80. Embracing Your Unique Fitness Journey: Letting Go of Comparison and Unrealistic Timelines

Real , like this is exactly the things that I want to say to you , as if you were like my client or just my friend coming to me and you're really struggling with the fact that you think your fitness journey should be going faster , or you are comparing yourself to other people , or whatever the case may be .

I see this so often where my clients or just people are like man , I really thought this wouldn't take as long , or I don't know if I'm doing a good job , because I am not as far along as maybe someone told me I would be , or I thought I was going to be , and so this is just so common and it's been a long time for me .

I'll be honest , since I've really looked at my journey in that light . I know that I've been there . I know that I'm . I know there were times that I was like , wow , I really wish that I was making a lot faster progress . I didn't think it would take this long and more for me in terms of muscle growth .

I didn't really understand my journey in the beginning , what I was doing . I've talked about this , actually I think last week , where I talked about how I just I had the workout program laid out in front of me . I hit almost every single workout .

I hit my I didn't know it was my macros , but I filled my containers and I ate exactly what I was supposed to eat and I just did that kind of blindly . So I think for me I started off not to say that that was a good thing , because I was definitely going all in and I couldn't keep that up past the 90 day program , but I went all in on that .

And then you know , as far as like my muscle building journey , it's been hard for me to kind of I'm like sometimes I'll look in the mirror and I'm like man , I really thought I would look different or stronger , or I feel like I'm putting in so much work and I'm not looking a whole lot different .

But at the end of the day I can , at this point in my journey , I can look at myself or really take a look in the metaphorical mirror , I guess , and be like , okay , but are you actually eating enough ? Are you actually doing the workouts that you should be doing , christy , to get to ? You know , that's making you think you should have this much muscle .

Are you really putting in that work ? And the answer is no . And I'm really good at separating myself from the outcome , and that's kind of what I want to talk about in this episode is separating yourself from the end goal , from the outcome .

So a lot of times you , you know , I'm sure and let's get really , really real with ourselves , right A lot of times you will , and I'm talking to you as your coach , as someone who can see you from an outsider's view .

And this is a lot of my clients and a lot of ladies , especially when they first come on board with me , they're like I've tried this program and I couldn't adhere to it . Or I hired this coach and what they're telling me to do is I , it's just not fitting in my lifestyle , I'm not able to do it .

Or I did this program and I , you know , stuck to it 100% , and it promised me that I would lose 15 to 20 pounds and I didn't . And so they're thinking that they failed because the outcome , you know , isn't there .

And so be real and think about in your journey right now , if this is you and you're like man yeah , maybe , christy , I've been with you for so long or I'm currently doing a different program , or I'm currently working with another trainer and I really did think that this was going to go faster .

I really thought I would be , you know , from my starting place to my end goal , whatever . That is a lot faster , or at least making a lot more progress faster along the way . And when you look out at that end goal and let me just also say quickly that your end goal will change right .

So if you start to see progress , you're like , oh , maybe I'm capable of getting that scale down even lower than I you know the number on the scale down lower than I thought . So you keep putting that goal further and further and further from yourself and in turn , you see that you have so far to go .

Whenever you look at that goal , you're like man , I am still so far away . And this can make you get down on yourself , this can make you overthink , this can make you question the process and question whether or not you actually can achieve what you want , like can I actually lose that 20 pounds ? Can I ? Because I'm not feeling right now like I can .

I'm tired . I wake up every day and I've only lost a half pound and a half pound , and then I gained two pounds and then I lost another half pound and it's like I don't think I'm ever going to make it to that angle right . So you are not detaching from that goal , you're just seeing .

You know you're putting in maybe all the work and you're almost discrediting all of that when you don't focus on your progress and what you have done , right , and you're just looking at . This is where I am now and this is where I have to go and it's so far away .

I can relate to this a lot in my business and I've said that before on the podcast , where I struggle more so with my business , in the same way that a lot of you struggle with fitness . As far as I see this end goal and it used to be when I first started out running my own business , being my own boss , I had no idea what I was doing .

