76. The Hard Truth: Why You Need To Stop Giving Up On Yourself

I know it's a topic that you're struggling with because I get these . I have these conversations with my clients or whoever , and I'm just feeling like a certain kind of way after some of these conversations that get me a little agitated , and not necessarily in a bad way . It's not like I'm having conversations with my clients that are like making me irritated .

It's just the sense that my clients are feeling a certain way because they've been told on social media or their friends or somewhere they've been fed a lie that makes them think something that's not true , and I hate the fact that they're struggling with something that they shouldn't be struggling with .

Like they have this mindset that's like where did you come up with that ? Like , who told you this is what your results should be Like , based on what ?

And it just it drives me crazy , probably mostly because I've been there multiple times and it's just frustrating for me to watch other people go through it when I'm like it doesn't have to be that hard or you don't have to think that way , and sometimes I just want to shake people on me , like , stop thinking like that .

But sometimes I need to be shaken as well .

So , anyway , I also , before I get into this episode , this topic , I want to say thank you for all of you that reach out in my messages usually an Instagram or the contact me section on my website or shooting me an email because I've had some really good conversations with you this week and I love that you're not afraid to reach out to me .

Yes , I'm just a obviously a very normal human and I love talking to you and I love hearing that the podcast is helpful for you , and even I've had personal trainers reach out and say that the podcast is helpful for them being able to coach their clients , and so I'm just really happy that this podcast is serving its purpose of being helpful to you and unfucking

your fitness . So thank you for those messages . I love the conversations and I just love knowing that you're liking the topics and it's just it's really helpful for me . So thank you so much I love meeting you in all the ways that I have quote unquote met you . So thank you for that , keep them coming and thank you for being here .

So this I've talked about . I have an episode a while back and I don't know the title , but basically it's something about the reason that you're not seeing results in your fitness journey and what I boiled down to is you keep quitting , you're giving up too soon , you're quitting .

I mean literally the only reason you don't see results in your fitness journey or , I guess , in any kind of a journey is because you quit . If you're doing all of the right things and you don't put in enough time doing the right things and you quit , then of course you're not going to see the results . That's pretty obvious .

But at the same time , I see a lot of people giving up on something because it's too hard .

I've seen this a lot of times , actually a lot just recently , which is why I'm kind of like feeling a certain type of way , feeling a little spicy about it , because I keep seeing that like I ran out of motivation or I'm not seeing the results that I want to see , or you just a lot of second guessing , and a lot of .

This is the time in my journey where I usually quit and I need to learn how to push through . And , yes , you do need to learn how to push through and you do need to learn how to not rely on motivation .

And I want to talk about all of that in this episode because I struggle with Watching people quit and watching people give up , obviously because I know that what I'm providing as a service to you the workouts , the macros , the additional cardio , a Little bit of cardio , if I schedule any for you you know the things that I'm giving you I know are going to work

for you . If you're my client , of course . If you're not my client and you're doing a program , I don't know that it's going to work for you because I don't know the program .

But I have to assume that if you're doing a good program or you're doing workouts and you're eating Enough , I won't even say if you're eating healthy , because you have to be eating enough If you're doing the right things and if you if you've been listening to me long enough , you know what those are but if you're doing the right things in your fitness journey ,

you will see results . It takes a while because if you're doing the right things in your fitness journey , it takes time for your body to get used to it and it does take . It does take a while . It's not just a quick fix . It's not just like add in a shake or cut out every food that you love and you'll , you know , lose weight .

It's not , that's not the right things . And so I struggle with people giving up on like my program or Something that I know that they're doing , and they're like I'm starting to lift weights but I'm not seeing the progress that I want to see really quickly or I'm not .

I don't know if I'm doing the right thing , which that's where a coach comes in but I I just want you to not quit , and so I have all these conversations with these ladies and you know they're talking about . I started working out , or I started with macros , I started in a calorie deficit and I'm not seeing the results that I want to see .

