Those who have kids surely remember the cadence coming from the back seat on those driving vacations.

“Are we there yet?”

Kind of ironic that we, as adults, now ask ourselves the same annoying question when it comes to our fitness goals.

Let me give you an example.

I met with a new client recently who’s 5-foot-7 and weighs 215 pounds. His goal is to lose 30 pounds. So naturally, he wanted to know the answer to the $64,000 question.

“How long is this going to take?”

Now, what I’ve always done in these situations is something extremely boring.

Math.

I’ll take the client’s current weight, multiply it by the average rate of weight loss (for a man, that’s 0.56% of bodyweight per day. So in this case, about 1.2 pounds per day … or 25 weeks. 

So, about 6-7 months.

I feel it’s important to set expectations from the get-go, so everyone is clear on what the goal is and what’s a realistic amount of time to achieve it. This divests the client of the faulty belief – learned from Instagram gurus or “The Biggest Loser” – that there are no shortcuts to success. 

But lately, I’m considering changing things up.

In answer to the question, “How long is this going to take?” … what if I said, “The rest of your life?”

That would definitely be a conversation starter …

My reasoning for answering the question this way is, would you stop training or following healthy nutrition and lifestyle habits just because you achieved your goal?

Once the 30 pounds are gone, are you going back to the couch with your bag of chips?

Or would you be motivated and emboldened to take your newfound health and happiness to even greater levels?

After all, my goal is to show my clients how they can do all the things they want and need to do without pain or injury for the rest of their lives.

Not for six months. Or six weeks. Or 12 weeks.

For a lifetime.

So the next time you ask yourself, “Are we there yet?” … it’s OK to say, “Not yet.”