Transforming Fitness: Aram Grigorian's Journey from Finance to the Forefront of Coaching

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 306, Transforming Fitness Aram Gregorian's journey from finance to the forefront of coaching. Are you ready? Let's get started.

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.

Welcome back to the PT Profit Podcast. My name is Chris. I will be giving you your intro of Beverly's episode one with the one and only Aram Gregorian. They said some nice things about me at the start, so I just want to say thank you for that. And when you dive into this episode, you're going to learn more about Aram. If you don't know him already, he is a notable fitness coach who transitioned from finance to fitness. He organized the Real Coaches Summit which is happening coming up in March 2024 in Las Vegas and he emphasizes the servitude in business sharing his journey from personal personal training in Connecticut to remote coaching in California. His philosophy revolves around transforming clients mindsets and identities for sustained change rather than focusing solely on physical aesthetics. This approach is evident in his advocacy for understanding individual motivations and maintaining personal connections, even in scalable business models. The Real Coaches Summit 2024 scheduled for March 11 12, 2024 at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas is an event for both coaches and and enthusiasts. I personally will be going so if you are there, you'll see me. It provides over 20 hours of masterclass level education with topics covering various aspects of coaching. The Summit aims to enhance participants skill sets and includes macro friendly meals, top shelf happy hours for networking and a focus on practical knowledge without the pressure of VIP tickets. This event aligns with Gregorian's ethos of serving clients better and building trust and relationships in business. If you're interested in that, I'll be leaving the links for you to get more access in the show notes. But with that out of the way, let's dive in and get started with this episode.

Aram, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me. And I thank you to Chris Little for setting it up.

Chris is the jam. I love him.

Yeah, I was, I was fortunate enough to connect with him and I had invited him to speak for a virtual summit that I'm hosting and it's, it's nice to be surrounded by good people who are humble.

Yeah, yeah. Who. Who really prioritize work ethic and also operate from this place of knowing that no ego. That there's always more to learn and that we're here to serve.

Yeah. Surprisingly, that's not as prevalent in our business as you would think it would be. There's still a lot of people who live in this very fixed mindset of like, I know what I know and I'm good where I'm at. And then it's just about like growth, growth, growth. Financially there's no actual self development behind it, which to me is just. It doesn't make any sense.

Yeah. I'm so excited to dive in today. So that said, for those of you who are tuning in and listening and have not been introduced to the pleasure, pleasure of your work, can you share with us just a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there?

So I have a background in finance. I used to be, I used to work for an energy trading company and I was in the back office managing a group. So I have kind of a professional corporate background. And then through some acquisitions and mergers, my company got bought out. So I got forced out by basically just by default because we were all being cut. And I followed the passion of fitness into training people in person. And then after years of training people in person in Connecticut, I wanted, I decided to, I wanted to move to California because I just was ready for a change and I needed a new environment, mental health and everything else to promote that. So I basically went from being almost 100 in person to being 100 remote. And that was kind of a big shift. But at that point I was already in my late 30s. I'd been in the business for almost 15 years. So I just kind of took what I thought was the right way to do things, which was just to keep helping people for free as constantly as possible, which was either through my content or through conversations I was having. Because I really, truly, truly believe that like in this business, we are servants. Like we signed up to be in a business of servitude. And I don't, you know, when you're a servant, you're not asking for anything in return. Now at some point, obviously you have to keep a roof over your head and keep the lights on, but I think as long as you keep just over delivering every single day, when somebody is finally ready to buy something from you, they will. And because they. We've already built up that, that bank of good faith. Over the course of however many interactions or months or years you've been at it for, people will just naturally gravitate towards you. And that's kind of exactly what happened to me.

That's amazing. So can we talk a little bit about how you from finance to fitness? Like, what was, what was that journey like and when did that happen? Because I think what happens to a lot of people in the fitness industry is they start to think, oh, this is for the young, for younger people. This isn't for me. I'm too, I'm too young, I'm too old. I'm too. Whatever. So I'm just curious for you and your journey, how did you go from finance to fitness?

I already, I don't always have been interested in it and passionate and practicing it myself. I had never really gotten like deep dive into the actual education of it, but I was always like that guy at the office that people would ask, like, what should I eat today? Or what are you doing at the gym tonight? Can I join you at the gym? Like, so I was like that person in the office. And it was just basically because I was living and breathing it. Like I was working this crazy job where I was always kind of on and stress was high, but I was always still finding time to eat well. And I was always prioritizing training because I just, I had an aesthetic goal that I didn't want to give up. I did it out of vanity. I mean, let's be Honest, I was 20, in my mid-20s. I was doing this purely just because I wanted to look a certain way, because I wanted to fill the void in my mental health that I had. So I just became that person. And then what happened after I got laid off was I just didn't ever want to be sitting behind a desk again or being told what to do by anybody else. So I just kind of picked my own rope road and got certified through nasm, got a job at a gym locally in Greenwich, Connecticut, which was actually a great place to start because it was. I don't know if you're familiar with Equinox. So, yeah, Equinox is like the best place to start. So was there for about a year, essentially. Just stole my own book of business out of there because their pricing structure sucks and the way that they pay their trainers is awful. And that was it. That was how I started.

Amazing. So I'm a former district manager for Crunch, so I'm very familiar with, with all, all of those components. So it's interesting that you talked about how you got started in terms of, you know, being driven by an esthetic goal. But if you look at your content now, you're very mindset driven in terms of shifting identity and really thinking about how it's more. More than just the habits. Your habits really stem from identity. And so I'm curious, how did you go from, you know, an aesthetic goal to, like, really getting into that, the deeper layers and the deeper components of transformation, and how do you help your clients get on board with that, too?

