353: 5 Lessons I’ve Learned from Coaching 10,000 Women In Their Macro Counting Journey

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps After Babies Radio Episode 353.

Hello and welcome to Biceps After Babies Radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PR's. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife and mom of four. Each week my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise, mindset, personal development and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in. Now, let's jump into today's episode.

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke, and I am so excited to dive into today's episode because it's all about one of my most favorite things in the world, lessons. Specifically, it's about the five lessons that I've learned from coaching over 10,000 women in their macro counting journey. Even just to say that number is mind boggling to me. It's bonkers because when I started my business back in 2016, and if you know a little bit about how I started my business, I never wanted to start a business. It was completely accidental. It was completely fortuitous, and it kind of fell into my lap in a way that I could have never imagined. When I got onto Instagram and I started the Biceps After Babies Instagram account, it was not because I wanted to start a business. It was because I wanted to just share my experience. I discovered this thing called macro counting. It created a huge shift in my life, in my physique, in my body, and I just wanted to share the things that were working. I never thought I would start a business, and then people started asking me to coach them. I wanted to start teaching some of the things that I was learning, that I was growing in, and that I was understanding. That kicked off a business that I could have never imagined, and here we are, what is it, like eight years later, having coached over 10,000 women in their journey. It's mind boggling to me. It's also such a reminder of when you feel called to do something, or when something is put in front of you, and you just say yes, and then you say yes again, and then you say yes again, that life can really unfold in this way that maybe you never even imagined. 

Here's the thing. I started back in 2016, and the coach that I was back then doesn't even recognize the coach that I am today. There's been so much evolution, so much learning, so many lessons that I've had to figure out. When I got started, I really just thought it was like, you just teach some women about macros. This is very science-based, my pretty logical, linear mind. I'm a nurse, so I just teach people science. That's really easy, and then tell them what to do, and then boom, bada-bing, bada-boom. They have the body of their dreams. That's what I thought coaching was like, and I've learned that that's not actually the case, that there's so much more to fitness. There's so much more to transformation. There's so much more to coaching and supporting someone in that journey that was not anything that I ever knew was something I would have to learn. I've really learned that fitness is really just the sandbox. Fitness is the place where we practice and we play. The real magic or the things that get me really excited and keep me coming back for more is when the lessons that my clients learn from their coaching, from counting macros, end up spilling over into other areas of their life. I've watched this over and over again, over and over again inside of MACROS 101. I've watched women lose weight, transform their relationship with food, gain confidence in their body and in themselves, but most importantly, I've watched women become someone different, someone who takes ownership in their life, who's able to move away from a victim mentality, who become a woman who does hard things, who changes their life in a way that they never thought was possible. Let me tell you, that is where the true transformation happens, and that's what gets me jumping out of bed every day to help and to serve more clients.  

In this episode, I'm breaking down the five biggest takeaways that I've had from coaching thousands and thousands of clients, these incredible women that I've had the privilege to be able to work with. We're going to talk about why true growth doesn't ever just come from someone handing you the answers, how everything that you need is already inside of you, that it's just waiting to be uncovered, why feeling stuck is really a sign that maybe your perspective is just too narrow, and then the big one that there's no one-size-fits-all for you to do this and that you get to figure out what works for you. I think you're going to leave this episode feeling inspired, feeling a little empowered, and really ready to take your own journey to the next level. Let's dive in. 

Fitness is the playground or the sandbox 05:02 

For number one, I kind of mentioned this a little bit in the introduction, but I'm going to dive a little deeper here. I have realized that fitness is the playground or the sandbox, but that the lessons you learn in counting macros, the lessons you learn as you go through your fitness journey, impact literally every area of your life because, and this is the big reason, is because in order to reach a goal that you do not have, whether it's in your fitness journey, whether it's building a business, whether it's with your relationship with your partner or with your kids, in order to have a result that you currently do not have, the way to get it is through personal growth and personal maturity. Being able to have that personal growth allows you to be able to become the type of person that you need to in order to achieve that goals. When you become a new person and you learn new things about yourself and you learn new lessons, you apply them not only in one context, but in multiple contexts. This is my not-so-secret secret, that what I do is not… It is about fitness, but it's not just about fitness. What I love is when women come into MACROS 101 and yes, they transform their body. Yes, they come in and they learn a skill. They learn how to track their food. They learn how to be more intentional with the things that they're eating. They learn how to say yes and how to say no and how to do that from a whole place instead of a desperation place. They up-level their relationship to the scale. They lose weight. They add muscle. They feel better in their clothes. They get their confidence back, but they also become someone different in that journey, in that process. 

