If you follow us on Instagram, you may notice that the content we post is a little different than most other nutrition companies. Sure we have a few "Before/After" photos, but most of the material revolves around athletic accomplishments in the gym. If you glanced quickly, you might assume we're a programming group like MisFit, TTT or OPEX. But we're not, we're a nutrition company... in theory.
Let's start off by focusing on what we're NOT trying to do with our social media posts. We're NOT saying we're responsible for the PR lift, the high end gymnastics movement or the podium placing at a competition. Those successes are accomplishments of the ATHLETE, pure and simple. Its not to say that nutrition doesn't contribute to athletic success, it certainly does, but that achievement is not ours to claim.
What we ARE trying to do is to help people redefine the values that they choose to determine their own value with. So many people, but especially women, have visual goals reinforced into their psychology from a young age ("You look so pretty!!"), which are hammered home by media for the next decade or two before we start working with them. Things are definitely moving in the right direction globally, but there's a ton of work to do.
We've chosen to fight this battle against a world that values what you look like versus what you can do by celebrating PRs and the training process that gets us there. I don't care if you're a Crossfit Games athlete or a grand mother of three (or both! Heyyyy Linda Elstun), our check ins will ALWAYS start with some variation of, "How's it going? Tell me about the gym, your sleep, your energy levels in life. How's your mood?"
Ultimately we're trying to get at whether you're happy more days than not, because we’re really in the business of trying to help people lead happier lives. Sometimes that means changing diets, or getting people to sleep more. Sometimes it means letting people vent about a stress that they’ve not told anyone else about. Sometimes it means playing the bad guy and telling people that no matter how bad they want a certain body weight, there’s no short term way to get there that won’t leave them a physical and mental shell of themselves. It SUCKS having to be the one to deliver that message sometimes, but we are in this for the long game. 90 day transformations??? I have no interest in those unless I also get to see what you look like 6 months after that. We will never compromise someone’s health just for a cool IG post... Never.
There is NOTHING wrong with wanting to have abs, a defined back, or quads that hang over your knee caps. It just needs to be done is a sustainable way that allows for long term success. I saw a post the other day that said something along the lines of, "If you're cutting for more than 2-3 months, you're doing it wrong." I absolutely love it. It would be SO EASY to put people on highly restrictive diets for 3 months to generate short term results. About 50% of people would respond in the short term, the other 50% wouldn't... but shit who needs them, we'd have more than enough posts to fill our storyline up with (It hurt my soul just to write that). Its more WORK to tell someone that they need to spend 2-3 months at "maintenance numbers" before they can try to cut. Its more work to tell someone that they should alternate between 2 weeks at deficit and 2 weeks at maintenance (That works better by the way) but that doesn't mean that its not the right thing to do.
In my opinion, good coaching tries to focus on the "means to the end" and not the actual goal itself. If you focus on enjoying the process, the actual training in the gym, or the discipline to get your butt in bed before 10 PM, then there can be 1000 small wins along the way that we can celebrate in addition to the final "after" picture. If you've worked with us for long enough, you probably get the impression that the "update pictures" are kind of an afterthought. They're important of course, but we'll always ask "How's life? How's your sleep going? How was the gym this week? Are you hungry? Anything stressful going on these days?" Its not that we don't care about the progress in the mirror, we just know that if we can dial in those other things, the mirror will take care of itself.
I've joked that I would market myself and M2 as a life coaching company, but everyone would think we're nuts and never hire us. But thats what we do... we help people get their day to day actions in line with their long term goals. Macros are a PART of that process but way less than you might expect.
I think its equally as important to someone's success to help them define what success means in a bigger sense. To let them know that you're PROUD of their effort to eat well that day when shit hit the fan at work, to tell them that you're PROUD of their PR in the gym, to tell them that you're so freaking PROUD of them for finally sharing their story that for so long defined who they were.
I feel a need to share this example. I cried tears of joy when Mekenzie qualified for the Crossfit Games. It was a proud moment for me as her nutrition coach, but I teared up because I was just so damn HAPPY for her. To see her realize her goal was an amazing moment and something I'll never forget, but the moment was made so much bigger because of all the small victories that she had won over the last two years of us working together. I don't think she makes it to the Games without facing some demons along the way and choosing to focus on the process and not the result. If you go check out the IG post from the day she qualified, you'll see that I wrote the following, "18 months working together... there's been laughs, tears, fights and hugs. I was proud of her before she even took the floor and now I'm just so freaking happy for her. Mekenzie Riley, Crossfit Games athlete."
If you want a nutrition program thats JUST focused on the macros, update pictures or the end result, we're probably not the company for you. If you want a coach that cares probably a little too much, then give us a shout. We'll be ready.