Vancouver’s Fitness Leaders: StayFitAnywhere

With a philosophy of gradual habit and life changes rather than crash diets and extreme workouts I fell in love with this program. I’m an avid watcher of The Biggest Loser, and with a recent want to lose weight I was very happy when this ethical deal came my way.

I’d just spent a month at a boot camp when I started the Building Blocks program. I worked very hard at the boot camp and went as often as I could, but my expectations were big, The Biggest Loser big. Now I know I cannot, should not, and would not lose the weight of another human being, but I’d been programmed to think the bigger the number the better the results. With such lofty expectations the boot camp didn’t go as expected: I lost zero pounds and zero inches, gained some shin splints, and longed for something more effective.

Now enter StayFitAnywhere and my trainer Josh Neumann. Right from the start Josh explained that my expectations of significant weight loss wasn’t a healthy approach. To achieve a lasting effect I needed to focus on life changes and gradual results: eat real foods and stay active. Logical right? Then why isn’t everyone doing it?

It started with an informal meeting to talk about you: where you are, where you want to be, and how you are going to get there. We discussed my nutrition was, my workout habits, and my work. Then I stood on a fancy scale that calculated not only my weight, but also my total body fat percentage, and my water percentage. I then worked through a series of movements to assess my amazing abilities to stand on one leg, my posture, and my movement and range of motion. From here Josh could see problem areas and weak areas that needed work.

We then decided on some goals, which I even had to write down. Josh didn’t accept my unrealistic, unhealthy goal of losing 15 pounds (over 3 weeks). Instead, he explained how the Building Blocks program enables results that lead to lasting changes – more achievable and sustainable than 15 pounds. I took his advice in creating my program goals:

• 2 pounds in 3 weeks and have that be a constant
• 60 minutes workouts 3 to 4 times a week
• and changing my eating habits

The main food habit issue was my not eating enough throughout the day and my body storing the fat. This was most noticeable at skipping breakfast - a cup of coffee just doesn’t cut it.

For three weeks I meet with Josh for a one-on-one personal training session, and completed the online training program. Josh created a customized workout to focus on my problem areas and provided me with exercises that didn’t tie me to a gym. They actually ended up being things I did at home as “homework sessions”. The online personal training program was amazing. This was where I also kept a daily food log, and where Josh would comment the next day giving me feed back and encouraging me to follow my goals. It was through this online personal training that I was still able to follow the program and workout while on vacation for a week in San Francisco.

Fast forward to the reassessment: I had completed the three one-on-one personal training sessions and three online personal training sessions, and went into my last meeting feeling a bit scared. I’d already felt like I had more energy and never found the program hard, but I didn’t know if I had achieved my goals – they were written down after all. There was nothing to fear, as we had a pleasant recap. When I stood on the scale again I had exceeded my goal by releasing 2.6 lbs. I’ve never been so happy to see 2 lbs gone! My other numbers were down as well and Josh was all smiles. It was nice to know that what we’d planned to accomplish was reached.