What can you do?

During a recent session, my client and I talked about how easy it can be to want to just give up on keeping your body in shape and healthy. What it often comes down to is that we are unhappy with with an aspect of our lives or ourselves. Unfortunately, as health and appearance deteriorate, so does the expectation of happiness. We are all familiar with self-fulfilling prophecy and how negative thoughts can only propagate negative results...

On the drive home I thought about how I, in the context of fitness training, help my clients to get quickly motivated and in the right frame of mind. The challenge for any trainer is to ensure their client continues to train even years after the last scheduled session. What good are the results if they need you around forever to maintain or improve them?

Since major fat loss and the resultant exposition of toned muscles takes longer to safely accomplish than a decent level of strength takes to gain, I make sure to teach my clients how to develop real-world strength so results come quickly and emphasis is taken off exclusively appearcnce-based goals.. No matter what someone's body looks like, what really counts is what they can do with it. Would you rather be one of the best players on the team or the one who looks best in a swimsuit? How about both! Instead of continually looking for results in the mirror, look instead for results in real-life performance.

I strongly believe this way of thinking is the path to real and permanent success. A great way to easily practice one facet of this is to make sure you participate in active pursuits other than only your fitness routine. It is your participation in these activities that highlights the pay off from all your hard work. The spotlight is placed on your physical acheivement rather than physical appearance. This feeling of success will begin to supplant the negative thoughts associated with body image and thus form new and more positive ones associated with body capability.

With proper nutrition and hard work, the aesthetics WILL take care of themselves... by then, hopefully they won't be quite so important.

Stay positive, and remember YOU are the one in charge of your life!