Non-Beginner Health + Fitness Mistakes

These are the things I see go wrong most commonly with my clients who have 1-2 years of health and fitness experience. They've come a long way, but they're not quite where they'd like to be.

For beginner mistakes, start with THIS EPISODE

Partial Transcript: A lot of the time, it is the more common explanation  being, you get close enough to your goals and you sort of get comfy because you're much more comfortable than you were before when you were farther away. I think that accounts for a lot of it, I don't want to dismiss that. I also think there's a massive component that we sort of ignore that. 

What gets you from point a to point B. You're at point B now. It's not the same thing. That's going to get you to point C. It's a massive misunderstanding. We can talk about this sort of two ways. I want to talk about it logistically and then sort of just conceptually as well. Like literally, what does that even look like? First,  if you think about weight loss from a caloric perspective, when you lose weight. You eat less calories, you lose weight. A lot of people look at these calories as their weight loss calories, call it. 





Those aren't your weight loss calories. 



In a simplified way, your really getting to a new maintenance of just a different weight when you're doing that. So if you're cutting calories, it's because you're trying to get to a point where you're eating for the body that maintains at a lower weight. 





When we get to that lower weight, but it's not the weight we ultimately want. 

And weight could be anything. In this instance, it could be your back squat PR. It could be anything when we get close, but not where we want to be. . . . . .

