Most gyms measure the success of their trainers solely by their ability to sell personal training sessions. It’s not about transformation and results. It’s about selling. Few gyms even have the ability, or the desire, to determine if anyone is getting stronger and healthier.

If you are lucky enough to find someone who is passionate and talented and who can really help you then it will require that you invest around $100 per session for their assistance. Sometimes it’s more.

For most folks who use personal trainers, they slog through the same workout session after session, with no measurable improvement. I see the same people at my gym doing the same workouts with the same weight for 6 months at a time. What a colossal waste of time and money! There is no progress. No one is getting stronger, fitter or healthier.

There is a better way. For much less than what the yawning guy in the polo shirt will charge to count your reps and walk you through the standard circuit at Gym Chrome, you can become an online coaching client with me.

This is not for everyone. It will require discipline, an open mind, dedication and some time. An hour or so a day. Usually less.

So what will you get? Results and satisfaction like never before. Someone to hold you accountable if need be. You will be a new person physically and mentally after this 6 month training.

Things will start with a thorough personal assessment and a training regimen specific to your ability and goals.

Your program will begin on August 30, 2010 and end on February 4, 2011. I am limited to 15 clients. I need to be able to give you each the attention you will need and deserve to transform yourself over the next 6 months.

Each week you will get a training schedule based on the coming week, your obligations, and the previous weeks results. There will be a group conference call weekly. We will record it for those unable to attend.  The call will offer you support and group coaching. I expect that we will have special guests from time to time. I know we will.

Additionally, I will review videos of you and your work and technique from time to time. Also, there will be a 1 on 1 coaching call every month.

You will work hard. You certainly won’t be going through the motions as they say. You won’t be staying in the same rut you’ve been in. We will set a course to develop you into the person you want to be and then get you there step by step.

How much has your body changed in the last 6 months? Is this due to the fact that you are perfectly happy where you are, or because something isn’t working?

My guess is something needs to be fixed with either your training or your nutrition, even both. Something we can fix.

As you know, I strictly work with motivated individuals. Thus I do require a phone interview.

If you’d like to be considered and want further information, please email me no later than August 23, 2010.

Train With purpose,

Sandy Sommer RKC

Look, unless you have an incurable metabolic condition or a chronic problem for which there is no solution, then you should be neither obese, nor in pain.

I will tell you that I am sympathetic to your plight if you are either (or both) and looking to make a change and become healthy.  But if you are a whiner and/or a complainer than save it.

I know it’s hard to trust what you read these days. What information should you trust? What makes sense?  Clearly, there is a lot of contradictory material out there and I understand if you think I am full of it. All I can say is if you happy the way things are currently that’s cool.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have never struggled with my weight. Last August was about the plumpest I’ve ever been and I was about 17% body fat. Now I’m at 7-8% so what I am sharing here has been lived by me. Also, I’ve had two clients who have lost North of 50 lbs and another who has lost almost 100. They have never starved themselves. They have eaten healthy food and worked out hard but intelligently.

When I first heard about the Primal Blueprint it was early in the Summer of 2009. I read it and began applying my new found knowledge in August. I used the information in out to completely change how I eat and I also used it to alter my workouts to a small degree.

Right away I knew I had found a tool that was very clear, and would be simple to implement for many many people. If you really want change, then this book couldn’t make it any simpler. I’d even hazard to say it’s also kind of easy. In  a nutshell, you eat lots of proteins, healthy fat and limit carbohydrate to fruits and vegetable, in season if possible. Ideally, that means nothing processed. And you’ll cut grain consumption to nil. You are trying to eat as man ate before the advent of agriculture. When we gathered and hunted for our food. I can assure you that to eat as we are meant to is not hard. Quitting heroin is hard. If you have PB experience or live Paleo please share the good, bad and the ugly in the comments.

And if your workouts involved working through pain then you are doing something (or many things) wrong. Pain isn’t what you experience when the going gets tough and lactic acid floods your muscles. It’s in your joints and is a signal that something isn’t right. Would you ignore a fire alarm?

