Meet Olessia. Shes a 40-year-old mom of 3 kids. She started working with us because she wanted to lose body fat, feel healthier and look better. She was working with another personal trainer for a while, but things just werent going the way she was hoping.

               In this article, well outline:

  • What Olessias goals were when she started working with me
  • What shes tried in the past to help her lose the body fat and get more toned
  • The highlights of the different exercise programs that Ive used with her to achieve her different goals
  • Highlights of the nutritional strategies we used to lose fat and gain muscle
  • Challenges that she experienced along the way

If youd like to see Olessia tell her own story, just check out this video:

And hey, if you also want a program designed for your body specifically, you can see if you qualify to work with us by emailing me with the words body transformation in the subject line.

Olessias Goals

Even before Olessia started working with me, she was no slouch. She was already a regular exerciser, and quite lean.

Olessia

She followed a lot of lean women on Instagram, and wanted to be just like them. There was just one problem: during her initial assessment, when I measured her, she already had pretty low body fat, like around 19-20%. And she wanted to get down lower. Like the Instagram ladies.

On the topic of following fitness people on Instagram, Im going to digress and go on a rant.

First of all, the women that you see posing on Instagram are around 10-12% body fat. Only a tiny minority of women can reach body fat levels that low, and still be healthy. And thats just due to genetics. Sure, they train hard. Sure, they eat well. Nothing to take away from them. But there are plenty of women who train hard and eat well, but will never reach 10-12% body fat.

So for one thing, the majority of women posting near-naked selfies on Instagram are actually the minority of women who can be healthy at 10-12% body fat.

The other possibility is that naturally, these women walk around at 18-20% body fat, but got down to 10-12% body fat over a period of many months and they were miserable in the process. Once they got down to that level, they took 1000 pictures with different lighting and different camera angles, and picked the best 10 photos of those 1000. After that shoot was over, they relaxed their diet and exercise, and went back to 18-20% body fat.

I tell many of my clients that the healthiest thing they can do for body image is unfollow any fitness people on Instagram. Including most personal trainers, because most personal trainers dont know what theyre talking about.

As I wrote in one of my posts on Facebook, personal trainers who post pictures of client success show expertise. Trainers who post only shirtless selfies show vanity.

Rant over. That felt good. Thanks for being my therapist

               Anyways

               After Olessia told me about her goal, I explained to her the risks of having body fat that is too low. What are those risks?

  • Losing her period, which could predispose her later in life to osteoporosis and a very difficult menopause
  • Poor sleep
  • Moodiness
  • Lower libido
  • Inability to focus
  • Dry skin
  • Bad hair quality

and more.

               And how low is too low varies from woman to woman. As mentioned earlier, a tiny minority of women can get down to 10-12% body fat, and be just fine. But for the majority of women, too low is somewhere in the 16-20% body fat range. Below that, and they start to experience the symptoms of excessively low body fat.

               Nonetheless, I informed Olessia of the risks of having body fat that is too low. I also warned her that it might not be that satisfying getting down that low. Because shes already either there, or close to it, there wouldnt be much of a visual difference between her current body fat, and the body fat that she was striving for.

After informing her of both points, the rest was up to her. Shes an adult who can make her own decisions, and her decision was to see whats the lowest she could get and still be healthy. That was an important aspect to her: still be healthy. She didnt want to sacrifice health for aesthetics.

There were a few reasons Olessia wanted to lose body fat:

  • She felt heavy. Now, she wasnt actually heavy. At only 50, she was 119 pounds, and again, already lean. But this was a discrepancy between how she felt, and whats actually there.
  • She wanted to improve her energy levels. Despite already exercising 3-5 times per week, she still didnt feel as energetic as she would have hoped.
  • She wanted to set a good example for her kids
  • Body image: she saw more fat than whats actually there.

That last point is actually an important one. I find in my case, that with my female clients, about 30% of women dont need to lose as much fat as they think. They see fat that isnt there. I once had a client travel all the way from Ancaster to Markham (a distance of about 80 km) because she thought she had 30% body fat. She wanted to get measured, and hear my recommendations. When she actually got measured, we saw that she was actually about 10% body fat. That was an eye opener for her. Its quite the educational experience to compare what you see subjectively to whats actually there objectively.