Some of the things that I see in my clients is that they become a woman who demonstrates commitment. You have to learn how to be committed to a goal in order to achieve it. And once you learn how to be committed to a fitness goal or an eating goal or a building muscle goal, and you learn commitment in that playground, in that sandbox, well, of course, you're going to learn how to apply that commitment to other areas of your life. They also become a woman who can do hard things. This is one of the reasons that I think every woman should lift weights. Not only because there's health benefits, because you're building your muscle mass, because you're increasing your bone density, but what I see from women who lift weights is they learn in a very tangible way that they can do hard things. 

There's been time after time when I've approached a barbell and part of me is like, I don't know if I can lift this. This is really heavy. I don't know if I can do this, but I know that I prepared and I know that I've done the work to get there. And I step up to the barbell and I'm able to lift it. And it's like almost surprising to myself that sometimes things that I think that I can't do, how much I can do them. And so weightlifting is really that embodiment of that whole idea that you can do hard things. You can lift hard weights. And again, once you feel like I can do hard things in this area of your life, of course, that's going to bleed out into you doing hard things in other areas of your life. The women who I coach become women who can take control of their lives, who stop playing the victim or having everything happen to them and instead define what they want in their lives and go after it. And again, you learn how to do that in this context. You learn how to do that in your fitness journey. You're obviously going to apply that in so many other areas of your life. 

They become women who can choose and women who can own their choice. This is something I teach a lot in my programs of how do we make decisions from a place of wholeness, from a place of desire, and then how can we own those decisions and whatever comes after them? Because a lot of us try to get out of making decisions. We let other people make decisions for us, or we give ownership of our decisions to a coach or a friend or a partner or somebody outside of ourselves because it feels safer for them to make the decisions for us. And yet that's not you stepping fully into your life. And so when you become someone who can choose, can consciously choose and can own your choices, the world is open to you. And then lastly, they become a woman who can set a goal and detach from it. And the ability to be able to dream big, have a giant vision for yourself and for your future, and then be able to attach your worthiness or your enoughness from whether or not you're able to achieve that goal allows you to live such a bigger and fuller life. And this is hard. This is work to learn how to set a goal and detach from it. That's challenging, but it's something we get to practice in the realm of fitness. And when you can do that in the realm of fitness, you can take into other realms.  

So if you become this type of woman who is committed, who can do hard things, who takes control of the life, who chooses and owns her choices, who sets a goal and detaches from it, if you become this type of woman, how could that not impact and touch every other area of your life? Because how you do one thing is how you do many things in your life. And that's what gets me so excited to wake up in the morning. It is to help women to be able to step into this new version of themselves, to be able to get new results. Yes, in their fitness journey. Yes, in their physique. Yes, in their relationship with food. But I love seeing how that bleeds out into other areas of their life. And it always, always does.  

Easier doesn't mean you get better results in the long run 10:39 

Okay. The second lesson that I've learned, coaching lots and lots of people, is that yes, it is easier to have someone tell you what to do. It is easier. But that does not mean it is the healthiest or it is the longest lasting. So it's also easier to have someone do your homework for you. But we all know in the long run that that's not going to benefit you. We all inherently know that because just because the homework's done, if you didn't actually learn the thing that the homework was supposed to teach you, then you're no better off. And it's the same thing in our fitness journey. So often I have people who come to me and they're like, Amber, just tell me what to do. Just tell me what to do and I'll go do it. Tell me what to eat. Tell me what workouts to do. Just tell me what to do and I'll go do it. And I get it because it feels like it's, that's the easy way. It's just, just tell me what to do and I will go do it. And it's important to understand that as developmentally, as children, it is very appropriate, our need for structure. Okay. As kids, we need a lot of structure. We need black and white. It's very hard for kids to understand nuance. We need rules. We need guidelines. It makes us feel safe. It helps us to create boundaries that we can work within so that we have freedom within those boundaries. And it feels good as a kid.  