If experience the pain of injury, then you are moving incorrectly. Or maybe the load is inappropriate. Maybe you are doing stupid things of which you have no business attempting. Do you know how to execute a proper deadlift? If not then find a qualified instructor. Or don’t do it. Or understand and accept the risk.

In my opinion, there is no excuse for getting hurt while training. Competition is another matter. Sure, bad luck can play a part, but if you get hurt over and over, then maybe you need to figure out why. Getting hurt isn’t a badge of honor. It’s nothing to be proud of. It just is . But it doesn’t need to be.

Today, (This article began percolation yesterday) but today someone called me and said this to me, “Sandy, I had an MRI done on my shoulder. There is some damage to my shoulder from doing clean and jerks with the barbell. What should I do?”

I wanted to say “heal,” but bit my tongue. I did find out that this person has never had any formal c and j instruction, had been experiencing pain for sometime and finally got hurt. Not too bright.

A lot of folks who are share my philosophies with want to argue with me; especially about the training part. There seems to be this idea “if it’s not a near-death experience” then it wasn’t a good workout. Real athletes don’t train that way. They work hard and they work smart. When athletes do get hurt usually it’s competing. If it’s not trauma based then they will try to figure out why they got hurt and figure out a way to avoid it in the future.

Here’s a good quote on from Brooks Kubik. “Hard work is using the heaviest possible weight for the number of reps you set as your target,
and then DOING those reps,every single one of them – in good form.
Let me repeat that. Hard work involves the use of the heaviest possible weight that you can handle for the number of reps you set as your target , and actually DOING those reps … and doing the reps in GOOD FORM.”

Don’t get injured. Lose some fat. And have fund doing it.

Train with purpose,

Sandy Sommer RKC

I sensed right away that this guy was hoping to unlock some sort of workout secrets he could apply to his own sessions to lose weight and get stronger. I could also guess that when I told him that the secret was really much more about eating than working out that I would lose his interest. And I was right.

The first thing I told him was exactly what he didn’t want to hear and that was this. “90% of my body composition is based on what I do at home and not here at the gym.” He looked totally confused and asked for clarification.

I went on. I explained to him that to really see body change you have to change the way you eat. And here is where I lost the guy. He interrupted me and wanted to talk about my workout.  See, for most people it is much easier to get to the gym and spend an hour there and then try to justify terrible eating habits then it is to change the way they fuel themselves.

Just last week I saw that one of my Facebook friends and a cheese steak sandwich for lunch and that he was going to burn off that with a run. Well a cheese steak averages about 690 calories according to Livestrong.com .  Jogging burns off about 13 calories so he will have to run an hour to use that energy. But I digress. Bottom line is that you can’t outwork bad eating habits.

My business is helping people achieve their goals physically. I can’t help you very well if you won’t help yourself.  Here’s how you can get started.

• Start purchasing good quality foods. Shop at your local Farmer’s Market. Especially if they are producer only.
• Go out and meet some farmers. Check out www.eatwild.com
• Buy The Primal Blueprint and the Primal Blueprint Cookbook. All you need to know is in these two volumes. Just do it. And follow it. Conventional wisdom is nothing of the sort.
• Stop eating processed food. Be particularly cautious if a product is labeled “lite” or “low fat.”
• Avoid grain at all costs. And I mean all. Wheat is the enemy. Not fat.
• Work out because you love it. Have fun. Get strong.

Train with purpose,

Sandy Sommer RKC

So let’s forget about doing anything other than getting the most out of our own genetic potential. How?

Keep in mind that this is all anecdotal and based off my own experiences with myself and my students. Certainly my athletic career and background give me some insight here too.

Instead of trying to look like someone or be someone else, why not get the most out of our own gifts. And if you focus on performance then the rest will pretty much take care of itself.

Here’s an example. If you can double your tactical pull ups then I bet you will be leaner and stronger. In order to increase your pull up reps requires that you get stronger and thus more metabolic and/or leaner. You would be healthier in most cases too. It’s really hard to do more reps without improvement in body composition.

