154: The First 5 Steps That Determine Your Success In Your Fitness Journey

Introduction 

You're listening to biceps after babies radio episode number 154. 

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 prs. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host, Amber brassicae, 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. 

 

What’s in store for today’s episode  0:48  

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of biceps after babies radio, I'm your host, Amber Brueseke. And I am so excited about today's topic, because it is one that not enough people talk about. And if you are somebody who has struggled, has set a goal and has struggled to reach it, whether that's losing weight, or gaining muscle or changing your body composition or improving your metabolism. If you have struggled to achieve whatever goal it is that you've set, there's likely some missing foundational pieces that nobody has really talked to you about. And I'm going to go into a little bit here at the beginning of the podcast of why that is why people don't talk about these things. But my goal is, by the end of the episode, that you will understand the five foundational components, the five foundational steps that are going to literally either determine whether you are successful and actually achieve your goals, or whether you are like so many who sit there and spin their wheels, and set goals and then don't achieve them and you know, feel bad about yourself and that whole cycle that continues when we want to do something, or at least a part of us wants to do something. And yet, we don't actually accomplish that thing. So that is what we're going to talk about today. And by the end of this episode, you're going to have a really good idea of some of the steps that maybe you've missed. If you have started on your journey. Maybe you've missed these steps. And if that's the case, you can go back and make sure that you build this foundation so that you can be more successful in your journey. Or if you are just you know, just starting out on a journey of some sort, you can start from the get go making sure these foundational pieces are in place. So first off these steps that I'm going to talk about, I don't think they're going to be earth shattering for anybody. But what I think will be earth shattering is that even though these may not seem like holy cow, I never even thought about that. What it will be is you may go back and look at your journey and say you're right, like I haven't actually spent the time to do this in the detail that Amber is talking about. And that's that's really where I think we're going to be at the end of the episode is, is you're going to understand that, hey, maybe I need to go back and do some of these things or think about some of these things or approach my journey a little bit different because it's going to be more successful that way. 

 

Reasons behind why we discuss these 5 steps  3:22

So why are these things that I'm going to talk about these five steps that I'm going to talk about,  Why are they not the things that people talk about on Instagram? Why are they not like the things that are in ads, or that you know, people share and Google or anything like that, there's a very specific reason why these things that I'm going to talk about aren't stuff that's shared a lot of times.

 

Be-Do-Have Model  3:49

And before I talk about why you know why that is, I first have to start with a model that I teach my clients inside of Macros 101, and that is the be-do-have model. Now the classic way that people tend to think about progress in their journey is that if I do something different, if I take a different action, that will cause me to have different results, which will cause me to be happy, confident, whatever. Okay, so we come from this paradigm, many of us say that if we do something different, it will cause us to have different results, which will cause us to be something different. And in actuality, that is flipped backwards. What actually ends up happening is that the being comes first. So being comes before the action, who you being in any certain moment comes before and determines what actions you're going to take. If you're being responsible, you're going to take certain actions and if you're not being responsible, you take different actions. So you can see that being who you're being becomes before the action. So when in actuality it's being that comes first, that creates the doing that gives you what you want. So it's actually be first, then do then have that's a Model be-do-have. 

 

How the “doing” comes naturally  6:27

So many people want to start with the action. They want to start with the doing. I can't tell you the number of times that people messaged me, and they're like, Amber, what do I do first? What should I do? Alright, and I am an action oriented person. I love action. I love doing, I love crossing off a checklist. Nothing I love more. In fact, funny side note, recently in the business, we changed project management tools. And for those of you who care, we used to use Asana, and now we're moving to monday.com. And when we moved over, as I was checking off some of my projects that had been assigned to me from our team, I checked something to complete it. And these little confetti popped out, like when I clicked done it, like, like, shot this little confetti, like, yeah, you accomplished it. Yeah, you did it. And I told Carly, who is our project manager, I said, Oh my gosh, I love that. I love that when I check something done, I like to cross off the list it celebrates for me. And you know what she said to me, she said, I knew that you would love that. So I am an action oriented person. I love crossing me off some checklists. I love the doing. But what I've had to learn is more about being, who I'm being in a particular situation and how I am teaching my clients that being part first, because here's why. When you focus on being first, the doing comes naturally. It's a natural byproduct. You don't have to make an effort it, it doesn't have to be hard. It just flows naturally. And so many of us are trying to willpower muscle our way into the doing. We're trying to force ourselves to eat certain foods. We're trying to restrict our intake. We're trying to tell ourselves, no, you don't want that cake. No, you can't have that cake. We're trying to force ourselves into certain actions. And you already know that that backfires. You've already seen it, you've seen it in your life, you've likely seen it in the lives of people that you love, where they can do the doing. They can follow the diet for a while, they can white knuckle it for a while. But at the end of the day, it's not sustainable, and it cannot last. And that is because if you were only focusing on the actions, the only focusing on the doing, you're not actually fixing or addressing the being doing the doing the person doing the doing. 