Then as we age, those same rules and boundaries can start to confine our sense of self. As our sense of self is starting to expand, as we're starting to naturally mature as humans, this is normal human maturation. And as we become older and we move into our twenties and our thirties, we start to realize that life isn't quite as black and white as maybe we thought it was in our early years, that there's a lot more gray around there, right? You start to know that there's nuance, right? Maybe carbs aren't always bad. Maybe there's nuance to that. And we realize that the rules that we've kind of played around with in our early years of life, that we oftentimes are either complying or rebelling against those rules. And I see this a lot with food, where people have these food rules, like I can't eat after 7 p.m., right? It's like this arbitrary food rule that they have, that they've grown up with, that someone taught them somewhere. And they're either complying with, like the rule tells me I have to do this thing, so I'm just going to do it because the rule says, or they're going to rebel against it. It's like, you can't tell me what to do. You said don't eat after 7, I'm going to rebel against that. So we're either complying or rebelling against the rules, neither which come from creating a feeling of freedom or ownership in our life. Because true freedom comes when we actually have a choice.  

When we can make a decision of, do I want to eat after 7 p.m. or do I not want to eat after 7 p.m.? It has nothing to do with the rules, has nothing to do with anybody telling us what we can or can't do. It's a moment of self-definition, a moment of autonomy to be able to make this decision. And this is where many diets lack because many diets are written in the black and white. They're written in the prescriptive, in the rule-based, in the do this and don't do that, right? You think about most diets, that's how they're structured. Eat these carbs, don't eat these. Eat more fat, eat no carbs. Don't eat after 7 p.m. Don't eat before 4 p.m. Fast 16 hours between meals, right? It's very structured and it's very do this and don't do that. This is the problem, is because you can never have a sense of freedom when you're either complying with the rule or you're rebelling against the rule. 

And so I coach people who have matured to the point where they're ready to move beyond diets and rules and black and white, and they're ready for the next level. They're ready for not just a quick fix, but they're ready to actually dive in and be the owner in their life. And so, yes, I get that it's easier. You think it's easier. It feels easier to your brain. It feels like it's less work for your brain to have somebody tell you what to do. But I promise you, I promise you that if you want long-term transformation, moving out of that place of just following the rules is going to give it to you. And that's how I try to help clients, is we're maturing past black and white. We're maturing past do this, don't do that. And instead, I'm inviting you and helping you and coaching you and mentoring you and how to step into this place of ownership in your life so that you have the power to be able to choose. And that is everything. It's everything. And it's the thing that I get most excited about helping clients to be able to continue that human development, continue that maturation to a place that, again, changes everything in your life when you really come from that place of ownership of I get to make decisions for my life. Nobody else tells me what to do. You know, I take input. It's not saying you don't listen to anybody. Take input. But at the end of the day, you're making those decisions for yourself. It's harder. It feels easier for someone to tell you what to do, but easier doesn't mean better. Easier doesn't mean you get better results in the long run. 

It's all inside of you. A good coach just helps you to uncover it 15:44 

Okay. On to number three. This is a really important lesson that I have learned as a coach and I hope gets communicated to other coaches who are listening as well, because I think this is so powerful. And those of you who are clients, because I mean, this kind of relates to number two, but lesson number three that I've learned is that the client already has it inside of them. A good coach isn't making you into something that you're not. A good coach is helping you to uncover what is already there. The possibility, the abilities that are already present inside of you.  

I've had the pleasure of interacting with lots and lots of coaches over the years, and there are some really amazing coaches and there are some not so amazing coaches. And some of the not so amazing coaches, one of the reasons that they are not so amazing is because a lot of their coaching is about stroking their ego. It's about your success reflecting back onto them and making them feel good about themselves. They almost like take credit for your success. And I think that that's the wrong way to think about it as a coach. I think, and what I've realized is that I, as a coach, I mentor you. I support you. I coach you. I challenge you. I do all of those things, but I'm not giving you anything that you don't already have inside of you. You already have it inside of you. I'm helping you uncover it. I'm helping you to access the answers that are already within you. I talk to my clients a lot about how the real goal is for you to be able to ask yourself better questions, because when you ask yourself better questions, you get better answers, right? It allows you to access the answers that are already inside of you. 

