By: Chris Gates
I want to tell you a little bit about my former online fitness coaching client, Justin.
Because my dude made an incredible amount of progress in a short period of time, while checking a HUGE item off his bucket list.
Justin and I started working together at the beginning of 2022, and he managed to drop a whopping 15 pounds of body fat while also training for, and completing, his first half marathon.
He came to me looking for some structure. Justin wanted the right program to assemble all of the pieces together to both lose weight and prep to run his race.
We worked together on designing his program, and Justin did the rest. He put in a MASSIVE amount of work and accomplished his goals, and I couldn’t be more proud of him!
“My biggest challenge before I started to work with Chris was trying to come up with a game plan that would put me on a good track in order to complete the Pittsburgh half marathon, all the while figuring out what would be best for me nutritionally in order to achieve the best results possible,” Justin said.
“I have always had a difficult relationship with food, and I knew that was going to be a big obstacle. I also had never run a half marathon before, so I was looking for some guidance on how to start the process of training for that. I was hoping that Chris would be able to come up with a good balance of nutrition and fitness to put me on the right path.”
Justin’s program was built around three main concepts:
- We got Justin in a very slight calorie deficit in order to help him lose body fat — but not so big of a deficit that it negatively impacted his training.
- Justin also completed 2-3 strength training days early on in his race prep to help him build up his ability to run 13+ miles.
- We added another 2-3 running days each week to build endurance, and prep for various situations he’d encounter in his race.
He was unbelievably consistent with attacking all three of those concepts. And he did an amazing job of communicating how the process was going in each one of our weekly check-ins.
The process wasn’t always easy. Justin dealt with various speed bumps along the way — everything from some lingering knee pain, to weather impacting his ability to run, and even the occasional work/life disruptions.
Not to mention the absolute downpour that popped up on race day!
His ability to react to those situations and find solutions to get the work in, is a credit to his determination and work ethic, and he experienced amazing results.
“(Chris) is truly a great coach, but an even better person. He was such a great listener to all of my feedback I was giving him regarding the nutrition and training,” Justin said. “He was always cheering for me, no matter what. He was there for a lot of life’s ups and downs.
“His coaching definitely prepared me in the best way possible to get in good shape physically, mentally, and emotionally. I lost 15 pounds, and successfully completed the half marathon, all of which I know I wouldn’t have been able to do without Chris.”
What makes me the most happy as Justin’s coach is not only that he accomplished his goal, but that he has the knowledge and work-ethic to continue chasing bigger and better goals in the future!
“There’s a lot of things that I am going to take from coaching and apply to my life and goals moving forward,” he said. “The biggest thing that I am going to take away is that it is OK to have off days. Life is hard. It is OK to let yourself have a bad day.
“That bad day could be that you just needed a taco and margarita in your life. That bad day could be that you only ran one mile when you were supposed to run six. That bad day could be that you didn’t work out at all when you were supposed to.
“That is all OK! You don’t have to be perfect every single moment of every single day when it comes to nutrition and fitness. Chris honestly changed my life in more ways than one, and I never will be able to thank him enough times for everything that he taught me and coached me on.”