Last week, I saw a woman on social media saying that she would never take fat loss advice from a coach who’s never needed to lose weight.

Her rationale being that if someone has never lived in a large(r) body, they aren’t qualified to give expert advice on how to lose it or keep it off. They simply don’t know what it’s like to be in those shoes.

And I started to think about a variety of coaches I know who actively coach fat loss for their clients:

-There are coaches who used to weigh much more than they currently do, found a way to lose that weight and maintain that loss, and want to inspire others to do the same.

-There are coaches whose only experience being in a large(r) body comes from the weight they gained when they were pregnant and they use their experience of post-partum fat loss to help inspire others to get the body they want.

-There are others who grew up as athletes and maybe went through bulking and cutting protocols to make weight for certain events. They also try to use that experience to help them coach fat loss clients.

-Some coaches have never lived in large(r) bodies but have spent years taking on fat loss clients, learning what methods and tips help their clients to succeed and try to spread that word out to others.

-And then you might have coaches like me, who’ve never lived in large(r) bodies but have struggled with maladaptive behaviors like drug/alcohol abuse or addictions and found a way to see common ground between people who abused substances and people who abuse/misuse food intake.

If you’re someone who has struggled with fat loss for most of your life, it may be difficult to find people who understand your own personal struggle.

Many of these struggles are multi-factorial: they come from emotional dysregulation, perhaps unsupportive family members/loved ones, a lack of coping mechanisms when times are difficult, poverty or certain medical challenges.

I can remember during the ten years that I struggled with addiction, that drugs were there for every reason I needed them: happiness, sadness, boredom, frustration, feelings of celebration and feelings of despair.

For every emotion (or lack thereof), drugs were there to get me through.

Until they weren’t…until I made the decision to find other ways to work through my emotions and drugs were no longer the option.

However, at no point during those ten years did I seek out or find my best inspiration to quit from people who were former addicts and got clean.

I’m not saying their stories weren’t inspirational (they were) but it wasn’t former addicts who gave me the best advice.

It was people who had never been addicts to begin with.

My best inspiration came from the people who found healthier ways to cope with life, who saw life from a lens that an addict like me hadn’t considered.

However, asking other people to think like me or be motivated by the same types of inspiration is a recipe for disaster.

In the comment section of that woman’s original post, many coaches responded by listing how long they had been coaching fat loss clients, how many pounds they had helped people shed, what certifications they had, etc.

It didn’t make the woman change her mind, rather she stood her ground, dug her heels in and stayed true to her original sentiment.

I will credit her in this way: She absolutely has a right to be comfortable with whomever she chooses to help her reach her goals. If the person who lights that path is also a coach who has “been there, done that”, I think it’s awesome.

It can be easy to forget or overlook that hiring a coach is very much relationship-driven: If you believe this person respects you, hears you, meets you where you’re at and can pivot with advice in real time, then you’re already several steps closer to your goal.

Truth is, any of those coach examples I provided above can be a great resource for fat loss information or a terrible one. It depends on the coach and it depends on the coaching relationship.

And while the original post might have been a bit inflammatory, there’s also the chance that the woman who wrote it had been burned by people who had not lived an experience closer to hers. In my mind, it might feel like taking parenting advice from someone who’s never been a parent before.

But on that note, sometimes the best inspiration to succeed, to do better and be better, can come from the most unlikely of places…

(Photo courtesy of AllGo)

I first started writing about the increasingly popular GLP-1 receptor agonist medications (GLP-1s for short) about two years ago.

Much of what I wrote back then was informed by my time working alongside Dr. Spencer Nadolsky and a team of nutrition coaches when we were part of his online nutrition coaching program, Big Rocks.

I remain grateful for that time and those experiences to help shape the way I viewed the medications and how I view them now.

Much like I would embrace and support a client who elected to have bariatric surgery, the same applies to those who choose to take a GLP-1 to assist with fat loss.

Normally, someone must have a BMI higher than 35 to qualify for weight loss surgery if another condition is present such as diabetes or high blood pressure. If BMI is over 40, the associated condition does not need to be present.

By comparison, you can have a BMI lower than 35 to qualify for a GLP-1 but you may be limited in how you receive the medication: 27 BMI or higher with an associated condition and 30 or higher without.

This also opens up the conversation into the source of the medication.

Currently, if you wanted access to a GLP-1, you could talk to your doctor and get a prescription for the pharmaceutical grade options or there are a host of avenues if you want a compounded version of the same medication. The latter appears to be a way to receive a GLP-1 regardless of your current BMI.

That being said, the FDA is currently trying to crackdown on the compounded versions and it remains to be seen how much longer they will be available on the market.

