About Coach Viva

MY STORY

Richa

My personal training session was starting in 9 minutes and I was shit scared.

Literally.

I had arrived 20 minutes earlier at the gym. My mind pictured the torture I’d be going through in a few minutes.

Sweating, I raced to the bathroom and stayed there until I had to come out or forfeit my money for that session.

The worst part? I kept thinking this is what you do for health. I just accepted it.

I had come out of the doctor’s office for the fourth time after experiencing shortness of breath and other unexplainable symptoms for months.

I had gone through five doctors in eight months. Every one of them told me: nothing wrong. I felt like I couldn’t trust them anymore.

None told me what I should focus on - spoiler alert: my diet and fitness.

I found out later that out of 6 years of medical school, doctors spend nearly zero time on nutrition.

You know, the preventative stuff that reduces medical bills.

Luckily for me, I am a normal person who Googles my symptoms.

I found articles telling me some of my symptoms could be caused by my diet. So I started changing my diet.

And I started seeing the episodes become less and less frequent. I figured I should go all in on my health changes.

And the fastest way I could see to get there was to skip all the trial-and-error by hiring a coach.

Boy was I wrong

You ready for this?

We're getting down and dirty.

Looking back, I was so naive.

I didn't know that finding a coach who puts me first isn't a quick Google or Yelp search away.

And worst of all, I didn't have enough know-how to even comprehend when I wasn't being put first.

Since I believed that exercise is the main contributor to health, I hired personal trainers.

You know, the ones who've clearly done this all before. Guess how many of them pulled me aside to say:

"Hey Richa, you know that the exercises you're doing with me are, like, 20% of what's gonna move the needle for you, right?"

Zero.

Nada.

Sigh.

I told them "Look, I have never worked out in my life. I just want something that gives me longevity. I don't care about six-pack abs or whatever."

And yet I had one personal trainer who'd put me through such a wringer that before every session, I'd be shit scared. Yep. That's how I ended up here.

Then I had another personal trainer who'd shout "summer arms!" at me as I did numerous bicep curls. The whole time I'd be thinking "who wants summer arms?" Also: "what are summer arms?"

At some point through this mess, I realized what I eat matters.

I visited a nutritionist who gave me a meal plan of salads and chicken breasts 😢.

I told her that while I understand I need to eat vegetables, I detest raw vegetables.

But she seemed to take the attitude that it was salads or the highway!

Do you think any of this was going to last for me?

Hell no!

3 years and $20k later

I reached my goal.

Looking back, what finally tipped me to success were a handful of habits. That's all.

Yet finding these key habits took forever.

Before you start thinking of copying my key habits, hold up. Yours are going to be different. After all, we don't have identical lives, bodies or goals.

I feel you though. Finding your key habits is damn hard because:

Sifting through the overwhelming amount of information out there can take ages.
Translating the information you decide is for you into a daily practice can take forever.
I guarantee your expectations for how long it'll take to reach your goal are way off.

It is to battle these problems that we started Coach Viva.

MY STORY

Lucy

I remember it like it was yesterday.

Months after announcing to all of my family and friends once again that this time, I'll finally get to my goal with my new diet...

I had regained everything I had lost (+ more than before) for the 8th time in a row.

It was humiliating.

I thought about how I'll never get back the time I spent...

Meal planning down to the last calorie, exercising until I was blue in the face, and hiding from social events because I was too scared to eat out.

Only to gain weight again.

I felt like I got punched in the face. What was it all for?

Maybe you’re overweight and want to lose some lb so you feel physically better.

Maybe you see your parents suffering from health issues and this has you scared for your own future as well.

Maybe you're thinking about starting a family, and you've realized that living unhealthily will make your children's lives miserable too.

Or maybe you just want to look in the mirror and feel better about yourself.

And you've tried a lot of things in the past, but something always felt missing.

"This feels like it's more effort than it should be."

"This doesn't seem to do for me what it's doing for other people."

"Am I doing it wrong? Or is something wrong with me?"

I have lived ALL of these thoughts.

Like most people, I focused on what got me results the fastest and had inaccurate expectations for what realistic weight loss looked like.

(And if this was you too, I want you to know it's not your fault, as you'll soon see why.)

I started by just eating less, and I saw some progress but not enough...

So I figured that can't be the only thing to do.

After all, "everyone else" was able to shed 5 lb a week.

So instead of figuring out why I slowed down, I got upset, binged for a few months, regained what I lost + more, and tried something else.

I added cardio next.

I made some progress, but still not enough, and eventually burnt out again.

Unable to figure out what I was doing wrong, I immediately thought something was wrong with me.

Then I found some people on Reddit and Instagram who had tried "everything" for years and only Keto worked.

"Wow. They're just like me!" I thought.

So I tried Keto, and it worked!... for a couple of months.

The cycle continued: Lose weight, regain, and regain more than before.

Carb-intolerance, metabolic typing, meal timing, fasting, HIIT cardio, high-fat, high-carb, I tried "everything."

After 10 years of back-breaking effort and self-imposed restriction, I had succeeded in actually gaining 15 more lbs than when I had started.

But I'd done all my research and everything "made sense."

Plus these tactics worked for other people. So WHY the heck can't I make it work for me?

Was I just not trying hard enough? Was I not doing it correctly? What exactly am I missing?! 😤

It was because...

I was focusing on the tactics that were never going to work for me even though they seemed to work for everyone else.

Well, the even deeper truth is...

‍It doesn't really work for "everyone else" either.

10 years later