Let's Talk Jillian Michaels, Shall We?

If you follow "The Biggest Loser", you may know that Jillian Michaels has a new show. In "Losing It With Jillian", she follows families that are struggling with weight and health issues (she actually moves in with them for a week), and turns them around. Kinda like "Biggest Loser", but on a more intimate level.

I like Jillian. I think she's one of those celebrities that you either love or hate. Now, I don't agree with everything she says or does, but then again, I don't agree with everything anyone says or does. However, I respect her for a couple of reasons.

When I was actively working in the fitness industry, I was continually frustrated with the lack of response (from the entire industry--club owners to sales to trainers) to people's emotional reasons for wanting to get healthy. There was no time or structure or training available to get to the real issues. By ignoring the emotional side of the equation, people dropped out of their programs like flies.

Emotions drive our behaviours. Jillian's main focus in all her episodes is to get to the root of the emotional crisis in people's lives. We're so stuck in a dreamy-fog that most of us need either a catastrophe or a Jillian to get us off the couch. Her "in your face" style pushes people beyond the surface until they finally see how they're killing themselves and their families. Everyone has pain. Everyone has something that drives them toward bad behaviours. This is where we begin.

Jillian's tough guy approach in the gym goes way beyond simply getting in shape. When these people accomplish physical feats they believed were impossible, they move to another level of self. It's like a tipping point. They move past the place where they've been stuck for a long time, and they change. The blockage is gone, and a new core belief sets in, allowing them to do what they came to do.

The other reason I like this show is that Jillian leaves these folks on their own for six weeks. They're forced to work together and with themselves to reach the individual goals they've set. This teaches them real-life behaviours, under real circumstances, that will go a long way to solidifying their new habits. Each time we stick with our goals--despite challenges--we're strengthening and solidifying the connections in our brains that will turn our new behaviours into habits, and, eventually, into a way of life. Jillian taught them how to workout, how to eat healthy, whole foods, and then left them alone to handle the day-to-day reality of their lives. This is how we create permanent change.

But in order to move to this place, we always need to get to the root of what drives our behaviours. We must become aware, and learn to point the arrow inward. Only then will we change our core beliefs from "I can't" to "I can".