Blog Schmog Part I
Hello there! Welcome my blog. My friend Darby suggested I call my blog ‘Blog Schmog.’ What do you think? I’m still undecided but regardless of what it ends up being titled, I intend to use this Schmog to talk all things fitness, diet, nutrition and training and explore insights gained along the way. I hope the Schmog can serve as an extra tool in your toolbox for whatever your fitness, training and health goals may be.
I’m opening our discussion with a popular but frequently debated topic; the subject of weight loss. This Schmog proceeds with an assumption that like many of my clients, you currently have some degree of a weight loss wish, desire or goal. If you do not, that is great too! Perhaps these thoughts may resonate with a desire to build strength or other goals you have in your life. From my own experiences losing a good deal of ‘baby weight’ from three pregnancies and working with dozens of clients with weight loss goals over the years, I have a lot to say about what goes into successful weight loss. And probably even more to say about successful weight maintenance.
There’s no quick and easy way to lose weight and then maintain that loss over time, as you probably already know or have experienced. I think that’s a good thing, ultimately, in that it truly is, or eventually becomes, about the experiences and things learned and gained along the way. It is indeed more about the process than some final destination, but of course the destination feels good too.
Sometimes in the middle of a grueling leg day with a client I feel compelled to blurt out ‘..and yeah, this is hard.’ I say this because I want them to know that lifting heavy weight, doing a high intensity interval or an intense plyometric exercise feels hard because that is specifically what these exercises are designed to be. The exercises I program for clients are designed to challenge the muscles, bones, and sometimes cardiovascular system of the body with deliberate stress. It feels hard because it is hard. And I hope, in pointing this out, to alleviate any of the “what’s wrong with me?” negative self-talk that can flare up in the gym. Nothing is wrong with you, it’s just a hard exercise. It is the stress, often, that makes an exercise effective.
Objectively speaking, walking lunges with weight is challenging for most everyone, most all the time. I want my clients to know that when an exercise feels hard to them, it is not due to weakness on their part. On the contrary, it is what the process of building strength feels like. It can, and often ought to, feel physically stressful or intense. (Safety note: this is different from a feeling of sharp or shooting pain which is an indicator that something has gone wrong and you should stop what you are doing.)
As a trainer, it my hope and intention that your process will feel and be empowering, focused, positive, sometimes fun, and rewarding, but…not often easy. Muscle can be built with enthusiasm and even joy, but not with easy. It just doesn’t work that way. The weight loss journey isn't always a downhill ride either, and there's a good argument, scientifically speaking, for why it shouldn't be. I intend to dig a little deeper into why this is so in part II of this Blog Schmog, coming soon. In the meantime, welcome to my Schmog, and keep going after some of the hard gains in the gym. I look forward to the discoveries we will make together in this space moving forward.