In Precision Nutrition Coaching, Peter Petrik lost 42 pounds, 15% body fat, and 8 inches from around his waist. He also gained a sense of freedom and openness to experience that he’d never known before.
And he demonstrated his gratitude by giving away some of his hard earned cash to found the first Precision Nutrition Coaching scholarship, making it possible for another lucky person to experience the transformative powers of the program.
Peter's Transformation
Lost 42 lbs and 15% body fat!
- Age: 36 years
- Weight Lost: 42 lbs (from 198 lbs to 156 lbs)
- % Body Fat Lost: 15% (from 29% to 14%)
- Waist Inches Lost: 8 inches (from 42 inches to 34 inches)
Childhood values
“If you know anything at all about me,” Peter Petrik says, “you know I don’t part with money easily.”
Growing up as part of a low-income family in communist Eastern Europe, Peter quickly learned the value of a dollar. He also learned the importance of hard work.
And, like so many children of that time and place, he learned to clean his plate.
Where money is scarce and fresh produce can be difficult to come by, it’s wrong to let good food go to waste. And it’s rude to refuse home cooking.
“Even today,” he says, “if you go to somebody’s house and you don’t take seconds or thirds…” He laughs, imagining the situation — a pall of silence blanketing the room and the scandalized expressions on people’s faces. “Really, it would be better not to show up!”
That upbringing helps explain how Peter became the chubbiest boy in his class, and the brunt of more than his fair share of teasing.
And, in a more roundabout way, it also hints at why this thrifty entrepreneur celebrated his own Precision Nutrition Coaching success by paying it forward in the biggest possible way — with the foundation of a Precision Nutrition Coaching scholarship.
The Precision Nutrition Coaching scholarship allowed one lucky person to participate in the July 2012 coaching program free of charge.
Peter funded the entire thing. On his own initiative. Out of his own pocket.
And well before he knew he was a finalist and might be in line to win some money himself.
The scholarship was Peter’s way of thanking Precision Nutrition — and the world — for his life-changing experience in the program.
It was such a great idea that other enthusiastic graduates quickly jumped on board, contributing whatever they could. Together they raised enough for one more complete scholarship and half of a third.
Dr. John Berardi added a personal contribution to cover the balance of this third bursary, and Precision Nutrition went on to fund a fourth spot.
Along with women’s Grand Prize-winner Cheryl Eckler, Peter then volunteered his time to review 125 applications and choose the recipients.
Thus, four grateful people gained access to a program that they otherwise would not have been able to afford.
And Peter — who by this time knew that in addition to losing 42 pounds, he’d earned one of the Precision Nutrition Coaching prizes — left the program feeling like an even bigger winner.
It’s pretty obvious to me that Peter’s a special person.
But he’d probably contradict that. Instead, he’d say that Precision Nutrition Coaching is a special program.
He’s right. It is special.
After all, most weight loss programs are founded on the idea of restriction. Participants are taught to count calories or to weigh their portions obsessively, to rule certain foods out of their diets forever. The overall theme is one of denial.
While denial can work in the short term, over the long run it can leave people feeling deprived. It can even make them depressed. So eventually, they return to the only reliable comfort they know — overeating. And the cycle begins again.
Precision Nutrition Coaching is built on the opposite premise: Instead of focusing on restriction, the program emphasizes adding healthier alternatives. And participants are encouraged to identify and celebrate their biggest pleasures in life — including the pleasures of the table.
Then they’re taught to pay it forward by finding ways to share those joys to nourish the lives of others. What’s more, the coaches actively back up these lessons, supporting their clients every step of the way.
How many other weight loss programs help people understand their deepest feelings and desires?
How many other weight loss programs encourage participants to consider the effects of their choices on others?
How many other weight loss programs focus on helping people find and create more joy in life?
That’s what makes Precision Nutrition Coaching unique.
But when he signed up, Peter wasn’t expecting any of this.
Like many people, Peter began the program thinking he was overweight, but not obese.
