Where are you putting your energy?

I came across this image this morning in an email. It's from the book Essentialism. I haven't read the book but it's been on my list for a while now. I'm going to be honest, I'm only sharing it because it makes something I do with clients look really good. And if you think I'm above self promotion, you are sorely mistaken my friend. Anyway, here's the image:

The little energy circle on the left shows what happens when you put your energy into a bunch of stuff at once. You don't get a lot of anything done. Whereas, with the energy circle on the right, if you're focused on one thing you can get a lot accomplished.

This is what I try to get my clients to do (this is the patting myself on the back portion). Every Sunday I email my active clients and ask "what's the one thing (non-gym related) you're going to do this week to get closer to your health & fitness goals?" This hard for people.

To be clear, it's hard to pick only one thing. Believe it or not people can usually come up with two or three things. I can see why people make this mistake, I mean more is better right? No.

When you're trying to make a change it's really enticing to try to attack from all angles. Look the picture above again. If you try to do too much, you'll end up not getting much of anything done. You'll also end up frustrated. You get frustrated because you feel like you're doing so much but you're not making any real progress.

On the other hand, when you focus your efforts on one thing you can see the progress that you're making (or not making). If you're only doing one thing and you're not making progress then you know exactly what you need to adjust.

Then once you're making progress it begets more progress. Also progress is very rarely linear. What I mean is, if you're making progress on one thing then it's probably spilling over to other areas. So by focusing on just one thing you could be improving more things than if you're focusing on a bunch of things.

Who's in your secondary network?

So this morning Alli, my wife, locked herself out of our apartment. Along with not having keys, her wallet and cell phone were both in the apartment also. She was dropping GHB off at daycare so her first thought was to call me from there. She ended up leaving me a message from there and from one of those LinkNYC things (free internet/phone kiosks here in NYC). Luckily, I didn't have a busy morning and I happened to be on my home when I got her messages. She called again from one of the LinkNYC and we were able to set up meeting at home. So all in all she was locked out for maybe an hour.

The first thing I asked her when she got home was "what were you going to do if I wasn't on my way home?". She had come up plan of places to go if we didn't speak and list of people's number's she wanted if I couldn't get home relatively soon. Those number's included an old coworker who lives in our hood and another mom from GHB's class (they've become friends because they're both on maternity leave right now).

This got me thinking. Everyone's got to have this, what I'll call, "secondary network". You're primary network would be the people you would call in actual life or death emergencies; your significant other, your parents/siblings or your bestest (I realize that's not a real word) friends.

You're secondary network would be the people you can rely on during these kind of "not-quite-an-emergency but definitely urgent" situations. Now not everyone you know should be considered a part of your secondary network. I think Alli created a good litmus test: if you'd feel comfortable showing up randomly at their house when you're locked out and you feel like they'd let you in no questions asked, then they can be in your secondary network.

So who would those maybe 5 people be for you. Really think about it. This is important because these should be the people that you tell about your health and fitness goals (along with your primary network). They will end up being the ones who ask how it's going and offer support when you need it. They will keep you accountable without the pressure that can come from being held accountable.

Like I said, give it some thought. Hopefully it won't take you getting locked out of your home to come up with some people.

28 Days is all it takes...

"My clothes fit better, my core felt stronger and my posture improved. My co-workers notice a difference in the way I looked almost immediately." Laura, 36

Laura did my 28 Day Online Fitness Challenge. This is part of the feedback/testimonial she gave at the end of the challenge. Now if I paid someone to write a testimonial for me (people do this, I don't because I'm honest....and cheap, but mostly honest) I would want that sentence included. I promise I didn't pay Laura.

I think if you ask any personal trainer/strength coach what benefits they want their clients to achieve Laura's results would be near the top of the list. I've been dabbling in online training for about 2 years or so now. This 28 Day Online Fitness Challenge is going to be my ongoing way to offer online training.

• Why: Online training is way for me to help more people and people who aren't in my vicinity necessarily. Laura and I were able to communicate almost daily but we were never in the same place once. That's pretty cool.

  I settled on the "28 Day Online Fitness Challenge" because it's a way for me to easily deliver quality coaching without having to sacrifice the quality of my in-person coaching. Win/win.

• What is it?: It's just like the name says. It's 28 days long and completely online. Actually it's all done on Facebook. It includes personalized nutrition and workout plans. You get daily coaching and accountability. It will be the simplest (not easy) way you'll find to to start making the healthy lifestyle changes.

  It's not a magic pill. To get maximal results, you have to do the work. I ask that you take a photo of everything you eat and post it in our private Facebook group (you and I) and post a daily gratitude post in the challenge's group page (everyone in the challenge). Again this is simple but I get that sometimes life gets in the way and that's where the daily coaching and accountability come in handy.