It could be three weeks , it could be four weeks , it could be three months and they're they're starting to wonder if it's too much and they want to quit . I struggle with this because I know if you're doing the right thing , long enough you will see the results . I also struggle with this because that's just not how my brain works . I Don't quit .

That's not to say that I haven't been in places that I thought about giving up Literally on my life at times , because I have been in places that were really bad and dark and I have wanted to give up on certain things in my life not all that long ago in fact , but in general I'm not a quitter .

If I know something's going to work like when my husband and I were really struggling and we were getting out of debt and we were paying off all of our debts , it was really really hard and , yeah , it would have been easier to just rely on our credit cards again and just go back to that way of living , but we didn't quit .

And there are numerous other circumstances , of course , where I Could have quit and shit got really hard , but I didn't quit and that's just . I think I don't know if it's ingrained , it's just me , it's just who I am . I'm not a quitter . And in my fitness journey I'm also not a quitter .

So my first response to something being hard when something's hard or I'm second-guessing whether or not this workout program is working , I Don't go to quitting , like , oh , I should quit this , it's not working like . I know a lot of you , I'm just gonna say it . I know a lot of you go there .

A lot of you are quitters , and I don't mean that and please take that with the nicest sentiments , because , yeah , I'm a quitter at some things , of course , and I'm not saying that like that in a bad way . I'm gonna not explain that anymore . It just is what it is .

So , as far as you being in your fitness journey , a lot of you are quitters and that's the problem . You have to push through hard things to find your focus . Now , that being said , it's fine to quit some things . It's not , like , always a bad thing to be a quitter , and I see this in a lot of other Ways as well .

Like I just look around me and see people quitting . You can see that on politics , you can see this in schools , you can see this in like the work Environment . People are just like , well , it's hard , I'm just not gonna show up , I'm just gonna quit , and I think that's just such a mentality . That's so messed up and I don't have that mentality .

But to relate this to fitness , I know if I'm doing a workout program like . I'll be honest , there were some Beachbody workout programs that I was like , oh hell , no . And I did like one workout and I quit . So totally been there and it's okay to quit something that you're like this is not for me , quit .

I said that in a couple episodes back where I was like if it's not a hell , yes , it's a hell , no , get out of there . So that's fine . But in your fitness journey , if you are doing the right things , it is not okay to be a quitter . So just just right now , let's take a look inside .

If you are doing the right things right now and you are on the verge of quitting , if you are this habitual fitness , diet , lifestyle quitter that I just mentioned , if that's you just recognize it .

And if your first instinct is I'm not losing weight fast enough , I'm not seeing the gains that I want to see , I'm I don't know what I'm doing , I don't feel like this is working because it's not fast enough , I think I'm gonna quit . I'm running out of motivation , I'm running out of steam . I don't want to do this anymore .

I want to sleep in , I want to eat my snacks . I don't want to track my food . If that's you and you are feeling like I'm just gonna quit . I don't , I don't think I can do this anymore . Then you are exactly who I'm talking to in this episode and I'll be honest .

It's just I just want to shake you sometimes and be like , don't quit , like this is a lifestyle . This isn't something that is easy . This isn't something that you quit Now .

You can alter your workouts , you can alter your macros , you can alter the days that you workout , you can , like make changes to your workout program , to any of your fitness and health journey . Please alter it , please make it doable for your life . But do not quit . You have to push through and figure out how to alter this , how to make it work for you .

I had to alter my workouts , my fitness journey , many times . I went from . Starting out with Beachbody really is how I started and I decided that wasn't really working for me , in the sense that I didn't really . I didn't want to do videos anymore . I didn't really want to eat out of containers . That just wasn't working for me .

So I transitioned from Beachbody workouts to bodybuildingcom . Loved some of the athletes on that website . I went there , learned how to not watch a video . I had to learn how to do the moves on my own , listen to music and my AirPods instead of watching a video , figure out the form . That was a transition to figuring that out and I loved it .

