You Don't Need a New Year. You Need a Floor.

January — a fresh start and a chance to “get it all right.”

What a crock.

In all seriousness, I get it. The feelings of hope, new beginnings, and starting anew are real. January carries that energy. But here’s the thing: starting over — and over — and over — f*^$ing sucks.

Feeling like you’ve “failed again” sucks. Beating yourself up every time you “fall off” sucks. So I want to flip the script on this whole “New Year, New Me" garbage.

Yes, it’s a new year. But let’s be real — you can start something at any point, and that’s the part that actually matters. That’s the power.

My goal — and my promise — to every client is this: If we take the time to do this right, you will never have to start over again. Sounds easy, right? Just do it “right” the first time and voila! No do-overs. If only it were as easy as it sounds.

The truth is, doing this “right” is messier than people expect. It requires a sh*t-ton of retraining, relearning, stumbling, falling, and getting back up again.

I call the work my clients and I do together "building the floor." And while the wellness industry loves to paint it as such, true transformation is not one magical “thing” you do or buy. It’s a combination of several main, science-backed things, done consistently — and here’s the kicker — again, and again, and again. Ordinary things, repeated for an extraordinary amount of time. That’s the sauce.

Knowing your numbers. Adhering to your numbers. Being honest about where adherence waned. Weighing portions — not forever, but long enough to build real knowledge. Taking your step goal literally, not as a loose suggestion. Going to bed. Carving out time to shop and prep. Limiting booze. Running the lifts. Building real muscle.

Food. Sleep. Movement. Muscle. The basics. And also — the secret to your success.

I was asked recently, “How do you measure client success?” My answer is probably not what you’d expect.

I don’t measure success solely by weight, inches, or numbers. Sure, those things matter — but they are not the whole picture. And here’s why: My clients are human beings. They have kids. Jobs. Aging parents. Spouses. Mortgages. Lives. So how could I ever reduce them to a set of numbers?

This is how I actually judge success — and the work I care most about.

How do my clients — the ones I love and want to see win — fare on their worst weeks?

How steady is the floor we’re building beneath them? Does it hold?

Does it carry them — like a life raft — through the winds life inevitably blows?

One of my long-standing clients put it best:

“This is the first holiday season I didn’t come out the other side up 10 pounds.”— Katie S., Truth Client

That didn’t happen because she was perfect. It happened because she didn’t disappear when life got loud. Life is fierce, but we are fiercer.