As is the case for nutritional supplements, if there is no third party to verify what’s in the medication, you have no guarantee that what you’re taking actually has the appropriate ingredients (or hasn’t been spiked with something else altogether).

Historically, the compounded options have been more cost-effective for those looking to use them and the FDA’s actions may present issues for those who need the medications but can no longer afford them.

Arguably, the most popular form of GLP-1 on the market is semaglutide (also known as Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus), however, tirzepatide (Mounjaro and Zepbound) appear to have better results with fewer negative side effects.

It’s important to note that there are more GLP-1s coming down the pipeline too. Cagrisema and retatrutide are two medications that are going to be hitting the market over the next year or two and it stands to reason that as new medications hit the market, they will likely be more powerful/effective with fewer side effects and it will bring the cost of older medications down.

As with any medication, it’s hard to know how an individual will react until they start taking it. Some people are hyper-responders and start seeing positive results at low dosages and others are slow responders and may not start seeing results until dosages are much higher.

While some degree of gastrointestinal discomfort is most commonly associated with the GLP-1s, some tips to reduce those symptoms are to eat smaller, more frequent meals, drinking enough water, and having some protein with each meal.

Headlines might scare you into thinking you might get “Ozempic face” or “Ozempic butt” but what people tend to miss is that the same aesthetic changes might also take place if someone were simply dieting aggressively and losing the same amount of weight without regard for maintenance and preservation of lean muscle mass.

On that note, it’s my strong suggestion that ANYONE who is taking a GLP-1 should also be strength training to preserve their lean muscle mass and getting in enough protein to support that goal. Unfortunately, too many people are taking the medications just to get the scale to move and they aren’t prioritizing building a stronger body and nourishing themselves with the right amounts and types of food.

While I’ve mentioned this in previous writings, I’ll mention it again here for convenience’s sake. The basic mechanism behind the GLP-1 making them so effective is that they delay gastric emptying. Phrased differently, you register fullness sooner. This sends a signal to the brain that you can stop eating when you might have normally finished the plate. As long as this process equates to an energy deficit for the day/week, the scale will respond in kind.

Some other interesting things can happen on the medications as well. I’ve worked with individuals who’ve lost or reduced many of their food/alcohol cravings. One client of mine noted that once they started the medications they no longer wanted to drink. And for those who struggle with constant “food noise”, they also report a reduction in those pervasive feelings.

All of which can help an individual adhere to a food plan allowing an energy deficit to be achieved with less effort.

So, what happens when you get off of the medications?

Well, MOST people will regain MOST of the weight they lost.

Why?

Because once the medication is out of your system, your rate of digestion goes back to normal and if there’s no “governor” to tell you when to stop eating, your hunger will then go right back to where it was prior to starting the meds.

The reality is, some people will remain sensitive to and aware of the portions and sizes they were successful with and manage their diets without the GLP-1s, but most will not.

Which is why, many responsible practitioners will tell their patients that there is a great likelihood they will remain on some dosage/type of the medication indefinitely.

I heard a coach recently make the comment that the people who are usually most critical of the usage of GLP-1s are the people who will probably never need them. While I’m sure there are exceptions to that statement, it’s also hard to argue with.

I’ve maintained a fairly simple view of this: If you knew someone had struggled with moderate to severe depression for most of their lives and the best way to give them quality of life was to find the right type and dosage of a antidepressant, you’d support that choice. I find GLP-1s to be much the same. If you knew someone had struggled with not just fat loss, but maintenance of weight lost, relentless food noise, and perhaps other conditions which could be reversed like Type II diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. and this medication allows them to live a life of higher quality, support that decision.

We all (myself included) have a very different relationship with food, with our bodies, with the gym, with what we believe our bodies “should” look and perform like and I think each person should be supported in mostly equal measure as long as it appears what they’re doing is safe.

GLP-1s aren’t going anywhere and I would imagine the next 5-10 years will be very eye-opening in terms of what’s available and what’s possible to help someone succeed with fat loss.

At the end of the day, I’ll encourage again that whether you take a GLP-1 or not, make sure you’re lifting weights, make sure you’re getting stronger, make sure you’re consuming enough protein, and make sure that somewhere in the process that you love yourself enough and respect yourself enough to make the best decisions you can.

(Photo courtesy of Haberdoedas)

For anyone trying to succeed with fat loss, beyond the calories you’re taking in or expending, at some point you have to sort out your food cravings.

Each person on that journey is motivated in different ways and, as with any fat loss tools, what works for one won’t work for another and no tool works universally well for all.

The first thing I want to mention is that cravings aren’t emergencies. You’re not going to suffer any adverse health effects if you skip the cookie, the chip or the alcohol (barring any medical issues that contradict that statement).

There’s a tool called “urge surfing” which is credited to G. Alan Marlatt as part of Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention and was utilized to help in recovery with addictions.