I think you do it wrong long enough the wrong way, and you realize that it's just not serving you anymore. And the reality is, as I started to learn more of the science of it, I realized that, like, your body is gonna morph and shape shift throughout the rest of your life. So if you're always constantly, like, obsessed about an aesthetic or you're focused on an aesthetic solely, with no other focus in mind, you're gonna kind of miss the forest for the trees. And I got to a place where, like, I just stopped giving a shit what other people thought, to be honest with you. Like, I stopped comparing myself to others. I stopped learning, looking for validation. Externally, I started to become a little bit more intrinsically motivated. And that was part and parcel due to bad relationships, you know, failures in business, losses of money, losses of relationships. And that led me down the road of therapy. So I think when you start introspectively looking inside and starting to really ask yourself some hard questions about, like, who the hell am I? What the hell do I want? Where do I want to be in life? How do I want to. How do I want to show up for myself and others? And then I started realizing, like, I don't care about the money. I don't really care about what people think. What I really care about is I want to leave a legacy of being helpful. And I want people to believe in themselves the way that I started to. And I just started to work on conversations, and I started to really lean into my communication skills because I was always good at listening to people, and I was always good at relating to people because I'm just a very outward, forward, extroverted person. It's not hard for. I could talk to a brick wall for 45 minutes. So for me, it was just like, what. What is it that your problem is? And where does the problem actually stem from? Because it's not just, I want to be skinnier. It's something deeper than that. So when you get down to the deep reasons for why people want to Change. It's a lot simpler for them to sustain that change because their why becomes stronger, which means that their motivation is going to be stronger, which means on the days that they don't want to do what they're supposed to do, they still. And so now what I do with all my clients is I don't really talk about macros and calories and training. Like, yes, that stuff is important to some extent, but I can teach you that on a post it note. It's not that hard. What takes a lot of time is really uncovering, you know, was it the conversations you had with your mother at the kitchen table that you up. Was it the fact that your father never truly gave you any praise when you were a child and now you're just seeking attention from everybody else? Are you always constantly comparing yourself to others because you have no, no value in yourself and you keep valuing yourself because of a number on the floor? So we have to understand where these motivations and these issues are coming from. And once we kind of start to unlock and unpack some of those things through just conversation and being available to your clients, then you start to realize, like, they don't care about the fat loss as much anymore. Now they're so deeply rooted into the process that it just becomes ingrained in their lifestyle. And that's when we've won.

That's so good. Can you walk us through a little bit about how you carry someone through that process, going down to, you know, assessing them in terms of, you know, the conversations that you start at the assessment level and how you build out their transformation program through that lens.

So expectations to me are like, number one, as soon as you start with one of your. As soon as you start with a client, or the way that I start with my clients is I ask them, what do you expect of me as a coach? Like, you're paying me a first service. What is your expectation of this relationship? And then they say whatever they say, and then I start to break that down. So sometimes they'll say, like, I expect you to give me macros, or I expect you to give me a workout plan, which is on the surface bullshit stuff that I don't care about. I said, what do you, what do you actually expect of me? Like, do you want me to show up for you on your worst days? Are you going to be wanting me to talk to you and talk you off the ledge when you're having a tough day? Like, what do you actually expect me to do? And then it starts to get deeper. It's like, well, I want, I need a support system, I need accountability. And then it's like, okay, cool. That's exactly why we're here. We're here because, yes, we can educate you, but we also want to be there for you. And I think what happens now in a lot of coaching practices is because everything's becoming so scalable and automated, people are losing that personal relationship and that personal touch. And to me, I don't think coaching has to be a 700 or $500 a month service to where it's email only and you're working through an app or you're giving each other, you know, emails back and forth. Like, you should be able to hand out your phone number and be available for your clients. You should be able to be there on a Friday night when they're about to go out to dinner with their husband. You should be there for them on Monday morning when they step on the scale and they feel like shit because of their weekend shenanigans. Like that, to me is coaching. Coaching is not like sitting there and drilling them on their macros and drilling them on their food log and drilling them on their, on their training. It's understanding why do you keep sabotaging yourself and why do you keep making poor decisions? And that starts with understanding why they're hiring you in the first place. What are you actually missing? Missing? Are you missing knowledge? Okay, cool, we can build that. That's fast. Are you missing confidence? That's going to take some time. Are you missing a structure? That's going to take some time. So if you understand what the individual is missing, you can start to actually put something together that makes sense. And then you slowly, week to week, will build on those things that you implemented at the beginning. Most of the time I ask people on a scale, like, how important is it for you to see a certain number on the scale? How important is it to you to fit into your clothes? How important is it to you to go to the, the doctor and get a good blood panel back? So what are the actual motivations behind why you're doing this? Now, unfortunately or fortunately, however you want to slice it, but most people do this stuff because they want an aesthetic change. Like, I'm not working with high level athletes. I'm not working with crossfitters or bodybuilders or anybody like that. I'm working with general population Mr. And Mrs. Jones. I'm working with the mother who's got three kids, who's been 30 pounds overweight, who's been teeter tottering the same 15 pounds for 20 years and she can't figure it out. I'm working with a guy who in his 40s or 50s just lacks any kind of structure and doesn't have a routine and isn't feeling like he used to feel and wants to just feel better. So I'm working with people that are, that have been told by the fitness industry that it's something very specific that's wrong with them. It's your gut health, it's your hormones, it's, it's, it's, it's all this that's clickbaity and really easy to sell when in fact the hard thing to sell people is like you neglected something along the way because it stopped being important to you and we have to reignite that importance.

