Working Out but Not Seeing Results?

If you’re working out 4 to 5 days a week but you’re not seeing results, this might be why.

Some clients come to me as a first step: they’re interested in getting into fitness but have no idea where to start.

Some clients come to me for a refresher: they’re coming out of some time off (an injury, illness, pregnancy, move across country), and want to get back into it.

But I’ll be honest with you: most of my clients come to me as a last resort.

They’ve tried hard.
They’re TRYING hard.

But they’re not getting the results they want.

Frustrating doesn’t begin to cover it.

Can you relate?

If you can…if you’re working out but not seeing results…please keep reading!

This article is basically a coaching steps 101. I’ll walk you through:

• Questions I use – and that you can ask yourself – to determine why the what (stick with me), isn’t working.
• Tracking we commit to in order to figure out why the how (wait for it), isn’t there.
• The elephant in the room.

99% of the time, these 3 tactics change everything.

Not seeing results that you want or expect? This could change everything…

Everything is figure-outable.

Start Strength Training (and if you already do…)

Me: What’s your current fitness routine like?
Prospective Client: I have an elliptical that I use a few times a week, and I‘ have some dumbbells at home. When I go to the gym I mostly do a big circuit of the machines.
Me: Great! What kind of weight are you lifting? Let’s start with squats…
Prospective Client: I grab the 15s.
Me: How long have you been grabbing the 15s for?
Prospective Client: Ummmm [small laugh], a long time. Maybe a year or more.

Listen, I get this. I spent years of workouts 75% on cardio machines, and 25% lifting the same 10-15 pound dumbbells over and over again. It wasn’t until 2015 that I realized the POWER of strength training. More specifically, of progressive overload.

When I did have that realization?

The game changed.

Why Strength Training?

When we’re talking about “see em in the mirror” kind of results, strength training is the MVP.

Strength training is the catalyst triggers your body to build muscle. More muscle means more shape (aka tone or definition) to your body. Muscle IS that shape. You can’t see abs if you don’t build those muscles. You can’t see you tricep unless you’ve built the muscle there. Aesthetically speaking, muscle is what makes fit people look fit.

Muscle also speeds up your resting metabolism. That means that the more muscle you have, the more calories your body burns to maintain it even at rest.

Long cardio sessions can’t do either of those things. Lower intensity, steady state cardio actually start to eat up muscle as fuel. And while cardio is great for many reasons, weight loss isn’t actually one of them. This is because you can burn calories while doing cardio – and that caloric burn depends on a lot of things, including duration and intensity or your workout. But no matter what, as soon as you stop your workout, the caloric burn stops, too.

Game-changing takeaway: if you aren’t strength training and you aren’t seeing results, you need to start strength training.

Strength training is the MVP of a lot of other results too, but we’ll keep the scope narrowed for the sake of time.

Why Progressive Overload, Specifically?

Before the why, the what.

Progressive overload training gradually increases the intensity, difficulty or challenge of your workouts over time. It’s not complicated, but it is strategic. More on that in a moment…

Why should you care about progressive overload? Because even if you strength train regularly, if you aren’t challenging your body. So while it’s AWESOME that you strength train, if you’ve been using the 15 pound dumbbells for years now, you’re body has already adapted and you’re not going to trigger the changes you want to see.

There are numerous ways to put progressive overload into action. You can add weight, add volume, increase frequency or decrease rest times.

Game-changing takeaway: if this sounds like the answer to your particular plateau, take a deep dive into progressive overload here…and then let me know if you have any questions!

Consistency

“Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.”

Mark Twain

Whatever positive changes you commit to making will only have an impact if you actually act on them. You might have the best workout program from the best fitness coach but guess what? It’s not going to work itself out. Knowing your macros and calorie goals is great, but if you don’t use that knowledge to make healthier choices, they’re as useful as a spoon with holes in it.

