Before and After Weight Loss Transformation Photos

Welcome to our post about body transformation!  I am going to outline the 7 most important aspects to efficiently complete a weight loss transformation.  You’ll find training tips, programming tips, nutrition tips, and a complete list of all the supplements and foods I recommend. – Paul Roberts | Strength, Weight Loss and Mobility Coach

Weight Loss and Transformation Success

– The 7 Keys to Successful Weight Loss Transformation

1. Hire the Best Personal Trainer You Can Find

The International Health Organization found that, “Over 75% of people that exercise aren’t getting the results they want.  Of the 25% who do, about 90% are working with a personal trainer.”

Now consider that we only hire about 5% of the coaches who apply to work at Sand & Steel.  We turn down coaches from gyms like Orange Theory, 24 Hours Fitness, Sport & Health Club, and Equinox, because they haven’t invested the necessary time to coach at our level.  Those business don’t invest in their coaches like we do, and they don’t treat their clients like individuals.  When you come to Sand & Steel, you are part of our family, and family takes care of their own.

Regardless of who you are, what injuries you may have, or what your goals may be, there is always one universal truth when it comes to improvement.

A Better Coach Gets Better Results

So whether you are local to Old Town, Alexandria VA, or visiting our website from Washington DC, do yourself a favor and find the best personal trainer in your area (we recommend Yelp).  If you think all personal trainers are the same… you haven’t been to Sand & Steel.

Sand & Steel Coach Chris Willever Before and After

View My Bio

2. Dedicating Time For Your Before and After Transformation

Toning and Transforming your body requires committing 10-12 hours a month to your goal.  That may not seem like much, but most people overestimate how much time they actually spent on logging their nutrition, mobilizing their body to improve flexibility, and of course working out.

Many of our clients are parents, CEO’s, attorneys, accountants, doctors, etc.  They tend to lead very busy lives.  They make time for their children, their church, for work crunches, for everyone but themselves.

Step 1 in any transformation program (weight loss, hypertrophy, etc.) is about committing to make time for yourself.  “Muscles don’t build themselves.”  It is for these clients, that we built our signature transformation program … Get Steel Strong.  In the years we have been open and training clients, we haven’t altered our formula.  8 Personal Training Sessions per Month, 2 InBody Scans, and your choice of 2 Nutrition or 2 Mobility Sessions.  That’s just 10 Hours a Month to build a better body for a lifetime.

Get Steel Strong

3. Organizing and Developing a Transformation Workout Program.  

There are five main aspects to designing a workout program.  Many of our clients come wanting to work everything at once.  We’ve found that the best results really come from deliberately selecting two goals out the following five.

  1. Hypertrophy.  Adding muscle volume.  Hypertrophy is associated with bodybuilding.  At it’s core form, it’s about performing clean and safe exercises with a time under tension period of about 45- 90 seconds per set.
  2. Strength. actual strength to lift and push objects.  Strength relates to sprint speed, vertical jump, your ability to move an object a certain distance in a certain time.
  3. Weight Loss.  Dedicated Weight Loss Programming involves maintaining a sustained heart rate of about 70-80% of maximum for long periods of time (e.g. 10-12  minutes.)  At Sand & Steel, we build weight loss programs to incorporate functional lifting techniques and weight lifting.  We also utilize a wide variety of body weight exercises.
  4. Mobility and Flexibility.  Mobility programming includes stretching, but it’s also about restoring proper range of motion for all joints.  Mobility programs aids in improving balance and stability.  It’s primary focus being to add complete strength through through the complete range of motion.
  5. Durability and Corrective Exercise.  If you are a person that gets injured frequently (or even have a current injury) building in time for corrective exercises should be a key component to your personal training experience.  These includes your physical therapy type exercises as well as personal training exercises designed to improve nueromuscular response of muscles.  Symptoms like tight quads, weak glutes, sore backs, weak core, etc. can often be corrected through corrective exercises which build durability and resistance to injury.

