Weight Loss, Performance and An Incredibly Motivating Family
Healthy Eating.
Weight Loss.
Keeping active as a family.
It’s not hard to see how having those three ducks in a row would lead to a fit family unit, but what happens when you throw in extras into the mix?
Like, for example, work? Specifically, running a company?
And how about if the keeping active as a family part isn’t just the weekend stroll around the neighborhood or hike with the dog, but training for Ironman?
This is just the case for two clients I’ve had the pleasure of working with over the past year.
I met Arturo and his son, Daniel, last January when my dear friend and colleague, Iñaki de la Parra, hosted a training and nutrition clinic for his clients in Mexico City and invited me to lead the nutrition component. (Iñaki is an elite Ultraman Athlete and coach; he and I often council clients together in order to address both their training as well as nutritional regime.)
At the time, Arturo and Daniel, both extremely busy running their company, had already made training a priority and had completed the ironman distance.
That in and of itself was something I found to be extremely impressive for many reasons, but they had higher goals already set for themselves.
Daniel hoped to break the 10 hr mark at ironman while Arturo had set a weight loss goal.
Already having Inaki’s endorsement, as he and I’ve worked together for nearly 6 years, likely helped to quell some of the inevitable skepticism that tends to occur with new clients who are keen to learn about implementing a real Paleo diet to support their training.
After all, we know how confusing Paleo has become with all the interpretations of it out there now!
At any rate, we began our work together shortly thereafter.
And with both Daniel’s and Arturo’s dedication and commitment to the well thought out, detailed training regime provided by Iñaki, despite their demanding schedules, balanced out with my Paleo custom planning, there was no way that their goals would not be met.
Just a few months into our work together, Arturo had already lost a significant amount of weight and both he and Daniel demonstrated excellent results in the triathlons they raced in.
As much as I love working with clients who happen to live in LA, where we can see one another regularly, it’s equally rewarding to collaborate with those far away. One obvious down side, however is not physically seeing how clients are transforming not only their lives, but also their physique.
I certainly don’t require clients to send before and after photos, and for some, weighing in on a weekly basis isn’t even part of the plan.
For some, using a pair of their favorite skinny jeans to gauge how their weight loss is coming along proves less stressful than getting on the scale, but for Arturo and Daniel this wasn’t the case.
Daniel, already lean at the start was getting stronger and faster, as was Arturo, and he was also losing weight each and every week.
So when Arturo sent me a before pic, side by side with his current pic just a few months later, tears of pride came to my eyes!
See for yourself in the image above, and if that doesn’t prove inspiring to you, I don’t know what will!
Just this past weekend, both Arturo and Daniel raced Ironman Florida.
But Daniel didn’t just race it, he crushed it! With a sub 10-hour finish and a 3rd place podium result in a very tough age group, he claimed his well-deserved slot to the Ironman World Championships in Kona for 2016.
And Arturo! An impressive finish in his own right coming in just under 13 hours.
When I saw the pictures from the finish and the award ceremony, it was all I could do to keep this gigantic silly grin off my face.
The discipline, commitment and motivation these two gentlemen have displayed, and the resulting triathlon season they’ve had does the perfect job of illustrating how one can chose any course and, despite obstacle like a busy work schedule, a goal of losing a significant amount of weight and just balancing out life in general, can achieve anything they set out to realize.
It has been my honor to work with you both and I am so proud of what you’ve accomplished!
