Fat Loss Case Studies

Coach Viva
Fat Loss
Case Studies
2 Overview
6 Case Studies
7 Case Study Persona 1
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Overview
Below, you’ll find realistic data of what our client population looks like across
different ages, starting weight, job industries, health conditions, etc.
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Case Studies
To protect our clients' identities, we're not going to use real names but we will use
their real body stats. For clients with very similar backgrounds, similar stats, and
similar strategies that ended up working for them, we combined multiple individuals
in the same cohort into 1 persona.
In the following pages, you’ll find 8 detailed case studies for the 8 client personas
that we come across most frequently in our coaching.
Quick Note On Iceberg Strategies...
You’ll also see the term “Iceberg Strategies,” subdivided into “Above-the-waterline”
and “Below-the-waterline” strategies.
A lot of people think there is one right way to lose fat or one magic bullet that
makes everything easier. When you see your fit friends or favorite instagrammer
succeed on intermittent fasting, you may think “that’s the magic bullet!”
What most people don’t know is that what they’re seeing is just the tip of the
Iceberg, what’s “above the waterline.”
They don’t see that “below the waterline,” this person may also be meal planning,
watching their carb intake, or strength training at the gym.
So in the case studies below, we want to specifically call out what were the
Above-the-waterline vs Below-the-waterline strategies that worked for our clients.
You’ll notice that often, the Below-the-waterline strategies were essential to help the
client stay consistent with their Above-the-waterline strategies.
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Case Study Persona 1
● Average Age: 33
● Gender: Female
● Average Height: 5'6
● Average Starting Weight: 215 lb
● Industry: Tech, Engineering, or another office job
● Lives With: Alone
● Who Cooks In The Household? Self
● Food Restrictions: N one
● Medical Issues: A sthma or just can't do high-impact cardio (e.g., joint issues)
● Current Exercises: None
Initial Assessment
1. What have you tried in the past? I've tried other calorie-counting apps in the
past. They worked for a little while, but I don't like keeping meticulously
detailed lists. It can also be tough to find the name of the specific food in
these apps. I don't like meticulously measuring and weighing things, but I also
need more structure.
2. What are you open to trying? Eating less food or eating different food,
eating mostly the same meals over and over, cooking at home, tracking food
as long as it's low-effort.
3. What are you NOT open to trying? Eliminating any food groups, having to
measure everything I eat all the time, spending more than an hour total
cooking per week, high-impact cardio exercises.
4. What do you think are your biggest barriers to success right now? No time
to calorie count in-the-moment and cook much.
Her Iceberg Strategies
Above-the-waterline:
● Tracking the number of calories eaten with the goal of reducing overall
calorie consumption.
Below-the-waterline:
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● Cook easy, low-calorie but high-nutrient recipes that take less than 10 minutes
to prepare with the goal of eating these cooked meals at least 80% of the
time.
The Full Story
Strategy 1. Tracking the number of calories eaten.
● Why did this work her?

By focusing on calories only, she didn't need to eliminate any food groups.
This client was also not opposed to tracking food in general, only against
having to look up foods in calorie apps every time she needed to eat
something. As you'll see in Strategy 2 below, we figured out a way for her to
not have to do this 80% of the time by sticking to repeat meals.
● What did this look like in practice?

In our coaching, we offer clients the option to handle looking up calories for
them. In this case, the client only needed to text food names to us, and we
would do the calorie math for them.
However, you can also do this on your own by writing down just the food
names as you eat them, then set aside some time at the end of the day for
looking up the calories later when you're less busy or in a clearer headspace .
Even then. You don't need to calorie-count 100% of the time. See our
discussion on Strategy 2 below for how this client was able to avoid
calorie-counting 80% of the time.
● What changes had to be made along the way?

Her starting maintenance calories were around 2000. Since she had a lot of
room to maneuver, she agreed to eat around 1700 calories/day, which was
300 calories less than her maintenance calories. A 300 calorie deficit was a
large enough deficit such that she would be able to see decent fat loss
progress but not so much such that she'd feel too much discomfort.
This worked great for the first 2 months, and then her weight loss rate slowed
down. Because she lost a lot of weight during those two months, her
maintenance calories decreased to 1900. So she decreased her target calories
by 100 calories more to create that 300 calorie deficit again.
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2 months after that, her progress not only slowed but this time it completely
stalled even though she was still eating substantially less than her
maintenance calories. On paper, she should have still been losing weight.
Given the data, we agreed that this time, it was likely her body had adapted to
the low-calorie intake and had become temporarily resistant to losing more
fat.
So instead of lowering her calories more, we decided to put her on a

"maintenance break." This meant eating at her maintenance calories (1800 at
this point) for a week in order to "reset" her metabolism.
After the 1-week reset, she went back to her old calorie target and was able to
lose fat again. Knowing what she knows now, she can expect this pattern to
repeat every 4-6 months and know what to do about it.
Strategy 2. Cook easy, low-calorie but high-nutrient recipes that take less than
10 minutes to prepare.
● Why did this work for her?

Since this client wasn't a picking eater, but she was very time-crunched, we
figured having a repeatable set of recipes would be perfect for her.
The great thing about finding a handful of recipes to cook repeatedly is that
she only had to measure everything once to get the hang of the recipes, after
which she didn't need to measure any ingredients again because she knew
exactly how to recreate each one.
This strategy also didn't prevent her from eating out if she wanted to (but she
rarely did anyway). Her target was to simply eat these recipes 80% of the
time. The other 20% could be made up of new recipes, restaurant foods,
packaged foods, etc.

To ramp up slowly, she first started by figuring out what recipes she already
knew, could make in less than 10 minutes, could make 2-3 days worth of so
that she only needed to cook 2-3 times a week, and was around 500 calories
per serving.
Why 500 calories? Because as we discussed in Strategy 1 above, her daily

calorie target was 1700/day. So if she ate 3 square meals a day, and each one
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was about 500 calories, then she knew she'd be consuming around 1500
calories each day while still leaving about 200 calories left for snacks and
surprises. This was great because that meant she didn't need to count calories
for most of her eating.
To expand her cooking repertoire, every week after that, she would try to
increase the number of existing recipes she knew by just 1 more until she has
a set of rotating meals she could stick to for the long haul without getting
bored of.
In our coaching, we also wrote her some recipes based on her taste and
preferences, but you can look up recipes online for yourself too.

This strategy required little change throughout her fat loss journey.
After only a few weeks of experimentation, she had a rotating set of recipes
to try while still being open to learning new ones every week or every other
week.
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● Average Age: 31
● Gender: Female
● Industry: Education, Teaching, Office job
● Lives With: Partner
● Food Restrictions: V egetarian
● Medical Issues: None
● Current Exercises: Cardio, Strength Training
Initial Assessment
1. What have you tried in the past? Various exercise classes like spinning,
running, body pump, bodyweight resistance training, pilates, orange theory,
and barre - they were great, but I’m not seeing changes and I think it’s my
diet. I also tried Noom and Intermittent fasting - they worked short term but I
couldn't stick to it.
2. What are you open to trying? Eating less food or eating different food as
long as nothing is 100% banned, cooking more at home, working on strategies
to reduce cravings around treats.
3. What are you NOT open to trying? Eliminating any food groups (especially
sweets), spending too much time learning about nutrition (I prefer just
knowing a few basic guidelines of what to eat), limiting my eating out at
restaurants.
4. What do you think are your biggest barriers to success right now?
"Convenience" eating, especially when there's food right in front of me. I feel
the urge to eat it even if I'm not hungry.
● Tracking the number of calories and protein eaten with the goal of reducing
calories while increasing protein.
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● Tracking and planning for the number of sweets eaten per day with the goal
of reducing overall sweets consumption.
● Use a combination of Wave-Riding and Substitution strategies to deal with
in-the-moment cravings. (Explained more below)
The Full Story
Strategy 1. Tracking the number of calories and protein eaten.

