5 Things I Would Never Do As A Personal Trainer

 With no guests, just pure, distilled knowledge from Bree's 12 years as a personal trainer, this episode is a treasure trove of insights from the front lines of real-life transformations. Here are 5 things that will help you on your way to achieving your goals. 

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Transcript

Are you looking for a space where you will learn to improve your mental strength, emotional health and heal your insecurities from the inside out? Take the first step to living a more meaningful life with the Better Me with BodyByBree podcast. I'm your host, Bree. I'm a certified personal trainer, entrepreneur and mother of three. I've helped empower thousands of women to take action through fitness, nutrition, meditation, development and aligning thoughts with action. This podcast is for those who are ready to feel inspired and motivated to live a more purposeful life. Let's grow together. 

I have trained thousands of women for the last 12 years and here are a few things I see time and time again that people don't even realize are hurting their progress. So here's a list of my top five things I would never do as a personal trainer and I actually did throw in a bonus tip at the end. I can't wait for you to learn. Let's get started. 

Hi friends, welcome to the podcast. This episode or, I guess, topic was actually one of my most popular Instagram posts and I thought okay, if people are loving this as an Instagram post, I'm going to turn it into a podcast, because obviously there's so much more that I want to say about each of these topics and there were so many questions that I just thought I'd clarify it. So here are my top five things I would never do as a personal trainer. 

Number One: I would not judge my success solely on the scale. You hear me talk about this a lot, but the scale can be super discouraging for people because they actually don't understand the science behind what their body is doing. So they think, oh, I gained three pounds, this isn't working. But really what's happening is they just did a super hard workout and they made small tears in their muscle fibers and so their body is retaining a little bit of water to help repair those muscle fibers. If you don't understand the science behind it and all you're looking at is a scale, you would think, oh, my calories are too high, I'm gaining weight, I have to quit or have to lower my calories. That's simply not true. You do have to eat 3,500 calories in order to gain one pound of fat. That's a lot. So that's not going to happen overnight, even if it happens in one week. There's so many other ways to judge your success. For example, a great way is biofeedback. So what we do with our clients is we do biofeedback check-ins. So we're saying how are your energy levels? How's your digestion? How are you fitting in your clothes? How are you sleeping at night? How are your progress pictures? Have you lost inches? All of this plays a role in your overall health and if you're progressing. Are you making strength goals? Are you feeling better? So we can't just look at the scale. That's what I really try to teach my clients is let's look at all these other indicators of success and that will help you to just feel better if the scale's not moving. Because I will tell you, I went nine months without the scale moving one pound and I worked out six days a week. I was counting my macros, I was diligent. I lost about 5% body fat, but the scale stayed the same. So if you were to look at my pictures, you'd be like whoa her body completely changed! But if I was only looking at the scale, I would look like a failure. So that's why we don't want to just look at the scale. All right. 

Number Two: You do not have to cut out major food groups. This is one that I see time and time again, where people just get impatient with the process and so they go straight to cutting out carbs or sugar or dairy, and what that does is it actually makes you want to binge after. If you do understand energy expenditure and how to balance your macros, there is no need to cut out major food groups to see progress. All that does is tell your brain you can't eat this, and it makes you hyperaware of it, and so you will binge later. So don't cut out major food groups. Also, it's not healthy. Your body needs fats, carbs and protein in order to survive. Okay, carbs are what give you energy. It's important and it's essential. You cannot cut out a major food group. I don't care who you talk to, what expert tells you to do keto, it is simply not healthy for your body. 

Number Three: You cannot solely focus on the physical goals without understanding the habits, emotions, daily mental wins, personality traits, all of that or you will really have a hard time. You won't be successful for very long if you don't have these foundations. So we have to figure out your triggers. We have to figure out why are you self-sabotaging? What are some habits that you can establish that will help you be stronger mentally? You know what are your daily habits. We're talking about all of that. It's all encompassing. It cannot just be physical. If you truly, truly want to transform from the inside out and have this be lasting change, it cannot solely be physical. 

Number Four: I would never start my day on an empty stomach and then take stimulants like pre-workout caffeine or coffee, because what this does is that immediately put you into a fight or flight mode first thing in the morning and you will trash your adrenals, which will, in the end, make you feel even more run down. Okay, so in the long run you'll feel worse. So instead, I suggest waking up and eating something first thing in the morning and then, if you want, to take something later, after an hour or two of being awake, that will help your adrenals. But I mean, I do things very holistically. I don't even take a pre-workout. I'm not tooting my own horn, I just don't feel good on it. Like I've noticed, I trashed my adrenals. So this is personal experience. I've done this before. I dieted too hard, lived off of caffeine and it ruined my hormones, and I will never do that again. So now I preach to all of my clients if you can start weaning yourself off and do a healthier version. So what I do is my Greens in the morning. So I sell an Organic Greens drink that is just like a little powder and it will help you feel incredible. It gives you all your greens for the day. It cleans out toxins, eliminates bowel and water retention. It helps you have natural energy from green tea, which gives you this natural, sustained energy. It's not this quick spike and then you crash after or have headaches. That's what would happen to me if I did pre-workouts or caffeine, I don't like coffee, I don't drink coffee. So the green tea is what I wake up and I just blast my system with nutrients and I feel incredible. So if you want to do that, you can also look for the Greens on my website, www.bodybybree.com. That's what's helped me a ton.

Number Five: I would never, as a personal trainer, push through pain to finish an exercise. So the “no pain, no gain” simply is not healthy. It is okay to listen to your body. If something doesn't feel right, back off and try a modification, because pain is never the goal. There are a million other exercises that you could do that would hit that muscle group that does not cause you pain. You can modify it or you can change the exercise altogether. Do not push through the pain. There's no need. You don't want to hurt yourself, you want to feel good. 

Okay, I actually have a bonus tip for you. Number Six is our bonus tip and it is that rest days are essential for muscle building and recovery. You cannot skip your rest days or you will burn out. You need the recovery. It is important. Your body needs to be able to repair mentally. You need a day to rest. I still like to move my body on my rest days, so I'll still go for walks or do yoga or stretch or something that feels good to my body, but it is gentle movement. It is not trying to go for PRs. I'm not lifting. I'm giving my body a rest. I promise you will feel better. Your body will thank you. You'll have even more muscle gains that way. You cannot overwork your body and expect it to work for you. 

Okay, here are my five tips I would never do as a personal trainer:

• I would never judge my success solely on the scale. 
• I would never cut out major food groups.
•  I would focus on my mental and emotional health as well so I would not only focus on the physical. 
• I would not start my day on an empty stomach and then drink a stimulant. 
• I would not push through the pain if something hurts.
• And bonus tip I would not neglect my rest days.

All right, that is your tip for the day. I hope you guys have an amazing day. Thank you for spending your time with me. I know you can listen to a lot of podcasts. You have a lot to do with your time. I hope that I have added to your day and I have helped you to feel more empowered moving forward in your fitness journey. I will talk to you later. 

Thank you for joining us on the podcast. Thank you for joining us in today's episode. If you liked the content and want to hear more, remember to hit that subscribe button and write a review. As a small business owner, I appreciate it more than you know. If you are looking for a program to help with self-confidence, to lose weight, get in shape and work on your mental, physical and emotional help, check out my training programs on www.bodybybree.com. My team and I help to hold you accountable through the BodyByBree app, where you log in to see all your workouts, custom meal plan made specifically for you and your needs and communication through the messenger. You are never alone when you're on the body by breed training program. Click the link in the show notes to get more information on how to transform your life from the inside out.