In this episode, Josh Kennedy and James Breese chat to their “client of the year” Jeroen Westra about his super successful fitness and weight loss journey with the Strength Matters team. Jeroen is the epitome of success when it comes to the Strength Matters’ new nutrition-based training program – the Strength Matters System of Athletic Development. He has lost over 20 kilograms over the past 12 months.
In this episode, Jeroen shares his toughest challenges of the process and how he overcame them. He also notes the specific reasons he believes he lost weight successfully this time (and is keeping it off) when he has failed with diets in the past.
Discussion points:
- Jeroen’s start in fitness with the military
- Jeroen’s back injury and rehab
- Jeroen becoming a PE Teacher, Personal Trainer and Crossfit Coach
- Stress as a factor in recovery from injury
- Becoming a client with Strength Matters
- Doing the assessments and discovering weaknesses
- Start by doing the basics to create a training foundation
- Working on nutrition
- The Impact of “WWS” (Walk, Water, Sleep) and the “Seven Rule”
- Tracking calories
- Jeroen’s Weight loss
- The Matador study
- Taking a break from your diet around Christmas
- Lessons learnt
Resources:
Strength Matters System of Athletic Development
Quotes:
“The fact that it’s taken a year, is a realistic timeframe for people to think about, and understand and wrap their head around. Don’t think about transformation for the short term – year minimum, three years, five years, that is a better timeframe to look at things, cause it’s going to set you up for the rest of your life.” – James Breese
“We know it’s not right for everybody, psychologically, we understand that, however, what we do know is, the very best, let’s take bodybuilders and professionals at the very top who get the best leanest results – they track, they weigh their food, they do all these things” – James Breese
“So for me, that was a more sustainable way to keep it up because you would be in a deficit for a while and then you would have maintenance week where you would ease up on the strictness of your diet for a week” – Jeroen Westra
“Another thing that tracking calories, tracking macros, did for me, was, you get sensible about your choices. What I mean by that is, if you see how much calories are in a small serving of that stuff [calorie-dense foods]… it’s not worth it. What I mean is, you start making more sensible choices; you’d rather have a full plate of food instead of a small hand of calorie-dense food.”
– Jeroen Westra
