Are you fit enough to be a trainer?

If the question has ever crossed your mind, am I fit enough to be a health and wellness coach, professional nutritionist, personal trainer, or whatever you identify as as a coach, this episode is for you.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance and movement, package and position their products and services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

What's up coach? Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson. If this is the first time you're hanging out with me today, welcome. I'm super pumped that you're here. I'm going to share with you some things that I usually a only reserve for my accelerator clients, but this has been something that has been coming to A my attention and it's something that I really want to share and go deep on. I was a little provocative, I guess, or, or thought provoking in the titling of this episode because my intention is that you really, you know, feel less alone, if that's your question. If you've been wondering like, oh my gosh, I'm just not fit enough to be a trainer. As soon as I lose X amount of weight, then I'll start coaching. Let me take as many certifications as possible and then, you know, maybe that'll cover up for how I, how I'm not fit or I don't look the part. Or maybe you're like me and you've been in business coaching containers where someone was like, you need to work out more, you need to look more the part, whatever that case may be. Or maybe you're on the flip side of it and you feel like, oh no, am I perpetuating the problem? Am I hurting people or making people's self esteem be worse because I'm helping people lose weight? Oh, if this is you, then this episode is really just going to like, I, I really hope give you the relief that you need and deserve. Because what I have found is that the smart and struggling coaches are the ones that are always thinking about this one of these particular questions or worrying that they're being part of the problem and that maybe they're not helping. And I want to just offer you, a, you're not alone and B, give you some things to be thinking about and then C, share with you a little bit about My journey. So, first of all, as a district fitness manager and somebody who did, I mean, when I tell you I did hundreds, I mean, hundreds of, of business plans with in person trainers every month, we would sit down. I mean, it's very much like similar to running a business online, but we would sit down, we would have our goals, we would know what things were going on, and I would sit and I would ask my trainers, like, okay, well, you know, what's coming up for you? How can I help you? You know, what would you say is preventing you from reaching your goals? And we literally were just doing business plans every month. And I'm going to tell you right now, the number one confession that I would hear from people is I'm worried that I'm not fit enough to be a trainer. And I'm going to tell you that this confession came from people of all different shapes and sizes and different body fat percentages. Because I was working in Chelsea in New York, this was like a very, you know, posh, upper prestigious area. People were really, you know, on a lot of steroids. And it was just like a really ripped gym environment just to kind of set the sea. And so people who would have like low body percentages, they would like literally be ripped would be telling me, I'm, I don't feel like I'm fit enough to work in this gym. Like my, my client, the clientele is in better shape than me is something I would hear all the time. Okay. And then, you know, as I'm starting to work with accelerators who are. Some people are in body composition and some people are in, in health, but in, but are in a zone of fat loss and health. They're really feeling like I don't want to be part of the problem. Like, I wrot this like before and after post and my, my friend, my cousin, my high school sweetheart, my, my old high school friend or people like sent me this, like, I can't believe you would be so vain or shallow and that you're perpetuating the problem. Nobody wants this and just on and on. And this will sometimes lead people to be very general in their messaging because they don't want to rock the boat, they don't want to hurt people's feelings and they don't want to, you know, perpetuate being part of the problem. And I get that. So it's a very nuanced, challenging conversation. And I'm just going to share with you a little bit about my perspective and a little bit about my journey and how I got There and how I started to think about this, these kinds of things. And you know what I would tell my younger self if I could go back, because what I want you to understand is, you know, I used to say this all the time. I. And as a high achiever, as someone who lived in a critical household, which I've shared before, love, my family, they're amazing. Everyone's just doing the best that they can. But you know, there is always this need to prove myself. There's always this need to feel like I need to be better. I need to be, you know, as soon as I do X, then I'll do Y. And so this was showing up too, like, oh man, as soon as I lose ten pounds, as soon as I get that six pack, then I'll be fit. You know, I also made the mistake of thinking that looking lean meant that, that that person was going to be able to transfer that six skill. Well, the coaching or the skill of coaching is a skill in itself. And just because you look a certain way, because you are blessed with great genetics and you have infinite amounts of time, that does not necessarily translate. And if you don't know how to meet people where they're at and actually shift human behavior and performance and help them to adhere, then you're going