Simply put, “urges”, or in the context of this article, “cravings” will come and go. The premise is just like a surfer will ride a wave into the shore, you’ll also ride out a craving until it subsides.

This may require you being more present in mind when the craving comes, finding things that occupy yourself so that you’re less likely to ruminate over the craving and then letting it pass.

Cravings likely will not be eliminated completely even if you fancy yourself as a “professional urge surfer.”

So, for the rest of us mere mortals who do have cravings (some significantly more than others), there are other tools which can help.

Many people crave sweets, specifically sweet, fatty foods: cookies, cakes, muffins, etc. The reality is that some people don’t crave sweets at all and prefer something salty like chips, crackers or pretzels. Some crave alcohol. For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to assume that everyone who craves a food is craving something sweet like a cookie.

One tool is to have a small cookie you can look forward to almost daily. This might be a smaller cookie like an Oreo. Whether you have one or two Oreos is up to the individual. What’s more important is that you know you’re not depriving yourself of it. Some people may find this is an easier tool to stick with when the cookies have been portioned out rather than digging into an entire package of Oreos.

Another tool is to save the daily luxury for something larger and perhaps more decadent. This might be something like a Crumbl cookie once a week. To compare, one Oreo has about 70 calories. One Crumbl cookie has about 700 calories. If you know that you have that larger treat to look forward to each week, you may be able to manage not having sweets every single day.

A slightly different tactic, which shifts the reward from a weekly one to something tied to a goal. For instance, you may elect to discontinue sweets until you reach a certain milestone. That milestone might be the first 5 or 10 pounds down. Or maybe it’s when you drop a pant size. Then, when you reach that milestone, you treat yourself to that special treat and then reset the process again. When the next milestone is set, sweets are temporarily put on the backburner and you towards your goal for the next round.

Some all-or-nothing individuals will thrive when they completely remove all temptation. No sweets until they hit their goal. I’m not saying this is the “right” approach or even the “best” approach. I am saying, it works really well for certain people.

At the heart of this, it helps to establish that the cookie is inherently neither good nor bad. It just “is”. It’s a type of food that one person can moderate successfully and another person cannot. That doesn’t make one person better than the other. If cookies are not your vulnerability, you can swap out that food option for something else, like “wine” or “beer” or “french fries”.

Taking a different perspective, for many, defaulting to food when life gets boring, uncomfortable, messy (or all of the above) is where people tend to lose ground. It’s not that food can’t ever be a soothing comfort.

It can.

But you will likely find better results in the long run when you have other avenues to travel to help self soothe. That might mean lifting weights, taking the dog for a walk, calling a friend, taking a bath/shower, reading a book, watching a movie, cleaning a room, doing laundry, playing an instrument, having some downtime with your kids/pets, journaling, etc.

Need some help along the way? Drop me a line.

(Photo courtesy of Charles Deluvio)

Several months ago, the building where I first opened the doors to RevFit was torn down.

With that, goes the physical landmark of where our story began.

As many know, when I started the business in May of 2009, I didn’t know anyone and I was starting from the ground up.

The woman who would become my first client, in a fascinating turn of events, is now my mother-in-law.

It’s funny how those things work out.

We left that building in efforts to expand in 2012 and moved from the city of Hudson just over the border into the city of Stow (a little over a half mile from our original location.)

The plaza we moved into, The Shoppes of Stow, became our next home as we nestled into a not-so-visible corner of the plaza.

That space allowed us to grow and by 2017, we needed a new playground.

In November of that year, we expanded into the far left corner of our plaza where we took over 3000+ sq ft of space, a unit that was 3 times what I had when I first opened up.

It’s been our home ever since.

As much as I would love to tell you, that each year when our anniversary comes up, it gets easier to talk about it, that’s not entirely true.

In fact, the longer we’ve been in business the more I find myself dumbstruck and at a loss for words for where we are now. Most of that is just out of sheer gratitude.

What many don’t know is that the average personal trainer leaves the industry within the first year to year and a half. There isn’t enough credit given to how difficult building your initial client base takes.

As I’ve watched and will likely continue to watch “competitors” come and go, it’s hard to gauge who will stand the test of time and who won’t.

Historically, I’ve found that the more fitness facilities we have in the area, the better business is for RevFit.

But to be honest, the business landscape in a “post-COVID” world is anything but predictable.

As I try to look back objectively on the last 16 years, it’s with an immense amount of pride, satisfaction, happiness and with no small amount of appreciation for the “luck” we’ve had, I’ve probably forgotten more memories than I’ve retained.

