12 Practical Tips to Be Healthier for fitness coaches
This article is a joint project between marathon-crossfit.com and BookCulinaryVacations.com. The article has been originally written by Cris Puscas and was edited and refined by Pascal Landshöft. You will find 12 tips to be healthier which you can immediately apply to yourself or your clients.
You get invitations to birthday parties, stags, family occasions, corporate events and other night outs. All in all, it is hard to keep track of it all if you want to please everybody. While you are wining and dining away you have this nagging voice that you or your clients will put on some unwanted pounds with this routine. This article will show you how to prepare for the holiday season and in general to keep this from happening.
Marathon-Crossfit.com and BookCulinaryVacations.com have put together a list of simple and prove tips for you to be healthier. IT may even help you to lose some weight.
Aim for the long-term
If your goals revolve around specific events you will have a hard time to stay healthy. That dress in the window or party you have to attend will pass. Yes, you will hunger yourself into the dress you want to wear. Yes, you might cut 6kg from your waist to show the six pack. However, as soon as the incentive evaporates you will put the unwanted pounds back on.
It is better to plan for the long term. To do this you have to form better habits. Cut out fizzy drinks, reduce alcohol intake and minimize chocolate on the diet front. Amp up the exercise regimen on the other end. Ultimately there are no quick fixes for a sustained healthy life.
Set realistic goals
Realistic goals for the holiday season or on vacation is to not put on any extra weight. From there you can plan to lose about 0.5kg a week. That is a healthy rate to aim for. The rate at which you will lose weight will decrease over time. This is due to the law of diminishing returns. So do not be disheartened when your progress starts to slow down.
Better performance indicators to measure than weight or your body mass index, inches lost and body fat percentage. Weight fluctuates for many reasons like digestion, ovulation cycles and seasons. For these reasons, it is probably good advice to reduce your dress size instead.
For me and my wife, it was also the most successful to plan ahead for months or years, rather than just weeks. The surge and beach body ready programs usually did not get us very far.
Have a plan
Having a plan will help you to achieve the goals you set. A plan enables you to go on autopilot. This takes the stress out of the routine when you have to do it. Take sometime over the weekend to put together your meal plan. Make a list of ingredients which you need every week. Put them on repeat for delivery from the local shop. Never go shopping and without a list.
Same goes for your workout schedule. Pick a routine like Stronglifts 5x5, Jim Wendler 531 or Smolov which is already preprogrammed. This will set you up for success in the gym as you will always exactly know what to do.
For parties, ask in advance if it is ok to bring some food. This way you can ensure that at least one or two options on offer are healthy. Just sample a bit of the rest.
I have my set routine for the mornings which helps to start successfully:
- Get up between 5.00 to 5.30 am
- Have a glass of water
- Meditate for 10 minutes
- Let the dogs out
- Have a bulletproof coffee
- Leave the house at 6.00am to 6.30am
- Hit the gym at 6.30 am to 7.00
- Follow Jim Wendler, Stronglifts, Juggernaut or German Volume Training
- Finish gym at 7.30am to 8.00am
- Hit work at 8.30 am
This gives me structure and helps to be ahead of the game
Use technology to your advantage
Technology can help you to keep track of your goals. Some studies show that wearing a fitness tracker doesn’t actually help with weight loss. I have discussed this in the article "Why fitness trackers are useless". The simple fact of logging your food helps you lose twice as much weight. There are tons of apps around to guide you. Some of them are MyFitnessPal, SparkPeople, and LoseIt.
Technology that helped me. The Stronglifts 5x5 app was great to get started with weightlifting. The Garmin forerunner and Nike+ app helped me when I was running marathons. Thea headspace app guides me when I am meditating in the morning. I use peak performance to train my brain on my way to work. The free zero app helps me to track my intermittent fasting windows.
There is always a place for technology to make your
Start a Side gig to highlight your journey
Reflecting on what works and what does not sets the successful people apart from the ones who fail. Keeping a journal helps with this. Whatever you do, at least keep some notes on your progress and take pictures.
If you thrive on being seen and hyping yourself and others up think about an Instagram account. Get some motivation from the people who do the exact same thing as you are. Keep in mind that the pictures on Instagram are usually staged, maybe even photoshopped.
For those of you who want to be a bit more private and keep things to family circles with minimum effort, think about a facebook group. My wife has gotten great results for our wedding and for our move to Germany from Facebook groups. It is amazing what you can do there.
Twitter is a great tool to get directly in touch with the big names in the industry. If you are in for the kill and want to get famous, work with targeted lists on Twitter. Be careful and do not waste their time. If you decide to send Arnold, van Damme or Bruce Willis a direct tweet, make it count.
The road I chose was to start a blog. A blog will not get you noticed immediately. It is hard work and requires consistency, especially when you do it for the first time. However, I find that it is the most fulfilling of the options given. It makes me a better person and heightens my skill as a marketer to think long-term and strategically. As a byproduct, I have gotten stronger and healthier in the process.