 

Why people tend to get non sustainable results  8:03

Recently in our free biceps after babies, ladies Facebook group, somebody asked a question about a certain diet regimen. I'm not gonna like I'm not gonna say it because I don't want to promote anything. And two, I really don't want to promote this, because I don't like it. But she was asking about a certain diet. And it was a very restrictive, very expensive diet that her 84 year old mother was on. And she was asking my opinion on it. And I responded saying my response is way too lengthy for a post for a message. But suffice it to say I have lots of things to say and none of them are nice about this. At the end of the day if something is incredibly restrictive, and super low calorie, it doesn't matter if you're able to stick to it for two weeks or three weeks or four weeks. The question is, are you going to be able to stick to it for two years or three years or four years. And what happens a lot of times is people are able to change their actions for a certain amount of time. But that is in congruent with who you're being you will not stay there. And that is why people tend to get non sustainable results. They see weight loss and then they regain it. They have success and then they fall off. Because what you are trying to do is change the doing and not changing the being which comes before because when you change the being when you change who you're being that you don't have to put effort into doing the doing. It's just a natural byproduct of who you are.

 

Focus on the “being” first  9:41

When I am not just going back to responsibility, but that's a state of being that most of us were familiar with. If I am being responsible. I don't have to like willpower myself to turn in an assignment on time. It's just a natural byproduct of me being responsible. So when we stop focusing on the doing, and start focusing on the being first, everything else comes easier. And so that's what I want to talk about today is how we can start to flip this on its head, how we can start to manipulate and mold and shape who were being so that the results naturally come easy. 

 

The metaphor of the two brothers who were told to build a pyramid 10:23

I want to start with a metaphor. And that is this metaphor of two brothers, who were told by their father, so their father was the Pharaoh. And these two brothers were told by the father that they were challenged to build a pyramid. And it had to be a certain height, and whoever built the pyramid first, would be able to get all of their dad's inheritance. And so these two brothers set out to build these pyramids, the first brother got right to work. And he started building and constructing and hammering and putting things in place. And little by little his pyramid started to grow, it started to ascend towards the height that it needed to get to. And as he took a peek over at his brother to look and see where he was at, his brother hadn't done anything, there was like, nothing there. Nothing had been built, nothing had been constructed. Like, there was no progress being made. And the brother thought to himself, I got this in the bag, like, I'm doing so well, there's no way I'm going to lose this challenge. Little did he know that what his brother was doing, his brother actually left the site and had gone off site to another area, and was in fact building something that just wasn't the pyramid. And over time, this, it started to take shape, this thing that he was building started to take shape. And it was some sort of machine. And the the brother, you know,  finished the machine, brought it over to where he was building the pyramids, and his brother yelled over to him, ha, you know, sucker like, Look, I'm like, halfway done, you're not even started, there's no way that you're going to be able to beat me. And the brother just smiled knowingly and got to work. And what he had built was a, you know, a lever of sorts, where he could pick up the, you know, the construction material that he needed to build the pyramid and put it in place. And very, very quickly, his pyramids started taking shape. And the brother looked over and he was astonished at how fast this pyramid,his brother's pyramid, was becoming and how tall it was becoming. And the brother was really, really starting to struggle, because those first few layers have been pretty easy with his pyramid. But as he got higher and higher and higher, it took a lot longer to bring all of the equipment up to the top of the pyramid to be able to continue the ascent of the pyramid. And so he was slowing down. And as he looked over his brother was speeding up because he had this equipment. And very quickly, it was evident that the other brother was going to win the race. And in fact, he did win the race. And he finished his pyramid while his brother was still struggling to carry the pyramid building materials up to the top and try to finish his off. 

 

