Meet Dan. Hes one of our clients, who started working with us in May. When he came to us, he was already in pretty good shape. Working out 5 times per week, weighed 164 lbs. at 57, which is great, and even training a couple days with a personal trainer.

            But despite that, he wanted to take things to the next level. He wanted to lose a few more pounds, and get toned. With his previous trainer, he had already lost a bunch of weight, but just couldnt shed those last few pounds, and he had been at a plateau for months. So he had tried a few different things to help him shed those pounds:

  • He looked at YouTube videos
  • Hes tried jogging
  • Hes tried changing up his routine

Despite that, the results were, as he put it haphazard. There were no results. Around that time, I gave a presentation at his company, and that caught his attention, so he started working with us. He felt like we had a more direct approach than the aimless one that he was using. And we did

In this article, Ill cover:

  • What we found during his initial assessment
  • The exercise program that his trainer, Shaneh put him on
  • The nutritional strategies we used with Dan
  • The results of the program so far
  • How his life is different now, that hes leaner, and stronger

If youd like to see results like these for yourself, and youre interested in learning more about the program that we used with Dan (which is called the Fitness Solutions Plus Body Transformation Program), just email me with the words Body Transformation in the subject line.

If youd like to see Dan tell his own story, watch this video:

What We Found During Dans Initial Assessment

            Dan was already no slouch. As mentioned earlier, he was already exercising 5 times per week.

            He mostly did body part splits (so one day, he did legs, another day he did shoulders, another day he did core), and on days when he didnt do any of those, hed bang out a bunch of pushups and sit-ups. Hed also do 15 minutes of cardio at the ends of his workouts.

            And being an active guy, he had some miles on his body:

  • He had herniated a disc in 1985, but it was no longer affecting him
  • He had the occasional sciatic episodes
  • His right wrist had a repetitive strain injury

The reason we collect this information is to know how to modify his program in a way that is hard on the muscles, but easy on the joints.

Overall, he was quite lean, but a few areas stood out as being disproportionate:

  • His belly fat was 23.5 mm (it should be under 12 for a male)
  • His love handles were 19 mm (they should also be under 12 for a male)
  • His pecs were 10 mm (should be under 5 for both men and women)

So even though his weight was good (164 lbs.), the composition of that weight could have been slightly better.

As I mention in my article on biosignature, the location of your body fat can tell us some clues about your hormonal profile. In Dans case:

  • Belly fat corresponds to cortisol (stress hormone)
  • Love handles correspond to insulin (blood sugar)
  • Pecs correspond to aromatase (a chemical that converts testosterone to estrogen).

We also have most of our clients fill out a comprehensive questionnaire of their symptoms. Dan was overall very healthy, and there wasnt much going on. The only sections that stood out were:

  • Blood sugar (he scored 28% – ideal is 0%)
  • Adrenals (he scored 21%)
  • Absorption (he scored 20%)

Again, overall, none of those are high (we sometimes see clients with 50-70% scores). But Dans a high achiever. He didnt just want to be not bad. He wanted to be kicking butt, so there was room for improvement.

Dans Exercise Program

            After doing his initial assessment, I connected Dan with one of my trainers, Shaneh. Shaneh is an all-around whiz at figuring out how to make fitness and nutrition work with a clients current lifestyle, whether that involves a ton of travel, lunches and dinners out, etc.

            Shaneh got to work on Dans exercise program, and here are the highlights:

  • Previously, Dan was doing body part splits. Thats good if youre an advanced bodybuilder, looking for muscle growth. Not great if youre the average man or woman, looking for fat loss. After all, do you burn more calories doing chest and back, or your full body? Logic would tell you that its full body.
  • Cardio was done 3 or more times per week. Shaneh switched from making cardio an afterthought at the end of strength training workouts, to giving dedicated workouts to cardio (thats what Dan did on the days that he wasnt training with Shaneh).
  • The weights are adjusted using a technique called pyramid loading. What that means is the first set might be a low weight, and higher reps. In subsequent sets, weights increase, and reps decrease. The rationale behind pyramid loading is to squeeze in more work during the allotted time. After all, if youre using the same number of reps each set, you have to rest longer than if youre lowering the reps each set. And hey, why do a 2-hour workout when you can be efficient, and get it done in 1 hour?

