Here’s another update from my client 24/7 Coaching, Sara:
I don’t know about you, but when I get up in the morning I barely function. Don’t ask me to make the coffee, I might use salty water. It has happened. Don’t ask me to cook hot cereal. Once, instead of oatmeal, I boiled up a pan full of flax seeds. Ever tried boiling flax seeds? The results are really gross.
So, you can be sure that when I roll out of bed, jumping around and lifting weights is not the first thought in my mind. Far from it.
And yet, after a light breakfast and a short pause, that’s exactly what I have been doing since starting to use Shawna’s fitness regime.
My husband marvels at my resolve. He says he doesn’t know how I can do it, day in and day out. And actually, if I think about it, neither do I.
What keeps me going? What motivates me? What makes me do all those workouts and follow that prescribed diet?
For one thing, I had this idea a few weeks ago that I wanted to get into shape. Not that that’s a particularly new idea for me. I had been going to the gym, on and off, for the past few years. I had certainly seen some results, I was a bit stronger than when I started. But, I never got anywhere close to the lean, hard body of my dreams.
I asked the guy at the gym for advice and he vaguely mentioned “diet.” I had to be careful about what I ate. But, what did that mean exactly? I was eating what I considered to be a very healthy diet. Plus, since I am gluten and lactose intolerant, I wasn’t eat much of anything packaged, processed or pre-prepared. What exactly was I supposed to be eating differently and in what proportions? It seemed like a big mystery to me.
Then, how should I be working out to best challenge my body and see real results? I went to the gym, I jogged a couple of times a week . . . when the weather was good, not too hot, not too cold, when there wasn’t too high of a pollen count, when there wasn’t too much wind . . . ok, I didn’t run all that often! But I did go to the gym . . . yet those big changes I was after seemed to elude me.
When I signed up to work with Shawna I have to admit I did it rather half-heartedly. I thought to myself, hmmm, don’t get your expectations up too far. Just do it and see what happens.
At first, it was all as hard as hell. I could not do even half of the exercises. The diet seemed rather strange too, full of proteins and missing a lot of the foods I normally ate. But, instead of worrying about it too much, I told myself, “just do it.” What have you got to lose?
Day after day, meal after meal, I just kept doing it. Without analysing, without worrying, without stopping to ask myself why. Having Shawna virtually by my side makes all of that unnecessary. I don’t have to make the decisions, she makes them for me. She tells me how to workout and what to eat each day. When I have questions, problems or doubts, she’s right there with answers. Okay, so she’s on the other side of the globe, but with text messaging, phone calls and Internet, it’s the same thing as if she were here by my side.
And do you know what the best part is? I have started seeing results. At first I started losing weight. Then the exercises started getting easier and I found myself able to do more repetitions. I started craving the food on the diet. I noticed that I was never hungry and yet my stomach was getting flatter.
I had an epiphany on the day that I was able to put on a cute pair of white pants that didn’t fit me at the beginning of the summer! Yes! That’s pretty good motivation, if you ask me.
I’m so proud of Sara. She’s making amazing progress just by ‘showing up’ every day to her workouts and by making smart nutritional choices more often than not.
If you want to learn more and see if you qualify for my coaching program, check it out here.