Client Spotlight: Candace Gets Photoshoot Ready!

I'm excited to share this transformation with you from a fellow nutrition and fitness coach, Candace!

As you'll read below, Candace came to me with an already impressive transformation that she had made on her own from adopting a low-carb lifestyle for the past 6 years.

She experienced tons of benefits from going keto, but after losing 50 pounds and becoming a leaner, more active version of herself, it was time to switch things up a bit.

We worked together to get Candace ready for her photoshoot by:

• Shifting from a HIIT/circuit style training plan to a 4x/week upper/lower split with the focus of building muscle and increasing overall strength
• Increasing protein intake and tracking daily calorie intake more consistently
• Implementing a 5/2 calorie cycling split (lower intake during the week and higher intake on the weekend to fit Candace's lifestyle)
• Tracking daily steps and being more intentional with outside cardio (Candace loves to ride her bike so we made sure to track her miles per week and ensure she was fueling appropriately for this)
• Implementing several refeeds and diet breaks along the way
• Creating more awareness around scale and body tape measurement fluctuations related to her cycle

And more! Check out what Candace had to say about her experience below and learn more specifics about her body composition changes over the 6 month period!

Can you give a quick intro on who you are and your background?

I'm Candace, a certified personal trainer, and health coach who had been keto since 2014. I used keto and HIIT to lose about 50 lbs since then, going from 190 at my highest to 137 at my lowest.

When I first contacted Rachel for coaching, I was 146 and recovering from a shoulder injury that had kept me out of the gym for about 6-7 months. Also, I was interested in introducing more carbs into my diet and wasn't exactly sure how to do that.

What doubts did you have before signing up for one-on-one coaching?

My main concern was that as a personal trainer and health coach myself, I wouldn't get much value from coaching because I already knew what to do. However, I'm glad to say I was wrong! While I can say I was already familiar with a lot of the things we discussed, it helped tremendously to have someone else prescribe my workouts and diet guidance. I was able to reduce the overwhelm of trying everything at once and getting minimal results by just trusting Rachel's expertise in getting me to where I wanted to go.

What specific results have you experienced thus far working together?

Where do I start?! First, I'll start with the numbers. I'm a huge data nerd, so I got a DEXA scan when we started coaching and four months later. The results were phenomenal: In that four months, I lost 8.7 lbs (8.2 lbs of that was fat), 4% body fat total, and 6.5% body fat from my stomach, which of course was my trouble area.

In addition, I maintained muscle mass, only losing 0.5 lbs of muscle during that time, which is on par with the amount of weight I lost. In the two months after I got the DEXA scan, I lost four more lbs while continuing to PR in the gym. I started at 146 and have maintained 132-134 since then, which is my lowest weight since high school!

Outside of the numbers, Rachel was an excellent cheerleader (with the right amount of tough love!) and source of information and inspiration, and that went a long way towards pushing me to achieve the results I wasn't getting on my own.

At the end of coaching, I was much stronger mentally and physically, and I have the confidence to believe I can achieve anything. 

What do you feel like you’ve benefited from the most in our time working together?

Accountability, hands down, was the biggest benefit of working with Rachel. I always preach consistency, but having Rachel hold me accountable showed me that I wasn't necessarily walking my talk 100% of the time.

I also benefited from Rachel's diet guidance and vast knowledge of diet breaks and refeeds, which I had never tried before. As a former overweight and long term keto person, it was hard to convince myself to eat certain foods or raise the amount of calories I was eating daily. However, I put my trust in Rachel and the scale continued to go down.

Also, even though I knew in theory that resistance training is the best way to burn fat, I still subscribed to the "burning more calories = putting in more work" philosophy and had based my workouts around HIIT and metabolic conditioning.

Rachel put me on a mostly strength training-based program that clearly proved to get the results that had been eluding me. It completely changed my mind about the most effective fat loss strategies in a way that not only benefited me, but will also benefit my clients.

What advice would you give to someone who might be in a similar place you were before coaching?

Do it! While this advice applies to anyone looking for guidance, I'm specifically talking to fellow coaches and trainers. Coaching with Rachel was a GAME CHANGER!

I didn't have to spend time or energy putting routines together or reconfiguring my macros, I just put my trust in Rachel and let her take that off my plate. It gave me more room to focus on other activities, and as I said before, the accountability was key to my results.

In addition, the outside perspective helped me see where I was falling short in areas that I would not have thought of myself. As Rachel always says, coaches need coaches!

Anything else you’d like to share about your experience thus far?

Just that it was an awesome experience. :) I would do it again 10x over!

A few quotes from Candace's check-ins over the course of working together:

"Continue to hold me accountable! The main reason I got out of my funk enough to exercise/eat is because I know someone is paying attention to if I do it or not."

"Definitely awesome progress! I'm excited by the numbers. I'll be interested to see how the pictures look next week! The accountability of sending you my pre-planned meals will definitely help even though I will absolutely hate it :)"

"This week, I've not only already planned my meals, but I've also prepped them in advance as well, so there is no excuse for me not to grab and go. I also set meal timers in my phone to remind me to eat, because I am still finding difficulty breaking my natural fasting habits, even after a tough workout."

"Before, I'd been using a gym with a smith machine, but this week I went to a gym with a power rack and was able to use an actual barbell for the first time since last year. In March when I'd tried to use a barbell, it hurt my shoulder too much, but the smith machine was tolerable. The barbell gave me very minimal problems this time! It was a pretty exciting moment."

"The deload week worked well with my cycle! The workouts felt much shorter (because they were), which perfectly matched the energy levels I had last week. It also made me ready to go back in and work hard this week."

"Period was right on time as scheduled...always interesting to see the bio-data leading up to it, especially since I can see it has been consistent for the last three months."

"It was interesting to see my weight keep dropping despite the added calories."

"I also want to give a huge shout out to YOU for everything that led up to it because I KILLED the hills lol. There were a lot (too many). I rode with 14 guys and one girl and I was mostly the middle of the pack, but when it came time for the hills, I called those the equalizers...they were my chance to pull to the front. Everyone else struggled up them for the most part, but they weren’t that much of a challenge for me and I passed most people."

"I can't believe the photoshoot was a month ago either, or that everything is consistent after a vacation and my birthday. Actually, I think I'm 4 lbs less than I was a month ago, which is crazy, but perfect for going into the holidays with a little wiggle room."

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