Setting Yourself Up For Success: Trust the Process

It's time for some serious honesty. Being a fitness coach with integrity is really hard sometimes. Do I ever consider sacrificing my integrity in my profession? Absolutely not. But is it hard to keep my integrity and make a big splash in fitness within the first year or so? You freaking bet. 

Although it's difficult, I have to trust the process. I have to understand that doing the right things now will pay off later on. There are so many options out there that could make instant money and recognition for me. I could easily photoshop pictures of myself and post them on Instagram saying that my program will get people ripped in 6 weeks or less. I could pay random individuals for pictures of transformations they completed on their own, say that I did that for them, and create a library of false testimonials in no time. I'd make a killing.

But that's just not what sets fire for me. Relationships do. Educating, encouraging, and building community with my clients is what sparks a fire inside of me. I just have to understand that if I want to pursue what gives me purpose inside of an industry like fitness, patience is a must. 

I have to understand that choosing the integrity route is going to cost more time, effort, and energy with minimal reward now, but in the end it'll pay off more than anything else would.

The same goes for your fat loss journey.

You can take diuretics, eat nothing but bananas, and take all sorts of pills but if you choose to go that route, you have to understand that your progress is going to die quicker than a middle schooler's self-esteem after his first taste of rejection.

Understand That It's a Process

I talk about state of mind a lot. I did so in my last article about how to crush your resolutions. In that article I talked about how coming to a place of understanding is one of the best things you can do if you want to achieve a goal. This is especially true when it comes to fat loss. 

If you hear anyone or anything tell you that fat loss is quick, easy, or simple, they're lying to your face. Or are they? I guess technically, they're right. You could wake up tomorrow and eat nothing but bananas and you'll probably lose weight. But is that the fat loss you're truly after?

Didn't think so.

The fat loss that you're after is long-term, sustainable fat loss that will enable you to stay leaner year-round. I mean, I guess you could choose to lose 10 pounds, put on 20, lose another 15, and put on 30, continuously gaining more and more fat over the course of your life, but hey. It's your life, not mine. Personally, I think that method is freaking miserable and it makes "health" and "fitness" become two bad words that I'd never want to say again.

Anyway, achieving long-term sustainable fat loss is similar to my story of making a splash in the lives of thousands. It's a looong process. Why? Because it involves doing things the right way. It involves taking the time to build lean muscle tissue that will support a faster metabolism. It involves prioritizing your sleep schedule so your body can rest, recover, and support it's hormone levels. It also involves knowing your body well and learning how it processes and digests certain foods. It's much more than just working out more and eating less. Does that say that it's extremely difficult and nearly impossible? 

Of course not.

 It just takes more time than you might expect. But if you go into it understanding that:

1. it's going to take some time
and
2. it's going to be more beneficial for you in the long run,

losing fat and staying lean won't bring any negative thoughts to your mind. In fact, you'll go into it with so many more positive feelings because you've already accepted the fact that you're sacrificing the easy way out for a process that is going to benefit your health and body composition for the rest of your life.

Trusting the Process

Understanding the fact that something worthwhile takes time is one thing, but completely surrendering to it and trusting it is a completely different animal. 

We can sit here all day long and talk about the different definitions we all have for trust and what it means to us on a deep level. But let's not. Let's keep it simple.

To me, trusting the process involves being educated in the process. It's too difficult to trust something that I know nothing about.

What's easier, fully placing trust in the person you're closest to, or placing your trust in the person you picked off the side of the road? The former, I'd hope. 

Perhaps you've never trusted your fat loss journey because you've never fully understood it. What does it mean to build lean muscle tissue? Why does that have an effect on your metabolism? How could sleep possibly play a role in you losing fat? Ask yourself questions like these, and if you don't know the answers, find them. 

I believe knowledge builds trust in things. 

For me, knowing why it takes time to make a make an impact in the lives of thousands helps me get up in the morning with a fire under my butt to GSD (get sh*t done). If I went into this expecting maximum rewards from minimal effort, I'd be pretty discouraged.

Same thing goes for you. Educating yourself on the requirements of long-term sustainable fat loss will make hitting your goals so much easier. You'll be more motivated, and the chances of you giving up half-way through will be much lower.

So figure out what that looks like for you. Maybe you need to learn more from a coach. Maybe you know quite a bit and you just need to remind yourself of that. Whatever it is, find someone or something to help you build trust. 

Then, GSD and crush your goals.

Thanks For Reading!