Why is that so important? It seems like people have an easier time striving for a specific performance goal than a body weight goal. Also the scale is a notorious liar and doesn’t give the big picture. Here’s what five pounds of fat looks like compared to the same mass of muscle. Look in the mirror, feel how your clothes are fitting…that’s truer feedback.

Let’s move on to how you fuel yourself. Diets are for liars as they say. I find they flat out don’t work. Most of us have been on a roller coaster ride losing and gaining weight over and over again. If you want to know why they don’t work please read “Good Calories, Bad Calories” and watch as conventional wisdom flies out the window.

Through the ages there have been many, many ways that people ate that was based only on region. Highways, trains, ships and the related infrastructure are relatively new developments that have helped create distribution channels that allow us to eat almost anything at anytime. More problematic is that food science (if it can be called that) has expanded the offerings available to the food industry that will increase shelf life, alter natural taste and ease cook times. All at our expense. You can argue that if you take out all the additives, the processing and the stabilizers then we’d be getting closer to healthy. Add to that list sweeteners and grain (perhaps the most problematic) and true health is within our grasp again. Note: I have removed grain (all) from my everyday eating. It slips in very irregularly. Not eating it has made me much leaner and most important, dropped my blood triglyceride level by 33%.

I don’t have the the patience for those who say, “oh but I can’t eat pasta” or “what about bread?” Get over it. If you want to be healthy then you have to make changes.

I call it the “lottery mentality.” Everyone wants to be a millionaire yet no one wants to save the small amount weekly you need for the desired outcome. Same thing if you want to get healthier. Losing 30 lbs in 30 days really isn’t done often in a healthy way. Yet that seems to be what sells in the market place. Better for you would be to lose a pound or so every weeke by eating a lot of sourced local protein, leafy greens, some fruit and a supplement or two.

Read the Primal Blueprint. If you truly want your health and you are sick of making excuses then read it and live it. You will be strong, lean and healthy. And you may not look like Pavel but you will be your absolute natural best and realize your own genetic potential.

Train with purpose,

Sandy Sommer RKC

Understand that there are populations full of folks who ate plenty of meat, drank lots of blood and took a lot of dairy. Check out the Maasai. These folks enjoyed healthy but hard lives with no disease of civilization to speak of.

The Intuit Indians ate nothing but meat and fat for all intents and purposes. Again no really health problems in the society across the board. Nary a fruit or vegetable cross their lips. They thrived.

Naturally, the human race is hunter/gatherers. As Jared Diamond wrote, “Agriculture is perhaps mankind’s greatest mistake.” Borne from agriculture; especially Big Ag is convenience. And convenience is killing us. Convenience means packaging and stabilizers that improve shelf life. The subtraction and/or addition of parts of the food in order to achieve that end. The ease by which we find food has taken the edge off the task. We don’t have to hunt, kill and gather. We are always sure of our next meal. We are never hungry as we never have to go without. A meal is just a microwave and package away. And packaged food is crap. At the local grocery, I count 30 different tomato based pasta sauces. Only three don’t have high fructose corn syrup as an ingredient. Your choice is that you make the sauce at home or you are limited to three jars of choice. HFCS is a triglyceride forming toxin in my opinion and is to be avoided with resolve. And it’s everywhere. So you must become a “label reader” or suffer the consequence of unhealthy blood and excess fat. Not to mention high blood pressure.

Grain is another challenge. It’s cheap to produce and listed in almost all foods. We all have a certain sensitivity to gluten; just to different degrees. Avoid wheat, avoid corn and rice. I try to stay away from oats too but that seems to be less problematic.  The first three are directly linked with the diseases of the West that I am doing all I can to help folks avoid.

Conventional wisdom would tell you otherwise but I don’t find convention to be all that wise. The USDA food pyramid could best be described as a castle built on sand. Lobbyists and special interests have profits to protect. They have little to no interest in your health. Our health system is a sickness model and not one of wellness. There is hardly a profit to be made with wellness.

So what to do?

