How to Get Better Fitness Results

Podcast – Steph Gaudreau

Investing in your own transformation is a difficult thing for a lot of us, but it is so important. Whether you invest your time, money, or effort, showing up for yourself and investing in your own growth is the key to seeing the results you are hoping for.

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Key Takeaways

If You Are Ready to Invest in the Next Step, You Should:

1. Remember that you are not the only one who doesn’t have everything figured out
2. Take the step to invest in yourself through a coach, training program, or just asking for help
3. Believe that you are worthy of this investment, and watch how you can show up for yourself

Your Body is a Garden

I have been putting off fixing up my garden for years. Once I finally decided to do something about it, and reach out to an expert for help, my years of procrastination were fixed in just a few hours. What really surprised me was the amount of joy and satisfaction I got from seeing the fruits of my labor.

Your nutrition and training program might be a lot like my garden. But instead of feeling overwhelmed and putting it off, or being afraid of asking for help, taking the initiative to invest in yourself will feel so much better than procrastinating.

Investing In Yourself

Investing in yourself means that you get to borrow the education and expertise from others, and it helps you avoid the constant overwhelm of trying to learn and do everything yourself. Hiring an expert is an investment that you can make that will result in the growth and transformation you are looking for.

You are not alone in the challenging things. By believing that you are worth it and investing in your own growth, you can ditch that feeling of overwhelm and experience the great feeling of seeing your own metaphorical garden bloom.

Are you ready to invest in your next step? Share your story with me in the comments below.

In This Episode

• Discover a recent personal story for my real life that I hope will inspire you (1:32)
• The main benefits of hiring an expert to help you with your goals (12:23)
• Understanding the difference between learning, DIY, and borrowing expertise (15:10)
• Why hiring an expert is an investment in your growth and transformation (17:01)
• How to take the first steps towards your goal by getting help (20:26)

Quotes

“I want you to think, where have I been reluctant to ask for and seek out the help that I really need in order to make the progress I want to see and ultimately get the transformation that I really truly want?” (2:27)

“When you hire an expert, whether it is a gardener or a nutrition coach or someone to paint your house, you are making a very wise choice.” (12:22)

“You are worthy; you have always been worthy; there is no question about your worthiness. And at any point in the process, wherever you are with your nutrition or your strength training, are worthy of hiring someone.” (16:36)

“You start to value yourself and show up for yourself differently when you invest in your own growth, in your own transformation.” (18:40)

“If you are ready to figure all this stuff out, have expert guidance, get the coaching and the community support that are so so important in long-term progress, then we are waiting for you to apply!” (23:44)

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FYS 410: The Power of Intrinsic Motivation in Fitness

How to Get Better Fitness Results Transcript

Steph Gaudreau

No joke, she solved my problem in one week, something I had dragged my feet on for two entire years. We’re going to talk all about it on the podcast today. And more importantly, what’s a teachable lesson that you can take away from this specifically about investing in your own transformation and why it is so hard for us to do this but so incredibly important?

If you’re an athletic 40, something woman who loves lifting weights, challenging yourself, and doing hard shit, the Fuel Your Strength podcast is for you. You’ll learn how to eat, train and recover smarter. So you build strength and muscle, have more energy, and perform better in and out of the gym. I’m strength nutrition strategist and weightlifting coach, Steph Gaudreau.

The Fuel Your Strength podcast dives into evidence-based strategies for nutrition training and recovery. And why once you’re approaching your 40s and beyond, you need to do things a little differently than you did in your 20s. We’re here to challenge the limiting industry narratives about what women can and should do in training and beyond. If that sounds good, hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and let’s go.

Today have a podcast we’re doing something a little bit different, it’s going to be storytime. And specifically, I’m sharing with you a personal story from my actual real life. That happened very recently as of the time of recording of this podcast less than three weeks ago. But something that I think paints a really powerful picture of the power of investing in your own growth. And why this is so challenging often for us to do as women and even as women over 40 and what you can learn from it and take away from it.

This reminds me of a podcast that I did a couple of years ago, talking about six reasons why you need to hire a nutrition coach. And today I wanted to tell you the story. Because I want you to think in the back of your mind as I’m talking about this, where have I been reluctant to ask for and seek out the help that I really need in order to make the progress that I want to see and ultimately get the transformation that I really, truly want. So that’s what we’re going to do today. It’s different, but hey, after 400 and some odd episodes, we just do what we feel led to do. Right. Alright, so I want to tell you this story about what happened in my yard. What you can learn from it. So yes, my friend Nico solved my problem in a week.

