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MY FIRST CLIENT
What gives me the right to talk to you about making empowering choices and focussing on what you want? Well actually, it was the challenges and success of my first client.
He came to me when he was around 21 years of age, just after a major event happened in his life. He knew it was time to change. He was overweight (112kg) and had 28% body fat. He had long hair, a beard, and was driving earthmoving equipment for a living. The lifestyle was that of heavy drinking and eating all the wrong foods. Since he was an asthmatic from three years of age and had never done any sport or exercise during school (using his asthma as a reason not to do anything physical), this was going to be interesting, a challenge!
The first thing we looked at was his health and exercise program. He found that he could only run for a few hundred metres without stopping to walk. After a bit of encouragement and slowing down his running to a light jog/shuffle he ran 10 minutes without stopping. This doesn't sound like a great effort, however from where he was coming from it was a massive achievement!
Using all that worked to get him to run 10 mins non-stop, little progressive marks were set, and he soon found that for the first time in his life, he could set goals and achieve them. In five weeks, he set up a goal to run 10-kilometres, after preparing and resting. The run was a race. He stuck to the plan and ran each km at five minute pace, and completed the run in 50 minute. The next week we saw a newspaper entry for a 16km super run in
Melbourne over the
West
Gate
Bridge in about six weeks. He entered, finishing in a time of 86 mins, a little over the training pace of five min/km, a huge effort, and a great result.
At the finish line, he bumped into friend who he had not seen in years who was going in a Triathlon in a month. After talking about it, he then set himself a goal of competing in this triathlon. The distances were a 1-kilometre swim, 44-kilometre cycle and an 8-kilometre run. What was interesting was that he had never swum and did not own a bike. The purchase of a bike was easy and then he set about swimming. He found that the same problems occurred as when he starting to learn to run. After identifying the problem, I had him slow down, and soon the air water ratio into his lungs was adequate for him to swim for 1000 metres. The race was far tougher than expected and he finished third last. Yet the internal satisfaction was indescribable (remembering that he had not done any exercise more than three months earlier). He then set himself a goal to compete in triathlons, to keep fit and set goals.
The setting of goals to finish the triathlons was more important than anyone could have imagined. His family were saying, "Why bother, you have asthma, and you won't be any good, so why try at all, ever." Additionally, all through school, he was told by the teachers that he could not read effectively (he was described as dyslexic with very low academic scores). The teachers said not to worry because his family had a farm, and that it did not matter, this assured him of a manual job on the farm.
It was interesting that he applied himself, with massive passion, to read and educate himself about anything to do with physical performance, training and triathlons. Most of the articles were about the Ironman race with over a 3.8-kilometre swim, 180-kilometres cycle, and 42-kilometres run. To think about, and enter such a distance, seemed unachievable, until we discussed it and looked back over where he had come to up until now, and that anything is possible with focus and commitment. He entered the Australian Ironman Competition. It was six months after his first run of 10 minutes. The entire field completed the race in 11 hours and 46 minutes. He finished mid-field out of around 500 competitors.
After a solid training base of a year, he started to race regularly at a body weight of 84 kilograms and 12% body fat. Over the next nine years, he competed in over 250 triathlons, 15 iron man races and 23 marathons. For the last 4 to 5 years, he maintained a body weight of 76 kg at 4-5% body fat, with the best Ironman time of 9.23 and marathon time of 2.38.
He completed his last Ironman race that he completed in after ignoring all the signs that he was sick. He finished this last race over an hour slower than expected. He came across the line in a very distressed state and taken to the medical tent. His body was so distressed that his heart stopped and he had to have it restarted after about 38 seconds. The doctors then told him that under no circumstances was he to exercise for a long time, if ever again. His diagnosis was Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and that he would just make it worse by pushing himself, even a little bit. The doctor's solution was for rest, and more rest, and if you feel like doing anything, rest more. This was extremely tough for him, actually harder than most of his races. He went from a minimum of three hours of training a day and eight hours on the weekend to nothing. It was a shock both physically and mentally to his system. Once again, he asked for support and feedback, since he had such a strong drive to be healthy. He wanted back his life, which was opposite to how the doctors wanted him to live, without any other options or possibilities.
I set up a nutritional program, which would be a rebuilding program, with reduced calorie intake, the dramatic cut in energy expenditure concerning him about putting on excessive body fat. Instead of focusing on the fact that he was sick, I had him focus on the times and moments during each day, that he felt healthy, happy and well, and asked him to diarise only these events. He started linking all of these great moments together, so that his day was all health, happiness and with a feeling in control of his life. Just three months after the CFS diagnosis and the label that as a CFS sufferer he was also clinically depressed, he started a simple light swimming program with no timing or counting of laps, just going up and down and enjoying the exercise. Then a mountain bike program was set up, focusing again on fun, not as training. Soon, the introduction of rollerblading and other skill type activities for even more enjoyment.
Soon he was stronger and fitter than ever before and is now 98kg and 9% body fat. He then started to utilise all he had learnt both academically and from experiences to set up programs designed to educate.
He now speaks widely on how to focus and achieve awareness in all areas of Physical, Nutritional and Psychological pathways of empowerment and self-accountability.
You may have guessed……………..I am my first
client!
John Gearon
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