%20(1).jpg)
Health & Fitness Redefined
Health and Fitness Redefined with Anthony Amen. Take a dive into the health world as we learn how to overcome adversity, depict fact vs fiction and see health & fitness in a whole new light.Fitness Is Medicine
Health & Fitness Redefined
The Secret Ingredient to Fitness Success
Are you tired of falling off the fitness wagon whenever motivation runs dry? Discover the secret ingredient to long-term health and fitness success: accountability. In this episode of Health and Fitness Redefined, I unpack the three essential pillars of a robust health journey: exercise, nutrition, and accountability, with the latter being the linchpin that keeps you on track. Sharing my own experiences, including how I manage chronic pain through accountability, we'll explore practical strategies to stay committed to your fitness goals even when the going gets tough.
Find out how building a support system can amplify your motivation and enhance your results. We delve into the power of community accountability, focusing on the benefits of surrounding yourself with a small, dedicated group that will cheer you on and keep you honest. Learn why public commitments can be a game changer and how adopting a mindset of self-responsibility and grit can make accountability an effortless part of your daily routine. Fitness is medicine, and this episode is packed with actionable tips and inspiring stories to help you stay the course and achieve your health goals. Don't miss out on this empowering discussion that could redefine your fitness journey!
Hello and welcome to Health and Fitness Redefined. I'm your host, anthony, amen. And today, guys, we're going to break down what I think is probably the most important part of having a health and fitness journey, right? So it was said once to me a few weeks back, there's three pillars of wellness, and two of them everybody knows, right, we talk about it on this show all the time First one being fitness slash exercise. You need to move your body in order to get results. Movement is key and, like we like to say, fitness is medicine. The second part of that is you need to control what you put in your mouth. At the end of the day, if you're going to go and just vlog around outside and then swap down Big Macs and chug some soda, I mean, what are you really doing, right? So, control the foods you're putting in your mouth, make sure you're eating healthy and move your body. But, anthony, you said there's three. Yeah, what's that third one and why do I think it's the most important, in my opinion, and it's something I really want you guys to understand. So that third pillar is not motivation, and everyone thinks it's motivation.
Speaker 1:Motivation does not work, anthony. You motivate people all the time. It's temporary, hence the word motivation. I'm going to motivate you to do something, but what's going to get you to go even further and keep you coming? That word is accountability. Yeah, accountability is what gets you to go to the gym when you don't want to, when you have no motivation, when you got horrible night's sleep, you feel like shit. When you got horrible night's sleep, you feel like shit. Everything around you is annoying and you're like I got to go work out, I'm not motivated. Well, toughen up buttercup, get some accountability and go show up. The second side of that how it ties into nutrition is the accountability to control what you're putting in your mouth. How it ties into nutrition is the accountability to control what you're putting in your mouth. Don't feel like, because you're on this health journey, that you can't be around people that are eating unhealthy or you can't be around sweets because you have no control. That, again, is accountability. Keep yourself accountable to not go do those things. You.
Speaker 1:Take a drug addict right, it will go to the extreme. I like going to extremes because really it's clarity in people's minds. So take someone that is an alcoholic, right Alcoholic. Are they going to avoid people who drink? No, it's not possible. Are they going to avoid seeing alcohol in a grocery store? They're gonna avoid seeing alcohol at a local 7-eleven. No, they have no choice. They've learned to keep themselves accountable to not drink and still be exposed to that stimuli of that alcohol. They're gonna go hang out with friends like they once did and while all their friends are sitting around a fire pit having a beer, they can go and enjoy themselves because they're keeping themselves accountable to not drink, but still enjoying the moment. They're forced to go. They don't stop their life because they're exposed to something that they shouldn't be around. Because they're exposed to something that they shouldn't be around, how does that tie in to getting started and how do I find my accountability?
Speaker 1:Well, personally and some of you may have put together some of me knocks. I've been asked a lot recently what's your accountability? My accountability is my pain. My pain keeps me accountable. I don't work out my back every fifth or sixth day. It tightens up. I start feeling like shit again. There's my accountability. It says, knock, knock, who's here? And I'm like, oh no, got to go put him away. Let me go to the gym. It doesn't matter where I am on vacation, at home, sick, I'm going to work gym. It doesn't matter where I am on vacation, at home, sick I'm going to work out, it doesn't matter, I have to. I don't want to be back where I was 14 years ago. I want to keep moving forward and keep being better, and I am motivated every time I'm working out.
Speaker 1:And and for a lot of you that say, well, you're a gym owner, it's harder I got to go to, are a lot of you that say, well, you're a gym owner, it's harder I got to go to the place where I'm going to run into employees, clients, and I don't want to be there, I'm in a bad mood, but I still got to go show up. It keeps me accountable, same thing as being a boss. I need to go show up. I need to be accountable, even if I don't feel good. I need to be that example and say I don't want to show up to work. You still go, right, you still go. Those of you who have kids your kid needs something for you. You're not having a bad day. What are you laying in bed all day with the covers over your head? No, the kid keeps you accountable to go take care of them. That's what pushes you through.
