Premier Gym in Marshfield, MA

Case Study: Losing 4 lbs in 4 Weeks

This is not like the ads you see on instagram or on TV where someone lost “30 pounds in two weeks!” This is real life where losing weight the right way, takes time. My client lost 4 lbs in 4 weeks which is absolutely amazing.

That is a pound per week. If she kept that up for an entire year, she would be down 52 lbs. If she kept that up for two years,104 lbs (which is really not her goal). Her goal was somewhere around 15-20 pounds of total weight loss which, for her, at this rate will be quick. We are going to go into the details on how things went over the past 4 weeks right now!

The Starting Point

My client texted me that we needed to talk. Which is weird for her because if something is on her mind she just lets me know. In my head something is definitely wrong.

Is she okay? Did she finally pull the trigger on moving across the country?

When we sat down to talk, the first thing she said was “I’m ready. I’m ready to start taking things seriously, it’s time to lose some weight”.

We have been back and forth on a few new goals in the months leading up to this. Starting and stopping, lots of stress, changing job schedules, and things not necessarily going in her favor. It had been a tough few months but during all this time she always made a BIG effort to get her
workouts in, and I love that! She is also someone who enjoys the progress in the gym. She wants to work hard, get stronger, and move really well!

Up until this point, with so much changing, and a few different goals, this was the direction that we needed to get things moving forward.

But, I could sense her excitement and motivation, which is awesome! But, I told her, we are taking things SLOW from the get go because sustainability is the goal!

Step #1: What Are You Eating?

During this meeting we laid out a plan of action to give her an idea of what to expect and to give some true direction for the next few weeks/months.

The first step was tracking her food for 7 days.

She has done food tracking in the past and is very confident with the process. During this first week I told her not to change anything about her eating habits, just eat as you normally would.

We want to get an idea of where things are from day 1, so if she jumped right in and started making big changes we wouldn't have a true sense of where she is starting from.

Along with the food tracking I also told her to weigh herself every single day right when she wakes up in the morning. She sends me that number every morning. Not everyone has a great relationship with the scale and she was skeptical about this from the beginning as well.

What I told her…

“It’s just a number. Some days it will go up, some days it will go down. It doesn’t change you as a person or define any part of your day, it’s just information. And we will use that information to help us track progress along the way”

A few days have come up where she was not excited that the scale moved in the wrong direction which we had discussions about as well. Seeing this and knowing what to expect has definitely made a positive impact and I would say it’s improved her relationship with the scale greatly.

Weight loss is not a linear process. Social events, stressful days, travel, menstrual cycles, workouts, water intake, and sleep all have an effect on your weight for that exact second in time. So, we don’t get hung up on the day to day numbers, but we do track the trends over longer periods to make sure things are moving in the right direction.

Here is a shot of a 10 day period. If we compare numbers every single day, we see points where the scale went up, which like I said, is normal and expected. But from day 1 to day 10 the overall trend is very much moving downward.

Step #2: How’s Your Consistency?

Like I said prior, she made a big effort to get her workouts in even during the tougher times. There was still some work to be done on the scheduling and consistency side though.

For the few months before this, she was averaging 2 workouts per week. To be honest, with her schedule, I wouldn’t have been able to get 2 workouts in every single week. She has always been determined! From there, her goal was to do 4 workouts per week. That’s a big jump.

I love the enthusiasm to push into more workouts, but it’s not needed at the beginning. And for her, it’s not optimal. Not for her work schedule, sleep schedule, or stress levels. So we started off with 3 workouts per week.

To help her stay even more consistent, we created a home workout that is ready to go if she can’t find the time to make it to the gym for whatever reason. Over the first 4 weeks, she has used that home workout option twice. With that, she hasn’t missed a session since we started.

3 workouts per week, 4 weeks straight—> Consistency.

Step #3: Workout Plan

We decided to stick with full body workouts for her workout program. With one workout occasionally being a home session, we make sure that each muscle group is being worked every time she works out.

Here is the template we are using for her at the moment.

Day 1

1a. Squat

1b. Lower body explosive (jump or throw)

2a. Upper body push (horizontal)

2b. Upper body pull

3a. Hinge or leg curl

3b. Glute focused exercise

3c. Core

Day 2

1a. Upper body push (horizontal)

1b. Hinge

2a. Upper body pull

2b. Squat or single leg squat

3a. Upper back

3b. Tricep

4a. Cardio/Conditioning

Day 3

1a. Hinge

1b. Upper body push (vertical)

2a. Single leg squat

2b. Upper body pull

3a. Core

3b. Upper back

Her home gym equipment is very limited so we make sure we still follow the same general template but have to get a little creative (which is very fun).