He loved the outdoors — particularly enjoys mountain biking. Over the years, he’d glimpsed what it might mean to be fit and healthy.
But he’d never been able to sustain that. He’d gain five pounds, and tell himself: It’s just five pounds! Then he’d promptly gain another five. And then another.
This went on until his waist measured forty inches. He was facing the prospect of buying new (and larger) pants, and he wasn’t too happy about that.
“Like I said, I don’t part with money easily,” he jokes.
But it didn’t seem so funny at the time. Especially when he learned that he was sitting at a hefty 30% body fat. Which, it turns out, is actually obese for a man his age. Obese, not overweight.
“That was a big wake-up call.”
Some time earlier, he had bought a copy of the Precision Nutrition System. With his hard-working, can-do attitude, Peter was convinced that he could lose that excess weight on his own.
Several months later, he was still no slimmer, and the book was collecting dust on his shelves.
So finally, in July 2011, he signed up for the coaching program.
But not without some serious reservations.
“I questioned, doubted, wondered, and worried.”
“Was this the right program? Would I succeed? Is it really worth $99 every month and all the effort?”
The lessons seemed so simple. The habits seemed so easy. The workouts were… well… workouts.
“Why am I paying for this?” he wondered. “It’s not rocket science.”
At the same time, his left brain told him that at minimum, Precision Nutrition Coaching would be cheaper than the medical bills that would surely start adding up if he kept on living the way he’d been living.
Meanwhile, 2011 was turning out to be what he calls his dog year. “I aged seven years in that one,” he says. “For a while, nothing was going right.”
His long-term relationship ended. His mother fell seriously ill. His schedule was unpredictable, with work-related trips to parts of Europe where conveniences that we, as North Americans, take for granted were completely unavailable to him. Conveniences like gyms. And pre-washed baby spinach.
“I was doing the Precision Nutrition Coaching workouts with a six-pack of two litre water bottles for weights,” he says. “I didn’t even set foot in a proper gym for the first six months!”
And it was tempting to give up. “I had my share of breakdowns and emotional dead-ends,” he admits. “In the first six months I fought with myself a lot.”
But his coach was there to support him when he slipped, and he just kept going, one lesson, one workout, one habit at a time.
Peter needed to shop for new pants after all – this time, in a smaller size instead of a larger one.
Little did he know that this innocent-sounding outing would turn out to be yet another much-needed wake-up call.
It all began when he went out for lunch with a female friend — still wearing the jeans that he’d been wearing before he started Precision Nutrition Coaching.
“You look like you’re wearing a garbage bag with a belt!” his friend said to him. “We’re going shopping!”
He emerged from the fitting room wearing pants that were six inches smaller in the waist. It was a new experience not to be hiding his body underneath baggy clothes.
His friend looked him over and turned around, fetching an even smaller size of the same pants.
“I almost didn’t try them,” Peter says. “I had a mental block about attempting to fit into size 32 pants. I couldn’t remember the last time I wore something that small.”
When he came out again with the pants on, he honestly didn’t know what to think. They fit!
It had been decades since he’d actually worn something tailored to his body. And he wasn’t sure how it was supposed to look
“What do you think?” he asked her, a bit desperately. “Are they okay?”
But instead of of giving him a straight answer, his friend did something simple, remarkable, and powerful.
She asked him how he felt.
Peter stood there, dumbfounded.
The room tilted. The ground felt shaky beneath his feet.
How do I feel? What the hell do you mean, how do I feel?
“I had no point of reference,” he tells me now. “It was like asking somebody who was blind to describe the color blue. Or like asking someone who’s never eaten them to describe the taste of strawberries.”
Where he grew up, the culture wasn’t consumer based. Most of his clothes had been hand-me-downs. So he’d never really stopped to think about whether he liked them — or why.
It was the same when it came to food. “It’s not like we had tons of choices. We took what we could get.”
“So I’d literally never asked myself the question.”
The Precision Nutrition Coaching habit concerned with eating to 80% full confronted him with a similar challenge.
After all, what is 80% full?
