If I could tell my clients only five things…

As a personal and small group trainer, I often find myself repeating the same advice over and over again. While there are many other aspects of health and fitness that are frequently discussed with clients I find myself coming back to these 5 pieces of advice time and again. So if I had to choose my five most common pieces of advice, these would be them…

1. Have some patience...

Losing weight takes time. Especially if you want to lose weight and keep it off. You can lose weight rapidly but this usually involves diets with extremely low (often dangerously low) calorie intake and excessive exercise. Whilst the weight may fall off in these programmes, often it comes back again because the low level of food intake and the high levels of exercise are not sustainable long-term. 

A more sustainable way to approach weight loss is to look at a gradual reduction in weight over a longer period of time. By taking your time to lose the weight, it makes it more likely that you will keep it off as the changes you make will be sustainable lifestyle changes rather than crash diets. I often remind my clients that the weight (usually) took years to be put on, it won't be lost in a couple of weeks. The key is consistency and patience – stick to the programme and remember that progress no matter how small is still progress.

2. View setbacks as speed-bumps, not roadblocks...

This is perhaps my favourite piece of advice. It probably should have been number one but hey, it came to mind second so here it stays. As a trainer I hear about the bad days often, which is understandable – when everything is going perfectly people just say things are fine, but when something goes wrong they go into detail. Many people can fall off the fitness wagon when they have a bad day especially if they are just starting out. It seems to many people like a failure, or proof that it is all too hard. 

I often remind my clients that setbacks are like speed-bumps – they simply slow the process down. The worst thing you can do is to view a setback as a roadblock – as something final. This simply ensures that you will not reach your goals. Giving people permission to have a bad day and not see it as the end gives them hope that they can get back on the horse and try again without feeling guilty or like they have failed. You have to see health and fitness as a marathon, not a sprint, you need to be in it for the long haul because it often is. Stick with it, get back on the horse and you will eventually reach your goals.

3. Get injuries seen to properly...

This is a pet peeve of mine, I’m not going to lie. I have had my fair share of injuries in my time. In fact more than my fair share. And they suck. Big time. There is nothing worse than making good progress in the gym or with your sport and then being laid up with an injury. But something that is worse is the long term damage that can be done by training through injuries. 

     

Now muscle soreness from a hard training session is different – that you can work through, in fact, a workout often helps if you are sore from the previous day’s session, I am talking about proper injuries. If you have an injury – see a physio or a doctor, end of story. If you do not rehab your injuries properly, they can lead to issues such as loss of mobility, and even joint or muscle weakness. Get your injuries sorted early, rehab them, and get back into training sooner.

4. You don't need to be fit to start training…

A common reason people give for not starting training or for not joining a gym is that they are not fit enough. This way of thinking misses the point a little. The whole point of training is to get fit or increase your fitness. This type of thinking also usually indicates that the client is a little self-conscious. This may be for any number of reasons – they may be carrying some weight that they do not like, they may be concerned that they do not understand the equipment and do not want to look silly, or any of 100 other reasons. 

Most of these reasons can be sorted by speaking to a trainer or member of staff at the gym they are worried about joining. In all reality most people are fairly self-absorbed at the gym. They are too interested in doing their own thing to be worried about what anyone else is doing. Also, when it comes to not knowing what equipment to use or how to use it, any gym worth the joining fee will assign a trainer to take you through the equipment either before you join or once you have joined up.

5. Abs are made in the kitchen…

Training is the easy part. It’s easy (relatively speaking) to turn up to the gym or to your personal training session week in and week out when your trainer is there waiting for you. There is an accountability factor involved. The real test is the other 23 hours a day where you don’t have someone making sure you are doing what you are meant to be doing. No matter how good the nutrition plan is that your trainer has designed, you are still the one who controls what you eat. The issue with this being, other forces are at play – peer pressure, your own cravings (everyone has them), time pressures, and many other things. 

What it comes down to with nutrition is focusing on the big picture. Succinctly put, it is giving up something that you want now for something that you want in the future – i.e. those six-pack abs for beach season, the reduced diabetes risk, the lower blood pressure, or the ability to chase your kids around the garden pain-free. You have to see the big picture and realise that what you decide to eat now has an impact on whether you reach your fitness goals later. A common comment made in fitness circles is that you can’t out-train a bad diet, and for once the cliché is spot on.

So while the issues surrounding health and fitness are endless in number these five pieces of advice cover a wide range of topics that will see most people right in the long run. Make sure that you don’t try and rush things. Treat bad days as just that and move past them. Get your injuries sorted. Just start training – you are always at the start no matter where that starting point is. Eat with an eye on the end goal. Follow these 5 ideas and you will get there. If you want further advice, feel free to get in touch and I'll be happy to help you out.

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