I loved the bodybuilding , how those workouts were set up . I loved doing it on my own , taking my own rest time , so I adjusted to that . After that , I went through these long years of this these health issues , ended up being diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder . I don't even know the things .

It wasn't really , yeah , autoimmune issues is what I like to say , I guess where I was in the kind of pain that would cause me to not be able to get off the couch some days unless I had my medication . It landed me in the ER a few times and I was just really , really sick . I couldn't eat certain foods .

I would feel bloated and disgusting and lethargic , and obviously I could hardly eat anything sometimes , and so when you're going through digestion issues , it's really hard . And so I went through that , along with those health issues that caused me to not be able to lift as heavy , because it was painful for my body because of what was going on with autoimmune .

So I had to transition from being able to just crush my workouts to now not being able to lift as heavy , feeling like I wasn't making as much progress . All of those could have been situations where , like well , beach body's not really working for me anymore , so I guess I'll just quit .

And then I'm going through these health issues , so I guess I'll just quit those . And there were more .

I had kids , I was so busy , we actually went through a home foreclosure and moved in the middle of my fitness journey and we didn't have our gym space anymore at a certain house , and so that could have caused me to quit Like there have been numerous times where I could have quit . It's not really who I am and it's not really what I wanted to do .

I was not motivated but I did it anyway . All of that to say I get the frustration , but you cannot quit Like it can't even be an option when you sign up for my 12 week program , someone else's 12 week program , or if you sign up for monthly workouts .

Whatever you're signing up for , if you trust the trainer and you trust the results and you trust the program , then finish it Like it's not even an option to not show up Now if you're nervous about it , if you don't understand .

If the workout program is set up for like five days a week and you can only do three , then cut out two workouts and do three workouts for the rest of your life , or do four workouts or do them on certain days that work for you . People are like , well , I can't workout Monday through Friday , I'm super busy .

Well then , don't I personally workout Tuesday , wednesday , thursday , saturday , sunday , like ? Figure out a schedule that works for you so that you don't have to quit , right ? I remember when I first started doing P90X that was the first Beachbody program that my husband and I did I had no idea what I was doing . I had never lifted a weight before .

I was scared to death to lift weights . I even almost did like the lean version because I was like I don't wanna look big and bulky . And we didn't even own a squat rack or anything at this time .

We had adjustable dumbbells , a yoga ball that we used for a bench , or maybe we had one bench and the other one of us used the yoga ball instead of a bench . We had some bands that we would hook onto our basement ceiling and use those for like pull-ups or pull downs , whatever . So we didn't even have like big equipment .

So I was at this point scared to lift 10 , 15 pound dumbbells Okay , and now I lift way more than that . But I was scared to lift weights . I was scared to eat food that I hadn't eaten before and the amount of food it was a lot .

I wasn't counting macros , but essentially they gave you a calorie goal and then they broke it down into these containers and so I was measuring my food and I was eating so , so much food and I was having protein shakes and I was doing creatine and I was like , surely I'm gonna look like the Hulk here in a minute , like I just had no doubt , and obviously I

didn't . But I , while I was so nervous to do all those things and track my food and measure my food and meal prep and get my workouts in and do these workouts , that I didn't understand . I didn't understand any of this program , but I did it how it was written , because I trusted the creator of the program .

I trusted the results of the program , because I saw these people who got the results that I wanted from that program and I was like , okay , I'm just gonna trust this . So no , I was not motivated , especially on the yoga days . Those yoga videos were an hour and a half and eventually , I'll be honest , my husband , I quit doing them .

I think we did them for a month , so like four weeks we did hour and a half yoga videos and every it was Wednesday . We would look at each other like , are you got to be freaking , kidding me ? So what ? We did alter it . So like I'm saying like , just make it work for you .

