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As I alluded to in my post yesterday, the past couple of years have resulted in huge perspective shifts for me.  Well…far be it for me to stop the trend of change.  As of mid-December I gave up my position in bariatric medicine and decided to take a big step and move my personal training practice to Toronto.

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I am now part of the personal training team at Medcan which is Canada’s leading preventive healthcare clinic, with over 60 physicians, 240 staff and a 50,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility, located in the heart of Toronto’s financial district.  They offer a comprehensive health assessment, genetic testing, links with Johns Hopkins Medicine, and a whole host of other incredible services.  The personal training area is complete with turfed areas for drills, sleds for pushing, battle ropes, treatment tables, and even a Bod Pod for body composition testing.  In short, this clinic is AWESOME and I’m ready to kick it into 2012 working with one of the best teams in the country.

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Of course, this means for me that I’ll be commuting on the train or bus back and forth for up to a few hours every day so I’ll have plenty of time to read, write content for the blog, and finally pull together one or two of the projects that have been on my mind for a while.  So if you’re in Toronto and you’re in need of training please contact me at admin@markyoungtrainingsystems.com for pricing and availability.

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Alternatively, if you’re a fitness professional and you’re interested in buying me lunch chatting over coffee shoot me a note and perhaps we can connect.

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Just over two years ago I thought I had it all figured out.  I had a degree in kinesiology, I’d been in the fitness industry for over a decade, trained clients for tens of thousands of hours, and had co-owned a training facility with my incredible wife, and I was up on almost every single fitness and nutrition happening on the planet.  I felt at that time I was ready to finally break out and publish my first articles in major online publications as well as starting to blog on a larger scale (rather than just for my clients).  So I did and this blog was the result of that decision.  I published a few articles, connected with some big names in the industry, starting writing posts, and had a rapidly growing readership.

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Then something happened.

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My wife and I decided to close our training facility so that we could focus a lot less on running a business and more on having a family.  I took a half time position with a Bariatric Medical Program to help treat people with obesity and continued to train some of my personal training clients out of a friend’s facility (as well as maintaining a small group of online training clients).

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I Lost My Voice

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The whole process of becoming a dad, learning more about obesity, getting more in touch with the research I’d been neglecting, and working with clients whose lives had been markedly impacted by their weight created a major perspective shift for me.  I kept trying to write the “same old stuff”, but it became harder and harder to talk about counting calories, carb cycling, and the detailed intricacies of physiology that improve body composition when I was coming to realize more and more that few of these things really matter for the vast majority of the population.  I love them.  They are important.  But not as important as some people would have us believe.  They are the details…and for a lot of people…the details won’t matter a lot until they take care of the bigger issues preventing them from succeeding.

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But when I started to talk about “less sexy” concepts like behavior change, obesity, general health, and slow (rather than idiotically fast resulting in regain) weight loss my readership dropped.  And further to that, I felt like my joking and fun loving personality didn’t really come through in these posts as I was trying to force content on an industry that wasn’t really interested in what I was saying…or at least I thought they weren’t.  In the blog writing world we talk about the way we write as our “voice” and I felt like I had lost mine.

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Getting My Voice Back

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As a result of the perspective change I’d had and the difficulty writing content people wanted to read I slowly decreased my writing to the point where I wasn’t really putting out much at all.  I felt like it wasn’t really reaching people and it certainly wasn’t fun anymore either.  But over the last several months I’ve been thinking a lot about the impact I want to have on this world and this industry and my vision for what I’d like to become is slowly forming.  I feel a passion burning and I KNOW that whether the industry is ready for it or not, it is on me to create a change in whatever way I can for whoever might be listening.  I’ve got my voice back, I know what I’m going to say, and I am going to bring it in 2012.

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I want to thank all of my readers for supporting me (and also making me laugh on Facebook and Twitter in the meantime).  In the coming year I hope to provide you with a steady stream of content to make you think, challenge you, and help you.  I appreciate whatever help you can give me by sharing my stuff along the way so I can reach as many people as possible.

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Let’s get after it!

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Yesterday I posted the following picture on Facebook.  I stated that the meal contained meat, potatoes, rice, cabbage, asparagus, and strawberries.  After posting I asked the question “How many calories are on this plate?”  Before you scroll down for the answer, take a look at the photo and take a stab at it yourself.

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The answers ranged from 400 calories to 1200 calories, all the way up to “GET THAT IN MA BELLEH” (with my wife also being a smartass and suggesting that it was 4500 calories – Love you baby).  After taking guesses a dietitian colleague of mine and I independently totalled up the plate using online calorie software.  And interestingly enough, we got totally different answers!

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Her total was 1500 calories whereas mine was closer to 1000.  But when we looked at the reason for the differences they were largely attributable to differences in the estimated sizes of the portions on the plate (we both agreed that the meat was probably pork).  However, the big point here is that whichever estimate you agree with the fact remains that the food on that plate represents far more calories than most people should be consuming in a single meal.  It also means that even trained professionals have a hard time agreeing on quantities when looking at a plate like this.

