If You Can't Stick To A Fitness Plan, Try This

Most programs are missing critical components that allow you to actually stick with it and see results. The way I often explain this is like holes in the bottom of a boat. If you were on a boat and there were holes in the bottom of the boat, it doesn't matter how fast you bail the water out. You're either going to, A, still sink, Or B, at the very best, you're going to stay exactly where you're at. You'll never make any progress, long-term progress. What is going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Eric Roberts Fitness Podcast. I hope you're having a great day thus far. Got a really good podcast for you today, and it's stemming from a question I got on my Instagram story. Somebody asked me, what do you do when a client isn't getting results? Because they're not following the plan? And I think the answer I'm gonna give to you is not only gonna be incredibly valuable for you if maybe you are not getting the results you want, maybe you do feel like you're, you're doing some right things but you're not seeing progress, maybe you aren't being as consistent as you would like. I'm gonna give you some real tactical information you can immediately take and speed up your progress. But on top of that, I want to give you some mindset strategies that myself and my team of coaches use when we are having a client who may not be getting the results that they want to get, although we know they want to. And I think that's the first thing I want to address here. I don't think people are not following the plan because they're lazy or the client just sucks or they're not disciplined or they're not motivated. I think there's this stigma, especially around coaches who feel like, oh, well, that client isn't following the plan. If they would just follow the plan, they would see progress. I have the right plan. And I think it's a very shortsighted way of thinking about it. I think a lot of coaches also come at it from the angle of this client just doesn't want it bad enough. This client isn't motivated. This client's not disciplined enough. And I don't think that gets anybody anywhere. I think as a coach, you're not going to get your clients results. And then as the client, it makes them feel even worse. It reinforces them what they're already thinking, that they suck and they can't stay consistent and this guilt and this shame. So we take a very different approach when we have a client who's in this situation, who is again, maybe not seeing the progress they want to see because they're Not following the plan that we lay out for them. So I really want to dive into that. I think it's going to be a great podcast. And yeah, let's go ahead. So the first thing I want to touch on is the self-efficacy problem. So if you don't know what self-efficacy is, it is basically someone's belief in their ability to succeed. And many clients, at least many clients who come to us for coaching, have low self-efficacy because they've Failed in the past before. Maybe they failed on diets, maybe they failed at workout routines, maybe they have seen some weight loss and they've lost some weight, but then they gained it all back. Or maybe they do something for a couple of days or a couple of weeks, but inevitably they fall off track. So many people with their fitness have a low self-efficacy and they don't even actually believe They can stick with something. They don't believe that they can be consistent. They don't even believe to a degree that they are worthy of losing weight, and they don't believe they're actually going to be able to do it. And this is a problem because if you don't have the self-efficacy in yourself, why would you keep doing things when it gets difficult? Why would you stay on track when you're not motivated if you don't believe that you're actually going to lose the weight and stay consistent anyway. Well, when these fork in the roads come up of should I stay on track or should I not stay on track? Am I going to put in the extra effort or am I not going to put in the extra effort? Almost every single time, if your self-efficacy is low, you're going to go towards the route of not staying on track. So I think the first thing we have to do and the first thing that we do with our clients is start to build up This self-efficacy once again. And one of the ways we do this, because trust me, this could be an entire weeks-long podcast on how we build up self-efficacy in our clients, because I personally believe this is the most important thing when it comes to seeing results. But one of the ways we do that is by simply explaining to them, and this will be a really big lever for you, I hope, is most past failures happen because not you, it's because of the plan that you were trying to follow. Most plans, most programs are missing critical components that allow you to actually stick with it and see results. The way I often explain this is like holes in the bottom of a boat. If you were on a boat and there were holes in the bottom of the boat, it doesn't matter how fast you bail the water out. You're either going to A, still sink, or B, at the very best, you're going to stay exactly where you're at. You'll never make any progress, long-term progress. You might make some progress in the short term bailing the water out, But then it's just going to come right back. And so it's not your fault. You didn't fail. The plan that you were following was not meant to help you succeed. It was not built in a way to help you succeed. And this is from a few different angles. The first angle I want to take is let's rewind back a little bit. When I was an in-person trainer, I saw there were pieces of the puzzle missing. So I was training people in person, and they would show up and they would do their workouts and they would love it. And, you know, I would hold them accountable to like those 1 or 2 workouts during the week. But that was just the workouts and a little bit of accountability, not much, 1 or 2 hours a week, maybe 3 if they were filthy rich. So They had the workouts, okay, but they didn't have much accountability and they didn't have any nutrition. I believe those are all 3 pillars that you need