Sometimes progress doesn't actually look like progress 13:16

And the moral of that story is hopefully evident to you. But if it isn't, and I'm going to tell you what it is anyway, that sometimes progress doesn't actually look like progress. And sometimes it looks like nothing is happening. That no change is being made. The brother looked over and he's like, I got this in the bag. Like he's not doing anything. Nothing is changing, nothing is happening. He's making zero progress and look at me, I'm making progress, when in fact, what is happening is you're building a lever system, you're building something and you're building a foundation that you're going to be able to use to catapult your success. And this is what I see all the time in fitness journeys. In fact, many times I've had people approach me and say, Hey, this is like Macros 101 clients, they're like, Hey, I'm loving Macros 101, you know, I'm seeing changes. It's like slow progress, but it's slow, consistent progress. And I know that's how it works to be able to get sustainable results. But I have this sister or friend or mother in law, who is gone on this crash diet and has lost 30 pounds in two weeks or whatever, right like just crazy weight loss. And I'm really struggling because she's been so successful so quickly, and it's taking me so much longer. And this isn't a great example of what I'm talking about in terms of building the foundation or building the machine that makes it easy, because when you see people having overnight success, you see people who are losing weight super super fast. It can be easy to be like oh my gosh, they're doing it right, I should be doing it the way that they are doing it, I should be doing it the way that the first brother is doing it, he just starts to build his pyramid really fast. When in actuality, what ends up happening and this I've seen it time and time and time and time again, and maybe you've seen it too, and the people that you love and associate with is that they're able to do it for a while, they're able to cut out all carbs for a while, they're able to, you know, eat nothing processed for a while, they're able to eat thousands calories for a while, and it looks like they're making progress. But in the end, it gets to the point where they cannot progress anymore, they cannot hold on, they cannot white knuckle it anymore. And their results end up falling off. And for the person who took the time, who made the machine that created a lever system took that time to make that foundation strong, then when they actually get to work building the pyramid, it goes so much faster.

 

Establish the foundation to build upon  15:56

So the things that we're going to be talking about today are the things that people skip, because they want to dive into the doing. But what we're going to be focusing on is building that system, building that lever, building that machine, so that when you go into your journey, whatever that looks like for you, you will have the foundation to build upon, that your pyramid is going to go so much faster because you took the time to do these things first. 

 

More of these five things in the Five days to a fitter you challenge  16:26

Now, I'm going to give you five things, we're talking about each of these five things. And I am there's I mean, each of these things I could do like a whole podcast on, which is in fact why these are the five things that we will be talking about during my free five day challenge starting next Monday. So these five things are the five things that I'm going to be teaching in much deeper detail during the five day challenge. So if you are not registered, if you are not signed up for my free five day challenge, head to bicepsafterbabies.com/challenge, I only run this challenge the second time I run this challenge, this will be the second and last time I run this challenge this year. And we're really excited about it. It's called five days to a fitter you. And we're going to be covering the things that I'm talking about in this podcast. But like I said much on a much deeper level and giving you some really good action steps and exercises to be able to really have this stuff sink in, so that you will have the machine belt so that when you go into your fitness journey, your results are going to be that much faster because you've done the work upfront. 

 

No. 1 Ask where am I at 17:34

Alright, so let's dive into the first step. Step number one is, it's actually a question. Actually, all of these are questions. If you know anything about me, you know that I'm a big fan of asking good questions. Because the quality of your life is dependent on the quality of the questions that you ask. And most people are walking around asking themselves very crappy questions and getting very crappy answers. And when you can elevate though the quality of the questions you're asking yourself. Great things come from that. So the first step is asking yourself the question, Where am I at? Now this may seem like, Why? Why don't you want to spend any time here, Amber, this seems really fruitless. Just tell me how to count macros. Stay with me. The reason that this is such an important question to ask is because the actions you've taken in the past, who you've been being, right, we've talked about the B do have model who you were being in the past, is exactly what is produced your current result. Because remember, being creates doing which creates what you have, that's your results. So if we have not taken stock of what you've been doing and who you've been being in the past, we have no idea of what has created the current results that you have. And if you don't like your current results, those two things have to change who you're being and what you're doing have to change if you don't like the results. So when you do this, and you sit down and you spend some time, getting really clear on what actions and what state of being has brought you to the results that you have. It brings a ton of clarity on what you need to change moving forward.

 

Spaghetti approach 19:26

So many people I see in their fitness journey, apply the spaghetti approach, where they just toss things against the wall and see what sticks to the wall. They change all of the things. Right, they add a new workout program and a new diet program and they get up at a different time and they like or meditate like it's all the things and they just like to throw as many changes at the wall as possible, hoping that one of those changes produces the results that they want. It does not have to go on. True success does not come from changing as many things as possible. True success comes from changing as few things as possible in order to get the result that you want. So before we can figure out what we need to change, or what we need to adapt to be able to get a new result, we have to get really clear on what we've done up to this point to get the result that you've already gotten. Okay? 

