The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth
Did you know you can look like Channing Tatum or Adrianna Lima in only four weeks?
I was talking during the week on Facebook about the false advertising and marketing in the fitness industry these days.
It’s great to see so many people nowadays into their health and ditching commercial gyms for Personal Trainers but at the end of the day, it’s not cheap and so many of you are being conned out of your money and have nothing to show for it after 4, 8 or 12 weeks.
So today I’m going to have another moment of cutting the crap in 2014 and tell you the truth.
The first thing you need to do is accept who you are and love yourself.
If you’re a 5’4” stocky female then you’ll never look like Adrianna Lima. Why? Because she’s nearly 6 foot, End of.
When you’re looking to better yourself, you have to stay within the realms of reality. If you’ve been a short stocky female all your life then there is a good chance you’ll always keep that shape. But you can still aim to be the best you that you can be. Aim you get your body fat down to a healthy low and get your health, fitness and strength to its highest and when all this falls into place your happiness will be right up there with it.
4, 8, 12 weeks? These are just markers, bench marks. It does not mean you’ll achieve your ultimate figure in that time and its certainly doesn’t mean that at the end of it you can just fall back into your old ways and keep whatever results you did achieve.
Let’s say your 5’9”, 130kgs with a body fat of 40% and your mate is 5’7”, 70kgs and body fat of 16%. Now in 12 weeks I can make that 5’7 chap look lean and add a bit of size to him. You on the other hand at 130kgs your abs still won’t be showing after 12 weeks. Why? Because I’m not going to sacrifice your health just to drop a load of weight off you to look good for a couple days, then you’ll balloon back up, get depressed, eat more crap, drink more and then I’m the ass because you’re fat again.
But sure why would I care? Between my services and supplements I’ve gotten about 2 grand out of you and am already on to my next victim.
Optimum health takes time, sometimes a lot of time depending on the individual. There are so many factors to take into account. Things like:
Age
Sex
Body and Visceral Fat
How long you’ve been the way you are
Health
Medical History
Psychological History
Lifestyle
Stresses
Job
And Plenty more
Anyone who tells you things like ‘I’ll get three stone off you in 8 weeks’ are full of it. Nobody knows what way you’re going to adapt to training, nutrition and lifestyle changes until they’re implemented and we see what happens. It’s trial and error for every single individual.
Take nutrition for example. People ask why I don’t give meal plans. I’ve a number of reasons:
I don’t know if you’ll eat the foods I eat
I want you to still enjoy food
You may metabolise food differently to me
You may have different intolerances to me
And the most important one is education. Let’s say I give you 14 days of food. Are you just going to repeat those 14 days for the rest of your life?
I change one of two things a week for people. If we see positive changes we carry on, if after two weeks there are negative changes we just learn from them and change again. It’s not the end of the world, It’s not that you’re getting fatter or I don’t know what I’m doing it’s just the way it is. We are all totally different and what works for one may not work for another.
This goes on for as long as it needs to whether its 12 weeks, 12 months or 5 years. I’ve plenty of clients who have been training with me for the last 12 months to 2 years. Why? Because they see that what we do is part of their lifestyle and even after 2 years because I’m constantly continuing my education my clients are still learning new things all the time. Most don’t weigh themselves or check their body fat regularly because they know how to eat and how to train, they don’t get depressed or feel guilty if they go out for a few drinks because they now have a lifestyle where 95% of the time they eat good food, stay hydrated, move well and lift weights.
You have to be thinking of the long game, thinking health. If you’re out of shape, fat and unhealthy then more than likely it didn’t happen overnight and could take just as long to reverse.
Another thing to remember is all trainers and all gyms aren’t created equally. Some people have their own specialties and sometimes dogmas. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s for you. In some circumstances other trainers are not qualified, educated or experienced enough to get you (as an individual) to where you need to be.
The good ones each have their place in the market but it takes a bit of research from you and some honesty on their part to figure out if what they do is what you require. Some trainers if reading this will vouch for me were I’ve sent business their way because for whatever reason I felt they could offer the client more.
One trap I think a lot of overweight people fall into is ‘Move more, eat less’ and some facilities will take you in, beast the life out of you with no purpose training and hand you a calories deficit meal plan. You’ll do great for about 4-6 weeks but after that nothing else will happen. I’m sure loads of you have experience doing this and eventually gave up believing it was your fault. Trust me, the only thing I’ll blame you for is not researching the facility beforehand. Find current and pass members. Are the current one’s there more than two months and still achieving results? And why did the past members stop training there?
If you want honesty then give me a call or drop me an email and hopefully I can point you in the right direction. If you are looking for Physique Modelling, Powerlifting, Olympic lifting etc. these are areas we don’t specialise in but I know plenty of lads I’d recommend for it. If you want things like better movement quality, not weight loss but fat loss, functional strength and fitness (I describe this as strong enough that nothing in your current lifestyle is a struggle like work, kids, housework etc.), education in nutrition, improving health conditions associated with blood pressure, cholesterol or thyroid function then all these I can help you with and have the experience and results to back it. And even if you’re a severe case in a specific area I still have others I can refer you to.
So we all know New Year’s is right around the corner. Start your research now. Write down all the questions you have and what you’re looking to achieve. Ring as many facilities as you have to asking each the same questions and hopefully one of them will offer you the honest answer that you’re looking for.
Until next week,
Love and Happiness,
John T.
Ps: Ollie has something to say, actually a lot to say and will be doing his own blog posts.
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