When a client comes to you looking to lose weight, it’s easy to talk about. You are so focused on achieving their goals, on keeping them motivated, that you talk about losing weight all of the time. It’s easy because you’re both excited about taking the weight off.

But what happens when you have someone who is already fairly thin. She watches her calorie consumption carefully so she assumes she will stay thin. The problem is that yes, she isn’t getting a lot of calories but the calories she does eat are really high in fat, so suddenly it’s starting to catch up to her. How do I approach a situation like that? She is very sensitive about it, so if I ask her what she’s been eating, or suggest she do a little more cardio, her defenses immediately go up and she reacts very strongly. I mentioned to her once before that it looked like she might have gained a bit and her response was so intense that it really made me realize that even people who we think might be calm and collected really might not be as stable as we think. Of course no one wants to hear that they are putting on weight, but isn’t it my job as their trainer to mention it?  That’s the question, when should we speak and when should we keep it to ourselves?

I think that most people are aware when their bodies are changing, they can feel it in their clothes and see it in the mirror so do we really need to reinforce these negative things? I think it comes down to how you say it. You don’t need to say you’ve gotten fatter, you need to lose a few pounds, you can say something like you know, you’d feel great and have a lot more energy if you were to lose another five pounds. I try to get it across in a positive manner. There is so much pressure on all of us to look perfect that I don’t feel that reinforcing the negative by focusing on how much you’ve gained or how much you’ve ate is going to do any of us any good. Positivity will take you all the way! I think for my client the best way to approach it would be to start mixing up her training and then get feedback from her abut how she feels.

I think the best thing for all of us to do when we’re not feeling great about ourselves is not to just sit there and say I’m fat, I’m awful, but really look at what we’re doing and be brutally honest with ourselves. Sometimes it’s better to face reality and have the ability to move on and make the necessary changes.

I see all these people come in every day and all have such different lives and deal with such different issues and troubles. Who is to say what is the most stressful?

The woman who lived a great life, was very successful, she got up and went to work and everything was organized and coordinated by her staff and she was able to train when she wanted and nothing got in the way. Then she lost her job. Suddenly her days seemed choatic, meetings and interviews got in the way of training, she was suddenly worrying about how she would pay the bills and she felt like everything was spinning out of control.

The man who runs multiple different businesses and a who has responsibilities to so many people and runs around constantly to try and fit in the time to run and bike and swim and still make it home in time to see his wife and children.

The single mom with the two children that has to make ends meet and has to go out and get a job and come home and take care of the children by herself. Make them dinner, make sure they do their homework, get them into bed and be able to get herself into bed in time to get enough rest to have the energy to do it all again tomorrow.

And then there is the girl who has been training to run her first half marathon this last weekend. She was scared, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to finish, she didn’t know what to expect and her body was physically tired from the training.

Each of these things are stressful and each person will probably tell you that they are the most stressed, but who can really say without living in the others shoes? The fact that each of the people above make it through every day and get up the following day to do it again is amazing and they should all be empowered and proud of themselves. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that in the stressful moments, but it’s important to stop and think about the choices you made to get here and the next step you’re going to take. Are you going to let these stressful points in your lives dictate how you live and whether you are happy? Or are you going to be grateful to be here at all and have the opportunity to deal with the stressful points and work through and come out on the other side a stronger person?

But at the same time you have to be able to recognize who your clients are.

This weekend I went out mountain biking for the first time ever. I was with a group led by a trainer who had done a lot of mountain biking, and had no concept of the fact that the rest of us might not be at the same level. Three of us in the group had never been on a mountain bike before and here we are faced with huge rocks and pebbles everywhere, sand and hills on precarious paths that if we went the wrong way could have possibly gotten us severely injured. Not to mention the simple factor of the fear involved in doing something you’ve never done before. There were points I just wanted to stop and go back and this trainer had no idea because it was all about him and his workout.

Another example is when I was in LA recently and I went to Equinox to work out. There was trainer working out with this young girl who was overweight, not well dressed, and in here she was in West Hollywood with a hot trainer who had a great body and sexy little leggings and this poor girl must have felt really out of place. And here was her trainer sitting on a plyo box giving this poor girl the most ridiculous exercises. If this trainer had any idea of what her client might have been feeling she could have taken her to a quieter room with weights instead of subjecting her to working out in front of everyone. And in terms of exercises, she could have easily had get doing something a little simpler that would have gotten her strong and more confidant.

In life we are often forced to be in places that make us uncomfortable like I was on that bike ride, and the client that was being forced to workout out in front of all the beautiful people at Equinox . Sometimes it’s ok to say that this is just not necessary.  If something makes you uncomfortable, don’t do it.

At least I can say now by having that experience that I was reminded about how my clients must feel when I am in the mood to push them so hard they feel like they might collapse. I am reminded that it’s not about me. It’s about them and what they can do and how they feel about it.

