Here at Strive Fitness and Performance, we have made a huge impact in the Macomb County are in a very short time. In that time, we have worked with a variety of different clients. We’ve seen what works, what doesn’t work, common struggles, and as coaches, we are constantly looking for ways to improve our clients’ results.
We fit our programs around our clients instead of fitting the client around a specific program. We pride ourselves in treating people like people, not just another number, so we pay close attention to everything going on. We can see the signs, and we can usually tell in those first few weeks with someone new to the program whether it’s going to be smooth sailing, or if a new client needs to take a step back and take it little by little.
Your coach is always here to help, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have your own responsibilities. Your daily habits and actions dictate your results, and while we can give advice, support, and help along the way, the day to day execution is where the magic happens.
Looking at the common trends among our most successful clients, it’s pretty easy to tell within the first few weeks how well this is going to go. There are common habits and behaviors that let us know a client is probably going to see great success early and often.
Before we dive in, remember that you do NOT need to be perfect to see amazing results. Nobody is perfect, not even coaches, and we don’t expect perfection from our clients either. The best results don’t come from the people who hit their macros perfectly every day for 12 weeks; the best results come from those who build the proper habits and mindsets. After all, those habits are what help you keep your results for the rest of your life.
The following habits and actions are the things that are most successful clients do right away and often. Even if you are not currently accomplishing these actions, they are a stepping stone to reach for in the near future if you want to see success and results.
Any diet that expects perfection is simply setting you up to fail. You’re going to mess up, and that’s okay – success doesn’t require perfection.
What it DOES take are honesty and accountability. If you slip up and have a bad weekend, log it anyway and tell your coach what happened. Hiding it from us means we can’t help you.
If you leave a day blank or just decide not to log that piece of cake you ate from guilt or shame, while that may feel like a way to not confront what went on, it’s important to remember that’s not giving yourself, or your Coach, accurate information. Us as coaches, can only work with the information giving us. I mean, imagine going to the doctors and not giving all the symptoms or your medical background, they may give you the wrong prescription and hinder your progress rather than help it.
We are an open book here at Strive Fitness. We education our clients every day with emails, facebook posts, videos and documents. There is so much information out there about nutrition and exercises, and the majority of it is wrong or misguided. This has led to the majority of the population following the wrong information and hurting their long term results.
We want our clients education and to ask questions so they understand. The more educated you are, the better results you will get. Happy clients, happy business....Make more of an impact 🙂
Eventually, you’ll reach a point where this is second nature, and you understand how to plan and track your macros. But in the beginning, as you’re still learning and building those habits, we expect you’ll have a lot of questions, struggles, concerns, victories – and we want to know about all of it.
Having flexibility in your food selections is a huge part of our NUTRITION PHILOSOPHY and why our program is sustainable. You should live your life 90/10, 90% whole foods and 10% stuff that you like. That does not mean that the stuff you like should be an all the time thing. Instead we should be consistent with whole foods and hitting our macros and using those "special" foods as treats.
We suggest using the 3-3-3 method for a reason: the simpler your diet is, the quicker you’ll build good habits and consistency with your numbers. Planning macros can be a little time consuming and stressful at first, and if you are always trying to find a way out of it, you will burn out very easily. Instead, we should focus on getting the right foods and becoming better at LIFESTYLE MODE. Once we mastered that and have control over our nutrition, we can start to learn how to fit other things into our nutrition.
This needs no explanation. Every time you plan your day ahead of time, you’re going to have a much easier time hitting your macros, no exceptions. There’s no thinking, adjusting on the fly, or panicking when you realize you have 5 grams of fat left and still need 87 grams of protein. Even if these are the only habits you built, your chances of success will increase exponentially. When you food log, you hold yourself accountable and are mindful on what you are putting in your body. When you plan ahead, you know that if you accomplish your plan 100%, you will be spot on with your numbers and consistent. Going through a few weeks of learning and adjusting your plan you should be able to get to your perfect plan. We suggest MACRO PLANNING and putting in your macros ahead of time to fit your plan around your lifestyle so you can sustain it.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Unsuccessful clients do not adjust their plan when it is not perfect. Successful clients learn each week how to become better. Slow progress is still progress. Getting better every day will always results in success, as long as we are positive and actually change.
So what about the habits that will no doubt make your progress stall?
These are the habits that will frustrate clients because they think they are working extra hard and end up not seeing the results they desire.
