Sometimes, It Just Comes Down to Showing Up
“Hawaii, here I come.”
So were the parting words of one of my female clients last week, a few days before leaving for her vacation.
She showed up two months ago very skeptical. As it was, I guess I couldn’t blame her. I mean, here’s a woman who’s been told by all the other trainers she’s used in the past that strength training – REAL strength training, none of this standing on a BOSU ball with one leg while curling pink dumbbells nonsense – will make her big and bulky (commence rolling eyes sequence now), and that in order to shed fat – she needed to be doing copious amounts of “cardio.”
(Insert face plant into keyboard here)
Compounding her apprehension (outside of the fact we have ONE treadmill that admittedly never gets used), it didn’t help matters that while doing her initial evaluation, there were high school kids projectile vomiting into the trash can after pushing the Prowler, but I digress.
Nonetheless, here I was telling her that she needed to be doing exactly the OPPOSITE of what she had been doing for the previous ten years.
“You need to lift heavy,” I told her. “You need to be doing LESS cardio (not taking it out altogether, mind you), and what’s more, you need to freakin eat! And no, those 100-calorie snack packs don’t count.”
I could tell she still wasn’t buying it. Thankfully the first-lady of CP, Anna, chimed in and said point blank, “listen, I know what you’re thinking, I didn’t believe it either when I first started training like this. Just show up. Give it two months, and I promise you’ll notice the difference.” All I’ll say is that if Eric weren’t marrying her in two months, I would be.
And, that’s exactly what Chris did. She showed up. Four times per week to be exact. For two months, she never missed a training session – not one. Can you say that? Be honest. Leading up to last week, she had easily lost ten lbs of body-fat, not mention had completely transformed her body to boot. “Lifting heavy shit works,” she touted. *fist pump*
So, what has this got to do with you? How many of you are sitting there at work thinking about how it’s Friday, and while you had planned on maybe hitting the gym at some point today, you’re probably going to skip it and head to happy hour instead. Worse, you’re just going to go home and watch last night’s episode of Gossip Girl.
For the next month (heck make it two), I want you to just show up. Don’t make excuses. The only legit excuse would be if Eva Mendes decided she needed you, and only you, to be her personal oil boy for the afternoon.
Write it down now. I don’t care if you write it on a piece of paper, your iPhone, or your hand. Just write it down. SHOW UP. 3-4 times per week. Don’t eat like an idiot. And I promise good things will happen.
