We are back from the weekend and I am truly hoping that you kept it together Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Now is the time to get serious about the goals that you have laid out for yourself for the week and do a mental program check to locate anything that could be holding you back from making progress.   Let me prepare you before you start reading that this is a mini rant.  There is absolutely no doubt about it.  The only thing that might get me a bit more riled up than this is driving.  And that rant is coming soon, too!  Maybe on a Friday so I can give you some humor to go into the weekend with because I am truly unstable behind the wheel. Hehe

1.        I have tried everything but…

At some point in your lifetime of dieting or goals you are going to come to a point where you may not be able to go any further but you still have room to improve.  As frustrating as I know it can be (trust me), most of the time it is not true.  You’ve come to a stop.  Your progress has not.  Any time I ask this person what they are doing they begin to tell me a long list of “I thinks” instead of “I knows”:

“Ok, so what are you eating.”

“Every day I eat…” (Already I am going to pounce on them like a cat on a runaway ball of yarn!)

“Ok, do you measure what you are eating?”

“No…because…”  (Insert some story that made my eyes roll to the back of my head thereby prompting the use of smelling salts to get me back.)

“Do you track what you’re eating?”

“No.  I eat the same thing…” (Ummm…no you don’t.  Even if you do eat the same thing every day, which is going to make me have a hissy fit, you still have slight variations to the day.  If you do not, you are not human and at that point you have the wrong coach and you are looking for District 9.)

Let me first qualify this rant before I enter into it by saying that this is for those who have plateaued.  In the beginning, you do not have to be as stringent as this.  Think of this as the last 10 pounds folks or those who have been dieting long enough to stall out—no need to shake in your boots newbies, but I am coming for you soon. 

At some point in your dieting you are going to become lazy.  It’s as simple as that.  You will act like you are “old hat” at this and you will begin to cut corners.  Then, when it does not work like it used to, it’s the diet’s fault.  As if it just decided to leave you hanging or something due to some hidden diet grudge.  You get out of this what you put in to this.  I am not telling you to become a slave to tracking for the rest of your life, I am telling you to become a slave to tracking for as long as the plateau lasts and then move on (and by tracking I mean measuring food portions and creating menus).  When’s the last time you saw a race that wasn’t timed?  Or a hockey game with no score (Oh look, another puck in the net.  I’m not sure how many that is, I just like watching them skate up and down the ice!)?  You haven’t.  And think twice before you tell me that weight loss to you is not the same as a game/even/competition because every time you step on the scale, look in the mirror or try on some clothes you are keeping score whether you like it or not.  So, suit up for the game, please and get out your food scale, journal and variety and get to work.  Or, make the mistake of telling me, “I have tried everything but…”

2.       I have tried every exercise but I still can’t grow my…

This is just like number 1 so I am not going to spend any time here.  Check list please:

When is the last time you changed your lift routine?

When is the last time you went up in the weight on an exercise?

How long have you been using those same 15’s for shoulders?

Do you track your workouts? Good, what do you do with that info?  Oh you just track it…riiiiigggght.

3.       I am following my program but…

I don’t understand this one.  It blows me out of the water.  I am, alongside so many others, a fitness professional.  I diet/train more people in one month than the average consumer can come across to ask questions to in one year!  But no matter what, I always get one person who will modify their program before they even start it because they know better.  Now don’t get me wrong, if you want to pay me a good amount of money for you to program yourself—that’s a win win for me.  But do me the favor and tell me when you cut me the check so I don’t have to bother putting something together for you.  I want to just go shopping with what you just paid me and not have to work.  Thanks.

The number one reason you hire a coach is not because they are going to give you something revolutionary (although that is nice when that happens) or something no one else knows about (don’t tell anyone about this amazing new food combo: oatmeal and eggwhites…shhhh), you hire them to know you objectively because you, yourself, cannot and to then program you based off of the information.  The problem really becomes apparent with you having to admit who you really are as opposed to who you want to be!  In other words, it’s not that you don’t trust the coach or believe in the coach or you would not have hired them, it’s more that you did not like the answer/program they gave you.  Let me put that in laymen terms for you:

“My girlfriend blah blah does blah blah and she has great legs so I started doing that instead of blah blah.  Is that ok?”

“Well let me see…your girlfriend is rather on the tall, slim side with not a lick of muscle in her legs and you are 4’10” with enough muscle in your legs to drag to a tractor trailer 2 blocks without taking a rest.  Let me go out on a limb here…NO.”

Get over who you want to become and accept who you are!   You are not Megan Fox so stop pouting because you were not given her program!  And if you are programming yourself and do not have a coach, stop wondering what Megan Fox is doing and go find someone who at least resembles you and do what she’s doing!  Write out your program and tweak it weekly.  Do not hop from thing to thing just because you spoke to someone in the gym.  Let’s make some sense of this.  Cool?

The Moral of the Story:

Let’s make this a good week.  Let’s break some plateaus. 

1.       Track what you are doing and improve where necessary. 

2.       Challenge yourself in the gym this week.  Go up in a weight or go a few extra reps.  Whichever.

3.       Embrace your program and follow it so you know what to change when it is not right.

Menu planning goes out this afternoon so keep an eye out for that., tomorrow we are back to Performing Beautifully so you will be spared from my ranting and we talk a little bit more about your bum this week!  Yeah!  In the mean time, challenge yourself and get to it!  WOOP WOOP!:o) 

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