I wasn’t always into health and fitness. Back in Junior High, I quit the basketball team within a week for 2 reasons: they made you run (a lot!) and it required getting up early. Fast forward a couple of decades, where I found myself in a different place. I’d gotten my hands on the book “Body for Life” by Bill Philips, which literally changed the course of my life. At the time I was dealing with a tremendous sense of loss, as my then-fiancé had just dropped the bomb that he thought he was falling in love with someone else.
I was overweight, unhappy, felt unlovable, and had a resigned attitude of “this is just how life is going to be.” At 32, I truly thought I was destined to stay depressed, heavy and unloved. I was emotionally devastated, which really messed with my head.
While at a friend’s house, I happened to pick up his copy of “Body for Life” and started thumbing through it. It was full of stories of average, everyday people who transformed their bodies, their mindset and their lives. These weren’t celebs with a team of specialists. These were regular people like you and me. And their stories were inspiring. They lit a spark of hope in my life.
Knowing next to nothing about working out, I pored over the book, made copies of the suggested workouts and decided to give it a try. Something amazing happened. It worked! I started losing weight and feeling good. Ok, I started feeling sassy! I dropped about 18 pounds, and looked pretty good. And then, I hit a plateau. It wasn’t so bad, really. I was pretty happy where I was. Until I met Robert.
A good friend of mine, Erik, was getting his personal training certification and I was toying with the idea of doing the same thing. He introduced me to his mentor and trainer, Robert. As we were talking, he commented, “Yeah, you’re thin, you look good. But what do you look like naked?” Silence.
Even though I looked good and felt good, truth be told, I was a little frustrated with how I looked. Because no matter what I did—the hours in the gym, the shakes and food I consumed, the focus and determination I gave it—I couldn’t seem to create the definition I sought. I didn’t want to go all Lou Ferrigno or anything, but having some definition would have been fabulous. For months it had remained this elusive state that seemed impossible to achieve.
Despite my shocked, deer-in-the-headlights moment, after another 2 weeks of nothing changing, I hired him. It was one of the smartest decision I’ve ever made for myself. Working with Robert was a mixture of fun, sweat, education, annoyance, and obsession. I used our sessions to really learn and understand the body, my workouts, and the food component. Within 3 months, we reshaped my body into what I had envisioned.
Plateaus are a tricky thing. They can be the reason someone loses steam and motivation, simply coasts along in the same place or quits altogether. Plateaus can also be a gift. They can be the place to pause, take stock and determine what is missing that needs to happen or change. In the past, my M.O. would’ve been to coast for a bit and then quit. I am thankful every day that I decided to do something different that time.
Does hitting a plateau require hiring a trainer? No. But in my personal experience and what I found to be true with clients, if you’re not making the progress you want and you’ve been there for a bit, it might be time to bring in some outside help.
It may be as simple as needing to learn better form. That was a big one for me. Subtle tweaks to my form—which I couldn’t get from a book or from watching other people at the gym—made a huge difference and required the trained eye of a professional. Some of these minor adjustments will create major results.
One big factor is the nutrition component. Results in the gym, whether for weight loss or muscle gain, are determined by what is happening in the kitchen. It’s actually about 70-80% of the game. For me, I am glad Robert was a believer in whole food nutrition. It got me away from the chemical-laden supplements I’d been using and I began learning how to use food to fuel my body.
Sometimes we think we’re really pushing ourselves, but I can tell you that for most of us, we could stand to kick it up a notch. That almost always requires a trainer who won’t let us quit when we’re tired. No, they don’t have to be a Jillian Michaels. But it’s human nature to do 10 more when a trainer tells us vs making ourselves do 10 more when we’re sweating bullets and just want to sit down.
Accountability and support from someone who was the best in the area was what helped me to break through the plateau. When you find yourself at a plateau, do an assessment to determine what needs to shift or what you might need to learn. If it’s not something you can do or create for yourself, seek out the right person to help you bust through and hire them.
That plateau, and the ones I’ve hit since then, have presented opportunities to take my life, my health and my business in new, amazing directions. So if you are at a plateau, take heart. It may be the perfect gift, that catalyst that changes your deer-in-the-headlight moment to “Yeah, I look good!”