Speaker 1:I can make a bet right now, if it's not yourself, you know at least 10 people who pay for a gym membership that don't go. They don't go. There's some of them paying for six months a year, five years, 10 years. Shut up once or twice or go to the New Year's resolutioners those that come in January. How long do they last? A month? Six weeks. Six weeks is average, right? They get that motivation.
Speaker 1:Hoorah, I'm starting New Year's. I'm going to do this, right? There's the motivation. There's the motivation that gets you in the door. What keeps you coming? Accountability. Think about that. What keeps you showing up?
Speaker 1:Accountability, all right, anthony, how do I gain accountability? Right? How do I do this? Well, there's a bunch of different ways, right? I don't want you guys to have pain like me in order to keep yourself accountable. That's not fun. Do not recommend to a friend. But there are other ways to do it.
Speaker 1:Let's start with in-gym services, personal training right? Somebody is waiting for you. If you set an appointment to show up at 10 o'clock and you don't show up to the gym to meet that trainer, you're going to feel like shit. You're like, oh my God, especially when you get close to that person. They're going to make me pay next time I come in. If I don't come in, let me get my ass out of bed and go. Right, how about working out with a friend? That way, you guys can pin off of each other's motivation to go to the gym, because it's never going to sync up and when your friend feels like going and you don't, they're going to say get your lazy ass out of bed and we're going.
Speaker 1:Keep yourself accountability. You don't want to disappoint your friend. You created that right then and there. Create it with your spouse. Take your spouse, say hey, let's keep each other accountable, what we eat and how often we go to the gym. We're going to watch each other. You know fun game take a money jar right, put it somewhere where you both see it. If I eat Oreos, I owe X amount of money in the jar. If I do this, I owe X amount of money in this. It's keeping you accountable. At the end of the year, let's say on Christmas, whoever achieved the best goal and looks the best, or whatever you guys want to do, it's your spouse. You can give the money to the winner, or use it for a trip, or let them pick whatever you can make a game out of it.
Speaker 1:Now, anthony, I'm paying for x gym. It's costing me 10 20 a month. Now, shouldn't that money keep me accountable? Yeah, but no, what? Well, let's put it this way Money and paying for something is one of the best ways to keep you accountable by far, to the extent. There's even a placebo effect associated with if I'm paying for something, I'm going to achieve a lot out of it Because you're convincing yourself you're going to achieve a lot out of it. But there's a price point. What's that price point? It's different for everybody, but in general, what hurts? Right? If I'm making $100,000 a year, a $10, $20 a month membership doesn't hurt. I don't care, I barely notice it going in and out. That's not keeping you accountable. A thousand dollars a month Now it's coming out and you're watching. A thousand dollars every month come out of bank account. That keeps you accountable.
Speaker 1:Now, this is the number one reason people pay for trainers, right? It's not because, yeah, someone's waiting for them, but they're paying really good money to that person to keep them accountable. And it's not so much the trainer keeping the client accountable, it's the fact that the client paid a higher amount of money for them that's keeping them accountable. Let's go into celebrity trainers. Did you know celebrity trainers can charge up to $1,000 an hour? As an example, the average gym charges between $150 and $200 an hour for personal training. They're charging $1,000. Why Do the math?
Speaker 1:Training five days a week, $5,000 a week, $5,000, $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 a month that hurts for somebody making a million a year. Does $1,000 hurt for someone making a million a year? Does $1,000 hurt for someone making a million a year? No, it doesn't. That's why it doesn't work. It's the money side of it that's going to keep you accountable. So if you learn anything from this, money has to hurt and it is the best way to keep somebody accountable, which is what we learned even in our studios.
Speaker 1:The more we charge, the more services we get to offer, the better quality of service you get to offer, which is all great, which is a positive effect on the company and to service you. But the more expensive we go, the more accountable our clients become to service you. But the more expensive we go, the more accountable our clients become to showing up, and that's how we get them results, because I can't go to your house and get you. Well, I probably could, but that wouldn't look good. I can't go get you and throw you into the car and say we're going to the gym, let's go. I can't follow you around 24 seven and knock a Big Mac out of your hand or a soda, right? I'm only there for a certain amount of time and my staff is only there for a certain amount of time. So you need this accountability.
Speaker 1:It even goes further than just showing up to the gym. I'm paying $1,000 a month to go to the gym. I'm paying $1,000 a month to go to see a nutritionist. Right? All this money, you're going to be more likely to follow their plan, which is going to work, but it needs to be a high amount of money where it hurts. This is why registered dietitians don't work in general, and it's not anything against registered dietitians. These people have to go, get master's degree and pass a licensure. Nothing to do with the knowledge they're giving to you. Strictly the fact insurance covers it. If insurance covers it, you don't care, right? You're not paying for it. You don't care. It means nothing. Some people may take from it, some people may learn, but the majority of people will not continue with it at all because they're not paying that amount of money to show up and keep themselves accountable. All right, we weren't really into the money.