What Shes Tried in the Past to Help Her Reach Her Goals

               As mentioned, Olessia was no slouch. She was a gym rat, in fact. She just simply loved going to the gym, being at the gym, and lifting weights.

               She was even working with a personal trainer for a few years before starting with me. He would have her doing a different workout each time.

               Despite spending lots of time at the gym, its nice to actually see some progress. Unfortunately though, she wasnt seeing any.

               Her trainer:

  • Didnt measure her at all. And you already know that if youre not assessing, you are guessing. Measurements are what hold us (personal trainers) and our clients accountable. Plus, they give us direction in terms of what methods to use, and what to adjust. I elaborate on this in far greater detail in my article on the importance of body measurements.
  • Didnt have a program. Olessia would simply show up at the gym, and hed have her doing different exercises each time. Thats what I call fitness-based babysitting. A professional trainer should have a written program, where the exercises, sets, reps and weight get written down each time. After all, if you dont track your workouts, how can you measure progress? If you dont track your workouts, how do you know what to do in the following workout? Should you raise your reps? Raise your weight? Shorten your rest periods? Something else? I talk about this in more detail in my article on the most important factor in an exercise program.
  • Would bring his home life to work with him. If something wasnt going well at home, his clients would know about it, because hed be in a bad mood. A professional should be able to shut out any external distractions, and deliver a consistently positive and enjoyable experience.

and other sins from the ones that I describe in my article series on the biggest mistakes that personal trainers make.

               And he wasnt exactly a new trainer, either. No, this was a guy with many years as a trainer, plus extensive education. However, as I always say that if you didnt take any courses, workshops, seminars, etc. after you graduated from school, a trainer for 20 years is not someone who has 20 years of experience. Its someone who has 1 year of experience 20 times.

               Despite that, he was a nice guy. But we have to separate likeability from competence and professionalism. Just because someone is a nice person doesnt mean that theyre effective at their job.

Highlights of the Different Programs that We Used with Olessia to Lose Fat, Gain Muscle, and Get Stronger

               Over her time working with me so far, Olessia had a number of different goals:

  • Fat loss
  • Muscle gain
  • Strength improvement (powerlifting)
  • Currently, shes focused on learning cool bodyweight tricks, like these.

However, as I tell most clients who have many different goals, its better to prioritize, and put all your focus into one goal for a period of time, before switching goals. Why? Because fat loss and muscle gain are essentially diametrically opposed goals. If you try to pursue both at the same time, youll get nowhere.

Generally, for women who want to both lose fat and gain muscle, if theyre over about 25% body fat, I recommend fat loss first, muscle gain second. If theyre under 18% body fat, then muscle gain first, fat loss second. If theyre in the 18-25% range, its totally their call. Olessias call was to do fat loss first.

But please note: what Im about to present to you was specifically designed for Olessias body and personality (youll see what I mean later). Trying to do the same thing as Olessia was doing may or may not work for you. Flip a coin. If you want more of a sure thing, and something designed for both your body and personality, just respond to this email with the words body transformation in the subject line.

Olessias Fat Loss Program Highlights

               As mentioned earlier, Olessia started working with me when she was already very lean, and getting leaner would essentially be just losing 1% fat, and thats it. But nonetheless, she wanted to see how low she could go in a healthy way.

               So I designed a program for her that involved:

  • 6 exercises, using multiple joints
  • We went through those exercises for 3 sets
  • We did 15-20 repetitions of each exercise
  • This was done 3 times per week

Why this protocol specifically? Why 3 sets of 15-20 reps, and not for instance 8-12? Why 6 exercises, and not more or less? Why 3 times per week?

I elaborate extensively in my rationale for all of this in my article on exercise for weight loss.

But before you miss the forest for the trees, and think that I just laid out the fat loss blueprint right now, I didnt. The real secret sauce of any effective exercise program is not the exercise, sets, reps or weight. Its the progression model. Take the perfect exercises, weights, sets and reps, but if you stay there forever, without changing the weight or the reps, youll just stay stagnant. Not good for motivation. But take the wrong exercises, and apply a logical progression model to it, and youll see much better progress.