Now I know logically that having a drink the night before, and eating a light English muffin with cream cheese right before I start a run is really not a smart idea. Obviously we need time to digest the food before a run, but most days I do it anyway. So I decided that instead of my English muffin, I was going to have a GU sport gel instead. That combined with not drinking gave me all the energy I’ve needed and I’ve been having amazing runs with my clients and have felt great!

So yesterday I started the day with a GU and I had a great run. After my run I had my usual two English muffins toasted with low fat cream cheese, but then my appetite was gone and I didn’t want anything again until 2:30pm when I had the crust of a no cheese pizza. I knew I had waited too long to eat and I would pay for it later when I was starving and would want all the bad things I shouldn’t be having.  And I was right. By 4 pm all I wanted was red wine, a Browning’s Skinny and candy. Nothing seemed better and hey, I could start my healthy day tomorrow and just relax for today and let my hair down. Well my hair was down, but so was my energy and motivation to do anything!

But I am happy to report that I was able to pull myself together, I drank four bottles of water by 7 pm and ate a healthy vegetarian dinner and said no to the offers if more alcohol, drank more water and went to bed to get some good rest to start my healthy day tomorrow.

Getting up today I decided that for the trip I’m going on this weekend that I was going to stick with the no alcohol and aim for no sugar as well. Typical of me to make these choices on trip where I will be doing some intense mountain biking and trail running and could probably use the energy from the sugar, but hey, when I deserve to have to work that hard after all the indulging I did yesterday right?

In reality, this probably won’t happen, because when we set such strict guidelines for ourselves, we’re setting up for failure. What I really need to do is say today I am going to get up, eat healthy and workout and be happy that I made it through the day. Which will be balanced simply because I said it would be. Say it. Do it. And it will be so. Don’t do it to punish yourself for what you did yesterday, do it to make yourself feel good about today.

It’s so great to be a positive role model for your children by being out, running races and just showing them a healthy lifestyle. This is what I told my client on the boardwalk when she wanted to stop. Keep going today and you will motivate your daughter to continue on her own path of health and wellness. It’s amazing how your actions effect your children in all areas of life. I have another client who I’ve been training for a long time. Years ago when his son was just a little boy, my client and I would go out running and the boy would bring his little bike and ride along next to us. Now a teenager he is a fantastic athlete in school. He is active and fit because growing up that is how he saw his father. No matter how many hours his father spent in the boardroom he always made time to keep himself healthy. You can’t expect your children to be healthy if you’re not leading by example.

It starts with getting on the plane and having wine, and eating nuts and pretzels and biscuits. You get to the hotel and instead of getting up the next morning to exercise you decide to go to breakfast instead.  You might choose to eat scrambled eggs, toast with butter and bacon. Then you head to lay in the sun, eating again things you normally wouldn’t eat and having that afternoon cocktail, then go back to the room and take a nap. Later it’s out to dinner where not only will you drink alcohol like you have never seen it before, but you will make food choices like you have never seen food before.

When people go away on holiday their worlds seem to fall apart and they start making all sorts of choices they wouldn’t normally make.  Especially with food, and when you come back you feel worse.

So the cycle starts and isn’t it hard enough that you have been away, relaxed, and now you have to go back to work? Why would you want to come back feeling heavy and unhappy and with the extra pressure of losing the vacation weight.

So what you need to do is make the decision not to let your eating suffer while you are traveling.  Before your flight have a nice healthy lunch so that you aren’t tempted to eat the junk on the plane once you board and you won’t be starving and tempted to splurge. Then I want you to sleep in the next day, get up and go out and go for a run, then enjoy the day at the beach or wherever you are but have a nice healthy salad for lunch or something healthy that you enjoy eating.  It won’t be easy especially when your choices are only pretzels and hot dogs but truthfully the one thing I saw in the Brownings Fitness Challenge was that when we cut out all the carbs we may still put on weight because it’s the fatty foods that make you fat know matter how you cut it.

You are on holiday so enjoy yourself, get a massage, sleep late, and go out late.  But the bottom line is that you can’t skip breakfast, eat all bad meals, eat late, drink a lot, and have absolutely no exercise. All in all you have to figure out your priorities and see what you really want. So plan ahead, take foods with you like snacks on the plane, eat before you get on, and don’t go for hours without eating. Have fun, enjoy yourself, but know that rewards do not have to actually come from things that are unhealthy, self-destructive and that make you feel bad about yourself!

I realize there has to be a way that we can get through certain obstacles in our lives. It involves changing your way of thinking. You have to be aware of it and be conscious of it. I see that without having the carbohydrates I am craving more sugars, more alcohol, and more fat because like in everything else when you stop something abruptly and completely, you always want it even more. So we have to try and find ways to find pleasure in other foods and things that might actually be better for us any way.  Things such as eating brown rice and sweet potatoes.  But even though they all have carbohydrates I still don’t have the same feeling about them as I do about my bread.

What is the solution?  I try and think of it like a step by step program.  First you need to recognize what you’ve been doing and why, and then move on to the next step which is managing it. And try not to be too hard on yourself. Beating yourself up or being angry for not getting what you want isn’t going to change the situation.