 

Idea of a minimum effective dose 20:32

There is this idea for those of you in medicine, to have the minimum effective dose. If you know anything about me, you know that I was a nurse. I worked as a neurosurgical nurse for a couple of years. My husband is a physician. So medical metaphors work really well for us. But if you're in medicine, you know, this idea of a minimum effective dose, the idea is that when we are giving medication, we want to give the minimum amount possible in order to achieve whatever result that we want. So in the world of medicine, if you know if one Tylenol is good, that doesn't make 12 Tylenol better. In fact, if we can get by with just giving one Tylenol, we'd much rather give somebody just one Tylenol rather than, you know, much heavier or harder medication or giving them 12 Tylenol. And so often in our fitness journey, we tend towards the like more is better idea. I've talked about this in a podcast recently. And this myth that more is better, right? So if one Tylenol is better. If one Tylenol is good, then somehow 12 Tylenol is better and it's not actually true. In fact, we want to be going for the minimum effective dose, the minimum amount that we can change to be able to get the result. And in order to figure that out, we have to get clarity on what you have done and who you've been to this point in your journey, because that's what created, has created the results that you currently have. And if you don't like the results you currently have we have to do and be somebody different moving forward. So that's step number one, where are you at in your journey? What results have you created? What have you been doing and what have you been being to create those results? 

 

No. 2 Ask where do you want to go 22:16

Number two, is another question. Where do you want to go? Now, when I ask people this, I ask people this all the time, like, What's your goal? In fact, it's one of the jokes that TJ and I, TJ,  my husband. We have his favorite thing to say to anybody. If they ask him something like, well, what's your goal? It always comes back to what's your goal? Just the answer that I'm gonna give you depends on what's your goal, he'll do that to me all the time in business, where I'll be like, I have this thing, and I have this thing. And, you know, like, I'm trying to decide in the end, he always comes back to this question of like, What's your goal? Always. And we always laugh when he does it? Because it's like, his favorite question to ask. But the reason that he asked it is because it's such an important question, because if you don't know your goal, if you don't know where you're going, how the heck are you going to figure out how to get there? 

 

The importance of understanding and knowing what your goal is 22:16

It's like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, where Alice says, will you tell me please, which way to go from here?” And the rabbit says, that depends a good deal on where you want to get to. She says, I don't much care where and then he interrupts and says, then it doesn't matter which way you go. If we don't know where you want to go, then  anywhere is gonna get you there. So understanding and knowing what your goal is, is so important. Now, the problem is that so many people just do a cursory glance of this, right? What's my goal? Oh, my goal is to lose 30 pounds. Oh, my goal is to, you know, feel confident in a bikini. Oh, my goal is to fit into size-seven pants-six pants, whatever. They give it like this cursory, here's my goal, this is what I want to achieve. And they don't actually spend the time of actually dissecting that down into what's the deeper what's behind that, what do you think is going to change? How is that going to impact your life? What's the deeper reason why you are going through this process? And here's a story to kind of illustrate why this is so important. And I really liked the story of Tom Watson, who was the IBM president, way, way, way back in the day. IBM, if you're young, and you don't know, was a mammoth of a company in, you know, the computer age in the early, you know, when computers were just new, and you know, even before the internet, but IBM was like this company that just exploded in growth and was able to create this big company, and it is a lot of why computers are the way that they are today. So Tom Watson was the CEO of this company during this huge explosion and growth of his company. And so, a lot of business entrepreneurs, people look to Tom Watson, because obviously he was very successful. In what he did, and he was asked once, how he was able to make IBM so successful, like what was his secret in making his company, just exploding growth. And he said that there were three reasons. The first reason was at the very beginning, when he first started, he had a very clear picture of what the company would look like when it was done. Like “done”. Okay, he had like a model in his mind, a vision, his dream, like he had that solidly in his mind, he knew what that was going to look like. The second reason was that once he had that picture, he asked himself the question, how would a company that looked like a Finnish company act? What would they be like? What would they do? How would they? How would they interact with people? What decisions would they make? And then he created a picture of how IBM would act when it was finally done. Right? What does that done business look like? How do people interact? What decisions do they make about all those types of things? And then he said, The third reason it's been so successful is that once he had that clear picture of how IBM would act as that finished business that he wanted to create, then he realized that unless they began to act that way, from the very beginning, they would never get there. Okay, so in other words, he realized that for IBM to become a great company, it would have to act like a great company, way before it ever got there. So from the very, very beginning, he had an idea, a dream, a vision, a clear picture of where he wanted to go, and then every single one and how they would act at that place. And then every single day, he would ask himself a question. Like, as he made decisions in the business, he would ask himself the question, how would that done business act? What decision would that business make? You know, how would  I respond to a situation if we were already that dumb business and he done a business, and he made decisions from that place, and because of that, they were able to create that business. And that's just a really good model or good story to illustrate what I started the podcast episode about with this do-be-have model. What Tom Watson realized was that he had to be the CEO of the multimillion dollar business long before they actually saw it in the business, you had to be that type of CEO first, because then he would act a certain way, which would create the results that he wanted, he had the being came first. 