  "It was simple yet designed for the individual. Dwayne is always following up on you but understands that "life" can happen." Kim, 52 (another challenge member)

• When is it?: The next challenge will begin next Monday, July 30. It will end on Sunday, August 19. As you go through the challenge, you'll do your daily posts at times that are convenient to you. I'll respond to any questions you have as soon as possible. That's usually within a couple of hours.
• How?: All you need to participate in the challenge is a Facebook account. You'll be able to do all the workouts at home so if you don't have a gym membership or equipment that's all good.

So that's a little info on the 28 Day Online Fitness Challenge. If you'd like to sign up or if you have questions, just LEAVE A REPLY and I'll get you all the info. I'll finish up with another quote from Laura:

"I recommend the 28 Day Online Fitness Challenge for anyone who’s looking to make changes and doesn’t know where or how to start. Even for those who have experience with health and fitness there’s always something new to learn."

Advice: Giving & Taking

Have you ever given someone the same advice over and over again? I'm talking about they keep asking for your advice and you keep giving it over months and years. Then out of the blue you see the person and they're like, "I was watching Oprah and she gave out some really great advice." It's always Oprah. And the advice is the same advice you've been giving  the person since the beginning of time. If you haven't been in this situation before then I'm super jealous of you. This happens to me all the time. Honestly, I have to hold back from yelling at clients and if I ever meet Oprah we are definitely going to have words.

I was in a little bit of a different situation recently. I had to listen to my client talk about how she always has to give her sister the same advice over and over again. My client was very visually annoyed. The interesting for me was that I was looking at the situation from outside. It forced me to empathize with not only my client but also her sister.

It would've been easy for me to just agree with my client about how annoying the situation can be (have I mentioned how annoying it is?) but I don't think that would've helped her in the long run. I tried to take her sister's side just so she could at least here that perspective. The thing is I got a lot out of it also. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be able to handle these same situations with clients better.

A thought I came out of the session with was "body blows". Whenever you watch a boxing or MMA match the commentators always mention body blows. They talk about how when body blows are landed it makes it easier to score a knockout with a head shot. So when you're giving the same advice over and over again, you're landing body blows. Then they hear the advice somewhere else and it finally clicks. That's the head shot.

This leads to my other thought that came out of the conversation. People not only have to get the advice at the right time but they also have to get it from the right person. Or maybe the not the wrong person.

My client was talking about her older sister. It's probably hard for an older sibling to accept advice from a younger sibling. (I'm totally speculating here about there relationship.) Or maybe they are too close to each other to give/receive this kind of advice from one another. I think this happens with clients and myself.

Yes it's part of my job to give advice but, especially with long term clients, over time the relationship can/does change. So I think it can be hard for clients to hear and accept advice that's coming from me. This is where Oprah comes in.

Why aren't you eating ice cream?

Right now half of the Brown household is soy, nut, egg and dairy free. It sucks. This decision wasn't made by choice. It was forced upon us. (It was forced on them, I'm still eating all the things.) The baby is allergic to everything it seems so Alli has to avoid everything to prevent passing it to him. At 3 months old, he has already full control over the house. Yesterday it was a beautiful 80 degrees here. Alli suggested we should go for a walk, which I agreed to. She then asked where should we walk? An answer immediately popped into my head: Ample Hills. That's when the wave of sadness washed over me.

Ample Hills is a local ice cream place. It's all homemade and they have all sorts of flavors with toppings and fix-ins you could ever want. It's basically heaven on earth for an ice cream lover like myself. It's just far enough that we don't go all that often. But it's close enough that it's perfect for a good walk on a nice day. You walk there, get your ice cream and eat it as you slowly walk back.

I'm not a jerk so I couldn't and didn't suggest Ample Hills. We ended just walking to a nearby playground where Graham got to play in the sprinklers. Truth be told, I still ended up getting ice cream. We stopped a grocery store. I got Ben & Jerry's and Alli got some coconut milk "frozen dessert".

When I asked her how it was she replied, "I have fake cookies in my fake ice cream." Have you ever heard a more glowing endorsement? Which brings me to the point of this post: why do people ban certain foods from their diets?

I get it when it's Dr's orders, like in our case. I also get if you're morally or religiously opposed to eating something. I'm talking about the people who are like "I'm not eating any dairy for a month just because."  I've found that it's just a pain in the ass. Nothing that's this much of a pain is sustainable. So it seems like these people are just torturing themselves for some predetermined amount of time.

I suspect the answers will be things like weight loss and "so&so guru said [insert whatever demonized food here] is bad for my health". When it comes to weight loss I would just say you're just practicing a form of calorie restriction. So yea, if you eat a lot of dairy and then you stop without replacing those calories then you will lose weight. There are probably easier ways to go about calorie restriction though.