And the reason that you're having such a hard time now is because you're not very good at asking questions. Your questions kind of suck. And so you don't have answers to them because you are asking bad questions, right? What's an example of a bad question? A bad question is, why can't I stick to this? That's a bad question. It's not a great question. What could be a better question? Because like, how are you going to answer that? Why can't I stick to this? That's just like a, I don't know. And that's probably what your brain does. I don't know. I don't know why I can't stick to this. So how could we ask that question better? We could ask questions like, what specifically is hard about this for me? What are the moments that are the hardest? What causes those moments to be challenging for me? What am I saying in my brain when I'm making those decisions? How am I justifying my actions to myself? Those questions are way good questions. 

And you're going to get much better answers when you start to talk to yourself like that and you start to answer those or ask and then answer those questions. But those answers come from within you. And so a lot of what I'm doing, especially in MACROS 101, is I'm training my clients to ask themselves better questions. How do I do that? One, I do it by modeling it. So if you've ever been through MACROS 101, you know that the style of coaching that I do, or if you've ever listened to one of the live coaching calls that I put here on the podcast so that you can kind of see the style of coaching, that what I'm doing is I'm asking clients better questions than they're currently asking themselves. And when you ask yourself better questions, you get better answers. But I'm not telling my clients anything. I'm not telling them to do anything. I'm simply asking them questions and teaching them how to access the answers that are inside of them. 

And so that's something I do. I model it for my clients and then I teach it as well inside of the program of how do we do this? How do we shift our language? How do we shift the way that we're speaking to ourself? How do we change the language that we use in our inner dialogue? And when you shift those things, you ask yourself better questions, you get better answers. But the key thing that I've learned as a coach is it's not about me.  It's not about me being great. It's not about stroking my ego. It's about realizing that the person who's coming to me already has all the power, success, knowledge that she needs in order to be successful. She just needs a little bit of help accessing it. And that's what I'm really good at doing. Now, that's not to say that you can't learn new things. Of course you're going to learn new things. And I think having mentors is really great. I read a lot. I learn a lot from other people. I get insights from other people. I think that's all very, very valuable. 

But what I see too many women doing is offloading the responsibility onto somebody else as if it's just reading another book is going to solve my problems. Just buying another course is going to solve my problems. When the reality is just doing more things is not going to solve your problems. Everything you already have is inside of you. You have to learn how to access it. And so many of us have gone for so long with externalizing authority, meaning we're always looking outside of ourselves for someone to tell us we're okay, tell us what to do, tell us how to be, what actions to take. We've looked outside of ourselves for so long we don't even trust ourselves to be able to have the answers. And so I love helping women to wake up and realize my gosh, I have so much more power than I even thought. I have so many more answers than I even thought. And it's all inside of you. A good coach just helps you to uncover it.  

We all have blind spots 21:00 

Okay. Number four, we all have blind spots. And when I say we, I am including myself in that statement. And so if we realize we all have blind spots, it's almost like Swiss cheese. If you have Swiss cheese, there's like holes in the Swiss cheese. But what happens when you take two pieces of Swiss cheese and you layer them, a lot of those holes are covered because the holes aren't the same in one piece of Swiss cheese as they are in the other piece of Swiss cheese. So when you layer them over the top, you're covering a lot of those holes. So it's the same thing. It's like, we all have blind spots. I have blind spots, but my blind spots are probably different than your blind spots. So as a coach, I can provide a lot of perspectives for you that are currently not available in the way that you're thinking about it. And this is why having a coach, somebody outside of your brain, is so powerful and so helpful because I can see your blind spots so much better than you can see them yourself.  

And this is so important because a lot of your choices, a lot of your decisions are made from whatever you can see and understand and comprehend about the world around you. And if we recognize that there are spaces that you can't currently see, there are blind spots. That's what a blind spot is, right? I can see all of these things, and then there's these areas that I can't see clearly, that they're blind, I'm blind to. And if somebody else can see clearly and fill in those holes for me, now I have a much better picture. And again, I'm able to make better decisions. I'm able to see things more clearly and I'm able to have more choices. And a lot of what I'm doing with my clients is helping them to expand their possibilities and expand the number of choices that they have. So often we get into this binary, there's only two choices and I hate both of them. 