 

Be clear and be specific where you want to go 27:40

You've probably heard another one is Stephen Covey, he has a quote that says start with the end in mind. So again, we have this idea that we got to figure out where you want to go. And most people I talked to have done a cursory glance of this, they have a very basic, this is what I want. I want to gain some more muscle, I want to lose 80 pounds, I want to feel more confident in my clothes, it's like a cursory idea of where they want to go. But that's not that's not what's gonna get you there. We have to have a lot of clarity, we have to get specific, we have to dive deep into what you want, what it looks like, how you'll know when you're there. And asking yourself these questions allows you to really, another metaphor, here's another metaphor for you. Instead of taking it, it's almost like the difference between imagining you had a big white paper in front of you. And, you know, you sketch an outline of a house and trees, right it's like this rough outline just like the sketch it's kind of a messy, it's just, you know, whatever. The contrast between that and somebody who spends the time to actually like, get the lines right, color it in, enhance it, put in detail put in things around the house. If you gave an architect this sketch that was kind of half developed, or this other like fully developed in color, the measurements are right. And you gave that to an architect or a person who's going to build a house which they would rather have, which are they going to do better with and which are they actually going to create the house that you want? Well, the more detailed the plan is, the more they can execute it. It's the same thing with your plan. If we just have like a cursory here's what I want, and it's gonna be a lot harder to create it then when you have a lot of clarity on where you want to go and why you want to be there.

 

No. 3 Ask what's getting in your way 29:34

Alright, number three. So just as a recap, number one is ask yourself the question, Where are you at? Number two is where do you want to go? And number three is what's getting in your way. I talk a lot in Macros 101, there is a difference between knowing something and doing something. And a lot of people get stuck in the trap of telling themselves or thinking that they just need to learn more. I just need to, I just need to know more. I just need to consume more content, understand more information. And then by magic that's just going to magically change how I act. And to some extent, this is true, like knowledge does breed change, when we understand like when there's, I'm thinking to my parenting, it's like, if I tell a kid to do something, it's much more likely to happen if I give them a reason why, like, I want you to do X, Y, and Z and here's why. And in fact, actually, in the book Influence by Robert Cialdini, it's like a business and marketing book. He talks about the, there was a research study that was done that showed that if there was a line of people, and somebody asked if they could cut in line to use the copier, if they said, Can I cut in front of you in line, there was a high percentage of people that said, No. If they said, Can I cut in front of you in line, because my, you know, my kid needs to get to school or something like that a high percentage of people did, like said, Sure, you can cut in line. And then the third thing that they tested was if the person said can I cut in line and then said the word because and then said random things after it like something that didn't even really make sense. But still, a high percentage of people would let the person cut in line. So people giving a reason for something, understanding the why behind giving, you know, letting someone cut in line, increase the number of people who are willing to do it. So there is something to the fact of like, knowing more is important knowledge is important. We need to have knowledge, when we understand the why behind something, we are more likely to do it. But at the end of the day, knowledge itself is not enough to create transformation. I'm gonna say that again, at the end of the day, knowledge on its own is not enough to create transformation. How do we know that because there are plenty of really smart people who have a lot of knowledge who haven't actually done anything with it, and actually created the transformation. And so we know that knowledge is not this magical flip of the switch that once you have more knowledge that you will then do it that you will then put it into action. 

 

Struggles with self-sabotage 32:15

And so we are usually only our own worst enemies. Self-sabotage is a huge part of what I coach through inside of Macros 101, because for many women, that is what is holding them back. It's not knowledge. It's not that they lack willpower. It's not. It's not that they can't do it. It's that they are getting in their own way. And they're struggling with self sabotage. So ways that self sabotage manifests. So you can kind of listen to those. And if you've struggled with any of these things in the past, then you likely are experiencing some self sabotage. Things like struggling on the weekends, right? doing really well through the week. And then not like losing it on the weekends, or struggling when food isn't perfect. So things like vacations, or struggling when you're, you know, you go to a restaurant or somebody brings food to the house or something that's outside of the norm outside of the structure usually used to. Struggling to track you know, struggling to like, you know how to track it's not it's not a matter of you not knowing how to track it struggling to actually put it into practice, that's a place that self sabotage can manifest a lot. Anytime that you have this internal fight with yourself, right, like part of me wants this, but part of me wants that that is self sabotage. And look here, like, I'm gonna stop and just say that self sabotage is a very, very normal thing like, inherently wrong with you, if you self sabotage, we all self sabotage, myself included, it is how our brain works. But that doesn't mean that we can't move past it, it doesn't mean that there aren't ways to fix it, there are many ways to minimize it. There absolutely are. 

