Shadow Coaching
“Coach Just Tell Me What To Eat!”
She had tears in her eyes.
Heather was 42. A mother. A wife. And nearly 70 pounds overweight.
The years had not been kind. She had been a party girl in her twenties. And it carried over into adulthood.
She thought nothing of buying a case of beer Thursday night, and popping two dozen wobbly pops over a long weekend.
Knees? Sore all the time. Back? Even worse. She was on her feet a lot at her job at the bank.
Her breakfast was a large double-double with a bagel and cream cheese from the drive through on the way to work. Lunch was a drive through burger and fries and soda. And dinner was pizza or chinese ordered so the kids and hubby could eat.
Of her 21 meals a week, 15 were drive-through or ordered in. Or skipped entirely.
Heather walked into our gym desperate for a change. She had been given a free week of classes from a friend and thought I could help her.
I asked her what her goals were.
“I want to fit in my dresses again without looking like…like…like this!”
I nodded.
“I want to not be in pain all the time. I want to be able to wake up and not have to chug 5 coffees a day. My kids are running me ragged. My husband is exhausted when he gets home from work. I never have enough time for myself”.
She started to have a quiver in her voice, and her lip began to tremble.
I gave her a long, quiet minute to just breathe. When she made eye contact again I smiled.
“Heather, if you eat the way I tell you to eat, and show up here 4 times a week for an hour, you will get better at every aspect of your life.”
Her eyes opened wide, and a half-smile appeared. “That sounds amazing! You make it sound so easy.”
My eyes got hard, and I shook my head.
“This will be the hardest fucking thing you ever do in your life. This will be the difference between having a stroke at 62 and wearing a diaper in a nursing home while your kids ignore you... or being a seventy year old hottie that drives a motorbike and goes to kickboxing class instead of pooping her pants”.
Heather gasped so hard it felt like she sucked half the air out of the gym. I just let that paragraph hang in the air for a moment.
Finally she realized how long the awkward pause was. It was like she had been startled from a daydream.
“Ok.”
I guided her through a warm up. She moved like a bag of dodgeballs crammed into a mesh net. Four minutes of stretching and flexibility and she was dripping.
“I gotta quit smoking. I started in grade 10 and I thought that vaping might help. Now I do both.”
“You gotta do a lot of things Heather. Hold this.”
I handed her a plastic pvc pipe 4 feet long weighing 1 pound. I put a big padded mat on the hard gym floor.
“We’re going to do a 10 minute workout Heather. And then a cool down. And you’ll be done for the day.”
I could see the math not computing in her brain. Five minute warm up. 10 minute workout. Five minute cool down. A big difference from the 90 minute pilates and dance funk workouts that she had quit before.
“Ok Heather, here's the deal. You’re going to grab this plastic pipe at shoulder width in front like this. You’re going to take a deep breath, then squat down as far as you can go, and then stand up and press the pipe overheard. You’re going to exhale, and then take in another deep breath. Then you’re doing to squat down again. That’s called a thruster. Do 3 or 4 and show me you got this.”
She did her best. Hips were tight. The squat wasn’t even close to parallel.
But her overhead press out of the squat was pretty good for someone who was on the computer or her phone all day.
“Ok good. Put down the pipe. Come over here. After you do 21 thrusters, you kneel down on this soft mat, then stretch out on your stomach. Then you’re going to get up, stand tall, take a breath, and clap your hands. That’s going to be your burpee. Show me that you can do 2.”
Heather looked at me like I had just farted in church. She got down on the mat in 8 seconds. She laid there contemplating life, and braced her hands on her knee to get back up. ONE!
I took out the magic marker and wrote “21-15-9” on the whiteboard.
“Ok Heather, here we go. You have ten minutes to do 21 thrusters with the pvc pipe, 21 burpees, then 15 thrusters, then 15 burpees, then 9 thrusters and 9 burpees, and we’re done for the day. I have a 10 minute clock on you. Either you finish before that, or I end it at 10. Any questions?”
“What was a thruster again?”
I chuckled. This wasn’t my first rodeo. I cranked out a quick 5 with the pvc and said “just like this”. She nervously took the pipe from me.
The big red clock on the wall counted down from 10.
“10 seconds! Standby…3…2…1…GO!”
Heather came flying out of the gate like she was in the CrossFit Games. She got to rep 6 on the front squat overhead press thrusters without taking a breath.
“Breathe Heather! Just 15 to go.”
It was rep 9 when reality set it. Acid in her legs. Glutes. Shoulders. Lungs on fire. The pace slowed to a crawl. Squat…press….dance around gasping. This repeated for her last dozen reps.
“Great job Heather! Down on the mat. Let’s recover on the burpees.”
The clock showed 6:42 when Heather finished her 21 lie-down-and-stand-ups.
“Let’s go Heather back on the bar. Just 15 thrusters. 3 minutes to go!”
That look on Heather’s face! Shock. She swiveled to look at the clock. It was like she was in a time warp. She couldn’t believe her eyes.
Again, not my first rodeo. Every athlete is convinced that the coach somehow messes with the clock. It’s amazing how one’s perception of time distorts during a workout.
Heather was in deep water. Legs heavy, arms gassed from getting up off the ground. Every rep was a test of will.
