This episode isn't just about lifting weights; it's about uplifting lives. Witness the inspiring tales of individuals who redefine what it means to be strong, both inside the gym and out. From the raw power of emotional well-being to the subtle art of hydration, these insights are more than just gym wisdom—they're life lessons. I'll share stories of success that aren't measured in pounds or inches but in the milestones of personal growth and the courage to confront the challenges we face. It's a celebration of the journey, an invitation to revel in each step, and a reminder that the truest form of empowerment comes from within.
This episode isn't just about lifting weights; it's about uplifting lives. Witness the inspiring tales of individuals who redefine what it means to be strong, both inside the gym and out. From the raw power of emotional well-being to the subtle art of hydration, these insights are more than just gym wisdom—they're life lessons. I'll share stories of success that aren't measured in pounds or inches but in the milestones of personal growth and the courage to confront the challenges we face. It's a celebration of the journey, an invitation to revel in each step, and a reminder that the truest form of empowerment comes from within.
Welcome to the Tea with Tina, your favorite podcast, where we talk all things health, fitness, lifestyle and maybe a little bit of tea gets spilled. We chat all about this in a super casual environment, so grab your beverage of choice, sit back, relax and enjoy. Relax and enjoy. Hello everyone, I'm popping in for another podcast episode. I hope you're having a great day. Today's episode is 13 lessons.
Speaker 1:
I've learned training hundreds of personal training clients. If you don't know who I am, I am Tina Weiland of Tina Weiland Fitness. I started training eight years ago now. 2016 was when I got certified, at least at the time of recording this. It's been eight years.
Speaker 1:
I am both an in-person and online trainer. I didn't start officially online training till 2020 and I did it before the pandemic. I actually started in January. Guys, I did not hop on the COVID train. Okay, I did it before.
Speaker 1:
Call it a premonition, but I definitely love the online space a little bit more. I still love training people in person, but if I could have it my way, I'd probably have it 90% online, 10% in person. I think I'm more like a 70-30 split right now. But I just like online because we can train around your schedule, my schedule. We don't have to show up at a specific time and we also get to dive into deeper things other than a workout. We get to dive into nutrition, mindset, habits, and I just love doing the virtual check-ins with guys, with clients I don't know why I said guys, um, but with with people because it's just it's priceless the some of the conversations and realizations that are had and the progress that we make. It's such a cool space, um, and I can reach people from everywhere. You don't feel as restricted as in person, right, but in person still has its place. It's great for people who need that hands-on um approach with working out and making sure their form's good and, of course, we get to have conversations and meet up and it's fun. So, you know, everything has their plus or minuses, but based off of who I've trained, these are the 13 lessons I've learned, and I have trained so many people, so many colorful people. You know rich people, poor people, people with disabilities. You know physical and mental people who were athletes, college athletes, 13 year old boys. You know moms I think my oldest client was 93 years old, with my youngest probably being 13. Just for legal reasons, the gyms I work at, you know, usually don't allow anybody younger than 13 in the gym. But oh, so many colorful people, pregnant people, people suffering with depression, pcos, anxiety, maybe physical limitations, like anything you could think of I've probably worked with and it's been an interesting experience and I've learned a lot. So, with that being said, let's dive in to those lessons.
Speaker 1:
So, number one you often start training with me with superficial goals, like reaching a certain goal weight and end up gaining so much more than that. Yes, so a lot of people come to me and they kind of have these kind of shallow goals. Right, it's like I want to lose 20 pounds, I want to look great for my son's wedding, uh, because I'm gonna be in the pictures. I need to fit in this dress for the high school reunion, and there is nothing wrong with those things, nothing. But what happens is once you start to get into routine and see the changes, um, it's funny. A lot of the times the people will be like you know what? I don't even care about the number on the scale anymore, because I'm starting to feel really great about myself and that number is just like out the window. It's not a huge deal to me anymore. Um, they get more interested in maybe lifting the weights and it becomes more of a hobby for them. Uh, there's just so many cool changes that happen, so that's something exciting for you if you have more of that empty goal, which is there's nothing wrong with that, because everybody does. I even started that way as well. I just wanted to lose weight and look where I'm at now and it like it gets so much deeper once you get into it and get invested into it, and that's a cool part of the journey. Okay, so that's number one.
Speaker 1:
Number two there are more people drinking less than 25 ounces of water than you think, and that can cause a host of problems, but luckily it's an easy fix. Listen, guys, the amount of people I talk to that are like I'm like, how much water do you drink a day? And they're like 20 ounces and I'm like are you serious? That's it. I'm like, okay, how are you alive, how are you functioning? And I was one of those people too. I just drank pop soda. I drank, you know, mountain dew, full sugar, coca-cola. You know, I didn't drink water ever unless I forced myself to fill up a glass and drink it, and I somehow survived. But I had a lot of headaches, my skin was dry, um, my nails, my hair, the thirst, lack of going to the bathroom all the time flushing things out.