It’s easy to slip back into old habits, and we want to help you avoid that. Look at how you’re currently approaching things, and if any of these hit home, maybe it’s time to make some adjustments.
Clients who struggle to get the results they want usually have these common habits and practices of their own:
Set Yourself Up For Success
Whether you just joined us here at Strive, are on the fence, or have been with us for over a year, it’s never too late to take a step back and look at your daily habits and mindset. Even if you identified with some of the "other" habits and are ready for a small change, it is never too late to improve.
[To Apply For A Free Strategy Call, To Go Over YOUR Personalized Macro Plan, CLICK HERE NOW]
Nobody is perfect, not even your coach, and we’re here to help. If you think you need to make some changes to improve your results and adherence with this program, let us help you. Talk to your coach, start working on those success habits, and build yourself a strong foundation that will support good nutrition for the rest of your life.
Around the New Year, The masses start to make "New Year Resolutions" and begin to think about how they can make the next year better. One of the most common "New Year Resolutions" is to get healthy and this leads to a large surplus of people joining gyms. While these new go-getters are certainly well-intentioned, sadly for the majority, the motivation doesn’t last. Quora.com reports that 80% of resolution gym goers will stop attending by the second week of February.
There are lots of reasons, and many of them are specific to the individual, but one overarching reason is that for most people, a gym is simply a place to work out, and that isn’t enough to entice most to make it a regular part of life. People join gyms and become a number and are not provided with direction or even acceptance in some cases. If you stop showing up, no one else notices or cares; and soon, your yourself stop caring, because the space adds no value to your life. After a few weeks, once the fire of the new years resolution fizzles out and the desired results have yet to show up, it’s difficult to drag your butt out of bed at the crack of dawn (or before) to go to a place where you are alone, physically uncomfortable, and nameless to the other bodies sweating next to you.
Here are four reasons why it’s important and in your best interest to join a gym – or enroll your kids in a gym – that is more than just a gym.
1. A gym that is more than a gym helps you train to become better, not just workout…
…and yes, there is a difference, both between working out and training, and a gym and a training center. Any local gym will be a decent fit if you are the type of person that enjoys exercise in itself – the discomfort and the exertion wrapped up into one 60-minute sweat fest. Some people think exercise is fun, and this direct pay-off is sufficient to propel them to create their own discipline and accountability. But for most of us mere mortals, the individual sweat sessions are just not enticing enough. And if you are just hitting the gym with no direction or the latest Pinterest workout in hand, the sessions start to seem disconnected and purposeless, making you question if the discomfort is really worth your time.
That’s why it’s important to join a gym that is, specifically, a training center. Meaning that the institution has a mission statement that hinges on coaches who come alongside you to help you focus and adapt your sessions toward a clearly defined goal.
is the key idea here. We would all laugh if, while we were driving, we saw a man in a field throwing darts in different directions, aiming at nothing. Throwing darts only becomes meaningful and recognizable as a sane activity when there’s a target involved. This illustrates the distinction between working out and training. It’s easy to quit showing up if you’re not sure where you’re aiming. Working out is simply a task; training is a goal-oriented process, spilling over and reaping its benefits into other areas of life.
A great coach helps you identify and define that target, articulate WHY it’s important in your life, and then works with you to create a path for your journey and helps you form tactics to adjust when hardships come about. A training center operates daily with the purpose of helping its clients embrace an improved quality of life, whereas a gym simply exists to make money. In short, a training center cares about YOU, while a gym may not.
2. Such a gym can become a second home
A gym that is a second home is composed of staff and members who create community by fostering and maintaining meaningful relationships. If you join any local gym, chances are, you’ll see the same people a few days per week...You may say hi or introduce yourself....but you’ll never actually get to know them and connect. It is no more to you than space with weights and faces that have no significance.
As a coach on the floor at 5:30 every morning, I relish the opportunity to be the first positive interaction in a client’s day. As Strive coaches, we focus our efforts on staying in tune with every important aspect of our clients’ lives – family events, work changes, surgeries, and victories both inside and outside of the gym.
At most gyms, you’ll walk in and out of the door without anyone acknowledging your presence. Make sure you find a gym that can also be a second home.
3. Community creates accountability
Belonging to a gym that feels like home entices you to make training a habit. Community fosters accountability. Period. When you know you will be missed, you are more likely to go. You are far less likely to skip when you know a coach will be calling or emailing you, checking up to make sure everything is okay if you don’t show up.
