I will let you debate about what’s the best form of exercise. Its good to debate. Are you working on your mindset?
But in truth we see people get results with many different types of fitness programmes from CrossFit t to Bodybuilding to Pilates classes. Even Zumba has been successful for people although this would not be one for me.
As a body transformation coach, I believe that those who want to lose weight and transform their bodies should be doing compound lifts and compound bodyweight exercises (exercises that use many different muscle groups together) and some cardio as well as changing their mindset
Putting in extra cardio, suspension training, kettlebells, and using all the latest gadgets don’t individually matter, but they are an important part of the bigger picture.
Adherence is Everything to Mindset
“What truly matters is to get the exercises done but also do them consistently.”
I love kettlebells and gymnastic type core exercises, but they aren’t a requirement to any programme. You must discover the exercises that you love to perform and that get you the results you are looking for. Ultimately, as a trainer, your “style” should be adaptable to the client.
Behaviour Change Is The Single Most Important Factor
Clients can lose weight with any of the following:
Paleo
Weight Watchers (ouch! that hurt to type)
Vegetarian
Other fad diets
Why do people have success with diets that we know to be short term fix fad diets that don’t teach anything about how to truly nurture our bodies for life.
When you make an extreme choice to use one of these fad diets, what they are saying mentally is that, “It’s time to get serious and lose the weight.” They are starting a behaviour mindset change.
Many people do it to look better for themselves when they look in the mirror and for others to notice them. They could also be doing it for their health, but for whatever reason they are taking action. Something has struck a nerve that is making them do this.
My job as a coach is to educate you on nutrition, but just having the knowledge is not enough, consistency and adherence are the number 1 priorities.
In my opinion if a client isn’t doing anything dangerous to achieve their goals and are getting all their required nutrients, they are exercising and are happy then my job is to teach you sustainable skills and to love the process.
Below are three ways that I’ve been able to motivate clients to change their behaviour quickly. If they don’t, I know they won’t see any results and they’ll leave.
3 Ways to Motivate Clients to Change Their Behaviour
1) Simplified Nutrition
Regardless of what nutrition plan you follow, you should understand WHY it will or won’t work long or short term. I will increase the amount of protein you eat. Basically, I teach you to get enough protein. Many people who ask for my help are not eating enough protein, so they feel hungry most of the time because their diet is largely carb based. I do this because our bodies are protein factories and need it for optimum health but a large part of it is the client’s satiety (keeping away hunger).
If you can control your hunger you will be successful.
Other than that, I just tell them to add vegetables to at least 1 or 2 meals/day making sure there are 5 different natural colours in their daily eating plan, and keep their calories to our set level. That’s all. I might fine-tune things over time, but only when they ask and they’re ready. Drastically changing a way of eating will cause the person to give up because it cannot be sustained.
2) Strength In Goals
Nutrition is usually the toughest thing for a client to change, especially if they have a family and young kids.
Day 1 of a programme is very important to mindset change, this is where I focus on visualising your goals and how you will achieve them by being consistent and completing all that you set for yourself. I also focus on simple changes to nutrition
The primary reason is to take your focus away from stepping on the scales because it’s not all about the number that is staring back at you, Sometimes this can destroy your motivation.
If the client is successful in either increasing the amount of weight they are exercising with by a few pounds or an exercise by a few reps, it won’t be long before they realise that they’re on the right path, especially when they smash their first week’s goal.
Whether they know it or not, everyone likes the feeling of improving. Everyone likes to feel a few new muscles while they’re sitting at their desk or playing with their kids.
A change in mindset will lead you to understand that progress can be made in more ways than one, but that staying consistent and practicing will help you reach your goals sooner.
3) Home Assignments
Video’s are a great way of keeping the workout consistency going. I share the video’s I have made myself. Another brilliant video is you working out, there is nothing better than working out with yourself and being able to do more than yourself self on the screen.
I share popular articles about what nutrition and exercise, and YouTube videos or podcasts to help my clients learn and progress each week.
Clients tell me that they truly appreciate me sharing other people’s stuff, especially stuff from the people who have inspired me to gain my knowledge and who have taught me what I know. It also gives them multiple voices to learn from. It would be a bit odd if everything I shared was stuff I wrote.
A number one reason is to keep clients learning because the more knowledgeable they are, the more they’ll feel in control of their own goals.
Once you realise how much control you have, your confidence tends to skyrocket as you stress less about small hiccups during the week.
Some brilliant ways of getting my clients to take more control include:
Writing down up to 200 reasons why you are on this journey, how you will feel when you reach your ultimate goal, how this will enhance your life and the lives of those closest to you. What you are going to do to enable you to reach this goal and why you need to do it.
This is displayed somewhere significant to you so that it keeps fresh in your mind, creating a fantastic behaviour change.
Letter to yourself If I have a client that always beats themselves up over the smallest of things, I ask them to write at least one thing each day where they feel they made an improvement. It doesn’t even have to be fitness related.
As humans, we are very negative, people often beat themselves up for every small mistake they make throughout a day. They can be too focused on what they did wrong that they fail to see the positives.
The last part is part is why I keep nutrition basic and take out all the stuff that to be honest is just not necessary and makes it complicated. I drive home that there are no off limit foods — just certain foods that will increase your calorie intake a lot quicker and leave you craving more resulting in your goal moving further into the distance.