Fortunately, it doesnt have to be an either/or scenario. Its not the right exercises OR the right progression model. Its both. If you want to delve into this in much greater detail, check out my article on the most important factor in an exercise program.

               Now, lets talk nutrition.

The cool thing about Olessia is that shes a robot . She went to school for mechanical engineering, so shes a numbers person. You tell her how many calories to eat, and the breakdown of protein, fats, and carbs, and shell do it, no questions asked, with near-perfection.

Unlike the vast majority of my clients, she doesnt have any issues with emotional eating. Although I have a very extensive toolbox to help my clients with emotional eating (and Im even running a program about it, called end emotional eating), I didnt have to use any of those tools with Olessia.

Her only weakness is chocolate. She once asked me can I have a piece of chocolate every day?

Sure! I said.

You can have a piece of chocolate every day, and still reach your body composition goals, as long as it fits into your caloric budget. I think people get too hung up on forbidden foods. Unless someone is a true food addict, no food is really forbidden. Just as with anything work it into your caloric budget.

So with Olessia, on her fat loss phase, heres what we did:

  • Calories: 1200/day
  • Protein: 100-105 grams/day

and thats it. The rest was up to her.

               Now, before you think that we make each of our clients count calories we dont. I often say that a program must fit not only a persons body, but also their personality. Some people are numbers people and other people are not. I happen to do a lot of presentations for accounting, engineering and finance firms, so I have a lot of clients who are accountants, engineers, and work in finance. You can bet that theyre numbers people, and love counting something. So I give them something to count. Whats that something? Might be calories, grams of protein, grams of fibre, or something else. Again, depends on their goals, and what I think is the fastest way to get there.

               But not everyone is a numbers person, so we dont force that on each of our clients. For our non-numbers clients, we use other strategies to get them to be more mindful of their food.

The Results

               Theory is nice, but what are the bottom-line results? Here are some of Olessias measurements from both the beginning and end of the fat loss phase (which was about 2 months):

  • Triceps:
    • Before: 17.5 mm
    • After: 12.5 mm
  • Supra-iliac (love handle):
    • Before: 13 mm
    • After: 12 mm
  • Quads (thighs):
    • Before: 27.5 mm
    • After: 26 mm
  • Waist circumference:
    • Before: 80 cm (31.5 inches)
    • After: 78 cm (30.7 inches)

Given how lean Olessia was to begin with, she made great progress. To go from 35% body fat to 30% body fat is easy. To go from 19% to 18% is really really hard.

               Seeing as her body fat had pretty much bottomed out, and wouldnt go any lower without further drops in calories (which was unsustainable), she decided to switch goals: powerlifting.

The Powerlifting Phase

               Olessia knew that I was a powerlifter before, so she thought shed see how far she could take her strength. Before starting on a powerlifting program, she went to one powerlifting competition as a spectator, liked what she saw, got a membership at the Ontario Powerlifting Association, registered for a competition 4 months away, and we got started.

Powerlifting Program Highlights

              
               The 3 main lifts in powerlifting are the squat, bench press and deadlift. So her program was based around those lifts. To that, I added chin-ups, so that it doesnt create imbalanced development around the shoulder, and lead to injuries.

               We divided her program into 2 workouts, performed 3 times per week:

  • Day 1: deadlifts and bench press
  • Day 2: squats and chin-ups
  • We would alternate day 1 and 2, so it might look like this:
    • Week 1 Monday: day 1 workout; Wednesday: day 2 workout; Friday: day 1 workout.
    • Week 2 Monday: day 2 workout; Wednesday: day 1 workouts; Friday: day 2 workout.
  • Each of the exercises was done for 3 sets of 3-5 reps
  • Once Olessia was able to do 3 sets of 5 reps with a weight, we would increase the weight by the smallest possible increment, and lower the reps back to 3.
  • We would rest 3-5 minutes in between sets, to recover her strength. During those rest periods, we would do certain mobility drills that addressed the muscular imbalances that powerlifting creates (hint: almost every sport creates muscular imbalances).
  • After the main exercises were complete, we would add in accessory exercises. Accessory exercises are not exercises that you compete in, but they do add to the competitive exercises by emphasizing certain muscle groups that arent addressed adequately with the main lifts themselves.