Here at Strive Fitness and Performance, your coaches are just as serious about your goals and training as you are. They are consistently positive and relentlessly demanding, and they, along with the clients who have become your friends, will remind you of what you really want even when you don’t feel it. They’ll help you maintain focus when your own vision of your target gets blurred by other life stresses or periods of low motivation.
The truth is, we aren’t wired to be our best on our own. We need accountability where discipline wanes. Join a gym that fills that need.
4. Enrolling your children in such a training center provides them with positive role models
If you want your child to become a more well-rounded athlete, seek out a training center with coaches who are positive role models. Sending your kid to the gym might make them stronger and better at their sport, but being regularly under the guidance of coaches who are relentlessly positive, demanding, as well as caring, will reap a much vaster benefit. Kids adopt the habits and mannerisms of people they look up to, so placing them under the guidance of coaches who are excellent role models is a move that has the power to transform the way they think, see, and conduct themselves on and off the field.
For parents with young girls especially, it’s a great moment when your fourteen year-old daughter comes home from her training session and says, “Mom, I want to be STRONG,” instead of “Mom, how can I look like a Victoria’s Secret model?” Entrusting your female athlete to the care of coaches who emphasize the importance of feeling strong instead of being skinny – both through their coaching and their own habits – has the power to reverse the damaging societal norms associated with female body image.
If you want your child to get stronger, buy them a gym membership. If you want your athlete to become stronger, more inspired, increasingly confident, and a better teammate, entrust them to a training center with coaches who are positive role models.
Contact us Today and set up your FREE Success Session
Committed to your success,
Derek Ledwidge
High Intensity Training (HIIT) is top notch for fat loss, there's no doubt about that.
First off, The Afterburn Effect is real (it's part of your daily recovery), but if you’ve ever heard any these myths about The Afterburn Effect, you may have been lied to.
Is it as effective as some claim? Lets talk about it.
It’s not uncommon to hear people blaring on about “burning fat on autopilot for 36 hours” as a result of doing a 20 minute session at home with no equipment.
Pick up any fitness DVD and you’ll see claims of how this crucial training ingredient is the missing link between a regular body and a ripped, lean body.
But the reality of The Afterburn Effect is far different then some sales people will lead to believe.
In fact, it may not even be close.
I’ve seen tons of people greatly exaggerate the EPOC phenomenon and use it as a marketing tool, without any research to back up their claims.
Heck, these are just a few statements I’ve seen over the years:
“You will become a fat incinerating machine for 36 hours following every workout!”
“Our fitness class will boost your after burn effect x5 over any other class!”
“For every 1000 calories you burn with this workout, you’ll go on to burn an additional 500 calories after the session!”
Let’s take a moment to slam our heads on the desk before moving on.
There is a possibility that they are lying to you (if they know it or not).
--> “You will become a fat incinerating machine for 36 hours following every workout!”
Really?
36 hours?
So if I do three workouts in three days, I’ve already added three 36 hour bouts of pure fat burning, right?
So can I take the week off?
That would have unlocked the miracle fat burning system that genuinely allows people to lose weight by doing barely any exercise and not even talking diet.
No.
After a very hard High Intensity Training Session, The Afterburn Effect can last for up to 14 hours maybe (it's pretty much the time after your workout where your body is recovering).
Not 24. Not 36. Not 48.
And sure, you can find research to support anything you want to (search McDonalds is healthier than) but this comes back to common sense.
--> “Our fitness class will boost your afterburn effect x5 over any other class!”
This one could be more pure marketing hype?
They are merely trying to say our class is better than their class. And there’s nothing wrong with more people offering a service to help people accomplish their goals (since as a whole, us fitness professionals are failing, we need all the help we can get), but it shouldn’t be done by confusing the market with more fancy marketing terms.....
It doesn’t matter where you do it.
It doesn’t matter what equipment you use to do it.
It doesn’t matter whose name is on the door of the building.
Providing you are Training to you Maximum effort , you will see results.
--> “For every 1000 calories you burn with this workout, you’ll go on to burn an additional 500 calories after the session (you are going to burn calories no matter what by being alive)!”
This is not so much marketing hype.
Maybe just a totally incorrect statement?
That would give you a 50% rate of EPOC – a figure unheard of in any study on high intensity interval training. Ever.