Speaker 1:
You know there's a lot of things that play a role in being hydrated, and you don't really notice them right away. But once you are hydrated, I would say 50 plus ounces of water a day would be a good goal to shoot for, depending on your height and weight and things like that. But once you do that, it's like amazing. You're like, oh, this is what it's supposed to feel like, like you feel really good. And then, once you stop, you're like, oh, my god, I'm very thirsty and I'm dehydrated, so chug that water. It's the easiest, most free thing you can do to instantly improve your health, so do it. Okay. So that's number two.
Speaker 1:
Three you don't have to train like a bodybuilder to get results, which is funny. I feel like I get both ends of the spectrum. I get people coming to me and they're like oh, I don't want to look like a bodybuilder, I promise it takes a lot of work. Usually, the reason that happens, though, by the way, that you get bulky, is because you have a layer of fat and then you strength train. So when you build muscle on top of that fat, you get bulkier. So if you make sure your diet's right and you're getting enough steps and cardio in addition to the strength training, you should be all right, okay. But also, we build muscle faster than we lose fat. So there could be that weird in between phase where you feel a little bit bigger before the fat loss really starts to kick in. But that's why you really need to stick with it for a longer period of time than like two or three weeks, okay. But I will say too that there's that other camp, especially for those of us that scroll Instagram and TikTok. We see all these fitness influencers and you know they look really good and we feel that maybe, like I'm never even going to be able to look like them, because I don't want to run a marathon, I don't want to lift, you know, 200 pounds to squat, I don't want to do all this crazy stuff, and you don't. You don't have to to get results. You can train moderately and enjoy yourself. You don't have to go to the extremes, okay. So that's number three.
Speaker 1:
Number four most people are limited by their beliefs, not by their capacities. So true, and a perfect example of this is often I will blindly give clients heavier weight without them noticing it, and they'll just do it, no complaining, they won't even notice. And I said, hey, you just did that with heavier weight, them noticing it, and they'll just do it, no complaining, they won't even notice. And I said, hey, you just did that with heavier weight. And they're like, oh really. And I said, yep, and that's proof that your mind stops before your body does. You know, your body is capable of a lot more. Um, and if you believe in yourself, you can do so much more.
Speaker 1:
Number five bodies are all different. They lose fat differently, gain muscle differently. Um, boobs look different with weight loss like, listen, I can tell you from training hundreds of people genetically, some people lose weight in their legs really fast in their arms. From taking hundreds of measurements, I'll have people just drop inches in their arms or drop inches in their thighs or drop inches in their waist. You know it does. It just varies person to person. There's not really a right or wrong um, you know some people it's funny they'll see huge changes in their before and after pictures, but the scale won't move. Or they'll drop a ton of inches but not a ton of changes in their picture, right. So it's funny how people's bodies are. They truly vary. So if you feel like you're different, don't worry, just know that you're a variable. You're just someone who might lose weight a different way than your friend or somebody you see on social media. And I can definitely say, with the boobs thing, I've had people with like F size, g size boobs and they will lose weight and that's the first thing to go, or they will lose a ton of weight and those will stay. So again, it's a genetic, hormonal, just body type. It could be your heritage.
Speaker 1:
So many things can affect how our body shape changes. What matters again at the core is that we show up consistently, we do the basics day in, day out, and inevitably we will see progress of some sort. Right, okay, so that's number five. Six more is not always better. Yes, yes, yes, yes, we always want to add more, more, more onto our plates, but oftentimes, oftentimes, we forget to take things away. Right? We see it with our houses who has the junk drawers, the closets? We can never get rid of things. We just keep adding more, more, more and then, before you know, it looks like a hoarder's house. Um, our routines, we just add more, more, more, but we don't think to take away, so we have more time to ourselves and sometimes doing less is really powerful. Doing less intentionally, I think, should be the goal. I think we should always be evaluating our routines and our lives and thinking where can I do less but better, what is kind of fluff, what is extra and not necessary, and then from there, once we have a pretty mild schedule, if we do need to add and push, we have that capacity to do so. It's always just a constant game of adding, taking away, refining, adding, taking away, refining. Right.
Speaker 1:
So yeah, number seven poor health usually stems from something deeper, outside of the fitness realm. You may have heard me chat about this. I know my clients got a training on this, about functional freeze. It's kind of a trendy term right now, but the idea that trauma, um, aka trauma, doesn't mean like I was in the vietnam war, um, and I have ptsd or I was, you know, beaten or something like that. No, trauma can just be something that you experienced that left you emotionally strained and stressed and your body never really processed it properly. You kind of held on to it and I I truly believe that people who've maybe came from broken homes or have picked up on things that their parents did, that maybe they weren't aware of but it bothered them, or they got bullied or had expectations in school or stressors at work. They can't stand up for themselves.