But a few key principles remain:

-We have an absolutely amazing community. I am 1000% biased, of course, but never in my working career have I been able to walk through the doors of a business I’m involved in and look forward to the day as much as I do here. When you have a clientele that embraces you and encourages you to keep improving like ours do here, it’s a reminder we ALL are here to get a little bit better every day; from the coaches to the clients.

-I have a staff that I continue to admire and be proud of. Words can’t express what working alongside Coaches Mike Roder, David Cameron, Nick Morton and Marcus Masters has been like. I might be old enough to be their father (and I am) but these fellas teach me as much as I could ever hope to teach them. In a paternal sense, I hope I’ve given them goals worth shooting for and the path to achieve them.

-The “journey” of self improvement never ends. When I first walked into a gym of my own accord in my early-20s, I felt like I didn’t fit in. When I opened this business, I wanted to build a fitness space where the people who always wanted to fit into a gym could finally find their home. That doesn’t mean everyone will fit in here, I know that RevFit is an acquired taste. We’re loud, we’re ornery but if you give us a try, we’re likely the most devoted “family” you’ll find outside of the one you go home to. As I’ve been known to say more often lately, build a body as strong as you can for as long as you can. We strive to be the place where you can do so indefinitely.

Methods and perspectives for how we approach fitness may have shifted and evolved over time. We’re not the place to punish you into submission, we’re not seeking to burn as many calories as humanly possible, we’re the place the misbehaving adults (and some kiddos, too) come to get stronger, feel better and look better when they’re in their birthday suit.

I’ve heard the term “holistic” used when people describe our approach. While I think the term has been misused over time, we do take into consideration the “whole person” at RevFit. It’s not just how strong you are or how strong you want to be, it’s not just what the scale says you weigh or what you want it to say, it’s about how we try and take every variable that makes you, uniquely you, and say: How do we make this whole person better?

And admittedly, I’ve had to do just as much work on myself, as anything I’d ask a client to do for themselves. That means: get stronger, nourish your body, rest and recover appropriately, have good self care routines, take care of your mental health, read good books, listen to great music, love others but most importantly, respect yourself.

RevFit is now “old enough to drive”, raging hormones and all.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to every single person: past and present who has brought us here.

I remain in your debt.

Humbly, Jason Leenaarts, owner and head coach.

(Pictured behind me is what’s left of where RevFit began)

Many of my readers know that my oldest son, Jackson (17), has autism.

He is my son from my first marriage and he was diagnosed around the age of 3.

At roughly the same time, my father was dying from cancer.

It was a lot to take in at one time.

Jackson’s mom and I split when he was still an infant and she had the foresight back then, when things were still very rocky between us to remind me: No matter what’s going on between the two of us, we have to do all we can to make sure Jackson has all that he needs.

She was right. And that was well before he would get his diagnosis.

Which meant that her sentiments would carry even more weight and meaning moving forward.

Unlike a lot of people, I didn’t drown myself in information about autism. I didn’t want to read a lot. I wanted to read what would help me directly with my son. I asked for guidance from people who knew more than I did and our respective families, mine and his mother’s, banded together to make sure that Jackson wanted for nothing: he would be loved, he would be supported, he would be cared for and he would be respected.

Throughout Jackson’s life, but certainly when he was much younger, I think I heard every possible “cause” of autism:

-Vaccines (or a component of vaccines)

-Prenatal vitamins

-Environmental toxins

-The mother’s diet during pregnancy

-Exposure to microwave radiation

-Too many ultrasounds during pregnancy, etc.

And while any of those seem “plausible”, nothing has come up as proof.

Jackson is considered high functioning. If you didn’t know much about him and he wasn’t speaking or engaging directly with you, he looks like any other teenage boy.

His biggest challenges relate to having low verbal skills and comprehension.

He will likely never be able to hold a lengthy conversation with open-ended questions.

He will likely never drive a car.

And yet, he is happy, he is healthy, and by many accounts he is thriving.

There are individuals on the autism spectrum who function much higher than Jackson does. Some celebrities and famous individuals we know of who would qualify as being on the higher end of that spectrum include: Anthony Hopkins, Jerry Seinfeld, Albert Einstein, Daryl Hannah, and yes, even an individual who’s been in the public eye a lot lately, Elon Musk.

On the flipside, there are individuals who are considered low functioning or as having severe autism. They might be prone to violent outbursts, they might harm others or themselves, and they may be unable to perform activities of daily living without assistance.

As Jackson’s parents, it’s a thought that hangs in the background of: What will happen to him when we are no longer in this world?

From what’s visible now, it would appear that he could do well in some type of independent living scenario. While Jackson can be resistant to change and sometimes gets upset when schedules or situations don’t go as according to plan, he does show the ability to be flexible if someone is there to help explain what’s happening or changing.

I don’t know a great deal about what other autism parents experience.

