It is hard to believe that SDPT has been around for the past 15 years. As far as I know we are the longest running training facility in North County San Diego. When I first started I really wasn’t sure what I was doing, but luckily I learned quickly.
Over the past 15 years we have build much more than a training facility. We have built a community that is working together to be healthier so we can live the best version of our lives.
It is safe to say that I have seen fitness and nutrition fads come and go. We have been able to stay and thrive for so long because of our mission and staying true to it.
I have learned many things over the years to help our clients get stronger, eat better, and reach their goals. To celebrate this big event I wanted to share some of my biggest insights I have had over this time.
It is broken down into 3 parts to make it easier to consume and digest. I don’t just want you to read this. I want you to read it and apply whichever ones you can. We have seen these lessons help over and over again, but they have to be applied.
In no particular order, here we go:
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Consistency is always the key to success.
Ok, I said in no particular order, but that’s not true. This one had to come first. When you start to realize there are truly no quick fixes, you start to understand the importance of consistency. I have often said you aren’t unhealthy by eating a bacon cheeseburger and are aren’t healthy if you go to the gym once.
The only way to see changes in your body is to consistently do the right thing for long periods of time. There is simply no other way. Then it really just becomes a numbers game. If you are having more good days than bad days, you will start to see the needle move. When you can keep showing up at the gym and consistently choose better meal options, the progress continues more and more.
This is especially true in the beginning. The only thing you should focus on is showing up. If you show up and make good choices most days, the result will follow. This happens every time.
2. You must enjoy the process.
I know it is a cliche, but working out and eating well are a life long thing. If you want to be healthy and function into your later years, you have to stick with it. As soon as you stop, all of your progress halts and starts to reverse. I know it isn’t fair, but this is the truth.
So if this is a life long process, you might as well enjoy it. You don’t have to love it all, but you really should enjoy it. The more things you enjoy, the more likely you will stick with it, especially when it gets tough.
You may be the type of person that loves a certain type of exercise. Maybe you love lifting, running, yoga, pickleball, etc. If you find an activity that you really enjoy, you should obvious focus on that. But of course you probably need to include other forms of exercise in your routine.
If you don’t love working out, but enjoy being with people, then maybe finding a group workout program (like we do at SDPT!) might be the perfect way for you to enjoy your training. Or maybe you can find a hiking group that meets and climbs local mountains. If nutrition seems to be the hard part you can find others that are trying to be healthy and meet once a month to swap recipes or cook healthy recipes together.
The main point is to stop focusing solely on the outcome. Enjoy the process and the outcome will come much easier.
3. What motivates you to start won’t be what motivates you to continue.
You have probably experienced this before. Starting an exercise program or a diet is by far the easy part. The hard part is continuing. Now if you follow the first two lessons I discussed, you are more likely to stick with it when things get tough.
The truth is because what motivates you to first start eating better and/or exercising won’t continue to motivate you for long. When you have a specific goal, when you start you get excited thinking about reaching that goal. But then you start to realize it is hard work. You might even get to the point to talk yourself out of that original goal. You start to think it just isn’t worth it anymore. Then you stop and give up.
Now sometimes we set really lofty goals. Maybe they are realistic and maybe they are not. Either way the honeymoon period eventually wears off. And again you realize that it is going to take a long time and consistent effort. Hopefully you start to realize this and settle in for the long haul. But sometimes it helps to set up secondary goals. Maybe you start exercising and realize you want to accomplish something totally different than when you started. This can often re-energize your motivation and usually these secondary goals help support your original goal.
For example, maybe you decide you want to lose weight and fit into clothes you haven’t worn in a few years. You start eating better, exercising, and see some weight come off. But challenges start to come up and you ask yourself, “do I really still want this goal?”
Instead of focusing on the outcome, we can try focusing on the process like I mentioned earlier. Maybe you started running as your exercise and have started to enjoy getting out on the road. You decide you want to run a 1/2 marathon. So now the focus shifts towards being able to accomplish this goal.
After a few months of training you notice your paying closer attention to your nutrition to help your training and you see your clothes starting to fit better and better. This is a very common situation. You are motivated by the race and after completing it, can’t wait to sign up for the next one. You haven’t focused on the specific weight loss goal, but it is happening do to this new motivation.
This is one reason we often train clients to participate in Spartan Races and Deka events. They usually didn’t come in asking for these specific things, but it is a great way to shift the focus on your training and find something you really enjoy training for versus working out to lose weight.
4. Only compare your current state towards yourself and how far you have come.
This is one that I realized early on in my career. No one is ever happy. This is because they take the complete wrong approach for measuring happiness. There is a great book called The Gap and The Gain that goes into this concept a great deal, but I will summarize.
Here is what usually happens. I meet with a client and let’s say they want to lose 20lbs. We start a program and after some time they lose that 20lbs. I think they are going to be super excited about it, but instead they are disappointed. They lost the weight, but they think they could have lost more. Or they have a friend that lost 30lbs so far. The goal posts start to move. This is another reason why you want to be more obsessed with the process versus the outcome. If you are only chasing an idea you will never be happy.
You create an unattainable image that you are trying to reach. No matter how much progress you make you are always comparing it to this ideal that you completely made up. By doing this you are completely missing the point.
The point is that you have made huge improvements. When you compare yourself to where you used to be versus the idea you have of yourself, you start to see how far you have come.
Things like social media make this incredibly difficult. We are constantly comparing ourselves to other people. Most of the time these aren’t accurate images either. People tend to only show what they want others to see.
When you catch yourself comparing to something else you will find yourself always unhappy and wanting more regardless of what you have achieve. When you compare to yourself and how far you have come you will see how awesome you are and stop comparing to anything else. This is a challenge for most people but will help dramatically when you understand how to do this.
5. More is not always better.
I have a lot of pet peeves when it comes to training and things clients say. One that often is at the top of the list is when I hear, “I wasn’t sore after my last workout. We need to train harder.” This is a problem for a couple of reasons.
First, soreness after a workout is a terrible gauge in how good the workout is. It is ok to be sore after exercise, but this is a byproduct of training and never the goal. The more sore you are the more time you have to take off to recover from the soreness. This means the next few workouts you do need to be much less intense. So the more sore you are, the less frequent you can train and the less frequent you can train at higher intensities.
If you are sore it means you caused muscle damage. This is a typical result after many types of exercise. But if this damage is severe enough it will take several days to recover from. It will also impact how you move. This means if you try and train hard again too soon you might cause more significant damage and you will start to develop movement compensations.
Secondly, the more sore you are after a workout, the less active you tend to be outside of the workout. If you are having a hard time walking around or getting up stairs, you will probably opt to avoid those things during the day. So you might have crushed it during your workout and burned a lot of calories but then you waste the rest of the day because you are just too sore to move.
More is not always better. Better is better and that should always be the goal. It is ok sometimes to have a tough workout and get sore afterwards. But don’t make this the goal. The goal should be to feel great afterwards and energized to take on the day. Focus on that and you will find yourself being more active and enjoying workouts more because you don’t hurt all the time.
Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3 to complete the 15 lessons. I hope you can apply what you have learned here.
If you need help of have any questions please shoot me an email at mike@sandiegopremiertraining.com. Share this with your friends that might need help with their exercise program.
Mike Deibler
San Diego Premier Training