Speaker 1:Let's go into other avenues of accountability. There's a lot. So, spouse, we mentioned keep each other accountable. Make sure you both do it. Pay each other. You don't want to pay a trainer, say, honey, if I don't go to the gym, I owe you a hundred bucks. That that's good. And then you keep it in house, right? Let's tell your wife, if I don't go giving you 200 dollars, go buy that purse you've always wanted. You really don't want her buying that purse because it's a lot of money for a person. Every guy's like I don't get it, but the point being that's going to keep you accountable, do it.
Speaker 1:Let's go into community. There's such thing as community accountability. Now, this is great. We we mentioned a buddy, right. So you have one friend that helps keep you accountable. One, spouse, what if you got a community of people to keep each other accountable and you don't even need finances once you get to a certain number of people? But there is a cap, right? So if I take from two to five people and get them all close and get them to know each other, it's way more likely that out of that five or out of that 10, one person's super motivated that day and he's like come on, guys, let's go, and he's going to drag the other let's say, if it's 10, other nine with him to the gym to keep him accountable, as opposed to sometimes when there's two and there's overlap, where both don't feel like going and eventually gives up. So 10 works.
Speaker 1:But now the caveat of this is if you get to a certain point of like 100 or 200, you get lost in a crowd. You see, this is large group classes. Large group classes Don't talk to 20, 30, 40 people. You feel you can hide in the back. You don't want to get to know everybody. Hide in the back, you don't want to get to know everybody, you want to be a fly on the wall. Now it doesn't matter if you don't show up, you're afraid of the accountability. Yeah, I said it, those large group classes are great, but you are preventing yourself from seeing results because you don't want to show up in the middle. You don't want to be up front in that class, you don't want to get to know people and you want to hide and you're going to pretend it's because you're embarrassed. But what you're really afraid of? Is someone else noticing that when you stop showing up because you already have it in your mind when you're going to stop coming, you already have it in your mind when you're going to stop coming If you hide in the back, when you're going to stop coming. If you hide in the back, get up front or keep that community smaller. Keep it smaller. Make sure you hold each other accountable. You can take accountability and do small rewards. I showed up, I get X.
Speaker 1:There's a theory called latency, meaning the amount of time it takes you to do something against award, and it was very interesting when I was learning about this. But it's true, I looked it up. If I have a client right, and they did five pushups They've never done five pushupsups and have been five pushes before if I said, oh my god, you're amazing, great job, high five, and congratulate them on the spot, I decreased the latency between the point they did it to the point where they got that high five, that feels amazing. Now if I came back to that client who got that five pushups, didn't give him the high five but came back the next day and gave him $20. Great job, oh, thanks, but $20 is more than a high five, right, high five is free. I'm actually giving you 20 bucks. What? Why did the high five work? Because people want awards right away. I want things now, now, now, now, now. So you have to learn to get rid of the amount of time it takes you.
Speaker 1:This goes both ways, even for negative. Something negative happens, you push it off. I mean, we're talking seconds, like it's soon not going to become relevant. Look at a dog. You're training your dog. Dog does a good thing. Good job girl, good girl, good girl, right away. You wait, the dog's gonna look at you like what, what are you talking about, bro? What did I do? Or like they did something bad? You hit it right away. Hey, not hit the dog. Let me be clear. You go hey, bad girl, don't do that, don't do that. And you, as the action is going, you're pulling them away from the situation to teach them, as opposed to coming back to. And they pooped in your house four hours ago, yelling, and the dog is looking at like what the? You just don't like me. You don't like me. No, they don't understand that. You just meant to poop in the house like what the? You just don't like me. You don't like me? No, they don't understand that. You just made the poops in the house Like what? What happened?
Speaker 1:Latency versus award to build accountability. We're tying this back all to accountability. So, community personal training classes you're getting up front Spouses. You're telling your spouse. Tell people you're going on this journey. Keep yourself accountable. Post on social media. I'm gonna come on every single friday to tell you what I did for the week as far as my diet and exercise goes. Do it. Live on, live, tell people. And if I don't call me out on it, do you think you're going to start doing it? Especially if you tell everyone that you're doing that? Oh, you're going to go to the gym. Oh, you're going to start eating healthier? Right, I think so. This is why it works. This is why it ties together. This is why it takes fitness and nutrition and blends it to one, because if you don't have the accountability, you lose one or the other or both, and then everything falls apart. But if you keep that accountability, it keeps the structure alive and it's the true base of being able to live a healthy life and a lot of things in life.
Speaker 1:Accountability helps a lot. Keep yourself accountable for things and you'll keep showing up, you'll keep doing better, you'll keep improving and you will be able to do things that you never thought possible. And push to the heart and then, soon, the heart becomes easy, and that's the ultimate key the heart becomes easy. Tie this back to grit. We can make grit teachable, right. We can stop playing the victim. We can start going for a reward and run away from a negative and be like it's nobody's fault but my own. I can push through, I can keep myself accountable and things start becoming easier and easier and easier and easier before you know it. Accountability is no longer a chore, it's just something you're going to do. You're going to show up, show up, get it done until next time. Guys, don't forget, fitness is medicine, so so, outro Music.