Throughout the time I’ve had RevFit, I’ve had the privilege of working with several people who are on the spectrum to varying degrees. Some can hold conversations and follow exercise instructions with relative ease, some cannot.

Most always, I get the chance to talk with the parents to get at least a decent understanding of what living with their neurodivergent child looks like.

It reminds me that, just like being the parent of a child who is neurotypical (I have a 7-year old with my wife Marissa, named Sebastian, who fits this description) everyone has a different parenting experience.

So, while some commonalities exist: a preference for routine, a limited array of food choices, sensory challenges, etc. the adage in the autism community is: If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism. That’s where it ends.

Which leads me to the inspiration for my post today.

Recently, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made some troubling remarks about individuals with autism.

He is apparently concerned about the rate at which autism diagnoses are increasing.

He calls it an “epidemic.”

He states that autism is completely preventable and that we “know it is environmental exposure.”

In his recent press conference he stated: “Autism destroys families…These are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date…and we have to recognize we are doing this to our children.”

My initial response was an emotional one.

No doubt, the “easy” thing for me to do is to attack the person.

But easy doesn’t make it right.

He stated elsewhere in the conference (I’m paraphrasing) that individuals with autism start off normal until about 2 years of age and then something changes.

There is the part of me that has a genuine curiosity: What if we ever found the “cure/cause” of autism?

And let’s assume for a moment that RFK Jr. is right when he says the blame is on environmental toxins.

An example of an environmental toxin might be something like heavy metals. Heavy metals can be found in trace amounts in soil, which can affect the plants we eat, they can be found in animals who live in the sea, they can also be found during the processing of our food.

So, yes, it’s “possible” that these heavy metals enter the bodies of our two year old children and something changes.

Of note, autism is far more prevalent in boys than it is in girls, and while the distribution is close between races, Blacks, Hispanics, Asian American/Pacific Islander boys appear to have higher rates of autism than White boys. I wonder why that is…

RFK Jr. claims he will have these answers for a cause of autism by September of this year. Of course, if (big IF, in my opinion), he is right, I can’t begin to imagine what will have to change in American soil, how we utilize pesticides, how we process foods and what type of waste doesn’t affect the fish in the sea.

I should also mention that it’s not just a problem in America. The increased rate of diagnoses appears to be relatively close in Japan, South Korea, Canada and Australia (not an exhaustive list).

Which makes me wonder as well…since each of those countries have different vaccine protocols, different soil, different food manufacturing practices, etc. are we still focused on environmental toxins or is it something else?

I am not an expert in autism. I don’t see myself as an expert in much of anything. I am someone who aligns with evidence-based scientific reason. Some parts of science I understand, some I don’t. I don’t mind being challenged if evidence leads in a place that doesn’t fit my current bias.

But long-term controlled studies of humans is expensive and difficult to implement which is why we can’t just corral a bunch of two year olds into a room, expose them to all sorts of “boogeymen” and see what sticks.

What I do find immensely upsetting is how RFK Jr made several blanket statements, many of which are grossly untrue (and potentially harmful) about a community of people who need support. My son being just one of them.

If you love someone with autism, what RFK Jr said “should” probably elicit an emotional response from you. If he’s right and he presents a clear cut cause of autism to America, I’ll give credit where it’s due.

I’m also not going to hold my breath.

I have a genuine curiosity about a lot of things and finding a “cause” of autism is something I’m truly curious about, just like I’m curious about finding a cure for cancer.

If RFK Jr. and staff come through, it may not change Jackson’s life, but it might change someone else’s.

Just like a cure for cancer may have come too late to save my father but it might save someone else.

It might be a tough pill to swallow, though, when as any responsible, caring, loving parent is just trying to do the very best to protect and improve the life of their child, if the evidence we’re presented with says: We know you tried your best, but you’re the reason your child has autism and you can’t blame genetics.

If you love someone with autism, love them fully. Love them completely. Even if it’s imperfect.

I can’t, in good conscience, say much of anything about Jackson without giving credit to the person who has arguably sacrificed more than anyone to give him what he has in life, his mother. She, along with her family and loved ones have provided a support system that my family is there to complement. He is who he is, primarily for the time, attention and care she’s given him and for that, I have been and will remain, grateful and thankful for.

If you’d like to read more about the topic beyond my son, this is a good place to start.

On average, I make the 600 mile drive from where we live in Ohio down to my hometown in Tennessee once a year.

On a good day, where you hit no traffic on the way down, it might take 9-9.5 hrs. On a bad day, you can add another 1-2 hours depending on stops and traffic jams.

It’s never an “easy” drive but it’s always worth it to be with family.

My grandmother (and my uncle) on my mom’s side of the family both still live there and my father is buried about 45 minutes outside of the area.

