Sometimes I screw up. Here's what happened:

I recently received a message from a client whom a consider to be a dear friend. She has made incredible progress in our program. She ran into some unique and challenging injuries that we (and some expert physical therapists!) had to work through. In the midst of that she was prohibited from doing cardio exercises, as they may have aggravated her injury. 

I told her our workout schedule for the month so that she could come to the strength focused days and keep making baby steps forward in her progress. Then we made a last minute change to the workout schedule and I forgot to tell her about it. She showed up to a cardio day and was crushed. We had a brief conversation and she left, head hung low.

I felt awful.

I wanted to make that up to her, and I did. But those moments after she left the studio were some of the most important that she experienced that year. Here's the message she just sent me regarding that situation:

 It’s really easy to find things to demonize.  Turn on the news, read a newspaper, or gossip about the neighbors.  It’s easy to find someone to criticize or blame for a problem.  If we can step outside of ourselves and see the other angles it can be very enlightening.  It doesn’t mean you change your beliefs.  It just means you understand the other point of view better. 

When we get into this black and white thinking it takes us down a bad mental, emotional, and spiritual path.  Now before I tell you about the good of GMO’s let me assure you that in our modern 1^st world country we have infinite choices and we should choose not to eat GMO crops for the most part. 

So why are they good?

Let me explain to you how I came to understand the gray area.  We have a book called “the kid who saved the world” by Andy Andrews.  It’s a kids book and it’s super cute.  It’s not particularly about GMO’s but it is at the same time.  The premise of the story is one person effects another who ...

I’m not a dietician or nutritionist but I do listen to what they say.  I decided to make a food pyramid that was a little more reality friendly and still helped people to understand what they should be eating. 

The least controversial of these is the top and bottom of the pyramid.  Most people, no matter what “diet” they promote, would agree that the fewer processed foods anyone eats, the better.  Also, most people would not argue with the fact that vegetables are good for you.  Shoot, parents have been trying to get their kids to eat veggies since the beginning of time!  Pretty much the more veggies, the merrier. 

The second bar from the bottom Meat and Fruit is a pretty controversial one currently. The big trends right now are “plant-based or veganism” and “keto” which is mostly a repackaged Atkins diet. Keto says no fruit basically and vegan’s say no meat.  I think both can be available.  Meat/animal protein (eggs, cheese, chicken, etc) is very helpful for those with huge cr...

Have you ever had this happen? You're happily going about your workout and then you can see the trainer make a bee line for you. Your heart jumps. You must be doing something wrong. The trainer offers a few words of (hopefully) gentle correction and then the exercise becomes nearly impossible.

During your next set you try to abide by the advice given, but it makes the exercise 10x harder. 

Why is that?

Let's compare your muscle to a group working on a project. In any lift or exercise, there are multiple muscles being asked to perform different functions. When you give the signal to your muscles to "bring that barbell from my waist to my shoulders" you will perform a biceps curl. But not all biceps curls are created equal. 

Not all teams are created equally either. I can remember group projects in college. They usually went something like this: one group member is the bossy one and is bound and determined to get an A on the project. Two group members are neutral and will do the wor...

About the Author:

Jeremy “the tall trainer” Biernat is a Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Strength Coach, has his Bachelors in Exercise Science, and enjoys writing, speaking, and inspiring people online and in person. See his new book!  More importantly he is a husband, father, and follower of God. His practice is in upstate NY (Canandaigua) where he works with people in one on one and group sessions to make awesome changes in their lives. He doesn’t do everything perfect, cries in movies, and would love to hear from you. You can contact Jeremy by commenting to this post, emailing [email protected], or calling 1(800)380-7047. 

Please share this with friends!

I could almost leave it at that but I’ll add a little detail.  It is not something you DO it is something you have.  Diet the noun is the typical food for an animal or person.  You shouldn’t go ON a diet.  You already HAVE a diet.  Now it may be terrible, but it’s yours.  If you make a radical change to yourdiet, it’ll work for a little while. 

But…when it breaks down you go back to your typical eating and gain it all back and then some.  Instead take what you are already eating and make a small change that you can live with.  When people join our program they are sometimes shocked we don’t have a “DIET PLAN” for them to follow.  There are helpful guiding principles in nutrition that we try to improve on but that can look very different person to person. 

Don’t go on the “Stone age diet” or the “Plants only diet”.  Go on the (your name) diet.  Actually, you already are on that diet.  Now just improve it a little. 

About the Author:

Jeremy “the tall trainer” B...

I'd like to start by saying I am a very private person and hate being the center of anything so doing this testimonial for all to read will be very difficult but I honestly hope that in doing so can spark the interest and motivate someone to realize it's time to get up, get moving, get healthy so they can enjoy life for many years to come, as Art Williams would say "JUST DO IT!", so here goes:

I worked at a job for over 20 years and I really enjoyed it, until the company went through many changes at all management levels, plus many layoffs in production, they even froze pay raises and took money away. After laying off my workers my dept. I was expected to do the same amount of work. This became very stressful, and I even gained a new boss who thought he was all that, he wasn't and treated me like I didn't know anything and worse a female.  It hit me, I was stressed, overworked, and so unappreciated, all with having chronic migraines, hair literally falling out, and terrible mood swi...