So I saw all these people online , you know , being personal trainers , and they were doing all the things and they had all the clients and they have all the trainers under them and I'm like , wow , this is a great goal . Since then , my goals have changed .

But you know , I see that and I put in whatever work I feel like I'm supposed to put in and I didn't get anywhere toward that goal . It's just like I'm spinning my wheels . I didn't have a habits in place , I didn't have a system in place , and without a system and some habits , you don't even know if you're making any progress .

And that could be some of your problems too , which I will get right back to . But to relate this to my business and where I've been in that situation , I didn't know what I was doing .

I kept looking at the end goal , like how am I ever going to get over here to owning my own business and to having clients and you know all the other things that I want to do ?

I have so far to go and I was discrediting the little baby steps that I was making along the way , and so I hired my own coach and I was able to , you know , walk myself through that , and now I just focus on the habits and the systems and the consistency and that to relate that to your fitness journey .

How you would disassociate , how you detach from yourself to the end goal is you associate yourself to your habits and you associate your focus to the systems and the habits that you have to do every single day to get to that goal . So I want you to start looking at the small wins and look at the good things that you're doing every single day .

A lot of times when clients start a program with me , they have this really big end goal and it takes me a while to get them on board and get them consistent with the little things that they should be doing . Once they get consistent with those things , I go in and explain okay , this is why we're doing those things .

And then I will have them step back and say look at all the things you've been doing for the last four weeks . You know you've been tracking your food and we learned a lot about you from tracking your food .

No judgment , just whether you've been eating too little or too much , and we made food changes and you're having balanced meals and you're feeling so good and you're sleeping good and you're getting in three to five workouts every single week and you're hitting between five and 10K steps a day and just all of these little wins .

It's amazing because a lot of times , clients will come to me and say , oh , you're all check in and like how's your week going ? And they're like I haven't lost any weight this week . I don't know , I'm not having the best week , but I'm doing okay . And I'm like okay , that's fine , aside from the weight you know . But are you still working on your habits ?

Are you still working on your systems ? Are you still proud of yourself ? Do you feel like you have more energy ? Are your hormones better ? Is your metabolism better ? You know how are you doing with those things ? Because continuing with those things are what's going to get you to that end goal .

When you just wake up every day and you're like , well , haven't lost my 20 to 50 pounds yet , what's the point of doing my habits today ? And then you quit . Instead of that , you just wake up every day like , okay , hitting my five to 10K steps and getting my work in . If it's a workout day , hitting my macros , drinking my water , that's it .

Like it just becomes so seamless and you don't have to really think about the end goal so often because you're so focused on making another day a win , making the next day a win , and if you have a day where you screw up , it's fine . You're like , okay , cool , tomorrow I'll be back at it , I'll win because it's not so hard anymore .

But a lot of times when we are just thinking about ourselves and comparing to the timeline that we've set for ourselves , or maybe comparison to other people , it's concerning the end goal , right ? So you're comparing yourself to your friend who's losing more weight than you and maybe she's going to get to that end goal faster , okay .

Or maybe you've set an unreal timeline for yourself . Maybe your friend is in a different place than you are physically and maybe she's already gotten to maintenance and she reversed dieted and maybe she has a healthy relationship with food already . So , yeah , maybe she's making a little bit faster traction than you .

Or maybe you're setting just that unreal timeline and you're comparing yourself constantly with someone else , someone on social media what you thought your body would look like , what you thought you should be able to do , you know the progress that you should have been able to make in X amount of time .

If that was an unreal timeline , then of course you're not going to be able to get to that goal because you have set yourself up for failure . So again , let's be real and really really think for a minute about do you compare yourself to unrealistic expectations ? Do you set unreal standards for yourself ?

Are you comparing yourself to someone who's been in the health and fitness space for years ? Are you comparing yourself to a timeline that maybe you know 20 years ago , when you were in college , and you're like well , you know , back then , when I went to the gym and I hit my macros , I made so much progress really quickly .

Now you're 20 years older , the same things just aren't going to work . So maybe you're comparing yourself to your old self and that's not fair . What you need to do is not really compare yourself to anything except the person you want to be . Are you working toward the person you want to be ? Are you working toward having your goal body ?

