It’s been a few weeks since I’ve sat down to write one of these. Life has been full in the best and most chaotic ways; travel, family, work, trying to squeeze every bit out of Tahoe’s shoulder season before summer hits and everything shifts into high gear. I went backpacking, reconnected with an old friend, met my new nephew, and spent some much-needed time outside and with people I love. This newsletter has been sitting in my drafts the entire time because I knew I wanted to come back to it when I could actually slow down enough to say something real. But now… it’s on.

Recently, in three completely different conversations, I found myself coming back to the same idea, just through different doors.

One client has been doing all the things most of us would point to as “healthy.” She strength trains at home, she hikes, she bikes, she lives fully in her body and in the mountains. There is nothing passive about the way she moves through her life. And yet, when we started talking more specifically about her goal, improving bone density, it became clear that the format of her training wasn’t quite matching the outcome she wanted.

Not because she’s doing anything wrong, but because physiology is specific.

Bone responds to load, and not just any load, but load that is heavy enough, novel enough, and progressive enough to signal adaptation. It responds to force, to impact when appropriate, to patterns that ask more of the tissue than it is currently accustomed to giving. A set of moderate dumbbells at home, used in the same way week after week, paired with long hikes and bike rides, builds a lot of wonderful things, endurance, strength, resilience, mental health, but it doesn’t always create the kind of stimulus that bone density requires.

That’s a frustrating realization if you’ve been consistent, especially if you’ve been disciplined, because consistency is supposed to be the answer, and often it is, just not always in the way we assume.

What stood out to me wasn’t the gap itself, but her willingness to see it without making it mean something about her effort or her discipline. We were able to stay in curiosity, which is where good coaching actually lives, and start adjusting variables instead of questioning her commitment.

This is where the conversation tends to get a little “exercise science-y,” which I realize is not everyone’s favorite place to hang out, but it is mine, because this is the layer where things become intentional.

When we talk about changing a program, we’re really talking about manipulating a handful of levers: volume, load, intensity, duration, frequency. The same exercises can produce very different results depending on how those are structured, and most group settings, by necessity, have to generalize those levers. They are designed to work for a lot of people at once, which is exactly why they are so valuable, and also why they have limits.

Group fitness can be incredibly effective for building consistency, for creating energy, for giving people a place to show up and be part of something. At-home training offers flexibility, autonomy, and accessibility that many people need in order to do anything at all. Neither of these approaches is lacking in value, but neither is inherently designed to solve for highly specific outcomes without some degree of individualization layered on top.

That’s the space where coaching becomes less about delivering information and more about paying attention.

Paying attention to how someone responds to load, to what they have access to, to what they enjoy, to what they avoid, to what their life actually looks like outside of a workout window. It’s less about handing someone a perfect plan and more about building something that can evolve as they do.

For some people, that looks like ongoing structure, one to three sessions a week, someone else holding the arc of progression, adjusting when needed, and removing the mental load of having to think it all through. There is a real sense of relief in that, and for many, it never stops being valuable.

For others, there is a gradual shift toward independence, where they begin to understand not just what they are doing, but why, and how to adjust it. They check in, recalibrate, and keep moving. That kind of autonomy isn’t something you either have or don’t have, it’s something that develops over time when someone has been guided well.

Both paths are legitimate, and both require a level of honesty about what support actually helps you follow through.

That same thread showed up in a nutrition conversation with a client preparing for his first dance competition. He came in with thoughtful questions, what can I eat to reduce anxiety, should I cut out sweets, what should I be doing for gut health, and what he was really asking, underneath all of that, was how to feel good in his body when it matters.

There isn’t a universal answer to that, and I’m careful about pretending there is. Instead, we looked at what he already notices during practice, what feels steady, what feels distracting, what leaves him energized versus depleted. We talked about performance the way athletes do, as something you rehearse and refine, not something you outsource to a list of “good” and “bad” foods.

We explored options instead of rules, small upgrades instead of sweeping eliminations, and ways to support gut health that didn’t require him to overhaul his life, but simply to include more of what he already enjoys, like fermented foods he actually likes eating. The goal wasn’t perfection, it was familiarity and confidence under pressure.

And then there was another client, thinking ahead to a season where his time will be pulled in a dozen directions by his kids’ sports schedules. Right now, he has space, and he’s using it well, but he’s also aware that this won’t always be the case. Instead of building something elaborate that only works in ideal conditions, we started shaping something that could hold up when things get busy.

We kept coming back to the question: how do we make this easier to maintain?

Not easier as in less effective, but easier as in less friction, fewer barriers, more repeatable when life inevitably shifts. There is a quiet kind of intelligence in building for the season you’re actually going to live in, rather than the one you wish you had.

Across all of these conversations, what I keep seeing is how much changes when people stop trying to match an external template and start getting more precise about their own needs.

