By his early 50s, Bob Miller was facing metabolic and cardiovascular health issues so serious that he’d already had a very close brush with death. With his weight at an all-time high and his mobility severely compromised, Bob found a way to lose nearly 100 pounds, one small step at a time.
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“I have vascular disease, heart disease, and Stage 4 kidney disease… ”
“… I have already had an AAA repair, quadruple bypass, 8 stents in my heart, and we are beginning discussions about the inevitability of kidney dialysis and a kidney transplant.”
Those are the intake notes for Bob Miller from two years ago, when he started his Precision Nutrition Coaching journey.
Though Bob had been facing these very serious and mobility-compromising health conditions, Bob had an ambitious goal: to lose a lot of weight.
And, in fact, he already had.
“Almost seven years ago, I weighed 260 pounds,” reflects Bob, 60, of Edmonds, Washington.
“At that point, I hadn’t realized how much weight I’d gained. My grandmother had died and I needed to buy some clothes to go to the funeral. So I bought a jacket and slacks and I was just shocked at my 46-inch waist and my 48-inch coat.
“That just stunned me. So I had these brand-new clothes and I thought, ‘Something’s got to change here, this is just not going to work’.”
So, Bob made a plan.
“I immediately said, ‘Okay, I’ve got to control how much I’m eating, and low-carb diets have always worked for me to get the weight off, I’m going to do that.’ So that’s what I started to do. Over the next couple of years, I went from 260 down to somewhere in the 210 range.”
Yet after a while, Bob’s weight loss stalled. And stalled. And stalled.
At 5’7”, Bob knew he had more weight to lose. But after 18 months without any further progress, he had to concede that doing things on his own was no longer working.
And Bob wasn’t ready to give up on his own health.
“I wanted to see my grandkids, they haven’t even been born yet. And I didn’t want my wife to be a widow.”
“There are people in my life that depend on me and count on me… and I’ve already had a couple of pretty significant brushes with death.”
“When I had my heart attack, I really thought I was going to die. As my wife was driving me to the hospital, I realized I couldn’t feel my face, my arms, my legs,” Bob recalls.
“So I’ve known that we can all die at any time, but I certainly didn’t want it to be because I had not done everything I could to take care of myself. I didn’t want my legacy to be, ‘That son of a gun, if he had just taken care of himself, he would still be here.’”
Those very powerful reasons drew Bob to Precision Nutrition Coaching.
Once Bob signed up, he was determined to stay committed.
“I was going to see this program out to the end, no matter what, and just see what the results were,” Bob says.
“Even if I wasn’t seeing results on day 364, I was not going to quit before day 365.”
Of course, Bob did see results long before day 364, but admittedly, the pounds didn’t drop as quickly as he’d hoped. At first, Bob thought the program was going too slowly.
“For the first few weeks, they’re giving you anchor habits. If all else fails, you go back to these. At week four I was like, are you frigging kidding me,” Bob laughs.
But those anchor habits turned out to represent a fundamental shift for Bob’s approach to food, exercise, lifestyle habits, and even mindset. In particular, the very first habit—make time for your fitness and nutrition—turned out to make the biggest difference.
“Make time—you know what, that is the most important thing I do in my life,” says Bob.
“Making time for food prep, making time to think about my meal planning, or what I’m doing for the day and where the complications are. Making time for working out, making time for sleep, all those things. In my very busy life, I never realized how important the principle of making time was.”
It wasn’t all smooth sailing. Bob’s health complications brought some extra challenges when it came to his workouts.
His conditions can cause Bob to have low energy, especially by mid-afternoon. But his new habit of “making time” helped him work around that barrier.
“My workouts are a top priority for my day, so I do them first thing in the morning when my energy is the highest. That way I take the ‘I’m out of energy’ excuse out of the equation.”
His combination of conditions can also cause chest pain when his heart rate is elevated from intense activity. Once again, Bob found a way.
“I’ve worked closely with my cardiologist to manage this with a combination of medication and adjustments to my exercise… missing a workout is not an option!”
While he steadily worked through these challenges, Bob also discovered the unexpected value of having someone in his corner—his PN coach. Having Coach Jonathan check in on him, reply to his messages, and just be there helped Bob stay true to his commitment.
“I needed somebody to hold me accountable, I needed somebody to be there,” he says. “There is value in just simply knowing that my coach was there.”
By the end of the PN Coaching program, Bob had lost another 45 pounds.
Much to his surprise—and his doctor’s—Bob’s kidneys were also functioning better.
“Before PN, my nephrologist was estimating my kidney function at about 26-28 percent, and I was losing about a percentage point every two to three months at one point,” Bob says.
“I went from being on the fast track to dialysis and transplant to stable kidney function for six or eight months now. My nephrologist is encouraged. I can’t believe it. It’s amazing.”
But perhaps Bob’s biggest transformation is internal. He’s shifted from fearing the future, to chasing new possibilities.
Bob is currently enrolled in his second round of PN Coaching—this time, to see what is possible.
“Can I get to single-digit body fat? What do I look like then, what do I feel like then? What else can I do with my fitter body and better health that I’ve never been able to do? I’ve got no idea. But I’m willing to do a science experiment and see what is possible for myself.”
The very notion of exploring new possibilities marks a sea of change for Bob.
“What is possible…” he reflects. “It wasn’t all that long ago where that was an impossible thought.”
“There’s no, ‘Okay, I did my diet, I’m done.’ My brain and my body and my mind and my heart have been permanently changed.”
In fact, Bob’s physical transformation has been so significant and unexpected that he’s still getting used to his new, slimmer body, and what it can do.
“I had an experience recently where my dog’s ball had gone behind the television console. I was like ‘Oh, I can’t back there, I’ll have to figure something out.’
“Then I thought, ‘Wait a second, you probably can.’ And I did, and I didn’t touch the wall or the back of the console.”
Bob plans to use the final half of his second year with PN exploring the emotional issues surrounding such a big transformation.
“Sometimes I don’t recognize myself. I’ll see myself in the mirror and be surprised by the person I see looking back, or look at my pants and wonder how I’m going to fit in those tiny things! My physical changes are a bit ahead of my emotional and spiritual growth.”
But one thing is certain: As Bob pursues new possibilities for himself, he knows there’s no going back.
Want help becoming the healthiest, fittest, strongest version of you?
Most people know that regular movement, eating well, sleep, and stress management are important for looking and feeling better. Yet they need help applying that knowledge in the context of their busy, sometimes stressful lives.
Over the past the past two decades, we’ve used the Precision Nutrition Coaching method to help over 150,000 clients lose fat, get stronger, and improve their physical and mental health… for the long-term… no matter what challenges they’re dealing with.
It’s also why we work with health, fitness, and wellness professionals (through our Level 1 and Level 2 Certification programs) to teach them how to coach their own clients through the same challenges.
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