Insomnia?

For the past month, I hardly could get to 8h of sleep. Always 7h or less I would wake up already. 7h is not a big problem, but today it was worse. Slept at 11pm, woke up at 3am and couldn't fall asleep anymore. Its especially bad because today is a rest day between 2 workout days. I'm not sure if I'm getting sleep issues, it would totally suck to have sleep issues at this point of time.

Anyway, a little update from my first client, Sherhong, is that she's putting a lot more weight than expected 2 months into the internship. If you haven't been following the story, December was the bulking month, Janurary - Mid-Feburary was her cutting month. I've been tracking her weight since January:

Jan 1 - 47.5kg
Jan 31st - 45.4kg
Feb 22nd - 46.9kg


Well that's just a short background, currently she has increased to 50kg according to her social media. After her latest post of her "PAST"(abs) and "PRESENT"(Stomach Bloat) pictures, I think she was quite determined to get back down to her previous size 2 (I think) before internship. However, as her PT, I noticed there are many possible factors of hindrance, such as lack of control over the meals at her internship cafe, lack of self-control for sweet tooth and forgetting the very basic concept of calories in < calories out. But instead of just pointing out these factors, I turned back and look at myself PTing her back then, I realized that I was wrong in many ways:

1. I was wrong to directly bring her to the higher level of diets and workouts. When you're a beginner (she still is),  6 small meals a day don't matter, eating clean doesn't matter that much either, all that matters at her stage was the amount of calories she's getting through her mouth should be lesser than her calorie output.

2. I was wrong in that I was more result-oriented than people-oriented. Instead of giving her the "strict-hardcore" information to get optimal results in the least amount of time, I should have be more people-oriented in such that she would have felt like she's getting the best results at her own pace, such as giving her the freedom to eat what she wanted while slowly progressing because the result-oriented program was actually giving her stress and pressure. She didn't see it as a 'way of life' or 'lifestyle', instead she saw it as a 'temporary diet program', it was my fault that this happened too!

3. PTing is not Tekan, but instead its like a friend who guides you along the way through exercises that are fun and interesting? I didn't want to change the types of exercises because by using the same exercises, by putting in more weight or more reps, you'll know that there's progress. But at a very basic level, anything you do would have progress and I should have made it more unpredictable to her so she would have felt the novelty and also enjoy the gym sessions.


I actually realize the 2nd and 3rd mistake when I saw a real PT training his client at the gym. I noticed his program was more client-oriented when he was constantly asking her for feedback such as "Do you like this exercise?". I then realize the most important thing is that the PT must make the client feel good about her progress, it doesn't have to be the most intensive program with optimal results in the least amount of time, but it does have to suit the client's pace, convenience and likeability.

For now, its sherhong's own journey to try and get back to her previous body type during this internship. Unless she asks for help or advice, she's on her own til her internship ends where I'll be back, laugh a little at her and help her get back with new improved strategies from PT 2.0. Anyway because of the factors of hindrance I mentioned just now, I'll be expecting her to give up somewhere during internship, that's the only period I'll allow her to give up anyway.