Unlike fat loss, where nutrition is 70-90% of the puzzle, and exercise is 10-30%, when it comes to strength improvements (which I differentiate from muscle mass improvements for reasons that youll see later in this article), nutrition is about 5-10%. As long as shes eating adequate protein, the rest of her diet doesnt matter that much.

The Results

In this case, the results were pretty hard to measure, because the powerlifting program was interrupted by covid (and hence, the competition was cancelled). About a month into the program, covid hit, and she had to work out at home, where she didnt have the necessary equipment.

Fast forward a few months, when gyms reopened for the first time, and we went back to it.

Despite the closures, we were able to make some progress:

  • Olessias bench press improved from 82.5 lbs for 3 reps, up to 95 lbs. for 5 reps
  • Her squat improved from 95 lbs. for 3 reps, up to 115 lbs. for 5 reps.
  • Her deadlift improved from 155 lbs. for 3, up to 170 lbs. for 5 reps.

Not bad for a person weighing around 120 lbs., and only doing it for 2 months. But after a bit of soul searching, Olessia felt that powerlifting wasnt for her, because for her, motivation had to be visual. She visually had to see changes in her body. So she wanted to switch to a muscle building program (again, I differentiate muscle building from strength building).

The Muscle Building Phase

               Because Olessia is motivated by the visual, she wanted to now switch to gaining muscle, so she could see her muscles growing.

               So I got to work, designing a muscle building program for her.

               Being that Olessia is not a beginner, but an intermediate, a program for the two would be very different.

               Whereas a beginner needs somewhere around 8-10 sets per week, per body part to make that grow, an intermediate trainee needs about 24-30 sets per week, per body part for about 2-4 months.

Because its impractical to do 24-30 sets per week for every body part, its important to specialize. Only pick 1-2 muscle groups that you want to grow. The rest will be put on maintenance. After those have grown sufficiently, put those on maintenance, and pick 1-2 others to grow.

               For her first muscle building program, Olessia chose glutes and delts. She wanted a bigger booty, and that shoulder cap.

               Additionally, the degree of progress that an intermediate can make is much lower than the degree of progress that a beginner can make.

               To put some numbers to this:

  • A woman can gain 20-25 lbs. of muscle in her entire life.
    • Of those 20-25 lbs., 10-12 will come in the first year of training; 5-6 will come in the second year of training; 2-3 will come in the third year of training. So the principle of diminishing returns really applies here.

Since Olessia was no beginner, its important to know what to expect. We only expected a gain of about 1 pound of muscle every 2 months.

Now with that prequel, we got to work.

Muscle Building Program Highlights

               Here are some of the big points from Olessias muscle building program:

  • She exercised 3 days per week.
  • We used 3 supersets of 3 sets each. The first exercise in the superset was for the glutes, and the second, for the deltoids.
  • After those 3 supersets were complete, we did 2 sets of circuits for the body parts that are on maintenance.
  • The first two sets came close to muscle failure. The last set went all the way to muscle failure.
  • We worked in the 8-12 rep range.
  • Once Olessia was able to do 3 sets of 12 reps at a certain weight, we increased the weight.
  • We used a combination of single-joint and multi-joint movements for both body parts.

On the nutrition side of things, I asked Olessia to:

  1. Eat 115-120 grams of protein per day
  2. Eat 1700 calories

The Results

               After 2 months on the glutes and delts program, here were her measurements:

  • Glutes:
    • Before: 93.5 cm
    • After: 95.5 cm
  • Upper thigh:
    • Before: 58 cm
    • After: 59 cm
  • Weight:
    • Before: 56 kg (123.5 lbs.)
    • After: 56.5 kg (124.6 lbs.)

Pretty textbook case. Her glutes grew really well, and she gained the expected 1 pound of muscle.

The Fat Loss Phase

               Whenever a person tries to gain muscle, they must eat a surplus of calories. Olessia needs around 1450 calories per day to maintain her weight. Because she wanted to gain muscle, we had to have her eating more than that. So we increased the calories to 1700/day.