to have if you're going to be successful with losing weight and keeping it off for the long run. So what did I do? I was like, I need to build a program that has all 3 components, not just the workouts, because yes, When I was an in-person trainer, my clients were doing the workouts, but outside of the workouts they had no accountability and they had no nutrition help. So what did I start to do? I started to give them outside accountability. We would do daily check-ins, weekly check-ins, and I started to give them help with their nutrition. I started to help them with calories, with example meal plans, with holding them accountable to their nutrition, having them tell me and show me their food logs every single day. So the whole reason that my online coaching program started in the first place is because of— I knew that there were pillars missing, there were pieces of the puzzle missing, and that's why these people weren't getting as good of results as they possibly could. And so I made it my mission to build a program that had all 3. And I want to give some more examples of this. Let's take Weight Watchers, for example. Okay, cool. Maybe you have some nutrition help with Weight Watchers, but the accountability is meh, and there certainly wasn't any workouts. So if you failed your Weight Watchers journey before, it's not because you suck or you're lazy or you just can't stick with anything. It's because the plan is not set up in a way for you to see progress, sustainable progress. And you might be thinking, well, I was trying to do workouts on my own. Yeah, but that's like Trying to piece together different parts of the puzzle that don't actually go together. You need something that is going to have all three components in one. And again, I'll you know I said this before, but the the gym personal trainer—we have a lot of clients come to us who maybe tried you know personal training in a gym. But again, personal training in a gym is expensive. It's a hundred bucks, hundred and fifty bucks a week, and that's only. For the workouts. That's no nutrition and no outside accountability. So if you tried that and like maybe you were working out, but like you didn't really see that much progress, or maybe when you stopped you didn't keep the weight off, well, it's because there were pieces of the puzzle missing. So we really try to educate people, and I hope this is resonating for you. It's not that you suck, it's the plan. that you were following. I don't even want to say it sucked. It just wasn't a complete program that is going to allow you to see results in the long run. And maybe you were having a trainer and maybe you were trying to get some nutrition help, but you had no real accountability, like nobody actually giving a fuck about you and— excuse me— checking in on your workouts, checking in on your nutrition, helping you through the weekends. Like, maybe you've never had that. Trust me, a lot of people have never had that. It's one of the reasons why coaching is so important. So that's the first part of it. You don't suck and you're not lazy. I get this. I hear this all the time. I'm just lazy. No, you're not. You work full time. You have multiple kids. You have a social life. You're married like you're not fucking lazy. It's just the plan that you're on isn't matching what you need to see results. And that's the second part of all of this. So not only was the plan you were working with Not right. It's also not personalized to you. And this is, you know, what I want to dive into now is once we establish that with the self-efficacy, we dig into the real reason why they're not following the plan. If someone's not following a plan, there's always a reason. And most people, coaches and clients alike, Most people think of this as there's an excuse. You have an excuse to why you're not following the plan. Okay, I get where you're coming from, but from a coaching perspective, once we say this is an excuse, somebody's gonna get defensive and say, hey, fucker, like, I do have a full-time job. I have kids. I have to wake up early. I go to bed late. I have all these things I have to do. Like, This is just the reason why I'm not doing this. And then that client is going to get defensive and they're going to say, fuck this person, they don't understand me, or I can't do this if I, if I can't dedicate this amount of time, or if I can't do this with my meal prep, clearly it's just my fault and I can't do it. And what does that do? That sends them down a path of continued low self-efficacy, low motivation, low drive, not even actually believing you can do something and quitting. So we don't look at it as excuses. Excuses also bring up a lot of guilt and shame. We just look at it as reasons. There is a reason that you're not following the plan. There's a reason you're not hitting your calories. And our job as coaches is to uncover that reason without judgment. It's our job to figure out why. Like, and we almost take like a childlike curiosity. It's like, why are we not hitting the plan? Why are we not hitting the calories? Why are we not tracking the calories? Why are the workouts not getting done? It's not like, why are the workouts not getting done? That's not fucking helpful. We take the approach of like, legit, what's going on? Is it Because maybe 2 or 3 months ago, you could commit to 4 times a week, 60-minute workouts because of the way your schedule is set up. But now life changed a little bit. Maybe you're going back to school, maybe it's summer, maybe X, Y, and Z, you have a different job, your husband, her wife has a different job, different schedule, your kids are in different sports. And now 4 times a week, 60-minute workouts isn't working for you. So maybe you need to go to 3 times a week, 30-minute workouts. There's a reason you're not following the plan. And if we can just get to the reason, we can help you adjust the plan to help you still remain consistent, stay on track, and still make great progress. We're not just gonna sit here and say, I have a 4 times a week, 60-minute plan and my client's not following it. It's like, hey, dumb fuck, why don't you change the fucking plan to allow it to adapt to their lifestyle right now? And here's the other part too that we know as great coaches, which by the way, I'm just gonna say it. I mean, it is what it is. We are the best coaching company in the world. I don't care. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna keep saying it. We're the best. If you want help, In your journey, click the link in the show notes of this podcast. I know for a fact we can help you out. This— the stuff I'm talking about, this is just scratching the surface of what we do as coaches on a daily basis. So that being said, now that the client's life has changed, you have to adapt with them. If it's not working, you have to find a plan that is going to work for them because I'm under the belief that people want to be successful. Nobody wants to fail. Are you fucking stupid? Nobody wants to fail. You don't want to fail. You don't want to sign up for coaching and be like, oh man, I can't wait to fail at this. Nobody does that. Or you're like, oh, I can't wait to just like not lose weight forever. Nobody does that. You want to be successful, but it comes down to having the right plan to do that. And it's our job as coaches. Once we figure out the reason why we're not sticking to the plan, we can help make adjustments around that, whether that be actually adjusting the plan, whether it be mental adjustments, like maybe your nutrition plan. Maybe you have no time to cook in the morning and you're on a plan that requires you to, you know, cook 45-minute breakfast in the morning. Well, that's not gonna fucking work. Or maybe there is. You have to, you know, you're having trouble tracking your calories. Okay, why are we having trouble tracking our calories? Well, the day just gets really busy and like I just, it just kind of gets away from me. And then I get to the end of the night and I haven't tracked anything. So now I feel like a failure and I have no clue where my calories are at. So I just kind of say fuck it. And then I try to restart tomorrow, but the same thing keeps happening. Okay, that's a reason. That's not an excuse. I just— I didn't make time for it. I'm making excuses. Keep saying that and keep not making progress if that's what you want. But there's a reason why it's happening. So that reason— okay, cool. The day is really crazy busy for you. How about this? How about the night before when you're on your phone normally scrolling TikTok or Instagram? Why don't we take 5 or 10 minutes, pre-track our day's worth of calories for the next day? Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. What are you gonna eat? How much are you gonna eat? What's the portion sizes to hit your overall calories for that day? So that way, the next day when you wake up, you don't have to do anything with your food tracking and calorie tracking. It's already there, and you already have a plan that you know is gonna get you the calories you need to get. So there's no guesswork, and there's no time spent tracking. You go through that day, that night, pre-track again for the next day. And that's a way to solve that problem of not sticking to the plan. Is this making sense? So there's reasons, you guys, and whether you join us for coaching or not, obviously, I think you're going to see much faster progress and much less guesswork, and we can help you along the way if you do join coaching. Link in the show notes of the podcast. But even if you don't, I would try to just unemotionally figure out the reason why you're not doing something. And once you get to that reason, you just reverse engineer the plan from that. That's— that really is what we do with coaching. The issue here is most people are so caught up in the guilt and the shame and I'm lazy and I suck and I just can't do this. Their self-efficacy is so low, they never even give themselves the opportunity to actually find the real reason. So that's a massive part of what we do in coaching. And you know, again, diving a little bit more in depth on that, removing guilt and shame. Anytime you're having guilt or shame or feeling negative about yourself, that blocks you from logically thinking about the reason and the solution. You'll never get to the solution when you are so emotionally caught up in what's going on right now. So once you remove that guilt and shame, remove the negative emotions— I'm not saying don't have them. Everybody has emotions. We're fucking human. But you just accept, okay, this is how I'm feeling. But now that I accept that, what am I going to do? What is the real reason? Why can't I stay consistent? What is going on? What is the hardest part? This is something we ask our clients all the time when we're having, you know, check-ins and back and forth. I'm like, what feels hard about this? Because once you figure out what feels hard and difficult and challenging, okay, you can make a plan to then make it a little bit easier on yourself. I'm not saying it's just gonna be sunshine and rainbows, but there are ways you can make it feel easier. And if it feels easier, you will do it. And if you do it, you will stay consistent and see progress. So really try to get to the real root of the problem. Don't just say you suck or you're lazy. All right. So that right there is gold, you guys. I'm telling you, like, when I truly figured that out and was able to help my clients through that, I'm telling you the results I got, people fucking skyrocketed. So I really hope you get that. Now, another part of this that I want to talk about, which is Not— it was one of the hardest things for me to accept as a coach and understand as a coach. And that is the fact that not everyone is ready to change right now. And there's something called the transtheoretical model of behavior change. And without getting too in-depth on it, there's different stages of change. So like, for example, the first stage is essentially just like Not even knowing you need to change. The second stage is kind of like denial. The third stage is like, okay, cool, I'm aware that I need to change, but I haven't taken any action on it. The fourth stage is you're aware, you've taken action, and now you're like in the action stage. And then you either get to the fifth stage, which is changing