Colin

My name is Colin Ward and I am writing about my experience hiring Lisa Giesbrecht to design my custom diet and oversee my training.

A little bit about me to start. I am 40 years old and have been weight training for over 20 years now. I came from an athletic background and was quite fit growing up playing soccer in the winter and box lacrosse in the summer from the time I was 6 years old. By the time I turned 18 I was working a full time job as a carpenter apprentice and was starting to prefer my time in the gym over the rainy evenings out on the soccer pitch. By the time I turned 19 I was a regular gym rat and was enjoying the challenges I could give myself progressing in my weekly workouts.

Over the years I had varying degrees of success with my training and was able to build up a decent muscle base for a shorter guy of 5’7”. I had a general idea of proper nutrition to achieve my goals of building muscle but still had many questions about the best way to go about it. Everything with my diet was trial and error and because I was not tracking anything or comparing my results to previous plans, I found myself frustrated and did not know what worked best. I mean how could I still not know what to eat or how to achieve my goal after 20 years? Sadly, many train their whole lives without ever figuring this out…

I had seen Lisa training at my gym for a few years before I actually met her…and was impressed with her own training and work ethic in the gym. One of my best friends hired her to oversee his diet and training leading up to competing in his first bodybuilding show in November of 2013. This was a former training partner of mine who had a similar history of training as me so I was amazed to see how he was able to transform his physique under Lisa’s guidance.

I decided in June of 2014 I wanted to work with Lisa in order to lean down and lose some body-fat. I was impressed with how professional Lisa was in the initial consultation and learned we would need to take multiple progress benchmarks such as bodyweight, body-fat percentage, hydration levels, measurement of body parts, and pictures to visually chart my progress. I was also impressed to see that Lisa brought that same work ethic and determination that has helped her succeed in her own endeavors to her work with her clients.

Lisa worked with me helping to identify what my goal was. Once we established that, she was able to design a custom diet for me based on the kinds of foods I already enjoyed eating. No sense in trying to choke down food you don’t really like. I really liked how the guesswork was taken out of what I should be eating, how much I should be eating, and when I should be eating it. At first the diet seemed like a lot of food, but I was pleasantly surprised when I lost over 5 pounds in the first month alone.

I was also impressed (and relieved) with how flexible Lisa was when I approached her about a 4 day trip to Las Vegas for a wedding roughly half way through our program. She understands that we all have things that will come up from time to time and that occasionally a little break from training or diet can be good.

When I started out with Lisa in June of 2014 I weighed 188 lbs and when I finished up my cut diet I was able to get down to 163 lbs, a full 25 pound difference. I was really happy I was able to achieve my goal with Lisa’s help. I also learned a lot from Lisa along the way, as she is very open to drawing upon and sharing her own vast personal experiences. I have had many positive comments from people at work and at the gym remarking on how good of shape I am now in. I was also extremely happy to learn that I was as healthy on the inside as I

looked on the outside when I had a full physical completed when I turned 40. My LDL (bad) Cholesterol was extremely low and I was also maintaining a very healthy blood pressure.

I am really excited to continue working with Lisa in 2014. We have identified my new goal of maintaining my current conditioning and set about adding some lean muscle, a combination that I have never been able to successfully do on my own in the past.