Let's discuss how I was able to get one of my clients who is a busy doctor in her 40s to go from 150lbs eating only 700 calories a day, unable to lose weight, to getting back to her college weight around 126lbs while eating 1400 calories after trying for 15 years.

In this article I cover the following

1. The various strategies she tried before working with me
2. Her starting point (weight and caloric intake) working with me
   
3. Where she ended up (weight and calories) after working with me
4. The five components that helpedherfinally get back to her college weight after trying for 15 years.

MEET ANOUSHEH

Losing fat can be a real struggle.

Losing fat as you get older can seem to be an even greater struggle.

Add on the fact that you are a busy doctor in your 40s working 28 days out of the month between hospitals and military duties....and it can feel virtually impossible to achieve any of your fitness goals.

For the last 15 years Anousheh has tried every diet and strategy imaginable to get back to her college weight.

Keto, intermittent fasting, weight watchers, atkins,…..

An intense HCG diet where she only ate 700 calories per day and gave herself injections.

She even hired many trainers and nutritionists to help her lose weight.

Nothing worked (or it worked for a short period, but eventually she gained it back because all the strategies were unsustainable long term) 

As soon as she started eating normal food again, or carbs, she would gain it all back again (is anyone really able to spend the next 30 years eating nothing but Jenny Craig or not going out to eat?)

Hiring me was her last attempt (seriously that’s what she told me).

ANOUSHEH'S BEGINNING STATS WHEN WE STARTED TOGETHER

When Anousheh started working with me she was between 145-150lb. 

She told me that she was only eating 700 calories a day and wasn’t losing weight.

I explained to her that she was experiencing metabolic adaptation and that we had two options 

OPTION ONE

Go lower in calories. To be honest I told her this really wasn’t an option because even at 700 calories per day she was running the risk of micronutrient deficiency. (and what would be the new goal anyways? 400-500 calories per day?? Let’s not eat and see what happens??)

OPTION TWO

Strategically increase calories and increase movement as well as build lean muscle to help her rebuild her metabolism.

Side note: when she started with me she could barely do 4-6 pushups 

I told her upfront that this was going to be a slightly longer process than normal because it could take as long as 3-6 months to correctly reverse diet and get her metabolism back to normal. From there we would need to diet back down in order to get more fat loss.

RESULTS WHILE WORKING TOGETHER

Anousheh went from 148-150 pounds and eating 700 calories a day to getting as low as 126 pounds and eating 1200-1400 calories per day during our journey (we actually worked our way up to 2000 calories per day at one point before we started optimizing for fat loss).

Anousheh finally achieved her goal of getting back to her college weight.

More importantly she has been able to keep her weight for the past couple of years with ease and no food restrictions (she gets to eat whatever she wants – carbs, sweets, and all)

Side Note: She's able to do over 40 pushups in 1 minute 

To date Anousheh is still a client of mine and we are working towards getting her a better physique than she had in college (one that is defined, toned, and full of lean muscle) 

HOW WE GOT ANOUSHEH TO ACHIEVE HER FAT LOSS GOALS 

There are five main components that helped Anousheh (as well as countless other clients of mine) achieve incredible lasting results

1. Focus on sustainable nutrition systems
2. Simplified strategies to a few things that matter most
3. Created a workout system that works with her specific lifestyle
4. Focused on components to help increase / boost her metabolism
5. Anousheh showed up and put in the work. 

STRATEGY #1: FOCUS ON SUSTAINABLE NUTRITION SYSTEMS

The key to achieving lasting results (whether it’s fat loss or muscle building) is to create sustainable systems.

There are a lot of strategies that CAN work.

However, if you don’t think you can do that strategy for the next 30 years, then there’s no point in entertaining it for even 30 minutes. 

One of the sustainable systems we implemented was no food restrictions. 

This was important because with many of the other diets Anousheh tried, she spent a lot of time trying to fight off cravings that would leave her frustrated and not enjoying the process (no point in being fit if you are always miserable – you’ll never keep it up)

We also didn't focus our time an energy trying to push things that don't truly make a difference in your fat loss journey such as specific meal timing strategies, cutting carbs, getting rid of guilty pleasure, etc.

STRATEGY #2: SIMPLIFIED STRATEGIES TO A FEW THINGS THAT ACTUALLY MATTER

One of the challenges with fitness is that there is always more you can be doing.

Meal prepping, additional workouts, meal timing strategies, getting your protein, carbs, and fats in the proper amounts, cardio, weight training, etc….

The list of things to do is endless.

Here’s the thing, when it comes to fat loss there isn’t that much you really have to focus on as long as you do it well.

That’s what we did. 

We simply focused on caloric intake and protein and had some simple lean muscle building exercises she did at home to help stimulate lean muscle growth 2-3 times a week.

The problem with adding too many variables is that you don’t become good or very effective at any of them. You are also more likely to fall off due to overwhelm and overcomplication 

STRATEGY #3: CREATED A WORKOUT STRATEGY THAT FITS HER LIFESTYLE

One of the biggest challenges that most people face when they hire trainers or they buy workout programs is that they are designed as if someone has endless hours to go to the gym.

I can’t tell you how many times i’ve received phone calls from people saying “I workout 4,5,6 days per week and I’m not getting results”

There’s a few things you need to understand 

First, your workouts are only about 20% of the fat loss equation

Second, you don’t burn nearly as many calories as you think you do working out (most people are lucky if they burn up to 500 calories in a 2 hour workout)

Third, most people don’t have the schedule or bandwidth to sustain training 2 hours a day 3, 4, 5 days a week.

It’s not conducive to the average working professionals schedule and it also is too big of a shift from where most people are starting 

What helped Anousheh get such good results was that she was doing 2-3 workouts a week that lasted 45 minutes at most and were simple exercises she did at home (she simply didn’t have the time to get to the gym that many days per week nor did she want to) 

STRATEGY #4: FOCUSED ON METABOLISM BOOSTING ACTIVITIES:

When Anousheh started with me she had reached metabolic adaptation. This is where your body learns to slow down metabolism to help you survive on the amount of calories you are giving it.

This is actually a good thing from a survival mechanism, but not good when you are trying to lose fat (your body hates losing fat)

What helped us get great results was we focused our attention on metabolism boosting activities.

This was primarily strength training and slowly increasing calories.

We didn’t do any cardio together.

It’s not that cardio isn’t good or effective (it’s great). 

It just doesn’t do anything for building lean muscle which makes up a large percentage of your basal metabolic rate (the more lean muscle you have the more calories you burn during the day)

Strength training helped her start to build lean muscle and slowly increasing calories allowed her metabolism to slowly activate and begin building up.

The combo of these two helped her eventually go from 700 calories and not losing weight to 2,000 with a little bit of fat loss.

STRATEGY #5: ANOUSHEH SHOWED UP (PUT IN THE WORK)

As the saying goes, if you want something done, give it to the busiest person.

One of the reasons why Anousheh was able to get such incredible results was simply because she showed up, put in the work, and was meticulous about doing the few things she was told to focus on well 

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how effective the strategy is, if you don’t put in the work, you can’t expect to get results.

We can talk all day about the most effective ways to do push ups, dream about doing pushups, visualize push up, see ourself doing push ups….

But if we don’t ACTUALLY DO PUSHUPS we won’t ever achieve the physique we desire.

As the saying goes “the magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding” 

NEXT STEPS

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Shaun