By focusing on calories and protein only, she didn't need to eliminate any
food groups. This also didn't force her to have to spend a lot of time learning
everything about nutrition to get started immediately, since "information
overwhelm" was one of her fears. She only needed to focus on calories and
protein.
Why protein too? Because this client was also actively strength training while
trying to lose weight. In order to preserve muscle while losing weight, we
suggested a protein target as well.

However, you can also do this on your own by using an app like MyFitnessPal.
If you don't have time to look up calories in-the-moment, you could also just
start by writing down just the food names as you eat them, then set aside
some time at the end of the day for looking up the calories later when you're
less busy.

Her starting maintenance calories were around 1700. Since she didn't have a
lot of room to maneuver and didn't want to restrict too much too quickly, she
agreed to eat around 1500 calories/day, which was 200 calories less than her
maintenance calories.
down. Because she lost quite a bit of weight during those two months, her
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maintenance calories decreased to 1650. So she decreased her target calories
by 50 more to create that 200 calorie deficit again
2 months after that, the same thing happened, so she decreased her calories
by 50 more.
This pattern repeated until she was able to reach her goal weight and dress
size by month 10. Because each time she decreased calories, it was by a small
amount, she was able to stick to her targets without feeling deprived most of
the way through.
As for protein, since she was a vegetarian and had no experience tracking
protein in the past, we assumed her current protein intake was very low. So
she started with a daily protein target of 0.4g per lb of bodyweight since this
is the minimum recommended protein by nutrition organizations.
It was very difficult to meet 0.4 protein per lb of bodyweight at first. She
needed to stick to this goal for 6 months before she felt like it was easy
enough to increase.
Over time, she became able to meet 0.6g protein per lb of bodyweight with
little trouble and 0.8g (which is the recommended amount for someone who's
strength training) on her good days by adding small sources of protein like
nutritional yeast, greek yogurt, and protein powder to her other usual foods.
Strategy 2. Tracking and planning for the number of sweets eaten.

The goal is to minimize sweets without completely eliminating them. Since
sweets were one of this client's biggest barriers to staying within her calorie
goals, we added a target to specifically track this.

Every time she had a serving of sweet (e.g., 1 slice of cake/pie, a donut, a
cookie, a scoop of ice cream), it would count as 1.
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In our coaching, we offer clients the option of tracking food group servings for
them, but this is something you can do on your own with just a pen and paper
too.
She estimated she typically had 1-2 sweets every day, so she decided to start
with a target of having less than 1 sweet a day. That way, it's not too hard to
meet at first.
Meeting a sweets goal by itself in isolation turned out to be difficult since

many times when there were sweets around, she had a difficult time stopping
after she had already started eating. She would eat one, and then dwell on
not being able to have anymore, which would ironically cause her to grab
more compulsively to satisfy that itch.
Learning from this, we tried the tactic of planning for sweets. She would pick
one sweet each day and either (1) break it into pieces to enjoy it throughout
the day or (2) save it for the end of the workday.
The latter planning strategy was useful psychologically. By planning for 1

dessert at the end of her workday, she not only had something to look
forward to all day but after she ate it, she didn't have many hours left in the
day to dwell on having more. And since usually, the treats were at work
anyway, often the temptation would no longer be there after she left the
building.
Strategy 3: Use a combination of Wave-Riding and Substitution strategies to

deal with in-the-moment cravings.

While Strategy 2 helped prevent this client from overindulging on sweets after
she had already started eating, Strategy 3 is more about helping her deal with
cravings b
efore she started eating.

Wave-Riding strategies strategies meant to help you ride out the feelings of
craving a type of food until it goes away. Unlike hunger, cravings rise and fall
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instead of persisting. So people find that most of the time, they can actually
wait out the craving.
An example of a wave-riding strategy is to drink a tall glass of water, pause

for 10 minutes, then check back to see if you still want the snack. If you still
want it, take one and eat half. Drink water, pause, and repeat.
Substitution strategies use no or low-calorie foods to substitute for the food

you're craving in-the-moment. For instance, if you're craving something
sweet, try drinking spiced tea, chewing sugarless gum, a piece of fruit, or a
piece of dark chocolate.
We started with wave-riding strategies first like the Water strategy discussed
above. What this client found was that the Wave-Riding strategies sometimes
worked, but it worked only about half of the time.
So we added Substitution strategies, which are meant to keep the client

occupied with a lower-calorie substitute for the craving until the craving
passes. She especially found drinking spiced tea and chewing sugarless gum
effective substitutes because they can last longer than a piece of fruit.
● What she found was that it often took a combination of both in order to ride
out the craving fully. Having multiple options ultimately helped her work it out
in the end.
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● Average Age: 36
● Gender: Female
● Industry: Self-employed
● Lives With: Partner & Kids
● Medical Issues: I nsomnia, mild depression, and taking medication for both.
Initial Assessment
1. What have you tried in the past? Noom, calorie counting, weight watchers,
precision nutrition - I lost weight but gained it all back because I got
overwhelmed. I've also tried paleo, keto, and whole30 but found them too
restrictive.
long as nothing is 100% off-limits, cooking at home, modifying meal timing,
and eating mostly the same foods (except for dinner because I must prepare
dinner for my family).
3. What are you NOT open to trying? Eliminating any food groups (especially
at dinner), counting calories, measuring everything I eat, limiting eating out at
restaurants, spending too much time per day thinking about and planning my
meals.
4. What do you think are your biggest barriers to success right now? S taying
under calories without meticulously tracking food. I eat mostly nutritious,
whole foods with some dessert and alcohol, but I need to truly understand
indulging in moderation.
● Intermittent fasting + modifications (see Full Story below for details on

modifications)
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● Tracking the number of sweets and alcohol eaten and drunk per day with the
goal of reducing overall sweets and alcohol consumption.
● Tracking the number of servings of lean proteins & vegetables eaten per day
with the goal of increasing overall consumption.
The Full Story
Strategy 1. Intermittent fasting + modifications

This strategy didn't eliminate any food groups, require calorie counting, nor
the ability to eat out at restaurants. The only limitation was that she could
only eat within a certain time window at least 80% of the time.
There were occasional exceptions of course like vacations, special dinners, or

late-night hunger due to insomnia. But she was able to meet this 80% of the
time, which was sufficient to see progress.
Intermittent fasting turned out to work well mainly because this client didn't
want to think about and plan too much about food, and by limiting the
window of time to eat food, she only had to think about two meals a day
(lunch and dinner) in addition to an occasional afternoon snack. Since it was
very hard to eat too much in 1 meal, by limiting herself to 2 big meals a day, it
made it easy to eat less than her maintenance calories without explicitly
calorie-counting.
Also because this client wasn't particularly hungry in the morning, it was not
too difficult for her to just skip breakfast and start her first meal at noon. She
wouldn't feel deprived since she got to have a big lunch and dinner.

