Progress photos are everywhere in the fitness industry.
You’ve probably seen hundreds of them.
Someone stands in the same spot, wearing the same clothes, with one picture labeled “before” and another labeled “after.”
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
For some people, progress photos are incredibly motivating. They can help you notice changes that are difficult to see when you look at yourself in the mirror every day.
That’s why my clients are always welcome to take them.
But I don’t require them.
If taking a picture of yourself without your shirt on makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to do it to work with me.
There are plenty of other ways for us to know whether what you’re doing is working.
What Does Progress Actually Look Like?
Obviously, if your goal is to lose weight, we want to see your weight trending in the right direction.
But that’s only one measurement.
We can look at your waist measurement.
We can see whether you’re getting stronger in your workouts.
We can look at your energy.
Your sleep.
How your clothes fit.
How consistently you’re exercising.
How much you’re moving throughout the day.
We can even look at things that are harder to put on a spreadsheet.
Can you get down on the floor with your kids and get back up more easily?
Can you go hiking without feeling completely exhausted?
Do you have more energy when you get home from work?
Are you saying yes to things you used to avoid?
Do you simply feel better than you did six months ago?
Those are all signs of progress.
And as you get older, I think some of those measurements become even more important.
Your Kids Don’t Care If You Have a Six Pack
Your kids probably don’t care what your abs look like.
They care whether you’ll play with them.
They care whether you can coach their team, go swimming with them, throw a ball around, go hiking, or say yes when they ask you to do something.
And hopefully someday you’re still healthy and strong enough to do some of those same things with their kids.
That doesn’t mean changing the way your body looks is a bad goal.
You’re allowed to want to lose your stomach.
You’re allowed to want bigger arms.
You’re allowed to want to look better when you take your shirt off at the pool.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those goals.
I just don’t think they need to be the only way we define success.
My Body Doesn’t Prove I Can Coach You
This is another reason I don’t build my coaching around physique pictures.
How I look doesn’t tell you whether I’m a good coach.
I can get really lean.
I can build muscle.
I can get stronger.
But all that proves is that I figured out something that worked for me.
You aren’t me.
You have a different body, different responsibilities, different preferences, different goals, different limitations, and a different life.
Knowing how to get myself in shape and knowing how to coach you are two very different skills.
Good coaching matters when it’s Wednesday night, work was terrible, you haven’t exercised all week, there’s nothing planned for dinner, and you’re wondering why you even bother trying anymore.
That’s where you need more than somebody else’s workout program.
You need a plan that actually fits you.
Your Fitness Plan Should Fit Your Life
Maybe you love going to the gym.
Great.
Maybe walking into a gym makes you uncomfortable and you’d rather exercise in your basement.
That works too.
Maybe you have a full home gym.
Maybe you have two dumbbells and a resistance band.
Maybe tracking calories makes your life easier because you like having specific numbers to follow.
Maybe you need something much simpler.
There isn’t one perfect approach that every person needs to follow.
That’s one of the things I’ve learned after years of coaching people.
My job isn’t to take what worked for me and hand it to you.
My job is to understand your life, your goals, and what has kept you from succeeding in the past, and then help you build something you can actually keep doing.
That usually means making fitness a lot simpler than you think it needs to be.
You’re More Than a Before Picture
I absolutely want my clients to get results.
I want you to lose the weight you want to lose.
I want you to get stronger.
I want your waist measurement to come down.
And if you want to take progress pictures along the way and celebrate how much your body has changed, I’m all for it.
But I also want you to have more energy.
I want you to move better.
I want you to feel stronger.
I want you to enjoy your life while you’re getting healthier.
And ultimately, I want you to reach a point where taking care of yourself feels like something you know how to do instead of another diet you’re constantly starting and stopping.
If your body changes along the way, great.
Take the picture if you want to.
But you’ll never have to prove your progress by taking your shirt off.