“I Swear I Never Eat This”

Back when I lived in PB and coached most of the classes from 2011 – 2015, I was a frequent visitor of the local establishments. Fried fish tacos, California burritos, the occasional decadent ice cream sandwich. I am by no means a glutton but I’m also pretty transparent that I don’t live what many would deem a crazy strict nutritional lifestyle (80/20 approach for me). If it’s Saturday, I am most likely going to eat something uncompromisingly delicious. Without a doubt, whenever I would run into a gym member I coached they would invariably feel the need to pre-empt our conversation by saying, “Oh my gosh this is so embarrassing I swear I never eat this!”

First, false. You’re lying. And second, I always wanted to place my hands on their shoulders, look them square in the eye and say, “I don’t give a shit.”

I like my level of fitness and I like how I look (mostly), but there are many coaches who are stronger and leaner than I am, so if you want to call me out, you’d be well within your rights. Yet, I’ve never been the type to want to make people feel as though they were caught in the act committing some atrocity of enjoying their life. In fact, I’d take it a step further and say if more fitness professionals exemplified sustainable choices and balance, more people would be in for the long game versus the impossible “win now” mentality we’re all subconsciously taught. It’s the very rigid nature that many fit pros feel they need to perpetuate in order to be accepted as a person of fitness that loses many people just as they are getting started. Your mind would be blown with how many fitness professionals have disordered eating or base their life around how they will look in their next Instagram post. Some are the absolute last person you want to take lifestyle advice from.

As members of this gym, we expect your effort. We except your general self respect for your own health and well being (and if you’re a nutritional client, we expect your commitment). But at the end of the day, we also expect for you to keep your commitment to things that make you happy, and we’re never going to be the place that overloads a mindset of rigidity and compromises your ability to have a healthy relationship with us. Our aim is to convert your mindset from win now to win slowly, to keep winning.

“Long term consistency trumps short term intensity.”

-Dave