Transcript

0:00

you get close enough to your goals and you sort of get comfy because you're much more comfortable than you were before when you were farther away. I think that accounts for a lot of it, I don't want to dismiss that. I also think there's a massive component that we sort of ignore that. Hello, beautiful people. And welcome back to the show. I have an announcement that will come in at the end of this episode about the new years. Things that are transpiring on this podcast for free. So please stick around. That will be at the end of the episode. We're talking about non beginner mistakes, and I want to be clear. These are for people that now understand the basics. They understand they need to eat protein. They understand that they should get eight hours of sleep. They understand that sunlight is important. Like all of these little foundational things. R, if not checked off, you understand where your deficits are. So once we get past that, Most people that actually walk into the gym day to day in person, the clients I deal with are not new to exercise, but they are new to training. So the difference there being they've worked out before, maybe they've tried different lifestyle things. They've tried different diets. They've dipped their toes and different avenues, but they are unhappy in some way with the result of that produced, that tends to be the person that I deal with the most commonly. So I wanted to kind of give that some justice with this episode. If you are a little bit newer, you can also start with the beginner episode. I do have a beginner, most common questions. I will link that below, so you can get to that as well. However, that episode had a really, really good response and I realized that it sort of comes with its own set of new assumptions or questions or whatever it may be once someone has some experience, but they're maybe not where they want to be yet. So. I'm going to start with the one that I see the most often. There is a phenomenon that happens when you start working on or paying attention to your health and kind of any way shape or form, especially if you have never in the past, like you are not a baseline, call it healthy person in your day to day habits. Someone begins working out. Someone begins eating a little bit better and all of these results start pouring in and it's honestly, it's the best. It's the best time ever to have the new begins. It's so much fun to be in the time when you're literally just peering everything you're losing weight easily, or you're gaining muscle easily. You're probably doing both at the same time, which is more than likely the only time you'll easily do that. Life is good. And then all of a sudden, this train slows down and we're not at the station yet. And we're like, what the hell? Like I'm still working out. I'm still, I'm still doing the things that I did before. And unfortunately that's exactly the issue. The last 10 pounds or the last five pounds, or if I could just, and all of these statements that you hear all the time. A lot of the time, it is the more common explanation being, you get close enough to your goals and you sort of get comfy because you're much more comfortable than you were before when you were farther away. I think that accounts for a lot of it, I don't want to dismiss that. I also think there's a massive component that we sort of ignore that. What gets you from point a to point B. You're at point B now. It's not the same thing. That's going to get you to point C. It's a massive misunderstanding. We can talk about this sort of two ways. I want to talk about it logistically and then sort of just conceptually as well. Like literally, what does that even look like? First, if you think about weight loss from a caloric perspective, when you lose weight. You eat less calories, you lose weight. A lot of people look at these calories as their weight loss calories, call it. Those aren't your weight loss calories. In a simplified way, your really getting to a new maintenance of just a different weight when you're doing that. So if you're cutting calories, it's because you're trying to get to a point where you're eating for the body that maintains at a lower weight. When we get to that lower weight, but it's not the weight we ultimately want. And weight could be anything. In this instance, it could be your back squat PR. It could be anything when we get close, but not where we want to be. You're adding new maintenance level. It now requires more to maintain the results that you just obtained. With that the results that are even more intense than what you obtained. Take more than that. That might not mean a bigger deficit for more weight loss. That's not really what I'm saying, what I'm trying to say. And get you to understand is that you are not making an adjustment for X, Y, Z goal that will get you to that goal. And then it stops you are shifting into the person that has that goal, right? You're eating the way a leaner person eats, or you are working out the way, someone who squats more works out, whatever it is. Point B to point C typically looks like for most people they've already checked the basic boxes B to C ends up looking like, okay, we cut out two glasses of wine a week. Now you're only going to have one glass of wine a week down from five or six or seven or whatever it was. Okay. Yeah. So now we don't actually do the extra dessert. Here is no big deal and oh, don't worry. That's just life. If your goals are now more intense, your actions become much more intense. And I don't think people really want to accept that. And that's okay. A big part of this show and a big part of my message. And what I hope to get across is that you don't have to take health and fitness that seriously in order to be very healthy and very fit. The disconnect here is if you want to be in the top 5% of fitness, which really in the green scheme is not that hard to do, but you don't get to have the little fuck ups that you get to have to just be a normal, healthy person. When it goes from, I want to basically impress my doctor at my physical too. I want to see this type of app deposition or I want to get to this percentage, body fat that's significantly lower. The things you do to get there become much more intense. And that's why most people don't do that. