The Journey Begins

Tim: The evaluation process was completed by the first week of December, and we began our formal workouts at that time. We had a good fitness baseline going from the first month. Ken had been doing his aerobic exercise on his exercise bike at home for 15 minutes at a time, twice a day, five days per week. We were using the appropriate S1—Directing and S2—Coaching styles to do formal workouts together on strength, flexibility, and balance training three times per week for one hour. I had Ken increase his aerobic exercise to six days per week, integrating some interval work where he would pedal faster for one minute out of every five. Gradually he began to work on his exercise bike for 30 minutes once a day. I began adding more free weight exercises for the upper body and he progressed to doing his abdominal crunches and back extensions on the BOSU ball instead of the exercise bench.

The first three weeks of Ken's training program went very well—we even worked out on Christmas Eve morning! Ken said he was starting to feel better and his clothes were already beginning to get loose. This was the feedback I'd been hoping for.

Ever since I started my fitness business in 1986, I have always taken great care not to set false expectations. I would always laugh to myself when a 70-year-old man who had never worked out before would say, “Now, I don't want to end up built like Arnold Schwarzenegger.” I would respond with glee: “That will not be a problem.”

Most people I've worked with have had goals centered around weight loss. My initial promise typically has been that if they begin to exercise regularly, by the end of the first month they would be feeling better and lose some weight. However, in most cases without a dietary weight loss program, the loss of scale pounds would be very slow. I weighed Ken at 232 pounds when we started the program, and four weeks later he weighed in at Weight Watchers at 224. During the first month, I reinforced his Weight Watchers experience by encouraging him to make conscientious changes such as cutting out sweets and refined sugar, not missing meals, eating smaller portions of food, and letting exercise help metabolize the natural sugar he was ingesting.

As Ken mentioned, on the day after Christmas, he and Margie went to a health spa for a week. I knew that Ken would be getting a great education and hoped that he would get motivated to make those necessary lifestyle changes. I was also aware that he would be working with fitness trainers so, as Ken's primary coach, I sent a sheet for him to share with the staff that summarized what we were doing, and I requested that they not vary his program too much.

Ken returned at the end of the week highly energized, motivated, and down another four pounds. This was a great way to start the New Year—inspired to honor his new commitment.