As for health effects, while food allergies are on the rise they only affect about 4% of the population. And yeah some people might be "intolerant" to some foods but this is highly individual. So just because a food doesn't agree with your friend doesn't mean you should swear it off.

Anyway, I just don't think it's worth all the trouble. I mean now I have to find a time when Graham and I can sneak off to Ample Hills by ourselves.

(Almost)Half Way There

According to the Google, there are 185 days left in this year. That means this Thursday marks the official halfway point of 2018. That means you still have 3 days where you'll be ahead of the game in terms of reaching those 2018 goals. Remember those? There's still time. I'm gonna cut to the chase because time is running out. YOU've got to make some decisions about whether or not you want to reach your goals. You can hire all sorts of coaches and join all sorts of programs, but at some point YOU are going to have to do the work.

Again time is running out, so I'm just gonna list a few questions to ask yourself to get back on track with your 2018 goals.

• Why is this my goal?: you should've ask this at the beginning of the year when you set the goal, so ask it again. Did the reason change? If so, is this goal still important to you? It might not be (maybe it never was), that's ok. You can either change the goal or forget about it completely.

  If the reason didn't change, pretend you're like my 3yr old son and keep asking "why". Ask at least 5 times. This process will help you get down to what your absolute motivations are. These will be what you come back to whenever things get tough.

• Is there still enough time?: when you originally set the goal you had a whole year. Now you've got a little over half the year (if you read this after July 5th, you have less than half). If your goal was to save 50% of your 2018 income and you haven't saved a dime up to this point, well unless you can live completely free the rest of the year, then you need a new goal.

  Can your goal be adjusted to fit this new time frame? Or do you have to set a new goal? This takes us back to the first question: is the goal (whether it's the same, adjusted or a completely new one) important enough to you to go after in this condensed time frame?

• What's the plan to reach this goal?: again you should've of done this when you originally set the goal. Now you'll not only need a new plan, but you'll need a better one. I'm comfortable saying that because if you've reached this point in this post, it probably means your original plan didn't work.

  When planning most people only think big picture. They say things like "I'm going to lose 2 pounds every week". Which is totally doable...if you take the necessary daily steps. Well what are those steps? I'm not sure, everyone's plan is probably going to be a little different. But everyone needs a plan that eventually tackles the smallest variables.

So if you're still chasing those goals from the beginning of the year, ask yourself these questions and get to work. There's still time.

The myth of busy

The excuse I probably get the most from potential clients is that they're so busy. I don't believe them. I have no doubt these people have a lot of stuff to do. I just don't think they're that busy. I'll explain. Busy means you have extra stuff to do. If you do the same thing day after day, month after month, year after year then you can't call yourself busy. Yeah you may do a lot everyday but that doesn't make you busy.

I don't consider it busy because busy doesn't last forever. Busy is temporary. Going to work everyday and taking care of your family and social responsibilities does not make you busy. Unless you can afford to quit your job or you can/want to get rid of your family, then this is your life.

This is where busy becomes an excuse. This is how it usually works: I say, "would you like to [insert thing you don't like]?" You reply, "Sorry, I can't. I'm really busy right now." On the other hand I say, "would you like to [insert thing you do like]?" You reply, "totally, let me make some arrangements but I'm in."

The only variable that changed is your desire. You still have work and other responsibilities. When desire is high enough, how busy you are becomes irrelevant. All of a sudden all the stuff you had to do, doesn't have to get done anymore.

So the next time you find yourself about to "I'm too busy" ask yourself the following questions: do I have anything out of the ordinary to do? If yes, you might be busy. If no, ask is the real reason just because I don't want to? The answer to this question will probably be no you don't.

Are making progress?...You probably are

  Let's talk about progress; particularly how we measure progress. When it comes to health and fitness, I think the default definition of progress is losing weight, burning fat or perhaps getting stronger. These are definitely great measures of progress. However, there are other progress measures. I think people miss a lot of these.

• No change=progress: there are times when not seeing  any change is a measure of progress. For instance as people age they tend to gain weight. So if you're 65 and you're the still the same weight as when you were 55 you've made progress (in relation to most others). You've taken the steps to manage a slowing metabolism and prevent lowering your activity levels.
• More today than yesterday: people often don't remember where they started. Especially as they get into the groove and they begin developing healthy habits, people keep looking ahead. They get upset they haven't reached the next step. However if they took a second to remember the point where they started, they would probably get the motivation they need to reach the next step.
• My clothes fit better, but I gained weight: this is always one of my favorite conversations with clients (sarcasm voice). The problem here is that you're using one metric to judge another. You have to decide which is more important and then basically forget about the other one.

These are just a few different types or measures of progress that I quickly came up with. There are tons of other ways to measure progress. What every progress measure boils down to though is your health/fitness goals. What I mean is if you want to break a powerlifting world record you probably shouldn't be worried about how fast you can run a mile.