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with it. The misunderstanding that just by doing the same things over and over and over, yes, that moved you in the right direction for a long time, but you're not going to move much farther unless other things start to move as well. And a lot of times for people, this is just taking a good, honest look and that's all it takes. What I mean by that is most people who work with me, don't have a hundred percent compliance. I have a few, I have a few that are just spot on. And honestly that sometimes concerns me too. But when someone works with me, I don't expect them to be a hundred percent on plan all the time. That's ridiculous. If someone checks in and they tell me that they're like, oh yeah, I went out for, you know, margaritas with the girls and like, you know, everything else was good though, whatever I'm like. Okay, great. Like I'm so glad you had fun. Yep. Move on. No stress, no issue. When someone has a much more intense goals, like if a competitor came, like if I still worked with competitors right. And a competitor came to me and said, oh, like, you know, just went out for margaritas with the girls. And I was like, you're fucking three weeks out. What are you doing? No, like, that's not how this is going to go. It's very different reaction to the same exact thing. Not because one person is bad for doing it or one person I did. It has nothing to do with the action. It's purely in relation to what they want or what they say. They want. Some people I think, want. More intense results than they want their life to look like. And that's why you actually see a lot of people get really lean. I'm sure you've seen this on the internet. If you're in the fitness spear. People that you follow that used to be like really, really lean, like super ripped. A lot of those people do not walk around like that for more than a decade. Some of them do some of them absolutely do. But a lot of those people also have entire careers built around that aesthetic. So you have to remember that. If you were incentivized that way, it might change things. A little, that being said. It is not typical that people get to that level and actually like it as much as they think they're going to, or these people who definitely know how to do it. Right. They've done it and they've maintained it for a long time. It wasn't a fluke. They would still do that, right? It's not a matter of Wilbur. It's not any of these abstract things. We blame it on. It's literally logical. It's just having to be more intense for a more intense result. And that is going to lead us directly into my next point, which is the assumption that more is better. Intensity of action or you have to do more. You have to, whatever. I just said all of that. Just doing more of something. Is not the same thing. What this ends up looking like actually in practice. Someone comes in, they get point a to point B they're at point B. Now at point B, they're like, oh, this is awesome. Like I'm getting stronger. I feel really good. Awesome. Cool. I'm going to start coming to two more classes a week. Awesome. Okay. Now I'm actually going on, runs on the weekends. I'm on my own too. Okay. Now I'm actually going to cost and I'm doing open gym to stay to lift after. Okay. Now. And there's not a strategy behind it. This isn't something like they developed with a coach or something like that. It is just adding, it's just adding, adding, adding, adding. You are spending effort randomly. When you spend Everett randomly, unfortunately your results are random too. So how do we fix it? More is not better. Better is better. Better as better as better as better as better. This is something that has been a huge theme for me in business and all of that. Like it's how I make decisions. A lot of the time better is better. We do that one. It's very, very simple. And I think that's what actually makes it really, really hard to apply. Just adding in actions are not going to produce results that are specific to what you want just because doing something kind of like that. Got you closer. The example I just gave is exactly what I did when I started working out. Like I started just going to class four or five times a week, like I was committed and I was getting there every single time, but it wasn't an obsession. And then it started to be okay, I'm doing more and more and more and more. And then finally. A man walked up to me and said, Hey, I'm a coach here. You do a lot. Do you want some more strategy involved with that? So you can kind of get closer to your goals while you're doing all of these things. And I went, yeah. And ironically enough, That man put a ring on my finger just about two years ago. So it worked out, but that being said it is once I started working with my lovely fiance. Suddenly I was rapidly approaching my goals again, which had really slowed down. I saw a bunch of progress in the beginning and I saw myself like, get all these skills and get stronger. And then it just kind of like, It was still happening, but those wins were a little bit, few and far between. And all of a sudden. I was spending. Probably about 60 to 70% of the time that I was prior in the gym, actually working out and my results doubled in speed at the minimum. So it's not that I had to do more it's that I had to do better. And that was more volume. That was actually more working out than yes, just the five classes a week, but doing a bunch of random shit after class, wasn't getting me any closer to my specific goals. When you think about intensifying, don't think about how can I make this harder for myself. That is not the goal. It's actually the fucking dead opposite of the goal. People think it has to be hard to work and it doesn't. And I think that that's the only validated by going on these insane diets, like bad diets that are super hard. Like there you're only drinking juice for two weeks or something. It's hard. When you do that, all of a sudden, those big drop off of weight. And then what do you do? You go back to your easier in perception, life, where you eat normal food and you gain the weight back and you go, oh my God, when it was hard, it was good. And that's not the case. I am so passionate about this cause I'm so guilty of it. Like I truly grew up with the idea that hard work was good work and hard work. Got you farther than anything else. And I. I am an incredibly hard worker, which