That’s what life-changing is—learning. When something isn’t going well in your life, you can learn something new. You can teach yourself what you need. Instead of waiting for some expert to tell you what to do, some authority to give you the answer, you try and find your own way. Now, if you’d rather, you could spend your time trying to understand your dim past, or realigning your biochemistry, but even if you do those things, you ultimately come back to the same problem—what are you going to do?
Tom Rusk and Randy Read, I Want to Change But I Don’t Know How!
My primary mistake with physical trainers— and I did not know this at the time— was that they handed me a mass-market exercise and diet program and expected it to work for everyone. If the program did not work, it was because I cheated.
If your trainer treats you like a generic dieter, go elsewhere and find someone who can create an original diet and exercise program based on your specific needs. They should start with a clean piece of paper, not some photocopied diet and exercise plan they pull out of a file cabinet. If they do come out with the photocopies, leave.
Professional figure competitor and personal trainer Lisa Darelli offers stellar advice for locating a trainer. She says, “Find a trainer that looks the way you want to look.”
Finding a trainer that looks the way you want to look proves critical for several reasons. Number one, if your trainer is overweight himself, he probably does not experience the emotional and physical challenges that accompany altering your lifestyle and diet to achieve and maintain a specific goal. You need someone who knows how to encourage you through dieting changes besides barking at you, “Don’t be a baby!”
For example, on my thirty-seventh diet two years ago, I worked with a trainer who only talked about self-discipline and control. He made it seem as though, if I did not have the fortitude to follow his diet, I was a failure. This man was incapable of relating to the emotional struggles and self-doubts I was feeling throughout the dieting process, so I left.
Fortunately, I talked with my good friend Louie about this. Louie has won several natural body-building contests and he still stays in remarkable shape.
Louie knew firsthand of the mind games one goes through while dieting. You try to convince yourself that you can eat just a slice of cake and it turns into a whole cake, or you tell yourself that you can skip the gym today and make it up tomorrow. Many trainers did not want, or don’t know how to address, this real and significant facet of the weight-loss process.
After listening to Louie, I realized I should not torment myself for feeling emotions that naturally accompany a major dieting makeover. What’s important is being able to address those self-sabotaging thoughts and actions as they arise.
While you can get physical and dieting training, remember that you have to serve as your primary emotional and self-sabotage recovery coach.