Personal trainer or online coach… which one is the best fit for you?

If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything right but still not seeing the fat loss you want… this episode is going to shift everything for you.

Because here’s the truth: fat loss isn’t just about what you do in the gym. It’s about what happens in the other 23 hours of your day.

In today’s episode, we’re breaking down the key differences between personal training and online coaching and why so many moms stay stuck relying on workouts alone.

You’ll learn why one hour of training a few times a week isn’t enough to create sustainable results, and how having support, structure, and guidance in your everyday life is what actually helps you stay consistent (even in the chaos of mom life).

We’re diving into:

• Why workouts alone won’t create lasting fat loss
• The biggest gap between personal training and online coaching
• How daily habits, nutrition, and mindset impact your results more than you think
• Why “falling off track” keeps happening—and how to finally break that cycle
• What it really looks like to have support that fits your life as a busy mom

This episode will help you stop blaming yourself and start understanding what’s actually been missing so you can create results that last, without starting over every Monday.

If you’re ready to lose fat in a way that fits your life (not takes it over), this one is for you.

Ready to build strength + confidence from the inside out?

Make sure to follow Stronger Within so you never miss an episode. New episodes drop weekly with practical tools for sustainable fat loss, mindset shifts, and habits that fit your life.

Your support for my show means everything! Please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts to help support.