 

How coaches help you break down the barriers to reach your goal 33:58

And this is what a really good coach can help you with: coaches who, let's just say not very good coaches, are the coaches who focus just on the doing. And you see why by this point in the podcast, because if you just focus on telling someone what to do, you are putting a bandaid on a much deeper wound, and it's not gonna actually solve the problem. Because we already know that the doing, you can do something for a while. But if you don't actually address the deeper issues that are causing the self sabotage, it's not gonna be successful long term. So a really good coach will be able to help you identify the self sabotage will help you to be able to move past it to help you to be able to actually solve the deeper wound that is causing the self sabotaging behavior. Self sabotaging behavior is a symptom. It's a symptom of a deeper problem. It's not the actual problem. Self sabotage is not the problem, my friends. Self sabotage is a manifest of what the underlying problem is. And when you actually address that other underlying problem, then you don't struggle with getting in your own way, like the pyramid story that I told it, it just becomes easy, right? Like building the pyramid just becomes really easy. So figuring out how to break down those barriers, figuring out how to move past the self sabotage that we all inherently do when we're growing. That's it, self sabotage is our brain's way of trying to keep you safe. But in the process of keeping you safe, it also limits growth. And so anything that you want that is different from the current reality that you have is going to take some sort of growth to get there. And if your brain is preventing you from any growth, because it's scary to your brain, then that's when you stay stuck. That's when self sabotage rears its head. And so when we start to understand that we can start to identify the ways that our brain is doing that, and the ways that we're keeping ourselves stuck, and we can actually, like I said, address the underlying problem, and not just the symptoms of self-sabotage. Okay, so that's number three, what's getting in your way. 

 

No. 4 Ask what mistakes should I be avoiding 36:05

Question number four, step number four is what mistakes should I be avoiding? Now, there is a balance here, because if anybody of you listening has taken Macros 101, you know that I love the saying that they're like, I don't believe in failure, I actually have a podcast on it called failure doesn't exist. It's episode number 28. Failure doesn't exist, I say that failure doesn't exist, you either get the result that you wanted, or you get the lesson that you needed. So mistakes are actually really important, because they do bring lessons, they bring the lessons that we need to learn in order to get the results that we want. But that does not mean that you have to make every mistake in the book, okay, those aren't the same things. For example, I do not have to touch a hot stove, to know that it's going to hurt, I can learn that lesson from other people's experience. I've actually never touched a hot stove, it's not true, I have touched the stove. But there's plenty of things that I have not done, because I've seen other people do them. And it warned me that I shouldn't do that, that type of stuff. So we don't have to actually have all of the experiences to learn lessons from other people's experiences. So there are mistakes that we can start to avoid, that will save us a lot of time and a lot of energy, both emotionally and physically if we are avoiding these pitfalls. 

 

What a good coach can do for you 37:29

And this, honestly, we come back to coaching again. But this is what a good coach can do for you, as a good coach can help you avoid some of those pitfalls, avoid some of the, you know, the big things that are going to get you stuck, I like to think about a coach, as you know, a guide on a hike, you know, the guide can't necessarily like, isn't gonna really like carry you over the log. But what a guide can do is be like, hey, up ahead, you're gonna hit a, you know, stream, and it's gonna be, you know, XYZ meters across. And if you just go down a little bit down the stream a little bit, then it's a lot narrower, and you can get across a lot easier down there, right, you still have to cross the stream. But the guide can give you some tips and tricks and, and make you aware of things ahead of time so that when you hit the stream, you're not like, Oh, my gosh, there's a stream, what do I do? You're like, Oh, yeah, I was expecting this. I knew this was coming, I already have a plan, I already know what's going to make it a little bit easier. That's what a good coach can do. So, you know, question number four is what are the mistakes that I can learn ahead of time? What are the miss? What are the problems? What are the things people struggle with, that I can be thinking about ahead of time, so that I'm ahead of the curve and I don't have to make all of the mistakes, that I can learn lessons from, you know, people who have gone before. And, you know, kudos to you. Because just the fact that you're sitting here listening to this episode already means that you are someone who does this, that you're consuming content from somebody who is helping to warn you of the things ahead, who you're learning from me sharing what mistakes people make, so that you don't have to make them yourself. And that's why you're going to be somebody who doesn't just jump into doing something that isn't like, let me just set my macros, but you're going to be somebody who is like, how can I make this successful? How can I start from ground zero? How can I start to build my machine first, so that my pyramid is going to be built so much faster? 