Yeah. And I also think that there is a component of showing up for yourself when, and being disciplined when you don't feel like it, when you don't want to. And I feel like there's a nuanced conversation in the fitness industry about, you know, this idea of, of, you know, healthy at every size is not the same as health at every size and, and you know, loving your body and, and intuitive eating isn't intuitive. And there's just a lot of nuanced, conflicting information in, on the Internet in the social media world and a very dogmatic approach of it's this way or no way. If you do it, if you don't do it this way, you're wrong, bad. And it just ends up fueling these negative stories that our general population live by. And it's, it's both a blessing and a curse. It's one of those, those paradoxes of social media is amazing and can also be detrimental. So I'm curious for you and your perspective with the clients that you work with, how do you help them stay consistent and show up for themselves without going through that shame spiral that social media kind of cultivating create.

So I put a lot of power back into their hands. My check in structure is pretty loose. I don't want to say loose loose, but it's, they fill out a form either weekly or bi weekly and in that form there's actually a question if you're not owed a call because I have different tiers of pricing that will say either like you have a call every week or you don't. And if it says if you're not owed a call, would you like to get on the phone this week and discuss something? And 9 out of 10 times people will actually say no. And I kind of know the people that I have to kind of watch out for and who needs a little more tlc? Because there's some people that will say no. And I know like they're just, they're just burying their problem and I will proactively just reach out to them. And I've just, I've taken an active interest in understanding every individual I work with. Like right now I think my roster is up to like I think the mid-70s and I usually sustain anything between 50 to 70 clients at a time. And I have no problem managing that by myself. I don't have any coaches that work for me, I don't have any VA's. It's told me. But I want it to be that way because I want, I want them to understand that when they're having a shitty day or they send me a text that they're not getting a response three days later or a day later when the thing is already expired, I want them to know that I'm available to them. Because these things happen in real time. Emotions come up in real time, problems come up in real time. And that's why their decision making arc isn't as good as it should be. It's because they haven't built that resilience to stress and they haven't had systems in place that they can lean in into and feel confident about. So if we have at least a very tangible support system, meaning, hey, I know that if I'm having a shitty day, I can reach out to a Rob at any moment and he will be available for me to discuss something with him. So I give them the floor and I say, hey, like I want you to be communicative with me and if you're not, I'm not going to guess that you're having a great day or a bad day. So this isn't again, this isn't just about like what you're eating and how you're training. This is about how you're managing your time, how you're prioritizing how you're able to get through the day with your children's schedules, how you're able to get through work without having problems. All of that stuff will dictate what the day looks like and how your decision decisions are formed. And I want people to just understand that I'm essentially like a sponsor for an alcoholic. Like if you're standing in front of a bar at 9 o' clock at night deciding whether or not you want to have that drink, let me know about it. Let's talk about it.

So what are some of the ways you help your clients stay consistent? And so what I mean by that is, I know you're saying that you, you will. They. They're allowed to reach out to you, right? But I think what happens to a lot of people when they're navigating, especially when they're new, is they start to feel this, like, deep sense of responsibility of like, hey, if my clients don't get results, then I need to just make, like, I need to make them restrict harder. I need to make them work harder. Like, why everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, that type of mentality. So how do. I'm laughing because, listen, I'm a mom of two young girls and I built business when my kids were toddlers, so. Or babies. So I laugh when I see those, when I see those types of posts. So how do you help them take radical responsibility for their own transformation as well as keep them on track.

Asking a lot of questions and getting down to the understanding of, like, who this is as a person. Like, if, if something is innocuous as a flat tire can destroy your entire week, well, you having a couple bad meals out, being bloated is probably going to destroy your body image for another couple of weeks. So I have to understand how capable that person is to handling the hard stuff in their life. And it's crazy to me how many moms I work with who have multiple kids, who have a job or two who have to keep up with the household because husband isn't doing at home. And these mothers are constantly pouring into everybody else in their life. And then when it comes to themselves, they're the always in last place. So for me, it's understanding, like, are you good at managing your time? Because I have mothers who work from home or who don't work at all. And they're telling me stuff like, I couldn't get to the gym or I couldn't do this or I couldn't do that. I'm like, meanwhile, your kids are at daycare. You have seven hours to yourself. There's clearly a problem somewhere. Something is falling apart that we're not seeing. So I have them literally map out, like, what does your day actually look like from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed? What does an actual day look like? And then we start seeing all these opportunities arise. So it's not about picking them apart and making them feel like shit about what they're not doing. It's about saying, hey, every Single time that you mess something up or you feel like you're failing or whatever, that's a door and a window and an opportunity to explore. So let's look at the positive. Like, I know that I could have done this, which means tomorrow I can do that, or I know I have this block of time available to me. I just need to be better about managing it. Maybe I have to stay off my phone more. Maybe I have to stay off of social media. Maybe I have to actually write things down on a calendar or on a book or something or a notebook and just be more visual about the opportunities that they have so that now we can actually build habits and routines into place that they can lean on on their hardest days or on their easiest days, because that's really what it comes down to. We're not a product of the easiest days that we have. We're always a product of what do we do on the worst days and what do we do when nobody's looking. And so to me, it's really just emphasizing, like, if you're a parent especially, I know your day is going to be insane. I don't have kids. I've chosen not to have children for that purpose because, A, I don't like them, and B, I don't want to have to be responsible for anybody other than myself. And having 70 clients at a time is plenty of responsibility. So I'll just take that. And it's just understanding. Like, if you've chosen to be a career woman and you've also chosen to have multiple children, and you've also chosen to look a certain way and feel a certain way, well, that's a lot of stuff on your plate. So you have to have realistic expectations first and foremost. And are you able to actually live in accordance with what you want, or do you constantly put all this stuff second? So it's understanding, like, what does an average person's day look like? How can we optimize their schedule? How can we start to get them to realize that, like, it's not always going to be about a flatter stomach or less back fat, that it might just be, hey, even just me being prepared from a meal perspective and at least getting protein and vegetables at every meal is already a win for me. And that's fine this week. I don't need to do any more than that. So it's meeting them where they're at and then every once in a while dangling that carrot in front of them and knowing, like, hey, you are. You are capable of a little bit more. And when we find that Runway or that opportunity, I'm going to push you into that a little bit more, just so you know you're capable of it. So you start to build that confidence.

