Meet Lynn. She’s a 70-year-old client of ours, who decided to hire us after reading my article on How to Avoid Losing Muscle after 60.

            Why did she decide to hire us? A few reasons:

• In September, she’ll be going on a rugged, 75-km hike, with a 35-pound backpack in Vancouver Island. She needed to improve her strength and stamina to do that.
• She’s tried losing weight on her own, with not much success
• To help her stay active, independent, and strong for as long as possible.
• To help her with sugar cravings

Oh, and I guess she figured that we knew a few things that her local personal trainers didn’t, since she drives from Schomberg to Markham for her training sessions (a distance of about 55 km. Schomberg is north of King City, which is north of Vaughan).

So far, in 10 weeks of working with us, she’s managed to:

• Lose 14 pounds (her original goal was 20)
• Lose her sugar cravings
• Get a lot stronger

How did we do it? In this article, we’ll outline the exact exercise and nutrition strategies that we used to get her there. But if you want to take the shortcut, and figure out what works for you, you can see if you qualify to work with us by filling out this questionnaire.

If you’d like to hear from Lynn herself, check out this video:

The Initial Assessment

As I repeatedly state in my articles, it’s critical to do a thorough initial assessment with a new client, to identify what we’re working with. This was done with me personally, and here’s what we found:

• She has arthritis in both her neck, and her knees, but it doesn’t really limit her.
• She has high blood pressure, and is indeed taking medications for it.
• She also has high cholesterol, for which she takes medications, as well as a baby aspirin
• She goes to the gym on a regular basis (2-3 times per week), doing 1 set of about 12 repetitions on a few different exercises.

And here are the results of her measurements:

• Weight: 191 pounds
• Waist circumference was 108.5 cm (42.7 inches)
• Umbilicus skinfold measurement (actual “belly fat”): 31.5 mm

There are of course other measurements we take, but these are the basic ones.

All right. Now that we knew what we were working with, it was time to put together an exercise and nutrition program for her.

The Exercise Program

After the initial assessment, which was done by me, I connected Lynn with one of my trainers, Jeff Cheung. He was responsible for her exercise and nutrition program. So the rest of this article is what he did to help her.

As I outlined in my article on my hiring process, I want it to be so that regardless of which trainer my clients receive, they get the same results and experience. That’s why I have a specific template for my trainers to follow.

And as I outlined in my article on exercise for weight loss, the structure we commonly use with fat loss clients is:

Lower body exercise that is hip-dominant (Jeff used a deadlift)

Upper body vertical pull (Jeff used a lat pulldown)

Upper body vertical push (Jeff used an overhead press)

Lower body exercise that is knee-dominant (Jeff used a squat)

Upper body horizontal pull (Jeff used seated rows)

Upper body horizontal push (Jeff used incline pushups)

For all those exercises, he used 3 sets of 15-20 repetitions.

However, after a few sessions, he noticed that between strength and stamina/endurance, the latter was a larger weakness than the former. So we had to work on her endurance a bit more than on her strength.

What did Jeff do? In between each strength exercise, he added 1 minute of a cardio exercise for 1-2 minutes. Sometimes, it was jumping jacks, sometimes it was a short jog, other times, it was pushing a sled (the prowler), and other times, it was mountain climbers.

One minute might not sound like much, but if you do 6 exercises, for 3 sets each, that’s 18 total minutes of cardio.

Nutrition

In the nutrition is where we took a big “left turn.” We started Lynn off with what we call “the proper plate.” That is, half of the plate consists of non-starchy vegetables (like broccoli, spinach, bell peppers, etc.), a quarter is meat, fish or seafood, and the remaining quarter is starches (although that does vary, client-by-client).

And then, as I outlined in my article on the importance of measurements, we measured her body fat 2 weeks later (we do body fat measurements at 2-week intervals). No drop. Damn. Jeff made a few more changes, and again, no drop.

So Jeff decided to do something drastic: he recommended a vegetarian diet. Two weeks later, the body fat went down. Great. Now, we tried re-introducing fish back into her diet. Two more weeks later, body fat drops again. Fish is fine. Great. Body fat continues to drop for a few more weeks, until eventually, meat comes back in the diet.

All throughout this time, how does Jeff determine whether a dietary intervention like this is appropriate? A few different ways:

• Subjectively, how is she feeling? How is her sleep quality, energy levels, etc.?
• How is her body fat? That’s where measurements come in
• How is her performance in the gym? Is she making progress? Are her weights and repetitions going up? Is her endurance improving? Etc.

As I outlined in my article on the importance of measurements, Jeff could have assumed that the standard approach works. Or, he can know for sure, and measure. Since we prefer certainty over assumptions, we measure obsessively. And it’s those measurements that allow us to tailor our approach to each individual client.

The Results

So now, 10 weeks later, how are we doing?

• When she started, her weight was 191. Now, her weight is 177
• Her waist circumference was 108.5 cm (42.7 inches). Now, her waist circumference is 102 cm (40.2 inches)
• Her belly fat (umbilical skinfold) was 31.5 mm. Now, it’s 22.5 mm.
• Lat pulldowns (a measurement of upper body pulling strength) improved from 3 sets of 20 repetitions with 60 pounds, up to 80 pounds
• Side plank endurance (a measurement of “core strength) improved from 2 sets of 20 seconds, up to 3 sets of 30 seconds
• Split squats, with body weight, improved from 2 sets of 12 reps, up to 3 sets of 15 reps

But that’s all the geeky, technical stuff, that really only matters to us, as fitness professionals. The bottom line is the impact that it has on our client’s life. So how do all these measurements translate into real life? Lynn outlines all that in this quick, 3-minute video, but to re-cap:

• Now, Lynn has full confidence in her ability to complete the 75-km hike with a 35 pound backpack on Vancouver Island.
• She used to go to the gym, and not really sure what she was doing, or whether it was right. Now, she feels like even when she goes on her own, she’s using her time productively.
• Her sugar cravings went away.
• She feels like she can sustain this way of eating for her entire life. In the past, she’s had problems going up and down in weight, and this is the first time she’s seen a 14-pound drop, and it wasn’t terribly difficult.
• Lynn enjoys cycling, and now, she can complete an intense 45-minute bike ride more successfully than before

If you feel jealous of Lynn, and want to get similar results, you’re welcome to see if you qualify to work with us by filling out this questionnaire.