Client Success Story
Today I want to share an exceptional client success story. Today’s story is about my client Elaine, who has accomplished some pretty amazing things in our short time together.
Elaine started with me in January of 2018. When we sat down for our initial consult and evaluation, Elaine mentioned feeling fatigued all the time, a lot of chronic back pain, pain in her hip joint and just feeling tired with minimal exertion. At 52 years old, she was taking two medications to manage her blood pressure and weighed over 200 lb.
Elaine showed a lot of enthusiasm and commitment to making a lifestyle change in her initial consult, so I agreed to take her on as a client.
Great Work Ethic
I knew from the first day of working with her that she would eventually experience a lot of success, because she had a great attitude and worked hard on day one. That first workout was a little overwhelming, but Elaine did not let it defeat her.
Elaine made great progress over the first few months, and her results began to snowball.
Nutrition Coaching
A few months in, we decided to start working together on nutrition. I prescribed Elaine’s calories and told her how much fat, carbs and protein to eat and at what times of the day. We started working on eating more fruit and veggies, lean protein and complex carbohydrates.
Slowly but surely, the inches started falling off and Elaine started accomplishing milestones she never thought possible. The level of pain she experienced on a daily basis diminished. She was still having some hip pain (due to OA), but her back pain had almost completely diminished. She noted she had more energy and felt stronger than in a long time.
By addressing both her nutrition and weight training, Elaine started experiencing more and more success.
New Challenges
Elaine was always ready to take on a new challenge.
First Elaine just wanted to get healthy and lose some weight. Once she started to do so, she shifted her focus to a bigger goal: running and completing her first Spartan Sprint in September of 2018, a 3 mile running course including obstacles like a rope climb, box jumps, bear walks and more.
Once Elaine shifted her focus from just weight loss to a performance based goal, she doubled down on her commitment to both training and nutrition.
Her training got harder and Elaine handled it! At this time we started tweaking her nutrition to help her train hard and recover faster.
Spartan Sprint Race
Elaine got super nervous before her first Spartan Sprint. She started worrying she would not be able to complete the race. I assured her she was ready to complete the event and would do so without problem.
In September, Elaine accomplished her first Spartan Sprint at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania! I was really excited to be able to be there and watch Elaine cross the finish line.
The event was a huge confidence boost for her. What was really exciting was that Elaine finished in a much faster time than she anticipated. She ended up with a quite competitive time for her age group, despite the fact that thousands of participants had come to do this particular race!
Half Marathon
After the September race, Elaine upped the ante again and decided she wanted to complete her first half marathon only a few weeks away in October, 2018.
I want to reiterate that back in January of 2018 Elaine could not even run an entire mile.
While I knew that we did not have much time to prep for this event, Elaine would be able to complete it if she put her mind to it.
Competitive Goal Setting
After the half marathon Elaine and I had a talk. I knew Elaine could accomplish a great deal if we could give her a bit more time to prep for some events. I wanted her to come up with a goal for 2019 so we could approach the year sequentially and help her peak at the right times. Elaine decided that she wanted to complete the Spartan Trifecta for 2019.
This involved completing three different Spartan races in 2019.
The longest race would include roughly a half dozen obstacles and over 13 miles of running, and would take several hours to complete. The other races would be intermediate in length, and she would also have to run another sprint race this year.
I believed this was a great goal for 2019. I went to work creating a yearly plan for Elaine to get her ready to display certain fitness qualities at certain times. We decided together that she would use some races merely as a training event. We chose the events that she wanted to peak for.
This approach has allowed us to get lots of quality training in and keep building fitness for the majority of the year.
Later in the year, we will start tapering the volume of training and bring weight loss to a halt to allow her to peak at the most important events.
Health Changes
Last January, Elaine started with me at about 200 lb. Now she weighs 147-149 pounds. She is taking a fraction of the medication she used one year ago. Her physician told her to keep up the great work.
Elaine has also put on muscle and strength since starting training for her Spartan races.
Inspiring Others
Elaine has inspired many other clients and other people in her life.
She has a brutal work schedule running her business, she deals with a lot of daily work stress, and she has hard training days. She also works around nagging injuries and pain. Yet, she inspires others by continuing despite her obstacles.
Elaine inspires people in ways she sometimes doesn’t even realize. My other clients ask about her frequently, and I believe they work a little harder once they see what Elaine has accomplished.
Lately, Elaine told me a story of a woman she inspired to quit smoking and take up daily walks with her husband. Elaine did not say anything to this person about her own journey. This lady merely followed Elaine’s story on social media and decided that if Elaine could make positive changes and stick with them, she could too.
Additionally, Elaine sets a really healthy and positive example for her employees, friends and family. She shows that it is possible to get strong and fit and accomplish amazing things despite persistent obstacles.
Inspiring Me
She doesn’t realize it, but Elaine inspires me too. Seeing her desire to be the best she can be inspires me to come to work fired up and positive, be a bit more encouraging, and to pursue more education and training to help her get better faster.
Elaine also shows me the importance of always giving my best effort.
When you do your best every day, it compounds over time.
Elaine has an incredible client success story. I am so proud of her and excited to see her continue to improve.
Did you enjoy this client success story? Please feel free to leave a comment below.