That's so good. So now that you get all this information and, and you really meet your client, where you're at, where they're at, rather, how do you build out? Like, typically, what does your process look like in terms of their programming? What is a typical program that you see for your clients that want to lose fat and then does it change for your clients that want to build muscle? And what about the people who are like, I just want to, you know, get toned or whatever? So what does your program actually, programming actually look like for your clients?

I'm going to keep it real simple. So anybody that says they want to build muscle wants to look better. Anybody that says they want to tone up wants to look better. Anybody that wants to lose fat wants to look better. So the underlying reason for all of it comes back down to aesthetics. And how do we optimize aesthetics? We control for nutrition and we, we implement a hypertrophy based training program. That's it. That's as simple as it gets. So this idea of like individualized programming with reps and sets that are super, super specific with no variability and it has to be tracked and it ha. Like, that's all. I'm sorry. Like if you're sitting there and asking Mrs. Jones to track her tricep push down, she doesn't give a. I don't care if, if it was £20 last week and it was £30 this week, it doesn't matter to me. When I look at a video of a client training, I just want to see that they're exhibiting motor control, proper body position and intensity. That's what I'm looking for. My programs are all about the same. I could basically give. If you can train for three days a week, it's going to look like this. If it trains for, if you train for four days a week, it's going to look like this, but the movements are going to stay very similar. The rep ranges are going to stay very similar. Because the goal is about the same from client to client to client. The thing that changes and becomes more individualized is obviously how much they eat and how they eat because that's going to be individual for every person. Because body sizes differ, dieting histories differ, digestion differs, that stuff to me is a lot more variable. But even with that, you have to be consistent. So if I hand You a prescription of macronutrient calorie targets and a grocery list and portion size recommendations. If you're not following them for five, six, seven weeks, I. What's the. I can't change anything. I have to. I have to either ask you, like, what the problem is and why aren't you. Why are you not able to put this together? Do you need help? What structure can I give you? You know, what assistance do you need for me? What resources can I be handing you? Or you have to just understand that they're just not putting the time in to get this stuff figured out. Because I don't want to hand somebody a meal plan because that shit's not going to work for your average person. I want to give them parameters and guardrails that they, you know, basically, as long as you color inside the lines, you should net be better than where you were when you started. So I think there's a lot of coaches right now that are, that are just over complicating this stuff and they're putting so much emphasis into the technical side of coaching. Like, you have to be spot on with your macros and you have to do your workout in this order or no way else. Whereas I'm like, I don't give a. Like where I know where you came from. This is already better than where you came from. We're already winning just by you having some type of a structure and some routine and some rules. Now if you start to get good at this stuff, then we can start to stack on top of it and become a little bit more nuanced. But I've been training for 25 years. I haven't really done much different. You know, I've been eating a certain way for 25 years. That hasn't really changed much. So like there's, there's value and consistency and when somebody realizes that consistency is how you get to that next level and all you're doing is just dialing knobs up and down, you can take all the complexity out of this stuff.

Okay, so I love this and I want to talk more about, you know, as someone who has been in the industry and coaching for 25 years, you have probably seen it all and watch the pendulum. I mean, because I've only been coaching for seven, 10 years. I mean, years to blur. I think it's actually 10 years now. But you see the pendulum and things in the fitness industry just completely shift, even if you look back, you know, to like 50 and so on and so forth. So I am curious for you now that you have just relentlessly executed the basic principles, what are some of the misconceptions that clients into. When it comes to reaching plateaus? Why. Why their clients don't see results like the dial movers that you actually turn? When people come to you and say, I'm doing everything you've said, but it's not working.

I just always ask people, like, what more are you willing to do? The reality is sometimes we have to, like, sit at the top of the mountain and watch. Watch the horizon for a little while and enjoy where we got to. I think people always think that because they have a coach, they're going to see this linear, this linear progression on a weekly basis, and that's just untrue. Like, your business is not going to grow on a, On a, On a linear business. Your, Your weight loss is not going to happen on a linear basis. So none of this stuff is ever going to be in this perfect upward slope. So I always ask people, I'm like, where you are right now, did you ever envision that you'd be here? And most of the time they're like, no, I didn't. I'm like, cool. So enjoy it. Like, enjoy the fact that you're able to maintain and manage your weight. You know, enjoy the fact that you're not restricting yourself at restaurants, that you're not eating out of a plastic container seven days a week, that you're able to go out to dinner, you're able to have drinks, you're able to not kill yourself in the gym. Like, these are all massive wins. So if that means that you sit here and enjoy it and value it for a little while, I think that will allow you to have a better relationship with this process. And if you desire more, A, what does more look like? And B, what are you willing to do to get more? Because what you did to get from A to B is not what you do to get from B to C, and it's definitely not what you do to get from C to D. So as long as you're willing to work that much harder and be that much more sacrificial and regimented, then sure, we can do it. But I don't think it's going to be worth it for most people.