 Here's a really good example. This is something I coach through all the time. People will come to me and they'll say, okay, we've set my macros and I'm getting to the end of the day and I have more macros left, but I'm not hungry. So what should I do? What they're doing is they're putting themselves in this binary situation where they don't like either option because in their mind, option number one is to hit my macros. But to do that, I will have to basically force myself to eat, right? I'm not hungry. So I'm ignoring my hunger cues and I'm eating anyway. And that doesn't seem like a very good option. And then option number B is to honor my hunger cues, honor the fact that I'm not hungry and not hit my macros, which also doesn't seem like a very good solution. And so then what do they come to me saying? They say, I'm stuck. I have these two options. I hate both of them. I don't like both of them. So which of the bad options should I choose? And so one of my jobs as a coach is to start to expand the number of options of how we could deal with this. Because in reality, there's never just two options. Ever. There's never just two straight up options. There's always a multitude of options, but our brain gets really stuck in these ways of thinking of like, it's either A or B and I hate A and I hate B. So now I'm stuck and I don't know what to do. 

And so one of the things that I can help you do as a coach is I can expand the number of possibilities. I can expand the number of options. I can help you to think about it in a larger context rather than in just this one moment of time where I have to make this decision between two bad choices. So when we say we're stuck, when you say that to yourself, like I'm stuck, it's usually because we're looking at our options and we don't like any of them. Hence, we feel stuck. So when you can open up the number of possibilities or the number of options that you have, you will feel less stuck. You will feel better able to make a choice. Now that's not to say that there aren't pros and cons to every choice. I'm not saying that there's a perfect choice out there that has zero cons and only pros, because if there was, you probably would have already chosen that. So I'm not saying the decisions that we have to make sometimes aren't hard and we don't have to prioritize or decide what's most important to us. But if you're feeling stuck, it's likely because you are thinking about it in a way that limits your options. And when your worldview is too narrow, you're missing, you're having some of those blind spots. 

And so what, that's what a really good coach will do is be able to fill in those blind spots. So we'll be able to see them and they'll be able to draw your attention to them. And they'll be able to fill in those blind spots for you so that you have a clearer picture. You have more options. You feel less stuck. You feel like you have a next step that you can take because in reality, your choices aren't actually limited. You just think they are based off of your perception.  

There is no one right way to do anything 25:29 

Okay. Number five is there is, this is something I've learned over and over again. There is no one right way to do anything. There's just the way that works for you. And I think it's really important because I think a lot of women are out there looking for the secret thing, for the magic, the magic thing that's going to change everything for them. And so again, you're looking externally for that thing that's going to be magic for you, the magic pill. And when you recognize and realize that you are the master of your life, you know yourself and your life and your capabilities and your limitations better than anybody else, any coach, you know it better because you're the master of your life. Then you can take that control and realize there's no right way to do this. There's lots of ways to be successful. Lots. Anybody who tells you that there's only one way to be successful is lying to you. There are lots of ways to be successful. And what you're really looking for is the one that's going to work for you, the one that's going to fit you.  

And now it may seem like I'm speaking out of both sides of my mouth because I also feel like we severely underestimate our capabilities. I think sometimes we, not sometimes, a lot of times we tend to put limits on ourselves that don't actually exist, but that we limit what is possible for you. So it's kind of this conundrum and this thing that we have to wrestle with of this idea of, you know yourself, you know your life better than anybody else. And yet at the same time, recognizing that oftentimes we put limitations on our capabilities that aren't actually real. And so we kind of have to walk that dance between pushing ourselves and pushing outside of our comfort zone while also being really honest with what we're able to give any one goal at any time in our life.  

This is why this is why I'm the coach that's known as the teach a woman how to fish coach, right? You know that saying of give a woman a fish, she eats for a day. Teach a woman how to fish, she eats for a lifetime. This is why that is my coaching style. Any program that you take, Build Your Workouts, MACROS 101, what I'm doing is empowering you with the knowledge and the tools and the understanding and the coaching to be able to take control and make decisions for yourself. Because I believe that you can make the best decisions for your life. And my job is to expand how you're thinking, to help you build your confidence in yourself, to help you learn to ask yourself better questions so that in the end you don't need me.  

