Imagine this…

You’re in the best shape of your life right now. You feel amazing, and your confidence is at an all time high. Because of this, you’re able to bring a better version of yourself to every area of your life – business, your relationships, your downtime.

You truly feel like a different person.

We’re painting this picture in your head because I want you to understand how much my own transformation changed me, and how much you’re capable of changing following in my footsteps.

This is my 9 month transformation (June 2018-March 2019).

As you can see, I’m NOT the person who’s naturally lean and strong. In fact, when this transformation started people were literally emailing the gym I worked at, saying I didn’t look like I worked out.

The emails didn’t bother me. But they did get me thinking…

“If I really want to inspire thousands of other people to build the best versions of themselves… shouldn’t I be practicing what I preach?”

Everything I do is centered around helping you become the best version of yourself. Seeing others find excitement, confidence and fulfillment in life IS the thing that makes me most excited and fulfilled. 

^I’d know this for a few years… but this was the first time I’d correlated looking a certain way with  impacting thousands more lives.

This realization started a crazy transformation for my body, my mindset, my business… really my whole life.

I’ve broken down what I did over this 9 month time-frame into 10 simple steps you can follow to build a leaner, stronger, and more confident version of yourself.

STEP 1: Learn Your Why

Listen, no one ever makes a crazy transformation without a powerful why.

I realized (as shallow as it seems), until I “looked the part”, I would never be able to create the change I wanted in the world.

I thought about looking back on my life in 20 years, and being disappointed… I could’ve helped so many people become better version of themselves… I could’ve lived a much more fulfilling life, and accomplished so many of my dreams… but I was too lazy to fit the role.

^This thought terrified me, and made me realize I had to change.

You might be able to relate. Have you had trouble creating change in your life?

It all comes down to pain.

It’s easy for us to see how uncomfortable it is to change, without weighing how painful life will be if we don’t change.

Some powerful questions for you to consider:

What is NOT changing costing you?

• What experiences are you missing out on with family and friends?
  
• Are you less confident?
  
• Is it affecting your mental state?
  
• Your relationships?
• Your business?

Now ask yourself – How will you feel about your life 20 years from now?

Looking back, will you be able to say that you lived as your best, most confident self… or wasted potential?

I talk new online clients through this on our initial strategy call. It’s a crucial part of why my clients crush it – they know why they have to change.

STEP 2: Get Clear On What You Want

Next, I got clarity on exactly what I wanted.

You know that helping people get leaner, stronger, and more confident is my thing.

I realized if I wanted to help as many people as possible achieve this, I first had to be the living picture of what you can expect to achieve working with me as an online client.

The mistake most people make is throwing out blanket statements like “I want to get in shape.”

How do we know exactly when you’ve arrived there? How do we measure your progress? How do you define “in-shape”?

BE SPECIFIC WITH YOUR GOALS.

I established: “I know I’ve achieved the result I want when I can count 5 visible veins in my abs.”

A huge part of the initial strategy call and in-depth lifestyle questionnaire I send you when you start online coaching is getting hyper clear on exactly what you want. This allows me to reverse engineer and establish a timeline for your transformation, the progress you need to see weekly, when to adjust your plan, and the specific steps you need to take daily – it allows us to create a plan fit specifically to you.

STEP 3: Redesign Your Environment

At the start of this transformation, I was working out at the same gym I trained clients at. I loved my clients, but whenever I tried to train, I had strong associations with feeling lethargic, and was often interrupted by members of the gym that needed help.

This environment wasn’t conducive to building the body & life I wanted, so I changed it.

I got a membership at a gym across town, where I didn’t know anyone. With the new environment, the lethargic feelings I associated with training were gone. It was much easier for me to work my ass off.

Familiar environments trigger habits. (E.g. starting training in my old gym and immediately feeling lethargic.)

You can briefly use willpower to “do better”, but you’ll eventually fall back to our old habits. Your environment controls your habits, and your habits control your life.

A major focus in online coaching is teaching you how to completely rework your habits and environment to set yourself up for success. This article teaches you tons on how I help you redesign your environment and build new habits.

STEP 4: Get Accountability

I knew motivation would ebb and flow, so I decided to increase the pain of staying the same even more by investing in a coach.

When you invest in a coach, the fear of letting some you deeply respect and want to impress down, along with the potential of a financial investment going to waste makes NOT accomplishing what you want even more painful.

Hiring a coach got me consistent as hell with all of the things that I knew I needed to be doing.

When you’re an online client, you’ll hear me say all the time…

“There is no secret outside of us getting you really damn consistent with your nutrition & training.”

It doesn’t take overly complex macro splits, or training 7 days per week to build the body and confidence you want – it just takes consistency with a smart strategy.

Accountability creates consistency. This is exactly why I still have a coach 1.5 years later. If you’re ready to change, I highly recommend doing the same.

STEP 5: Have Fun With Your Training

Have you been following the same training program (or worse, no program) for months… or even years?