I see. Okay, so now, speaking of, you know, that type of journey, and I hear that, I get that where it's like, hey, let's just, you know, stay consistent and get. Stay into maintenance. Because maintenance is essentially still effort, still effort, and it's still going to require some hopefully unconscious competence and thought. But what about the people that have long journeys, like clients that have, you know, I know a lot of moms that after their third kid, right, they, they wake up just to your point, they're like, how did I get here? And they have like an extra package, 50 or sometimes 60, 60 pounds that they want to release. And likely it's not the first time that they have tried to release that weight before. So people that have those journeys who oftentimes feel like outliers, what are some of the things that you help them do and, and wins that you help them see that they're having along the way?

So just having a structure where, where not having a structure before is probably what led to the weight gain in the first place. So once we establish some type of a system and they have some type of an actual structure on a daily basis now, they just feel more grounded, they feel more confident, they feel more productive. So now they're able to check off these proverbial boxes which builds a lot of that, like you said, competency, which gives them that confidence. And then it just depends on what their understanding of fat loss really is. Like, do they understand that it has to be done phasically? Do they understand that they can't just sit in a calorie deficit for six months straight? Because they probably won't be able to. Do they understand that at some point if they keep pushing training too much that they're going to start to see a degradation of their, in their energy and their mood because their sleep will start to get affected and they have to be eating enough food, but not too much food to lose weight. So there's a lot of different variables physiologically that we have to be able to explain and have them understand. And then we also have to have them understand that they are playing a very long game and if it's, you know, if it's 50, 60 or you know, pounds or more, I mean, we're not talking months here anymore. Like, we're talking years. And that doesn't mean that you're going to be coaching with me for years. If you want to, please go ahead. I've had plenty of people that have been working with me for three years straight and they're the ones who have had the best results because they've just been in an accountability system for long enough to enjoy it. But for people that are like, I disqualify people constantly when they give me short term, short, short sighted visions and I, and they are like, well, I want to lose £50 in six months. I'm like, yeah, we could probably do it, but do you want to eat out of a plastic container five meals a day? Do you want to train five days a week? Do you want to sacrifice every meal out with your family? Do you want to not ever drink for the next six months? Yeah, we could do it. But I think you don't understand that it's going to take that much rigidity. And I don't know that you're capable of that, nor do you really want that. So when you give them the actual facts of what it's going to take and put the power of choice into their hands, they decide now the trajectory of which direction they want to go to versus me dictating. Well, you gave me this goal, I think this goal is achievable and this is how we're going to get there. I'm not just going to bullshit you and tell you, yeah, that's going to happen because I know you can't promise me compliance, just like I can't promise you results.

It's interesting. One of the things that you said was talking about, you know, it is possible technically, from a scientific stance, you could do it, but what is required in order to do that is sometimes not worth it. And I love that you put that, that decision in the client's hands, which I feel like most people don't. And, and that's okay. You know, we're all learning, right? But I think that part of that type of rigidity in our industry has caused a little bit of the all or nothing mentality that clients come with. Like if I'm not rigid and I'm not out of a client or out of a Tupperware, then I can't live the way that I want to live. And I feel like because that we've lost the gray area in it for our clients and they come to us with ideas of like, well, I need to do that, otherwise I won't hit my, my goals. So it's, you know, it nuanced.

And that's where I start to just ask them, like, what are you looking at on Instagram? Like what kind of accounts are you following? Are you looking at like 24 year old bikini models? Are you looking at like fitness influencers all day long? Are you actually looking at educational, helpful, age appropriate accounts for you? Like if you're a 55 year old woman, stop looking at 23 year old fitness models. Like stop thinking that you're going to be able to mimic their day. Like there's no way you'll be able to do it. It's Photoshop at home by themselves or, or it's Photoshopped. You know, it's one or the other. And let's say even if it's not Photoshopped, you know, this, this girl has no rent to pay, no children to take care of. She doesn't know what a cell phone bill looks like. She passionately started online coaching because she had a nice ass. And now she had one certification and she had one business mentor that told her she can get to 10k in 3 hours. And now that she's coaching online, she's showing people what I eat in a day and what my training looks like. And I'm like, Susan, you're 55, you're in menopause, you got four kids, you've got two businesses, you've got a husband that you don't communicate with. Do you really think you're going to be able to live the life of this influencer? It's just not realistic. So I got to snap pack people back into place constantly. And that's why every week, I don't know if you've seen it, but I'll share my 10 favorite accounts that week with people and I'll say, if you want to follow somebody, go and follow these 10 people because they're doing it the right way, they have integrity, they're delivering quality information, they're not selling you bullshit. So I try to promote other accounts constantly because I don't want people to just hear it from me. I want people to understand that this message is, is widespread and the good coaches are all doing this about the same way with a very distinct, different voice, that you can certainly source credible information and quality, quality education if you know where to look. But if you keep showing your algorithm that you want to keep looking at all this bullshit, that that's what the algorithm is going to show you and that's the pattern you're going to.

So good. That's so good. Okay, so now you just to go back to the science a little bit, you were talking a little bit about fat loss and phases, especially for people who have a long journey. So what are the, if you wouldn't mind, can you break down some of the, the fate. The way that you structure your fat loss phases for your clients that have long term goals?