Intermittent fasting works by restricting w
hen you eat rather than what or
how much you eat. For instance, this client chose an eating window of 12 pm -
8 pm, which meant she didn't eat their first caloric meal of the day until 12 pm
and must finish her last meal of the day by 8 pm.
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She could drink coffee with almond in the morning though. Some almond milk
or a piece of fruit was also fine late at night if she happened to stay up later
and get unbearably hungry.
This was fine since almond milk and fruit are low-calorie such that it wouldn't
make much of a difference.

When we first started with this client, we focused more on Strategies 2-3
(discussed below) by moderating their sweets and alcohol while trying to
increase their consumption of fruits, vegetables, and protein.
While this helped her increase her satiety and eat fewer sweets and alcohol
overall, she would still eat more calories than her maintenance over the
course of the day because it was not always easy to stop eating after she
started on a meal. Especially when it got busy at work, she found it difficult to
keep from mindlessly grazing on snacks in the office.
We agreed that the next most effective thing to try that didn't violate any of
her non-negotiables was to play around with meal timing.
At first we started with an eating window of 11am-7pm, but she found that she
tended to eat dinner later in the day when work got busy. So we moved it to
12pm-8pm.
We also had to make some extra modifications to this Intermittent Fasting

strategy.
First, she also found that while she was able to sustain this schedule most
days, her body really wanted coffee in the morning, so she allowed herself to
add coffee + almond milk to the start of her day outside her eating window.
After that, her body adapted to the new eating routine.
Another occasional snag she hit was that sometimes she would have
insomnia and would get hungry at night from being awake for too long.
Rather than eat another meal, we agreed to have some tea + almond milk or
fruit to help her quell her hunger without adding too many extra calories. The
tea also helped her relax so she could get back to sleep.
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It took a while to finally fine-tune this strategy, but in the end, staying within
the eating window turned out to be key in getting her to eat less food over the
course of the day without feeling deprived.
Strategy 2. Tracking the number of sweets eaten.

These strategies didn't involve her having to count calories or meticulously
weigh anything. She still needed to track food, but only in terms of serving
sizes (which she could determine using just her hand for scale), which was far
less stressful than calories.
Since sweets and alcohol were the foods she tended to consume that were
highest in calories per volume, modulating these would help her eliminate a
lot of calories over the course of the day without resorting to counting
calories.

Every time she had a serving of sweet (e.g., 1 slice of cake/pie, a donut, a
cookie, a scoop of ice cream), it would count as 1.
Every serving of alcohol (e.g., glass of wine, can of beer, glass of cocktail) also
counted as 1.
too.

First, she decided to reduce her weekly sweets and alcohol by just 1 less than
what she was currently having. That would make it easy enough to stick to for
the first few weeks.
The plan was that once she was able to maintain the current targets for 3
weeks consistently, she would decrease that number by 1 more until she felt
she was making enough progress that she didn't need to decrease more.
But we hit a snag along the way!
While she was able to hit her new sweets and alcohol targets, it didn't help her
make progress. After discussing with us, we hypothesized that she might be
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eating more junk food, sweets, and alcohol than what a typical serving was.
Even though she was using her hand to gauge portion sizes, it was still very
easy to cheat on the portions by writing off "just a few bites" as "not
counting."
She also noted that while she needed some kind of sweets or alcohol every
day to feel satisfied, she didn't need all three.
With these learnings, we agreed to switch to a rotation system, where every

day she would either have a serving of sweets or alcohol but not a
combination.
This not only helped her reduce her calories, but also made it easier for her to
stick with it because it simplified her choices without making her feel deprived.
Strategy 3: Tracking the number of servings of lean proteins & vegetables

eaten.

The goal of increasing lean proteins (e.g., lean meat, fish, low-fat dairy, tofu)
and vegetables was to increase foods high in satiety and volume while still
low in calories so that she could eat more food and feel satiated without
going too overboard on calories.
Like most clients, she found that when she ate a meal high in protein, she felt
fuller and didn't feel the need to eat more.

Every time she had a serving of lean protein (about 1 palm-sized portion), it
would count as 1. And every serving of vegetables (about 1 cup or 1 fist-sized
portion) also counted as 1.
too.

She decided to shoot for a starting goal of 1 serving of protein and vegetables
per meal.
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This target turned out not to be difficult for her to hit since she would eat the
same salads for lunch every day. And it wasn't difficult for her to include extra
vegetables and protein at dinner since she regularly cooks for her family
every day.
She also was able to work in a protein for an afternoon snack in the form of
either yogurt or a protein bar. She's currently able to consistently aim for 3
servings of each per day.
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● Average Age: 37
● Gender: Female
● Industry: Education
● Medical Issues: D epression, anxiety, and taking medication for both.
● Current Exercises: Cardio
Initial Assessment
1. What have you tried in the past? Various exercises - they didn't last long.
Programs like Weight Watchers and Noom - worked well but it was easy to
ignore them after a while. Diets like calorie counting, vegan, paleo, low carb,
and going dairy-free - worked short term but too restricting.
long as nothing's 100% off-limits, exercising as long as it's short, tracking food,
eating mostly the same things.
3. What are you NOT open to trying? Eliminating food groups (especially at
dinner), limiting time spent eating out (especially on weekends), too much
exercise that becomes a time sink.
4. What do you think are your biggest barriers to success right now? I
already enjoy eating nutritious food, but I need to limit how much food I'm
eating in total. I also need to avoid reactively eating food just because they're
available. Finally, I need help staying motivated when things get boring.
● Tracking the number of calories eaten with the goal of reducing overall
calorie consumption.
● Eating frequent, high-satiety meals.
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● Floating cheat days.

● Tracking "daily wins."
● Cultivating the Abundance Mindset.
The Full Story
Strategy 1. Tracking the number of calories eaten.

By focusing on calories only, she didn't need to eliminate any food groups.
This client was also not opposed to tracking food in general from the start.

If you don't have time to look up calories in-the-moment, you could also just
start by writing down just the food names as you eat them, then set aside
some time at the end of the day for looking up the calories later when you're
less busy.

