My goal during the 60day was to only have 4 bad meals during the 2 months and follow the Cardio Coach Program.

I’ve been a Fitness Professional at Life Time for 11 years, played national level Rugby, competed in Crossfit Regionals as an Individual and competed in multiple National Alpha Events. My diet has always been solid, following mainly the Paleo Diet, with the implementation of my food sensitivity test as well. During the Holidays the nutrition always takes a step back, Thanksgiving and Christmas and our family also has mine and my Daughter, Jensen’s, birthday on Dec. 22nd and my Wife, Brittany, on Dec. 23rd. On top of multiple family gatherings, work holiday events and other “food” events. This year I wanted to change that.

My goal was 4 bad meals, a Brazilian Steakhouse meal, Thanksgiving, my daughter’s birthday at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium and Christmas, each being about 2 weeks apart. The Brazilian Steakhouse was first and I did quite well. I didn’t over eat (very common when I go there), I ate veggies first to get fuller and minimized the breads. 1st one was a success.

The week before Thanksgiving my wife and I lost our baby boy, Beau, my wife was 12 weeks pregnant with him. First intuition was to eat something to feel better. We went to Jason’s Deli, I got a salad and water. This through off our Thanksgiving week and the cookies, easy needed meals were much appreciated from friends and families. I avoided the cookies and ate the meat and veggies of the meals provided. Was definitely tough to not give in, especially with losing baby boy and helping my wife though it too. We went to my wife’s cousins for Thanksgiving and again I stuck to protein and veggies and didn’t over eat. I had one cupcake, massive reduction from previous years.

Next was Baby Jensen’s Birthday, her party was easy, I don’t like cake and cookies, so no big deal. But every year I go to a Cowboys game in a box suite with all you can eat and drink. This was definitely a bad meal, but I usually take a nap partway through the game from over eating, I didn’t and I drove home, didn’t nap on the way home, so two signs this was the best nutrition year at the game. Again I tried sticking to mainly protein and veggies.

Last meal was Christmas Dinner. Which I got to make. So I did a honey roasted ham, green beans and bacon, roasted potatoes and cheese bread. It definitely helped that I got to make the meal. If I didn’t buy or make it, it wasn’t going to be at the house, so that helps with temptations. The key for me again was I didn’t over eat. I had my one plate, then another one about 2 hours later.

I also utilized some of the Life Time Recipes during the 60day, used the roasted potatoes one for Christmas. Those were good to change it up and allowed me to then add them to my recipe repertoire.

The reason for the Cardio Coach program was my Stress test said that I over stress my body a lot. Figures with lifting weights and doing higher intensity every day. So I did Cardio coach on Tues/Thurs and Sat and Strength Training on MWF, Sun was Pilates and foam rolling. I really enjoyed it. On my strength days I couldn’t wait to lift and cardio days was excited to run. It made my workout routine much more exciting instead of dreading and exhausting. I redid my stress test about half way through and my levels have all went the right direction. Still not getting enough sleep at night and I was under doing my carbs, but everything else was looking way better. I’ll continue doing the cardio coach program now as well. My Zone 3 went from 7.7 mph to 8.5 and my Zone 4 from 8.1 to 8.9. Still burning more fat calories as well. I ran a 22 mile trail run last weekend and felt great. That was the final long run for a 50 miler I will do in Feb.

Now that I have utilized the Cardio Coach program and can share my results with clients and co-workers it will be great to see them get more involved in it as well. Letting them know that they can improve even more than I did because their baseline isn’t were mine was. Instead of the excuse of well you do this all the time, now I have data for them to get even more improvement in their program.