By: Chris Gates

Ryan made unbelievable progress in 90 days, and I want to share with you how he did it.

First and foremost, Ryan is one of my best friends in this world, and he’s also a former client of mine. He joined my Training Camp program and absolutely kicked ass.

Over the course of about three months, Ryan dropped 10 pounds of body fat and built a ton of muscle to dramatically change his body composition. And he accomplished all of that while managing his extremely busy lifestyle.

“The coaching process was great,” Ryan said. “It’s simple, consistent. Chris set up a program for me that was personalized and designed for my lifestyle. He got to know what was going on with me in terms of work, work-life balance, home life. All those little details.

“Also, the struggles. Long days at work, long commute. Finding the time was the hardest part, and then finding a program to fit what I was going through.”

When Ryan signed up for coaching, we took a hard look at his demands to determine what would make the most sense for his program.

He wanted to lose body fat and get consistent with strength training, but we had some legitimate hurdles to overcome:

• A demanding career.
• Long commutes to and from work.
• Being there for his family.
• And all the unexpectedness that comes with being a working parent.

“I have a busy lifestyle, long commute for work, long days,” Ryan said. “I have a family and a toddler as well. Basically, I was at a point where I just really wasn’t happy with myself. A little bit on the heavier side from what I’m used to, and was struggling to find the time to get things done — to exercise, to eat right.

“I needed some kind of accountability as well. I needed somebody that could push me a little bit.”

We landed on a total-body approach to his strength training. With about 30 minutes to spare a few times a week, Ryan jumped into a 3-day per week training program where he hit every muscle group in each workout.

Total body approaches are really effective when you’re busy, because you can sprinkle in supersets and other time-saving techniques to make the workout efficient from a time and effort standpoint.

And if life gets too busy and you miss a workout, it’s not the end of the world. You’re not going to have a muscle group that gets completely neglected for an entire week.

Nutritionally, Ryan ate in a slight calorie deficit. We wanted him to be in a position to lose fat, but kept calories as high as possible to help him feel full and satisfied, as well as fuel his training performance.

“Chris set up a program for me that was perfect. He got to know what I like and what I don’t like,” he said. “We used an approach that I’ve never done before, which was a full-body approach for each workout. The idea was it’s going to be efficient since I have limited time. A lot of times I had 30 minutes to work out at lunch, so I’d go do a workout.

“We maximized the efficiency of those 30 minutes by doing a little bit of everything. I felt more accomplished. I got a lot done in those 30 minutes.”

By the end of 90 days, Ryan saw massive improvements in his physique. But maybe more importantly, he observed changes in his approach to health and fitness.

Consistency became top of mind, and Ryan plans to focus on that moving forward in order to keep making progress.

“The No. 1 thing I took away from coaching with Chris is that consistency is key — 100 percent,” Ryan said. “He pushes you to be consistent, but in a good, positive way. And you see the results from that consistency.

“He challenged me throughout the process. And it was a sense of accountability as well. Whether it be a step count goal, or a protein goal, tracking my foods — which admittedly I don’t enjoy — it helped me get to a point where I knew what to do to hit my goals.

“The biggest thing is, I’ve learned lessons that I’ll continue on into the future. I want to be consistent. I’m going to continue the workout program that Chris laid out for me, because I really enjoyed the approach.”