A fine-tuned athlete in college, Bryan, 42, recently found himself overweight and out of shape. All a result of a high-stress entrepreneurial lifestyle. He knew what to do to get back into shape — he just wasn’t doing it.
32 pounds and 15% body fat later, Bryan achieved — then surpassed — his old athletic body with the help of Precision Nutrition Coaching.
Bryan's Transformation
Lost 32 lbs and 14.4% body fat!
- Age: 42 years
- Weight Lost: 32 lbs (from 206 lbs to 174 lbs)
- % Body Fat Lost: 14.4% (from 25.2% to 10.8%)
- Waist Inches Lost: 7 inches (from 39 inches to 32 inches)
Bryan stands in front of the bathroom mirror and studies his body.
His legs and arms are smaller than they used to be, that’s for sure. He’s lost muscle and definition, too. He grabs a roll of stomach fat between his thumb and index finger and sighs.
15 years ago he had a six-pack. What the hell happened?
A high-stress career in the tech industry? A slowing metabolism? Maybe.
But Bryan doesn’t like excuses. They feel weak and manufactured. It’s a nice trick for someone who can’t deal with life, but Bryan knows he’s the only one to blame.
It’s not like someone prevented him from going to the gym. It’s not like he was force-fed crappy food the past few years. He did it all to himself.
But that’s all right. That’s just fine.
Because right now, looking in the mirror, he sees a man with potential. He’s tired of feeling 42 years old. Underneath the fat, he can feel the muscle. He’s been in great shape before and he knows he can get back again.
After all, a man’s gotta have more than a nice paycheck and memories of being his own hero. Why not don the cape, re-build a super-human body from scratch, and make some new memories?
Why not, indeed.
With his eyes fixed on his reflection, Bryan’s smirk says it all: “You have no idea what you’re in for, buddy.”
He claps his hands once, loudly. It’s time to do work.
“I’m a perfect example of someone who knew what to do to get in shape, but wasn’t doing anything about it.”
Bryan’s eating protein pancakes and talking with me on the phone from his office in Saratoga, California. I imagine he’s on a Bluetooth, but I really have no idea. He just seems like that kind of guy.
“If you knew how to get in shape, why didn’t you just do it?” I ask.
“It’s not that simple,” he says. “As you get older, you start to give yourself a pass on things. You feel like you’ve earned the bad food or that you can skip the gym for a week.”
Bryan’s right. Knowing what to do and actually doing it are two very different things, and only one leads to results.
But there’s another important factor here – one a lot of guys aren’t willing to admit to.
We can’t do it all.
Career, social life, family, vacations, home maintenance, and more; the responsibilities accumulate with each passing year. Of course, something’s gotta give and often, it’s our own health and fitness. Mostly because we never learned how to do it properly, within the context of a busy and fulfilling life.
So the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it widens.
“If you talked with me in the office or we met and had a conversation about fitness and diet, I’d tell you a lot about it,” he continues. “I’d probably even preach a little. But it got to the point where I looked at myself and said, look buddy, you’re not a very good example of what you’re preaching.”
For all the education and information he was espousing, Bryan wasn’t doing a thing to live it.
“I started to think about how I needed a test,” he says. “I needed something to follow to test my principles and start applying them. And that system was Precision Nutrition Coaching. I wanted to see if I could achieve crazy results.”
“Crazy” would turn out to be a mild term for Bryan’s level of commitment.
“I have issues. If I’m going to do something, I’m going to win.”
Here’s an example.
A life-long basketball player, Bryan switched to ice hockey at age 33. The fact that he’d never played, didn’t know the rules, and could barely stand in skates didn’t seem to bother him.
“I hired the guy who owned the local ice rink to give me private lessons so I could train with no one was watching,” he says.
A couple years later, after an almost obsessive practice schedule, Bryan was playing pick-up games with former professional hockey players.
That “whatever it takes” mindset may explain why he was 97% compliant throughout the entire Precision Nutrition Coaching program, only missing two workouts and, according to him, never deviating from his eating plan.
While Precision Nutrition Coaching allows latitude — many of the most dramatic transformations come from people who achieve 80% compliance or better — Bryan honed his focus and shot for 100%.
By having a professional workout program, eating strategies, and daily lessons delivered to his computer every day, Bryan could focus all his energy on kicking ass in the gym and in the kitchen instead of worrying about what he should be doing – but wasn’t.
The results came quickly.
After six months, he’d lost 32 pounds and his waist dropped from 39 inches to 32 inches. The lean, muscular, powerful physique of his college days wasn’t just back — it was better than ever.
“I never would have believed that I was just 180 days away from my new body,” he says.
Bryan’s leaning on the power rack, catching his breath between sets.
He glances at the guy next to him who’s doing full squats with 10 extra pounds. Bryan doesn’t know him, but he has to beat him.
His rest period — which still has 20 seconds left — is officially over. Bryan can’t let this guy win.
He adds more weight to the bar, unracks it, sucks in air, and squats.
“I created competition wherever I went,” he says. “I’d go into the gym and see a guy busting his ass and he’d automatically become the guy I had to outwork.”
Even when he was out at dinner, Bryan thought about competition.
“Whenever I sat down to order, I knew that somebody out there was going to compromise. I knew they were going to sit down at dinner and eat something they shouldn’t,” he says.
“They’d justify it by promising they’d work out extra hard the next day or some other kind of white lie. Whoever that guy was, I was going to beat him. I was going to eat healthy and not get off track.”
You can understand why Bryan wanted to win so badly — there was a $10,000 payday for the best transformation, after all. But his version of competition wasn’t about winning money. Despite picking random guys at the gym to battle against, his competition wasn’t with them either.
It was a battle royal with himself.
“I asked myself a lot of questions to keep me going. The biggest one was, ‘How much can I change my body and still have my family and all the other things I do?’ “
That’s the key question, really. For real people, fitness can’t become an all-consuming obsession. If it does, it takes away from the other good things in life, rather than adding to them.
Fortunately, with Precision Nutrition Coaching’s one-habit-at-a-time approach, Bryan was able to continue living his life to the fullest, while dropping body fat and gaining muscle. This was an entirely new approach for him.
“I experienced dramatic life-altering changes by simply following the program and sticking to it 100 percent. It didn’t disrupt my life at all.”
Heck, not only didn’t the program disrupt his life, it enhanced it. That’s why Bryan’s spreading the “PN Gospel”, as he calls it, around his family and co-workers.
“My mom just joined PN and there’s a girl at the office that’s doing Precision Nutrition Coaching,” he says. “She saw my results and was confident the program would work for her, too.”
But Bryan’s recent transformation has perhaps had the biggest influence on his 16-year old son.
“My son is playing football this year and his workouts are pretty brutal. But he told me that when the last game ends, he wants me to train him in the off-season,” says Bryan.
That display of respect is enough to make any father smile.
“As a parent you love being able to provide for your kids and show them the way, you know? But the real return is seeing their appreciation and watching them practice what you show them.”
Bryan’s son isn’t just working out now — he’s training to become more muscular, healthier, and stronger, just like his dad. And when father and son sit down after a hard workout, each drinking a protein shake, Bryan’s son admits something.
“He told me the other day that I scare his teammates because I’m ripped,” Bryan says, laughing.
“I’m not sure if that’s what I’m going for, but I’ll take it. If I can still scare the young bucks at 42, maybe it’s not over yet.”
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Want to read more great stories like Bryan’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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