Connect with me on Instagram and join my Facebook group for daily support, tips, and behind-the-scenes content.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey friend, welcome back to Stronger Within, the podcast for women who are done chasing quick fixes and are ready to build real strength and lasting change from the inside out. I'm your host, Christy Magri, and here we talk about becoming stronger within in your body, your mindset, and the daily habits that shape your life. If you're ready to build a body and life you feel confident in for good, you're in the right place. I need to start out this episode by acknowledging the fact that yes, my voice is very nasally. My allergies are kicking my butt. So we're still here, we're still showing up. I never had allergies before I had kids, by the way. I don't know if anybody else had this unique experience where you got allergies later in life because now in the springtime, it surprises me every single time. Like I think I'm getting sick, but then it's my allergies. So regardless, we're not gonna talk about that in too much detail here. So we're getting right into today's episode because I want to talk about the differences between online coaching and in-person training because I feel like there is somewhat of a confusion on like what's better, what are the differences? So if you're new here, I was an in-person trainer for just about four years, and I have now been online coaching for six years. So clearly there was a time period there where I was doing both. Um, and I want to share my experience with that because what I found as a personal trainer, and we'll get into this, is that my clients just weren't seeing the results that they wanted to see. They were coming in the gym and they were crushing it, but the moment they left the gym, you know, they weren't doing the right things, and I wasn't able to support them outside of those sessions. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about where your results really come from, why you shouldn't focus so heavily on just those gym sessions, what online coaching looks like. I'll give you some mom-specific hacks too if you're struggling with navigating like crazy schedules, sleep deprivation, mom guilt, all the things because you want to see results. That's what you're here for, right? So by the end of this episode, you'll understand why online coaching, in my humble opinion, I'm sorry if I have any personal trainer friends listening to this. I believe that online coaching is so much better than in-person training. And there's a reason why I left in-person to do it, several reasons actually, but I find that online coaching gives you the most bang for your buck, the most benefit, the most support. It's really the quickest way to get that body, that energy, that confidence you've been longing for since having kids. So let's get right into my background and my experience with personal training. So I was an in-person trainer for four years, and I've been online coaching for six years. So there was clearly a period of time there where I was doing a little bit of both. And I'm so thankful I came into the world of online coaching. I'm so thankful that it's boomed as an industry, to be honest, because again, I watched so many of my clients come in the gym and yeah, they crushed it in the gym, but they weren't seeing the results that they wanted to see. And so online coaching gives you that support that you really need because you have to remember when you're hiring a personal trainer, let's say you're hiring them once a week for 30 minutes or maybe twice a week for 30 minutes, you're only paying them for those 30-minute sessions and they're clocking in at the gym, they're not supporting you outside of their shifts. So, what are you supposed to do at 6 p.m. when you're going out to eat and you have no idea what to order, you don't know how to make a good decision, you don't know how to track it, you can't just text your personal trainer like you're only paying them for the session time that you are there working out with them. Versus online coaching, you have your online coach literally a text away however many days a week. For my clients, it's Monday through Friday, and then usually I'm in there on Sundays responding to their check-ins and getting them set up for the week. But online coaching gives you that really hands-on support you need, especially as a mom, to be successful when it comes to fat loss. That saying you can't outwork a bad diet is so true. Take it from the girl who worked out six days a week, two hours a day at the gym and didn't lose one single pound for three years because my habits outside of the gym were so bad that it wasn't allowing me to lose weight. So you could hire a trainer five days a week and have the most effective kick-ass workout in the world. But if you're not doing what you need to do the rest of the time, you're not gonna see the results you want to see. You have to address that home life part, and especially for moms, that's where it really comes becomes hard, right? Because we have family members who have different preferences than us. We have kids who are demanding a lot of our time and our mental energy. We're juggling a lot, and so we need somebody to kind of hold us in those tough moments to keep us going with the things that we need to be doing. And personal training just does not give you that support as needed. I'm not saying personal training is not effective, like you can definitely work with a personal trainer to help you with form and with getting comfortable in the gym, right? But if your goal is fat loss and you're not getting there, online coaching is going to be a better fit for you. And this is one of the biggest reasons why I left in-person training because I would work with these really amazing clients who had all these really amazing goals, but I just couldn't support them in the way that I wanted to or needed to. And once I started doing online coaching, I was like, oh, like this is completely different. Like, I can really support these people, along with the fact that you know, I wanted to be my own boss and I didn't want to have to ask for PTO or put my daughter in daycare. There were a lot of other reasons, but a big one was I genuinely care about the clients I work with. If you've worked with me before, you know this. If you work with me in the future, you're gonna know this. And