Well, I choose to put butter on my meatballs. Because I eat from sources I can trust. I use olive oil, raw butter, ghee, coconut oil, Red Palm Oil and plenty of fat from grass fed animals, wild fish and venison. I eat little to no grain fed meat. I avoid farmed fish as well as anything from a feed lot operation. I stay away from hydrogenated oil of any kind. I eat much leafy greens. A lot of other vegetables and some fruit. I do try to limit fructose and you may want to read why here. I don’t drink soda. Diet or sweetened. I like water.

I made the switch to the Primal Blueprint in August 2009. I was 208 lbs and fairly fit. I’m now 48 years old with 8.9% body fat, down from around 15% or so. I am much stronger. Eating fat, at least the right ones from healthy sources, doesn’t fatten you up. Carbs, especially those of the processed variety, and the subsequent insulin response, cause pounds to get packed on to your frame.

I’ve had a number of clients get similar response. They’ve lost in the range of 10-40 lbs. I have personally talked to others who have lost 100 lbs in less than 1 year. If you’re current way of eating isn’t giving you the health and or results you’ve counted on, then I urge you to take a close look at the Primal Blueprint.

Most likely you will feel and look lots better and your blood laboratory results will bear witness.  Other books to consider are “Good Calories, Bad Calories,” “In Defense of Food,” and “Food Rules.”

What are your thoughts or comments?

Live and train with purpose,

Sandy Sommer RKC

First thing I did was send out emails to all those who had asked me to coach them and ask them to give me their “whys.” I wanted to find out how badly they wanted to reach their goals. Why they wanted to change? Why they were sick and tired? Why they were motivated? All of their major motivations. From those responses I winnowed the list down to 6 guinea pigs.

The test was for 6 weeks. We did a weekly conference call as well as a weekly private call with each student.  We put together a training plan that was consistent with goals. We formulated nutritional guidelines. The students were held accountable. The results have been astounding and better than I ever conceived. And the results were consistent. Everyone hit their goals. Not one starved to death or was killed by a workout. They all had fun.

I’m not a great salesman. I’m a darn good coach, an effective communicator and will hold you to account. You will reach your goals.

I will only coach 10 people at a time. That is the limit imposed by my family obligations, private training obligations, my kettlebell class obligations and my own training. 3 of my original group have signed on for 3 months so I have 7 available spots. (Update: Once I mailed this out to my blog email list 2 more signed up so there are actually 5 4 places left)

The duration of the program is 12 weeks. If you aren’t satisfied with your current personal situation, then I guarantee you that my program will change your life. You will get much fitter. Have more confidence and it will impact each facet of your life. Nothing will stay the same.

Here’s what you get:

1. A Customized 12 week training program based solely on you and your goals. Nothing will be “cookie cutter” and we will make changes on the fly as needed. We will use the training tools that you have on hand. So you won’t have to buy kettlebells if you don’t have them. We will get results with what you already own or have access to.
2. Accountability: I won’t coddle you and tell you what you want to hear. Your results will be in line with effort and I won’t let you be a slacker.
3. Weekly tasty recipes that will be based on sound nutrition.
4. Conference calls from time to time that will be recored as well as a weekly private one on one call with me your coach. You will have an hour of my undivided attention so you need to call me each week with specifics on what you need to talk about. It is your time.
5. If it isn’t happening for you or you aren’t working hard enough, then I will refund your money pro-rata.

Check out this testimonial:

Sandy,

I found the program without caveat, the best physical training I have
done. The combination of Primal Blueprint eating and custom workout’s
was incredibly effective for me.

I like the fact that you weren’t just a strength coach that threw
workouts at you without the back and forth conversations necessary for a
truly effective program. What works for one person may not work for the
other. The one on one weekly conversations gave the extra push I needed
to keep improving.

Being able to back up our training and advice with reading from books
like “Good Calories, Bad Calories” only made me a more involved part of
my own training. That combined with weekly conference calls from experts
in various fields kept the program interesting and dynamic. Being able
to step away from Conventional Wisdom into the realm of science based
information and training was elegant in its simplicity and in its
results.

