Last weekend, I made the 2 hour long trek back to Jeffersonville, IN to visit some of my friends and then took some time to go back home on that Saturday and hang out in my hometown.
The night I got there I had a BBQ and Mac and Cheese burger and fries with a couple beers. For lunch the next day I had Raising Canes (super good btw) and then I had steak and rice with a lot of beer that night.
The reason that I tell you this is because, as a personal trainer, this does not mean that all I eat is chicken, rice, veggies, and drink water. In fact, I am known to have McDonalds and Monster quite a bit. Does that mean that I am in bad shape or that I am a horrible trainer? Absolutely not and here is why.
The way that we market our training and the way that we work with our clients is we allow them to have freedom in their diets because everyone live different lives. Sometime the easiest thing is to get something on the way home or have meals delivered to you. Now, there are time to where we will need to eat healthy to get to our goals and make sure that we look/feel the way that we want, but that does not mean that it should be every meal.
My brother and I workout, sometimes a little too much. But, this is something that we enjoy to do. With that being said, because we workout our metabolisms are fast and we burn through a lot of food a day with the exercise level that we have and the amount of muscle that we have. So, our calories are going to be different that someone who maybe works out 1 time a week and sits all day at their job. Due to this, we can get away with eating a little unhealthy a little more often, but do get back on some sort of diet or restriction after.
Now food is not the only thing that we can slack on at times, the other is workouts. For example, my friends and I will go on a week long camping trip to Colorado and hang out, drink a little too much, and eat some pretty bad food. Does this mean that I am in a bad position? NO! If anything, it will help my body to recover and get back to being stronger when I get back.
Just because you may be busy or go on vacation does not mean that you cannot take a couple days off. We do it, so should you!
So to close this little blog post, I wanted to tell you all a story that involves me and COVID
In March of 2020 I was sent home from Butler University as a senior and had to finish out online. With that being said, everything was closed and shut down. We could not go anywhere or do anything. We had weights at home, but I am not a person who likes to work out at home. Due to this, I sat around and ate like crap and watched TV. I was in pretty bad shape. It wasn't until things started to open up just a tad and I could get a part time job that I got on track. I lost 20 lbs of water/fat weight and got back the majority of my strength as it was a manual labor job.
The point of that story is that we all get into slumps and we all start to get unmotivated, but don't think that you are the only ones. As trainers, we may suffer a little more as our careers and our reputation relies on us looking and being healthy. But, with that being said, there is more to being healthy than a very strict diet and workout regimine.