Next, and very important, is taking pride in doing this challenge and being successful at it.  Knowing that this is a choice you’re making, and if you really really wanted you could stop any time, makes sticking it out and getting through it all the better in the end! If you can stick with it and pull through it you are going to be so proud of yourself. This doesn’t just have to be in exercise but can be in any area of your life.  Take the challenge, realize this is your choice, and go out there and give it your best shot and make it work for you.

Here is a scenario that many people face: The alarm clock wakes you up, you don’t get up naturally, your schedule is booked back to back, you have to figure out where am I going to go and train, and all of those processes are absolutely exhausting. You think about how badly you ate the night before and that you really need to go and exercise and this is when you take a step back and take a look at your week realistically and say maybe I have been training hard. This was the case I had this week. I was ready to push myself with two hard runs with my meniscus tear back to back and was going crazy with eating a lot of sugar. I realized I was eating all of the sugar because my body was tired and over trained. I thought maybe if I take a time out today I might not only eat better tonight but tomorrow I will have more energy to come out and put in a hard work out. If you take the time out today not only will your body eat better it will eat better the next day but you will have energy to do a proper hard workout as opposed to just another day of junk training.

I often see people in the summer go to the gym and they sit there and pedal on the bike and I watch them in my own environment not really working, not doing interval work, and not getting their heart rate up. Their legs and muscles are absolutely exhausted. So on days like that it’s time to get a massage, get a stretch, maybe do some yoga, or say to yourself that you are going to have a complete rest day and will get up extra early tomorrow morning, eat healthy, and get out there and do a proper workout.

So instead of doing endless amounts of junk training, look at yourself and say I have to go out there and really push it. The other thing that I see is people at the gym absolutely exhausted, they are tired, so instead of dragging them through 58 minutes of a half hearted workout I take them out and push them really hard. I then tell them it would be better if they did a hard 25 minutes that’s effective as opposed to an hour where they are really not doing anything. This applies to those of you that go to the gym on your own and do your cardio. You need to take time and say I only have 30 minutes and work really hard as opposed to going for an hour and a half and burning the same amount of calories. You have then exhausted your body by doing a whole bunch of junk training. So either take a rest day or work out really hard to justify it!

We did the same challenge last year and all got great results.  The rules were no sugar, no candy, two fruits a day, but no bananas, pineapples, grapes, cherries, melon…all of those are too high in sugar. No dried fruit and nothing that you would consider a treat like a muffin, a cake, desserts, scones, biscuits, and then of course, no alcohol at all.

This year started and I had eaten a lot of candy while I was in South Africa over the holidays. I didn’t drink that much while I was there, so I was overcompensating with the sugar, and I think I put on four pounds! I decided that was it, I was going cold turkey!

You might think that this would be easy for me, but trust me, it’s not, because I LOVE sugar! The first year I did it, every day I would walk in and say I can’t do this! I was dying for a pack of Starbursts.  It really made me realize how much of my diet is actually sugar! When I was starving and saw those things I tried to persuade myself that they didn’t count.

With these thoughts of candy and tequila running through my mind I had to decide how I was going to get through these two weeks. Was I going to give in to the struggle? Let my emotions get the better of me after a long day and have that Brownings Skinny that I really want? No way! I was going to view it the way I try to view everything. That it is good for me, and it is meant to be. If I over think it, worry about it, and let the sugar cravings take over my mind, of course it’s going to be hard. I had to remind myself of all the positive reasons why I was doing it, and remember that every time I craved something and didn’t give in, I was proving to myself how strong I really am!

So how did we do?

I was amazed in the first two days I lost 3 lbs which is really scary because it made me realize how much sugar I must have been consuming. I noticed how weak I was and how little energy I had in my legs when I tried to run. I had to start to supplement my diet with more bread. That kind of carbohydrate allowed me to keep my weight up gave me energy when I needed to go on a long run.

It was interesting for some people who did our challenge and they found that they don’t really lose that much weight. This probably means that their diet isn’t made up of too much sugar and alcohol, which is why they don’t see drastic changes when they cut it out. Their diets and probably have a higher fat content. Basically, we can all eat a 1000 calories a day, but if you are eating 1000 calorie of fat, or 1000 calories of protein and doing lots of cardio, you’re probably not going to lose as much weight as the girl who eats 1000 calories of sugar because when your using your energy, the sugar is going to be the first thing your body uses up.

Everyone did a great job this year, and I’m so proud of you all for sticking it out. Of course though, it was a challenge, so someone had to win.

Lowest body fat went to myself with 9.6%.

Highest percentage of body fat lost over all went to Brownings massage therapist Katherine who lost 2.6% of her body fat.

And then there was most weight lost in pounds, and the highest percentage of weight loss, both of which went to our client Stefan S, who lost an amazing 15 pounds and 6.7% of his weight!

You are all amazing and you inspire me every day!

Our next challenge starts tomorrow! February 1^st through 13^th. Email appointments@browningsfitness.com or call 1/866-500 1909 us for details!