It has been more than ten years since I started Custom Body Fitness. We are continuing to grow with a third location now. The biggest reason Custom Body Fitness is growing is because we care about our members and delivering results to them.
This is the key: If people see results — weight loss and body toning — they recommend us to their friends, and their friends come to us, get results and recommend more people. This can only tell you one thing: We know a lot about weight loss and body toning.
Here I am going to reveal the main reasons we are special and deliver results to our members, so you can apply them into your life and get the same results.
Weight loss and body toning...
I know many people focus on exercise, diet, the current fad, products, supplements and many other strategies. However, if any of what I am going to disclose in this article is not applied, your weight loss will not happen, or if it happens, it will be temporary.
If you want real weight loss results, want to feel like a million dollar person and want your body to be attractive, then these steps are for you to follow. I call it the CBF way.
A burning desire to lose weight…
When many of our members come to us for help, they are not sure if they want to lose weight. It might sound a little counterintuitive, but many are not sure if they want to lose weight. Let’s put it this way: Everyone wants an athletic and attractive body, but not everyone is willing to pay the price for it. It is true exercising is not easy, eating healthily is not easy, fighting your negative you is not easy, waking up early and investing time and money in your health is not easy. It is much easier buying a car, watching television, buying fast food and being comfortable than doing what it takes to change your body.
This is why a burning desire is so important. When our new members come to see us, the first thing I want to know is how committed they are. Once I find out his or her desire to lose weight, my job is to help our new member get even more excited about it and understand that the changes he or she is making are more worthwhile than not changing and bring more pleasure than the life they are having at the moment.
In the first place, the reason our new member came to see us is because he or she is already in a level of discomfort. Helping our new member see his or her enjoyable future by visualizing the changes he or she is going to make will also add to the burning desire.
So the first step is to make sure your desire is strong enough to stick with your weight loss program. You can boost your desire by thinking about all the pain your overweight situation is bringing you, including all the superficial stuff that many of us are scared to accept. Yes, if your clothes do not fit you, think about the pain; if you can’t buy the clothes you want to wear because they don’t fit you correctly, think about the pain; if you are tired of being out of shape and embarrassed of getting tired quickly, think about the pain; if your life depends on a medicine, think about the pain; if you don’t like the way you see yourself in the mirror, think about the pain; if you don’t have time (or at least that’s what you tell yourself when really you don’t have the energy) to play with your children, think about the pain. You want to think about all the negative things your present life is bringing you. Depressing? True, that is what you need to think about to give you the courage to change to a better life when you are ready to give up.
In addition you want to think about your future if you don’t change. How will your life be? The same? Worse? Are you going to be heavier? More out of shape? Sick and ill? Wearing bigger clothes? Think about what is the worst that can happen if you don’t change. Now you want to think about how your life will be if you do change. How many pounds will you lose: 10, 20, 30, 40? How will clothes fit you? Are you going to be active and do what you’ve always wanted? Are you saving money on insurance and medication? Feeling younger? Feeling attractive? Are you playing with your children?
Last month I assessed one of our members. He started emotionally crying, and it touched my heart. He said to me that his children told him that now he plays with them. Our member said to me that he felt so happy and at the same time he felt sad, because he did not know how his being out of shape was affecting his children’s lives. He wasted a lot of time by not doing this before. However, now he is happy because he has the energy to enjoy time with his children.
It does not matter what program you do — if you don’t have a burning desire to lose weight, you’re never going to make it.
Commit and don’t look back…
We are people who like things fast and easy. This is why so many companies sell us things that promise fast and easy results without actually giving real results. I hope by now you understand that none of these is real. Otherwise, being overweight wouldn’t be an issue for so many people. I can get into details and research and so on, but if it’s still not clear to you, I recommend you stop reading and continue trying easy and fast solutions for your lifelong problem.