Yeah, I'll usually have people diet in like four to eight week chunks and I'll do, and I'll kind of determine if it's going to be four or towards eight weeks determining based on the person. Like some people just have more stress resilience. Right. They're just, their compliance is easier. They don't have as many roadblocks. They may not have the children, they may not have the demanding work schedule. They may not have all the social obligations for, for that person. Yeah, let's go into an eight week cut. Let's actually be loyal to that eight week cut. That means that we're not going out to eat. That means that we're weighing and measuring our food. That means that we're actually doing what we need to do because it's already uncomfortable enough. Why make it worse by around and taking all these time, these, these days off and these opportunities to, you know, overfeed yourself and then throw yourself off and feel like about your lack of progress. Let's be very loyal for a very short amount of time. We know that we have another 16 weeks of maintenance after that that we can enjoy and lean into higher calories and have some more flexibility and then we see how much comes off and then we do it again 16 weeks later or 10 weeks later. And basically I think as long as you give somebody enough time to get the noise of food out of their head in between dieting attempts, then I think it just becomes a little bit easier to do. Because I think that's the problem is when you restrict somebody's food is what we have to do scientifically. Obviously we have to put somebody in a calorie deficit. That's going to be uncomfortable. But are they able to eat four times a day with nutrient dense meals? Do they have lean protein and plenty of veggies on their plate every single time they eat to fill themselves up so they're not feeling deprived? Do they have little snack ideas to satisfy their sweet tooth after dinner? Like in, you know, maybe having some sugar free whipped cream and fat free whipped cream on top of a bunch of berries to satisfy that sweet tooth so they're not feeling deprived. So these little things can help them survive these deficits and then just depending on how long they can sustain that deficit for, we know that well the next time we do it we could probably lean into the same amount of time. We were able to do it for six weeks, we could probably do it again for six weeks. But let's give you six weeks to recover in between attempts and you can just keep doing this over and over and over again until incrementally you see fat come down a little bit each time and we see muscles stay the same and you know, measurements stay a little bit lower, so we're just net positive every time. The problem with most people that diet without help is they lose fat and they lose muscle, but typically they actually lose more muscle than they lose fat. So what happens is, from a metabolic standpoint, every time they regain weight, they regain weight by way of fat, not by way of muscle. So they're always going to be net positive fat and net negative muscle. And that creates a really poor environment within the body, which then essentially makes fat loss even harder every subsequent attempt. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to get people away from that muscle loss by keeping strength training as part of their foundational habits. And we want to keep that muscle retention on, especially as a woman who is aging because she's losing muscle through sarcopenia and through age related muscle loss and hormonal muscle loss. So we have to be able to stimulate that system because that is really truly the organ of longevity, as Dr. Lyon will call it every once in a while. And just getting people to understand that it's going to be multiple dieting attempts over the course of multiple years. Because I know and you know, you will not be able to diet for seven or eight or 10 months straight. And if you could, would it be detrimental to other systems of the body? And the answer is most likely yes.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. So I'm curious, you know, some of the people that I've, I'm, I'm, I'm working with a really close friend right now who's been sharing with me, like the, the years of metabolic damage that she has compoundingly done to her body, like just being on a constant deficits for so long that me and her registered dietitian are working together on how we can basically just calm the, the nervous system down a little bit so that she can really release unwanted fat in her body. So the reason why I'm bringing this up is because when I'm talking to her and working with her, the hardest parts for her are not the cut, it's the times when we're not in the cut, the times that we have to talk about maintenance, the times where she has to trust herself that it's actually possible for her to go out to dinner without a Tupperware container. Those are the hardest moments for her. So I'm curious for you, how many of you know, what are some of the ways that you help your clients go through that period of that 12 week or 16 week or 8 week period for her? It's Just like, hey, can we just stay eight weeks and not count? What are some of the things that you do for them to help them basically optimize their material?

So I try to make it very relatable and I use myself as an example constantly because I have all the same problems that all my clients have. Like I want to overeat after dinner because I'm stoned and I want a snack. I want to go out to eat every single weekend because I like food. You know, once every two or three months I want to get rip roaring drunk because I want to just forget about life for a little while. So I have like all these same issues. I just know that I don't like to feel like. So what I talk to my clients about when it comes to maintenance is I tell the maintenance is a really great opportunity to get really good at the stuff that you think you're not good at. Which means can you walk into a restaurant and build a plate? Which means can you go on vacation and not worry about what the potential of weight gain might be because you finally got to enjoy yourself for a few days ways? And does that mean that just because you have this added level of flexibility that you just completely go to the other side of it? Because I think we have this idea of like almost ritualized gluttony that's happening now. It's like, well, there are no rules anymore, so I could just do whatever I want. And I always just explain to people, I'm like, you're an adult. I don't really give a if you lose weight or not. At the end of the day, I don't care. Like I'm still going to get paid and I still need to keep my lights on. And I know that I'm doing my part. But if your idea of quality behavior is just because I have the extra calories and I'm just going to put them into garbage, then you have to accept feeling like. And if you're okay with that, then by all means, go right ahead. I'm not going to stop you. But I'm pretty sure you're tired of that pattern of either binging. I don't want to say binging, because that's a real disorder. So let's say over consumption and then followed by restriction, then over consumption and the restriction. Or like I'm on a diet, so I'm really adherent. But then when I'm not on a diet, it's a complete free for all. Like that means that you haven't really got the point. Of this process, which is trying to build quality, sustainable habits. Which means what is your average day look like on maintenance? What does your average weekend look like? Are you just going out Friday to Sunday and not controlling any meal whatsoever? Because we know that the average restaurant meal is anywhere between 5 to 900 calories above what we think it is. So when people are logging or estimating at restaurant food, I'm like, you have no clue. You have no idea how much oil they use. You have no idea how much sweetener they use on stuff. And that stuff adds up. And what was an innocuous salad turns into a 1500 calorie bomb very quickly. So we have to understand that maintenance is an opportunity for us to really learn about ourselves and what we're capable of when it comes to habits and what we're missing when it comes to habits. So for me, it's always trying to find the discrepancies. And why are these people constantly going back to this place of just treating themselves like an amusement park just because they can? Versus I have control even at maintenance, just the way that I do with, with my diets. But it's not restriction, it's control. Those are two different things.