Here is one of her actual workouts from this current plan:

Day 3: Full Body Workout

1a. Trap bar deadlift 3-4 x 8
1b. Seated DB press 3-4 x 8-10
2a. Walking lunge 3 x 8ea
2b. Supinated inverted row 3 x 8
3a. Plank tap 3 x 10ea
3b. Kneeling banded reverse fly 3 x 12-15

Step #4: Macros (Calories, Protein, Fats, Carbs)

Now, we are 4 weeks into this process.

For most people I work with, those first few weeks or even the first couple of months are used as information gathering. Starting out, you don’t fully know how many calories you need to maintain your weight, let alone lose “x” amount of weight.

For this particular person, we started at a point that had worked for her in the recent past. A set number of calories that she used months prior that helped her get to a particular weight. So, for this case, her calories are set at 1,500-1,800 per day. She has been averaging 1,612 calories since day one.

On top of that calorie number we set up a protein target for 150 grams per day. She has been averaging 144 grams of protein since day one (pretty damn good!) We have not done any targets for her fat or carbohydrate intake. For most people, if you can control the calorie amount and the protein amount, the fats and carbs tend to fall in a pretty appropriate range. She is a pure example of that case.

From this graph, her weight has a great downward trend. Small spikes here and there but still moving in the right direction. Then, her menstrual cycle comes around right about 1/21- it’s pretty clear.

Even knowing that the weight will go up AND having an estimation of exactly when It will happen, It is still hard to see. Weight spikes mess with your head, it feels like all the hard work you’ve done to get to that point has been ruined in one single day.

Here are the exact numbers across this time:

Starting point: 164.6

3-weeks in (just before cycle): 160.8

During her cycle: 164.2

Less than 1-week following her cycle: 160.6

It took her 3-weeks of work to get down almost 4 pounds. Overnight her weight was back up almost at her starting weight. In her head, knowing this would happen to some degree, she didn’t expect her weight to jump up all the way back to where she was on week 1.

But guess what, once her body was past the cycle, her weight went back to where things were prior.

Everything we talked about at the beginning of this section played a role in her almost 4 pound weight gain (on the scale). Now, this was not true weight gain which is why It went right back down afterwards.

Her Plan Moving Forward

After 4-weeks of great work and 4lbs down, there isn’t much we need to change right now. Her current calories and protein numbers will most likely take us all the way through her 15-20 pound weight loss goal.

On our way to that goal we will be doing a “diet break” within the next few weeks. There is no set time frame of when this needs to be done, but for every 6-8 weeks of being in a calorie deficit, having 1-2 weeks of slightly higher calories can help the process. Being in a calorie deficit is stressful on the body, so bringing her calories back up to maintenance or slightly above gives her body a break before continuing on.

Especially for her, working a lot of hours and likes to push herself in the gym, which is also stressful on the body.

We are not expecting any weight loss during that week or two. Her weight might even go up a pound or two. But It allows her body and her mind to get out of the weight loss cycle at least for a short period of time. Remember, we want this to be sustainable!
She’s proven that she can do it, now she has to actually believe that she can keep doing it throughout the entire process.

We have not done a deep dive on her activity levels outside of the gym just yet. She is on her feet a lot for work and actively trying to keep her steps up (which has clearly been working) but no step tracking thus far. This could be a factor down the line, because I am most likely not going to be dropping her calories much lower than they are right now.

This is supposed to be sustainable. The weight she loses now, and the relationships she is creating around weight loss, the scale, and nutrition are things that should help her for the long run, not just for a few months. If we drop her calories too low, that is just an unsustainable place to be in. SO, if we hit a rough patch along the way, steps and overall activity might come into play a bit more.

Along with this, her workouts are going to stay consistent. The template we are using will continue to be used along most of this process. She is currently sticking with each workout plan for 4 weeks before we move onto a new plan.

There are no fancy tactics or extreme measures we are taking to have her lose weight. No fad diets, fasting, juice cleanses, cool sculpting, or ice baths. Just consistent, great work.

The recipe:

1. Eat enough protein
2. Eat in a calorie deficit
3. Move every day
4. Strength train 3x per week
5. Drink a crap load of water
6. Sleep HARD
7. Be super consistent with the above

It’s simple, but not easy. And you want to know what, even with it not being easy, she is absolutely kicking ass along this process. There are ups and downs just about every single week along the way. But she is finding a way to stay positive and keep chugging along.

This is what sustainable weight loss looks like.

In good health,

Jeff