Her starting maintenance calories were around 2150. She agreed to eat
around 1900 calories/day, which was 250 calories less than her maintenance
calories. A 250 calorie deficit was a large enough deficit such that she would
be able to see decent fat loss progress but not so much such that she'd feel
too much discomfort.
down. Because she lost a lot of weight during those two months, her
maintenance calories decreased to 2050. So she decreased her target
calories by 100 calories more to create that 250 calorie deficit again.
It took 4 more months before we had to decrease her calories by 100 more
down to 1700 because two of those months were over the holidays, and she
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took several vacations where she deliberately chose not to eat in a calorie
deficit so that she could enjoy her vacation.
A few months later after that, we hit the same snag we had with the client in
Case Study 1.
This client's progress not only slowed but this time it completely stalled even
though she was still eating substantially less than her maintenance calories.
On paper, she should have still been losing weight. Given the data, we agreed
that this time, it was likely her body had adapted to the low-calorie intake and
had become temporarily resistant to losing more fat.
So instead of lowering her calories more, we decided to put her on a

"maintenance break." This meant eating at her maintenance calories (2000 at
this point) for a week in order to "reset" her metabolism.
After the 1-week reset, she went back to her old calorie target and was able to
lose fat again, but unlike the client in Case Study 1, her body quickly adapted
again and stopped losing weight again.
We agreed to try a 2-week reset this time instead, assuming her body needed
a bit longer than 1 week to get back into fat-loss mode. It was the right move,
as she was able to lose fat consistently again after the second time.
Strategy 2. Eating frequent, high-satiety meals.

While tracking calories helped give a basic guideline on how much to eat, she
found that a lot of times, she would eat too much during the daytime and run
out of room by nighttime.
Eating frequent small but high-satiety meals helped her guide her eating
throughout the day without making her feel hungry by waiting too long in
between meals.

If her current calorie target was 1800 for the day, she would try to eat 5-6
meals that were 300-360 calories each about every 2 hours. Most of these
meals she would prep ahead of time since she was okay with eating the same
meals most of the time.
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We first agreed to try this strategy when the client pointed out that she would
frequently get hungry or at least get cravings if she hasn't eaten food in a
while. This feeling got worse the longer she's been in a calorie deficit.
Eating fewer, higher-calorie meals didn't work. So instead, we agreed to try

the opposite: Eating more frequent, but lower-calorie meals.
That way, she could get something to eat about once every 2-3 hours.
It wasn't difficult to come up with foods that were low in calories but still
satiating, because she already enjoyed eating vegetables, so most of her
meals were high in vegetables and fiber.
She also tried to fit in foods high in protein into most of her meals to increase
satiety.
Strategy 3: Floating cheat days.

Not all days are created equal. While most days she was fine with eating the
same things, at least once a week, she would want to indulge a bit more. This
also kept things from getting too boring from mostly eating the same thing
day after day.
Having floating cheat days helped her let loose once a week without going
overboard on total weekly calories.

Having cheat days simply means designating days where you eat more than
usual.
For instance, if her expected daily calorie target was 1800/day, and she wants
to have 1 cheat day a week, then she could choose to eat 1740 calories 6 times
a week and 2160 the other day of the week. Because that averages out to
1800/day, this means over the course of the week, she would still be eating
within her expected calorie target towards making progress.
A "floating" cheat day means a cheat day that you get to use any time during
the week, but it doesn't need to be the same day every week. For most
people, they choose to use their floating cheat days on a Friday or Saturday.
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The strategy of using Floating Cheat Days came into effect after the client
had been restricting calories for almost a year.
She was starting to get bored and needed a way to break from eating the
same kinds of foods. That's when we decided to try using cheat days.
We tried experimenting with 2 cheat days a week, but the amount of calories
she was allotted for the other 5 days of the week were too small to be worth
it. She also didn't feel like she needed 2 days a week to feel satisfied, so we
stuck to only 1 day a week.
So far, it has been effective for her and no other changes need to be made.
Strategy 4: Tracking "Daily Wins."
Since motivation was a big concern for her, tracking daily wins helped her
stay motivated even on days where she wasn't able to meet her targets.

A "daily win" is any healthy decision or action you did for the day. It could be
something as simple as "I didn't have time to exercise so I went for a walk
instead" or "I didn't eat an extra cookie."
The point is to find one thing in your day you felt proud of yourself for doing.

No changes needed to be made to this strategy. The client may not be able to
always recall a daily win every day, but they were able to enough times that it
helped them stay motivated during the low times.
Strategy 5: Cultivating the Abundance Mindset.

One of this client's biggest mental barriers was around the Scarcity Mindset -
feeling that if there were food around her, she must eat them or else they
may not be available anymore soon.
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In order to combat this mindset, we needed to help cultivate the opposite,
Abundance Mindset.

An Abundance Mindset is the opposite of the Scarcity Mindset. It says that
there will always be enough food around. For instance, if someone brings
cookies to work, and you don't eat any, you can always go buy similar
cookies in the future.
The practice of cultivating this mindset is harder to do and takes repetition.

Essentially it involves first (1) being aware of when you're falling into the
Scarcity Mindset, then (2) reframing your situation in terms of the Abundance
Mindset.

We started by introducing the difference between the Scarcity Mindset vs
Abundance Mindset since the first step was just awareness.
Then we worked on practicing noticing the Scarcity Mindset when it showed
up.
Finally we tried ways of reframing the situation, using self-talk like: "I can
always buy more later" or "I will have another one tomorrow. If there's no
more, I can always buy another tomorrow."
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● Average Age: 27
● Gender: Female
● Industry: Medical, Student
● Lives With: Alone or with partner
● Food Restrictions: V egetarian
● Medical Issues: P COS, insulin resistance, pre-diabetes.
● Current Exercises: None or inconsistent exercises
Initial Assessment
1. What have you tried in the past? For exercise, I tried a personal trainer,
kickboxing, dance, and Zumba, but they were hard on my hands and feet. I've
tried multiple diets over the years: keto, paleo, cutting carbs and sugar, and
calorie-counting. Keto and cutting carbs and sugar worked for a while, but it's
hard to maintain that lifestyle. Calorie counting also worked for a while, but I
was constantly hungry for a month.
2. What are you open to trying? E xercising more, cooking more, eating less
food or eating different food as long as it's not too restrictive and nothing's
100% off-limits, tracking food, learning about what to eat.
3. What are you NOT open to trying? Eliminating sugar, cooking everything,
limiting time spent eating out with friends, crash dieting.
4. What do you think are your biggest barriers to success right now? L osing
weight with PCOS and pre-diabetes is harder than losing weight normally. I
have to constantly snack on things to keep from feeling too hungry and
hypoglycemic but doing that also makes me overeat. I feel like it's a no-win
situation.
● Meal planning ahead of what to eat for 80% of her meals.

● Reducing net carb intake.
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● Planning ahead before eating out at restaurants.

● Using food portioning for in-the-moment restaurant eating.
● Using Substitution strategies to deal with in-the-moment carb and sugar
cravings.
The Full Story
Strategy 1. Meal planning ahead of what to eat for 80% of her meals.

This client was open to tracking calories and actually preferred it because it
could help her learn what foods were high & low in calories, but she had a
hard time logging food in-the-moment due to her busy schedule as she would
often eat on-the-go. She would resort to backlogging what she ate from
memory at the end of the day instead and would either realize she ate way
more than she had thought or forgot what foods she ended up having (so
there would be hidden calories).
For this reason, meal planning ahead of time worked better for her. She didn't
need to think as hard about food in-the-moment, and if she ended up having
something different than what she had planned to have, it's much easier to
notice and remember. This is because humans are much better at noticing
and remembering what's d ifferent about something vs. what simply occurred.
This strategy also didn't prevent her from eating out at restaurants if she
wanted to. The goal is to plan out as many meals as you can, and it's okay to
leave some parts blank for surprises (like if you plan to eat out for dinner but
don't know where yet).