so that 30 or 60 minutes that the client was spending with me was helpful in a way for them. But what about the other 23 hours a day? And I'm not saying I'm there for my clients 24 hours a day, like I I have boundaries, I'm not clocked in 24-7. But this is really where online coaching shines because you have the support every step of the way, and that support in your back pocket, and that's what you need as a mom to lose fat. And if we look at the reality of where most of our fat loss results are going to come from, it's really going to be our nutrition, our mindset, our stress, sleep, consistency. Workouts are gonna make up like 15 to 20%. Actually, let me rephrase that. Movement as a whole is going to make up 15 to 20% of your results. Your workouts in the gym, maybe 5%. So we have to have our focus in the right areas. And working out was always the easy part for me. I don't know if you can relate to that, but I love working out. It is my favorite part of the day, especially now as a mom. I'm like drop Chloe in the kids' area, and I'm like, see ya, mommy's going to work out for an hour. And, you know, I I've always loved that part of like the actual workouts, but the other 80% of the equation needs to also be in line. Otherwise, you're gonna end up like me, the girl who worked out so many hours in the week, but didn't even look like she worked out. And that was a really tough mental battle of going in the gym and squatting 200 pounds, but then looking at myself in the mirror and like feeling utterly ashamed of what I looked like. So we need to look at what the biggest needle mover is when it comes to your fat loss progress, and that's always gonna be your nutrition. This is also the hardest part, right? Especially as moms, we have less free time. Our schedules are more unpredictable. So learning how to make the hours outside of your workouts count is really crucial. So you know that I'm always gonna give you some actionable tips and strategies that you can take away and implement to be successful. I'm gonna share with you six things that you can do outside of the gym to see the best fat loss progress possible. Number one, I would track my food every day. You cannot manage what you don't know. So if you feel like you're doing quote unquote good dieting or you're eating healthy and you're not seeing results, you might not actually be in a calorie deficit. I wouldn't cut out foods I love. That is the beauty of macros, right? That is why I teach all of my clients macros. That's why I use macros. So you can still enjoy ice cream dates with your kids or pizza night with your family or whatever. We're actually having a um pizza night tonight. We're gonna watch Zootopia 2, just came out on Disney. Um, we also watched Death movies. It's such a cute movie, anyways. I would start tracking. You need that data. You cannot approach your fat loss journey from a place of feelings. I feel like I'm doing good. I feel like I'm eating healthy. Why am I not seeing results? Imagine if you were just like swiping your card wherever, whenever, and you're like, I feel like I'm not spending that much money, but then you look at your Amazon balance and it's like a thousand bucks, and you're like, whoa, how did that happen? It's the same freaking thing with your nutrition. You have to start tracking. Number one. Number two, I would create a list of go-to meals. As a mom, you do not need endless complicated recipes, but I would go into every week with a meal plan. Side note, this is important, with food that you and your family actually like. Stop setting yourself up with meal plans that nobody's gonna enjoy, okay? But you have to stop constantly winging it. That is what is making weight loss feel really hard. That is what is creating a lot of friction around your decisions and making it feel difficult. So I would also make sure to have a master um meal list somewhere so that meal planning takes like five to ten minutes at most. Number three, I would walk every day. So if you can't even get to the gym with little kids, or even if you do get to the gym, walking is such an underrated form of physical activity. Good for your heart. Um, it's gonna boost your calorie burn in the day, which makes fat loss easier. Walking is one of the best things you can do. I get on my walking pad every day for at least 30 minutes when it's warm outside. We go for morning, um, afternoon, and nightly walks, just like quick five, 10-minute walk around the block. Walking is so beneficial. Number four, I would focus on habits, not motivation. You are waiting for this magical, mystical motivation to always be there. You're like, I'm not motivated, I don't want to do it. I'm not motivated to go to the gym. Girlfriend, neither am I. Half the time, neither am I. But when you can learn to focus on building habits to create this lifestyle that you want to live, that's where it gets to become easy. In the beginning, it's not gonna feel easy. In the beginning, it's gonna feel like a chore, but I will tell you it is music to my ears when a client tells me, Christy, this is feeling so second nature to me now. Like I was feeling so unmotivated this week, but I still went through the motions and I still got it done. That is like the best thing ever to hear as a coach. Number five, I would map out my goals every day and every week. Eating less and moving more is not a strategy. Love you, but it's not a strategy. You need to get very specific. What habits are you committing to today? And what action step do you need to take to make it easier to follow through? So let's go back to point number one. We need to track our food. We need to know what our macros are, we need to know how much protein we're eating, we need to know what food tracking app we're using, we need to have our meal plans so we know what food we're eating. We need to take time before we go into the day to plan everything we're gonna eat for the day so we don't have to second guess or obsess over our decisions all day long. We've already decided it ahead of time. We need to take those daily action steps in order to make it easier to follow through. Again, this comes down to reducing the friction. The reason why fat loss feels so hard for moms in particular is because there's a lot of freaking friction in our life. There is a lot, we have so much on our plate. And so if fat loss feels really hard, that's just gonna be another thing. We