Speaker 1:
Whatever we hold on to, I believe that reflects in our health. That could reflect through autoimmune disorders. It's no surprise that 80 percent of autoimmune disorders are from females, and females are usually the ones that emotionally hold on to a lot, because we usually got to suck up things be the housewife, be the you know breadwinner look pretty smile all the time. Even when we're really going through it emotionally, we kind of have to just push it to the back burner. Um, and anytime we express any emotion, we're just like a bitch and crazy and whatever. So you know we hold on to that and we never get to process it or release it and it expresses itself and I do believe this is why a lot of times I see it in the fitness space all the time. This could be a podcast episode within itself.
Speaker 1:
People will get um, they'll go to the hospital for panic attacks, their heart rate will be 200 beats per minute. They don't know why. Doctors run all the tests and everything's normal. You want to know why, anytime they run tests and everything's normal, it's because you're manifesting something, usually trauma, and uh it, it expresses itself physically and I just don't think there's enough research out there. There's more and more being done on it, but I just don't think there's enough out there for it to be concrete and well known, especially in the medical field. Um, it's like if you can't see it and it's not tangible, they're not going to deal with it. But yeah, there's a lot that goes into that and I I see it all the time how how clients show up. Maybe they're not motivated to work out, maybe they hold a lot of stress around working out, maybe their body's inflamed, maybe they just feel like their brain's so overwhelmed that the thought of taking on one more thing they can't do it. They know what they need to do, but they can't bring themselves to do it because they haven't worked through whatever is ailing them and stressing them, which is why recovery and stress management is so important in your health and fitness journey, because that kind of stuff can really leak into everywhere in your life. Okay, and again, podcast episode for another time, but it's very important and something to think about.
Speaker 1:
Number eight never judge a book by its cover. I've met some beautiful souls, yes, and you know I don't try to judge people. I give people the benefit of the doubt Until they give me a reason not to. But I think we all kind of form Like thoughts in our head, Right, if we see somebody on the road who maybe Is a? Um, if we see somebody on the road who has like raggedy, dirty clothes, you know what would your first thought be like? Are they homeless? Do they get into a crazy situation? You know, um, and they have all those stories of like, like the guy in the casino who wears like these dirty, ratty clothes and he's actually like a millionaire or something like that. You know, um, that's just a surface level one that I think of.
Speaker 1:
But I think we do make judgments of people. Oh, she dresses like this, so maybe she's snobby. Or oh, he's really skinny, he must have his life together and he's fit. And you know, we just judge people and it's better to not, because if you open yourself up and push aside the assumptions you have of people, it's really interesting what you can learn about somebody, and I've gotten to experience that Because, as a trainer, I think that's one of the most intimate careers you can have. I see you more than your doctor, your nail tech. I'm meeting with you two to three times a week for an hour. We see each other, we build a relationship and people open up to us and it's pretty cool to see that.
Speaker 1:
All right, number nine. There's a fine line between listening to your body and being a hypochondriac. Understanding your body is an acquired skill and you definitely hear me talk about that. I would say it is the most important skill to learn to listen to your body and the signals it's saying. But it is definitely pretty easy, especially if you're a perfectionist or a little anxious like myself, to take every little thing and like google it and think that you have a brain tumor or something. So that's why it's important to take things with a grain of salt, run it through a filter in your brain and go okay, is this worth looking into? Maybe I'm just feeling this way because I didn't get enough sleep. I'm a little tired, you know. Let's monitor this and see where it goes. Let's not again jump to conclusions or assume anything Right.
Speaker 1:
Number 10. Many people suck at time management. It's not necessarily their fault. Yeah, a lot of you guys suck at time management, including myself sometimes, um, you know, the reason a lot of stuff doesn't get done is because we're very irresponsible with how we spend our time, and a lot of you guys are genuinely busy. Again, it goes to the less is more, though. Where could we be pulling back? Do we need to be staying late for that boss that isn't paying us extra? Or the boss that's texting us off the clock? Or saying yes to staying late every single time? Or saying yes to every social opportunity even though we don't want to? Where are we learning to set boundaries, say no, draw firm lines. Maybe only one hour of TV watching a night? Maybe we need a wind down routine. Maybe we need to be going to bed an hour earlier so we don't hit the snooze button and sleep in and rush around in the morning. There's a lot of things that we could be doing, and everybody's different.
Speaker 1:
It all depends on your situation, but there's a lot of time slipping through the cracks, and you know I always teach my clients schedule your workouts like a doctor appointment. Show up for them. Don't be like oh, I'll fit it in if I can today, because you could make time. You know, fly away. It's very easy to have time get away from you, so you need to schedule it. I personally time block my stuff. I love time blocking and I think that really helps. And you know, try to be efficient. Building skills sometimes takes more work up front, but it pays off In the long run.
