodies. If “comparison is the thief of joy”, why are we constantly comparing instead of working on the one thing in this world we actually can change?

Ourselves.

So, what I decided to do with my terrible, awful, worthless body was work on it bit by bit. Every day, one fraction of a step closer to something I can be satisfied with.

That journey ends when our lives do which means that every day is a chance to progress. The alternative leads to nowhere (or rather, nowhere appealing.)

Which road are you taking?

“We Make Great People Greater”

Dani Singer is the owner of Fit2Go, an in-home personal training service. In this episode, we cover the importance of what happens outside of the training sessions to make sure clients get the best results possible. Dani breaks down why it’s crucial to focus on small, sustainable habits especially when the lives of our clients already have so much that can stand in the way of their progress. To learn more about the PAUL method that Dani references, check out www.fit2gopt.com/be-paul and check out www.fit2gopt.com to learn more about Dani himself and the great work he’s doing. For more on your host, visit www.jasonleenaarts.com and www.revfittherapy.com You can also like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/revolutionaryou Download, subscribe, share with your friends and please take a moment to leave us an iTunes review.

iTunes OR Stitcher OR iHeartRadio