When people are interested in ELEVATE opt in for our trial offer, they complete our Strategy Session Questionnaire. One of the questions we ask on this form is “How do you feel like you are currently doing with your nutrition?”
The most common answer we see is “Could be better.”
Later on in the same questionnaire, there is a question asking “What, if anything, is holding you back from making the changes you want to make?”
The most common answer for this question: “Nothing.”
So, with that said, why are we hearing more people say things like “I’m doing all the things…” or “I’m following all the rules I feel like I am supposed to…” or “It’s just not happening fast enough.”
When we are in a conversation with someone, we will commonly ask them, “If you lost all the weight you wanted, or gained all the strength you need, in a 3-6 week time frame, what would you learn?” This leads a look of “I see what you’re getting at here,” in their eyes and then the answer comes out, “Nothing.”
They’re right.
Here’s a scenario:
Jane wants to lose about 25 pounds of extra body fat. She decides to start running because she sees people running wherever she goes and for the most part they look athletic. She starts losing weight and feels great, and then she plateaus in her fat-loss/scale weight goal because the scale isn’t moving anymore. She starts to feel achy and although running was helping at first, her body feels sore all the time and her knees hurt. Jane stops running.
Then Jane’s friend tells her to join her at (insert boot camp, barre class, cycle fitness class, etc. – no offense to any of these gyms or training methods) because the friend has lost weight, made friends, and believes Jane will love it.
Jane joins a 45-minute boot camp and she’s doing intervals of 45 seconds of work with 15 seconds of rest and by the time it’s over she’s a sweaty mess and is dragging herself out of the gym, still needing to shower to get to work in time. The first 4 weeks are brutal, the scale drops just like when she was running and then it stalls and she’s at the same body weight she started at. But now her shoulders hurt and she just doesn’t feel like pushing through that pain any longer.
Since running is out, and this new gym didn’t work out the way she hoped, Jane decides to go all in on nutrition and what she eats. She reads a bunch of stuff online, cuts out carbs – especially fruits she actually likes, along with drinking wine and dinner dates with her husband. Jane has restricted many foods and once again she is dropping body fat…for a bit until the same plateau hits.
At this point, Jane is frustrated and gives up. She can’t figure out what she’s doing wrong and why none of the activities or eating plans she’s trying aren’t working.
Does this sound familiar? It happens to men and women and it’s a vicious cycle to get caught up in. We know because almost everyone we work with has experienced this.
All you want is to look good, feel better and regain your self-confidence – the confidence that’s been missing since your childhood or early twenties.
The big issue that we, the fitness industry, has created, is making what can be a simple process far too complicated. There’s too much confusion and too many options and no one knows what to do and why they’re doing it.
When we help coach members with their exercise and nutrition practice, we uncover why the methods Jane attempted above don’t work for long-term, sustainable results and what does work for most people most of the time.
We outline: mindset, general nutrition, sleep and recovery, strength training, metabolic conditioning, lower intensity activities.
Please reach out and let us know how we can help you.