And if you don't know what those things are , if you're like I don't know if I'm working toward that , I'm not really following a plan , I don't really know what I'm doing , I'm winging it right . We need to get a plan in place for you for sure . Otherwise you're always gonna be thinking I thought I would lose more weight by now .

I thought I would see more muscle by now . This is really nice for me to be able to sit down with my clients and say that one pound a week on average weight loss for this certain client is normal . And I will say , yes , you can expect to continue to see one pound a week weight loss for X amount of weeks .

And then I expect you will start to plateau when we'll have to change up your macros and your workouts . Or I'll have a client say I'm not really seeing much movement at all . Is this normal ? And I will say yes , and this is why and this is how we're gonna get out of it we're gonna have to reverse diet for a while .

We're gonna have to put some muscle on you . We're gonna have to maybe start a few supplements to help your metabolism , your hormones , and then do that for maybe three to six months . Get your body really happy , get your body to trust you , and then we can reverse diet back down , or then we can calorie deficit back down .

But that's nice , because if I have a plan in place for my ladies and I can say these are the steps you need to do to get to your goal , this is what the timeline's going to look like , then they don't just have this unreal timeline that they're trying to follow and their body's literally not gonna do what they want it to do in that timeline .

I can give them a realistic timeline . But when you are so obsessed with the goal and you just wanted all to happen so fast , you have to detach yourself from that goal . If not you will quit . And what's the point of quitting ? Because then you're doing nothing to get yourself to your goal , right ?

So if you quit which you will do if you're constantly overthinking and constantly comparing and just thinking why am I not there yet ? I'm doing the most , I'm literally doing the most , I'm doing all the things and it's not making any progress .

Obviously those aren't the right things If you're not making any progress , but if you don't know that , then you're just gonna quit , and quitting obviously isn't going to get you anywhere . So , for whatever reason , you have these timelines of when you think you will achieve something and you have to get rid of that .

It's a total mind fuck to set yourself up for this timeline that you think in this 12 week program I'm gonna lose . I was gonna say 10 pounds , but that's actually achievable . I will lose 20 pounds and I'll have the body of my dreams and I will have a good relationship with food .

Whatever your goal is , to think that that's gonna happen in 12 weeks is just probably not going to happen . So set realistic timelines for yourself or , honestly , don't even put a timeline in place . I should have opened with that . That would be the best thing . That's what I do . I set kind of a goal for myself of , okay , I'm gonna start putting on weight .

I no longer have a goal weight . I no longer actually have a goal body . I don't do anything with like an end goal . Sounds crazy . All my goal is just right now to put on some muscle at a pretty slow pace . So I'm gonna increase my carbs . I'm gonna start lifting heavier more often . That's it . That's my goal .

Whatever I look like at the end of whenever I stop doing . That is good enough for me . And was it always like that for me ? Absolutely not , and I don't .

I don't not set a goal because I won't achieve it , but my goals will change and my life changes and the seasons change , and so , honestly , if you can make your goal or if you can try to get to a place where , okay , I'm going to sign up for this program . I want to fix my relationship with food .

Yes , down the line , I want to have this kind of a body . I want to feel like this , but in the meantime , what I want to do is learn about macros . I want to start tracking my food so I'm feeding my body correctly , and I want to put on a little bit of muscle . That means lifting heavier , following a program hitting three to five workouts a week .

That's it , and make that your goal . I think that's the best . That's the best way Now that I'm saying this and like I should have had a whole podcast just about this , but seriously , this is how I function and I think it's the best . I actually I don't know if I mentioned this on here , but not that long ago I had a client , a friend of mine .

She was saying you know , she's like you don't really ever set long term goals for me . It's always there , always very short term goals , and I'm I was kind of surprised when she said it . I was not surprised to hear it , I was surprised that she noticed , honestly , and I kind of took a step back and I'm like , oh my God , maybe that's a bad thing .

You know , whatever , that's my negative or my self-sab , I don't know , but my , my first thought was oh God , you're right , I don't set long term goals very often .

