The High Performance Journal​
​October 10th 2023​
​​Read this on Dango.co​

One of the best feelings in the world is getting your friends in shape.

Bill has been a friend of mine for a decade. He's a super successful dude but for the time I knew Bill he was always known as a bit of a "husky" guy.

We talked to each other almost a year ago about transforming his body but the timing didn't work out.

But in June 2023 he came to me prepared to work and he crushed it.

He went from weighing 231 to 188 pounds in just over 90 days. We also lost an astounding 6.5 inches from his waistline.

But that's not all. His energy is up, his confidence is sky high, and he's feeling more engaged with work and life than ever before.

How Bill lost 43 lbs in 90 days:

Step 1 - Set the Lean Body GPS system

You can't know where you're going unless you know where you're starting from.

Bill was tracking every metric that mattered in his business but when it came to his body he wasn't tracking anything.

So we set up what we call the Lean Body GPS System:

First, we tracked his basic numbers regularly: his weight, inches (chest, waist, hips), and progress photos.

I know it sounds basic but you'd be surprised how many people who want to get lean don't track these out of fear or laziness.

Second, we got him to do a DEXA scan to find out exactly how much muscle and body fat he had. A DEXA is the gold standard when tracking your body fat. It can also show you how much visceral fat you have around your organs. Super important.

Finally, we wanted to find out what was happening under the hood so we got him to do bloodwork.

The key here is knowing your numbers if you want to improve them. Once you know where you're starting from you can set the destination hence the Lean Body GPS.

Step 2 - Fix the diet

When we first started working together Bill's diet was all over the place. He was snacking at odd times, sometimes he had breakfast sometimes he didn't, and he had Uber Eats on speed dial.

When we first start with clients we start with what we would call the "Skeleton" of their nutrition.

So many people focus on "what to eat" and that is important but just as important as that is "how you eat".

We started with his timing:

We started his day with a double scoop protein shake with creatine and psyllium husk in the morning. Then he'd have a meal at 1pm and then a meal at 6pm. We got rid of the snacking and replaced it with drinking water.

This is what we call eating to our circadian rhythms. This puts your hunger on a schedule and also helps you improve the quality of your sleep at the same time.

He was too busy to cook so we set up a meal prep delivery service for him for his lunch meals while he would go to a local restaurant for his dinner.

The meals we ate were largely whole nutrient dense unprocessed foods but he'd also eat his favorite foods (chips and guac) and drink the odd cocktail on social occasions.

One of the principles to our diet is that it needs to be sustainable. This means adding in flexibility and avoiding the need to go "all or nothing" or be perfect with it.

Step 3 - Do the minimum effective exercise dose

Bill didn't like going to the gym and a previous experience had him a bit traumatized from the idea of working out.

Workouts are an integral part of any transformation plan because they help you keep your muscles while losing weight.

So we opted for a basic at home workout that took around 30 minutes to complete (much like the ones we do in the Lean Body 90) while setting a habit of walking every day.

Aside from the workouts, his habit of walking became an integral part of his day-to-day life. He'd walk 20 minutes to start his day and 20 minutes at night to relieve some stress.

Each day he was clocking in 10k steps and this contributed in a large way to his weight loss.

Sometimes people have a resistance to working out and need to warm up to it. That's okay.

We opted for the minimum effective dose while using walking as a means to calm his body and brain while burning some calories and it worked!

Final Step - Change the mind to change the body

Coaching is the ultimate way to go from where you are to where you want to be.

If you've ever done coaching in some area of your life you know there are micro-adjustments to be made. There is also a massive psychological component to it.

While working on the plan we came across obstacles along the way like old habits and mental programming.

While I won't give away all of our secrets I will say we used a framework that might help you called The Curious Coaching Framework:

1. When someone doesn't follow through or makes a misstep we ask what happened.
2. We then get curious about it and ask why our client thinks that happened. We ask various forms of this question to get to the root of why.
3. We bring awareness to the problem and reflect on it.
4. Then we set an action plan for what happens the next time it comes around.

Aside from having a plan and taking action you must change the mind to change the body. Awareness and reflection are some of your tools to make this happen.

His mind changed so much that he left me this note after he attended a conference:

Where do we go from here?

Now that we've lost the weight and gotten his body fat to a healthy level our next step is to add some muscle to his frame.

Muscle is the compound interest of the metabolism. Plus, it doesn't matter if you're a man or woman, your body looks amazing when you build it properly.

The great part about this is Bill isn't anywhere close to being husky. He's in a new place where he's happy with is body and confident about the possibilities.

There are a million nuances I didn't mention but this is a sustainable plan to drop a lot of weight in 90 days.

The hardest part is getting started.

Give this process a go for the next 90 days. Play around with it and adjust accordingly.

It may not be easy but it is pretty simple. Stick to the plan and results are sure to follow.

I hope this helps you in your journey.

Onwards and upwards 🚀

- Dan

PS: I’m starting a new Lean Body Mastery group for October.

If you are an entrepreneur who has 15 or more pounds to lose … you may be surprised to see what can happen :)

If you have 20 or more pounds to lose… you’re literally sitting on a gold mine of high performance.

In the group, I’ll get to work with you one on one to lose weight without spending hours in the gym or giving up your favorite foods.

I have an amazing collection of case studies from entrepreneurs from dozens of different industries… and I’d love to work with you.

Just reply to this email and put “Lean Body Mastery” in the subject line and I’ll get you all the details.

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