Speaker 1:
Things like meal prepping and planning can feel a little daunting at first and like, oh my god, this takes so long. But the more you do it, like I said, it's going to save you time. It's going to save you time. It's going to save you money. So you're not running through the drive-thru feeling like garbage um, it's an investment. So you know, definitely think about that. Think about your time. If you're struggling to get in the gym or figure out how to do it all in the day, you know how's your time management, what's your schedule look like? Do you feel scattered, frantic? I have plenty of trainings on these for my clients. Let me know, shoot me a message if you're interested in a time management training. You could just send me a DM that says time management and we'll chat about that. I'd be happy to share that with you. Okay, so that's number 10. Number 11.
Speaker 1:
Handicapped individuals can have good lives and healthy individuals can be extremely handicapped. This is a good one. I've trained quite a few handicapped people and, like it says, they can be the most positive people. They do not let their disability get in their way, they don't let it weigh them down. They live great lives and at the same time, I've seen people who are perfectly capable and have so much potential just fall through the cracks whether they don't believe in themselves, they're not taking care of themselves. You know, their doctor's been nagging them because they have really bad blood work and they just need to get their shit together to continue living. You know, and everybody has their reasons, but again, it's crazy to see the difference between those two things. Right, we got two more guys, two more number 12.
Speaker 1:
Strengthening your body often has the effect of strengthening your entire being. Yes, um, there's something about lifting weights and getting stronger that is so empowering and that sounds a little generic, but it's true and I think it's something you don't really realize until you experience it. That's why I say you do this for the superficial reasons and then it turns into a deeper meaning, like obviously, if you do a crash diet, that's very like shallow and empty and sucks like no, you're not going to experience that. You're going to have a bad experience with health and fitness, but if you do it the right way, it can be very empowering. And, like I said, strength training is a really cool experience. To have people use a barbell for the first time and have them, you know, hit a new PR and teach them things that they've never done before and, you know, a PR for somebody could be. You know they did 15 pounds instead of 10. You don't have to be doing crazy weight. I want to say that you can be strong AF, no matter what weight you're lifting. Don't feel like you're less than if you're not. You know lifting what's expected. You know, as long as you show up and you're doing better and improving you, you know you versus you. That's all that matters.
Speaker 1:
All right, and last one, number 13, enjoy the journey. Okay, enjoy the journey. This goes for life as well. You know, everybody thinks it's the view from the top. That's the best part, but it's always the journey. It's always planning for the trip, the road trip down. Always the journey. It's always planning for the trip, the road trip down.
Speaker 1:
The experience is along the way because once you hit your destination, you're going to be looking for the next thing and I have to remind myself on this because it's happened with business. I've actually hit a record month in my business that Tina a year ago wouldn't even imagine that she could, you know, produce that much income and have that many clients, and I was just kind of like, and then I just moved on, which is terrible, um, and I take time to reflect on it now, but it's like you'll do that with your, your fitness goals too. You'll hit your number and you may feel happy for a day or two, and then you're gonna look and go. So what's next, you know? So definitely, learn to enjoy the journey, fall in love with the process.
Speaker 1:
As they say, this is a marathon, not a sprint, and I think once you take the desire away from you know, hitting the number on the scale, you will, um, start to enjoy it and probably get better results as well, because you won't have that anxiousness of oh my god, oh my god, the scale. You will start to enjoy it and probably get better results as well, because you won't have that anxiousness of oh my god, oh my god, the scale's not going down. You know you step on the scale every day. Oh my god, it went up half a pound, which, by the way, that's totally normal when you didn't gain a half a pound of fat overnight. But you know you're just going to be so concerned about that number that you're going to lose sight of all the other beautiful things that are happening. Maybe you hit a new PR, maybe your clothes are fitting better, maybe you have more energy, maybe you need less coffee, you know. Maybe you're eating more vegetables, maybe you got better blood work.
Speaker 1:
There's so many crazy changes and you need to appreciate them all. The scale going down is one of them and should be recognized, but should not be the sole focus on our journeys. Right, it's not like we have that plastered on our head. The number on the scale? Nobody knows except you and maybe the doctor. But yeah, so that is all 13. There's probably about 100 more lessons that I've learned, but those were just some that came to mind as I was reflecting the other day. I hope you found some joy from this episode. If you're not already, be sure to follow the Tea with Tina podcast so you'll never miss another episode, and if you want to chat, feel free to hit me up in the DMs on Instagram at Tina Weiland Fit. I usually hang out there the most. I'm also over on Facebook at Tina Weiland. You can hit me up there and we could chat and whatnot. I always love to hear from you guys and I hope you have a good rest of your day. Bye.