CASE STUDY: Male client in his 40’s loses 15lbs in lockdowns with Wellington Trainer, Marea

Client: Initial Consultation

The client, a male in his 40s, came to our Wellington location looking lose 15lbs. The client had residual weakness from a stomach hernia surgery a few years ago and was experiencing nerve issues in his leg. The client needed a workout plan that would not only help him achieve his weight loss goal, but also be mindful of the pinched nerve in his leg and wouldn’t stress his healing scar.

Trainer: Programming

The client was assigned to Marea Hughes. In his first session, Marea ran the client through a basic physical assessment to determine any imbalances, strengths, and weaknesses. It was important to observe how the pinched nerve in the leg affected movements like the squat, deadlift, and lunges.

Based on his goals and the physical assessment, Marea designed a program that would include workouts designed for core strength and weight loss, nutrition coaching that focused on meal planning and timing, and lastly she set aside extra time to send the client motivational emails.

Weight loss goals can be difficult, so Marea made sure she took the client through goal setting exercises. It was important the client knew the why behind their weight loss goal so that when motivation was low, they could look back why they started and keep working towards their goals.

The workouts would focus on his core to help strengthen the muscles that would have been weakened by the hernia. To increase the intensity of his workouts, she set up the exercises into supersets. Supersets are typically 2 exercises performed back to back with very little rest between sets. This keeps the intensity high and can be a useful tool when training weight-loss clients.

Here is a sample week of workouts from the program:

Client: Results

After working with Marea through the lockdowns, the client lost 15lbs! The turning point? During the lockdowns, the client doubled-down on their nutrition, taking into consideration everything that Marea had taught him about intermittent fasting, meal timing, and how to make healthy choices. 

A great nutrition plan combined with his at-home cardio meant that the client was able to stay consistent throughout the lockdowns, lose the weight, and come back to the gym ready to achieve new goals.

Now that the client has lost 15lbs, they’ll be focusing on increasing their core strength and building their upper body musculature. The client is already seeing success with his core strength. In his last session, he held a plank for 1 minute. In the program above you can see that he started at just 20s. Hitting that 1-minute mark has been a huge achievement for him and continues to motivate him to push for more progress.

In this case, consistency was the key to this client’s success. Marea was consistent with her contact and motivational emails so the client always felt supported, even through the lockdowns. On the client’s side, their dedication to learning and sticking to their at-home cardio workouts made a big difference which allowed them to return to the gym ready to take on new challenges.