Before and After

Photos capture an image, not “success”. In the weight management arena, he (or she) who can most easily balance energy the longest, will stay lean. The key to doing this is mastering habits…the many little things you do day in and day out that add up to your body composition.

Rather than comparin photos, let’s compare “Before and After” habits that changed and how these changed the person’s body.

M has never had nutrition coaching before and here are some Before and After comments.

M:

Before:

I’m “good” with food most of the time

After:

Weighing and measuring my food for a week really showed me how off I was in my estimation of how many calories I was eating. I’ve since adopted hand measuring and I can easily stay in my calorie limits.

Before:

I used to skip tracking for days at a time and I figured that overall I was doing alright.

After:

Having an accountability coach and tracking every day has made a big difference in how I am eating. I am finally seeing progress when I never saw it before.

Before:

I thought skipping meals was good for me but by energy levels got very low and when I would finally eat, I went overboard.

After:

Now that I am on a more set schedule, and I always have a protein shake available, I never go crazy with food and I feel better and more productive throughout the day.

These are just a few areas we worked on. You can almost “see” M reaching and sustaining his goal weight.

Here is another “Before and After” comparison.

B went from 30% BF (Dexa measured) to 28% in the course of 4 months, having made only these changes.

Before:

200 calorie coffee drink, 3/week → 100 calorie

Average 9750 steps/day → average 11,200 steps

Once weekly dessert, often seconds→daily dessert of 70 calorie chocolate candy or sugar free pudding.

Strength Training 2/week and 5-10 hours of endurance training (swim, bike, run)→4 hours/week of Strength training, 2 hours/week endurance.

Constant BLT’s especially when cooking→ no BLT’s

Tracking daily calories weighing and measuring-. hand portions.

Meal delivery service 3 days per week. Poorly planned meals the rest of the time.—cycling through 4 main dishes that are made ahead of time.

Lots of red meat and combination foods→ lean protein, made ahead of time 5-6 days/week.

Tried to get 3 veges per day. Succeeded ½ of the time—> Keeping bagged salad and canned green beans in the house every day is non-negotiable will pay for grocery delivery to get it.

Used an app to track intake…every one got tiresome after a few weeks.→ checking boxes on paper tracker every day.

Regular Dexa scans showing little/no progress→stopped scanning and focused on thigh measurements to track progress.Adjusted expectations increasing amount of time it would take to reach goal. Treated numbers as data, not as success or failure marker.