What are some of the common patterns that you see in your clients that you feel like you are talking about on repeat that if they could just handle this one thing, it would really make a significant difference, regardless if they want to lose weight or not?

Well, I'd say it's two things. It's after dinner snacking, almost unanimously, and then restaurant meals on the weekends or ordering out. So when it comes to post dinner snacking, I mean, I. I don't know what it is. I don't know what's so satisfying mentally about snacking. I guess maybe just because it's like you have a little bit of everything. It's almost like the tapas idea where you can try a little bit of everything and have these types of chips and that type of chip and this type of crunchy thing and whatever it is. But typically that's going to stem from just people just ritualizing it. Because this is my habit. I sit down and unwind in front of the television, either with a glass of wine or a bag of chips or some type of a snack. So it's getting people to realize that you don't have to do that. You've chosen this path and that's become your identity, but you could break that at any moment. So if you have children and you're having trouble getting them to sleep, I Bet taking them for a 20 minute walk prior to bedtime would probably get them to settle down a little bit easier. So that's a really great way for you to get the hell off the couch, to get your family involved in your pursuits, to get them to understand different elements of healthy living. And now everybody wins because your evening is a lot more productive. And let's be honest, when people are sitting in front of the television with their significant other, there's no actual connection happening. There's no conversation that's going on. You're just sitting there mindlessly scrolling on your phone while something is out of the background. So it's not even a time of intimacy anymore. So I try to get people to relate to that. Like, hey, if you're having trouble with your marriage, instead of spending that time at night unwinding and sitting in front of the tv, why don't you start to have more interaction with your spouse, sit down and talk about what the next few days looks like, what do you guys want to do? Where do you want to go on vacation? How's your week been? You know, what are some things that you're trying to work on for self development? So like have actual deep conversations. And then when you're doing that, you're not sitting there and just putting your hand into a bag of chips. You're actually productively doing stuff. So that's a way to just combat that evening ritualized snacking. And then I also tell people like you're either going to be a moderator or you're going to be an abstainer. And in order to moderate, you probably have to abstain for a little while. So if you know you're susceptible to having these foods in the house and you're attempt they're tempting to you, get them the hell out of the house for a little while. Don't give yourself at least a point of resistance and a gap between that thought and that temptation. Then you just grabbing it. Because if you have to go out of your way to get it, you probably won't get it. Like if you have to get on your in your car and go buy it. But I mean, unfortunately now with all the apps we have, we can just order and have it show up to our house, which makes things a little bit easier. And unfortunately that's a problem that a lot of people have. But between the nighttime snacking and overeating after dinner, once your whole day is done and you're not even hungry, you're just eating mindlessly and then the multiple meals outer week that just end up being very, very highly calorie dense. When people understand the impacts of those two things, they can start to understand why they're getting results or why they're not getting results. Results.

So powerful. Now, I want to be mindful of your time, so I, I will. This will be our last question, but I'm. You've mentioned self development a couple of times throughout this, throughout the recording of this episode. So I'm just curious for you and for your clients, what are some of your favorite introspective self development processes that you recommend for them and that you know that you have gone through yourself and how did you get there?

So I think journaling is a big one. Just writing down your thoughts and not being intentional about it. The only, I guess the only intention you would have is actually the physical act of sitting down and doing it, but without any expectation of what pours out onto the paper. Because I think sometimes people think of journaling as another task or another chore and it becomes this thing that like, oh, well, I have to check this box because my coach said so versus I'm going to journal to just dump things out of my brain because it's therapeutic to me. So I think in that sense it can become a very valuable asset for you because you're able to actually get all this noise out and onto paper and you can throw that paper out. You don't have to sit there and go back and read it. It could just be like it's an unload. It's no different than if you were to actually have a confidant in your life that you were able to sit and have these conversations with. And unfortunately, sometimes when you're doing this, when you're on this type of a journey, the whole household is usually not in it with you. So sometimes it's, you know, it's. If I work mostly with women, and a lot of these women are doing this by themselves, their husbands are not involved, their husbands are not supporting them, their kids are not supporting them, their family members are not supporting, their friends. Don't give a. So all these people in your life are essentially roadblocks and barriers to your, to your belief system and to your pursuit. So you have to surround yourself with people that are doing what you're doing. So maybe sometimes building a community can help. You know, whether that's getting a coach or being a part of a Facebook community, that's all doing the same things. Having somebody to lean into, having somebody to have conversations with. Sometimes something as simple as just sitting five minutes by yourself with no device, with no noise in a corner of your house where there's nobody there, where it's just quiet, and you can just sit there and just feel how you feel and understand what's going on in your head. And that's a really weird place for people because if you ask people to just disconnect from their device for even five minutes, it's frightening how many people will not do that or how many people are uncomfortable doing that. But it also ties you back into just being a human being and understanding, like, this is how I feel. This is what my mood is. This is what the rest of the day is going to look like. And it can become a very productive and just developmental exercise in getting you to understand yourself. So between meditating, which I would call that a form of meditation, journaling, and just speaking people about what it is that you want in your life, I think those three things can really become transformational.