now that I'm doing the right things. It's insurmountable. How much more value I have literally just provided to myself. In my life.. By just trying to figure out where to actually spend my effort. And that sounds really stupid, but don't make it harder. How do you make it better? If you didn't have to change the amount of anything, what would you do to increase the intensity? That's the thing you want to look at? Plan hopping. I never really had an issue with this one, but it's something I see all of the time. So it's, it's definitely not uncommon. Plan hopping is when after between four and 10 weeks of something, you find something else through the interwebs or the social medias or the wherever the hell you found this new idea that the grass is greener on the other program. And you switch. And then your four programs deep you're a year in. And you're pretty fucking confused as to why you've made no progress. And this is what I'll equate it to, because this is the most accurate understanding that I've ever had is if you had God forbid, a terrible diagnosis. You go, okay, we're going to do a treatment plan. Great. You have three doctors that you're doing treatment plans with, and each week you just decide which doctor you feel like driving to. And you just do that step of whatever that step of the plan that doctor is on. That wouldn't make a lot of sense. But no, because things have order and succession on purpose, right? You can't do the X before you do the why and you can't do the surgery before you do the prep. There's an order to these things and there's a logic to them. So if you are hopping around on plans, It's not that your not getting anything out of it, but you're certainly not getting what the actual program was meant for optimally by any means. When someone is plan hopping all the time, or they're not sticking with something for a long time. What actually tends to happen is they'll get either hurt because they're mixing things and they're not following logical progressions. They're not dealers, whatever it is, they'll either get hurt. Or they completely skew their understanding of the pond they're in. So this is what that looks like. So a lot of people, the joke is that if a CrossFit girl goes to a regular gym and they start lifting, it's like unheard of amount of weights for even like the boys there, because they're like, what? Like, why is that girl shoulder pressing 45? Like, I don't do that. Like, that's crazy. It's not that women do not shoulder press 45. It's that most people cannot develop nor follow a plan on their own and a Globo gym. To actually get to that point, that all of a sudden, when someone can, they're a unicorn. This is just like thinking you're strong. If you squat 400 pounds. Sounds pretty cool. Right? Like women like squatting 300 pounds. That's so cool. I'm so proud of myself. Like I finally squatted 300 pounds. That's huge. For me, what it, what it felt like on my end was figuring out that I could be the strongest woman in the gym. I could be stronger than a lot of the grown men in the gym. And I could show up to nationals, get fucking smoked by a hundred pound woman. Smoked. Absolutely smoked like so much stronger than me than it's laughable. This is what expanding your reference point is all about. It's understanding that your not probably doing as amazingly as you think you are. And if you can understand that you can then look at the people that are and figure out why there's that humbling aspect to it. Yes. It sucks to realize that you're not that strong. You're not that cool.. It's this it's literally what we do on Instagram all day. We go, oh shit. I don't have a private jet. That sucks. I thought my job was pretty cool. Fuck me. And then you throw the phone and you go back to what you now think is your shitty life that you thought was fine before. If you are planned hopping and you have no comparison of how you should be progressing because you can't actually hold yourself to the full duration of the plan. Therefore your results don't really count. You only did it for this, so you can't really compare it to, but, and you always have an excuse and you always have an excuse, never prompts you to do something that is a little bit more strategic, nor a little bit more intelligent because you can't just admit to yourself that you're not sticking with something. Don't hop around and then blame all of the different plans, because if they didn't work, , you didn't work and that's okay. Like, let's avoid it. How do you avoid it? If you are confident and you take more than 15 minutes to pick out a program plan, coach, whatever it is that you're trying to follow in, weight loss, fitness, I actually do some research, get some referral recommendations, people that have worked with these people, people that have experiences, ask them for their testimonials.. The single easiest way to tell if someone is a fucking clown, is if you ask them for their testimonials or their prior work, or basically to see proof that they are who they say they are. And they act like you are so irritating or they don't give them to you. Any, any fitness, professional worth, even half their salt has a library of testimonies because they're, they're effortless to get people, send me a text and they're like, Oh, my gosh, finally, down 10 pounds screenshot at it. It goes in a folder like people will have them because it happens all the time. If you're actually good at what you do, it's not actually a flattering, crazy thing to get a testimonial. They should be able to provide them for you at a bare minimum. So once you have confidence and investment in that plan, and if you are not paying for something, you are less likely to finish it than I am to become a unicorn. Like it is statistically. You have to buy in in some way. If that's paying a coach, if that's paying a higher dollar amount for a plan buy-in and trust. Need to be absolute givens because it's going to get hard. It's going to get hard at some point and you're going to fucking hate it, and you're gonna want to quit. It is so much easier to push through. If you trust that what you're doing is right. If you trust the results on the other side, people say, trust the process all the time. But if you don't actually know, and you haven't been through that process or even done it the longer, harder, sustainable weight, whatever