Thank you for taking time out of your day to hear what I have to say. I truly appreciate it. No matter where you're at along your health and fitness journey, remember that you've got a guy. I'm here to help you take that next step, regardless of what that might look like. From a simple note of encouragement to completely tailored coaching, I'm here for ya. God bless.

About the Author

Adam is a fitness professional, Chipotle fanatic, and cookie enthusiast based in Fort Collins, CO. After hanging up the baseball cleats, he found a strong interest in the human body and how it performs. Since then, Adam has been transforming lives through fitness in a fun and encouraging atmosphere. 

As an ACE CPT and Fitness Nutrition Specialist, he's constantly moved to helped people improve in all walks of life. If you're interested in hiring Adam as your coach, fill out an application here.

Build Muscle or Burn Fat: Which Should Come First?

Over this past week I have been meeting with potential clients at the coffee shop close to my place. It's a great spot to build relationships and have great conversations. During those conversations, I noticed a lot of questions were shared between the various people I was speaking with. One of the most common questions asked was: "If my goal is to build lean muscle tissue, should I try to build muscle first, or lose body fat first?"

My immediate answer is this: It depends. It depends on what your ideal body is, where you're starting, and whether you're male or female. Having said that, I am going to speak for the male readers out there. Don't worry ladies, all of this applies to you as well, just round up 7-8 percentage points when I'm speaking of body fat percentage. 

Now, I want to take the time to explain how you can figure out what to do first on your fitness journey. 

Starting Points

All of our starting points are different. We have different genetics, different body compositions, and different goals. So in order to properly assess the best initial goal, we need to first figure out where we're at with our body composition. Figuring out what goal to attack first is dependent on the individuals starting body fat percentage. For the sake of the topic, I'd like to use 15% body fat as a good place for middle ground. If I'm looking to gain lean muscle tissue, I must first accept that there will most likely be a little extra fat put on during that phase, although It is possible to burn fat and build muscle at the same time, especially when you are just starting an exercise program for the first time. But for those of us out there who have been training for a while, it is an extremely hard goal unless you are counting each and every calorie, which can be hard with busy schedules, kids, travel, "lack of time", etc. 

Once we have accepted that some fat may be added to the pounds on the scale, we can now properly assess the direction we must take. If we start out at a lower body fat percentage (lower than 15%) I would strongly consider building muscle, since we won't get close to that 20% range which is what we want to avoid. Going off of that, we would aim to burn fat first if our body fat was 15% or higher because 20% body fat is not where we want to be if our goal is to be lean and healthy. 

Ultimately, it comes down to knowing what body fat percentage we currently have. There's a question that still stands, though. Why do we need to avoid 20% body fat? Why can't we just get to 20-25% and work our way down? Let me explain.

TAKE CAUTION

As I stated before, 20% body fat is what we want to avoid because it is easier to let yourself go and not worry about the additional fat gained. It's harder to see that fat gain because there isn't any initial muscle tissue to look at anyway. You could be at 30% body fat before you know it. 

LEAN DOESN'T MEAN SMALL OR SKINNY

When I started leaning out for the first time, I was absolutely terrified. I was at my biggest and strongest at that point. I had nearly 240 pounds on me and I felt great about it. I knew I had a decent amount of body fat at the time, but I wasn't concerned, really. As I got leaner and leaner, people kept saying that I was looking bigger, that my muscles looked fuller, and I was more vascular. People told me stories of others looking bigger as they leaned down and I thought it was complete garbage. How could I possibly look leaner if I was losing weight? Muscles. That's why. I began to see the muscles that I had developed over the years and they looked bigger without all of that fat around them. Now that I'm in a stage of maintenance with plenty of food and a lean composition, people are saying I look bigger and leaner than ever. I'm only 212-215 pounds on a 6'2" frame, which isn't anything jaw-dropping. 

Additionally, it's extremely difficult to gauge what we want to gain because we can't actually see what our lean muscle mass actually looks like under all of that fat. If you have 25% body fat, you may want to gain 10 pounds of lean muscle, but I am willing to bet that if you see yourself at 10-15% body fat, you'll be pretty happy with what you're workin' with. 

To conclude, burning fat first is always a good option, unless you're completely new to working out and your body can handle two things at once, or you body fat is low and you can visually see your lean muscle mass. 

If you have any questions like this, please send me an email at adam@poehlmannfitness.com, or send me a message after you "like", and follow me on the socials!

Thanks for reading!