In fact, review studies covering the full body of research on High Intensity Training report The Afterburn Effect to typically fall between a 6% – 15% increase in EPOC.
Not 50%.
Quite frankly, if you burned as many calories as some of these people were suggesting, you’d prob be dead.
The afterburn effect is 100% real.
And it sure is useful.
But it is not, and never will be, the missing link between doing 20 minutes of exercise per day and getting ripped.
It’s not the “secret fat loss formula” that many make it out to be.
If you are Training Hard – whether it is outside, in a gym, or at home – you still need to Train Hard and you still need to Keep Your Food Tight in order to Lose Fat.
That said, those 6% – 15% boosts in fat burning activity following each session might not sound like much after they were previously hyped as 50% spikes, but they sure do add up over the course of a couple of solid months of consistent training!
Instead of the quick fix it’s often billed as, The Afterburn Effect should be a long-term concept.
And the stronger you become over time, the faster your metabolism will be in general and the more fat you will burn as a result
What can we take away from this?--> The harder you train (to your Max, not what the treadmill says, but what your body tells you), the better your fat loss will be in the long term.
Committed to your success,
Derek Ledwidge
The holidays are always a main focus/dread for people when they think of weight gain. People are always wondering how to stop the holiday weight gain and are stressed out over what are they going to eat, is it too much etc. It is very stressful and chaotic time to begin with and then you add the stress of losing all the results of your hard work.
I don’t believe people just magically lose their motivation during the holidays, you lose your momentum.
You have worked hard over the course of the year. Became better at your major lifts, lost some inches, began to eat better and form better habits.......ALL HARD WORK AND COMMITMENT!!!
So what happens during the holiday season?
Our motivation is always there....Our momentum seems to slow down due to all the other things going on.
Your time will be at a premium, your stress levels may be a little bit higher than normal, and those things can legitimately effect your momentum.
Here are 4 steps you can take to maintain your momentum:
1. Plan your workout schedule NOW.
Seriously, if at all possible don’t play it by ear during the holidays. I’m going to maintain my schedule to a T, and make sure I get every training session in during that time. I may have to do it earlier or later than normal because of family commitments, but I’m going to make it happen.
2. Pick a mini goal between now and the end of the year.
This might go back to the motivation side of things, but pick a mini goal. Is there a Santa Shuffle, or Turkey Trot you want to run, walk, or ruck? Is there a little getaway where you want to look and feel your best with your friends and family? Is there a huge weightlifting meet the week after Thanksgiving? That mini goal can help hold you accountable internally, while your gym family at Strive can hold you accountable externally.
3. Join us for our HOLIDAY ACCOUNTABILITY GROUP
Starting after Thanksgiving and running through the New Year can be the tough time. Family parties, staff parties and get together's with friends can get overwhelming. Here at Strive, we put on a HOLIDAY ACCOUNTABILITY GROUP during the season of chaos. This group is a lifeline for many people during this time to get a hold on the holidays and is a resource for healthy recipes and new habits. LEARN MORE HERE
4. Commit to a de-stressed holiday season
This is a big ask I always tell myself before the holidays that this year I won’t get stressed about family member X, or if there are enough desserts.
Repeat it with me…there are always enough desserts, there are always enough desserts- it can be our holiday mantra. Enjoy the time with your family, or the relaxation of no work that day, and let the stress roll off your back.
Try out the 4 part Momentum maintainers. Your motivation is still there, just keep rolling!
Committed to your success,
Derek
One of the main reasons I love to teach, coach and personal train is because I have seen people do some amazing things they could not do before.
One of these amazing people is Mira Heuman. Mira started with me December 2015 and has been with us here at Strive Fitness and Performance in Macomb, MI for a year now. She has been through so many things in this past year. Saying that, I decided to not put it into my own words, but instead, ask her to write about it herself.
Without further ado...Here is the Mira Heuman story
" Growing up as a first generation immigrant with old world parents wasn’t always easy. I came to the United States in 1977 as a 6 year old skinny kid. I think that’s the last time I could describe myself as skinny. Through out my childhood and adolescence I could be described as a chunky girl. I wasn’t fat and I wasn’t thin. I don’t think I ever participated in any sports because my parents always thought it was a waste of time and there was more important things to do. We weren’t allowed fast food so when we had opportunities with friends it was like a shark feeding frenzy. It wasn’t very good by any means.
