Shannon has a story much like the rest of us. She’s a millennial in her late 20’s trying to navigate her way. Since finishing school and entering the working world, she had struggled to find some balance between time spent developing her career and her personal relationships while still carving out some space for her own personal fitness. Though she was an athlete in high school and enjoys physical activity, she just felt she didn’t have time to build it into her schedule. Life was busy and demanding. Eating happened when and how it was convenient – work often provided pizza or social outings associated with alcohol. Life at home looked like thrown together meals sometimes and a healthy amount of ordering in at others. She was coping and managing in so many aspects, but she did feel a sharp awareness in regards to the fact she felt a loss of “control” around her weight and body. It was something that she wanted to change, and so she asked to add the “coaching” aspect to our already existing friendship - we once worked together, so I can appreciate the pace and intensity of her lifestyle.
Shannon is 5 foot 4. She was 177 pounds in September 2022. Her relationship with fitness was essentially nonexistent, so our goals at the beginning were a little unconventional. We weren’t worried about her weight, or a number, or a certain achievement inside of the gym; we were instead focused on changing, forming, and building habits in her life that would support what she wanted – a more complete relationship with her body both physically and mentally.
For weeks, we see Shannon’s weight did not change. These check-ins, completed weekly, are for more than the number on the scale. We look at pictures week to week to see how the body has physically changed. Often, it changes before the scale. It recomposes, or “recomps.” It sits a little more firmly, sagging less and ceasing to droop in places it used to like drooping. To say it “changes from fat to muscle” is to overcomplicate it, but think of it like this – Shannon could be 177 pounds and have various different “looks” at that same weight. No, the focus was on building habits.
It wasn’t realistic for Shannon to go from truly believing she didn’t “have time” for fitness to a fitness regimen where she spent 8 hours a week working out. That’s not realistic. These first weeks and months, Shannon spent working out at home carving out increasing amounts of time for herself. The first programs she tried were body weight based, circuit style workouts that were under 20 minutes to complete. She didn’t think she had time for
the gym, but she could agree to 20 minutes.
After a few weeks of fighting the battle, conquering consistency and beginning challenges, she did the same workout more frequently. After that, she asked for a new home workout. Eventually, she felt her body wasn’t being challenged enough at home because she didn’t have a ton of equipment. Having gained an interest, her social media had started to fill with people lifting weights in gyms. The ball started rolling.
Shannon asked about starting at “fit4less” - a super low cost gym with great equipment and 24/7 hours. She got her program and started there.
Shannon - September 2022 - January 2023 Side Progress
Again, it ebbed and flowed – it always does. There have been times during this process when Shannon has been happy, and there have been times when she has been frustrated and felt like nothing was working. There have been times I’ve talked her off the ledge. Ultimately, though, she has found her own fire over these months, and she challenged herself to switch gyms to Goodlife where there was some more equipment available as well as some like-minded peers that would encourage Shannon and build her community of fitness support.
In January she decided to crank up the intensity and frequency again, and it has shown. Again, the changes we see on the scale are minimal at times and downright contradictory at others – despite a great week eating and training, she gains a pound or two
sometimes. That’s okay – the body is going through its process and we are going through ours. As long as we are repeating the correct actions and trusting our plan, we can also trust that our body will follow in the intended direction.
We see here that she has reached sub-170 numbers consistently after many weeks fluctuating around that number
Overall, Shannon has lost 10 pounds at Align over the course of the past 7 months. That’s great, but I am more interested in what she has gained.
These photos are from Shannon's first check in in September. There is 7 months difference.
Shannon has gained confidence. She has gained self-respect. She has positively improved her time management skills and a lot of her priorities. Many of her decisions around fitness have flooded to other parts of her life – she’s continuing to achieve success professionally, she’s planning a wedding, she’s growing physically and mentally.
Her work at Align will continue and we will circle back to revisit her future progress, which is promised and not a vague uncertainty. She has the willpower and mindset to take her fitness journey wherever she’d like, and I thank her for letting me document and share some of that process!
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