Two years ago, I decided it was time to fix up my little front yard garden. So we moved into this place in 2014. And the year after built a small garden planter box and had some other pots and plants around I’ve been gardening on and off since I was a kid with my grandparents my mom is a gardener and my siblings are all avid gardeners as well as kind of green thumbs running my family actually. A lot of my family from the old country were farmers when they came to America, they kept farming. So farming is kind of in my blood if you will.

So here’s what I noticed. The planter box that we built was literally falling apart and in shambles. And the screws were all unscrewed and the dirt was falling out. And it was an absolute mess. It was also completely infiltrated with grass. So we were growing grass in the garden, instead of actual vegetables, which is a pain. We needed two more planter boxes, so I kind of cobbled together a temporary solution. And that temporary solution lasted several years. So I needed to fix those. And I needed some drip irrigation.

Because watering if you have ever had a garden, you know, it’s very difficult to keep up with watering, especially where we live we don’t get a lot of rainfall during the growing season. So irrigation is important. And last year when we went to Scotland, a bunch of my plants died because I didn’t have any irrigation and there was no one to help me water while we were away. So I knew I had all these problems that needed to be fixed.

But every time I sat down to plan and think about this and like okay, I’m gonna finally do it. I got really overwhelmed and I’m just gonna give you irrigation as the example so the thing I could picture was walking into Home Depot, and wandering around the aisles, staring at some huge walls full of irrigation tubes and timers and connectors and all this shit and not knowing what to choose.

Having nobody to ask Probably picking the wrong things, and going home and figuring out that I had fucked it up and having to go back over and over again. So I didn’t know like, what timer to use, how much tubing that I needed, how to actually set it up in the easiest way possible. So that’s just one example of the overwhelm that I was feeling. And so what did I do? Not a damn thing. I put it off, and put it off, and put it off, and two more summers went by without fixing any of the things that I needed to change. So that time, you might think, well, nothing happened, well, actually, things got a lot worse, and the main planter box further fell apart.

And there was even more grass growing. It was just like a, you know, if you’ve ever tried to grow grass, you know, it doesn’t grow where you want it to grow and where you don’t want it to grow. It’s like, Hi, I’m here, and I’m thriving, so completely full of grass, I had spent money on a lot of plants that ended up dying, because I couldn’t keep up with the watering, including last summer. And I kind of lost my enjoyment of being out there because I knew I needed to do the work and I couldn’t make it happen.

And for me, even though it’s not a grand amount of space in this amazing, huge garden, it’s one of the things I really enjoy is like going out into the yard and picking suckers off the tomatoes and that kind of stuff, seeing the butterflies flying around. And just all the things that go into seeing those plants grow is really gratifying for me. And so I didn’t actually even get out in the garden this year at all. We had a couple of tomato plants that receded themselves and I was trying to give them water because I was like, I feel bad for them. And I don’t want them to die, because they’re survivors.

But I just wasn’t going out in the art. So nevertheless, at some point, I decided I had had enough and this was bullshit. And I decided to call in an expert. So this is my friend, Nico. She is a landscaper and gardener and a really good friend of mine. We had actually talked briefly about doing this garden project two years ago. And I put it off thinking I might, I would just do it myself. Which is kind of funny, because we know what happened. I did fuck off. I didn’t do anything. So finally, I texted her and I said, Alright, Nico, I am ready to do this. Like I wave the white flag, I surrender. I’m, I’m not going to do this. I could DIY it.

And in the past, I have been known to be a bit of a DIY fire. I’ve shared a story if you’re subscribed to my email newsletter, which if you’re not what’s get on it? But I shared a story on my email newsletter once about retitling an entire kitchen floor I had never done any tile and it was a massive floor and I pulled up the linoleum and we like cut all the tile and it was it was not a it was not a good idea. So definitely no stranger to DIY projects. And yes, of course, DIY projects could save you money, but also they cost you other things. Right.

So think about all the things that my garden’s lack of action cost me money, enjoyment, and satisfaction. And things were actually more difficult to fix because I had procrastinated and put things off for so long. So once I decided to get her help, here’s what happened. She came over, looked at the yard, and what you know what needed to be fixed. She created a plan. And within one week of that visit, she was at my house with a truck full of supplies. She had gone to all the stores, and she had all her tools with her. So there was nothing that we needed. She just brought it all and all of her expertise.

So Nico used to be a nurse. She’s an incredibly amazing human. I just love her to death. But she’s also super, super smart. And she understands the application of science in nursing. And she’s been able to leverage that into gardening, which is so fascinating. And she was able to tell me, like, you know, these are all the things that these plants need. And those plants need, right, just like so. She’s done it. She knows what to do. She’s an expert. And so here’s what happened in eight hours of work. We helped each other out, right, so I was kind of her. She was the boss and I was helping her out with some things.