While what you’re doing might not be bad, it’s also probably not fun, engaging, or stimulating.

This is where I was.

When someone else started writing my training programs, I was having so much fun in the gym with new movements and styles of training, I pushed myself a lot harder. As a result of this and my nutrition being on point, I was able to build a lot of lean muscle and lose fat simultaneously.

I didn’t follow a crazy complex plan (Upper/Lower Split 4x/week + 2 cardio days), but I loved it and was consistent.

More fun, paired with the confidence what you’re doing in the gym will give you the exact results you want makes a night and day difference as a client.

STEP 6: Prioritize Your Nutrition

The gym is where you create the stress stress for build lean muscle and strength.

Your nutrition is where the nutrients come from that fuel your recovery and actually let you progress. It’s also where most of your fat loss comes from.

Problem is, most people focus strictly on training, and forget nutrition entirely.

Big mistake. Nutrition is 50% of the equation when it comes to building lean muscle and strength, and 90% of the equation when it comes to getting leaner.

Hiring a coach got me super consistent with my nutrition. I stopped saying screw it on the weekends or when I didn’t feel like tracking, because I had someone holding me accountable.

This is exactly why educating you on how to manipulate your nutrition to create your leanest, strongest, and most confident self and maintain your results in sustainable, flexible lifestyle is my primary goal as a coach. For more on how to set up your nutrition for any goal, check out this article.

STEP 7: Get Organized

This transformation coincided with the most stressful and busy time in my life. (Being busy isn’t an excuse ;)).  A few months in to the process, I quite my job at the gym to go all-in on my online business.

The first few weeks, I was a mess – my gym-time was taking away from what I needed to do at work, and vice-versa.

I wasn’t hitting my macros, I was missing workouts, and I was less productive at work than I needed to be.

If you’re like me or most of the awesome people I coach, you probably keep “running out of time to eat healthy” or “running out of time to go to the gym”.

The solution is to get more organized – this saves you a lot of time and gets you better results.

• I started planning out exactly when I would workout each day, during a time when I knew I wouldn’t be distracted by work.
• I planned a time to meal-prep weekly, so “not having time” to cook healthy wouldn’t be an issue anymore.

These two simple steps made an INSANE difference in my results (and productivity). A huge part of what I do now as your coach is hold you accountable to getting more organized so you quit “running out of time”.

STEP 8: Sleep

I was getting 5-6 hours of sleep per night the few years before this transformation.

Work, alcohol, friends, relationships… lots of excuses. Really, I just wasn’t making sleep a big enough priority.

Without adequate sleep, your body won’t be able to recover fully – so you won’t build lean muscle or get stronger from your training.

Plus, you’ll move less, won’t push as hard in the gym, your hunger hormone levels will increase, and you’ll have a harder time saying “no” to foods that don’t serve your goals – this makes getting lean much more challenging.

This is exactly why I have online clients track their sleep every night, and hold them accountable to improving it.

I made getting 7+ hours of sleep per night a non-negotiable in my life, and it made an insane difference for my results.

STEP 9: Periodize Your Nutrition & Training

This wasn’t one Herculean push to get in amazing shape.

I got into the best shape of my life in a sustainable fashion because I followed a periodized plan.

I took 2 week diet breaks every 8-12 weeks to ensure that I stayed in a good place hormonally and metabolically. Ditto for the post-diet maintenance phase to allow my body to normalize and be sure I knew how to sustain my results. (For more on how we periodize your nutrition when you start coaching, check out this article.)

With my training, I took deloads every 4-8 weeks, to ensure that I gave my body time to reduce fatigue and fully recover.

With clients, when I schedule your deloads is highly individual – I use your biofeedback (things like stress, motivation, mood, and hunger), along with the weights I see you lifting in the gym (I see all your weights lifted in a tracker sheet to hold you accountable to pushing and progressing), to time your deloads. But the general deload guidelines I give are:

• Drop RPE by 2 digits on all exercises
• Reduce Weight by 25% on all exercises
• Decrease volume by 1 set per exercise

STEP 10: Measure & Adjust

I’ve beaten the “track metrics” horse to death at this point, so I won’t go too in-depth here. But we need to know how your body is changing with your current nutrition & training protocol, so that we can adjust these according to the results you want.

I started:

• Tracking body measurements
  
• Tracking weight 3x/week
  
• Tracking biofeedback
  
• Tracking weight lifted
  
• Taking progress pictures

I wasn’t just hoping I was making progress – I 100% knew where I was at, and when we needed to adjust nutrition or training.

This is also why I have all my online clients track the above metrics. Knowing where you’re at, and how you’re changing tells us exactly when and where we need to adjust your nutrition & training.

And that’s the 10 step process I used to completely change my body. This is exactly what you’ll go through on your journey to the leanest, strongest, and most confident version of yourself when you start coaching.

Note how none of these are over-complicated strategies you’ve never heard of.

Having someone to hold you accountable to a smart nutrition & training strategy fit to your goals and lifestyle is “the secret” to transformation.