Initial assessment — Nutrition, habits, lifestyle, exercise
You start by telling us everything about yourself, your goals, what you’ve done in the past, your health and fitness challenges and daily routine.
We ask for detailed initial data of your nutrition, habits, lifestyle and exercise history to understand where we need to make changes, and strengths we can build upon. Instead of fitting your life into the program and giving you a ‘one-size-fits-all’ program, we create a personalised program that will fit into your lifestyle, which you will be able to commit to ensure consistent and long-term results.
In addition, we also go through a health and fitness questionnaire where we learn about your past exercise experiences, medical history and nutritional past. We go through this to get an understanding of where you have come from and what we need to do, to get you to where you want to be in the fastest and safest way possible.
Personalised and customised online coaching
On the information we have gathered we then build you your personalised weight loss nutrition and training program. This 12 month online coaching program is your template plan (guide) that we gradually tweak throughout the year to find your bullet proof blue print (master plan) that will see you ditch the diets that take over your life, and lose weight forever, so you can reclaim your health, vitality, confidence and freedom.
Structure and accountability.
With a plan in place we introduce structure and accountability.
Structure is the road map for your personalised plan.
Structure means making a plan and then working the plan. It means scheduling time for your workouts, making time to prepare healthy meals, ensuring you get enough rest and ensuring you have time to do all the other things you need to do, including going to work, raising your kids, and enjoying your down time.
When you do this, you’ll have time to do the things you need to do, to support your weight loss goals. Because structure gives you clarity on what’s important, you’ll no longer waste time on things that won’t help you lose weight. Structure actually leads to freedom because you know you’ve got plenty of time for all the things that matter, and you’ll eliminate the stress and worry of trying to do too much.
Accountability is the acknowledgement of responsibility for your actions with the obligation to report, explain, and be responsible for the resulting consequences.
Research shows that if you tell someone else about a goal, you have a 65% chance of succeeding. But when you make yourself accountable to the person to whom you’ve made the commitment, you increase your chances of success to a massive 95%!
Accountability keeps you progressing and keeps you consistent. Anyone can start exercising and eating healthily, but sticking with it and being consistent is difficult. However, accountability helps you to be consistent with new habits. And we know when it comes to weight loss, consistency trumps intensity every single time.
When you have someone else checking up on you to see how things are going, you’re more likely to do the work required in order to make progress. This may be getting to your exercise sessions, going for a walk, eating healthy food, or even making sure you’re getting enough rest and recovery time so you don’t burn out.
Accountability not only helps you stay on track with what you need to do to lose weight, it actually helps you to do it when motivation is low. And when you’re not getting the results you’re looking for, accountability will show you what you need to work on, in order to get results.
Structure and accountability gives us consistency.
Consistency
If you tend to stop and start when it comes to weight loss, you’ll know how this can derail your progress and even send you backwards.
The truth is that the best results come with consistency. This doesn’t mean getting it right all the time. Rather it means working on making progress every day, even if you stuff up and make mistakes.
With consistency we get DATA.
Data
Data is information that you record, which reveals where you are, what you struggle with, why you struggle with it, and helps give clarity to the solutions that will help you get out of your current situation.
This includes:
- What you eat and drink — what you ate and drank, how much, when you ate it, how you felt afterwards, your hunger levels before and after eating, did you drink alcohol?
- Details about your training and exercise — what you did, how you felt before and afterwards, and what pre-and post-workout meals you had, what other movement did you do during the day
- How does your body feel — do you have any injuries, niggles or tight spots?
- Information about your sleep — how much sleep you’re getting, what time you get to bed, what time you wake up and how your energy levels are
- Data about your mood — do you feel anxious or stressed? positive and happy? Hormonal?
- Details about your behaviours, thoughts and habits — Do you compare yourself with other people? Find yourself doing things to please other people? Drink to ease stress?
Recording information on the above paints a very good picture of where you’re at, what you’re doing, and how it’s impacting your body shape and your weight loss.
For example, not eating enough food can slow down your results, as can poor sleep and stress. If you have any tight spots or injuries that may impact your workouts, this could also impact your results.
With consistent data we can now track data.
Track data
Having data means that you and your coach will know what’s working, and what’s not working, instead of guessing. You’ll know what needs changing (whether it’s a complete change or a tweak), and what doesn’t need changing. Data will also highlight what habits you’ve mastered, and what habits you still need to change. In a nutshell, having data gives you and your coach more clarity. This clarity gives you the power to keep moving forward to reach your goals.
Data gives you a realistic picture of where you are, why you got there, why you’re still stuck there and where you still need to go. It gives you an awareness that you otherwise wouldn’t have, and it’s this awareness that gives you power to change your circumstances. Data makes you aware and as you know, you can only change things that you’re aware of.
Tracking data leads to self-awareness.
Self-awareness
Self-awareness is understanding and questioning how your choices, habits and behaviours are responsible for your current situation and outcome. This can include your weight, health, the people in your life, and the level of success in your career or business.
