Hey guys, Coach Emilia here!

I want to give a huge shout out to my PT client Chris Doidge. Chris starting Personal Training with me in August of 2019, and over these past 9 months he has overcome both physical, mental and nutritional challenges that have reconstructed his health and well-being. 

12 months ago Chris had an aortic valve replacement and triple artery graft bypass, reshaping his entire outlook on life. When Chris first started at Terrific Fitness, Chris was working within heavy restrictions and safety nets that were in coordinate with his medical specialist.  Chris has overcome many physical obstacles during his health and fitness journey including the world’s current crisis (Covid 19).

Even through these current tough times Chris has stayed motivated and committed to his health going above and beyond doing his absolute best to stay in good health, continuing to work through his goals. Chris participates in two personal training sessions a week with me, as well as completing additional home programs in between.

In case that wasn’t enough, Chris has constructed an additional program by himself that consists of both his home program exercises as well as exercises that we completed in our private session.

Since Chris has started working with me he has transformed into a physically and mentally stronger person, living life with more energy and doing more than he ever has.

Just some of Chris’ achievements include:

• Chris has lost 3.9% Body Fat which is equivalent to 4.2kgs and counting.
• Chris has also lost 2 Levels of Visceral Fat. Finally hitting the green zone.
• Chris has lost 2.1kgs of Weight and counting.
• Chris’s Muscle mass has increased by 4.6%!
• Chris Metabolic age has decreased by 17 years! Initially Chris’ metabolic age was 67 now he is currently at 50 years old! (Chris’s actual age is 62!!)
• Post-surgery, prior to commencing personal training, Chris struggled to complete a daily minimum of 8000 steps a day. Now, on average, he is smashing through 15000 steps a day easily finishing his week with huge overall total of 100000 steps minimum!

These achievement are excluding all of his training PB’s (Personal Bests) during our PT sessions!

Now you also need to remember that Chris was on serious training restrictions just 9 months ago, post-surgery. Achieving all of the above is incredible in itself; doing so under Chris’ conditions is next level!

Congratulations Chris on all your hard work and I cannot wait to see what we can achieve next! Keep up the phenomenal work ethic!!

Ways we improved Chris’ Nutrition:

• Chris maintained a weekly food diary which we used to teach Chris various thing about his food. The more someone understands about their food and how it effects their body the more personal choices they have to improve it. We made small weekly changes to avoid overwhelm and reduce stress associated with change.
• Whilst improving Chris’ nutrition we also worked on increasing Chris’s daily water consumption. On average Chris was only drinking a maximum of about 1 litre a day. 1 Litre a day is well and truly below average for an adult, so we prioritized increasing his daily water intake by 500ml on a weekly basis until we got a more suitable amount. On average Chris is consuming 2-3L a day now.
• We usually assign clients with what we call a ‘2 Week Kickstart’ which includes a nutritional boot camp to get them going with nutrition. However this is adapted in accordance with the individual client. As a diabetic, this was not suitable for Chris initially. Instead we set Chris small nutritional task to see how his body would react. We needed to ensure that when I assigned him a nutrition task that he was safe to continue his daily routine with no hiccups.
• Every week we go through Chris’ food diary and educate him on various areas of nutrition suitable to him, setting him tasks on a weekly basis. These tasks were things such as reducing fruit where suitable, consuming protein at every meal and ensuring he has adequate carbs before and after training.
• Chris diet isn’t perfect and it doesn’t need to be; he isn’t a professional athletic he is a person trying to improve his overall health. When the time was ready Chris took part in the nutrition boot camp, during which we remove inflammatory food so we can identify what food works for him, and what hinders him.

Ways we improved Chris’ training:

• We ensured that Chris always remained below his sub-maximum heart rate post-surgery.
• We focused on light weights, working towards muscular endurance e.g. high reps and sets.
• His programs were functional programs, so that the movement we trained were ones that could be easily supplement into his day to day life e.g. picking things up off the ground correctly and safely.
• Chris is a relatively strong person however weight progress wasn’t up to me but to his heart specialist. Initially 5kgs was the maximum he could carry so until we got the green light that was our maximum weight. Even working with a 2-3kg dumbbell we still smashed an intensity training session.
• Improving Chris cardiovascular health from day one has been priority. Chris’ heart rate even up until this day has the occasional spike during training however at the beginning these spikes were very common resulting is mandatory procedure to be implement in the event of his heart rate going too high. Procedure include checking in blood pressure before and after his training, checking and noting down his heart rate in-between set/reps even rest, doing visual check (shortness of breathes, grasping of the chest etc.), active recovery in-between sets and the good old talk test.
• Once we were given the green light from his specialist we increased the weights Chris was using and started to work on building strength improving overall muscular endurance, posture and movement for strength training.
• Strength training is something that Chris has excelled in, which is very important for general health but also to help build bone health/density to help prevent osteoporosis.
• We have also gradually started including up/down movements as well as laying down movements that initially used to spike his heart rate, too high.
• We continue to improve on Chris’ cardio vascular health as well as this is extremely important for anyone Chris’ age, but especially post heart surgery.

“My story so far: my health took a turn for the worse in April 2019 which required heart surgery for an aortic valve replacement and triple by-pass. Laying in hospital for a week and then recovering at home for two months I had plenty of time to reassess how I was going to recover from this event and ensure I live a healthier and longer life. At 62 and having pulled back to part-time work in 2017 I had to make changes to my lifestyle for this to happen.

I was an active walker being the extent of my exercise up to the surgery. I have been to gyms in the past but never achieved any major outcomes. I had heard of Terrific Fitness through my daughter and a close family friend who is a member. With strong family support I decided to give TF a go as I had lost all condition through minimal exercise and was not progressing in my recovery. I met up with Terri in late August 2019 and we talked through my current condition & medical history and decided on a PT program twice a week working with Emilia. We discussed and agreed my goals and got started.

Despite a medical set back that put me out for 4 weeks I got through the first PT program in January 2020. Made some significant progress towards my goals with improved weight loss, visceral fat levels, muscle levels, centimeter loss and a greater understanding of nutrition. I completed a second PT program in early May with greater continuity of training even though half the sessions were via face time at home which worked very well.

Right now I feel in the best shape I have been in for 20 years with great stamina, improved physical capability and all the medical indicators looking good. Most of all I have learnt so much about the impact of nutrition on my health and body. I have filled in a number of food diaries and undertaken nutrition boot camp a few times to ensure I am on track consuming the right foods. This is the biggest challenge for me at the moment as I change life-long habits of eating the wrong foods. Most days are pretty good but I do have days where I get ahead of myself and fall off the 4 meals of protein, vegies with minimal carbs and less sugar. Discipline is key and Emilia keeps me honest with daily updates of my activity and food.

The team at TF has been outstanding in looking after me and improving my health and well-being especially during Covid-19. I look forward to the PT sessions every week as well as doing extra sessions at home whilst maintaining my walking. I do look forward to (in 3 months) joining some of the classes once my fitness and condition continues to improve.

Once again thanks Terri and Emilia and team at TF in changing my lifestyle.

Cheers, Chris”

– Chris Doidge