Was there a quintessential. I know I said last question, but it also, like, lastly, was there a quintessential moment for you that you felt like, oh, my gosh, this was it. Like, this is how I came there, because I'll share this for me, right? Is that. Is that what I realized was that I just was so disconnected from my body, Meaning that I was just so stuck in my mind. And I, I. I felt like. And I see this in my clients all the time, too. Business or health, it doesn't matter. We're all human. Having a human experience is that we're just stuck in this loop of being in the I'm fine coma, where we don't even realize how good it could actually get until you tap into these moments of silence. And often, oftentimes it's. This resistance is your biggest gateway, in my opinion, is that if there's something that you are really actively avoiding, this is your mirror to actually take a look at it. And I kept saying to myself, like, I'm fine. I'm fine. I just need to think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think. I have kids, so it reminds me of Winnie the Pooh, right? And it's like this. I. I had to really just stop. And honestly, it was my daughter that said to me, like, mom. And she was just a huge beard to me of, like, this is what I'm seeing. And I was like, okay, I'm really just disconnected from my body, and I have to tap into that. So that was, for me. I'm curious for you, like, what happened.

For you like always, it's always some type of a trauma, right? So for me, it was. It was a pretty messy breakup back in 2020 during COVID that pushed me into the arms of a. Of a life coach slash therapist that I worked with, who I'm still very good friends with today. And she really challenged my belief system. She really challenged me under to understand who the hell that I actually was, because I had no idea. I was 36 years old and I didn't know about my own identity. I didn't know who I was, I didn't know what I wanted. I had been on autopilot for so long, speaking the same narrative in my own head and believing it. And until I was able to work with her for her to be that mirror. And I was actually able to start seeing kind of some of my own bullshit that I had been saying to myself for years and years and years. Then I realized very quickly that I was the problem. It wasn't the relationship, it wasn't the breakups. It wasn't my dad not hugging me as a kid. It wasn't, you know, the multiple times that I was cheated on or that I was replaced. It was really just me and my perception of the world and perception of myself. And then I started to realize that that's when radical ownership took place. That's when responsibility took place. That's when understanding that people don't do things to you, that they do things for themselves. So you can't get really but hurt about the things that happen because of somebody else. Most of the time, people aren't malicious, they're just uneducated and they're uninformed about themselves. So they don't really know what they're doing. And they're on autopilot also. So like you said, we're all humans having this human experience. Some people just haven't gotten to that higher level of self understanding. And they hurt people because they're hurt people. Right? Hurt people, hurt people. We hear that all the time. That's the beautiful cliche, but it works. And I was unfortunately surrounded by too many hurt people that hadn't done that work. And that was making me a hurt person. So I started to just disconnect from that. Those types of people. I started to understand what my boundaries were, who I was, what I was willing to accept and what I wasn't willing to accept, the types of people I wanted to be around. And then I changed my environment. You know, I moved from Connecticut to California because I wanted to change, because I wanted This a fresh start. To not be around anybody I knew, to be able to pick and choose who I let into my life. I put boundaries around the people I didn't want my life and that was really powerful. And I mean, between the, you know, 2020 to now, almost 40 years, I mean, I grew, I've grown more from a 37 year old man to almost a 40 year old man than I did in the last 30 years probably. And I think so many people think like, oh, I'm 50, it's too late, or I'm 60, it's too late. And I'm like, guys, you have so much time left still to reinvent yourself and at any moment you can just pick up and change the narrative. So just start today and see what happens. What's the worst thing that's going to happen? It doesn't happen as soon as you want it to. Oh, well, you're just going to keep trying, but don't give up on that idea that you can still be somebody else, you can still strive for more and you can still develop a little bit of, of a skill set or a self awareness that you didn't have. So I really, truly encourage people to get uncomfortable and really sit with themselves as opposed to just numbing out constantly with stuff like food or booze or relationships or anything else.

That's really powerful. It was really powerful. I got chills when you were talking about it a little bit. So, so thank you. I want to just say thank you for pouring into me and into my community. I really appreciate, appreciate it. And so for those of you who want to connect with you, what are some of the best places that I can send them?

So I'm on Instagram all day long. It's like an extension of my hand. So four weeks to the beach is my Instagram handle. The number four and the number two. So they can obviously DM me there. I'll answer every DM that I get. And then I also host a conference for coaches for self development and sourcing education. And the next one's coming up in March. It's called the Real coaches summit. It's two day event, 14 presenters across all different subject matters. It's a little bit of a different kind of event because I do food and booze. I want it to be really communal. I want it to be very connective. There's no red velvet rope, there's no VIP ticket. It's, it's full access to speakers. Speakers hang out with you. Everybody's sitting at the same table, eating Everybody's having drinks together at night. So it just ends up being a really fun, connective type of environment as opposed to like being spoken by at for two days, building up all this rah rah motivation and then you leave two days later with no tactics and no more motivation. So this is very tactical, it's very practical, it's fun, it's completely unique. So if people want to go check that out, I would hope that they do because I don't want to lose money on it this year. So anybody is listening to this, please come to Vegas in March.

But yeah, that's, that's what I was going to ask you in person.

What's that?

It's, I, I, it sounds exciting. So this is in person?

Yeah, yeah, it's in, it's, it's at the Virgin Hotel in Vegas in March. It's a Monday and Tuesday event. Usually people fly in Sunday. There's a welcome dinner and drinks on Sunday night when you register. Then we have all day education Monday with all three meals catered to you. Then we have happy hours at night Monday and Tuesday and then you leave on Wednesday and hopefully you got something out of it.

Oh, so cool. And we'll be sure that we link all of that up. And so if you have any questions about the event itself, listen, I'm going to tell you right now that the in person events, nothing beats them. I mean, I, there's so many stories that I have heard of people finding the next business partner sitting right next to them in a table like this just can be the most transformative experience. They're my favorite things to go to and also host as well. So it's just in person is not, I think that more so than ever we are finding that, that people want to feel heard, they want to feel seen. And that requires connection and authenticity. So I will definitely make sure that we link all of that up in the show notes.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Appreciate the opportunity. And if you're, if there's anything I could do for you or your community, I'm happy to try.

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