But I was by no means going to quit doing any of those things because I trusted the process and so it just wasn't an option to quit . And when we moved in the middle of I think we were doing Insanity at that point which , oh my God , that's a whole nother story but we didn't quit doing that either . Like we just kept going , we made it work .

And so when I hear people say that they aren't seeing results fast enough in four weeks or six months , like what I mean , my brain is just like what is going on ? I have been doing this for 15 years . 15 years I've been doing this .

And for someone to say I've been eating really good and hitting my macros for four weeks and I'm not seeing any progress on the scale , I'm just like there is honestly a piece of me that's like are you've got to be kidding me ? And like I understand Sorry , I'm laughing I understand your frustration because I have been there .

I remember doing things cutting out foods , running miles and miles and miles and seeing no progress . Mind you , I was running miles and miles a day and not eating enough and not eating any carbs , but it just makes me crazy sometimes . It also makes me crazy , though , because I understand . It's insane to me that we think results should come so quickly .

It took you how long to put on this weight or to get in the shape that you are in ? Or how long have you been overeating and not understanding your macros ? Or , fill in the blank , how long have you been treating your body badly and then , all of a sudden , you think after a week or two or four , that your body is just going to be like oh , amazing .

Thank you so much for your two weeks of consistency . Here's a five pound weight loss . I mean no , but I get it at the same time , because all over social media , there's these 30 day challenges and detoxes , and follow me for these weight loss plans that will change your life and shrink your waist and making you think that all of this is normal .

So I get it , because for some reason , I had that mentality too , and this was 15 years ago , or I started 15 years ago . I carried this mentality throughout , for a couple of years , of course , and so I had this mentality too , and I don't know where it came from , because social media wasn't even like huge then .

But somewhere magazines , tv , I don't know I got this idea that I was supposed to run and I was supposed to eat really healthy , whatever that means , and had no concept of growing muscle or that muscle was good for you in different ways , as far as not being injured when you're older and actually protecting your bones and actual life things . Good reasons .

I didn't know any of this , because it's all about weight loss . It's all about joining these groups and paying these people and losing weight . Losing weight , losing weight . Seeing the scale go down . You'll lose 10 pounds guaranteed or your money back . Okay , cool , but what about my muscle gain ? What about my actual health ? What am I learning ?

What about trying to lose weight while eating foods I love ? What about doing this in a good way ? That appeals to me so much more than just the weight loss . And so when I hear people say I'm running out of motivation or I'm four weeks into this program and this is when I usually lose steam help , I don't know what to do .

It makes me a little bit crazy and I love helping my clients through this . I love helping you through this . If I get asked this question and messages on social media like how do I struggle with motivation ?

Or I plan out my entire week , christy , of food and workouts , and then I don't do a damn thing after that , like I have all these intentions , I meal prep , I do all the things and then I don't take action , like I don't have the motivation or I don't have the drive or I don't have .

You know , whatever you have , christy , or whatever people you know have that you want , you think that you're different or for whatever reason , like you're self-sabotaging . There's a lot that goes into that , but what it comes down to is like you're just not taking the action and or you're not taking that action long enough .

So if you ask anyone who has anything that you want right the job , you want the car , you want the life , you want the house , you want the relationship , you want whatever like it's not easy to get those things and they weren't always motivated . But ask anyone who has the body that you want and knows how to keep it and knows how to keep it .

Anyone can get a certain body type or look a certain way for a little while , but ask someone who really has the body you want and the mindset you want , the health , fitness , however you want to look at that and they know how to keep it , which means they've maintained that body for like a year or two or more , because maintaining it is freaking hard .

They will not have a direct answer of how they got there . They were not motivated all of the time . If you think that I am motivated all of the time like I don't even know how to answer that honestly that's insane .

Because when someone says like I'm just not motivated to get my workout in , or I'm running out of steam or I'm running out of motivation for this program , I'm like no kidding . Like what did you think was going to happen ? I have not been motivated every single day for 15 years . Like I just do this shit anyway .