That's a very extreme example but hopefully it gets the point across. Figure out what you want to accomplish and then track the things that tell you if you're getting closer.

Who's Are You Accountable to?

Let's talk about accountability. A quick Google search tells us that accountability and responsibility are synonymous. So when we're being accountable we are taking responsibility. Ok, now that we got that out of the way. Accountability has become somewhat of a buzz word and at this point just about everyone has an "accountability partner". (Just to be clear this isn't a bad thing.) The question is what does it mean? Beyond the definition above.

Let's start with accountability partners. Like I said accountability partners are good. I would actually suggest having more than one accountability partner. The more the merrier. The job of an accountability partner is basically to call you out. You say you're going to do something; you don't do it; you're accountability partner calls BS; then hopefully you do what you said you were going to do.

(Traditionally having an accountability partner means you're going to be doing the same for the person as they are doing for you. Usually everyone involved will work out what exactly they want to held accountable for. Get it, partners.)

This is where you being accountable begins. Your partner will/should call you out. At that point you have to actual do what you said you were going to do. If you don't, then you're not being accountable.

So like I said accountability partners are great and we should all have them. However, eventually it becomes our responsibility to be accountable to ourselves.  Below is an example of me having to be accountable for a mistake I made. Also you should become my Facebook friend.

PS: If you want in on my 28 day online coaching program, just let me know by leaving a comment or sending me a message.

My (News?) Story

I've mentioned before that I wrote for the high school newspaper. I'm going back to those basics that Mr. Quinn taught us. I'm basically going to answer the 5 "W's" (and one "H"). I figure this will be the easiest, quickest way to tell a little bit about me and what I do. Here goes.

• Who am I? First and foremost, I'm a husband and father of two boys. Professionally I'm a personal trainer/strength coach. I love sports; both watching and playing. I like whiskey and scotch and I'm trying to learn the nuances of different brands.
• What do I do? I coach people. I help them figure out the changes they want and need to make in their lives. I help people improve their overall lives by improving their fitness, nutrition and lifestyle practices.
• Why do I do it? I love to help people find what motivates them and then help them use that motivation to live their best life.

  Another reason I do what I do is it allows me to meet and work with people from all sorts of different backgrounds and around the world. This leads to great conversations in which I learn a ton.

• Who (bonus) I work with? I work with two different types of people mostly. The first is women in the 30-50 age range. These women tend to be new to exercise, particularly lifting weights. I help them learn to lift and appreciate the confidence and fitness/health benefits that weight lifting brings.

  The second type is men in the 50-65 range. These men usually have had some injuries in the past or are currently dealing with a nagging injury. They also are usually looking to lose some weight. They trust me to help them lose that weight safely.

• How do I do it? With both groups I focus on helping clients move better and make lifestyle choices that'll lead to the goals they  want to reach. Both inside and outside the gym, I choose exercises that enhance and/or improve your strengths and weaknesses.
• Where/When (combo)? I do in-person coaching in the NYC area (Manhattan/Brooklyn). I work out of a few gyms or I go to people's apartment buildings.

  The majority of my in-person coaching sessions are during the week. However, I also offer online coaching services. With online coaching, you can get the coaching on your own schedule when you're ready to ingest and digest it.

That's just a quick run down about me and what I do. If you want a little more info about me go here. Also there you can join my mailing list and stay up to date with me.

The Value of a Coach

I was a talking to a client during a session recently. She mentioned that her business coach had given her an assignment; better yet it was a thought exercise. The business coach asked her to think of what she could be average at. My client is a self proclaimed over achiever so this was a tough question for her. As we talked about it a couple of things came to mind for me.

1. My client is and has been very successful in her career. She is closer to the end of her career than the beginning. She could probably quit working today and be fine for the rest of her life.

   All that being said, she still has a coach. She values what a coach can bring to her career. Would she be as successful without a coach? I have no doubt she would be. Would her career be as "easy" without a coach? I have no idea, but this leads me to my 2nd thought.

2. My 2nd thought revolves around the question: "what can you be average at?" It doesn't get asked often because god forbid anyone be average at anything. But it's a good question because not everyone can be above average. That's just how math works. Also no one can be above average at everything.

   So to me this question boils down to priorities. Since we can't excel at everything, we have to pick the things that we want to excel at the most. Then you concentrate your efforts on those things.

The purpose and value of coaching lies in the 2nd point. Coaching helps you to figure out what you want to do, why you want to do it and how you should go about doing it. Everyone wants to do everything but that's impossible. Coaching helps you to narrow your focus to the things that are the most important.

By contemplating the question, my client has thought of some ways she can scale back so that she can get better at the things that really matter. So here's my question for you: what can you be more average at so that you can reach your health and fitness goals?