Puberty brought on a new thinner body but I was still overweight because I never exercised. After high school graduation came college and my first attempt to life away from home at Ferris State University. I thought it was great; staying up late, ordering pizza and subs whenever we wanted on top of having a meal plan already paid for. The freshman 15 turned into 30 and for a brief time I took action against the weight gain by taking classes in physical fitness. It worked!!! I lost a whole lot of weight and I thought I was all set. Wrong!! A knee surgery later caused all the weight to return and then some. Not long after that and a failed relationship I returned home for good. I didn’t feel good about myself and the depression from feeling like a failure set in.
What am I going to do with myself?
Travel school…I became a travel agent and I had a job that had me sitting for 5-8 hours a day. I again had no physical activity other than putting a sandwich in my mouth or a burger. The 90’s were the years of the stretchy pants. You never knew when you were gaining weight because the pants always fit. Fast forward to a marriage and 2 kids and I was at my highest weight of 260lbs.
In 2000 I started a new job working for Chrysler that had me working long hours and was very physically demanding. In a matter of months without really even trying I had shed almost 30 pounds. The demands of the job also brought on a lot of joint pain and many visits to doctors. 2007 surgery on both wrists for carpal tunnel, 2009 surgery on left foot for a neuroma, 2010 planta fasciitis surgery and 2015 tarsal tunnel surgery and repair of a torn tendon. I was always in pain one way or another from the extra weight I was carrying around.
In 2013 I joined a gym to try and shed this weight and all was going well until a death in the family caused me to spiral out of control and quit the gym and all the progress I had made was lost again. I never had any real direction so it was easy to make excuses and not do what I was supposed to do. I joined a new gym in 2015 after my ankle surgery in hopes of using their pool as a form of rehabilitation but again I had no direction. I would walk in and not know what to do and just do on the elliptical and go ham on it for an hour. Once I was done I would leave and not do any kind of strength training or use their pool. I felt like I was spinning my wheels. I had the face of a thin person but the body of an extremely overweight 40 something year old woman.
I looked at myself in the mirror one day close to the holidays and vowed that 2016 was going to be different. I was on my phone one evening and an ad appeared in my Facebook newsfeed. These ads I would usually scroll right by but this one in particular caught my eye. 30 DAY KICK START CHALLENGE it said…without thinking twice I filled out the application and waited to hear back from the trainer. Derek and I talked at length about why I wanted to lose weight and what I have done in the past and what I was looking for in the future. I told him, “I want to finally have my body match my face!” After the last surgery I had put on so much weight that when I finally did go back to work I looked like a stuffed sausage or a balloon animal in my work coveralls. I went to the first workout to check it out and to see how things were going to go. What I saw when I arrived was men and women that were just like me. The environment was pleasant and inviting. From the first workout I felt like I found my place. I found my people. The workouts were not easy, we were sweating and panting and it was wonderful. I finally felt alive. After 21 days I had lost 12 inches overall and about 11 pounds. My clothes fit better, I was happier, I looked forward to every Monday and Wednesday night. I felt myself get stronger and more agile but I also knew I was a long way from being done. Derek taught me about nutrition and exercise and how the one can not be without the other.
The ladies I worked out with are some of the best people I have ever met. I have never seen such comradely and everyone being so supportive.
This now brings us to the last few months. At the end of May I had suffered a major injury to my back outside of the gym, that caused severe pain and nothing seemed to work. I stopped working out because it was too painful and Derek and the gang never left me to think I was all alone. After the injury I was also dealt with another blow to my health in the form of a double pulmonary embolism that left me hospitalized for four days. My depression hit and all time low and I thought I was never going to be able return to working out again. After several visits to a chiropractor and physical therapy the pain went away and I knew I had to try and return.
I’m so glad I did because I am now back to where I started and there’s no stopping me. I ran my first real 5K race at Thanksgiving and beat my time by almost half from the previous year when I didn’t train at all. I am running 3 days a week on my own and 2 days a week training with Derek. The positive energy and support I get now is unbelievable. I feel like a new person and I am able to do things I couldn’t even do when I was in my 20’s. I’m 45 years old now and feel better than ever thanks to Derek Ledwidge and the FitFam. I feel blessed beyond belief because for me Derek saved my life in more ways than one.
Such an amazing story from an amazing person.
Learn about some other amazing members that make up our fitness family by clicking HERE
