When people ask me what I “do” and I tell them that I am a holistic conditioning expert, they right away start spewing excuses as to why they are out of shape and unhappy with their bodies. I don’t have to ask a thing. I am suddenly a “psychiatrist.”
Personal facts surface quickly and without reserve. Mind you, all I have said is that I am a conditioning expert. Suddenly I’m their life long best friend. “I don’t have time… I have kids… I go to school… my job wears me out… I just have no energy… I used to workout…” I’ve heard every excuse in the book
One day I was talking with an old school friend after many years, and like most conversations that seem to find me, she started to go on and on about how she was overweight, out of shape, unhappy, etcetera, etcetera. After about ten minutes of attempting to justify her lifestyle, I simply told her, “You have to make it a priority.” Something clicked. She was silent, which was untypical of her. We had known each other for about 15 years now. Not even Two hours later she made the first of her many appointments with me.
She made it a priority. Like taking care of her children, her husband, her job…Finally, she made her health a priority. She didn’t just make time to work out, she was suddenly empowered. Her voice automatically had more confidence. She made a healthy lifestyle choice for herself, and it was if the world was suddenly and completely different … just like that.
After one month of dedication, her body fat dropped 7%, her strength significantly increased, and her energy skyrocketed. She had more to contribute to life; more energy and strength to play with her children, more confidence in anything she attempted, she controlled stress better, and her husband even told her she looked skinny. She made it a priority, and the payoff was more than she bargained for.
This client, She had also wanted a quick fix like many other clients I have met in my years as a trainer. All I did was gave her a set of questions which gave her Chi score (life energy), which assesses diet cycle, consists of what you eat, sleep wake cycle, digestion, fungus and parasites, stress levels etc. and when you eat. It was very surprising for her to see that most of her problems arose from where, what she ate and when she ate, they had very little nutritional value which contributed to her digestion problems; and fungus and parasites and also her stress levels were high.
She understood that the road to recovery was more a life style change rather than just working out. But surprisingly she followed the changes to the T, and she exercised religiously and dropped of the weight in a jiffy. The lesson here for gym addicts is that sometimes lifestyle change is more important than just working out.
(The author is CSCS (NSCA), C.H.E.K. and expert trainer)