My mom used to always say that growing up, my mom raised seven kids. I'm the oldest of seven. She's always tell me, my job as a mother is to work myself out of a job. And she's done an amazing job with that. She has seven children. All seven children have graduated from college. All seven children are gainfully employed and or choosing to stay home and are successful in their own right. And that's a lot because of the way my mom parented us was not to hold onto us, was not to make us reinforce her, but was to really let us go, was to teach us and to let us go and let us fly. And that's what I want to be, is I want to be the type of coach who you don't need me forever. I don't want you to need me forever. That strokes my ego. My ego doesn't need to be stroked. I want you to have all the capabilities and understanding and trust and confidence in yourself that you can take what you learned and you can go fly on your own. And so that's a lot of the process that I'm taking clients through is I'm teaching you. Yes, I'm giving you knowledge, but I'm helping you to gain confidence. I'm helping you to learn to ask yourself better questions. I'm helping you to learn to expand your thinking, to be able to see things in a different light because those are tools that won't go away when you stop coaching with me. They won't. You'll be able to do that on your own because you're not always just coming to me for the answer. If I'm the guru and I have all the answers, you always need me. 

But this goes back to where I was saying, you already have it inside of you. My job, I'm not your guru, I'm your mentor. My job is to help you to learn to access those things. So there isn't one way to do anything. There's just the way that works for you. And a good coach is going to simultaneously help you to honor your reality while also helping you push past those limitations that you've just created in your mind. Because we're really good at creating limitations in our mind. We're really good at saying, I'm incapable of doing that, or I'm not strong enough, or I'm not smart enough, or I'm not whatever enough to be able to do that. And a good coach is going to help you to see some of those limitations you're placing on yourself and be able to help you to break through them. 

Macro counting is a tool 30:20 

Okay, I'm actually adding on a bonus one. So I didn't put this one in my notes, but it just is coming up for me as I'm speaking. This is my bonus sixth lesson that I've learned is that, and this has become so clear to me over the last couple of years, is that macro counting is a tool. And the person who is using that tool is really where we need to focus. So let me just say, kind of explain more what I mean about that. A lot of times and a lot of programs who teach macro counting, teach it as a diet. Teach it as a, you have to hit your macros. This is the only right way. Going back to that, there's only one right way to do this. The only one right way to do it is to set your macros perfectly and hit your macros. And if you're not hitting your macros, then what are you doing? You're not doing it right. And so many women fall into this trap when it comes to macro counting. And they have felt that before where they've tried to count macros and then they feel bad about themselves because they don't do it well. And then they're like, give up and end up saying, well, macro counting doesn't work for me. And it's like, yes, it's not that macro counting didn't work for you. It's that you didn't know how to utilize it. That's like saying this paintbrush doesn't work because I tried to paint this masterpiece and it didn't turn out great. We don't blame the paintbrush. It's not the paintbrush's fault. I'm the person who's using the paintbrush. And so if my painting didn't turn out great, it's likely not the paintbrush's fault. It's likely that I need to get better at painting. I need to learn techniques. I need to learn how to hold the paintbrush and use a paintbrush in different ways and different techniques. I don't know much about painting, so I'm just kind of making this all up, but you get the idea, right? It's not the paintbrush's fault.  

And this is where I feel like a lot of women get into trouble when it comes to macro counting because they think that the tool is the solution. They think that macro counting is the solution. And friend, hopefully you've heard this like woven through all of these lessons that I've learned. Macro counting is not the solution. It's a tool. It's a really great tool. It's a tool based in science. It's a tool based in research. It's a tool based in experience. It's a great tool. Just like a paintbrush is a great tool, but you are the person that is picking up that tool. And you are the person who is using that tool. And are we focusing enough on the person using the tool versus just the tool?  

And so that's what's so different about the way that I approach my coaching, the way that I approach teaching macros, the way that I approach my clients in MACROS 101 is, yeah, I'm going to give you the tool. And I do a lot. I teach a lot of science. I teach a lot of information. You're going to understand more about your body, about nutrition, about food, about movement, about all those things. You're going to understand more about all of those things when you go through the program. But what makes the program unique is that I spend a lot of time focusing on the person using the tool, which is you. And helping you to build confidence, helping you to be more consistent, helping you to make choices from a better place, from a more whole place.  And that's what's the difference. And I think out of all the things I've learned after coaching 10,000 women, this one is the most important. I can't even believe that I didn't put it on there when I was making my outline.  