Either the night before or the morning of the current day, she would write
down what foods she planned to have for the day to the best of her
knowledge.
For instance, most of the time, she knew what she wanted to eat for
breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snacks, but maybe not dinner. In that case,
she would leave room for dinner.
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Knowing that most dinners at restaurants were about 700-800 per dish, she
might leave 750 calories free in her plan if she knew she would be going out
to eat later that day.
Regardless, she usually left about 200 calories worth of room at the end of
the day for surprises.
Also, planned foods didn't need to be home-cooked. It was perfectly fine to

include plans to grab something from Starbucks or a frozen microwaveable
meal. The important part is planning ahead of time.
As expected, sometimes things don't go according to plan. For instance, she

might have had to pick up something from the vending machine instead of
going to Starbucks because she was in a rush (she's on her feet a lot and
often work shifts). When cases like that happened, it was usually fine because
she left a 200-calorie buffer to account for surprises.
When she revisited her initial log at the end of the day, it was very easy for
her to remember what she had eaten differently (because recall: our minds
wired to look for differences from expectations) from her initial plans. This
would help her tailor her plan for the next day.
Note: In our coaching, we offer clients the option to handle looking up calories
and adjust meal plans for them. In this case, the client only needed to text
planned food names to us, and we would give advice back. However, this is
something you can also just do on your own with an app like MyFitnessPal
and a pen & pencil.

First, we took a look at her existing food logs to see what kinds of food she
was already eaten and made some suggestions on certain foods that we
recommend repeating and others that we recommend only eating once in a
while.
Using this, she was able to start building her own daily menu plans. She would
send it to us for review and we would offer feedback.
What usually happened was that she would be able to stick to her
pre-planned breakfast, lunch, and snacks. However, dinner was more difficult.
She would often return home too tired to cook or sometimes even prepare a
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packaged meal. Instead, she'd want to order out. Other times, she would get
dragged into an unplanned dinner with friends.
Because of this, she started leaving a 200-calorie buffer room at the end of
the day to account for surprises.
See Strategies 3 and 4 below, which specifically helped her deal more with
eating out at restaurants.
Strategy 2. Reducing net carb intake.

This strategy optimized for eating healthy, fibrous carbs like fibrous
vegetables while minimizing processed carbs and high-sugar foods.
Since she had PCOS and was pre-diabetic, minimizing processed carbs and
high-sugar foods while increasing fibrous carbs was important for stabilizing
insulin levels.

Net carbs = carbs - fiber. This means in practice, she needed to minimize
eating processed carbs like chips, cookies, donuts, and white bread or grains.
These foods have a lot of carbs and not a lot of fiber.
By minimizing these food sources, she would naturally eat more foods high in
protein, healthy fat, and fiber. For instance: greek yogurt (high protein),
fibrous vegetables (high fiber), and avocados (high fiber and healthy fats).

Since she had done keto in the past and it had worked, she actually wanted to
start with keto again. After a few weeks of trying to stick to only 50g net carbs
a day, it once again got too restrictive and she couldn't stick with it.
The problem was that eating only 50g net carbs left little room for even some
fibrous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower (which ended up being one of
her favorite Substitution foods, see Strategy 5). It was also really easy to mess
up on since a lot of sauces used in recipes are high in carbs.
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With all the pressure to meet a very strict goal, she would also often feel bad
about herself and end up binging on exactly the foods she was trying to avoid
like cookies and donuts.
So we agreed to try to increase the net carb limit such that she could enjoy a
wider range of food and even some treats in moderation to break the
starve-binge cycle on treats.
We went up to 70g of net carbs at first and then 100g, which ended up feeling
pretty good for her.
Strategy 3: Planning ahead before eating out at restaurants.

Similar to meal planning for the day, planning ahead for restaurants helped
give her a plan of action, and if she ended up ordering something different
than what she had planned, it would be easier for her to notice and remember
the changes than had she went in without a plan.
For instance, it's easier to remember that you had ordered the burger you
were planning to get with a side of fries instead of soup like you originally
planned vs. coming back from a restaurant anxious because you forgot what
was everything you ordered.

If she knew she had plans to go to a restaurant that day and knew what
restaurant it was, she would look up the menu ahead of time and find
something that fit her calorie budget for the day.
Note: In our coaching, we help clients decide what to order if they send us the
online menu. But this is also something you can do on your own with a
calorie-lookup app like MyFitnessPal.
Tip for those doing this on their own: Have a rotating set of 5-6 restaurants
you really love and find out what healthy foods are on the menu that you
enjoy. Then when your friends propose to eat out, take the first stab at
suggesting one of the restaurants from your list. You'll know exactly what to
order when you get there. That way, you only need to look up calories for this
set of retaurants once and that's it!
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This strategy worked great for when the client knew where she was going to
eat with friends. However, outings weren't always so planned out. So we had
to add Strategy 4, coming up next.
Strategy 4: Using food portioning guidelines for in-the-moment restaurant

eating.
Using food portioning guidelines was helpful to get her to confidently make
eating decisions in-the-moment at restaurants without having to take out her
phone all the time to log foods.

This practice involved some initial education and took some practice before it
became second nature.
We discussed many different types of food portioning strategies, and this one
ended up working best for her:
https://www.precisionnutrition.com/calorie-control-guide-infographic
The basic gist is to eat mostly vegetables and lean protein. Go moderate to
low on the starches (high net carbs) and fats (high calories).

This skill just took some practice before she got comfortable with it, but today
she's able to guess the calories of what's on her plate far more accurately
than she was able to in the past.
One area of challenge was that not all restaurants served foods high in
protein and vegetables. In cases like these, she had to resort to only ordering
starchy, fatty foods like pizzas.
In our coaching, we help clients portion their restaurant foods in-the-moment,

but you can also figure this out on your own. For instance, if you find yourself
constantly surrounded by a specific "no other choice" food like pizza, we
recommend taking time to look at the nutrition information for pizzas so you
can plan for them the next time.
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Take every opportunity to learn from setbacks so you can prepare for future
occurrences.
Strategy 5: Using Substitution strategies to deal with in-the-moment carb

cravings.
These strategies played a big role in helping this client stay satisfied once she
was eating fewer carbs by allowing her to enjoy suitable substitutions for the
typical high-carb foods she wanted to eat more of, especially around her
period when she craved those textures the most.

Substitution strategies for carbs use no or low-carb foods to substitute for the
food you're craving in-the-moment.
For instance, if you're craving pizza, try making homemade pizza with a
premade cauliflower crust. Instead of rice and noodles, try shirataki rice,
shirataki noodles, cauliflower rice, or zucchini noodles.