My grandmother recently turned 92 and I wasn’t able to make it down to see her for her special day but I was able to get down there this past weekend.

As I was heading out of town on Sunday to make the trek back up north, “Gram” and I were having some breakfast and coffee and chatting a bit.

She said something that has stuck with me since then, with the inspiration behind the sentiment coming on the heels of her acknowledgement of her age:

Life isn’t easy but it’s not supposed to be…you just find a way through.

I’ve mentioned this before on this site but her words of wisdom reminded me of it again.

Most of the things we value in life are the things it takes the most effort to acquire or achieve.

Parenting isn’t easy but you find value in the things you get right and wrong while raising your children.

Marriage isn’t easy but you make mistakes, you overcome challenges, and you look back with respect for what you’ve built (or rebuilt) with each other.

Taking care of your health isn’t easy but you’ve only got one body to get it right with. Some people start taking care of their body early on, some start later in life. Rarely ever will you hear someone say that it wasn’t worth it.

When Gram said life isn’t easy, she was talking about her own health, how things have changed as she’s aged and what she’s experienced in over nine decades in this world.

I heard a sentiment sometime back and I have to paraphrase it now but it was a list of things that are considered “hard”.

Getting healthy is hard, being sick is harder. Choose your hard. Etc. Etc.

And that seems overly simplistic to me.

I think that what is difficult for one, might be easy (or easier) for another.

I think some people tolerate and manage stress very well, some not so much.

I think some people are very good at time management and some people let their schedules run all over them.

And it still doesn’t change the fact that we’re all going to be faced with obstacles repeatedly which will make our lives more difficult, harder to manage, and more emotionally draining than we anticipated.

At best, we find the people and the tools to help us navigate those times.

If we’re lucky, we have enough self-awareness to be able to look in the mirror and ask: How am I contributing to this mess I’m currently in?

So, this week, it’s a little love note from my Gram to me to you, especially those of you currently struggling through hardships of any magnitude:

Life isn’t easy but it’s not supposed to be…you just find a way through.

And that path normally leads somewhere closer to where you want to be.

When I started RevFit, back in 2009, I needed to do a photo shoot for some marketing materials.

I didn’t know anywhere near as much about nutrition and fat loss as I do now but, like a lot of coaches, I felt like I needed to show off more of my body than I normally do, so the goal was the drop some body fat so I could show off more definition for those pictures.

Around that time, there was an actor on a popular television show, who had to do something similar for a series of episodes: diet down to a certain level of leanness so that his midsection would be more visible on camera.

He was interviewed in a magazine and spoke briefly about the diet he needed to follow for those results.

I looked at him, saw that we had a similarly lean physique, and figured since it wouldn’t have been comparable to me eating a diet like Chris Hemsworth or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, that perhaps I’d get similar results on the same diet.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

No doubt, I did get leaner for the very short amount of time I tried that awful diet, but I felt like absolute garbage and I never felt great about the outcome of those pictures.

And it reminded me of conversations I’ve had throughout the years about comparisons with other people’s bodies.

I’ve been coaching long enough at this point that I remember women asking for Michelle Obama’s arms and Carrie Underwood’s legs.

And of course, men asking for Chris Evans’ chest or Hugh Jackman’s arms.

And the most painful question to ask when it comes to all of this is the one we have the least amount of control over.

Do you have the same parents as the person you’re comparing yourself to?

If the answer is no, then everything that comes after is a roll of the dice.

(To be fair, even if the answer was yes, it would only matter so much).

But there are other questions to ask as well:

What drugs/supplements does that person take that I don’t?

How many hours a day must that person train to be able to have that body (or body part) or how much of their current physique simply comes from genetics?

Can that person afford a nanny for childcare, a personal trainer, a chef, a dietitian, etc. to be able to eat, train, and focus on their body in a way that I cannot?

Does that person have an eating disorder? Or, more importantly, do I?

Is the information I’ve read or heard about how that person eats and trains valid, accurate and comprehensive?

Fact is, you could know every detail down to the last rep and morsel of food as that person you’re comparing against, follow it all to the “t” and your outcomes will be different.

And once I realized that bitter truth for myself, I knew that the only thing I could do, was focus on building the best body I could for me.

Which means, it wouldn’t have mattered if there wasn’t enough context or detail for that TV celebrity I was taking inspiration from. What worked for him likely would never have worked for me because: we don’t share the same DNA and we’re just different people.

Not all comparisons are bad, of course.

If you were a physique competitor or bodybuilder, I can imagine making a vision board of admirable bodies or body parts could be inspirational.

But like a lot of things in life, competition aside, it’s mostly a game of you vs. you.

Let the better version of you win.

Calorie counting works pretty damn well for a certain population of people.