Self-awareness is key to understanding ourselves better. It’s important because without it, we have no understanding of the actions, thoughts and behaviours (our habits), that serve us well, and the habits that hinder us, and impact negatively on other people.
Without self-awareness, we’ll continue to operate on auto-pilot, engaging in behaviours that slow our weight loss, or even contribute to weight gain.
We give you specific lessons and task that help you become self-aware.
Every day, through our online coaching platform, you’ll get a lesson, a workout, and a habit to practice. You’ll get regular feedback from your coach, and you can reach out to her directly, anytime.
You’ll be given a workout, lifestyle, nutrition or habit lesson to focus on.
Every lesson is meant to help you understand and practice the habit you are working on at the time.
Whether it’s ditching the diet mindset, sleep, replacing self sabotage habits, eating enough protein or eating enough vegetables we’ll help you develop the strategies.
You’ll get different habits to work on. And we’ll check in regularly to make sure you stay on track.
Unless you’re aware of your current habits, and how they impact your weight, you’ll never be able to change them. Because you can’t change what you don’t know.
Have you ever thought “I eat really well, but can’t lose weight” or “I train every day and eat less, but I’m still gaining weight” or “I’m always injured and I don’t understand why?”
If you have, there’s every chance that you’re doing things to cause these results, and you’re not even aware of it.
With self-awareness together we can start tweaking your keystone habits.
Tweaking keystone habits
A keystone habit is one that leads to the development of multiple habits. These habits can either serve you, or sabotage you.
To help explain, let’s look at an example of a keystone habit for weight loss.
Keystone habits control your life because they produce a trickle-down effect. The key habit you have, will lead you to engage in lots of other habits. If your keystone habit is one that sabotages your efforts, then all the daily actions you take, without even thinking about them, will also sabotage your success.
On the other hand, if you develop a keystone habit that primes you for success, then all the habits that flow from that will also help propel you to success.
Keystone habit: Perfectionism
Habits that come out of perfectionism include:
- Believing that what you do is never enough
- Taking an all-or-nothing approach
- Fixating on the end result, instead of working at the steps you need to get there
- Focusing on what you haven’t achieved instead of what you have achieved
- Never giving yourself credit
- Continually feeling stressed because you’re trying to get everything ‘right’
- Never trying anything new in case you can’t do it
- Doing everything yourself instead of delegating, because you don’t trust others
- Keeping everyone happy because you’re afraid you’ll be judged
- Taking constructive criticism personally
- Being unable to reach out for help because you feel ‘you should already know’
- Trying to do too many things at once and becoming overwhelmed or burnt out
- Always wanting to do more — more exercise and more dieting
- Going to bed late because you’re constantly ‘doing things’
- Not taking the time to rest.
So what do you do if your keystone habit is actually preventing you from getting the weight loss or body shape results you want?
The secret is to work on replacing that habit with a new one, rather than breaking it.
Replacing a habit involves looking at your cue, understanding your routine, and recognising the reward you receive for that behavior.
The secret to replacing one habit for another is to change your routine. You won’t always be able to change the cue or trigger, but you can change the routine. This will then lead to a change in habit.
We then focus on replacing one keystone habit at a time as we continue the cycle of collecting, tracking and tweaking data over and over, whilst progressing to turn your initial template/ plan into a blueprint/ master plan specific to you.
The longer we collect consistent data, the more precise accountability and action steps you will get therefore a better blueprint/master plan, hence faster and consistent long-term results.
You’ll finally get the body you want, and you’ll have the skills, tools, and habits to make your results last a lifetime.
Tried and tested
Right now, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, personal trainers are busy developing new programs to help you lose weight online.
But what they’re actually doing is trying to cover up the fact that the quick-fix they sold you initially can’t stand up to the test of time. So they’re moving from one quick-fix, which focused on exercise and meal plans, to another one — online coaching.
But the truth is that most of these PTs aren’t going to ‘coach’ you. They’re just going to provide you with workouts and meal plans that you can access online and call that coaching.
In reality, it’s just another fad that the diet and fitness industry will be selling you, in order to make money while the usual face-to-face programs are off the table. And most likely, these online programs have been cobbled together overnight.
However, our Imani Tribe Transformations tried and tested personalised online coaching program has been around for 7 years!
Our online coaching program provides a similar transformation plan to those used with the Imani Tribe face-to-face members. But you don’t have to visit the studio — you can do it all from the comfort and privacy of your home.
We support you throughout the year, so you can focus on each of the individual programs in our ‘program periods’. Between program periods you take a break to consolidate your new habits and mindsets before starting the next program.
Throughout the year, we guide you through with daily action steps through your personal online portal, making our program time-efficient and doable, in the context of your life. You can also find more information about our program in these blogs:
The Imani Difference: Why we’re not about dieting, exercising or 12-week challenges
Why you can’t lose weight for good without a Body and Lifestyle Transformation
Why you need 12 months for a body transformation
If you’re ready for an online coaching program that’s different from the quick-fixes and fads doing the rounds right now, click on the application link below to see if you qualify.