it is. How would you know, and how would you be able to trust that? You can't so you have to see that someone has done it before. I think in order to really push through. And actually trust the process, which is something people think they do. And then don't, if you're questioning at the entire time of AFE, this should be the week that you switched to something else. You don't trust the process. And that's okay. Take the time to find a process you trust. Disregarding a major foundation. The bro that's oh yeah, bro. I don't really need to pay too much attention to nutrition. I asked if I can lift or whatever, like. Don't be that person. Number one, you sound like a moron. Nobody wants to hear that. Especially if they are putting in a ton of effort into that thing, like it doesn't make you sound cool. I, I think the age of cynicism is fine. I'm as cynical as the guy. I totally get that. What I hate though, . Is this offloading of responsibility for ourselves or this negative connotation of like trying, it just drives me up a wall. Whenever it became cool to not try. In my opinion, it just became a much easier game to win whatever game you're playing. It doesn't matter. People are lazy everywhere. If you try a little, like it's it's magic because no one does and this oh, no, I would never, oh, that's too much effort. Like that thing. If you just don't do that, you will be. Miles ahead of everybody else because this off writing something that makes me uncomfortable because it's like . Have you ever seen little kids play tag and then the kid that that's that one kid and every time that kid is about to get tagged. Timeout timeout. Like that thing is what you're doing. That's exactly what you're doing. You are so afraid that diving into your nutrition, mucho you, that maybe it's not as good as you think it is. Or maybe there is a lot of room for improvement and I'm using this example. It could be anything, any aspect of anything you care about? Writing off a complete part of it, or like, I worked too much to sleep. Like I get it. You're supposed to sleep a lot, but like I do everything else. It's fine. No, it's not fine. And it's not fine to just think that that's just the way it is and you're not going to try. It's a complete lack of accountability to yourself. And the hard part about this as it can be completely real, it can be 100% real. It's not an excuse. it's a factual thing. Right? I work night shift. Right. I can't sleep as well. That's that's a fact, if you are not going to quit your job. And I don't think that that's reasonable for most people. That's going to be the reality. However, saying I'm just a person. I just don't sleep, sleep like 10 hours a week. Like, it's all good. Like, no, it's not all good. Like you have to do more to make up for that. And that sucks. It is what it is. But does this card you're playing with? Don't just write things off. And that brings me directly to how I want to wrap this up, which is confusing a plateau with requirements. People think. Huh. I was working out and I'm getting stronger and stronger is right. Whoo. Like this is keep. Oh, I'm at a plateau. And it's the same thing as point a to point B to point C. But they're now not looking at the things that I just begged you to look at because we all have them. We all have blind spots. It's literally just part of being a human. If you can look at those things and go, oh, I'm not really getting stronger anymore. Like I'm still going to the gym five times a week. Like it must be the plan. No. Instead of that, Maybe you turn it back around and you say, Hm. Yeah, I'm still going to jail. Like nothing changed at the gym. Like. I don't know what am I have been eating? I don't God, I don't even know what I've been eating. Do I care about what I'm eating ever? Oh my God. Maybe that's it. Should I start carrying that conversation in your head is invaluable. Even just the understanding of, oh shit. Like that's probably it, like, I never even, I kind of thought that didn't matter. Like maybe it does matter being able to question yourself and your beliefs is if you can do it the best skill that you'll ever develop, like the only thing that's actually helped me get anywhere in anything I've done has been just brutally humbling, like even opening the gym. I've never told that whole story and I really want to, but I don't really feel like my story is at a place where it's ready to tell yet. I think my story is still. In its arc. And then, so I want to, I want to tell the story of how we started this business, because it is a crazy, crazy story. I was still in college, me and Rob had been dating three months. It was an insane decision and that's only cute cause it worked. It was, we were so, so, so naive that being absolutely humbled in a way that you just can't escape, I think was. It was not something that I was used to happening all of the time, every single day. And I was an emotional wreck for a really long time. Like it was really, really hard. I don't suggest jumping into something you're wildly unprepared to do and completely have no experience in, in order to get that done. Probably not the best way. I really wasn't doing so hot for awhile, but that being said, I learned that nothing I believe is fact, and there are no such things as back because new information changes facts. And once you can be more fluid in it, like that was, it sounds so stupid, but it was really hard for me to change my mind. It was really, really hard For me to consider that, especially if I was emotionally tied to something that I could be wrong or like that, that person actually wasn't being that hard on me or no, the gym is really good and I try really hard. We should be able to pay rent. That's not how it works. That time in my life, I think was probably what will propel me for the next decade or two. Like, it was so hard and so humbling. And I knew that I think that fire will carry me. I think that if I had just decided that it was the pandemic and oh no. Well, all the businesses failed during the pandemic. The massive belief I have in myself to not. Give up or. I'll just say so I know something I know about myself and this sounds hard, but I do not scare easy. That is not how I operate. And it gets me into trouble. It's to a fault for sure. But I know damn well. Like I got me when the gym was opening, we had no money.