Um , I have goals that I want to work toward , I have , you know , a vision , I have all the things , but in reality I have to be very , very focused on my very next step , like my very next hour , and I have it kind of mapped out , of course .

Of course I'm not saying you have to go just wing it , but you have to just be focused on what you're doing next .

Like I said , literally for my business , I have certain things that I'm doing from now until the end of the year , basically in survival mode with the holidays and stuff , and that's kind of how you , you know you should be too with your body just be in survival mode , and that's how I am .

Like I just told you , my only goal is to eat more carbs every day . Aka I will just add in a bowl of oatmeal and lift heavier on occasion .

That's it , and I will do that for the rest of fall and through winter , and then I will change my immediate goals of what I'm going to do every single day as far as carbs , as far as calories and as far as workouts , and that's it .

Like , I know I will get to my goal , but I really have to be focused on being 1% better every single day , doing this shit that I don't want to do , showing up when I don't want to , like those are the little things , right , that really , really matter , and it's so nice to not have to stress and think about all that stuff .

Can you imagine , like , wouldn't it be so nice to just get up and not have to stress and think about food and workouts all the time ? This is literally how you do that .

This is one of the differences between a diet where you're cutting carbs and cutting fats and you know , cutting calories , cutting , restricting foods , whatever , like I'm on a diet for X amount of weeks , or this detox , or you know those certain things . That's the difference between what you've tried in the past and this lifestyle that I'm talking about so often .

It's not one certain thing that you're doing or that you're not able to have . It's a whole combination of things , but really it's about these little tiny habits that you're just doing so seamlessly every single day . Do you see how ?

When I just explained what my goals are right now , like how it's so easy for me to live what I was already doing and living in my life and my workouts for my fitness journey . And I'm actually only adding in a bowl of oatmeal and lifting heavier in my workouts . That's the only thing that I change to get to my goals .

What if the only thing that you had to change coming into a program is changing up the way that you work out , and probably it'll be easier as far as you're not going to have to be doing a lot of cardio , right ? So you are just hitting your macros and whatever that is .

You focus on just hitting your macros and putting in the time to do the workouts of a program that works , and that's it . Imagine , every single day you wake up and that's it . You know what you're going to eat to hit your macros . You know you have to get your workout in . Maybe go for a walk , maybe hit some water , like that's it , that's it .

You don't have to worry about all the other things . You don't have to wake up every single day with this looming 20 pound , 50 pound goal over your head , because that's going to happen .

But it's not going to happen unless you do these little habits and these right , these little systems that you have in place that make it a habit that you just do every single day . And so it's so important that you detach yourself and you detach your mind and you detach like all of that honestly , from that end goal .

You have to just rip that away and be like , yeah , that's an amazing goal and I'm going to fucking get there . But the way that I'm going to do that is to let go of that for now and trust this process and I'm going to be in the moment every day . Hit my macros , get in my workout and that's it . And like check the box , Give yourself a high five .

I did it . Crush the day , move on , crush the next day and the next day , and if you don't crush the days , just at least show up every single day . So I hope this was helpful . I know that I always have clients coming to me and they're like how do I not stress about this goal ? I really thought that I would be there faster .

I really thought that this would be easier , and I'm so sorry that someone made you feel like it should go faster or that it should be easier . That's not on you , that's on shame on the person who's selling whatever product , making you feel like there's a certain timeline that your body will adjust because it's just not going to happen .

But the good thing is that you can control what you do every single day and that's it . That's all you have to do is control what you do every single day . Like I said , that is the difference between this lifestyle and all those other diets that you've tried and then have put you right back to where you started .

So , again , I hope you enjoy this episode on comparison and letting go of comparison and letting go of those timelines that you set for yourself and just hopefully you can enjoy to learn , to enjoy the journey . As always , I love getting messages from you and Instagram and the DMs .

I really , really , truly do enjoy hearing all of you saying that you're finding the podcast and you're listening to it and it's changing your life and that makes me so happy . So continue to reach out to me with those messages and I will talk to you next week .