Use exercise to fight stress
Exercise has always helped me to fight stress. I used to work in corporate jobs at technology companies. While this sounds exciting it can get frustrating when you have been there for longer than two years. You have built your network, the deals roll in and now the other departments just slow you down. The new rules which are being implemented make sense for the company at large, but not necessarily for the network that you have built.
When I came home I had to fight approval processes, explain the same things about five times and get rejected by people who do not even have a personal stake in the business. For these evenings blasting some of my favorite music and going for a new personal best on the back squat or 10k run was bliss.
Whatever drains you during the day, exercise can help to get it out of your system. Gym sessions in the morning usually help with equanimity during the day.If you create the habit of meditation you will see even more positive development in this area.
Do what works for you
The most important thing in fitness is consistency. Pick something you enjoy rather than what delivers the most bang for the buck. If you like spinning classes, go for them. If you like being outdoors, even though it burns fewer calories than spinning, go for it. When you just start out in fitness or have new clients, try a lot of things before making a schedule.
This will help you and your client to do something that is meaningful and worthwhile. There is a lot of material online to try out that you do not even have to pay. Not all physical activity needs a gym membership.
In my personal fitness journey was a big break up with running. I did it for three years and loved it. However, in the end, I did not improve my marathon times which frustrated me. I had set goals which were too ambitious. This is when I got into CrossFit and lifting. From CrossFit, I liked lifting the most and stuck with that for now.
The big goals I am currently pursuing are to move my squat to 200kg and my deadlift to 200kg+. I have fun doing it and share the progress on this blog.
Seek professional advice
Get some professional advice early on. I made the mistake to not plan and reflect enough when I started out. The result was me training suboptimal in my first three years. First, get a health check done by your doctor. After that visit, a nutritionist and depending on your fitness level, seek out a physiotherapist.
Once this is done try out some things. Whatever suits you most, find the best trainer you can afford for that special field and hire him or her. Some goas for fitness coaches for their development.
With this method, I managed to become the expert in my local gym on kettlebell training. I read everything that I could get between my fingers and meticulously applied it during training. One day the owner of the gym walked up to me and said "Where did you learn to do a Turkish get up like that", My reply was "Self taught, here are the books I read". Since then he sends everyone who had questions about kettlebell training to me as his expertise was rugby training. Not a bad place to be if you want to make some cash as a fitness coach. Everybody wins.
Get a buddy
Find someone who in your circle of friends who also wants to get fit. This helps with accountability. When you have an appointment for a run or in the gym with someone else it is way more likely that you will actually go.
Ideally, pick some with a similar goal set and on a similar fitness level than you. Ideally a little more advanced than yourself. If the goal set and fitness level are too far apart, the buddy system begets more frustration than results on both ends.
I have been through this already when I tried to establish a running routine with my wife. It annoyed both of us. Pick wisely based on all the factors.
Don’t forget to rest
Sleep is very important for your fitness goals. Check how much your clients sleep and try to get at least seven hours yourself. When you are cranky and overtired you will get more cravings for rubbish.
The more rested and balanced you are, the less likely you are to crave sugar and alcohol. Help yourself by going to bed earlier. What is good for little your children and senior citizens is also good for you.
Make water your fitness best friend
Water is one of the simplest fitness hacks out there. Drink it regularly to keep your skin in a better condition. It will also help to be less hungry. Above all that, a well-hydrated body has increased cerebral and muscular performance.
To achieve this get a water bottle that you like and keep it filled and within reach. You can also snack on water-rich fruits and veggies, such as cucumber, celery, radishes, green peppers, strawberries, grapefruit, cantaloupe, and watermelon.
Cook from scratch and master some fail-proof recipes
Get a list of easy and fail-proof recipes you can make from scratch. Some examples are
- Tuna salad
- Greek salad
- Lentil soup
- Beans soup
Mastering the art of cooking from scratch is not that hard, especially if you learn some practical tips to use in the kitchen. You will find good recipes on diet doctor if you want to follow a keto regime.
Conclusion
Whatever you do as a coach, lead by example. These easy hacks and habits can be implemented over time and taught to your clients. Once you smile and look healthy you will attract more clients. This is will create a positive cycle of reinforcement to success.
Are you looking for inspiration to cook healthier dishes? Why not join one of the vegetarian retreats you can find on BookCulinaryVacations.com and start the New Year in a healthy way!
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Cris Puscas is a contributor writer for BookCulinaryVacations.com. Passionate about Mediterranean food and countries, she could eat her weight in olives and loves her fitness tracker.
Further reading
- As a man thinketh for fitness coaches
- Best apps for fitness coaches
- Choose yourself for fitness coaches
- Deep work for fitness coaches
- Finish for fitness coaches
- Grit for fitness coaches
- How fitness coaches get mindfulness easily
- How fitness coaches get unlimited power for their clients
- Mastery for fitness coaches
- Rework for fitness coaches
- The ONE Thing for fitness coaches
- The power of now for fitness coaches
- The power of positive thinking for fitness coaches
- The power of thinking big for fitness coaches