Let me know in the comments.

The Foundational Blocks

My three year old son likes to play with Duplo blocks (the giant version of Legos). He'll ask "do you want to build with me?" He likes to build tall towers. Inevitably he'll stack the blocks on top of one another until the stack can no longer support itself and it falls over. He hasn't quite figured out the importance of having a strong foundation. Believe it or not, a lot of  people are the same way when it comes to fitness and nutrition. I've had a lot of clients who've started training with me that I've had to slow down at the beginning. This one guy came in for his second session and announced that he wanted to start intermittent fasting. This was a guy who didn't have complete control over his schedule (he was an on call ER doctor) but he somehow thought he would be able to control when he would be able to eat. He skipped building the foundation.

Before I get into what, I think, are the foundational blocks, let's talk about why I think they're important. When it comes to exercise/fitness you have to work on the basics for no other reason than preventing injury. You can't do a barbell snatch if can't do a squat. If you try to do so, you will get hurt. The same goes for cardio. If you try to run a marathon without building a base of cardiovascular training first you will get hurt.

On the nutrition side it comes down to longevity. The majority of diets work...while you're on them. The problem with diets is that end at some point. If you don't know how to eat when you're not dieting then there really is no point in going on a diet. At best you'll just yo-yo around the same weight. I'd even go so far to say that if you knew how to eat when you weren't dieting then you wouldn't need to diet at all.

So what are the foundational blocks?

• Consistency: whether it's fitness or nutrition, this is going to play the biggest role in whether you are successful or not. For fitness I tell clients they should be aiming for a consistent 3-4 workouts per week. Getting those workouts in every week is going to go much further than worrying about the types of workouts you're doing in the beginning.

  For nutrition, I work with clients to eat "balanced" meals at least 80% of the time. Doing this will act as your "diet" in the beginning and be home base when/if you do try different diets.

• Patience: I know you want results and I know you want them now. That being said, I'll tell you the quicker you make progress you're likely to lose it just as fast if not faster. On the other hand, long-lasting progress takes a long time. You need to know and understand this going in.
• Mindfulness: this is about enjoying the process. As you're consistently and patiently going through your plan (whatever it is) take the time to figure out what you like about it. Or more importantly, what you don't like about it. How can you do it better? Are there workouts/exercises that you love/hate? Are there times or situations that you turn to food to feel better?

  Being able to ask and answer these questions will keep you in the moment. Staying in the moment will help you to stay patient and take your progress as it comes.

These are the things that I work on with all of my clients. When they can master these things it is only a matter of time before progress starts. Then the best part about this progress is it is progress that stays with you. The other thing about progress built from foundational blocks is that it's repeatable. So it becomes the progress that continues to build on itself.

Are you answering the right questions?

I've written about the question I ask all of my clients every week: what's the one thing (non-gym related) you're going to do this week to get closer to your health/fitness goals? You can read about it here. Today I had a session with a newer client, and this week was the first time she got the email asking that question. With all clients I always bring the question up during their first session of the week. Luckily she was prepared and had an answer for me. Even better she had answers to the follow up questions that I always ask.

The follow up questions help me (and the client) figure out if the task will actually get them closer to their goal and if the task is actually doable for the client.

So what are the follow up questions?

• The first one is "why". If you can answer this the likelihood of you actually doing the task skyrockets. Your "why" should be individual to you. This should be obvious but you'd be surprised how many people pick tasks/goals just because they it's what they're supposed to be doing based off of other people's values.
• The next question is "how". Having answers to the "how" question will tell you if you can realistically complete the task. If you can't answer these you may have to reevaluate. How are you going to complete the task? How are you going to track the task? When are you going to complete the task?
• The last question is "what's your confidence level". Here I'm asking how confident are you that you can and you will complete the task. On a scale of 1-10, I like for my clients to be at least an 8. If they're below an 8 I'll work with them to refine the task until they are an 8. This task should be very easy. The easier it is the more likely you are to actually do it.

I've been purposefully vague about the specific task. The reason for that is because the particular goal/task doesn't matter. Whatever it is, in order to be successful you have to be able to answer those follow-up questions (and the questions that might pop up based off your answers).

Here's how it actually went with my client this morning (it would've been really mean to make you read through this without giving the specifics...):

I asked her the question. She replied, "I'm going to journal my food for 4 days, including one weekend day."

Before I could even ask why, she said only 4 days because in the past when she's tried to do more it's been too overwhelming and she quits.

I asked if she knew which days she would do. She replied "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday."

I asked her on a scale of 1-10 how confident she was. She replied an 8.

Like I said she was prepared. Now this might not work for me or I might change some things to fit my life. But it's not about me. It's about her and what will work best for her. By answering the follow up questions, she showed that she's given her health/fitness some thought for this week. Now as her coach, I'm confident she will be successful this week. Then I'll ask the questions again next week.