 

No. 5 Ask what is the next step to take 39:21

And then number five, step number five is the question, what is the next step to take? Your journey is always about the next step. The faster that, you know, the next step to take the faster that you're going to progress. So many people quit, because they don't know what's next. They tried something and it didn't work. And now they don't know what to do. So then they quit and they try something else. And I first of all, that is like planting a seed in the ground and seeing that the  seed isn't sprouting in a week, and then blaming the dirt and digging it up and moving it to another spot  and waiting a week, and seeing that it doesn't work and then digging it up and planting in another spot. The truth is, is that like that dirt may have been just fine, wasn't necessarily the dirt that was wrong, there's a ton of variables. And, you know, depending on the amount of light, maybe you didn't give it long enough, maybe it needs to, you know, germinate, for I don't know if the word germinate for three weeks, and you only gave it a week. But it likely wasn't just the dirt that was wrong. But if you don't know how to tweak or respond to any of those variables, then you're going to always be restarting the race. And that's what I see a lot of women doing is jumping from diet to diet. And I think part of it is also because with the start of a new diet comes novelty. And to some extent hope. There's  new hope when you start a diet, it's like, it's like, right when I plant that seed, it's full of hope I'm full of like, oh, what could be in the future, and maybe this is it. And then you know that it doesn't work the way that you thought it was going to work, you dig up the seat, and then you try again. And I see this happen with people jumping from program to program to program and diet to diet to diet, just thinking that there's some magical, you know, thing that's going to change everything for them. And not recognizing that what actually is going to change everything for you is when you start with these foundational things, when you don't just hop into the doing. We didn't just hop into the diet, but you actually take a step back and you start with the foundational things that I'm talking about, then that changes everything. And instead of hopping from program to program and diet to diet, instead you start to do the work that is required in order to actually get long lasting results.  And when you do this, and when you have an idea of how to respond when things happen in your journey, when things don't go the way that you want them to go or that you think they're going to go. Do you have a next step? 

 

How Macros 101 coaches help clients figure out the next step 42:13

I always say that one of the most important things is what I teach my coaches. One of the most important things that we can provide as a coach is always to help our clients figure out a next step. Because there's always a next step, there's always a next step that you can take in your journey. And when our clients feel clarity on that next step, that's a win. Okay, because that's what a journey is. It's one step at a time, one step forward, and then another step forward, and then another step forward. And a lot of times, taking those steps forward are really scary, or people don't know what, where to go or what steps to take next. And again, that's where you know, coaching can really help you to know what's the next step to take. And that's the question you keep asking yourself all throughout your journey. What's the next step? And what's the next step? And what's the next step? And when you start to get in a place where you can figure out what the next step is? Now you are really in this place of empowerment. And that's what a lot of our clients say, in Macros 101 is that I don't just tell you what to do, I don't just say, hey, do this and do this, this, I actually give you the keys to the why I give you the keys to understanding for yourself so that in the long run, you don't need to ask me what to do. You don't need to say, hey, Amber, what do I do next? This question of like, what do I do next is a question that you can answer for yourself. That is what makes Macros 101 different than every other program out there. So I'm giving you the secrets to answering these questions for yourself and that is powerful.

 

Recap 43:43

All right, so those five steps to recap again. Number one, where are you at.Number two, where do you want to go. Number three, what's getting in your way. Number four, what mistakes can you avoid, and number five, what's the next step to take. So by this point, you're starting to see how important it is to not just jump into setting your macros, to not just jump into cutting out all the food groups, to not just jump into making random changes in your diet and exercise. But rather starting from a place of really getting this foundation in place so that when you do start to take action, that it's easy, that is a natural extension of who you're being and who you're becoming. And this is a lot of what I coach my clients through inside of Macros 101. 

 

Free five day challenge 44:33

It will also be a lot of what I'm coaching you through during our free five day challenge, which starts next Monday, August 23. It's free, it's going to be five days. Each of the days, we're going to talk about each of these topics that I just listed. We're going to go through each of the topics in more detail. If you thought this was fun. If you enjoyed this, you're gonna love the five day challenge because we're going to go into even more detail and we're going to start to apply it to you as an individual. Because how you apply, you know, question number one, where are you at? How would you apply that to your journey is going to be different. So I'm gonna take you through exercises and take you through teachings of how we can start to apply this to your individual unique journey. And it's a ton of fun, and it's absolutely free. So head to bicepsafterbabies.com/challenge to get registered. Once you're registered, you'll be able to join our group, you'll be able to get the emails, you'll be able to access the live video trainings that we're going to be having during the week, it is a ton of fun. I also highly recommend that you invite a friend or sister or a mother in law or a mother or somebody, I know that if you have somebody doing this challenge with you, you're going to be more successful than if you do it alone. Now, that's not to say that there are people who do it alone all the time there are, but if you're anybody who likes any sort of accountability, or you like to do you find that you are better at following through on something when you include another person in it with you. And I really recommend getting a friend, pulling a sister or pulling someone in to do this challenge with you, and be able to chat with each other after the training. Talk about how it's impacting you or what your takeaways were from it, we're going to do a lot of that in the group. So we're going to provide that kind of accountability. But I know for many of you doing this with friends is going to be a lot of fun for you. And we have a lot of surprises in store to make this our best challenge yet. So even if you've signed up for the challenge before, I highly recommend coming and joining us again, it's bicepsafterbabies.com/challenge and we start Monday. Now, if you do happen to be listening to this, after Monday, the 23rd It's okay, you can still sign up. We'll have those videos available until September 3, I believe. So if you're listening to this anytime between August 23 and September 3 of 2021, you can still have access to the videos, the training, even if they've already been done, you can have access to the recordings. So you can still go to bicepsafterbabies.com/challenge and get all of the material through September 3. 