This is the one that's the most important. It is not about the tool. It's about the person who's using the tool.  And if you're just watching YouTube videos to learn how to set your macros, and you're just watching YouTube videos to learn how to hit your protein, and you're just focusing on the ins and outs of hitting your numbers, you're missing it. You're missing what could be. Because that's just like picking up a paintbrush and just trying to use it on a canvas without actually doing any focus on training the person, growing the person. And that, I mean, this is like full circle moment, because the first lesson I talked about is how fitness is just a playground for growth. And so that is what I see as my bigger picture and my bigger mission. And that's become more clear to me the longer that I've done this, that it's about macros, but it's not just about macros. It's about so much more. It's about growing you as an individual. It's about elevating you. It's about helping you gain confidence in yourself. And it's about being able to help you to cultivate those things and then send you off so that you realize that you can be the master of your life. And I'm not the guru. It always was inside of you. What is that? I feel like there's been a Disney movie. Now I can't even think of exactly, but I feel like there's a Disney movie that the answers are always inside of you. But it's cliche because it's true. And that is what I love to do. That is what I am put on this earth to do, is to facilitate that growth inside of my clients.  

A little bit of honesty right here. So this is actually day two of recording this podcast. I recorded the first part of the podcast and then I took a break because I needed to go do some other stuff. And I came back to it a couple of days later. And I actually second guessed myself and almost re-recorded the podcast and this episode and pulled back a little bit of like, is this too weird? Is this too out there? Is this too not sciency? I kind of got in my head a little bit about it. And the more I sat with it and thought about it, it's like, no, this is what I've learned. This may seem really out there. This may seem like wackadoodle stuff and just Amber, just stick to like protein and fiber and lifting. Just stick to that stuff. That's what I'm here for. And that's what I did a lot at the beginning. But I've learned a lot and I've grown a lot. And I want to attract the people who are like, oh my gosh, this is my jam. This is what I want to learn. This is who I want to learn from. And so if you made it to the end, you're probably one of those people who didn't get turned off by the fact that this wasn't about protein and fiber and lifting, but that this is about like the deeper work because that is what I'm put here on the earth to do. There are a lot of people who can tell you how to hit 140 grams of protein. Lots of people. 

But I really truly believe that one of my superpowers is all the things, well, all the things I talked about are like my superpowers. And that's the type of person I want to attract. That's the type of person I want to coach is the person who wants growth, who wants internal growth that leads to external transformation. Yes, I'm here for all the external transformation. I'm here for the weight loss. I'm here for the gaining muscle. I'm here for the improved relationship with food. I'm here for all of those things. But it's just so important to recognize that those things don't happen without the internal growth and the internal shift. And that's what gets me excited in the morning. That's what gets me jumping out of bed to be able to hop on calls and serve my clients and create content and create podcasts because that is what I put here on the earth to do.  

So if any of this resonates with you, I invite you to join our next round of MACROS 101. You can get on the interest list by going to bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist. And then you'll know the next time that we open doors. But this is the kind of stuff that we do. It's a beautiful balance, I will say, just like tooting my own horn. It's a beautiful balance of science and tools and grounded physical work married with the mental aspect. It's like the strategy. Yes, you need that. You need to understand nutrition. You need to understand how to hit your protein, how to create a meal plan, how to do a reverse diet, those things. And I teach you all of that inside of MACROS 101. So it's not like we don't have that, have all of that, but I marry it with all of the internal work, all of the mindset work, all of the inner growth, the inner transformation. And when you marry those two things together, that's where real transformation starts to happen. And that's what we do inside of MACROS 101. So if you want to come join us, bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist. We'll make sure that you know when we open doors. And that wraps up this episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm Amber. Now go out and be strong because remember my friend, you can do anything. 

Outro

Hey friend, have you heard the news? We have a Biceps After Babies Radio insider list. If you love Biceps After Babies Radio, you don't want to miss a thing head to bicepsafterbabies.com/insider to join the group. You'll be the first to know all things about the podcast. See some behind-the-scenes and get special messages from yours truly. We want to make this a special community for those who are fans of the podcast. And last, did this episode particularly resonate with you? If so, will you please share it? Either send the link to someone who would find it valuable, or take a screenshot and post it to your social media and tell your family and friends why they should listen. Make sure you tag me @bicepsafterbabies so I can hear feedback and give you a little love. And you know, if you aren't already following me on Instagram or Facebook, that's the perfect time to hit that follow button. Thank you for being here and listening to Biceps After Babies Radio.