It is far healthier and more effective to workout 20 minutes a day than it is to workout for 90 minutes one time a week. Consistency is key.

And the key to consistency?

Is creating habits and routines. Think about a “normal” day. A lot of it is routine. Much or what we do on a typical, routine day is habit. It feels easy. Almost like you don’t eve have to think about it. That is entirely the point and entirely what we want to take advantage of.

Here’s how you can do it:

Keep it simple

When you want something as bad as you want to be fit and healthy and feel good in your skin, you want it today. And so it’s easy to trick yourself into thinking: if some is good, all of it is probably better. Which tends to complicate things.

So my advice is to keep it as simple as possible:

• Pick just 1-2 changes to focus on at any one time
• Make sure it’s measurable
• Keep the change or adjustment small enough to feel confident about sticking to 90% of the time

Research shows that people who try to change too much at one time are less committed and less likely to succeed than those who focus on only a single goal.

Choose 1-2 goals that you can specifically track when, where and how (i.e. drinking 1 cup of water every morning immediately upon waking up). Use your planner or a Google doc to track your consistency so that you can visualize your progress and adherence.

And don’t over extend yourself! Your goals should be accomplishable. The more confident that you feel in your ability to make the change, the more consistent you will be in doing so. Eventually the repetition will turn into routine.

Keep it positive

I should workout if I want to get rid of my love handles.
I hate my legs, I need to go for a run.

The problem with these kinds of thought processes is that they revolve around self-degradation and insult. That’s heavy. Negativity might light the fire at first, but it can quickly turn into frustration and overwhelm.

Instead, try flipping the negativity on it’s head:

It’s pretty incredibly that I can choose to workout because it’s going to help me get fitter, healthier and more confident.
My legs are strong and have carried me pretty far in life, let’s see if I can keep that going for years to come.

There’s lightness to this kind of thought. All of the sudden there is not only a belief that you can have more of what you want, but a vision of your success. That’s the power of positivity.

Take advantage of habits you already have

One powerful strategy for increasing consistency is to attach new habits to old ones, aka: habit stacking.

You have patterns of behavior that you have strengthened over the years by sheer repetition. Use that to your advantage by attaching new habits to actions you already reflexively, habitually take. Think of this as a simple way of creating new routines that fit into your life as seamlessly as the old ones. And remember: keep it simple.

For example, let’s say that you have a habit of having coffee every morning. As soon as you hit “brew” on the coffee pot, you’ll check what your workout is for the day and make your workout gear (or put it on), so that you’re ready to workout.

Or maybe you are in the habit of eating lunch at your desk. After you finish, consider getting up and going for a quick, 10-minute power walk. Bonus points on this one: you’ll find that you’re likely so have more energy, stay more focused and have fewer cravings in the afternoon.

Just like that, you’ve started to create a new, healthier, more consistent routine that will help you see more results.

Nutrition

If you’re working out but not seeing results, it’s time to face the facts: you can’t out exercise a poor diet. Nutrition has an incredible impact on the results you will and will not get.

The fact is, it’s really difficult to get great, long-lasting, physiological results with exercise alone. It’s almost impossible to create a caloric deficit and change your body composition if you are ignoring the nutrition side of things.

What should you focus on first?

Nutrition is a massive field with a lot of “well that depends”. But there are some foundational nutrition staples that you should focus on first:

1. Lean protein at every meal. Protein is the building block of a nutrition plan built to start seeing results. You need protein to build muscle, increase strength, prevent injury and boost your resting metabolic rate. Grab a full list of protein choices here.
   
2. Fill half your plate with non-starchy vegetables. Vegetables are packed with fiber and micronutrients that your body thrives on. Even with all that nutritional value, they clock in low in calories which helps when you are eating at a caloric deficit.
   
3. Drink a lot, but don’t drink your calories. Aka drink more water and reduce your intake of sugary juices and soda, and alcohol.

If you can nail these focuses, I promise you that you will start seeing results.