Some people can track long term, some can get by with short term tracking and for everyone else, you can succeed without tracking a thing.

This week’s article will give you thoughts and insights if you want the scale to drop but you don’t want to count calories.

The Movement Solution

I know you already know this but exercise DOES burn calories. It may not burn a lot of calories but you are burning something when you exercise and those calories do add up. Unfortunately, your smart watch is God-awful at estimating how much you burn so the numbers it tells you can be off by a wide margin. Even places like Orange Theory which have successfully found a way to game-ify what you burn in a workout, their estimations are even worse than your smart watch. However, you have an upbeat atmosphere, community support and if that’s what gets you to show up and train, then stick with it. Just don’t get too emotionally caught up in how many calories you burn per session.

Beyond exercise, there’s all the other movement you do in a day: walking from one place to another, taking the steps instead of an elevator, chores, fidgeting, etc. (commonly referred to as NEAT or non-exercise activity thermogenesis). This can contribute to a significant amount of calories expended in a day and when sedentary people can find ways to increase movement into their day this also counts towards your overall expenditure.

While you don’t necessarily have to hit 10k steps a day, increasing your step count to an average that’s higher than where you currently are can reap big benefits over time. It’s not intense movement but it doesn’t have to be, you just have to get your body moving consistently more than what you’ve been used to.

For some people, starting with moving their body is easier for them to psychologically handle than cutting back on food. After the routine is in place with a relatively consistent training schedule, increasing daily step count and getting adequate recovery, it may be easier to make changes to the diet at that point.

NOTE: It’s not uncommon to find people who take a “if some is good, more than that is better” approach to exercise. To an extent, they might be right. However, more exercise “tends” to lead to more hunger, and many people fall into a nasty trap of training hard (burning a lot of calories) and eating more calories back into the equation. The end result? No success with fat loss.

The Food Solution

So, if you’re not going to count calories, how do you succeed at fat loss?

You find places to cut back.

You can reduce/eliminate alcohol.

You can reduce/eliminate dining out.

You can reduce/eliminate ultra-processed treats (candies, cakes, donuts, ice cream, etc.)

You can use smaller plates/bowls than normal.

You can leave food behind.

You can swap out starchy carbs (rice, bread, potatoes, pasta) for fibrous veggies like green beans, broccoli, asparagus, etc.

You can cut out post-dinner eating.

You can reduce/eliminate calorie laden drinks (not including protein shakes): milk, juice, full calorie carbonated beverages, or souped up caffeinated drinks (coffee or tea with cream, sugar, etc.)

You can slow down the rate at which you consume food.

For yourself, you’re trying to zoom out on your current eating habits and understanding the magnitude of your food choices.

For instance, if you tell yourself you’re going to stop eating cookies, that’s fine. However, if you only average one cookie a week, it’s not likely to make a difference. If you’re someone who eats cookies every day, that’s going to have a greater effect.

If you elect to cut out alcohol, try not to replace those calories with something of a similar caloric profile. Switching out 200 calories of booze for 200 calories of walnuts (despite being a “healthy” fat) isn’t going to do much to get you closer to your fat loss goals.

Truth is, MOST (not all) people know exactly where the slippery areas of their diet are. Whether or not they want to change those areas is another conversation entirely.

However, if your weight has been hovering in the same basic area for weeks (if not months) on end, you are somehow managing to eat in alignment with what your body currently burns in a day. Something has to take the scales out of balance.

NOTE: There’s nothing inherently wrong with low calorie diets. That being said, if you’re trying to go low calorie every day, you may find that energy, mood, libido, and sleep become negatively affected. Try alternating lower intake days with higher intake days. You don’t have to be in a deficit every single day of your life and women who are currently still having periods may need to take a maintenance break during that time of the month.

The Medical Solution

For some people, the solution is to go the route of the increasingly popular (and effective) GLP-1 receptor agonist medications for fat loss. These medications (among other factors) slow down gastric emptying and send a signal from the gut to brain to say: Hey, I’m full! and this signal is typically occurring sooner than normal. This allows the user to eat less than normal and achieve an energy deficit.

There are other mechanisms at play with these medications and some people respond better to them than others. However, for people who have struggled with their weight for most of their lives, these can be helpful in getting a patient to eat less without necessarily counting any calories.

Bear in mind, that should you get off of the medications, the rate of gastric emptying will likely go back to what it was prior to the medication. For this reason, many people will likely need to stay on the meds indefinitely (even if it’s at a lower maintenance dose).

Taking a GLP-1 medication for weight loss doesn’t make calories less important, what it can do is reduce your intake to the point where you remain in a deficit without being hyper-aware of the calories you’re taking in.