 

Takeaway 46:45

I hope this episode was helpful for you. I hope that you feel like you have some ideas about how to really build a really strong foundation for your fitness journey. Again, whatever it is, this foundation, it doesn't matter if you're trying to heal your metabolism. It doesn't matter if you're trying to lose fat, it doesn't matter if you're trying to gain muscle, it doesn't matter if you're trying to improve your performance. This foundation is for any type of goal that you're trying to set for yourself. When we start with the foundation, we start building that machine that's going to make things a lot easier than when you actually get to the transformation it goes so much smoother. It's a natural byproduct of the work that you've already done that internal work. We talk a lot in Macros 101 how the internal transformation creates the external transformation. It's why we start internally. 

 

Come and join Macros 101  48:09

And last if been talking about Macros 101 if you are interested in joining Macros 101 we will be opening one more time in 2021 it will be August 30 2021. It will only be open for a couple of days and I highly highly suggest that you get on the waitlist for it bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist. This is the program where I help coach clients through this kind of stuff. Through your fitness journey, through creating a customized plan for yourself, through all the self sabotage through all of the struggles figuring out what to do next. All of these things are what I coach on inside of Macros 101. So if you love this podcast episode or you love the podcast in general, you are going to love Macros 101, it is just a deeper dive into this and helps you to apply it to your specific, unique journey. So doors open for the last time in 2021. On August 30. Get on the waitlist at bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist.

 

We have more to offer during the free five day challenge  49:08

If you are tired of your only tool for transformation being restriction and deprivation and you want to be able to look in the mirror and see results. But you're not willing to have to choose between ice cream and seeing progress. Then my upcoming free five day challenge is for you. In this five day challenge, you're gonna learn how easy and fun it can be to crush your goals and do it without cutting out sugar, without doing hours and hours and hours of cardio or starting a restrictive diet. In the five days. you'll have the formula for results without having to overhaul your lifestyle which means that you're going to get to eat what you like and be able to see the changes in the mirror. Because the truth is, you know this on some level that misery does not get you better results. And when you cut out your favorite foods, well, that just usually backfires. Which is why in the five days to a fitter you challenge, it's going to be all about making you reach your goals as enjoyable and effective as possible. Here's things I'm not going to ask you to do. I am not going to ask you to go through your cabinets and throw out anything with sugar in the ingredients, I am not going to force you to knock on you know, dry chicken, breast and broccoli five days a week, there are going to be no rules about what time of day that you have to eat, or how you have to space out your meals. Instead, you'll get access to tried and tested many challenges every single day that will make your fitness journey easy, and maybe even fun. I'm not even gonna say maybe it will be so much more fun than the old way you've probably been doing it. I'm going to take you through many of the same exercises and education during these five days that I give my payong Macros 101 clients, including a unique goal setting exercise on day two. That is typically one of the highlights of the week. In fact, if you've been at all curious about what it's like to work with me inside of Macros 101, think about this five day challenge as a free sneak peak week. If you are someone who wants to crush your fitness goals, and you want to do it without deprivation, without restriction, and without cookie cutter dieting, then this challenge is for you. Go to bicepsafterbabies.com/challenge to register for the free five days to a fitter you challenge starting August 23. If you like the podcast, you are going to love our five day challenge. So go to bicepsafterbabies.com/challenge and see how fun it can be to hit your goals. 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

Hold up, sister friend. Do you love Biceps after Babies radio? If so, the best way to say thank you is to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on iTunes. I know, every podcaster wants you to leave a review, but it's because those reviews help the podcast to reach more people. And I do truly want to know what you think. If this particular episode resonated with you, will you also 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 friends and family why they should listen. Make sure you tag me @biceps.after.babies so I can hear your 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.