gotta get specific here and we gotta map out our goals. I would say weekly goals once a week. This is what I do with my clients in our weekly check-in on Sundays, and then you need to map out every single morning what am I committing to today, or at least at the end of the day, checking off, okay, I tracked my food, okay. I hit my water goal, okay, I hit my step goal. I love the app that I use because my clients can actually start a streak. So let's say they have a step goal of like 7,000 steps, they can check off today that they hit it, and then they can see how many days in a row they can build the streak. I have some clients with very impressive streaks. And then lastly, I would stop starting over every freaking time I have a bad moment. You are literally wasting so much time doing that. Let's say that you got donuts with the kids and you told yourself you weren't gonna have a donut, you were on your diet today, but then you had a donut and then you felt guilty, and then you were like, crap, well, the day's ruined, I'm just gonna do whatever the rest of the day. Let's say this happened on a Thursday, and next thing you know it's Sunday, and you're like, well, three days have gone by and I haven't tracked a single thing, I haven't done anything, and you're starting back over again on Monday because for some reason Monday feels like the magical best time to start over. What you need to do instead is move on at that next step. Even if you've had that unplanned donut in the morning, okay, lunch is a completely different we're we're moving on here, right? We can choose a better option, we can choose to make a better choice right at that next moment. I love to use this analogy of if you were driving on the highway to a brand new place you've never been to before, have it plugged into the GPS, you miss your exit, you're not just gonna turn around and go home and not go to your destination for three more days because you're like, crap, I missed the exit. I sent myself back. You're gonna plug it in your or your the GPS is gonna reroute you, you're still gonna get there, it's gonna take a little bit longer, but it's fine, it's not a big deal, it's a little blip. Except you don't do that in your fitness journey. You say, Oh my god, I messed up, I knew I couldn't do it. You fall into that all or nothing mindset, and next thing you know, it's four days later and you haven't done a damn thing. We gotta stop doing that. So we need to, again, all of these concepts that I'm sharing, these are all things outside of the gym because this is what's going to get you results. Strategic daily habits that fit your life as a mom. Because I know you're exhausted, you're busy, you're doing too much at once, and it's leading you to burn out, and you're getting stuck in this constant yo-yo dieting cycle where fat loss feels miserable. And some days it probably feels impossible too. Like, I don't think I'm gonna get there. Sounds great, but I don't think that's for me. That's where online coaching comes in. Because it teaches you how to do less, how to work smarter, and how to actually see results. Because the results that you are going to get, it happens in the choices you make every day, not just during those workout sessions. And online coaching is really about molding and making a lifestyle change that fits to your life, not the other way around, right? So, not here to bash personal training, but I really wanted to explain what what those differences are because again, the biggest difference is you're hiring a personal trainer for that 30, 60 minutes or whatever, you're going in, you're having a kick-ass workout, you're leaving, and you have no support. Online coaching is taking a very holistic approach to fat loss, supporting you in every area. At least that's how it works in my coaching program. And by the way, we also cover the training side of it. My clients are covered training-wise, they know exactly what they should be doing for workouts, whether they work out at the gym or at home. I would say most of my clients actually work out from home because they're moms, it's easier for them. Right? So we have that. We have our core habits, like our sleep, our water, our steps. We have our nutrition, which is one of the biggest pillars, and then we have mindset. This is something I find that so many coaches just skip over, especially in-person trainers. Forget it. They're not talking about mindset. We're spending our 30-minute session catching up on our week and me pushing you, making you feel like you had a really productive workout. Like, let's just say it from what it is. When in reality, so many moms and so many women in particular, we have to work through the mindset side of it because we are victims of diet culture. That's how we've gotten to this place that we're at right now. And so it takes a lot of retraining and rewiring your brain to change that. And a personal training session probably is not going to give you that. If you're still feeling any confusion around what one-on-one coaching is, what it entails, what it looks like, send me over a DM on Instagram with the words coaching program overview. My Instagram name, username is tagged in the show notes, but I will send you a short behind-the-scenes video I have of what one-on-one coaching looks like because again, I think we're all pretty familiar with what an in-person trainer looks like. You go to the gym, you hire the trainer, they bring you through the workouts. Whereas online coaching is a whole different beast. So I understand the skepticism around like, how does this work? Like I'm not even meeting with you, like it's over the computer, it's over the phone, like what? There's I get I get it. So I want you to feel like you understand what the heck this even is that I'm talking about. So I am just so thankful for what I do and for the clients that I have for trusting me in this journey. And if you're a client of mine listening to this, hi, I love you and you're amazing, and I'm so proud of you. Um, and for anybody else listening to this too, same for you. But that is gonna be it for today's episode. Thank you for spending this time with me. If this episode resonated, I'd love for you to share it or leave a review. It helps this message reach even more women who need it. Until next time, keep becoming stronger within, and hopefully, I won't be so nasally in next episode. No promises though. See ya.