I eat what I'm supposed to eat for the most part . When it gets out of control , I reel myself back in , not because I'm motivated , not because I want to , but because I freaking have to , like because you just don't quit , like if you have these habits in place and if you say you're going to do something , like do those things .

So it's not about motivation , and don't look at other people and think they're just really motivated and I'm just not , so I'm just going to quit . That's a lie , that's an excuse . Not everyone is motivated and you know that . They're just doing the things right and it's not just macros and weights .

I would never tell someone that I got the body that I have by just hitting my macros and lifting weights . Like physically , technically , yes , those are two extremely important things , but what else goes into it is rest and drinking enough water and having patience and consistency . And macros and lifting weights and the mental work and not relying on motivation .

Stopping the comparison , stopping looking at everything on social media . Don't buy into shiny objects . You don't need more shit to get the body that you want . Staying in your lane with your head down and doing what you're supposed to be doing , like just grinding through it and not quitting . This morning I got up . I think I did .

I think I got out of bed at 530 . I went straight to the garage to work out . I didn't have my pre-workout . First mistake . I don't know what I was thinking . I was just like I probably don't need pre-workout , like I'll wake up no , absolutely not . But I was just . I did my workout . I didn't crush it , I didn't have enough energy , but I did it .

It was super early in the morning . That's the earliest that I've worked out in a very long time . I need to get back in that groove and I will , but I'm gonna need pre-workouts to get me through it . But what I'm saying is every day will not be full of energy . Every day will not be full of motivation .

You'll have to pull yourself out of bed , you'll have to pull yourself into the gym , but it just comes down to not quitting and focusing on what you need to be doing and figure out what's going to get you there .

The formula can be different for each person , so the way that I would tell someone that I got literally , that I got the body that I want is all of those things the rest , the water , the macros , the consistency , the mental work . It's a lot .

And so for you to look on social media and see a 30 day challenge , I'm gonna lose 10 pounds in 30 days , which is not true . And even if you did , what are you gonna do after that ? That's a whole nother episode , but the formula could be different for each person .

Someone else could say I did have to cut out X , y and Z for a while to figure out if that worked for me and it didn't . Like there are different ways that people get to the body that they have that you might want . There are different ways that people get to places in life that you may wanna get to . There's different avenues .

So something that I'm doing may not work for you in the sense of the time that I work out , or my macros shouldn't be your macros , right . My workout schedule might not necessarily need to be your workout schedule . It may need to be altered . If you are looking to put on weight , you need to eat more .

If you're looking to put on muscle , you need to lift heavier . If you're looking to lean out , you may need to lift a little bit lighter and eat a little bit less . So it's not like a blanket statement across the board , but what everyone has in common that does succeed is , first of all , they've been backed into some sort of a wall . That's like .

I am so sick of feeling the way that I'm feeling . I'm done with it . I don't care what I have to do to move forward . And then , when you get to where you're making a little progress forward , you figure out what works for you and you don't stop .

I even had this I've told people before and I really believe this because I don't track my food every single day and a lot of people are like I don't wanna track my food . I don't wanna . I don't wanna For whatever reason . They're just like I don't wanna track my food . It's so time consuming , which is also an excuse , blah , blah .

So what I teach my ladies is that you have to track for me in the beginning because I don't know what you're eating . I don't know how to help you unless I know what you're eating . So I have my ladies track in the beginning and you don't .

Once you track long enough that you learn your staple foods , you learn what's going to get you to your macros and what's working . Then no , you don't have to track every day and I do tell my clients that and I believe that because I don't track every day . But I was thinking the other day .

Like we budget our money and we'll probably have to do that forever . As long as we are bringing in income and spending income , we need to make sure we are creating more money than we are spending so that we don't go broke . You will have to in some way budget your money to make sure you have enough and you're not spending too much .