to struggle and your clients are going to struggle. And part of that is gonna be communicating expectation. When I was younger and at first trainer, I was lean, but I didn't feel like I was lean enough. And I was constantly trying to just make myself the smallest person possible. I realized pretty quickly that the look of a body does is not a measure of men of health. In fact, if we were to look at people who are actually starving and dying from starvation, they are not healthy. So your body fat percentage is not a direct correlation to your health. And health at every size is not the same as healthy at every size. In all cases of the spectrum, whether you don't have enough fat on the body or if you have too much fat on the body and the fat around your organ fat, and I share this in Accelerator, is that one of the leading causes still to this date of death in America is cardiovascular issues, which happens when there's too much adipose tissue in the body. This is a very challenging and nuanced conversation for a multitude of reasons because in addition to our physical health, we have our mental health and sometimes the way that we eat is also a direct response to big T trauma and little T trauma and also the social and economic environment that we grew up in, there's so many factors at play when it comes to helping someone live a healthy lifestyle and improve their health whether they're losing fat or not. And so when people oversimplify the measurement of health based on the look of a body, this is oftentimes when people get into complicated situations, both from a coach perspective as well as a client perspective. Not to mention the fact that social media Better for worse like I'm sharing with you stories from like back in the day when I first started, when social media didn't even exist so nobody could Photoshop, this was like real life. So for all of the joy and amazing education that social media has brought, it's also brought the flip side of it. It goes back to that tool analogy that I used previously on a podcast, and I don't know if that episode aired or not, but a tool like a hammer can be used to build up a house and it also can be used to tear down a house. So social media is the same. And so social media, for better or worse, it has really amplified a skewed version of what healthy looks like and can be and what human bodies actually look like. So much so that many health and wellness professionals out there, they will Photoshop their own healthy body. And then not to mention that a lot of health professionals and I'm putting, I'm going to put health in quote, but a lot of health professionals started from me search. So sometimes there is a lot of passing down of disordered eating habits because they had disordered eating habits. Like for me right now my cholesterol is a little bit too high. I'm really actively looking at the ways that I can lower my body fat percentage, but I want to do it in a healthy way. Now healthy to me means that I'm not food obsessive, that I'm not, that I'm still living life, that I'm looking for easy swaps that are also not, not going to sacrifice my mental health. Sometimes I want to eat something because it's my mental or my mental health because it looks and tastes good. Okay? And so anyway, so I want to make sure that I'm, I'm, I'm walking this really fine line. But as I'm going through this experience for myself, I am noticing that it's really easy for me to want to flip back to my dieting days, that I want to go back to like where I was over restrictive, where I want to go back to where I was constantly beating myself up because I wasn't lean enough, where I want to go Back to like how I, you know, don't want to eat in after seven or in these weird, like these weird food rules that I used to have for myself. It's easy for me to want to go back to that now. Part of that is brain based because these neural pathways in your brain, they don't go away. You just have to actively choose to go left instead of right. And so it can be easy to fall back into old patterns. And I want to lose fat right now. And it can be very challenging for coaches to navigate what is a good healthy relationship to losing fat for yourself and for your clients. And separating the difference between knowing that what you do for a living is not an indication of your value or worth, that your body is not a business card, the look of your body is not a business card. And I think the nuances here for people is that we can double tap that and understand that comprehensively, but we don't live by that. We don't know that. I say that with confidence because I see the impact of what social media has done to what we view a healthy, normal body to quote, unquote, look like. And everybody comes in different shapes and sizes. And I stand by the fact that if you, you don't need to. So the look of your body is not a measurement of how you coach and your business. I stand by that because I have. Anecdotally, I have seen transformation from coaches who, who don't. Aren't shredded. And I have been completely disappointed in commitment to me as a client from coaches who are shredded. Now, with that said, I want to remind you that and this is true, true for yourself or for your clients, right, Is that the brain is very tricky. It's very, very tricky. And if you want change, whether it's in your business, whether it's in your health, whether it's in your physique, it's going to require you to do something different than you're already doing. And the brain is very sneaky in terms of giving you really good reasons why you're not hitting your goals. Like, I'm gonna give you. Let me, let me explain. I woke up this morning and I did not wanna go for a walk. I've been committed to getting my steps in, like, especially