That shift doesn’t always look dramatic from the outside. It often looks like small adjustments, better questions, a willingness to refine instead of overhaul. It looks like someone realizing that the effort they’re already giving can be directed more effectively, rather than increased indefinitely.

This is the part of coaching that I care most about, helping people move from doing what they think they’re supposed to do, into doing what actually supports the life they’re living and the goals they have.

It’s less tidy than a checklist, but it’s far more sustainable, and, in my experience, far more interesting.

If you’ve been putting in the work and something still feels slightly out of alignment, it might not be a matter of doing more, but of looking a little closer at how it’s put together.

If you want help with that, you can book a complimentary consult here:

​https://coachchristine.net/book-an-appointment/​

We’ll take a look at what you’re doing, what you want, and how to bring those two things into better agreement.

NBC-HWC | ACSM-CPT

Mental PEAKS: What’s actually happening under the surface

What you’re experiencing isn’t random, and it’s not a sign that you’re doing it wrong. There are well-documented processes, neurological, psychological, and behavioral, that explain why the “better” choice often feels worse before it starts to feel like anything at all. Let’s break down a few of them in a way that actually connects to real life.

Delayed gratification (and why it’s not just about willpower)

The classic Stanford marshmallow experiment gets referenced a lot here, but what’s more interesting is what came after.

Long-term follow-up studies showed that the ability to delay gratification wasn’t just about discipline, it was tied to environment, trust, and learned expectations. Kids who believed the reward would actually come were far more likely to wait. That matters for adults too.

If you’ve spent years trying things that didn’t pay off, diets that backfired, programs that didn’t stick, promises that didn’t deliver, your brain is understandably skeptical. So when you go for a walk, or start lifting, or change how you eat…. part of you is thinking, “Why would this be any different?”

Delayed gratification isn’t just waiting. It’s believing the wait is worth it. And that belief is often what needs to be rebuilt.

Extinction bursts (why it can get harder before it gets easier)

There’s a concept from behavioral psychology called an extinction burst. When a behavior that used to “work” suddenly stops delivering the same reward, your brain doesn’t just let it go quietly. It pushes harder.

Think about someone trying to cut back on alcohol after using it to unwind for years. The first few nights aren’t just neutral, they can feel louder, more restless, more uncomfortable than before. Or someone trying to stop emotional eating, cravings don’t disappear, they spike.

This has been observed across addiction research and habit change models: when reinforcement is removed, behavior often intensifies temporarily before it declines. So when clients say, “It’s getting worse,” sometimes what they’re actually experiencing is the nervous system testing the old pathway one more time. Not a sign to quit. A sign that the pattern is being disrupted.

Dopamine recalibration (why everything feels kind of flat for a while)

We’re living in a dopamine-saturated environment. Highly processed foods, social media, alcohol, constant stimulation, these all create sharp spikes in dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with motivation, reward, and reinforcement.

Over time, your baseline shifts. Research in neuroscience shows that repeated high-dopamine stimulation can reduce sensitivity in reward pathways. In simple terms, it takes more to feel the same level of “good.” So when you remove or reduce those inputs, the contrast is noticeable.

A walk feels boring.
A normal meal feels underwhelming.
A quiet evening feels… too quiet.

This isn’t because those things are inherently unsatisfying. It’s because your brain is recalibrating what “reward” feels like. Given enough time and consistency, baseline sensitivity improves. People often report more stable energy, better mood regulation, and a greater ability to enjoy simpler experiences. But there is a stretch where things feel dull, and that stretch is real.

Emotional surfacing (what happens when you stop numbing)

This is the one people feel the most and talk about the least. When you remove coping mechanisms, whether that’s alcohol, overtraining, under-eating, constant busyness, or distraction, you don’t just remove the behavior.

You remove the buffer. And what’s underneath doesn’t disappear just because you stopped avoiding it. There’s research in both clinical psychology and trauma-informed care showing that avoidance behaviors suppress emotional processing. When those behaviors are reduced, previously unprocessed emotions often resurface.

This is why therapy can feel harder before it feels helpful. It’s why slowing down can feel uncomfortable. It’s why people sometimes say, “I felt better when I wasn’t paying attention.” In the short term, that can be true. But unprocessed doesn’t mean resolved, it just means postponed.

Put all of this together, and you get a clearer picture:

You start doing something “better.”
You remove something that used to help you cope.
Your brain pushes back.
Your reward system feels off.
Your emotions get louder.

Of course it doesn’t feel amazing, that doesn’t mean it’s not working. It means you’re in the phase where things are reorganizing. And that phase doesn’t get enough airtime, but it’s where real change actually takes hold.

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A Day of Healing Arts returns June 13 at Tahoe Flow Arts & Fitness! Join us for an immersive day of workshops, wellness, movement, and community, culminating in an unforgettable evening featuring a chef-curated tasting experience by Chef Abi Collomb, live performances, glow flow, and a garden dance party, all supporting the Kelly Smiley Youth Scholarship Fund. Learn more

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