“Forty seconds Heather! Get on those burpees! You can do it!”
She got 2 burpees into the round of 15.
“TIME! TIME HEATHER! You did great.”
Heather lay on the mat, gasping like a fish. Sweat poured, literally poured off her with a faint yellow tinge of nicotine and deep fryer oil.
Her entire workout was 10 minutes. It was 14 minutes more before she could stand and drink a little water.
I high-fived her and started her cool down and stretching as she regained her composure and grip on reality.
She looked like she had been caught in a thunderstorm. Her hair stuck to her face on one side, and stood straight up on the other like she had been hit by lightning.
She was a little gray, and kept chugging her water bottle for dear life. I walked her around our little gym and over to the Wall of Heroes.
We had before and after photos of our members and some of their stories. Party photos, Christmas photos, kids, teens, competition photos the whole shebang.
“Heather, it's really hard to succeed on your own. Here you have coaches and an entire community that all want you to win. If you show up here 100 times your life will never be the same. We never take money from a new member after their first class. I want you to go home and think about it. If you’re on board, come to the Wednesday class at 7pm”.
I handed her a 2-page checklist to review at home. I wanted her to eat a diet of meat and vegetables, seeds and nuts, some fruit, a little starch and no sugar. I include some suggested supplements for her sleeping, her knees and her energy levels.
And just like that, Heather walked out the door.
I wondered if I would ever see her again.
Want to know what happened to Heather?
She was tired of doing it all by herself and failing.
How I Helped Heather To Break Her Sugar And Junk Food Addiction Without Drugs, Hypnosis or Stabbing Herself In The Stomach With A Needle.
Listen up—are you secretly falling apart?
Sugar’s got you by the throat. Junk food’s your dirty little secret. You’re slamming burgers and candy, promising ‘tomorrow I’ll quit,’ but tomorrow never comes.
Oh and by the way, wine and beer are sugar too. Yes, it’s been passed through the rear end of a bacteria. But it’s still sugar.
You’re trapped in the fast food spiral, and it’s killing your gains, your energy, your edge. Desperate yet? Good.
LISTEN, I’ve got the key to bust you out of fast food jail.
I was doing the nutritional orientation with Heather.
I explained the goal diet was meat and vegetables, seeds and nuts, some fruit, a little starch and no sugar. I handed her a pdf of exactly what to eat every day, and a grocery list of what to buy.
She looked at me, blinked three times, tilted her head to the left and said, “Coach, what about chocolate milk?”
“There’s no milk in the diet. Why do you ask?”
Heather shrugged, “I just really like chocolate milk on my Froot Loops.”
“Um, Heather…no Froot Loops.”
She was where you are right now.
Forty-two, obsessed with winning the rat race, but a slave to the drive-thru.
Sugar was her boss. Donuts at dawn, ice cream at midnight. Her energy was trash. Her body wasn’t matching her effort. She’d stare at the mirror and think, ‘I’m better than this.’
But willpower? Forget it—that junk had her hooked.
Then it hit her: She didn’t need another diet book or app. She needed someone to call her out. And that’s when her life began to change.
She asked me to be her Accountability Partner. I worked with her 1on1 privately. It was like a light bulb turned on!
She went on to drop 37 pounds in the next 4 months.
How did I help Heather?
I told her WHAT to eat, and what NOT to eat.
Everyday I asked her two questions.
Did you work out today?
And did you hit your Eating Plan Goal today?
She had confidence with her plan of exactly what groceries to buy, what to eat, when and most importantly, why.
Soon her cravings were gone. How? Her three magic hormones, leptin, ghrelin and glucagon!
Her stamina came back—work felt like a playground!
She didn’t just survive her days; she’d crush them.
That’s what I’m bringing to you.
Here’s your opportunity. My 30 Day Accountability Program is not some generic plan—it’s me, personally, helping you out of the junk food trap.
You’ll ditch the sugar, kill the cravings, and feel that fire like never before. Your 3 magic hormones will be optimized!
It feels like you're 23 years old again, but with better judgement!
How much does it cost? That’s the problem with most coaches. They demand $300, $500 or $1000 bucks and lock clients in for 3-6 months. And they expect you to take all the risk.
Me? I like simple.
Step 1: You get started today for $10. I give you the tools to know exactly what to eat every day, what NOT to eat, and what groceries to buy. No other upsells. No hidden gotchas. Same price as a pack of cigarettes or an almond milk grande latte.
Step 2: You wake up to my daily nudges. You go to bed after you tell me how your day went. I hold you accountable. Every day for 7 days we work together. We shine a light on what matters most. We have a plan, and daily checkins.
You get:
- a precise plan of exactly what to eat (and NOT to eat) every day to hit your goals.
- a system for eating out (even McDonalds or Pizza Hut)
- an itemized grocery list of exactly what to buy each week
- a BONUS guide to supplements, sleep and stress management
- DAILY checkins to maintain momentum and answer questions for the whole week.
Let’s see if we’re a good fit together!
I’m only taking a couple of people—serious ones, ages 35+ and fed up, ready to escape the trap.
Is that you? Are you saying ‘PICK ME DAVID’? Don’t sleep on this—say ‘ME’ and let’s rip those junk food chains off you.
Click the red button, and get started. I'll see you on page 2.
You got this!