I would open the gym at 4: 25:10

00 AM, finished. My shift. Rob would go in, I'd go bartend until two 30 or three. And I would do it again because couldn't pay fucking rent. And that's just what it was. I didn't think, oh, I can't pay rent. I must have to move back into my parents. And that alone was a massive turning point in. Actually just believing that I could get shit done, which sounds so dumb. But I think that that's half the battle is just lying to yourself because it's more comfortable. And then it's not necessarily that it's going to keep you there forever, but it takes a lot longer to figure out what's actually wrong. If you just refuse to look at certain things, cause it's not fun. If I can beg you to do anything, it is to not get too cocky, too fast. Be careful who you listen to stick to it three to four months is not a long time start measuring in years. More is not better. Point a beginner to point B. Not so much a beginner, but still not where you'd like to be. Those actions are not going to get you to point C. But typically the actions that get you to point C only have to be as intense as the goals that you have. Don't over intensify because you will overshoot it and you will shoot backwards rubber band snap back. If you are trying to live like the person with a six pack, even though you're like, I don't really need a six pack, but like, I want to do the most intense version. That is the wrong answer. That is the wrong fucking answer. And I've seen it a million times and I am. Competent enough to hurt your feelings and tell you that that's the wrong thing to do. And if you cannot do that, you will skip a lot of grief. I don't want you to confuse requirements with a plateau. And I also don't want you to confuse being healthy with being. shredded lean stage, ready, whatever it is. None of those things have to be that intense to be a basic, healthy human being.. If you're complaining about being a basic, healthy human being, because you're not cooler than that. You're going to have to ramp it up and that's just the truth and you don't have to, and no one's forcing you to do that, but let's just be realistic here. Non beginner mistakes are to be realistic and to just humble yourself and just keep learning. Because I think that people that learn get a lot farther. I have an announcement. Let's talk about new years. According to statistics. This will be my lowest listen to time of year on the podcast. And why is that? The holiday start. People do whatever they want all the time. They ignore the fact that they know that this is just not good. And then new year's comes around and they're this whole new person just like last year. So. What are we going to do? What are we going to do about it? Instead of being just bitching about this every single year and doing nothing, why don't I offer you a solution? This is the new year new way. Starting in January of 2024. I am going to walk you through each week, a different aspect of your health, fitness, wellness, weight loss, any of that, anything that we typically cover on this show, I am going to break it down for you. There is a 12 week curriculum. This curriculum is not designed to be 12 weeks. So for example, Sleep. Sleep is a great one. We do a bedroom audit. We talk about what you're doing right before bed. We set up your bedroom to be a little bit more efficient and supportive of healthy sleep. Next week we talk about steps. This is going to go for 12 weeks. This is going to be a bonus episode. This will be completely free. I will have a sort of work along handbook that is coming this challenge. If you will, is completely free, this is going to be posted on the show. It's not going to be behind a paywall. It's going to be completely free. I am going to have a follow along packet and you will be able to enter to win a prize. If you would like but all of the information you need to complete, this is going to be right here. If you are not subscribed, get subscribed because that will kick off in January and there will be support kind of live as we go with these things to make sure that everyone's on the same page. Everyone who's participating is keeping up and no one gets left behind. We're going to set up in these 12 weeks. To never have to do it again. This is the 12 weeks that will make future new year's resolutions completely useless because shit's covered it's at a very normal rate every single day, because these habits are set in place. We're going to do it together. And I'm going to structure this, how I tend to structure a typical client based on the avatars of this audience. So the average of everybody who listens to the show, which actually is kind of a lot of units, so, so amazing. So thank you. If you share the show or anything, like, are you. Review it or anything that helps it grow. I like I've shed many, a happy tear because of you. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. This is going to completely render new year's resolutions. Useless for you. It is not going to be hard. It is going to be simple. You're going to know what to do each week. You're going to have background information. I want this to replace, having to find the new plan for you. You have everything you need right here. Get subscribed to the show, follow me on Instagram, whatever you need to do to keep yourself engaged. I need you to do that right now. Also, I have a massive list that I just made for my members of the best black Friday deal. Some of them are affiliate links, some of them aren't, they're just the deals that are the best right now for black Friday and cyber Monday. If you want to check those out affiliate links don't cost you anything. I'll actually a lot of times they save you money, but it does help support the show. So I really appreciate it. Have a wonderful rest of your day guys. And I will see you in the next one.