So i took my phone number off my business website

It was only on there in the form of a photo of my business card, anyway. Same with my email address, it was on there but with an [at] instead of the @ symbol, trying to avoid spammers.

It doesn't work though. Emails you expect by now anyway but from day one I'd have phone calls from jerk offs wanting to sell me a business system, a franchise, search engine optimisation, web design, "priority listing" on some search engine no one's ever heard of before... some of them are really persistent too and won't take no for an answer, and even try to TRICK you into authorising them to start billing you for some crap you just told them you didn't want. One in particular was real bad and after a little while I learned that you can't use patience, politeness or good manners with these scumbags, you just have to tell them to "fuck off and never call me again" and then hang up.

So these days it's mostly just the "industry events" that I get calls from, or the occasional "buy a franchise with us and you'll never have to deal with competition again" jerkoffs. Really though? How's that going to work? If I spend however much money so I can use your branding, that's gonna cause all the other local gyms and trainers to close their doors? Or maybe you're gonna send some hired goons around to convince them?

Now when you think about it... it's the same sort of bullshit marketing the industry pushes on the public. "Just buy our product and all your problems will vanish and you won't even have to work hard for it". And that's the system you'd be buying into.

Well... by now I have my own training system, my own system of determining nutritional requirements, and I'm fortunate enough to be authorised to work out of one of the world's greatest gyms. Tell me again why I should throw all of that out to buy into your package of "stuff that people think they want but doesn't actually achieve anything" instead?

Of course THEN I had to go looking for all my business listings online and you can't actually remove your phone number from them, but you can put "no phone inquiries please use the form on my website" in your description. Come to think of it, there's a bunch of listings I never actually set up myself that I need to investigate too.

So hopefully less nuisance calls as a result. What about genuine inquiries from prospective clients though?

Well... we'll see. I prefer inquiries via my contact form as that'll give me all the information I need, and I can take a few minutes to think about how to respond. I'm at a stage now where my Online Coaching business is almost all I need, and with my new gym wear line about to take off, I can be more selective about which clients I'm available to work with locally. As mentioned, I have a good system that has produced tremendous results for clients all over the world... so people should sign up ready and enthusiastic to follow this system. Sometimes you get people who want to call the shots, or will question every choice of exercise or whatever else... and questioning because you want to learn and understand is one thing, but questioning as in "no, I want to do something else instead, you're going to have to convince me or I'm not doing it" is different. That shit gets so exhausting and just saps my enthusiasm.

So, I want the people who are going to follow instructions and get results. Directing people to the email form is a good way to see who can follow instructions.

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Results Are Non Negotiable.

It's me.
Rocking my brand new "Fitness Anarchist" gear.

When I was in security, a lot of times people thought things were up for negotiation or compromise. I did pubs, I did corporate sites and facilities management... you gotta follow the rules. And when you work in security your job is to be the guy who explains the rules to people because the bosses have better things to do than have the same conversations with different (and some times the same) people several times a day every day.

Now "the rules" might mean "the law" or "our licensing requirements" or it might just be "this is the way the client wants it". None of that is able to be debated or compromised on. You just don't have a choice on the matter... your boss or client doesn't want to hear "well the guy made a good point and I realised your policy is stupid so I let him go do what he wanted to do even though it's precisely what you told me not to let happen".

So you'd get guys show up to the pub without appropriate footwear, and they'll want to negotiate "well what if we just sit down some where to the side and no one will notice us?" but that doesn't work. You'd get contractors show up at the corporate site wanting to work on the infrastructure without the proper authorisation and safe work methods statements being provided, and that doesn't work either. Generally I always considered that my job was to help people out and if there was a problem try to resolve it so that things could get done... but there was only one way that could happen. AKA you gotta go through the correct procedure, arguing about it is just going to take longer and reduce your chances of ending up getting what you want. Not to mention increase your chances of being dragged out of the building and put on your arse in the street.

So anyway, training is in some ways similar and in some ways not so similar.

In a way... there's "one" way that you're going to drop any excess weight that you're carrying and improve your body composition. That's through an appropriate training program, and a suitable intake to support your goal weight and goal body condition on that program.

So... you've got to do something that's actually appropriate to your goal. That's not negotiable, but with that said there are a number of ways you can put your program together and there's room to compromise in some areas.

