The Secret To Success In Your Health and Fitness Journey

One of the many blessings that I have been given during my personal training career is the opportunity to meet and train hundreds of people in all walks of life. I truly believe that there is something I can learn from every human being on the face of this earth, and I’ve been lucky enough to experience that truth through the people I train.

My clients have come from all walks of life; young, old, wise, moms, dads, husbands, wives, all of which are extremely successful in at least one aspect of their life. When I train people like this, I try to remain as observant and open as I can in order to take note of what makes them so successful. In doing that, I’ve come to realize that the reason they are successful in their home life or career life is the same exact reason they have success in their health and fitness. This secret that they all share in common is what I am here to discuss today.

THE SECRET

As I said, all of these successful individuals share something in common, and they use it to create success in their health, career, family life, relationships, and more.

Before I go any further, let me be clear. This secret isn’t going to give you the answer to all of your problems. You’re not going to read this article and as a result find immediate success. The secret discussed in this short article only works when it is applied. So, I encourage you to pay attention. Reflect on the words you’re reading and take note of what that means for you in your life. This secret is not an answer to all of the holes in your life. However, the two-part secret will nudge you in the right direction, as log as you are willing to be nudged.

Onward.

Regardless of anything you do in life, there is a process that takes place. There is a plan, an order of operations so to speak. When you eat cereal, you don’t just get to enjoy eating the cereal without going step-by-step through the process. You pick your bowl, you pick your cereal, you pour your cereal, you pour the milk on top (if you put milk in first you’re a freaking weirdo), you get your spoon, and THEN you enjoy all the goodness cereal has to offer.

If you dig deep, you’ll discover that there are two elements to the process of eating cereal that allow it to come to fruition. These two elements make up the secret that most successful people share.

Part 1: Trust

Back to the cereal. Before you execute the steps required to make a great bowl of cereal, you have trust that it’s going to work. You trust that after each step, you’ll be able to really enjoy that cereal. The same goes with your health and fitness. You must trust the process.

Trusting the process isn’t as abstract or generic as it sounds. It’s pretty simple, really. Trusting the process along your health and fitness journey means you are trusting that the food you are eating and the training plan you’re following will get you to your end goal if you adhere to them consistently. But before you can have trust, you need to have a certain level of understanding.

The more you know someone, the more you can trust them depending on their character. The more you understand about your training and nutrition plan, the more you can trust them. Whether you hired a trainer or cooked up a plan on your own, you need to understand why you are doing it. If there are any elements of your process that you do not understand, find the answer. If you don’t know why you need to eat so much protein in a day, ask. If you don’t know why you’re lifting 4-6 reps instead of 12-15, find out why.

Once you understand why each part of your process is helping you get closer and closer to your goal, you’ll be able to place an immense amount of trust and confidence in your plan. The confidence and trust you will have will keep you from wavering. It will keep you from quitting. It will keep you from slipping. It will keep you determined and ready.

Every single one of my clients that have found success in their lives get this. They understand it and they implement it to the fullest. They develop a plan that they understand and believe in. With that belief, they place their trust in it and enjoy their daily walk towards success.

Part 2: Enjoy It

I have never had one single client that reached their goal without enjoying a part of the process along the way. Think about it, have you met someone that is extremely successful that hated every single minute of every single thing they were doing to get there? I don’t.

A key part of this secret is enjoying the process.

Trust and belief can get you a long way. In fact, you can certainly reach your goals with trust, belief, and determination. But think about this for a second: how much easier is it to do something that you want to do, versus something that you have to do?

When you get home from a long day of work, it’s way easier to watch Netflix instead of getting ahead on emails because you want to watch Netflix. Imagine if what you wanted to do is also what you had to do in order to achieve your health and fitness goals?

I’m not saying that you need to enjoy every single part of the process in order to reach your goals. That’s not at all what I’m saying. What I am saying, however, is that it is extremely important to find at least one part of the process that your thoroughly enjoy. If you enjoy cooking, find some fun and exciting recipes to try out that will help you eat the right foods. If you enjoy lifting weights, program some of your favorite lifts into your routine. For me, I thoroughly enjoying lifting super heavy. Although I am prioritizing slightly higher rep ranges for my goals, I’m still doing heavy squats and deadlifts here and there. Whatever it is, find a way to incorporate something you love into your process. You’ll see you will, determination, and consistency increase tremendously.

