I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to work out or diet to achieve my fitness goal, it better work! Not only do I want it to work, preferably I’d like it to be the most effective and efficient workout and/or diet for my goal. This way I won’t have to work as hard and can dedicate my time to other things and experience life, or if I do work as hard, I’ll get twice the amount of results.

Sound too good to be true?

Unfortunately, you probably said “yes”, which pains me.

Change the process, change the results

I am someone that truly changes lives and desires to change as many as I can. Individuals that get the opportunity to work with me aren’t provided with a temporary change that yields an unknown or possibly bad reaction/response. Instead, I provide a lasting, permanent and positive change to their health, fitness and life.

I provide highly motivated individuals a process and a set of tools that delivers all the necessities to achieve their fitness goal, but also allows all the happiness, social experiences, and necessities that are needed for a fulfilled, successful, tranquil, complete life.

When I see all the misinformation and faulty advice given with good intentions, although sometimes not, it tears me up inside knowing someone is benefiting off another person’s new struggle.  All the hard work that gets put in with little to no results or change, that often results in physical and psychological problems, kills me inside.

I take notes and analyze everything to the point I pay for the premium version of Evernote, a complete life management system, in my opinion. After a decade as a trainer, nearly 2 decades in the gym and hundreds of clients, it would be almost impossible not to have observed patterns. From those patterns I developed a 7-step process, that when followed, will yield continuous permanent change and success in all that you do and apply the process to.


Step 1: Where are you?

If you don’t know where you are, how can you expect to get where you want to go?

Think about it. If you’re trying to get to New York and you’re in Los Angeles, but you believe you’re in Miami, you’re going to head straight north. Instead of ending up in New York, you’ll end up in Washington.

Same amount of work, but you are nowhere near your goal destination.

The amount of time, effort, sweat, pain and frustration the overwhelming majority of people waste by skipping this step is mind bogging. If only people were real with themselves and about their current situation instead of ignoring it and trying to do something completely foreign. Pretending to be in some Lala Land place where they will easily do the new behavior and are the “best version” of themselves, they would actually find what works for them and not someone else.

When figuring out where you are, here are some aspects of your life to measure and monitor.

  • Your weight and body fat %
  • Vital stats i.e.: blood pressure, cholesterol etc.
  • What you’re eating
  • Activity level
  • Stress levels
  • Your schedule
  • Your obligations
  • Current challenges and obstacles
  • Sleep schedule

Start by logging your food for a week. If you can’t log what you’re eating and educate yourself when you have no restrictions, how do you expect to follow any other plan for any amount of time? The more detailed you are, the more beneficial it will be.

You would be surprised how hard this step is for everyone to do. It requires you to be accountable for all that you do. If you can’t monitor what you’re eating now, how bad do you really want to change? And if you don’t know what you’re currently doing, how do you change what you don’t even know?

Step 2: Where have you been?

Just because you started something new, doesn’t mean you’re going to change right away; we all get that. But, why is it that some people change faster than others doing the exact same thing?

Simple answer, YOUR HISTORY.

Not only does history tend to repeat itself and provide valuable information, your history also dictates what is going to happen and the rate it will happen. Someone that has been doing the wrong thing for years is going take longer to achieve a fitness goal than someone who has been doing the wrong thing for less time because they have more to “clean up.”

We are where and what we are as a result of what we have done or not done in the past. Your cells are formed and become what they are by what you eat and do. So, wouldn’t it just make sense to know your history to give yourself the best chance to achieve your fitness goal?

OF COURSE!

Knowing your history forms the plan of attack to achieve your goals.

  • What you’ve tried in the past that didn’t work with will help you save time by not trying those methods again.
  • Knowing what worked for you in the past will give you a great starting point.
  • The obstacles and struggles you encountered in the past allow you to form a plan beforehand to overcome these obstacles instead of letting them defeat you once again.
  • Your medical history will give you a guideline to safely and effectively form a program and it may explain some obstacles that you will have to overcome.

Most people look at health and fitness as something they add to their life, the “More is better mentality.” They are eager to add a workout, add a diet or some other practice, never paying attention to their own complex life. If you want to continuously and permanently change, you must focus on the obstacles and weaknesses, not only on what you can easily do and your strengths.



Step 3: Where do you want to go?

Step 3 can also be asked as: What is the goal?

Why is goal formation the third step and not the first step?

Being real and knowing yourself prevents wasted effort and time by making sure your fitnesss goal applies to you and your current situation.

In my experience, most people sacrifice what they want in the future for what they want in the present for comfort and certainty reasons. They have a goal or dream in mind that they believe they want, but little to none of their actions prove it. One could argue that they don’t want that goal or dream at all because they do nothing for it, and they wouldn’t be wrong. Why don’t they do what they say they want?

Most often it’s because the achievement of the fitness goal has nothing to do with the outcome they desire.

The fitness goal of not being fat isn’t a goal of being skinny, it’s a goal to rid themselves of the repercussions and feelings from being fat. They may believe being skinny is the solution, but in reality, being skinny doesn’t address the repercussions and feelings from being fat. Depending on the repercussions and feelings they are addressing, they may not have to get skinny to achieve their goal.

To form a real goal, you must form a SMART goal. Anything other than a SMART goal is merely a dream or a wish. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely. A goal must meet all of these criteria to be considered a real goal. For more on SMART goals click HERE.

Step 4: Form a Hypothesis

Once you know where you are, where you have been and where you want to go, you need to form a hypothesis based on all the information collected in the previous 3 steps.

A hypothesis is an educated guess based on the data and limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.

Taking into account all the information collected in the previous steps, you need to form a hypothesis on the best possible plan of attack/program to achieve your goals. Don’t worry about making the plan perfect, because even the worst plan for you will provide valuable information and will help you progress towards your fitness goal.

Step 5: Test your Hypothesis

As NIKE states: JUST DO IT! Once you have come to a conclusion on your plan of attack/hypothesis, all you need to do is just do it and do it to the best of your ability.

Write down everything that happens while you are following the plan. Document how you feel and anything you deem important and relevant to the achievement of your goal. If you failed in any way, document how you failed and any potential reasons. The more data you can collect, the easier it will be to find your plan to achieve your fitness goal permanently.



Step 6: Assess and Repeat

After testing and documenting what happened while you were carrying out your hypothesis, you need to assess the results.

  • Take the information you gathered from step 5 and apply that again to the first three steps.
  • The result you have from your hypothesis is now your new step 1/starting point.
  • Your result and the data you collected can now be added to your new step 2/History.
  • If there was any change of where you want to go due to the new information, you then will change your step 3.
  • If there was no change in where you want to go due to the new information, you simply will keep your fitness goal as is.

 

Step 7: Have a Big Enough Why

Step 7 isn’t an actual step in the process, rather a constant that needs to be continually addressed throughout the entire process and all you do in life.

If the reason you’re trying to achieve a goal isn’t big enough, compelling enough, or motivating, you will never achieve it, let alone even be able to successfully complete steps 1-6. The reason you don’t achieve your goals isn’t because there is a lack of information, It’s because there is a lack of reason and desire to achieve the goal in the first place. Without a big enough reason why to do anything, you simply won’t do it.

Hence Why To Fitness. If there is no WHY to your fitness, there is no reason to your fitness. If there is no reason to your fitness, your fitness will have no reason to exist.

With a powerful WHY anything is possible.

-WTF