Still, energy intake must be appropriate. You can't get around this, but you can negotiate as follows. For some people it's "you've either gotta do more, or eat less", but more often in my experience the negotiation is "you've gotta eat more or cut back on the training a little".

How could that be though? People are supposed to "move more, eat less" aren't they?

Sure. But there's a law of diminishing returns and if you're not properly fueled you won't see continued results. And the more you do, the more fuel you require. Now if you have a healthy appetite that's fine, but if you are highly active, participating in multiple forms of training, sometimes multiple sessions per day... you can't think like a person "on a diet" to lose weight. You need to fuel up like an athlete.

This is a message you don't hear very often because not many people in the business or in the community seem to understand it. You don't force results by slashing calories ever lower and lower while pushing amount and intensity of exercise ever higher and higher. That's a recipe for absolute certain catastrophe.

So, that stuff is not negotiable, but there's still a variety of ways you can get into tremendous shape. If you're prepared to do the minimum that is required, there's less room for compromise on the training program but you can be highly successful by persisting with the right strategy. If you're enthusiastic about participating in a variety of activities very often, under eating is about the only way you could go wrong.

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Video: Flexible Dieting Explained

A little video blog about Flexible Dieting that I shot after training the other day.



I kind of wish I had tidied myself up a bit first but whatever, some good information if I do say so!



)

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Should I eat above BMR when trying to lose weight?

A bit of an epic reply I just sent to a young lady who asked the question above.

well.... here's how it works.

first off though i don't know your stats so i don't know if you actually have any weight to lose, but either way... if you do, or if you just want to see better results from training while already at a sensible weight... the same applies.

BMR is how much your body requires just to function without so much as rolling over in bed all day. So, cell regeneration, keeping your heart beating, bone and muscle and organ maintenance, skin and hair and fingernail growth.... god I don't even know, all sorts of other stuff that's required to be alive.

And right now, eating below BMR means you're not even giving yourself enough fuel for that - let alone to build the lean & toned figure I imagine you probably want. Or even just to move around a bit during the day. So what that means is your body has to find a way to compensate and survive on so much less fuel that it really needs. It manages this through hormonal changes.... thyroid shuts down, adrenal glands pump out more cortisol.... in simpler terms though your body is trying to conserve and store energy because it thinks "i'm not getting enough, if i run out of what I have stored in reserve i'm fucked". So in other words your body wants to store fat and it will sacrifice muscle and bone mass to do this. Very bad stuff.

So screw doing that. If you really want to create the body you really want, you need to dial in a plan that provides enough fuel not just to replace what you burn just by being alive + moving around a bit + exercise... you need to put in enough to actually be able to adapt to training. That would mean storing more energy in the muscles, strengthening your bones with increased density, more lean, toned muscle mass.... if we get it right your body goes "well bloody hell I only JUST have enough resources available to manage all this... these fat stores can GO I have other priorities right now"

Makes sense?

So... we can dial in appropriate calories to support an appropriate weight, put all of that fuel to good use... and end up healthy, strong, sexy and happy. I have girls who are eating seriously over 1000 cals a day more now than they were when they first came to me for advice and they are so much happier with their results and just in general because of it, eating all the nice stuff whatever they fancy!

So that was a long answer but in short "yes you need to eat more than your bmr and you'll be much happier with your results if you do".

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This week in review

I've neglected this blog slightly due to working on some other stuff.

Quite probably the most interesting thing that happened this week is that I received my "Team DaveHPT : Flexible Dieting" silicone wristbands in the mail. I'll be mailing some of these out to clients / fans who want to represent me, early next week.

I thought I'd have some fun with advertising too, as follows:

Post by Dave Hargreaves Personal Training.

I had plans for a more elaborate ruse but you don't get to put much text on these things. You can see that this ad leads to a new page that I set up earlier in the week, trying a different format that I basically stole from more successful marketers. Of course, unlike most similar pages I actually talk a lot of sense so who knows if it will be as effective or not. We can only hope!

Over on my main blog I wrote a new entry about Vegetarian Health & Fitness, and another one about How Unhealthy Foods Can Help You Lose Weight.

I guess that's all? Also we're two weeks out from FitX which is pretty exciting.

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