and maintaining, or you have a quote-unquote relapse and you go back to stage 2 or 3. Right. So that being said, it's really hard to understand sometimes, like, maybe you might not be ready to change. And I know I just kind of talked about, like, I believe everybody can change. And I'm going to talk about an example of this in a second. But I think you have to be very honest with yourself. Like, and this is where I also think the emotion and the guilt and the shame come into play. Or the fear comes into play, emotions in general. You know, I'm not gonna say his name, but there was an individual who reached out to me for coaching. And, you know, he needed help. Like, he, he still does. I don't know if he's gonna sign up or not, but he needs help bad. And he's afraid of failing. He's afraid of Signing up and, well, what if this happens? And what if that doesn't happen? And what if this happens? And I'll be honest with you, I'm— I, I like lose sleep over this stuff because to me it's not just about signing up a person for coaching. Like, this dude needs fucking help. He's not living a good quality life. And I put a lot of responsibility on myself Like, I need to help that person. And I wasn't equipped to say the right things or show him the right way to work around those fears to get him to sign up so we could help him. And like I said, I legit like lose sleep over this. Like, I'll wake up in the middle of the night like thinking about what I should have said differently or what I can do, say tomorrow or whatever the case may be. And all this to say, he Hasn't signed up yet because he's afraid. And, you know, maybe he's just not ready to change. And that's a possibility. And that's very, very hard for me to accept. But I think you have to get honest with yourself. Like, are you ready to change? Do you want to keep living the life you've been living? Do you want to keep going down the same path you've been going down? Do you want to keep gaining 10, 20, 30 more pounds? Do you want to keep hiding from pictures? Do you want to keep skipping out on family vacations because you don't like how you look or feel? You have to be honest with yourself if you're ready to change. Some people aren't, and it's upsetting. But I think that's why I make the content that I do, is to try to push you closer and closer and closer to being ready, to saying like, you know what, fuck it. Yeah, I am ready. Let's go. Let's fucking do this. So that being said, not everybody's ready to change. But I do think you've probably heard this analogy: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make the horse drink. And it's true. There is truth to that. But I do think you can lead a horse to water. And if you dehydrate it, and if you salt its mouth, it's almost guaranteed to drink. And the PETA people are going to be all mad at me. Oh, you shouldn't talk about that. You get what I'm fucking saying. In other words, I believe we as coaches can do things to increase readiness, to increase awareness. Even I'm talking to you right now. Like, to me, I find this very logical and very simple. And I'm just going to use coaching as the example, but you could— anything, signing up for a gym membership, You know, getting your nutrition in check, whatever. If you sign up for coaching, more good things will happen. You will lose weight quicker. You will have less overwhelm. You have less frustration. Your clothes will fit better. You will have more energy. Good things will happen. If you do not sign up for coaching, you will gain more weight. You will keep being frustrated. You will keep being disappointed in yourself. You will keep hiding from pictures. You will not be able to fit into your clothes. You have to keep buying new clothes. Sign up, more good stuff, less bad stuff. Don't sign up, less good stuff, more bad stuff. It's simple. It's very simple. And I think you need to— I think the more we can simplify our lives in general and take emotions out of the equations, not to say they're not going to be there, like I said, you're going to have them, but take them out of the decision-making equations. I think that will increase readiness. I think that will increase logically being ready to change and being willing to see past the guilt and the shame, being willing to see past I suck, I'm lazy. No, no, no. There's a reason. All right. What's the reason? How do I figure it out? So I think all of these things play a role, you guys. And again, that's how we approach it with our clients. You know, we've coached over 25,000 people successfully with their transformations. I think we have a good track record that works, and I really hope you got something from this podcast that will help you. So just reiterate a couple key points. It's not about laziness. You don't suck. Past failures usually lacked the 3 main parts of a good solid plan. Always dig into why you're struggling without judgment. What are the reasons? Remove guilt, find realistic solutions, and boost self-efficacy. And whether you're a coach or trying to get results yourself, the key is adjustment without shame because that's where the true magic will lie for you to get the results you're looking for. Guys, I really hope this podcast was helpful to you. If you are interested in coaching with myself and my team, click the link in the show notes of this podcast. We would love To be able to help you. Again, to us, coaching is not just, here's a workout plan, here's a meal plan, go have fun. It's so much more in-depth than that. It's adjusting to your personal goals and your personal life. It's getting a more personalized solution. It's holding you accountable. It's being able to help you remove the guilt and shame so you can see things a bit more clearly. I can see clearly now. The rain is gone. So if you want to check it out, link in the show notes of the podcast. And last but not least, if you enjoyed The episode, please do your boy a solid, leave a 5-star rating and review. It's the only way the show grows. And if you don't leave a review, other people won't get help. So please take a second out of your day. It would mean the world to me. Thank you so much for listening, and we will chat next time.