We worked on some things together, but I really deferred to her guidance and her expertise and eight hours of work on that one. Single Day, which is July 5, we completed the entire job that I had put off for two whole fucking years. And it was like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders. And I just recently posted a before and after picture on Instagram stories, I know some people are like IG stories are dead, I really, I use them a lot. So hey, check me out on stories. But I recently posted a side-by-side of the growth that we’ve had in two and a half weeks. And it’s incredible. So I’m so so happy with how things are going. And I even, I’m going to try not to get choked up.

I even in one of the beds, planted all these sunflower seeds that I had bought a few years ago. And I never really did anything with them, thinking I’ll just put them down and see what happens. But to me, sunflowers are a really nostalgic thing. Because when my grandparents had their garden, every summer, they would do a bunch of different stuff. But some flowers were something that my grandfather planted, I have a picture and I’ve been desperately trying to find it of him.

And myself and my sister, and one of the giants, you know those giants and flowers that are like 10 feet tall, these giant sunflowers behind us. And we were super little. And I’ll always have that memory of him. And so I wanted to play with the sunflowers because they remind me of him. And that was something that was so I’m seeing them grow now. And it’s, it sounds so maybe silly to some people, but just to see them growing. And to know that we’re going to have these beautiful sunflowers and attract the bees, which I love.

I used to be a beekeeper some of you know that like, it was just such a moment where I was like, why did I wait so long when this is bringing me so much gratification and joy? So here’s the moral of the story. And I hope that you’re taking this to heart. And I know that this has been a bit of a ramble today. But when you hire an expert, whether it’s a gardener, a nutrition coach, or someone to paint your house, or I don’t know, you fill in the blank here, you’re making a very wise choice.

Number one, you’re going to get better results faster than you could by yourself. So you expedite the process. So what I failed to get done was remember into two years, knowing that things needed to be fixed and addressed. With Nico’s help. Right. And her expertise. I was we were able to accomplish that in a week. And now everything is thriving. And I’m like kicking myself like why did I wait so long? Number two, you are borrowing the education and expertise of the person that you hired. So Nico, I know has done tons of projects around our area, she knew exactly the perfect irrigation setup for our yard, the exact timer that would be perfect.

I mean, like down to the littlest detail, how she knew how to make the repairs and how to fix stuff. She knew the exact soil amendments that we needed for our particular area and liked the garden boxes that we already had. And so I was able to borrow her expertise. And so when you work with a coach, an expert, you are literally like being able to hook on to the things that they have learned through their own certifications and education and experience, particularly hopefully, you’re working with somebody who has an evidence-based approach, right?

And so you’re able to glean all of that without having to like, invest the time, and effort and energy and money, right to go and like go through all the certifications yourself, if you will, right? Number three, you end the constant overwhelm, of trying to learn and DIY everything. And I see this a lot with the folks that I work with, or I talk to on social, again in DMS and emails and things like that, who are sort of like I don’t know, like, I think I can figure this out myself.

And I want you to think about if you’ve been kind of on the cusp of like, whether it’s getting a templated fitness program, like one of the ones that I offer, or it’s like coming to work with us in Strength Nutrition Unlocked, and actually getting coaching, whether it’s working one on one with me or another coach, right. I want you to think about how much time you have been spending trying to solve your own problem and DIY things. And like be honest about your progress. And if you keep bumping up against the same issues, so I want you to hear this really clearly because I am not against learning at all.

One of my core values as a person, and also as a business is education. I used to be a high school teacher, I mean, come on, like this is in my blood education is extremely important to me, and is a foundational piece of everything I do. And recently, I’ve just finished the last of like six different certifications that I have embarked on since the fall of 2022. Okay, so I obviously believe in education.

But I want you to notice where you have a tendency, maybe to research things on the internet over and over again, to figure everything out yourself, and you put pressure on yourself to do that. And where it ends up costing you more time, more money, more mental energy than it’s really worth. Okay, so I know this is a sensitive topic, for a lot of people are like, but I like learning about these things, I get it.

But at the same time, if you know, you’re really not making a lot of progress, it might be time to hire that outright to invest in yourself. And that’s where people get weird about, like, well, I don’t deserve to invest in myself, I’m not good enough yet to invest in myself, like, I’m not worthy to invest in myself, which is all bullshit. You are worthy, you’ve always been worthy, there is no question about your worthiness. And you at any point in the process, wherever you are, with your nutrition, with your strength training, etc, are worthy of hiring somebody, you don’t have to get to some magical.