               It definitely helps muscle gain, but inevitably some fat comes along for the ride. Fortunately, it wasnt much, but it was still a little bit.

               So after the glutes and delts program, we did a quick, 2-week fat loss phase, before moving on to 2 other body parts to grow.

               The highlights of the program in this fat loss phase are:

  • Similar exercises to program 1
  • Sets: 4
  • Reps: 5-8

Why 5-8 reps on this program? Its a matter of preference. Some people prefer to lose fat with cardio, and some prefer to lose fat without cardio. Both can be done. Olessia hates cardio. So she chose no cardio.

When a person is doing cardio, theyre eating higher carbs, and can do 15-20 reps. When a person is not doing cardio, theyre eating lower carbs, so they should be doing 5-8 reps.

The goal of strength training during a fat loss phase isnt to gain muscle. Theres no hope gaining muscle in a fat loss phase. The goal of strength training during a fat loss phase is to retain muscle.

The Second Muscle Gain Phase

               After doing a quick fat loss phase, she was ready for the second muscle gain phase. This time, she chose to grow her abs and rhomboids/mid traps (thats the mid-back the area between the shoulder blades).

               By and large, the sets and reps of this phase were the same as last phase. Just different exercises, because we were targeting different body parts.

               On the nutrition side of things, we bumped up the protein intake by just 3-5 grams per day for the simple fact that she was now heavier (had more muscle) than she was last muscle gaining phase.

               Towards the end of this phase, she was starting to feel too heavy (from muscle), so rather than choosing 2 other body parts to work on in yet another muscle gain phase, shes saying shes happy with her muscle at this point, and wants to switch focus from muscle gain/fat loss to more bodyweight strength training.

               Thats the program that we just started last week, so not much to report on just yet, other than the skills that she wants to master:

  • Chinups
  • Dragon flags
  • Front lever
  • Back lever
  • Planche
  • Handstand pushups

If you dont know what they are, I demonstrate them all in this video.

To set expectations again, these are all multi-year progressions. It took me about 3 years to get to do a straddle planche, and 3 years to do a front lever.

The Results

               In this second muscle gain phase, here were Olessias results:

  • Chest circumference (which includes the mid-back muscles):
    • Before: 90 cm (35.4 inches)
    • After: 91 cm (35.8 inches)
  • Waist circumference:
    • Before: 81 cm (31.9 inches)
    • After: 82.5 cm (32.5 inches)
    • This is without increases in belly fat, because the fat was actually about the same

Challenges That She Experienced

               As much as we like to paint a picture of everything is perfect, theres this thing called real life. Sometimes life gets in the way of great progress.

               Despite being one of my most consistent clients in a (so far) 15-year personal training career, there were still a few stumbling blocks.

  • Olessia is a mom of 3 kids. Kids get sick. She has to take care of her kids. Sometimes that resulted in cancellations
  • Before she started working with me, she had a partial tear in her rotator cuff (4 of the shoulder muscles), and certain movements hurt. We improved that with certain exercises that we did, to the point where we almost forgot to include it in this article, since its been so long since it even bothered her.
  • Minor injuries. As much as we try to prevent injuries, we cant predict 100% of them. For better or for worse, the pursuit of serious strength comes with a few bumps and scrapes along the way. Olessia had a few of those, but nothing serious, and recovered within a few days to a week or two.
  • Feminine uh issues. Certain times of the month, Olessia feels particularly weak, and lacking in energy. Despite that, she doesnt skip workouts on those days. We modify and adapt. A half-hearted workout is better than no workout.
  • The big one: COVID-19. That started about halfway into our powerlifting phase, and the lockdowns didnt lift for 4 months. We adapted by giving her workouts to do at home, and when the weather got warm enough, workouts in the park. No, its not the same as the gym, but its certainly better than sitting on your butt, and waiting it out.

Despite these challenges, Olessia made incredible progress:

  • From getting down to her bare minimum of body fat
  • To improving an old, nagging shoulder injury
  • To gaining 5 lbs. of muscle as an intermediate trainee
  • To setting a great example for her kids

and more.

If youd like to experience a similar transformation to Olessia, just email me with the subject line Body Transformation.