Sustainable Fat Loss Success Story: Client Breakdown And Strategies
Sustainable Fat Loss Success Story: Learn about my client, the breakdown, and the strategies we used.
Hello! I hope you had a great weekend!
Today I want to share the story of one of my clients who has achieved sustainable fat loss. In case you're wondering, she has given me permission to share her progress but I'll keep her anonymous.
Her goal was to achieve sustainable fat loss of approximately 10lbs. To date, we've been working together for four months, during which time she has lost a total of 9.6lbs.
Her stats:
Starting weight: 161
Goal weight: 149
Age: 54
My client had already lost a significant amount of weight on her own and has maintained it for 4 years, but felt that she was slipping and wanted some help to maintain her weight loss. She has a good relationship with food, attends Orange Theory Fitness 3-4 times a week, and walks regularly.
She has tried several diets, including Keto, and like most people, enjoys having a beer or wine on weekends. She also has a family to consider and helps cook for them.
My approach was to have her track her calories and protein intake using MFP, based on her current weight, goals, gender, age, and activity level. She was on board for this and had an optimistic attitude when it came to tracking and dialling things in.
Calories from carbs and fats would fill in the rest as long as she hit her protein goal and stayed close to her calorie target.
^^ I find this approach easiest for most people.
I put her on a moderate calorie deficit to start with, as she had previously been eating at maintenance or above--VERY important!!
A quick note: If you come to me wanting to lose weight right away but you've been eating something like, 1300 calories, I will recommend that we spend time increasing your maintenance calories BEFORE entering into a deficit.
Back to my client's story!
To monitor her progress, we used biofeedback tracking to record her weight and stress levels on Mondays and Fridays. We also worked on strategies to increase her protein intake, hit her weekly step goal, and limit alcohol while increasing her water intake.
For the first 2.5 months, she tracked her food intake from Monday to Friday and loosely on weekends. After 2.5 months, she had lost 2lbs, which was slower than anticipated due to some inconsistent tracking and getting used to some lifestyle changes--Allllllll good!
To boost her progress, we introduced calorie cycling, keeping her overall calories the same but varying her daily intake. She lost more weight while eating the same amount but tracking more diligently. ie. Monday = 2000, Tuesday = 1500, Wednesday = 1900.
After two weeks of calorie cycling, she was feeling good and even said it was "easy" and had lost some more weight--great!
She asked if we could decrease her overall calorie intake a bit more, and since she was feeling good and had technically only been in a true deficit for 2 weeks, I felt comfortable decreasing her calories a bit more.
To date, she's lost a total of 9.6lbs.
To continue her progress, we are introducing strength training with three full-body workouts per week using dumbbells, kettlebells, and resistance bands.
The plan is to continue with the current calorie deficit/calorie cycling for a few more weeks and then come back to maintenance calories, most likely with a new maintenance level.
We will increase her calorie intake by 100-200 calories per week until she stops losing weight but isn’t continuing to gain weight. We expect to see some water weight gain when we start increasing her calories--totally normal.
The goal is for her to maintain her new weight without tracking her food intake every day. This will involve being mindful of portion sizes and maintaining healthy lifestyle habits which she already had in place--this is crucial.
My client had (and still has) full autonomy to eat and drink whatever she wanted!! I will never give you a meal plan, neva eva.
It's important to note that if you have fat loss goals, you'll have to be a little more intentional about your choices though. ie. 1 glass of wine on Friday's instead of 2-3.
She had a positive attitude throughout the process and was never triggered by counting, stepping on the scale, or talking about nutrition and exercise.
Even when her weight loss progress was slow, she noticed other positive changes, such as feeling lighter and less bloated, which she attributed to her increased water and protein intake and decreased alcohol consumption.
I hope that was helpful and gave you some insight into why AND how it can be helpful to work with someone so that you're not jumping from diet to diet and tweaking your calories every week. It takes time to figure out maintenance calories and a true (but sustainable) calorie deficit.
If you have any questions or are interested in working with me, please don't hesitate to reach out!
Send me an email: info@wellnesswithalicia.com OR APPLY HERE
Sending strength + encouragement,
Alicia