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With the Christmas season upon us and the number of parties, dinners, and potluck events that will inevitably be a part of it, I think that this plate would actually even be a conservative estimate of intake for a lot of people.  There are almost always pre-dinner treats like veggie trays, hummus, and chocolates kicking around.  An even then a single plate of food might be less than most people eat (you know…try a little of everything and then go back for a second helping of the stuff you really like).  Combine that with the calories from wine, beer, and desserts (you know you HAVE to try at least one slice of each kind of pie right?) and you’ll be consuming a boatload energy that will ultimately be stored as fat.

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Doing this task made me think back to previous holiday seasons where I hadn’t paid much attention at events like these.  This year I think I’ll be a little more attentive to what I’m eating.  If nothing else, when you’re making up your plate this holiday season I hope this task inspires you to be a little more cautious with your consumption to0.  After all, the best way to lose weight in January is not to have gained it in the first place.

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Have a great weekend!

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PS: Today is the last day to save $100 on the Peak Diet and Training Summit and (due to popular demand) there is now a 2 pay option for those who prefer to pay in installments.  This package is a true beast with 15 DVDs, 2 info packed manuals, 2.0 NSCA continuing education credits, and a bunch of other bonuses available only this week.  There is no risk as the product is fully refundable so go and pick it up before the deal disappears.  Order your copy HERE.

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Last week I shared a couple videos by my friend Joe Dowdell and his partner in crime Dr. Mike Roussell.  In case you missed it, Joe is the owner of a 10,000 square foot facility in New York City called Peak Performance that has recently been ranked as one of the top 10 gyms in America.  He’s also possibly one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to connect with.

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In any case, this past summer Joe held a diet and training summit as his facility in conjunction with Dr. Mike Rossell and, fortunately for us, he had the whole thing recorded.  Today Joe is releasing all of that footage and for this week only he’s offering a $100 discount on the whole package.

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Frankly, I’m still working my way through the material (there is a ton of it), but so far I am pretty damn impressed at the sheer volume of information in this product.  The training section alone covers client goals, assessment, principles of training, periodization, program design, templates, and even actual client examples from Joe’s personal files.  And that is only taking you to about half way through the training component of the product!

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The nutrition component talks about the various stages of nutritional change (from nutritional freestyling to counting and compliance) and provides Mike’s comprehensive guidelines for each level.  As I mentioned last week, I really like the way Mike breaks down behavior goals into actionable steps rather than using meal plans and I feel that any trainer or coach could benefit from utilizing this method.  Of course, meal plans can still be used for specific times when rapid advances are necessary, but I feel that Mike’s method is more sustainable for most people.

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In short, I think the resource is absolutely solid and I’d recommend it to anyone who is seriously interested in stepping up their game.  I’ve also just learned that this product has been approved for 2.0 CEUs by the NSCA (which is pretty amazing) so if you’re closing in on the end of the year and you need to grab some quickly then this product will definitely meet your needs.

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Of course, since this is a product launch there are fast action bonuses so I figure I should mention these for those who are interested, but are in need of a gentle nudge.

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First 50 Customers

…will get PEAK 30 which is a Rapid Body Transformation program used at Peak Performance including meal plans and shopping lists.

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All Customers in the First 24 Hours

…will get 13 Naked Nutrition Bites white papers on topics including how to battle carb cravings, surviving the holidays, and more.

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And there are more

…but I’ll let Joe tell you about them himself HERE.

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Basically, I think this resource is definitely worth checking out and with the $100 dollar savings and the fast action bonuses the best time to purchase is right now.  If this seems like something you might be interested in you can check it out below.

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Peak Diet and Training Summit <== Get it Here!

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For a long while now I’ve talked about progressive behavior change as the primary driver for fat loss.  Frankly, I believe in this concept so strongly that I probably haven’t written a formal meal plan for a client in over 5 years.  Going beyond that, I rarely even have clients count calories as this is dependent on the client’s need and where they are at in their training or diet program.  That is not to say that I don’t cover nutrition, but I feel that written diet plans are largely ineffective.

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Today my colleague Dr. Mike Roussell has shared a video that I feel addresses this concept very well and shows exactly how a fitness professional can go about improving nutritional compliance and results with their clients.  In fact, he provides the very content that he covered at the Peak Diet & Nutrition Summit this past summer and I think some of the concepts are absolutely fantastic.  To me, not having to write diet plans has been a major time saver AND my client results have improved more in the long term as people are able to stick to my current plans much better.

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I should say in advance that I am not totally in agreement with the some of Mike’s thoughts on meal frequency and carb consumption, but the key points in this interview extend beyond nutrition itself and relate more to how to effectively convey that information to clients to get the best results possible.  If you are a fitness professional and you are interested in learning how to bring about the best fat loss for your clients (or yourself) then this video is totally worth seeing.

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Fat Loss Without Diet Plans  <== Check it out!

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Also, if you missed the video I mentioned the other day where Joe Dowdell talks about how we went about creating one of the top gyms in the United States, you can view that here too.  But please don’t forget that both videos are only available for a limited time and will then be taken down.

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Fat Loss Without Diet Plans  <== Will be taken down soon!

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Have a great weekend!

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