We went through a few iterations to help this client find a set of suitable
substitutions that she can try whenever she's out of room for carbs but still
wanted bread. Her staples now include shirataki rice and noodles, cauliflower
rice and pizza crusts, spiced tea instead of high-sugar juices, and homemade
desserts using protein powder instead of flour and sugar.
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● Average Age: 40
● Gender: Female
● Industry: Food or office job
● Lives With: Partner + kids
● Medical Issues: P COS
● Current Exercises: None or inconsistent cardio
Initial Assessment
1. What have you tried in the past? Weight watchers, bulletproof diet,
intermittent fasting. I lost only a few lb on these programs and feel it's difficult
to stay on track and be consistent.
2. What are you open to trying? P retty much anything.
3. What are you NOT open to trying? I still need to cook for my family, so we
can't ban food groups entirely, but I'm open to not eating them.
4. What do you think are your biggest barriers to success right now? I need
accountability, guidance on best food practices, how to make weight loss
faster, how to eat less while cooking for my family, how to lose weight while
eating out, and improving my mental self-talk. I feel like PCOS is making
everything worse and it's gotten even slower after my pregnancy.
All the strategies used by the previous Case Study 5 client also applies to this one.
This is because this client shares almost the same profile as the Case Study 5 client
except that this client is older and has a family to support.
To avoid repetition, we'll discuss what additional strategies this client needed in
addition to those discussed in Case Study 5.
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Same strategies as Case Study 5 client plus...
● Do a mix of cardio + strength-based exercises.
Same strategies as Case Study 5 client plus...
● Track and increase protein and water intake.

● Practice Wave-Riding strategies for cravings around food.
● Education & mindset work around evaluating progress.
The Full Story
Strategy 1. Do a mix of cardio + strength-based exercises.

This type of client typically experiences a slower weight loss and metabolism
than others her weight and height due to (1) PCOS and (2) increase in age
(different people's metabolism slows down at different rates, but most cite
their most noticeable slow-downs starting in their mid-30s).
So in addition to the Case Study 5 strategies of meal-planning and reducing

net carb intake, after a certain point, we encouraged this client to create a
further calorie deficit using exercise instead of cutting even more food.
Cardio exercise helped her burn a few more calories during the day. This is
good for short-term calorie burn.
Strength training helped her build muscle, and because muscle burns more
calories than fat, this meant that over the long-term, she would be raising her
metabolism and maintenance calories.

This client did cardio 1-2 times a week and strength training 1-2 times a week.
In our coaching, we wrote workout programs for the clients, but you can do
this on your own too by looking for programs online.
For cardio, it doesn't really matter what exercise you do. Just find something
that you enjoy and helps you break a sweat and do it for ideally 30 minutes.
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This can be running, swimming, biking, dancing, kickboxing, sports, whatever
you want.
For strength, find a routine that trains your entire body and then just make
sure that whenever you find a current exercise too easy, you increase the
weights on your exercises to improve (this is called Progressive Overload).
You can check out our video on Strength Training for Beginners here:
https://youtu.be/8aov96VvSaM.

Because strength training had more long-term benefits when it came to fat
loss, we recommended just strength training 2-3 times a week, but the client
wasn't happy with the slow rate of weight loss. What was happening was that
she was losing inches on her waist almost every week but her weight didn't
always go down and often would stay the same for 3 weeks in a row.
To us, this was good news, because it means she was losing fat while gaining
lean mass (water, glycogen, bone density, and yes, muscle!).
Despite understanding this intellectually, she had a hard time emotionally with
not seeing the scale moving. So we agreed to replace 1 strength session with a
cardio session instead so she could get a mix of short-term and long-term
benefits.
Strategy 2. Track and increase protein and water intake.

Increasing protein and water intake helped with three things:
1. Protein and water both help increase satiety. Protein naturally modulates
the hormones in your body to increase feelings of satiety and decrease
feelings of hunger, while water provides volume-driven satiety by making
your stomach feel fuller.
2. Protein helps build muscle. Without enough protein, her strength training
could cause exhaustion and possibly even muscle loss.
3. Our clients with PCOS tend to see the most fluctuation in their scale weight
due to water retention. By keeping water intake high, they lessen the
magnitude of water retention.
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Since the client had to eat less, especially high-carb food, the extra protein
and water helped them feel satiated.

In practice, the client would try to incorporate more high-protein food like lean
meat, fish, tofu, and low-fat dairy into their diet.
She would try to have at least 1 serving per meal and sometimes needed a
protein bar or shake between meals, especially when she got hungry or
craved sweets between meals.

We added the protein and water goals after the client started complaining
about getting too hungry throughout the day. We found that a combination of
both helped her feel fuller on fewer calories. She also found protein bars to
help with sweet cravings sometimes.
Strategy 3. Practice Wave-Riding strategies for cravings around food.
In addition to the Substitution strategy for carbs discussed in Case Study 5,

because this client was often surrounded by food when preparing meals and
cleaning them up for her family, she needed to use Wave-Riding strategies
too.

Wave-Riding strategies are mindful-eating strategies meant to help you ride
out the feelings of craving a type of food until it goes away. Unlike hunger,
which comes on slowly and persists for a long time if not satisfied, cravings
are triggered suddenly and can disappear just as suddenly if given time to
pass. So people find that most of the time, they can actually wait out the
craving.

Wave-Riding strategies can be combined with Substitution strategies by using

substitutions to delay you from taking action while you ride out the wave.
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For instance, chewing gum and sipping on spiced tea when cleaning up a
meal helped her avoid sneaking in extra bites that tend to add up.
Another type of Wave-Riding strategy she practiced was filling the plate up
with only the amount of food she had planned to eat, and then making it last
as long as she could while sipping water in between bites. Because she found
that whenever she finished her food, but the rest of her family did not, she
would be tempted to have seconds and thirds.
By slowing down her eating, she not only savored her food more, but she was
also able to get more in tune with her satiety signals (which usually take at
least 20 minutes to make it to your brain even after you're stomach is already
physically full).

We went through a few iterations to help this client find a set of suitable
wave-riding strategies that she can try whenever eating with family or at a
buffet. Eating slowly and waiting for the satiety signals to show up took
practice and did not always work the first couple of times, but over time, it got
easier.
Strategy 4. Education & mindset work around evaluating progress.
Because weight loss came slowly for this client, there was always a danger of
losing motivation and thinking about giving up. Working on setting realistic
expectations and mindset helped her persevere instead of giving up like she
had done in previous programs.

We worked on setting realistic expectations around weight loss by showing
her charts of what her progress looked like. We used a combination of weight
and body measurements to show that even when she wasn't losing weight,
her waist or hips would continue to decrease in circumference, meaning she
was getting thinner still.
You can see what real progress looks like for yourself here:
https://youtu.be/5qLlvU1f-5k.
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We also worked on the mindset of evaluating what "success" meant. Rather
think of success as "how much weight did I lose this week?" it's more
productive to think of it as "how much better did I do against my targets this
week than the week before?" and "how much easier was it to meet my targets
this week than the previous week?"
This is an example of the difference between Outcomes-based Thinking vs

Action-based Thinking, which we covered more in our coaching. The gist is
that while Outcomes are important too, it's the Actions we take that measure
how much we've improved over time, because actions are 100% in our control.