Get Started with Personal Training

4. Nutrition for a Before and After Transformation

You’d be shocked to hear how many times I’ve been asked by clients whether I’ll give them a copy of my diet or Dawn’s diet.  I don’t have a secret magic formula that works for everyone (there isn’t one — I’ve looked).  What I do have is a very robust process for helping people change their eating patterns from a flawed diet that works against the body to a clean eating pattern that helps you build fat and burn muscle.  There are no special shakes (like slimfast or nutrigenix), and no unnecessary food restrictions (you can eat meat, grains, starches, fruits, etc.)  During the session, we analyze where your mistakes are being made, and we work with you to correct them.

Purchase a Nutrition Session with Paul

Programmed Updates are Necessary

We systematically update your diet as you pass certain fitness and weight loss goal posts.  The diet we start you with evolves as you get stronger and lose weight.  It takes more time for us to coach this way, but our clients are worth it.  We teach you how to eat for your body, because a custom diet is really the only diet that will work for you.

Change is hard.  Agreeing to be accountable to us is harder still.  But change is necessary, because until you make those changes, your body will stay the same.

Want some free nutrition tips from us (with no logins or email addresses required), check out our Nutrition Blog. I write a new article every two weeks.Paul Roberts

5. Accountability and Measurements

Improving your body composition or your mobility requires determining realistic goals and building a program to accomplish them.  Moreover, you need to set those goals such that success and potentially failure can be measured.

  • I want to lose 20 pounds.  Doesn’t have a deadline.
  • I want to get stronger.  How are we going to know how much stronger… stronger how.
  • I want to be more flexible.  Flexible where?  How are we going to determine progress?

Whether you hire Sand & Steel as your personal trainer or any other personal trainer in Alexandria, VA, you need to have a concrete goals and a way to measure them.  This creates accountability for you and your personal trainer.

6. Failure is Always Part of the Process

If your goals don’t intimidate you a little, you are probably aren’t setting them high enough.  For me, building the shoulder strength to execute a ring muscle-up was a goal.  It took me a year of training to build up the requisite shoulder range of motion.  I had failures along the way.  I hurt my shoulder from overtraining, my partner got sick for several months.  I eventually accomplished the goal by setting goal posts of what I wanted to do.  For example, I wanted to build my capacity to execute 20 strict ring pull-ups unbroken.  I worked on bar dips at least once a week until I could do 30 in a row.  For every goal I set, I created a plan to execute and a timeline to get it done.  And Yes, I failed a couple of times (OK a lot of times).  But when I did, I looked back on my decisions, found the mistakes and I fixed them.

For many of my clients, executing a squat correctly (with full range of motion) is a starting goal.  It’s important for building functional strength and serves as a platform for improving overall fitness.  The knowledge and experience of your personal trainer is crucial in providing you with the proper scalings to build strength and balance in a safe and consistent manner.

7. Purchase the Right Gear and Supplements

There are thousands of companies making the latest and greatest products that designed to improve your fitness.  99% of them are trash.  Either there is a better product available, one that’s cheaper, or you simply don’t need what they are selling.  However, 1% of thousands is still a lot of potential products that you should consider.  Everyday, I get emails asking me about the best protein powder, the best boxing gloves, what kind of power lifting knee wraps I should buy.  I’ve done the research, I’ve tried them all, and I’ve compiled it all into one simple list.  You’re welcome! 😊
Top 50 Food Gear and Fitness Supplements

Summary of Body Composition and Transformation Tips

  1. Find the Best Coach in your Area.
  2. Transformations aren’t built in a month.  They often take at least 6 months of hard work to accomplish.
  3. Build a solid program with your personal trainer that is keyed to the most important goals you want to accomplish in that 6 months.
  4. Commit to making incremental changes in your diet.  Incremental improvements are easier to make on a consistent basis.
  5. Accountability.  Does your personal trainer know what your goals are? Is he or she actively involved in keeping you accountable.
  6. Don’t be afraid to fail.  Improvements in body composition don’t usually involve a straight line.  Life happens.  You need to be able to recognize when you have missed your goals.  It takes discipline to accept the failure.  You regroup and come out with a better executed plan.
  7. Buy the right products to support your transformation.
It’s Your Body — Let’s Build it Together
Item added to cart.
0 items - $0.00