THE TAKEAWAYS

The first step of finding success and reaching your health and fitness is goals if fully believing and trusting in the process/plan you have created for yourself. If you don’t know why you’re doing something, find out.

The second part is very important, and that is finding at least one part of the process that you thoroughly enjoy. Whether it’s preparing healthy meals or lifting heavy weights, you must do something you love that will also get you to your goals on a consistent basis.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adam is a fitness professional, baseball fan, and cookie fanatic based in Fort Collins, Colorado. After hanging up the 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 is constantly moved to help people improve in all walks of life. If you’re interested in hiring Adam as your coach, fill out an application here.

How to Make Health and Fitness A Priority

This is one of those articles that can be great if you implement what you learn. If not, it'll just be another thing you read as you go about your day making no change to your life.

There's an intro for ya.

Last week, a friend emailed me and asked how I make health and fitness a priority in my life, and what they need to do to make it a priority for themselves.

But before I give you some advice, I'll say this:

There is no formula or step-by-step process in the entire universe that will force a change in your life. YOU have to want to make that change bad enough for yourself. If you do, you'll make it happen. If you don't, you won't. It's a simple as that. It's the brutal truth.

Be open and honest with yourself as you read this article and reflect.

#1: PLAN AHEAD

You can be on the greatest diet of all time and you can have the most effective workout program in the world, but it doesn't mean jack if you don't plan to make those things a consistent part of your life. You MUST plan ahead.

"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." - Ben Franklin

I like to think I am a hard worker, but I know for a fact that if I didn't take time to plan things ahead of time, they would never happen. No matter how hard you work and how determined you are, the same rule applies to you. I'm not sure what you use to plan and schedule your daily and weekly life, but whatever it is, I'm sure it helps you a ton. If you use that method to plan your meetings, work days, babysitter, appointments, and all the other crazy things you have going on in your life, why wouldn't you do the same for your health and fitness?

Put your workouts in your calendar NOW. Seriously, stop what you're doing and schedule your workouts for this week as well as the upcoming week. Do your workouts take an hour? Yes? Ok, awesome. Find an hour in your calendar, create an event, and title it "Gym Time" or "My Time" or "GO LIFT HEAVY STUFF".

"I don't have an open hour in my calendar."

Yes, you do. You just didn't look hard enough to find it. Go back and try again.

Once you're done planning and scheduling your workouts, take a look at your nutrition and ask yourself the following questions:

• Where do I succeed in my nutrition, and what do I need to do to continue that success?

• Where do I struggle, and what do I need to do to make sure those struggles are non-existent this week?

Whatever that looks like, plan it out.

For most people, the main struggle is eating healthy on a consistent basis while balancing a busy schedule. It's too easy to go out and grab fast food if you don't have anything ready at home, so make sure that doesn't happen. Do some meal prepping, and make some snacks for you to eat this week and the next, NOW. Seriously, do it now.

Put some meat in the crockpot, make a massive pot of rice, and cook up some greens that are easy for you to take on the go. That takes wayyy less time than you might think. Putting meat in the crockpot takes a couple of seconds, and the crockpot does all the work while you prep other things. Rice takes 10-2o minutes. Greens, about the same. All you need to make easy meals for the entire week is 3o minutes to an hour at the most. You have that time. Sit down and put it in your calendar, NOW.

I'm telling you, planning out the next 7-14 days is going to bring you GREAT success. You just need to do it. So sit down, think about where it's hardest for you to succeed, and schedule a game plan to make sure falling short doesn't happen.

#2: CREATE BEHAVIOR-BASED GOALS

If you've been paying attention to my content for a while, you know that I constantly talk about how important it is to know your why. Your why is the reason you're doing this. Your why tells you the importance and significance of making a change in your life. It is absolutely essential.

But what comes after the why?

Action.

Here's the thing, though. Action means nothing if there's no consistency, and the best way to build consistency is to create habits. The best way to create habits is through behavior-based goals.