Mindset can be a long but rewarding journey. We are still finding new things
to uncover and address every week, because a person never stops growing!
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● Average Age: 34
● Gender: Female
● Industry: Entrepreneur, self-employed, or tech
● Who Cooks In The Household? Self + partner
● Medical Issues: N one
Initial Assessment
1. What have you tried in the past? Elliptical, plyometrics, HIIT, LISS on the
treadmill, and strength training. I'm still actively working out, but I'm no longer
seeing progress, so I think my diet needs to change. I've tried low carb in the
past, but it was way too restrictive for me. I learned a lot about healthy eating
habits with Noom, but I wasn't seeing progress on the scale still.
long as nothing is 100% banned, cooking more at home, working on strategies
to reduce cravings around treats.
3. What are you NOT open to trying? Low carb dieting, eliminating any food
groups, spending too much time meal planning, limiting my eating out at
restaurants.
4. What do you think are your biggest barriers to success right now? I travel
a lot and eat out at restaurants a lot, so meal planning is nearly impossible. I
don't need help finding ways to work out, but I can't seem to get my diet
under control. I also have trouble knowing when I'm hungry or when to stop
eating after I stop.
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● Tracking food groups with the goal increasing low-calorie, high-satiety foods
and decreasing high-calorie, low-satiety foods.
● Using Wave-Riding strategies to deal with in-the-moment cravings.

● Using "Anchor" habits to increase motivation for practicing other habits.
● Using Hunger & Satiety self-tests.
The Full Story
Strategy 1. Tracking food groups with the goal increasing low-calorie,

high-satiety foods and decreasing high-calorie, low-satiety foods.

While this client also logged calories in order to track and learn about the
foods she was eating, it was difficult to always do this in-the-moment,
especially if she was at a social or business event.
So she opted to track food by food groups as well.

She tracked food groups by lean protein, vegetables, alcohol, and desserts.
Her goal was to have at least 3 servings of lean protein and 3 servings of
vegetables every day. On the other hand, she would aim to have less than or
equal to 1 dessert a day and less than 7 servings of alcohol a week.
Note: In our coaching, we offer clients the option to log food by texting it to us,
and we take care of categorizing the foods into food groups and tallying
them up. However, this is something you can also just do on your own with an
app like MyFitnessPal.

We first started with shooting for 3 servings of lean protein and 3 servings of
vegetables, assuming she could eat 1 serving per meal. The goal of these
guidelines was to eat foods high in protein and fiber to increase satiety so
that she would be less likely to eat higher-calorie but less-nutritious food (or
"empty calories").
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We also started with the target of eating no more than 1 dessert a day. This
was harder to stick to, but since she was able to meet it 80% of the time, we
stuck to this goal.
Alcohol took some more trial-and-error. She initially agreed to 3 servings of

alcohol a week, but quickly found that it was really difficult to abstain from
alcoholic beverages when she went out for dinners at restaurants. Since she
went out multiple times a week, we agreed to make the alcohol goal easier at
7 servings a week.
She didn't always meet these targets at first, but it got easier over time. On
days she was able to meet them, she stayed within her calorie targets so that
she could make progress.
Strategy 2. Using Wave-Riding strategies to deal with in-the-moment cravings.
Because she's constantly at social and business events, it was difficult to resist
tempting foods all around her. So the Wave-Riding strategies for cravings
were very useful for her.

Wave-Riding strategies are mindful-eating strategies meant to help you ride
out the feelings of craving a type of food until it goes away. Unlike hunger,
which comes on slowly and persists for a long time if not satisfied, cravings
are triggered suddenly and can disappear just as suddenly if given time to
pass. So people find that most of the time, they can actually wait out the
craving.

Another type of Wave-Riding strategy she practiced was filling the plate up
with only the amount of food she had planned to eat, and then making it last
as long as she could while sipping water in between bites. Because she found
that whenever she finished her plate too soon but was still surrounded by
more food, she would be tempted to have seconds and thirds.
43
By slowing down her eating, she not only savored her food more, but she was
also able to get more in tune with her satiety signals (which usually take at
least 20 minutes to make it to your brain even after you're stomach is already
physically full).

She initially just stuck with food group portioning strategies but found that it
was difficult to stay within those targets just by sheer will alone.
So we went through a few iterations to help this client find a set of suitable
wave-riding strategies that she can try whenever eating with coworkers or
clients. Eating slowly and waiting for the satiety signals to show up took
practice and did not always work the first couple of times, but over time, it got
easier.
Strategy 3. Using "Anchor" habits to increase motivation for practicing other

habits.

This client had difficulties around portioning her food and resisting desserts
and alcohol, but she had no difficulties staying consistent with other healthy
habits like exercising.
Since she enjoyed exercising, we used that as an "anchor" healthy habit to

help remind and motivate her to stay on top of her food goals as well. It was
like doing exercise gave her an "easy win" for the day that triggered her to
keep the healthy streak up for the rest of the day.
Find a way to exercise every day, even if it's as simple as walking or

stretching. The goal was to do some kind of healthy physical activity every
day, preferably in the morning.

What we noticed was that on days she exercised, she was much better about
making food choices after her workout. So the earlier she worked out, the
more healthy eating choices she made that day.
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Using that knowledge, we agreed to work some kind of physical activity every
day, even if it was just walking.
Strategy 4. Using Hunger & Satiety self-tests.

Having had a history of just eating mostly whatever was around her, the client
had lost touch with her hunger and satiety signals.
So developing ways to detect actual hunger vs satiety was a huge step

towards eating moderately in-the-moment in front of other people when she
didn't have a way to look up calories to know if she had overdone it or not.

Before eating, she would ask herself: "Do I feel like eating chicken breast and
broccoli?" If the answer was "yes," then that meant she was actually
physically hungry. If the answer was "no," then she was likely just craving
something and would use one of the Wave-Riding strategies discussed above
to overcome it.
After eating, she would ask herself: "Do I feel like I can go for a light jog right
now?" If the answer was "yes, but if I eat any more I won't be able to do," then
she's physically satiated and was ready to stop eating. If the answer was "no,"
then it's likely she was too full and should stop eating more food.

We applied this self-test strategy after realizing that just the Wave-Riding
cravings strategies alone weren't sufficient because often she wouldn't be
able to tell if her need to eat were due to physical hunger or cravings.
With the self-tests, she could more reliably detect whether or not her desire to
eat were actually due to hunger or cravings.
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● Average Age: 34
● Gender: Female
● Industry: Tech
● Lives With: Self + Partner
● Who Cooks In The Household? Self + partner
● Medical Issues: N one
● Current Exercises: Cardio
Initial Assessment
1. What have you tried in the past? Mainly calorie counting and various fitness
classes like barre and orangetheory fitness. They worked but now I'm stuck
again.
2. What are you open to trying? T racking food, meal planning (as long as it's
not too much cooking), more exercise, most anything else.
3. What are you NOT open to trying? Nothing unsustainable like crash dieting
or anything too time-consuming. I don't have time to cook every day.
4. What do you think are your biggest barriers to success right now? I'm in
my last 10 lb range and just want to lose a little more. I'm stuck and not sure if
I should be eating better or what.
● Track all foods with the goal of decreasing calories and increasing protein.
● Strength train regularly with progressive overload.

● Planning ahead before eating out at restaurants.
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● Keep microwaveable and other easy-to-heat-up packaged foods for
convenience.
The Full Story
Strategy 1. Track all foods with the goal of decreasing calories and increasing
protein.

