Remember Stellis? In a previous article I wrote about how she eliminated knee pain in 8 workouts at age 82. But that was only one reason why she hired us. There was another one: fat loss.
And now, we have another great success story, since she’s lost 11 pounds and 6 inches off her waist, while getting into smaller dress sizes, and getting significantly stronger.
In this article, we’ll cover:
- What Stellis has tried in the past to help her lose weight.
- What we learned about Stellis during our initial assessment.
- The exercise strategies that we used with Stellis.
- The nutritional strategies that we used with Stellis.
- The results we achieved.
- How her life is different now that she’s 11 pounds lighter, 6 inches slimmer in the waist, and much stronger.
If you’d like to see Stellis tell her own story, check out this video:
And if you’d like to achieve similar results, we have a special program called “Body Transformation for Seniors.” If you want to see whether this program is for you, just fill out the form on our home page.
What Stellis Has Tried in the Past to Help Her Lose Fat
Excess body fat has been a long struggle for Stellis. And she’s tried a lot of things like:
- Diets (many diets, including Atkins and Bernstein). Those didn’t work, at least not in the long term.
- Going out for daily walks. And although it was enjoyable, it wasn’t moving the needle.
- Weight loss support group (TOPS: Take Off Pounds Sensibly). While it was nice having peer support, she wasn’t losing body fat. Also, the focus is on weight – not fat, or health.
She was frustrated that all those efforts yielded no results, at least not the ones she was looking for.
Around 2014 or 2015, I did a presentation for her TOPS group, and it was very well received. She really wanted to work with me, but lived too far away.
Fast forward a few years – she started seeing a chiropractor in Markham, who happened to be in the same neighbourhood as me. She saw the opportunity, and decided to contact me to get started.
So as we do with all our clients, we started her off with an initial assessment.
What We Learned About Stellis During Our Initial Assessment
Whenever it comes to designing an exercise and nutrition program, to be able to personalize it, we have to know a lot of things, like:
- Someone’s goal
- What they’re currently doing
- What they’ve done in the past
- Injuries
- Medical conditions
- Medications
- Supplements
…and other details.
In Stellis’s case, she was already going for daily walks for an hour with a friend. In addition to that:
- She had high blood pressure.
- She had knee pain from arthritis.
- Other than that, she was pretty asymptomatic.
The Exercise Strategies That We Used
In terms of Stellis’s program, here’s what it looked like:
2 sets of 15-20 reps of:
One-legged deadlifts
Lat pulldowns
Overhead press
Assisted squats or wall sits, depending on how her knees are feeling on any given day
Seated rows
Incline pushups
Hamstring curls
Some rehabilitation exercises for her knees.
To look at this program would really not do it justice. After all, the actual exercises are only the 4th most important variable in an exercise program. The top variable is the progression model, and is really the secret behind her success. If you want to know the second and third most important variables, check out this article.
If you want to delve deeper into why these exercises, in this order, and this number of sets and reps, just read my article on exercise for weight loss and strength training over 60.
The Nutritional Strategies Stellis Used
With every fat loss client, we try to identify whether their problem is really nutritional, or more like emotional, behavioral and logistical. About 5% of the time, it’s nutritional. The rest of the time, emotional, behavioral and logistical.
Our approach to nutrition is not giving a massive overhaul. That would be called a “diet.” Stellis has done diets in the past, and they haven’t worked for her in the long term. So why would we give her another diet, and just call it something different (a “meal plan”)?
As I talk about in my End Emotional Eating program, you’re much more likely to make long-term behavior change if you focus on one skill at a time. I talk about treating healthy eating as skill practice, as opposed to dieting. Thankfully, there are a million ways to reach the same goal, and different people can take different paths to get there.
The key is finding the path of least resistance. Because if you try to do something difficult, where you’re likely to fail, you’re much less likely to try again. But if you experience a small success, it’ll reinforce that behavior, and you’ll want to do more of it.
So after asking some diagnostic questions, we figured out that both the most effective, but also easiest, least time consuming and tastiest way for Stellis to start long-term weight loss is by increasing her protein.
And that’s all she did. We didn’t make any other changes. We didn’t ask her to eat more veggies, or use certain supplements, or anything else. That’s the only thing we asked her to do.
And as we do with every client, we took her body fat measurements every 2 weeks. Sure enough, after 2 weeks of increasing her protein intake, she lost body fat. If it’s working, keep it going. So we kept on going without any changes. Another 2 weeks later, she lost even more body fat. So we didn’t make any changes, and kept on going. And on and on it went, until for 3 measurements in a row, she didn’t make any progress.
The next step was to get her to stop eating when she feels 80% full, instead of 100% full. And again, we measured her 2 weeks later. She lost body fat from that. And another measurement 2 weeks later. More fat lost.
And those were basically the only 2 strategies Stellis needed to lose 11 pounds of fat, and drop 6 inches off her waist: more protein, and stop eating when she’s 80% full.
When it comes to nutrition, very often, simplicity works better than complexity. But it takes asking great questions, and occasionally, experimentation to figure out what strategies to use for which person.
These 2 strategies worked great for Stellis, based on her preferences, schedule, personality, etc. They may not work for you. For you, other strategies may work. For Miriam, just noticing when she was actually hungry worked really well. For other people in my End Emotional Eating program, taking 30 seconds at the beginning of the day to pre-plan your meals for the day works really well. There are over 40 potential strategies that my team and I have used with clients before to help them lose weight, and keep it off. It just takes asking great questions to figure out which 1-3 strategies of the 40+ we need to implement. We’re looking for the one domino that knocks over other dominoes.
The Results We Achieved
Theory and methods are nice, but there’s a reason clients come to us: the bottom line. Can we help them reach their goals?
And I have to say – with Stellis, it’s a resounding yes!
Since we meticulously measure and track our clients’ progress, here are some highlights of Stellis’s measurements:
- She lost 11 pounds: from 173, down to 162.
- She lost 6 inches off her waist: from 42.7 to 36.7.
- She added 30 pounds to her 1-legged deadlifts.
- Her upper body pulling strength improved by 20% (her lat pulldowns went from 50 pounds, to 60).
- Her upper body pushing strength improved by 54% (her overhead press went from 18.5 pounds, up to 28.5).
- Her recovery is better. It used to take her as much as 8 minutes to recover in between sets. Now it takes her about 3-4 minutes.
How Her Life is Different Now
Objective measurements are nice, but they’re really just a proxy for us professionals to know whether we’re on the right track or not. What really matters to our clients isn’t so much their “gym numbers”, but how does exercise and nutrition enrich their life outside the gym?
And turns out that for Stellis, her life has really improved:
- A lot of the clothes that she used to wear 11 pounds ago, she can no longer wear – they’re too baggy now.
- She goes for daily walks with a friend of hers, who’s much younger. Stellis used to have a hard time keeping up with her. Now, it’s not a problem.
- It’s easier for her getting off the floor. An underrated skill, but definitely on the minds of folks over 80 (and she’s 83 now).
- She actually enjoys exercise now.
- It’s easier for her to play with her grandkids.
So overall we’re very proud of Stellis, and how far she’s come in less than a year of exercise. That, along with her attitude makes her a joy to work with.
If you’d like to get the same results, we have a special program called “Body Transformation for Seniors.” If you want to see whether this program is for you, just fill out the application form on our home page.