Tara's Experience: The result of consistency.

Getting her head straight and getting results.

On occasion, I have a client that comes to me and complains about their lack of progress. This usually follows a Bod Pod or continued poor performance with certain exercises that others are excelling at. I know the program works because the vast majority of my clients are highly successful despite spending only 3d/wk in the gym with their teams. They even do better than some who spend twice that amount of time in the gym.

Bottom line: You get out of it, what you put into it. We do less volume (days in the gym) and higher intensity, the program is designed for people on a budget with busy lives. I provide guidance and resources, it’s up to the client to listen and facilitate. The two primary factors that limit performance are diet (daily intake, meal timing, macro composition, etc.) and consistent training.

Tara’s story below echoes what I tell every client that isn’t making progress and what happens when they stop making excuses.

Pregnancy, coupled with a miserably poor diet and very little physical activity, had me returning to MM Team Fitness in August 2012, after a two year absence, in the worst shape of my life.Although I really wanted to make a change and get control of my health and fitness, I was very inconsistent for the first 6 months.I found it easy to make excuses for why I “couldn’t” make it to the workouts; I wanted to get home and see my daughter (I had just left her for the first time to go back to work), I was tired, needed to fix dinner, just didn’t feel like it, sort of didn’t feel well, etc…A couple of months in I also had a frustrating reoccurrence of a shoulder injury that didn’t make getting to the workouts any easier.The result was that every time I stepped foot in the gym it felt like I was starting over again.Nothing was getting easier – nothing was improving – I basically had nothing to show for my “efforts.”

One thing that I was doing consistently was asking Mark why I wasn’t seeing any changes. I mean, I knew I wasn’t doing great but, c’mon, I was doing more than I was before, shouldn’t I see something for my troubles? (I should also mention that I had not really done anything at that point to change my eating habits in any meaningful way.) So, week after week, I would show up (sometimes), make healthier diet choices (occasionally), and ask Mark the same question – when am I going to see some results? And, week after week, he would respond with the same answer - when you start making it to your workouts consistently 3 days a week and get control of your diet.

I finally came to the realization that the way things were going just wasn’t working for me. I was tired of feeling like I was just trying to survive the workouts. I was tired of not seeing any results.I was tired of being fat and unhappy! I read something somewhere that really struck me – If it is important you will find a way.If it isn’t, you will find an excuse. This really defined where I was and the decision that I needed to make. How important was this to me and what was I going to do about it? So, I started showing up, without fail, to every workout giving it 100% and I started making real, meaningful changes to the way I was eating (including a pre-workout and recovery snack). I also, at Mark’s suggestion, had my Vitamin D levels checked.It turns out I was very low, so I now take a 1000 IU supplement every day.

The result has been consistent forward progress – finally! I no longer feel like I am just trying to survive the workouts.I am no longer in the vicious cycle of making a little progress only to lose it by missing workouts. Now, every time I workout, I am building upon the efforts of all of my previous workouts. I am stronger.I have more energy. I am getting smaller (and people are starting to notice)!!!!I even stayed consistent through another injury. I did what I could while it healed, and found that I didn’t really lose any momentum. I still have a long way to go to my final goal, and I still have those moments when I just want it all to happen NOW!, but I simply have a little chat with Mark and he reminds me to be patient.If I keep doing all the right things then it will happen. I see the amazing results that Mark has posted of some of his other clients and I finally, for the first time, feel like that can be me.

- Tara