Suppose that level, of course, you’re going to want to find somebody who is aligned to and is like, can meet you where you’re at. But don’t think you have to be able to deadlift 300 pounds, before you get help with your strength training, for example. That just doesn’t make any sense, right? So yes, you are worthy of investing in yourself right now. So hiring an expert is an investment. That’s one example of an investment you can make in your own growth and your own transformation. It’s really interesting.

What happens when you do that, is you start to show up differently for yourself, you’re essentially putting that investment down to the universe and saying, I’m going to invest my time, my money, I’m going to invest my effort, whatever that looks like that investment looks like. And like, I’m ready to take this seriously, I’m ready to show up for myself. So a lot of times people think, well, it’s the coach that’s making me show up, Steph, it’s because you’re, you know, you’re running coaching calls for Strength Nutritional Unlocked every Monday, that’s why I show up.

And certainly, you know, there’s this idea of, of connection and community and like being in that space, that feels like, Hey, I have support. Sure, of course. But a lot of the time the way you change because you have invested in coaching, or in you know, even getting a strength plan and stop, stop programming for yourself. If you don’t understand how to program, you’ll get better results, like stop putting the pressure on yourself to like have to know how to program.

There are people that go to school for many years to learn how to do this or have invested a significant amount of time to know how to program well. So like, you know, thinking about those things is like, why do you start to show up differently because you have invested in yourself, it’s not always because you just somebody’s going to be waiting for you for that appointment. Sure, there could be a factor.

But you start to value yourself and show up for yourself differently when you invest in your own growth in your own transformation, right? Information is not transformation. It can be an important factor, like having good quality, evidence-based information matters. You know, we don’t want you following all these fad things and fad diets and fad workout plans and stuff that has no evidence behind it. So good information is important, but it alone is not enough to make you act is not enough to get you the results. The internet is full of information, a lot of it is absolute garbage.

And you don’t necessarily have time to sift through all of it. This is why having a plan or working with a coach. Investing in that expert can be so helpful in getting you expedited results moving you along faster to actually helping you progress much quicker. So yes, hiring an expert is an investment. It can be expensive. It’s going to cost something, everything costs something, right?

If you DIY it, it’s going to cost you probably more time, and potentially have to fix some of the mistakes. So I always quote my friend Deanna Harder who’s been on this podcast before, and she’s said this quite a bit. If you think hiring an expert is expensive. Wait until you hire an amateur. And I think that It’s so true. And, frankly, sometimes the amateur is, right. You’re, you’re like trying to figure this out yourself.

And you don’t have the breadth of knowledge or the depth of knowledge or being able to like, step back with the strategy or see things from that objective point of view, which is why coaching is so powerful. So what does this mean for you, if you’ve listened to this podcast before, you know that I have a lot of different ways that I can help you? And specifically, when it comes to helping you as an athletic woman over 40, you get better results from the training that you’re doing, right to then leverage that into improving your life outside of training.

I have created this framework to help you do that. So that framework is called the Fuel Your Strength, Fuel Your Strength framework. And with it in a special, especially the Strength Nutrition Unlocked program, you’ll practice and be guided through those evidence-based strategies to blend nutrition and workouts training, with recovery. And with your physiology as a woman over 40 in mind, right?

You’ll notice things like being more well-fueled and ready to tackle not only your workouts but the whole day. And recently, we had one of our students was sharing that she showed up to her workout. She’s been practicing some handstand skills and like, nailed it. And her trainer stopped and took a picture. Because he was like, Whoa, like, where did this come from? Like, it’s finally clicking. And my student was saying, Well, I’m actually fueling myself better, I have that energy, I feel like I can like to show up and do the workout and like, give the effort because I am fueled enough, instead of kind of running on fumes.

So that’s just one example. You know, we help people to build a stronger, faster fitter body and do badass shit. As a result. I can’t even tell you about the number of students that we’ve had who have, like done incredible hikes. One of my students Siobhan comes to mind, she went out on this wilderness backpacking trip with her husband and her dog. And previous to that, she wasn’t convinced that her hamstring could hold up.

She had chronic hamstring pain for a really long time and she was able to go do that hike. And she was like, wow, I mean, what a huge difference that’s made. Another one of my students has recently sent me a message. And this was just a couple of days ago, saying, you know, I was out gardening, great example. It just like happens to tie together when I was out gardening for the whole entire day and I did not have to worry about like, lacking the strength to do the things that I previously struggled to do.

