I was listening to Emily Duncan’s podcast episode with Austin Current the other day, and one thing in particular really stuck with me. They were discussing the act of how to “show your work” and how important that translates over to real life. If you are calculating long division problems in class and you do everything in your head, you are failing to write out what you did. The teacher will never be able to trace back where you are making the mistakes.
The same concept holds very true for those of us in the health and fitness field. When you as a client try to explain what you are doing, you may be as detailed as possible, but without any physical evidence, we don’t know the whole story. I am not saying that you are trying to fudge the numbers on us, but most people just aren’t aware of how well they are hitting their health and fitness goals.
This is why it is important to SHOW YOUR WORK. Especially if you decide to work with a trainer. Whatever information you give your trainer (this goes for medical professionals too!) they can really only make educated decisions based on that. So, when you forgot to tell them that you go out to drink every weekend, or you cut your workout short and you are up a few pounds, that really only does harm to you.
I get it, it’s hard calling yourself out. For me, if I go off track for a period of time, in my subconscious I KNOW I am not eating or doing what I should, but it’s almost as if I push it to the back of my mind and think, “eh, I’ll deal with it later“. This is where you come in to do the work.
You have to get honest with yourself, and really sit down and think, “Am I doing everything I should be to be reaching my goals?” Are you happy with your life? Your health status? Almost everyone always has SOMETHING that they can improve upon–so get to work.
Let’s look at three major areas of your health and wellness and some simple ways that you can start “showing your work”:
Diet
This will probably be the most revolutionary and most difficult for you to accomplish. The simplest way to show your work is to start by keeping a detailed food diary for at least 3 days and include a weekend day. You don’t have to weigh out your food necessarily, but don’t simply eyeball your portions if you don’t have the experience to accurately estimate it. Look at serving sizes, and use your measuring cups. Add up your calories. Aside from calories, you can also track protein, fats, and carbs. I would put the main focus on protein, as this is the most important, and the hardest goal to hit.
You can track through good old paper and pen or use a tracking app like MyFitnessPal. All in all, once you have tracked for a while you will begin to see patterns in your eating. Whether that’s consuming tons of random snacks or you’ve been eating a bit more than the serving size of peanut butter…
Keeping track of your meals makes you much more consciously aware of what you are putting into your body. Your portions, your actual hunger cues, and so forth. This allows you to make those tiny adjustments to your eating to get things back on track and it makes issues with your diet a heck of a lot easier for us trainers to find!
You don’t have to track forever. I say track enough until you get a good idea of food portioning and can kind of eyeball it. You may go through periods where you want to diet down for something and you want to track for a few weeks, that’s totally fine. However, be wary. I suggest you have a pretty healthy relationship with food and portioning before deciding to track unless you are supervised by a professional. Tracking can turn into eating disorders or just developing a horrible relationship with food. Don’t be too hard on yourself! We are just doing this to get a GENERAL idea of where your food intakes it at! You don’t have to track like a bodybuilding competitor!
Workouts
The next section to show your work would be your workouts. Tracking your workouts (sets, reps, rest) is one thing. However, I would also suggest using some sort of rating system for how your workouts felt:
Have you been feeling sluggish? Energized? Are you half-assing it? Is weight going up for your lifts? Are you progressing on form? How is your recovery?
All of these things and more matter. Start seeing on average how many days a week you work out. See how you are feeling and recovering. Every day isn’t going to be amazing for working out, but in general, they should leave you feeling better and more energized. Good, ample recovery allows for your muscle soreness to usually disappear within 24-48 hours.
Recovery: Mental Well-Being/Stress/Sleep
This last chunk of mental well-being, stress, and sleep is a BIG one. It’s kind of behind-the-scenes work and arguably, the FOUNDATION of your health and wellness pyramid. You may have a killer diet and awesome workouts…but if your recovery isn’t in check? It’s going to hinder your progress and your health.
Stress is unavoidable, exercising is a stressor within itself! It’s just a matter of balancing your stress levels.
One example I see often is when I am coaching clients. Sometimes my clients can appear distracted like their mind is somewhere else. They often say they are filled with worry or thinking about what they need to get done (AKA stress).
You have to clear your mind when you work out, and really focus to get the best results. Muscle-mind connection is a real thing!
Working out can be a great stress reliever, many people even call it their therapy! If you are struggling to manage the stressors in your life, it doesn’t hurt to reach out for help. Try going to a therapist or a trusted friend/family member to talk things out.
Conclusion: Show Your Work
In summary, taking the time to see where your health is at can set you on the right path for years to come. It doesn’t hurt to do these “checks” pretty regularly, as life is always throwing us curveballs.
Just be sure to show your work, and when it comes time to be graded (by a doctor or yourself) it will be a lot easier to see what you did right and what you can improve upon!