Why ---> Behavior ---> Habit ---> Consistency ---> Success

It's easy for all of us to think about the outcome-based goals we want. We want to lose 5% body fat. We want to drop 20lbs. Whatever it is, we all have some sort of outcome-based goal. That's good and well, but those outcomes come from consistency that begins with behavior change. Think for a quick second on what your outcome-based goal is. Now, take that goal and break it down. Ask yourself: "If I want to achieve _______ in ____ months, what do I need to do?" If you need to train properly and eat according to your goals, your new goal is to train five days per week and eat healthy 80% of the time each day. This is just an example. It will change depending on the goal you have and what you need to do to get there. So, figure out what the process looks like, and make the behaviors in your process your new goals that you aim to achieve each day.

I have been absolutely horrible about prioritizing my mobility. I want to reach a new squat PR and improve my form, so my goal is to spend 15 minutes doing ankle mobility 3x per week. That's an example of a behavior-based goal.

Not only will behavior-based goals build consistency, but they'll also keep the big goal from feeling like this daunting, difficult, and completely out-of-reach achievement. You'll slowly begin focusing on the present, what you can do THIS day, and before you know it, you'll be at your outcome-based goal.

#3: YOU GOTTA WANT IT

This one is straight forward. If you want health and fitness to be a priority in your life, you gotta want it. If you do, you'll prioritize it. If you don't, you won't.

I can already hear the excuses I've heard over and over replaying in my head...

"I don't have any time for that."

"You don't understand, you're not a parent."

"My job is too demanding. I have too much on my plate."

STOP.

Just, STOP.

STOP lying to yourself, and take responsibility. It's perfectly fine if you don't want health and fitness to be a priority. But, it is NOT ok to tell yourself it is a top priority when you're not treating it as such.

If your health and fitness really means that much to you, you'll make it happen. You'll move things around, you'll cancel stuff. You'll find a gym that has a daycare for your kids and you'll pay extra for it. You'll wake up early. You'll ask your spouse to help you make time. You'll get a home gym.

It is plain and simple, people. You'll make it happen if you want it to. You won't if you don't. That's the brutal truth.

So, sit down and think through this.

Ask yourself: "Is health and fitness really my top priority?" If it's not, and you don't need it to be, then be at peace with that. It is absolutely not fair for you to tell yourself that it is your top priority and then treat it differently. If it IS your top priority, then make changes accordingly to treat it as such.

Be objective. Be honest. Be truthful.

THE TAKEAWAY

Making health and fitness a top priority comes down to what you want. The BEST thing you can do for yourself after reading this article is to sit down and figure out if you really do want this for yourself. If you do, plan ahead, and plan to execute your behavior-based goals.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adam is a fitness professional, baseball fan, and cookie fanatic based in Fort Collins, Colorado. After hanging up the 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 is constantly moved to help people improve in all walks of life. If you’re interested in hiring Adam as your coach, fill out an application here.

5 Tips for Easier Fat Loss

Do a Google search for "how to lose fat." I dare you.

You will find thousands upon thousands of different sources, with tons of different answers. If you took the time to compare and contrast all of those different answers, you'd find tons of similarities, and tons of differences. The problem is...

Since you have other important things to do, I'd like to make your life a bit easier. Below is a list of 5 things you should be doing to lose fat easier. If you turn these items into habits, the fat will stay off easier, too.

LIFT WEIGHTS

Lifting weights is going to be one of the best things you can do for your health and fitness no matter what your goal is. I don't care if your goal is fat loss, muscle building, or getting out of your car without groaning. You should be lifting weights.

When we introduce something to our body, it sends a signal telling our body to adapt. If you perform endurance running, your body will receive a signal telling it to adapt by improving its energy efficiency (your metabolism will slow down). If you perform mobility and stretching consistently, your body will receive a signal telling it to adapt my improving the muscles' ability to lengthen and create stability in those lengthened positions. The same concept applies for resistance training. When you lift weights, you send a signal to your body telling it to gain strength and build muscle. As a result, you will become stronger, and carry more lean tissue. This is beneficial for fat loss for one major reason. Resistance training promotes a faster metabolism, as well as muscle building. Muscle takes a lot of energy to maintain, so your metabolism will increase as a result of your increased muscle mass as well. In short, you'll build a fast metabolism, and as you know, fat loss is much easier with a faster metabolism.