Take action...solve problems

I came across this quote:

"“If you have a problem that can be solved with action, you don’t have a problem.” – Mel Robbins

I don't know who Mel Robbins is but I liked the quote. Enough that I posted it as a Facebook status. It really struck a chord with me. People tend to be happy to tell you all about their problems. And actually a part of my job is asking people about their problems.

Now as the quote suggests, there are a lot of people out there who think they have problems but they really don't. (To be clear, there are plenty of people with plenty of real problems.) Like I said, people like to talk about their problems. For whatever reason though, people don't necessarily like to solve their problems. Or I should say people aren't ready to solve their problems yet.

Now not all problems are created equals. Some problems only take seconds to solve and some will take years. When people are ready to solve their problems they don't just talk about them, they take action. And this is what all problems have in common. All problems (I believe) have actionable steps that can be taken to solve them.

(If your problem doesn't have steps you can take to solve it, then it's not a problem. It's a fact of life. You may not like it but it is what it is and you probably should be putting your attention elsewhere.)

So as part of my job I help people figure out the actionable steps to solve their problems. For example if my client's problem is they don't work out enough, then I'll suggest that they train with me more often. Obviously this may not be a viable option, so then we can come up with another option. We just repeat the process until we come up with a suitable solution.

A coach may make it easier for you and an experienced coach probably has heard your problem and has solutions that you probably wouldn't come up with on your own. That being said, while I'd love to have you all clients, you don't need me or any other coach to do this on your own.

To do it on you own, go backwards. What I mean is figure out what things are like when the problem is solved. What's difference between "I have a problem" and "problem solved"? If it's only one thing, take action to change that one thing. If the difference is a bunch of things, pick one and take action to change that one thing. Then pick something else and change that. When you get good at this (and this is where a good coach can work wonders) you'll get to a point where you'll learn to pick the things that solve the problem the quickest.

So I dare you to take one of your problems and take action to solve it. Let me know what your problem is/was and what action you're taking to solve it. Leave it in the comments.

Pain & Gain...

We've all heard the saying "no pain, no gain". Is it true though? As with most things, the answer is it depends. I'll say this right off the back: when you're exercising you should NOT be in pain. (Re-read that.) When you're working out, getting fit or whatever you want to call it there is no place for pain. If it hurts you're doing something wrong, STOP. Re-read this whole paragraph.

So when it comes to exercise "no pain, no gain" is false. So why is this saying so prevalent? Well one reason is because people don't know what pain is. I've had plenty of clients who've come to me after their first or second session and tell me how much "pain" they are in. After asking a few questions we usually determine that they're really just sore.

So there's soreness and pain. Pain is always bad. Soreness (to a point) can be a sign of good things to come. So what's the difference? Pain is sharp, shooting and usually specific (meaning isolated in a particular spot). Soreness tends to be achey, dull and diffuse (spreads throughout a muscle or group of muscles).

Again, pain is bad. If you're in pain, see a doctor.

Back to "no pain, no gain". I think whoever came up with this or related it to fitness was talking about discomfort ("no discomfort, no gain", isn't quite as catchy). There does need to some discomfort to see some gains. You are going to have to be sore at some point. This will be uncomfortable. Getting up early to make sure you work out is uncomfortable. If you're going to make a positive change, fitness or life or otherwise, pain (discomfort) will have to be present.

Are Customs Stopping Your Progress?

"The despotism of custom is everywhere standing up to human advancement." - John Stuart Mill

So a few things before I get started. First I don't remember where I got this quote from but I saw it, thought it was good and wrote it down. Also I don't know who John Stuart Mill is but I feel like I should (I would guess something to do with the American Revolution), so if you know help a brother out.

Now that I got that out of the way, I find this to be right on the nose. How many times have you found yourself grabbing for a snack simply because it's snack time? Or have you gone out for drinks just because the rest of the team was going? The list can go on and on.

Customs make life easy. Customs eliminate the need to think. Customs are/have triggers. It's 3pm, 3pm is snack time, grab a snack. What you weren't hungry? Too late, you already ate the snack.

Without customs we would have to sit and think about the pros & cons of every decision that we are making. Customs save us time and energy that could be used at more important times.

For the most part this is a good thing. Until it's not. When you're trying to lose weight 3pm snack time becomes the enemy everyday. It's an enemy that you either have to fight or avoid. In this case avoiding it might mean making it so you can't eat snack; can you move that meeting to 3pm? Fighting it could be being prepared with a "healthy" snack instead of going to the vending machine.

In the case of the bad customs the first step to changing them is recognizing them in the first place. That's the thing about customs though, they're hard to pick out. Remember the point of a custom is to not have to think about them, they're automatic.

