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When people think of fitness coaches (especially those they see on social media), they perceive them as health nuts who are obsessed with every calorie they put into their bodies.

Well, I'm here to tell you it's all a bunch of horse manure.

I've been helping people transform bodies for 20+ years and let me let you in on a little secret:

Health coaches are human and we make mistakes. All of us. Especially me.

When my 2nd daughter was born my health, for lack of better terms, went to shit.

A combination of sleep deprivation, the stress of building my business (and socials), and a family health issue had my body reeling.

Despite my best efforts, I gained 23 lbs almost all on my belly:

I was frustrated but worse, I felt ashamed. I hated what I looked like in the mirror and there was a conflict with who I was and what I was representing.

So I did what any man would in this situation: I started from the bottom.

But this time I would do things differently...but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Since then, I've been able to get my body back:

And in this newsletter, I want to impart some of the lessons I've learned along the journey.

23 Lessons I've Learned From Dropping 23 Lbs of Fat at 45 Years Old

1. When you're losing fat focus your workouts on building muscle. Use progressive overload to your advantage so you can keep (if not build) muscle while leaning out. This helps your metabolism stay healthy and allows you to eat the same amount of food even when dropping a ton of weight.

2. Keep your workouts centered around these movements:

• Squat
• Hinge
• Lunge
• Horizontal pressing
• Horizontal pulling
• Vertical pressing
• Vertical pulling

3. Add in accessory exercises to fill out your body:

• Bicep Curls
• Tricep pushdowns
• Calf raises
• Core exercises
• Lateral raises
• Reverse flies
• Forearms
• Anterior tibs

In a future newsletter, I'm going to post the exact workout I did while dropping the fat and building muscle. Stay tuned for that.

4. Use a variety of free weights and machines to carve out your body.

I used to be Freeweight purist but I gotta admit that machines are freaking awesome. Free weights are great at building strength but machines are great at going to failure while reducing your chances of injury.

5. Your workouts can and will change depending on how much time you have. When I had an hour to spend in the gym I took longer rest periods between my sets. When I had half an hour or less I'd turn to supersets like we use in the Lean Body 90 or myo-reps. If you're juggling multiple responsibilities your schedule will fluctuate.

Be okay with modifying your workouts based on your time so you can stay consistent.

6. You don't need to do ANY cardio. Walk instead. Walking is literally the most underrated exercise on the planet. It helps you relieve stress, improve recovery, increase brain power, become more creative, and burn a few extra calories while doing it. I would do this over any long-distance cardio any day of the week.

7. How many steps per day should you get? Follow this:

• At minimum 6k steps per day to function like a normal human being.
• 8 to 10 steps per day does that, improve brain function while helping you burn a bit more extra calories.
• 15k+ is where you get all of those while giving you the biggest benefit for fat loss.

​Click here for a free fat loss walking workout I'd do at the gym if I had a little more time on my hands.

8. Focus on the nutrition trifecta: Use calories to lose weight, macros to improve your physique, and micronutrients to improve mental and physical health while improving appetite and hunger.

9. Focus on your Value Per Calorie. This is much like getting the most value for your dollar where you want to eat foods that are nutrient rich, fiber rich, high protein, and preferably yummy. A calorie is a calorie but not all foods are equal to each other. Get the best bang for your buck by choosing the right types.

10. Keep yourself within a range of .8 to 1.25 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight. I use a range because some days I have to hit the bare minimum while other days I can go a bit higher based on my food choices.

11. To get the most out of protein focus on your Protein to Calorie Ratio. This means choosing foods that have a higher amount of protein compared to the calories you're taking in:

12. Struggle to get enough protein? Learn how to eat more protein. There's a reason why I'm staying on protein for so long on this newsletter. It's the most important macro. Learn how to get more protein into your body. If you struggle with this, I did a free guide on how to eat more protein you can grab over here.

13. Eating breakfast is more optimal than skipping it. The simple act of eating a nutrient-dense high protein breakfast was a game changer for me. Before, I thought intermittent fasting worked for me but I had it backwards: It's better to eat a healthy breakfast and have an early dinner than skip breakfast and have a late dinner. The downstream consequences of doing the former than the latter because it regulated my energy, appetite and hunger throughout the day.

