By: Chris Gates

This is my friend Jeff, and I want to tell you his story.

Because Jeff used our time working together to create a level of consistency and sustainability that’s going to serve him well for a lifetime.

Jeff came to me in January 2023 with one primary goal: develop the habits needed to lose weight and keep it off.

He explained that throughout his life, his weight was all over the place.

• He’d lose a bunch of weight,
• Only to eventually gain it back,
• And the process was never sustainable.

Often, Jeff would turn to running and other more high-intensity workout solutions to lose weight, and it worked.

But over time, that approach would be hard to maintain, and his progress would creep back in the other direction.

“During the pandemic, I got into decent shape – running 5 miles a few times a week and culminating in running a half marathon without really training for it,” he mentioned in his application. “I just ran a bunch, working up to 10 miles a few times and figured I could squeeze out the extra 3.1 to make it a half marathon. I lost about 50 pounds over a year and a half. I realize now that I didn’t have the habits in place to sustain that.”

So we got to work on a program that would help him solve the yo-yo dieting problem.

Running was still part of Jeff’s program, since he enjoyed it. But we scaled it back just a touch so that he could dive into a well-rounded strength training program as well.

Almost immediately, Jeff took to the weights and started to see progress.

“At the beginning, my goals were pretty simple: I wanted to build muscle and get in better shape, using my time in the program to identify my personal path to long-term, sustainable success,” Jeff said. “From the start, Chris set me up with a fitness plan aimed at increasing my full body strength while keeping some of the running that I had previously found success with and enjoyed.

“Week to week, he guided me through progressively making my workouts more challenging, as I improved on each routine and incorporated new exercises that built on the success that I had achieved with the earlier, simpler movements. His library of exercise tutorials was very helpful at the beginning of each training block to help me understand how to complete each movement, and he followed up weekly with tips and improvements.”

We also took the simple approach of setting a step count goal for Jeff each day. Sometimes, having a step goal can help increase your daily activity and be really effective for losing weight and changing your body composition — in addition to improving your overall health.

Jeff took this as an opportunity to truly commit to not only being active in his workouts, but be active across the day, every single day.

He developed a consistency streak that was truly mind blowing!

“The most impactful aspect was the focus on consistency in my routines,” he said. “Before I started training with Chris, I had 3-4 active days a week and a handful of days where I wouldn’t be doing much at all. I found success once I committed to 30 minutes of some sort of movement every day. 

“Whether it was walking around the neighborhood, mowing the grass, or pacing around my workplace over my lunch break, I made sure I had at least 30 minutes per day. After the first week, Chris encouraged me to carry that over the next week, followed by the next. After a few weeks, I didn’t want to break the streak that I had worked hard for. From mid-March to the end of June, I missed my daily movement goal just twice. Not surprisingly, my biggest drops on the scale came over that period of time as well.”

Nutritionally, Jeff ate in a moderate-sized calorie deficit, and we really focused on increasing his protein intake over time.

More protein helped Jeff recover from his workouts, and it also helped him create more filling, satisfying meals.

“My other big ‘ah-ha’ moment came on the nutrition front,” Jeff said. “Once I began tracking my meals, it became apparent that I was normally eating pretty low levels of protein daily. Many of the foods that I thought were good sources of protein, weren’t actually making big contributions to hitting my daily goals because I was consuming them in relatively low quantities.

“Chris helped me identify high volume sources of protein that could help me reach my goals. As I got better at centering my diet with healthy protein sources, Chris upped my goals. As protein in my diet increased, I found myself less hungry throughout the day which paid dividends as time progressed.”

All told, Jeff lost more than 10 pounds on the scale. He got significantly stronger and built considerable muscle throughout the process as well.

But the biggest progress he saw was how he turned healthy choices into habits.

That’s what will serve him well for a lifetime.

“Going forward, I feel like I’m in a good position to carry over the healthy habits and strength gains that have accumulated during the last six months. Most importantly, I’m happy to have a sustainable approach and good knowledge base to be able to continue my long term success.”