Weight loss requires a lifestyle change. Depending on how great you want to look and feel, you need to make changes accordingly. You need to remember why it’s important to you to lose weight. We go back to our burning desire. That will give you the power to understand that what seems hard for you now, one day will be easy and you will do it automatically. Wherever you are changing — your eating habits, your human relations, your sedentary life, your drinking, your way of thinking, the time you wake up — keep in mind that it’s not for only a couple of months. You need to do it for life. This is a new you, and it will bring you a new body.
Commit and don’t look back, stop thinking about the short-term pleasures you used to enjoy by sleeping longer, the glass of wine you had every night, the chips you ate when watching TV, the negative people who never came to exercise with you and invite you just to waste your time, and start thinking about your future, your desire.
Set up ambitious, clear goals and be patient…
People who think small get small things; people who think big get a lot more than people who think small. Now that you have a burning desire to lose weight, and you are not looking back to the old you, setting ambitious goals won’t be difficult for you since you know that you will get there.
Your goals must be clear and concrete. For example, “I will lose 50 pounds by December 2020” (assuming you started on January 2020). Set your daily behaviors: What days are you exercising? What time of day? For how long? How are you tracking your progress? Where are you progressing? What is your eating schedule? What foods are you avoiding? What are your best foods? What internal fights are you having? What are you drinking and not drinking? What are you cooking? What are you buying? Where are you buying from? How many times are you going out with your friends? Your body can only change when you become consistent with your new habits. Your body will not change if you only set goals without making these new goals part of your life.
You can obtain only what you can see and feel. If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll never get there. If you’re sailing and you have no destination, the wind will take you in the direction it’s blowing. If you have a destination when you are sailing, chances are you’ll end up at the destination because you will move the sails accordingly. The same happens in your life. When you feel like it, you will do it when you’re not sure what the goal is, but if you have a goal that you follow every day, chances are that you will follow it.
Your change won’t happen overnight, just like eating fast food and junk food did not add up to being overweight overnight. It takes time, and every step will get you closer. The key is not to stop moving forward or step back. Just like it took you time to add those extra 30 pounds, it will take you time and effort to undo the damage.
Clear goals and patience is necessary. There is no rush. The key here is to start thinking about the new you, not about results. You need to transform your thinking and your actions, and your body will follow. If you do this superficially, soon you will end up where you started.
Strong mind and strong body…
One thing I promise our members when they sign up is that they should not be afraid to exercise with us. We don’t compete, it won’t be difficult to the point they will puke or feel bad or not up to the task. When they finish, they usually tell me that it was just right for them. It was not easy or hard. It was just right. However, after three months of being with us some of our members tell me that it seems like it never gets easier, to which I respond, “Remember when you started? Could you do a lunge?”
“No, I lost my balance, and I could not complete a set.”
“How are you doing in your lunges now?”
“They are hard, but I am doing all my sets with a 30-pound dumbbell in each hand.”
“So let me explain it to you. You will agree with me that if you go back to doing the lunges without weights, they will be easy.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so it had gotten easier. It is just that we make it difficult for you again. Now your work tasks are easier, you can ride faster, you have more energy, you are losing weight, you are independent and carry your own luggage, you sleep better, you are leading when cycling with your friends and your pants fit nicely. That is thanks to how hard your workout is.”
Your workout should never be easy. It should always be a challenge. It is only an hour. Do not make it impossible to do it, but never fall into the comfortable zone. That is where most people want to be, and that’s why they don’t get results. This is my job, helping you get out of your comfort zone.
You need to work on your mental strength to make your body strong. You mind dictates your body not your body your mind. Once your mind is in the right state, your body will follow and results will come.
Strong mind and strong body follows. The other way reads weak mind and weak body. Challenge your beliefs.
Before they came to Custom Body Fitness many of our members tried many other ways to lose weight without long-lasting results. I don’t blame them. There is a lot of misleading information about weight loss that they put their faith in, believing what others have to say about weight loss even though they don’t know what they’re talking about.
We choose to believe that the easy and fast way will work. This is why so many people continue trying easy ways to lose weight. In addition to this, many professionals are not willing to teach their members what it takes to lose weight. They take the easy path to train people, taking their money without doing the effort of confronting them with the truth or delivering results.