“My mom would tell me to clean my plate. She wouldn’t ask me if I felt full.”
“We’re rarely taught to ask ourselves if we feel full. We rarely ask ourselves what we’re feeling, period,” he says.
Precision Nutrition Coaching brought him face to face with this question again and again — until he was forced to make an effort to find some answers to it. He learned to listen to his feelings instead of ignoring or discounting them. And in the process, he discovered new sides of himself.
While most men who go through the program don’t share Peter’s Eastern European upbringing, he thinks his trajectory through the program was pretty typical for a guy.
“In talking to some of the women who have gone through the program, it seems as if for them, the first half is all about clarifying their reasons and getting to the root of their emotions.”
“But for most guys, the first six months are all about the physical aspect of the program. The exercise. The nutrition.”
Sometime around the halfway point, that focus will often change.
“You start to ask yourself, ‘Why am I struggling with this?’”
As Peter uncovered his own answers to that question, he started recognizing new sides of his character, sides not governed by his conditioning. He started identifying new goals, new dreams, new values.
He could be generous instead of tight-fisted. He could be open instead of guarded. He began to take more risks, to put himself on the line, to put himself out there in a new way.
Instead of hoarding and restricting himself, he’s reaching out. Running full speed and taking a leap off the edge.
“It’s a different way of connecting,” he says. “It’s inner fitness.”
Precision Nutrition Coaching gave him that.
“I can wholeheartedly say that Precision Nutrition Coaching is vastly underpriced,” Peter wrote on his blog.
“I am in the best shape of my life and … the athletic me is now fully confident in maintaining this healthy lifestyle and enjoying life with a new outlook. A life-size transformation indeed.”
Moving forward, Peter now volunteers as a mentor for a new cohort of Precision Nutrition Coaching clients.
“Even more than money, the most valuable thing you can give is your time,” he says. “It’s relatively easy to write a cheque. To spend time guiding others is a greater commitment.”
It’s a commitment he is more than willing to make.
“Knowing what I know now, I’d gladly have paid double for this program,” he says.
He dropped 42 pounds, reduced his body fat by 15%, and his waist by 8 inches. Not only that, but he spearheaded a generous initiative that has allowed four others to enjoy the benefits of the program free of charge.
But for Peter, that’s not the ultimate measurement.
The ultimate measurement is that he feels great.
Want to read more great stories like Peter’s? Then come meet a few other men, women, and couples who lost weight, started eating better, and took control of their health.
Want help finally getting the healthy, energetic body you’re after?
For many people, improved eating and lifestyle habits can seem impossible to sustain, especially when progress feels non-existent. What the experts know: Progress is always happening, you have to know what to look for.
That’s why we work closely with Precision Nutrition Coaching clients to help them stay energized and motivated, and get in the best shape of their lives… no matter what other challenges they’re dealing with.
It’s also why we work with health and fitness pros (through our Level 1 and Level 2 Certification programs) to teach them how to help their own clients recognize progress and stay motivated through the same challenges.
Interested in Precision Nutrition Coaching? Join the presale list; you’ll save up to 54% and secure a spot 24 hours early.
We’ll be opening up spots in our next Precision Nutrition Coaching on Tuesday, July 16th, 2024.
If you’re interested in coaching and want to find out more, I’d encourage you to join our presale list below. Being on the list gives you two special advantages.
- You’ll pay less than everyone else. At Precision Nutrition we like to reward the most interested and motivated people because they always make the best clients. Join the presale list and you’ll save up to 54% off the general public price, which is the lowest price we’ve ever offered.
- You’re more likely to get a spot. To give clients the personal care and attention they deserve, we only open up the program twice a year. Last time we opened registration, we sold out within minutes. By joining the presale list you’ll get the opportunity to register 24 hours before everyone else, increasing your chances of getting in.
If you’re ready to change your body, and your life, with help from the world’s best coaches, this is your chance.
[Note: If your health and fitness are already sorted out, but you’re interested in helping others, check out our Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification program].
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