And I mean, that is like, I don’t know, some people are like, Oh, what do you do being in the garden, I happen to think that’s fucking incredible. And for her, the thing that matters the most is that it made her life better. It made her life better because she was able to do the things she wanted to do. And we have people adding muscle definition and another student, send me a message and say, like, I’m watching myself on Zoom calls now. And I’m like, excited to see my own arms, because like I’m seeing, I’m adding muscle to my arms.

Like, she’s so so excited about that. Recovering better with less soreness, we have people like having more energy, not just for the workouts, but again, to be like President with their friends and their family. So these are some of the things that we do inside of Strength Nutrition Unlocked, specifically, with this framework. So if you’re ready to like, figure all this stuff out, have expert guidance, get the coaching and the community support that are so so important in long-term progress, then we’re waiting for you to apply.

So you can check that out at StephGaudreau.com/apply. So, you know, I wanted to bring you this episode because I want you to know that I’m a human and I have things that are still like, Oh, hey, I could hire someone to help me do this thing. Right? So I’m learning and growing all the time along with you, I am not perfect. And I have my own stuff where I’m like, Hmm, you know what, maybe I should actually not try to do this all myself because let me take a look at the last two years of not actually getting results for myself in my garden outside, right?

So, I wanted to share that story with you so that you can know that you are not alone in the things that are challenging you and that one of the things you can do is take that next step to make that investment maybe it’s like investing in that $100 or $200 fitness program, maybe it’s getting a coach maybe it’s like I don’t know your level, like whatever the next level is for you doesn’t always mean that you’re gonna go like jump in and have a one on one coaching, like invest in a whole year of front maybe it’s joining Strength Nutrition Unlocked.

Maybe the next step is just submitting the application and getting on a call with us and just chatting it out and seeing like is it a good fit for what you need. So, I wanted to share that with you. Because I think having an example from real life, that is an analogy and directly parallels the experience can be so helpful. And to remind you that you are fucking worth it you are worth and you know that investment in your own progress, whatever that level of investment looks like for you, you are worthy of getting help toward your goals.

You know, so many women have had to be more independent, have had to do things themselves, and have not had the support. And sometimes we carry that with us, even after our time of doing things alone, and our independence has maybe shifted or come to an end or transitioned. And we’re like, still carrying that with us, like, Hey, I have to do things all by myself. I had to prove it, I had to prove that I’m able to do this alone. And I cannot tell you how important that support is.

Whether that’s support from an online community, a training partner support from a coach support from a trusted friend, or family member, or whoever’s there for you. Stop thinking that you’re the only one who doesn’t have this shit figured out, stop thinking that you’re not worthy of having that success, right. And so that’s my nudge to you. I know, it’s easier said than done. But just to say like, Hey, these things happen, you’re not alone here. And I’m really excited to see how you thrive.

And how you are able to reach for the things that you’re really excited about. take that next step, make that progress that you’ve been wanting, in terms of your training, your nutrition, whatever that is, for the purpose of like, whatever lights you up in life, sometimes the training is enough, but sometimes you need something bigger. Right? So yeah, fixing the garden up and making the repairs felt good to get it off my plate.

But the thing I really connected to is that deeper sense of why I love being outside, it connects me to my family. It connects me to like seeing beautiful things and the satisfaction of seeing things grow. And saying like, Hey, I kind of like I helped that happen, you know I stewarded is that the right word, I said I was the steward of these plants as they grew and they created beauty or food or cash is so pure. So identify those things that really connect with you.

And if you’re having trouble, go back and listen to the previous podcast episode we did on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. All right, my friend, thanks so much for being here today on this kind of different podcast, I really actually enjoyed sharing this with you. And it’s kind of nice to turn some of my posts into actual podcasts where we get to sit down and have a little chat and some storytime and you know, make it more real.

So thanks so much for being here. Make sure that you hit Subscribe on your podcast app and also navigate yourself over to YouTube. Yes, there’s a YouTube channel. Yes, there are all kinds of other podcasts, as well as workout videos and more to come. So go hit subscribe and then ring the bell for more notifications. Leave me a comment. What did you think about this episode?

What’s one thing that you feel you are ready to invest in that next step for yourself? And if you are ready to check out all the ways that I can support you and the things that I have solutions for you. You can find those all over at StephGaudreau.com including the application or Strength Nutrition Unlocked over at StephGaudreau.com/apply All right, my friend. Thank you for being here again and have an amazing week. And until I talk to you next time, stay strong.

How to Get Better Fitness Results | Steph Gaudreau.