Why do I need a coach? Surprising reasons. First, coaches are the core of accountability. You would so tell yourself it’s okay to skip your workout today – easily – but when you know you have someone that has set aside time for you and planned something just for you – well – “I’ll just skip today” is not so easy to do.
Let’s focus on that skipping part. Skipping, because you told yourself it’s okay, is a slippery slope. Very quickly two weeks have gone by and now it’s more than a skip. Now it equates to starting over and we all know what that’s like. Having a coach helps you stop starting over.
When we don’t skip our workouts, we develop consistency. We all know consistency is important in doing anything well. Why is this important at the gym? Consider this: you start across the street and slip on a patch of ice. One foot flies in the air and the other wobbles on the ground trying to gain stability. The foot in the air comes back to the ground, wobbles and turns, but you stay upright. Ankles, knees, and quads tighten, and a fall turns into a stumble. (You just look around hoping no saw that.) Why were you not flat on your back and injured? Your consistency in the gym. Your feet are used to all the movement and balance exercises you practice regularly in the gym. Remember that one-legged row you insisted you couldn’t ever do? Then your coach showed you how to do it with a modification that gradually lead you to learning to balance on one foot. Your foot doesn’t know the difference between the gym and the street. All it knows is how it’s supposed to move when you are unstable. It takes consistency to learn that.
A coach is especially important in the area of nutrition. Same principal. You will so quickly give yourself permission to down a bag of chips on the couch. Just knowing you will need to talk to your coach about it will make you stop and pause. That pause is huge. As soon as you pause, you have taken away the possibility of mindless eating. It doesn’t matter what kind of a food plan you and your coach settle upon. What matters is learning to think about and plan your food, so you eliminate mindless eating for good. And you will. It takes time, practice and guidance. Your coach will work with you until planning your food is as natural as showering every day.
If you are really invested in changing your life, stop and realize what you are asking of yourself. Enlist help to avoid getting overwhelmed, which will just lead to quitting – AGAIN- and starting over at some future point. One of my clients lost 29 pounds with me since September. When people ask her how, she says it’s her coach. She knows how to eat and how to exercise, but consistency suffers. She points to her phone (because we communicate by an app, My Fitness Pal, and her Apple watch) and says “It’s this, this right here keeps me doing what I need to do. Linda’s all up in my business! Lol!”
And so, as another day goes by, …
…get a coach.
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