Perhaps the only thing I might suggest would be to upload You Tube type
Videos for training.

Mike Kauzlarich

Mike has lost 16 pounds in 6 weeks. (Update This isn’t  a lose “30 pounds in 30 days” program so you can proudly attend a reunion. No…this is life altering in that you will change your lifestyle incrementally, get support doing it and get really strong  at the same time. This is just one story.

If you are interested, then email me so we can set up a time to talk. When you email me include two to three times you would be available to talk . I will get back to you with a number and time to call me. We will need to interview each other. I need to know you are serious and you need to feel that I can actually help you to reach your goals.

Train with purpose,

Sandy Sommer RKC

Here’s a great Chicken Soup Recipe I’ve adapted from my grandmother’s (which also included non-primal egg noodles and matzoh balls).  Feel free to play with the recipe.  The secret ingredient is the dill.

1 organic chicken
6 Cups chicken stock
1-2 cups of water
1 block of chicken buillion (if may be too salty for some – the next time I make it, I’m going to leave it out).
4 organic carrots
3 organic celery stalks
1/2 medium onion
1/2 bunch fresh dill (or less, to taste)

Put everything in a stock pot and cook until the chicken is done, but not falling apart.  Take out chicken, let cool a little – remove all the meat and add back in soup.

Let simmer until hot.

That’s it.  Let each person can add their salt & pepper to their serving.

Nu? So ess, mine kind! (Yiddish for “Eat, my child”)

Renee Musicus

Primal Fajita salad (serves 2):

1 lb Grass-fed organic Cube steak sliced into strips
1 medium onion sliced length-wise
1 green pepper sliced length-wise
1 head of Boston Lettuce (I get mine from a hydroponic greenhouse up the road)
1 avocado – sliced
Salsa to taste
Local, organic sour cream
1 tbs Butter
Seasoned salt (I like Lowrey’s Season-All for Tex-Mex style dishes)

Sauté the onions & peppers on medium-high heat in the butter until the onions just start to caramelize (about 5 minutes), remove from pan and set aside.  Add seasoned beef to pan and fry until cooked to just under done-ness (about 6 minutes).  Return onions and peppers to pan and reduce heat to low.  Add a pinch more seasoning salt and a tablespoon of water if the pan is dry, and cover on low for 5 minutes (to cook the peppers through).

Prepare the lettuce in separate bowls with half the avocado, per bowl.  Add the fajita mix and add salsa and sour-cream to taste.

Enjoy!
-Jake

Please share some of your ideas here too. We’d all love to hear from you.

I preheated my oven to 400 ° as  pan seared 4 chicken thighs in coconut oil until they were nice and crispy on the skin side. I took them out of the pan and sauteed some chopped onion and minced garlic in the oil that remained. Next I added just enough chicken stock to scrape up the brown bits. Reduced the heat and added some sliced black olives, artichoke heart and chopped tomato. I didn’t drain any of those items and this was nice and thick. I added the chicken back to the pan with the skin side up, right on top of the mixture and uncovered. Roasted this for 45 minutes and added fresh thyme to taste and a lot of fresh spinach to the sauce right as I took it out of the oven. Also added mushrooms. Plated the thighs and smothered it with the sauce. Topped it with Feta. Tasty:)

Train with purpose,

Sandy Sommer RKC

Ingredients:

• Pork Chops for Four
• 3 tbs real farm fresh butter
• salt and pepper
• 1 lb of real raw sour cream
• a lot of mushrooms (can’t have enough

Melt butter in frying pan and season pork chops with salt and pepper to taste. Pan sear the chops until well browned in your butter. Remove pork from pan and bake in oven for 15 minutes. Add mushrooms to butter and add more if necessary. Butter that is. Scrape up any browned bits of pork . Once mushrooms are soft then fold in sour cream until well blended and turn off heat. After 15 minutes, add gravy to chops and bake for another25-30 minutes. Enjoy with sauteed spinach or big ass salad.

Train with purpose,

Sandy Sommer RKC

PS If you are new here and happen to be shocked at this recipe please check out the Primal Blueprint.