What lies below is a direct cut-and-paste of an email form one of my clients named Lesley, who after some serious work, achieved some spectacular results. Some might even call it a tear-jerker, but I simply call it life changing… because after you’re done reading this, you will walk away a different person from when you started. Count on it.
“There are times in life when decisions are crystal clear. Like the day we buried my father. To this day, 15 years later, I can still remember the precise thought as the first shovel of dirt hit his urn, that I had a choice; to bury my sadness and grief and fill the cavernous void he left by dying, with alcohol and drugs so I wouldn’t feel. Or I could find a way to channel that hurt and one day be okay. And just like that the choice was made…I would find a way to channel it.
Other decisions aren’t so clear.
Like the decision to face what that something which is fucking you up every day. The choice to stop and look at why you have the habits you have, what formed them, why you’re comfortable in them and then decide to take someone else’s advice to change them.
It’s not clear because then you have to face the fact that the habits you formed haven’t been good for you.
That the knowledge you’ve gained and have been employing has been wrong for the 5, 10 or 15 years you’ve been using them. Anyone who says there’s no emotion in training is wrong. I agree that there shouldn’t be ego in training. I agree that when you approach the bar you need to be humble. You need to take your time. It’s a patient teacher. It never wavers and it will crush you if you think you’re better than it.
So the first lesson to learn is to take ego out of it. But if emotion flows, well, sometimes shit just comes out.
I know that without the bar, lifting heavy and running hard I would be in a mental institution or worse. There’s a huge psychological effect when training. It’s an incredible mental release. It’s a lesson in discipline, humility, personal celebration and introspection. Training allows you to stop stuffing your face with food to numb whatever you’re your trying to hide from.
I learned ages ago, in counselling, from reading self-help books, that if you don’t acknowledge something you can’t change it. If you don’t accept and deal with pain and you don’t stop to understand that you are a product of the pain you regenerate day after day of not dealing with it, that it’s going to come out in other places.
Her dream was to do a professional photoshoot once she reached her goals. I’d say she did a fantastic job
That eating based on emotion is just an outward manifestation of what’s going on inside. So the lesson is that one needs to acknowledge what is happening in order to make it different and better. Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. That’s an easy concept to understand but a hard one to put into practice. For years I lied to myself about what I was hiding from. I still do it because there are some things I just don’t want to face. Not brave enough yet, I guess.
But there are other times, when someone comes into your life and smacks your shit up that you get spun so fast, things start to change before you can even THINK of controlling the direction you’re spinning in.
My decision to contact Coach Sahil was a passive one. I read his article about Slimband, loved it, and thought “what the hell, I’ll contact him. I doubt he’ll get back to me though”.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was superficial at first. Odd even. I had never trained online before, never put my trust in someone I hadn’t met, never thought the method of uploading my stats, workouts and meal logs would work because seriously – how could a trainer know how I’m doing without SEEING me.
And so, a month into the program, I bailed.
It wasn’t something I was comfortable with. It wasn’t known. And that’s everyone’s problem. That’s why you’re sitting on the couch reading this from your computer, lamenting that you’re out of shape, how did I get so fat…and then you justify the shit out of your habits and say things like: “I don’t eat properly because I don’t have time to cook right; it’s too expensive to buy good food; I’m too busy and pre-packaged meals are just as good; It says low fat; But it’s Weight Watchers; I have to get in shape before I go to the gym; oh I can’t run I have bad knees; I can’t lift I have a bad back; I don’t have time to work out; I can’t afford a personal trainer/equipment/gym membership; I don’t want to get bulky (ladies please stop this); I’ve worked hard for this keg pack (men)”
Fuck all that! Pardon my French, I’m classy I promise ;)
What I listed above were the very thoughts that went through my mind. All those excuses for your poor habits are just outward manifestations of shit you don’t want to deal with. You are where you are because it’s comfortable.
It’s the reason I went back to my old gym after a month of Sahil’s tough love. It was like slipping into an old pair of jeans “welcome back friendly fatty…we’ll love you here and encourage you to stay in your comfort zone because we know how hard change is” and I stayed there for another month, tracking my workouts and meals because I still had faith in Sahil’s methods, but I didn’t want to fully commit because I was stubborn and stupid and he was decent enough to help my sorry ass with nutrition and educate me along the way.
I don’t know when the clarity came. I can’t pinpoint the exact date and time and pin it to a specific event like I can my dad’s funeral. But it came. Hard. And when it did I remember coming back to Sahil and “talking” to him about it (it was a novel of an email) and asking if I could train with him again.
His message back to me was inspirational, full of fire, and made so much sense I was stunned I could have been so foolish…all because I wanted to be comfortable and didn’t want to be pushed. I still have his response, a year later, that’s how much it made an impact.
How do you thank someone who changed your life? How do you let them know how grateful you are for the patience they had when you were breaking, discouraged, frustrated, angry, disgusted and didn’t WANT to train any more, didn’t WANT to eat properly any more, just wanted to give up because it was easier to grab some junk and just numb your way through it all instead of pushing yourself to BE BETTER?
How do you let them know how much you appreciate them believing in you? The man says he likes scotch…I’m sure I can manage a bottle or two. But more than that I would want to reach as many people as I can to tell them that HE’S WORTH IT (and not just in a L’Oreal sort of way)
He’s the real deal and he’ll get you the results you want because he knows what works!
You just have to stop being so stubborn, stupid and comfortable. Drop your ego at the door and take a lesson…REALLY learn something because it is LIFE CHANGING. Don’t be scared of being uncomfortable, being pushed, being told your habits and ideas are wrong.
Be terrified of staying where you are. Be terrified of remaining stagnant. Just start… his company is called HARDCORE Training Solutions for a reason – because this is where excuses or whining come to die. He got me the results I wanted, and I love him for it. Thank you Coach Sahil. You’ve changed my life. Mentally and physically!”
-Lesley Unger
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