Dans Nutrition Program

            As I outline in my article on the biggest mistakes that personal trainers make, a big mistake is creating meal plans. Wait, what? Yep, you heard me (or read me?). The problem with meal plans is that theyre rigid and restrictive. They take (in Dans case) 53 years worth of eating habits, and do a complete 180. Is it any wonder that most people have a hard time sticking to diets?

            We want our clients to lose fat, and keep it off. Not lose fat quickly, look good on Instagram for 10 minutes, and slowly (or quickly) start regaining the lost weight, because it wasnt a sustainable change to begin with.

            A much more sustainable approach to long-term fat loss is a habit-based approach. I elaborate on this in much greater detail in my article on how to build healthy habits. So thats the approach Shaneh took with Dan.

            Instead of meal plans, Shaneh gave Dan a meal template (I cover the difference between meal plans and meal templates in this article). The template was this:

  • Meal 1: 1 serving of a fat source + 1-2 servings of protein
  • Meal 2: same template as meal 1
  • Meal 3: 2-3 carb sources + 1-2 protein sources

It was totally up to Dan to customize this template with his preferences.

The goal really was to get Dans protein consumption up, since protein has very favourable effects on both fat loss and muscle gain. Previously, Dan was eating only 60 grams of protein per day. For a guy who weighs 164 pounds, and exercises 5 days per week, he needs to be getting much more than that. So Shaneh also recommended that Dan add 1 scoop of whey protein, which is 30 grams.

As far as supplements are concerned, my teams and my philosophy is basically whats the least we can take, for the shortest time, and see results? From that perspective, Shaneh had recommended that Dan take magnesium glycinate and fish oil.

The magnesium was recommended because of Dans questionnaire one of his 3 highest sections was adrenals (cortisol). One of the nutrients used to buffer cortisol, and improve stress management is magnesium.

Fish oil was used to improve insulin sensitivity, since Dans highest section on his symptom questionnaire was blood sugar.

Supplements should be based on objective measurements in either blood work, or symptoms. And Dans symptoms indicated that these supplements would be beneficial. If you dont have these symptoms, these supplements may not do much for you.

The Results

            Theory is nice and all, but Im a bottom line kinda guy. What were Dans results?

Although hes not 100% where he wants to be yet, hes very close.

  • The fat on his pec went from 10 mm to 8 mm
  • His belly fat went from 23.5 mm to 21.5 mm
  • And the whopper his love handle went from 19 mm to 11 mm.

Besides that, hes also made some pretty impressive changes in the gym:

  • Bulgarian split squats went from 50 pounds, up to 80 (translation: his legs are 60% stronger)
  • Dumbbell rows went from 30 pounds, up to 40 (his back and arms are 33% stronger)
  • His Romanian deadlift went from 95 lbs., up to 125 lbs. (his derriere and lower back are more than 30% stronger).
  • As for skipping rope, when he first started, he just didnt know how to do it. After he figured out how to do it, he was floored after only 30 seconds. Nowadays, he can skip rope for more than 7 consecutive minutes.

Very nice!

How His Life is Different Now

            Now that Dan is a stud in the gym, how has that carried over to his life outside the gym? Quite well.

            In 3:51 of his video, he says that:

  • It feels good to look in the mirror
  • He feels and looks 10 years younger (hes 53 bet you wouldnt think that from his video)
  • Gets lots of compliments from others around him
  • When he looks at other men his age, he feels good by comparison

And he concludes his video by saying Im not getting younger, but I feel like Im getting better.

If youd like to see results like these for yourself, and youre interested in learning more about the program that we used with Dan (which is called the Fitness Solutions Plus Body Transformation Program), just email me with the words Body Transformation in the subject line.