since my back got hurt. Like, I just wanted to get my steps in. I woke up and I did not want to do it. I just did not feel like it. And my brain was giving me really good reasons to not do it. Like, Beverly, your. The look of your body doesn't isn't it a measurement of your coat, of you as a coach? I was saying, you just got hurt and, you know, you don't want to go too hard. You want to take care of yourself. I was saying things like, beverly, you, you know, you worked out yesterday. You've been so good. You can just, you know, you've been committed. You've been saying to your word, like, you could just relax. It's okay to relax. It's safe for you to relax. You don't want to perpetuate this notion that you need to look a certain way, blah, blah, blah. This is the noise that's coming up in my brain. And I was saying to myself, so these are all valid and good reasons to. To break my words on myself, to not stay committed to the one action that I said that I wanted to do. When this happens, I give myself flexible discipline where I say to myself, okay, I don't feel like it. I can acknowledge that I don't feel like it. I'm tired. I'm feeling my kids were up late. And all these reasons I'm saying are true. And I'm gonna get to get started. Let me start. And if after 10 minutes I just still don't feel like it and I'm run down, then at least I've started. And I. That's enough. Guess what happened? I walked. Walked, Charlie. I started to feel great. We walked for about 60 minutes. Talking to my sister. I recorded an emotional regulation podcast for my clients. I came home, I was like, oh, here are all the ideas that I have for my podcast. I've been batch creating podcasts so I don't, like, get tripped up on the stuff. And I felt really great that I had did it, done it. I share this with you because a lot of times people will trick themselves into thinking that they're perpetuating the problem when they might be up against something uncomfortable, that taking action to go through is going to be the way. Sometimes you have to do something that you don't feel like doing when you are working on a goal. So what are the ways for yourself that you can create a flexible discipline that is not at the expense of your mental health, that is actually enhances and actually improves your mental, physical, emotional, spiritual health because they're all related. And so sometimes part of the work is. Is really just differentiating what is influenced by my. My circumstances, my belief system. Can I shift it? How can I shift it? Because your body is not a business card. Unlikely. It's your brain trying to keep you safe from showing up for the people that actually need your work. Because I'm going to tell you right now, if you're listening to this episode, I am willing to bet that you care about helping people. And if you go and look at like James Coppola's page or Luke Nutrition's page or, or Dr. IDs page and you can see all of the ed time that they are spending the debunking people's spewing of hatred on the Internet, how they are showing up for people who have deep trauma and have used food to soothe those trauma and abusive behaviors. Like my client, we learn about nutrition and think about nutrition. And so you're allowed to live in the end, you're allowed to be work in progress and cult people. I'm willing to bet that you are not the people that are shaming others. You are not out there telling people, calling them animals and cows and, and advocating for bringing bullying back. That's not you. And it's interesting because I have been posting fitness content, putting it out on ads and Mike, the comments on my stuff about how I'm not a fitness, like fitness. There's no way that person is a trainer. Like, they, they, they were kind of seeing me like Trumbull Trump. What's that from? The Matilda. I was like, the Matilda's Trump. Like Professor Trumbull. Like before and after. I was like, whoa. I was laughing because I was like, oh, I didn't even, like, that didn't even come up. And, and I can, I can take it. I can handle it. It's just more evidence of, of, you know, the fact that there are so many hurt people out there. Hurt people, hurt people. And your voice is needed. And when I feel, and I'm not, you are not exempt. I do too. I still sometimes, you know, I will hesitate putting something out. Like I just recently posted something that like a fun transition. And I raised my hand and my belly kind of started to show a little bit and I cringed when I saw it. But that's me acknowledging old neural behaviors, knowing that I'm working on a goal and me seeing evidence of it not being there and noticing that my critical self is coming into play. And I know that that's part of me. And then that's, that's there. And I can work with myself to recognize that it's there and help rewire my brain to know that it's not true, knowing that that right neural pathway is there. And I just need to go left. I need to turn left and keep going. So if you're wondering, am I fit enough to be a trainer? I'm going to tell you right now, yes. You're wherever you are right now, you are allowed to be an authority and an expert and continue to grow into whatever capacity that means, whether it's health, wealth, spiritual or emotional, you get to grow. That's part of being in a human condition. No one just arrives and then arrives. There's always more. And you get to be an expert and help someone now. Otherwise they are going to go to the Internet, drink their own urine, or they're going to eat an orange peel with cinnamon on it, hoping that helps their digestion problems. So if that's you, and if you've been struggling with this like my DMs are open, I would love to share and talk about it more. 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