14. Track your weight on a regular basis. Even when it hurts. Here's why...There were times I had a social event or a few days of eating that had me wanting to avoid the scale. But I stepped on anyway because I needed to keep myself honest.

I also did it because you realize how the weight jumps up initially (due to water, glycogen, and a bit of fat) but goes down after 2-4 days of solid clean eating.

15. You need goals, plans, and traits. First, we must set a goal. If it's weight loss then set a target weight. If it's fat loss set a target body fat %. Then you need a devised plan to achieve it. What's your meal schedule, calories, macros? What workout are you committing to? Then you need to set a short list of traits/habits. What behaviors are you committed to doing every week to attract this goal into your life?

Don't be willy-nilly with this stuff. Be intentional.

16. Set up your GPS system. Alright, you've got a goal, a plan, and a short set of behaviors. Now you need directions. These are in the form of tracking.

A few things to track are:

1. Level 1: Weight (every 3-7 days), inches around the waist (every week), pictures (every 4-6 weeks).
2. Level 2 (Optional): Bloodwork (Optional), (every 4-6 months), DEXA (every 6 months to a year).
3. Level 3 (Optional): Calcium scores for the heart, MRI's to screen for cancer (every year)

17. The most important question to ask yourself is: What are you optimizing for? Are you trying to lose weight as fast as possible or trying to do it in the most sustainable way? Those are 2 different things. For me, I didn't care about speed. I only cared about direction. As long as you're trending in the right direction you're in a good spot.

18. Give yourself permission to make mistakes. Making mistakes is part of the game especially if you want this to be sustainable. With our body transformation clients, we encourage them to make mistakes and miss workouts. The reason why is that consistency is not a straight line. It's missing meals or workouts and then developing the muscle to get back on the plan when you do.

19. Repeat this mantra every day: As long as it takes. This means you're not trying to lose fat as fast as possible. You're willing to give yourself time to figure things out. This puts the long view in your mind and forgoes any idea of trying to speed things up. Remember, direction over speed.

20. Avoiding bad advice is more important than getting good advice. When you go on social media today you'll see an abundance of horrible advice being doled out on a regular basis. People telling you to go carnivore, plant-based, or others trying to make you scared of seed oils or fruit. The truth is, all these have a dose of truth in them. But we must only adopt what's ours. As Bruce Lee once said, "Adopt what's useful and avoid the useless".

21. Your mind is the biggest asset or detriment to your body. Every 2 weeks, we do mindset calls in our group coaching masterrmind because your mind is the biggest factor in your success. When transforming your body your mind must change along with it or you'll just end up frustrated and back in the same spot as before.

22. Don't try to fix your lifestyle first. Fix your environment. This goes from the foods you keep in your kitchen to the friends you keep in your circle. You want your environment to be set up in a way that makes it almost easy to get in shape.

23. Get help. Seriously. If you've been struggling with this for a while then it's okay to ask for help. Even for myself, to get myself started I hired my friend Borge to help keep me accountable on the path. There's nothing wrong with getting coaching in an area of life that's not up to your standard. Invest in yourself and you'll see amazing returns.

I'm Not Done Yet. Not by a long shot.

The most important thing I have is momentum. Once you're on the path to a healthier version of yourself you can't help but see your world open up.

That said, I'm still going and continuing on my journey.

The next part is to drop around 5 more pounds of fat and get into the 10% body fat range. Then it'll be onto phase 2 where I will be re-comping my body to gain muscle and stay at that body fat percentage.

Along the way, I'm optimizing my bloodwork for both health and longevity. Exciting stuff!

I hope you got some value out of this newsletter, it pushed you in the right direction and helped you become a bit more healthier and motivated this week.

Onwards and upwards. 🚀

- Dan
​Founder, Dan Go Fitness Coaching ← if you've got a goal to lose 20+ lbs in 2025, check this out.

Disclaimer: This email is provided for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute providing medical advice or professional services. The information provided should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, and those seeking personal medical advice should consult with a licensed physician.