So how do we change the bad customs? The first step is you have to take account of your day. This means you have to be able to say what you did during each hour of every day. Give yourself a week to track everything you do throughout each day. After a week you'll start to notice patterns of both good and bad customs.

The next step is to look for the triggers. We already talked about 3pm being the snack trigger but there are other types of triggers. Triggers can be people like that annoying co-worker or situations like happy hour just because it's Friday. Figuring out your triggers will allow you to plan round them.

This leads us to the last step. The last step is used the info you gather from accounting for the week and finding the triggers to make a plan. Your plan should take into account all of the triggers, good and bad, and the flow of your typical day. Try to replace bad triggers with good ones and figure out ways to actively either fight or avoid those bad customs.

Give this a shot. What customs, good or bad, do you notice in your own life. What are you going to do increase the good and decrease the bad?

Let Me Help You...

I realized that I've been writing this blog for a while and I've never explained what it is I do. Well I think it's pretty clear that I'm a personal trainer. It's probably more accurate to say that I've never explained how I can help you. You being a reader of this blog who isn't one of my clients. So what better time than the present to let you know what I can do for you.

• You're already taking part in the first way I can help. You're reading this blog. Every week I post about things that come up with clients or techniques that I think anyone can use to improve their health and/or fitness. To make sure you don't miss a post, just click the "follow" button and you'll get an email every time I post.
• Speaking of emails. I have an email list. You can sign up for it here. At the moment, I send 3 mails a week (one of them is the blog post). Emails go a little more in depth on different topics fitness, nutrition and lifestyle related. Also if you want more of a personal look into my life, these emails are where this is most likely to happen.
• Now we're going to get into the individualized ways to we can work together. The first is via online/distant training. Great thing with this is you can be anywhere in the world. Here we would work together to define your goals and any training concerns you may have. Then I put together a training program for you based on those goals and concerns. Finally we speak periodically (predetermined) to discuss how the program is going.
• The most personal way for us to work together is via in-person training. I'm there with you, putting you through the program that I designed based off the defined goals and concerns. Here you get the programming and me telling corny jokes while you work out. Win/win. The thing is you have to be in the NYC area (unless you would like to fly me somewhere tropical).

These are the major ways that I can help you with your health and fitness goals. Occasionally I run bootcamps and online challenges. I announce those via the mailing list, so there's another reason to join. Also you can follow me on my social media accounts here, here and here. Great thing about the social media is I post a lot of pictures of my boys and they're pretty cute.

So if you ever wondered how we can work together, these are the ways. Follow the blog, join the mailing lists and follow me on social media. Ready to start training? Message me via the mailing list or social media and I'll get you started.

"There's no such thing as a bad exercise..."

Recently, trainer to the stars Ben Bruno tweeted "there's no such thing as a bad exercise..just bad application". He then goes on to point out three exercises that he termed dumb: kipping pull-ups, burpees and the American kettlebell swing. It's a very funny tweet and you should check it out. I don't know Ben personally (but for some reason I'm comfortable enough calling him by his first name, weird) but I'm pretty sure he was being tongue in cheek. It isn't that the exercises are dumb necessarily but they are definitely poorly applied.

For instance, the kipping pull up is a gymnastics movement that's supposed to be used to get up on to a horizontal bar. The momentum used is then transferred into whatever the next movement of the routine is going to be. Somehow this movement has entered the strength and conditioning world.

The same thing for the burpee. In my experience, the only reason the burpee was created was to be a punishment during football practice. The crazy thing is when you mention burpees during a workout, you can tell everyone thinks of it as a punishment. Yet it still persists in exercise classes.

Again it's not that burpees and kipping pull-ups are necessarily dumb but they are skills that need to be taught and learned. The thing is trainers/coaches aren't taking the time to teach and people aren't taking the time to learn. Add to it that these exercises are usually done for high reps at intensities. This wouldn't be a problem except that these exercises can and often do lead to injuries.

To be fair this is the case with all exercises. If you do a lot of bad reps of any exercise at high intensities it is a recipe for disaster. Kipping pull-ups, burpees and American swings are just having a moment in time where people are flocking to classes to do them.

So like Ben said (again with the first name), there aren't any bad exercises. There is definitely a lot of bad exercise application on the other hand. When you do exercises badly, you make them look dumb. That's not fair to the exercise. Take the time to learn correct exercise form and execution. Better yet, demand that whoever is telling you to do the exercise teach you how to do it correctly.

Check out my Instagram and Facebook tomorrow for a video on what I call the Better Burpee. Also I don't say a lot here about the American swing. My mom always said "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything."