In short, whatever you choose to believe has become part of you, and to contradict such beliefs is difficult. If the doctor says that contraceptives do not contribute to weight gain, we just go with the belief without researching, and such beliefs become truth to us.
Challenging any belief is not easy. However, if we have tried many similar ways of losing weight and they have not worked, maybe trying what scares us is the key.
Challenge your beliefs by getting out of your comfort zone and do research from many sources. Always question the information you’re getting and put the information into practice to get different results.
Surround yourself with the right people and support system…
Interviewing people I learned that many of us focus on calories in and calories out, dieting, exercising, will power, level of exertion and other things that matter less. What matters the most are lifestyle changes that are in our daily reach and power.
For example, your mindset, beliefs and daily behaviors are bigger contributions than exercise and the food you are eating. The same goes with the people who you hang out with. If the people who you spend time with like to eat fast food when they are together, go out and drink often, stay home watching movies, they don’t exercise or cook at home and are negative, chances are that you are having difficulty adhering to your weight loss program. I really don’t like to say this, but at this level, you need to choose your new lifestyle or your friends.
That does not mean that you are a bad friend. Your friends are welcome to join you in the weight-loss journey, and you can support them as they support you, but if they are not willing to change, you will fail.
Hanging out with people who have the same or similar objectives as you will be one of the biggest factors to stick to your weight loss program for life.
This is why surrounding yourself with the right people and support program is so critical and more important than other factors that will come naturally when you have the right people and support around you.
Meditating…
Many people are not familiar with meditation. They think it’s for only weird people or people who want to control their stress and that there is not enough time for it. Other tasks are more important than meditation. Like I mentioned before, everything starts in your mind, and if your mind is well-trained and it can see what you want clearly, the chance for you to succeed in your weight loss program is higher.
Taking only 10 minutes to think how great you want to look and going over all the details of your plan in your head will program your brain to stick to your goal and desire. Meditation can make doing what’s required to lose weight a habit.
Mediation is exercising your mind and making it stronger, just like you would exercise any muscle of the body.
Change your life. Weight loss is only the beginning. Apply what you know in other areas…
Getting motivated is easy. Being disciplined is the hard part. When you are motivated you can do almost anything, but when your motivation is over, you need to be disciplined.
Many people come motivated to lose 100 pounds in one month, wanting to do everything for a couple of months, not knowing or ignoring that they will burn out. Other people think that they need to put all their time into the healthy lifestyle to get results, and they think it’s impossible when they have other responsibilities like work and family.
Weight loss is a change of a life of bad habits to one of healthy habits. It does not require all your time and life. As a matter of fact, your income, your family, your spirit and your profession directly or indirectly contribute to your weight loss. Balance your life and apply the same concepts you are applying in weight loss in other areas of your life. Or the other way around, if you are very successful with your family or career, apply such habits to your weight loss program.
Change your life. Weight loss is only the beginning. Apply what you know in other areas of your life taking your life to the next level and becoming extraordinary (extra ordinary).
Continue your education…
There is much to learn and so little time, and we all can invest just so much time to what we want. While I do have many answers to weight loss and I do help a lot of our members psychologically, there is only so much I can do. The way I help people and I communicate many times is not what the receiver needs to hear to change or take his or her weight loss program to the next level.
We are all in different learning channels, and many times listening to the same thing over and over again in a different form or channel is what we need to change and deliver real results. We’re never going to know it all. Make continuing learning a duty to improve your life.
Continuing your education is just like exercising, listening to your significant other, delivering results in your business, or giving your car an oil change. Everything needs maintenance for it to continue working and progressing. There is no other way to get real results.
This is how we do it at Custom Body Fitness. Nothing from Mars or another planet, no secrets, no lies or easy and fast ways, just become disciplined, dedicated and have passion in life.
Custom Body Fitness is located in Glenwood Springs CO, Carbondale CO and Basalt CO