In the same way that you do that for your finances for your life , you will need to be aware of and know how many calories you're bringing in for your body and also whether that's good for you . So I was kind of thinking the other day like maybe I need to stop saying that you don't have to track your macros forever .

You don't have to track them every day forever and jury's still out in my brain about this but I will track my macros . I mean not forever .

I assume there will be an age I get to where I'm like no , I literally don't care anymore , but it's gonna be a long time and I think that's just part of health is that you , to have a healthy body , you have to feed yourself a certain amount , and that amount changes with age and depending on what sex you are and what your goals are , and like how your

body is literally made up , it does matter how much food you eat , how much energy you consume , how many calories you consume , because your body , your systems , your brain requires energy , and so it is not negotiable that your body , depending on your body and your movement and you as a person , you do require a different amount of calories than someone else .

So it's not silly to say that if you do wanna be healthy forever , you will have to keep track of your food , your macros , your calories , for as long as you care to be healthy . So maybe it's not even fair to say like you don't have to track your macros forever and you can just eat intuitively after a while .

That may be true for some people , but it also may not , and so sometimes I'm even guilty of being like , well , you said that I could do this , and now I'm like I don't know . So , anyway , I just had this thought of , like what are we really saying and is that true ? Like , do I need to track my macros forever ?

In a sense , yeah , probably I will need to know if I'm being healthy or not . So it's harder . It's simple . The formula is simple to get the body that you want to be healthy , to love yourself , to take care of yourself , all the things .

The formula is really simple when you lay it out there , but it's hard to do because it's not the normal and it's time consuming and we just wanna somehow be healthy without doing anything . But what it comes down to , and what I will end with , is that not I don't even wanna say not everyone . No one is motivated all of the time .

No one wants to get out of bed at a certain time , brush their teeth , get ready , go to work , go on about their day . Nobody wants to do that stuff . Nobody wants to work out every day . Nobody wants to track their macros . But guess what , some people do it and some people don't .

You either fall into a category of one or the other and that's it , and so you have to push through hard times to find your focus . You cannot give up . It just cannot be an option , and so Thank you for coming to my little TED Talk today .

I just want to encourage you with this , and if you are someone who has been a habitual quitter in the past and you're , like I'm , someone who gives up about four weeks into a workout program , well , stop Like this is the time that you're like I'm not doing that .

This time I'm working out four days a week period , no matter if I'm motivated or not , for the rest of my life , because that's healthy for me . Period . End of story done , make it happen . Start there and then move on to the next thing . But you're going to have to change your mindset .

You're going to have to change , maybe , the things you consume on social media , the things you read . Stop Googling shit and just do it . So keep pushing through , keep navigating through this . I hope this was inspiring . I also hope it was a little bit irritating . I hope you were like wow , you really called me out on that one , christie . Thank you so much .

Yeah , because someone has to do it , and it might as well be me , and this stuff needs to be talked about . You can know all of the things that you need to do . I'm a personal trainer .

I actually coach other personal trainers who are like I know what to do , but I can't make myself do it sometimes because it's not just about the technicalities , it's about so much more that's in there . So get out of your head , stop self-sabotaging , start saying I can do this . I'm not a quitter . I'm going to do this Change it up and then take some action .

I've got you . If you need some help , I have programs on my website that can help you . I definitely recommend either getting into my shred program or my one-on-one coaching . Those are the two that are going to get you long-term results .

Get you into that mindset of hitting your macros , starting some new workouts , seeing things come together and you're going to learn a lot . They're not quick fixes , so don't come in thinking you're going to lose 10 pounds in the first 30 days .

Don't come in with a mindset of anything except that you're going to learn , you're going to make progress , your body's going to change and that's a great place to come in . And if you need more one-on-one support , that's my one-on-one program where I help walk my ladies through all the things they're personally struggling with . So thank you so much .

I will talk to you next week .