The Curse Of Choice

I'm in charge of taking GHB, my 3yr old son, to school every Thursday morning. On a good day it's a race against time for me to get showered & dressed, get him fed, bathed and dressed and for us to get out the door on time. Last Thursday, I overslept. I'm not sure what happened but it happened. All the stuff listed above still had to get done but it had to be done in half the time.

The solution to this problem? I started taking away options. I usually let him choose things like what he wants to eat for breakfast and what he wants to wear to school. On this particular morning it was here's your breakfast and this is what you're wearing.

See when he's given options it can add precious minutes to tasks that shouldn't take very long. (To be clear everything with a 3 year old takes longer than it should.) For him options lead questions and distractions.

This is isn't the case for just him. It happens to all of us. We tend to think of having options as a good thing but they can be a hinderance. Particularly when we're presented with too many options.

Like I said options lead to questions, it doesn't matter if you're 3yr old or 30. No one wants to pick the wrong thing. So when you have a bunch of options, now you've got to investigate each one to see which one is the best.

The thing is there usually isn't that much difference between options, especially once you get beyond three or four choices. Most of the time it's more beneficial to limit your options to 2 or 3. Then pick one of those 3 as quickly as possible.

Don't spend too much time trying to figure out the best one. Any benefit of finding the best choice will usually be negated by the time loss trying to make the perfect choice.

This goes for all the choices you have to make, whether it's wardrobe choices like GHB or healthy lifestyle choices like what to eat or what exercise to do.

Food Basics (as simple as I could)

I talk to clients a lot about food. A lot. With older clients, think 50 and up, I'm usually explaining that fat isn't bad and eating it won't cause your heart to explode. With younger clients it's telling them that carbs are not the enemy and that they couldn't survive without them. And no one eats enough protein. So I figured maybe it's time to actually explain what these things- fat, carbs, protein- are. They are macronutrients. Meaning the body requires them in large quantities. (Vitamins & minerals are considered micronutrients). The key word here is "requires". Your body must have all three and in large quantities (in terms of percentage of calories).

So you may have gone on a low carb or low fat diet and seen great results. Congrats. Why did you stop the diet then?

The answer is because you had to. Remember your body requires these macronutrients. So you either stop the diet voluntarily after some time and go back to eating normal (whatever that is for you) or your body stops the diet involuntarily. This usually comes in the form of what you probably thought was just a lapse of will-power or even unexplained sickness or orthopedic injury.

Weight loss is simply taking in less calories than you burn. In either case, voluntary or involuntary, you usually gain weight back. This happens because limiting any particular macronutrient is just a form of reducing your total calories. So when you begin to eat "normal" again your caloric intake just goes back to where it was before.

Ok, lets get into the macronutrients themselves.

• Carbohydrates (carbs): these are your starches, grains, fruits and veggies. Basically all carbs are made of glucose. Glucose is very important. Glucose is used to make ATP. ATP is the fuel that powers everything we do. Your brain and your nervous system need a ready supply of glucose to function.
  • If you don't get enough carbs (glucose), American Dietetic Association recommend 130 grams per day, your body will start to break down lean muscle mass in order to get glucose.
  • If you eat too many carbs, they get stored away as fat.
• Fat: there are saturated fats (animal fat, tropical oils) and unsaturated fats (olive oil, avocado, nuts, fish, flax, canola oil etc). Fats provide energy, make & balance hormones, make our cell walls, forms our brain/nervous system, transport vitamins and provide fatty acids our bodies can't make (omega-3 & omega-6). These are all very important.
  • When it comes to fat balance is key
    • too much saturated fat in relation to unsaturated leads to high cholesterol and cardiovascular disease among other things
    • you also have to balance the types of unsaturated fat (mono vs poly) you consume
  • Finding the right balance gets complicated quickly, seek out a qualified professional
• Protein: these are made of amino acids. Our bodies can make 12 amino acids (non-essential amino acids) and there are 8 essential acids that must be supplied from the diet. Proteins make up just about everything in our bodies when it comes to form and function.
  • Our bodies can maintain carbs and especially fat, on the other hand we lose small amounts of amino acids each day if we don't take in adequate amounts of protein in our diets. Run out of amino acids and you die.
  • No matter what protein sources you choose (animal or plant), you have to make sure you're getting complete proteins.
  • It is recommended that a healthy, sedentary 150lb adult take in about 55 g of protein (.8g of protein per kg of bodyweight) just to prevent deficiency. This would need to go up (a lot) if you're very active.

This is as simplified as I could possibly make this. It is still very complicated. You could take multiple college level courses on each of these macronutrients individually and combined and still not be able to grasp the nuance that the body uses when it comes  nutrition and metabolism.

This is why I try to keep nutrition as basic as possible with clients. Instead of trying to teach all the craziness up above, I teach how being mindful and creating healthy habits leads to lasting weight loss.

If you'd like to learn more about that just click here.