Success Stories

Lose Weight

Liz Odle

62

When Liz came to GH, she needed help. In the prior year, she had gone from a size 8 to a size 14 with a body fat percentage over 45% and overweight by 50 pounds. She had tried different health clubs and personal trainers, and had started to lose hope as everyone told her she was a “challenge” given her age, lower back issues/bone density (post menopausal issues).

When we first met Elizabeth, she had several conditions that needed to be addressed. The two most pressing were losing weight, and fixing her lower-back damage and a relieving the pain from a previous shoulder injury. Unfortunately, Elizabeth had been disheartened by her previous efforts to gain control of her health so we knew we had to start by showing Elizabeth she could conquer her problems. The key to weight loss for Elizabeth was nutrition so that is where we focused. We asked her to keep a detailed food journal and used it as a starting point to help her understand what she was eating, why she wasn’t losing weight, and to educate her on better options. We went one day at a time – in order to show her that she can succeed. We coached Elizabeth into eliminating dairy from her diet. She saw results and her confidence lifted. Then we worked with her to eliminate artificial sweeteners. The results kept coming, and a combination of little steps and little successes meant Elizabeth was excited to see the results and motivated to keep making more significant changes in her eating habits. In terms of the exercise program, we focused on strengthening Elizabeth’s core and lower back by slowly building muscle tissue. As she saw her own strength increase from improved eating as well as increased muscle mass in her most needed areas, we moved onto strengthening her shoulder and overall muscle tone.

Elizabeth’s doctors had been concerned about her health and they continued doing blood work to monitor her progress. After two months with GH her vitamin, calcium and cholesterol levels had all shown signs of improvement and she was assessed to have reduced her risk of heart disease. In her first 100 days with GH, Elizabeth lost more than 30 pounds. She feels better, her back and shoulder hurt less, and her overall energy level and happiness has improved. Elizabeth has the knowledge, the confidence and the motivation to continue losing weight, continue increasing her muscle mass, and continue listening to her trainer Troy who coached her through her struggle with weight loss, helped fix her body, and is there every week to meet her with a smile and something new to teach.

Troy Mork