5-Minute Mondays

Welcome to another 5-Minute Monday — your quick hit of motivation, movement, and mindset to kick off the week strong!

Whether you’re a busy professional, a fitness enthusiast, or just someone looking to feel better in their body, this series is designed to give you something practical and powerful in just five minutes.

Let’s dive into today’s topic and set the tone for an energized, focused week ahead.

Transcript

Hey, what’s up? Everyone? Allison Ethier here, online coach and personal trainer.

And welcome to my five minute Monday series where we cover a number of topics that have come across my personal training and online coaching desk. So one coach, five minutes, let’s get into it.

The first topic comes from a couple of clients in gym, and they asked me my opinion on ozempic, although this is not typically the type of clients that I train, I did have two clients who were on ozempic.

One did really well, because she did also her lifestyle changes. The other one was a little hesitant about the medication in general, and we ended up stopped working together, so I’m not really sure her result. I’ve had other friends ask me this question as well, and my opinion is always the same.

It’s like, go ahead and try it, see if it works for you. I you know, there’s results are out there. It works for some people, results are out there. It doesn’t work for some people. There’s side effects, of course, but there’s side effects with any medication.

I’ve had other people tell me that they’ve tried it and it doesn’t work for them. Sometimes they go on it, sometimes they come off.

Either way, you’re going to have to work on your lifestyle habits in the interim, and this medication might be the kickstart, or, you know, the starting point of those lifestyle changes. I say, give it a go and see how you feel and then decide where to go next.

Weight Loss

On the topic of weight loss, I’ve had a number of clients lose weight recently, and I will post those results here at the end of the video.

Weight loss, a good result of weight loss, is around one to two pounds per week, although this is going to seem really, really slow in the beginning, like in a month, that’s only four pounds, if you look at it in terms of over the next six to 12 months, that could be somewhere between what 26 and 52 pounds in the year.

As long as you keep at it, and you keep getting that downward trend on the scale, this is a good indicator that you’re moving in the right direction, and you should do more of those things that are moving you in that direction.

Eat less, move more = not good advice?

The third thing is this whole concept of eat less and move more.

I think it’s great advice, but it’s also only a sound bite.

It’s only one little way of summarizing all of the things that you need to do in order to move you in that direction.

Although, you know, people will come and be like, that’s not really helpful. It’s like, well, it’s it’s really just meant to be motivational.

It’s not really meant for you to get all of the information that you need, or even to know where to start in your journey. If you’re returning to training or returning to eating well or changing your lifestyle habits, it’s just a sound bite.

In terms of the entire caloric graph, yes, this is exactly what you need to do. You either need to eat a little bit less food, or you need to move your body a little bit more. But that being said, for most of us with busy, heavy schedules and all the things that we’re responsible for, eating a little bit less is going to be more strategic, because you 100 less calories is a little bit easier than asking you to move 10 more minutes in your day.

Terminology & Communication

When it comes to terminology, okay, a lot of times people are like, I’m working out.

I’m eating all the right food. I’m doing everything that I need to be doing, and I’m not getting results. It’s the one thing that I’m always have to clarify is the activity levels.

Whether or not you say you’re exercising, you are working out, you say I’m fit. I lift weights regularly.

I do my cardio, I always have to ask for more clarification, because at this point, the fitness bubble or the fitness umbrella is just so broad, I have no idea what that means.

I’m going to give you an example.

I had a client, and she said, “Yeah, I moved today.”

Turns out she was doing her yoga tape for five minutes from like 1996 where she could probably recite verbatim whatever the instructor said, because she had done the tape so many times.

So for her, exercising was five minutes of yoga.

That’s not really a lot of movement in order to count it as exercise or training, or even to help contribute to your caloric deficit.

I always ask for clarification of these terms, like exercise specifically.

Tell me specifically what you were doing, what exercises, the names of them, the reps, what loads are you using, what equipment you have available to you at home, and are you moving enough in your week for that to even make an impact on any weight loss that you’re trying to achieve.

Client Results 

I would like to highlight some of the amazing results.

My clients have been getting 30 pounds since January, and we meet twice a week. So he not only gets training twice a week with me, he gets little doses of bits of information. I haven’t written them down a thing for nutrition, just good advice. We talk about the myths and realities of losing weight, and we explore a little bit about the common beliefs that he had previously and how that conversation has to shift.

Client number two, who felt probably two. Weeks ago that she felt she not getting good results. Literally, in four weeks she lost, as you can see here, she lost about 10 pounds on her frame, and yet she was disappointed because it wasn’t happening fast enough, like, literally in the first one to two weeks, I think it was like three pounds, which is not a lot to keep you motivated, but it’s enough to let you know that you’re moving in the right direction.

As I mentioned previously, if you are moving in the right direction, we just continue in that direction until something isn’t working right. Now, she’s about at 13 pounds down, and we’re entering week six, and the last client came back to me after a bit of a break.

You know, sometimes clients will go on their own, and then they’ll come back to me for a little bit of a refresher and a little bit of accountability to say, like, hey, you’re not doing the things that you need to be doing, and do less of these other things in order to move you in the right direction.

She was able to get five pounds off her frame in under a week, and most, the most beneficial part of it is that she feels better.

That’s it for me. On this five minute Monday, make sure you check back next week for a next episode of Five Minute Monday, one coach, five minutes, 1-5 five topics.

And while you’re here, you can always check out my training programs or book a consultation call to find out your best path forward, whether or not that’s with me or someone else.

See you guys soon.  Bye.

Coach, A.