Before I move on, I want to clarify something. When I say building muscle, I specifically mean adding ANY amount of lean muscle to your body. This applies for women wanting to increase tone and definition, as well as men wanting to get jacked. Any sort of increase in lean tissue (even if it's a small increase) will lead to a faster metabolism. You'll also look great, too. So that's nice.

TRACK YOUR FOOD

Tracking your food intake is something I believe EVERYONE should do. It is the best way you can get an extremely good idea of how food affects your internal health as well as fat loss. Tracking gives you an opportunity to know what and how much you're currently intaking, and also allows you to see what tweaks you need to make in order to lose more fat. We've been trained to mindlessly eat since we were kids. You'll be astonished by what you discover when you finally decide to keep a log of your food.

Here's the thing. Fat loss and finances are similar in many ways. If you want to know how to save money, you're going to want to track your spending and create a budget in order to save more money. Similarly, if you want to lose fat, you're going to want to track your eating and create a "budget" in order to burn more energy than you consume in a day. In both scenarios, playing the guessing game is dangerous and will most likely put you in a bigger hole than you're in now. Take responsibility, get determined, and take note of what you do so you can make accurate and beneficial changes.

BOOST YOUR METABOLISM

I briefly discussed this before, but I'll go over it in more detail.

In the context of modern life, speeding up your metabolism is one of the best things you can do. It will make getting lean and staying lean much easier. Why? For starters, we are more sedentary than ever. In addition, food is more readily available than ever before. Simply put, we are moving less and eating more. So, having a faster metabolism will make it easier for you to burn more calories without sacrificing your lifestyle.

Two things you can do to boost your metabolism include eating more food and performing resistance training. If you do things the right way, you'll see your body's ability to burn through calories increase like crazy. While performing your resistance training program, slowly add volume to your workouts once your body begins to adapt. Increases in volume have been proven to enhance strength and muscle mass, which are going to help your metabolism. You can add volume to your training by adding weight, sets, reps, or a combination of the three. While tracking your nutrition, make sure you're eating enough protein, carbs, and fat for your desired outcome. The goal is to maintain your current weight week after week as you eat more food and add volume to your training.

STAY CONSISTENT

This one is simple. If you're consistent, you'll see positive change. If you're inconsistent, you won't. It is better to be 90% consistent consistently than to be 100% consistent inconsistently. Don't stress too much about the BEST workout ever. Don't stress too much about the BEST nutrition protocol ever. Instead, focus on eating well 80% of the time, and getting all your workouts in. Even if that's too much, find ONE simple change in your training and ONE simple change in your nutrition that you can be consistent with. Once those changes have turned into habits, build from there.

HAVE YOUR EYES SET ON THE LONG TERM

Can you lose 20 pounds in two weeks? Yup. But you don't want to go down that road. Short-term, get fit quick routes will lead you to hole that will take years and years to dig yourself out of. If you want to build a lean body and be able to easily maintain it down the road, have your eyes set on the long term. If you want that kind of change, you need to accept the fact that you are going to make a lifestyle change. Lifestyle changes are no joke, and they take time. Once you have your long term goal and you've accepted the fact that you're making a lifestyle change, break things down a bit. Make daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Also, it may be a good idea to create behavior-based short-term goals for your outcome-based goals. Let's say your outcome-based goal is losing 50 pounds of body fat in a healthy way over the course of the next 2 years. Your behavior-based goals can be things like getting all your workouts in, meeting your macronutrient goals each day, and getting your body composition tested every month. Whatever you choose to do, create some behavior change. Outcome-based goals are achieved far more often when there are detailed behavior-based goals to go along with them.

THE TAKEAWAY

If you want to lose fat and keep it off, make sure you implement these five things into your life.

1. Lift weights

2. Track your food

3. Boost your metabolism

4. Stay consistent

5. Have your eyes set on the long term

If you do these things (even on a small scale) and slowly build, you will see great change in your health and fitness.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adam is a fitness professional, baseball fan, and cookie fanatic based in Fort Collins, Colorado. After hanging up the 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 is constantly moved to help people improve in all walks of life. If you’re interested in hiring Adam as your coach, fill out an application here.