While she had counted calories in the past, she admitted that she wasn't
always very meticulous about tracking every bite and would often eyeball
portions.
With maintenance calories of just 1500 plus the fact that weight loss gets
slower the leaner you are, she really didn't have as much wiggle room for
calories. That was one of the reasons why she was able to lose weight just
eye-balling food portions in the past but not anymore.
In addition to calories, she also tracked protein. Because she was trying to
lose fat while already fairly lean (general rule of thumb: BMI range of < 22),
she was also in danger of losing muscle if she didn't eat enough protein as
well. Since she'd be strength training too, protein was even more important.

In our coaching, we offer clients the option to handle looking up calories and
protein for them. In this case, the client only needed to text food names to us,
and we would do the calorie math for them.
Rule of thumb: If you see multiple calorie options for the same food name,
pick the option that's close to the 75th percentile to be on the safe side. So if
you see options for "2 chicken tenders" that are something like: 60, 80, 100,
150, and 300 calories, pick the 150-calorie option.

Her initial maintenance calories was 1500, so we agreed to a starting calorie
goal of 1330 calories/day. This was a 170 calorie deficit, which was not very
large, but it was comfortable enough such that it didn't feel too hard to get
started on.
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We also set a starting protein goal of 89g of protein/day. This was roughly
0.75g protein/lb of bodyweight. The recommended minimum protein intake
for someone who's dieting while strength training is 0.8g/lb, but that turned
out to be very difficult to do for her, so we compromised at 0.75g.
4 months later, her TDEE decreased by 100, so we decreased her target

calories to 1200 to create that deficit again.
At the same time, we noticed she was starting to lose some muscle mass, so
we increased her protein intake to 100g/day, which also helped her stay more
satiated throughout the day.
Because she was in less than a 200 calorie deficit, her average rate of weight
loss was about 0.25 lb/week. This was a good trade-off for her though, since
she was more interested in practicing sustainable strategies than losing
weight quickly. She eventually lost 9 lb and 3% body fat, reaching the goal
look she had wanted.
Strategy 2. Strength train regularly with progressive overload.

Because she was trying to lose her last few lb, it was important to preserve
muscle so she didn’t end up losing more muscle than fat. In order to preserve
or even build muscle, she needed to strength train regularly with progressive
overload (i.e., increasing weights or difficulty of some strength exercise so that
you keep challenging your muscles).
As a bonus, because her maintenance calories were already low due to her
height and weight, she could also use strength training to help boost her
metabolism in the long run. The more muscle you have, the higher your
metabolism.

This client strength trained twice a week.
In our coaching, we wrote workout programs for the client, but you can do
this on your own too by looking for programs online.
For strength, find a routine that trains your entire body and then just make
sure that whenever you find a current exercise too easy, you increase the
weights on your exercises to improve (this is called Progressive Overload).
48
You can check out our video on Strength Training for Beginners here:
https://youtu.be/8aov96VvSaM.

We started with just 1 strength training session a week. After she was able to
keep it up consistently for a few weeks, we increased it to 2 times a week.
Strategy 3: Planning ahead before eating out at restaurants.
This client didn't enjoy cooking and would rather order take-out most days.
However, she was open to planning ahead for restaurants so she knew what
to order.

She would look up the menu ahead of time and find something that fit her
calorie and protein target for the day.
Note: In our coaching, we help clients decide what to order if they send us the
online menu. But this is also something you can do on your own with a
calorie-lookup app like MyFitnessPal.
Tip for those doing this on their own: Have a rotating set of 5-6 restaurants
you really love and find out what healthy foods are on the menu that you
enjoy. That way, you only need to look up calories for this set of restuarnts
once and that's it!

This strategy and the next one (see below) came up as a way for her to easily
meet her calorie and protein targets without having to cook.
Strategy 3: Keep microwaveable and other easy-to-heat-up packaged foods for

convenience.
This client didn't enjoy cooking and so would prefer to have easy packaged
foods to microwave or heat up in the oven or on the stove instead.

Every week, she would go grocery top for a bunch of predetermined package
49
foods from Trader Joe's that she could keep in her fridge (both at home and
at work) in case of emergencies.
Note: In our coaching, we help clients compile lists of packaged foods for
them based on their dietary preferences, goals, and preferred grocery stores,
but this is also something you can do on your own too.
We recommend starting by just picking 1 grocery store and browse the

packaged foods aisle. Take pictures or write down all the options you see. You
can look up nutrition information at home when you're done. If they have an
online listing of their selections, you can do it from your own home too!

It took a few iterations before we managed to compile a list of packaged
foods that not only made it easy for her to hit her calorie and protein targets,
but also were diverse in flavors so she didn't get bored of eating the same
things over and over.
We found that it was easy for her to also buy a bunch of staples she can mix
and match together. For instance: bags of frozen vegetables or frozen
chicken breasts. That way, if all she needed was to boost protein and nothing
else, she could heat up a chicken breast for a quick protein win.
50

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Coach Viva

7 Case Study Persona 1

11 Case Study Persona 2

16 Case Study Persona 3

22 Case Study Persona 4

28 Case Study Persona 5

35 Case Study Persona 6

41 Case Study Persona 7

46 Case Study Persona 8

Quick Note On Iceberg Strategies...

Her Iceberg Strategies

The Full Story

Strategy 1. Tracking the number of calories eaten.

● Why did this work her?

● What did this look like in practice?

● What changes had to be made along the way?

So instead of lowering her calories more, we decided to put her on a

● Why did this work for her?

● What did this look like in practice?

Why 500 calories? Because as we discussed in Strategy 1 above, her daily

● What changes had to be made along the way?

Her Iceberg Strategies

The Full Story

Strategy 1. Tracking the number of calories and protein eaten.

● Why did this work her?

● What did this look like in practice?

● What changes had to be made along the way?

Strategy 2. Tracking and planning for the number of sweets eaten.

● Why did this work her?

● What did this look like in practice?

● What changes had to be made along the way?

Meeting a sweets goal by itself in isolation turned out to be difficult since

The latter planning strategy was useful psychologically. By planning for 1

Strategy 3: Use a combination of Wave-Riding and Substitution strategies to

● Why did this work her?

● What did this look like in practice?

An example of a wave-riding strategy is to drink a tall glass of water, pause

Substitution strategies use no or low-calorie foods to substitute for the food

● What changes had to be made along the way?

So we added Substitution strategies, which are meant to keep the client

Her Iceberg Strategies

● Intermittent fasting + modifications (see Full Story below for details on

The Full Story

Strategy 1. Intermittent fasting + modifications

● Why did this work her?

There were occasional exceptions of course like vacations, special dinners, or

● What did this look like in practice?

● What changes had to be made along the way?

We also had to make some extra modifications to this Intermittent Fasting

Strategy 2. Tracking the number of sweets eaten.

● Why did this work her?

● What did this look like in practice?

● What changes had to be made along the way?

But we hit a snag along the way!

With these learnings, we agreed to switch to a rotation system, where every

Strategy 3: Tracking the number of servings of lean proteins & vegetables

● Why did this work her?

● What did this look like in practice?

● What changes had to be made along the way?

Her Iceberg Strategies

● Floating cheat days.

The Full Story

Strategy 1. Tracking the number of calories eaten.