NOTE: Just like gastric bypass surgery can help an individual take in fewer calories, these medications can work in similar ways. They aren’t fool proof and some people can still “out eat” the medication but if your body is responding as it “should” at the right dosages, then fat loss should be a foregone conclusion.

Something I find interesting, the longer I coach, is that some people tend to get very anxious about the health decisions they make.

I believe social media, and the vast amount of contradictory advice probably feeds into the anxiety.

So, this week’s post is a way to take some pieces of information, give you some guidance and allow you to make improvements so that you’re not “sweating the small stuff.”

How much water should I be drinking? If I’m being honest, I normally like to find out what someone’s baseline for water intake is. I also like to figure out what else they drink aside from water: juice, energy drinks, milk, Coke/Diet Coke, coffee, tea, etc. But for the average person I talk to, with some exception, try just increasing water by 20-30oz per day. That may mean you have to give up your 3rd and 4th coffee of that day to do it. If you already drink upwards of 100 oz per day, there’s a decent chance you don’t need more than that.

How much protein should I be eating? The average woman who comes to see me is off the street consuming 50-60g per day. If I can get this same woman closer to 100g, I’m happy. That could be as simple as a 30g premixed protein shake, or increasing the protein you normally get in lunch and dinner by an extra 2-3 oz.

How often should I lift weights? Probably somewhere between 2-3x/week. Don’t just phone it in. Actually make a concerted, lifelong effort at getting stronger.

What if I hate meal prepping? Either find a local food service that preps calorically appropriate meals that you can zap and eat or find some high protein frozen options at your grocery store. Some people truly thrive on their meal prep skills. Some never meal prep. Each one can be successful.

What if I love Zumba, Barre, Yoga, or Pilates? You should absolutely stick with any movement practice that you love. However, for all of the benefits of Zumba, Barre, Yoga and Pilates, you still need to strength train.

How many calories burned should I be aiming for when I work out? As of now, smartwatches are not accurate enough to tell you how many calories you burn when you train. That number can be wildly off and is not worth staking your success against. Train because it’s good for your heart, lungs, mental health, social life, etc. It does have the added bonus of burning calories but if you’ve been training for awhile consistently, and you’re trying to lose fat (for instance), and the scale is not dropping, pay closer attention to your intake than on how many calories you’re burning when you train.

I’ve struggled with my weight for years. What else should I be focused on aside from an energy deficit? Finding a qualified therapist, finding a coach who cares beyond the numbers of fat loss, exploring any topics like childhood trauma, neglect, alcoholic parents, dysfunctional relationships, unsupportive partners, vices you have which might be seen as addictive/maladaptive behaviors, and sleep.

One last thing… If you’re a woman in or near post-menopause, please make it a priority to slow down the rate of osteoporosis (bone loss) and sarcopenia (muscle loss). Get as strong as you possibly can, stay up on your annual doctor’s visits and try not to diet aggressively.

(Photo courtesy of Helena Lopes)

Several years ago, I got a lovely reminder in the mail that due to my current age at the time, I needed to schedule my first colonoscopy.

If you’ve never had one before, I can think of hundreds of things that would take priority on a scale of pleasure.

That being said, colon cancer didn’t sound like something I would enjoy either, so I needed to get updated with a new general practitioner so that we could get the procedure scheduled.

I put that process off for about a year and then I finally found a local doctor who was taking on new patients and could help along the way.

Because cancer has affected both of my parents, claiming the life of my father in 2011 and my mother who has been in remission since 1993, it’s something I’m sensitive to and I want to do my best to stay on top of those things for myself.

So, each year, I’ve asked my doctor to take blood for a comprehensive panel: A1C, cholesterol, liver enzymes, etc.

Like many of us are cautioned not to do, I find it difficult to not go on Google and start looking into why certain numbers might be high or low respectively.

And, because I didn’t go to medical school, I don’t understand enough of the nuance to see how all the pieces might fit and craft a bigger picture.

What I do know is despite having an active job, lifting weights 4x/week, having a high step count, prioritizing sleep and having a “normal” BMI, there are still numbers that require greater attention.

In other words, books shouldn’t be judged by their covers and people in smaller bodies can have health issues just like people in larger bodies can.

But you wouldn’t necessarily know that unless you’re staying up on your bloodwork too.

I’m not in any obvious pain and despite having had the (mis)fortune of catching nearly every bug that’s crossed my path since last November, having up to date bloodwork helps to see what’s happening under the hood.

So, this is a much shorter post and actually a very strong suggestion, to call your doctor, schedule your annual bloodwork and stay on top of it each year.

While diet and exercise have an important place in your health, they can’t fix everything and it helps to have a doctor who cares about your wellbeing to help decipher what else needs a closer look.

(Photo courtesy of Kristine Wook)