In all my years of private fitness/health coaching, one of the most painful things to witness is…
Seeing a person who has been a prisoner of their body for most of their life.
You may know someone like that. Maybe a family member… or maybe even you…
I’ve been there myself too.
Yes, even me… I’m human.
BUT, that personal experience has given me the unique insight, deep empathy and ‘magic’ power required to help people break free of their own “body prison”…
There’s no question I’ve been gifted from someplace much higher and far greater than myself…
And being able to deliver the help is incredibly rewarding on many levels, and I’m thoroughly grateful for having the unique ability.
…Which takes us to today’s PROFOUND example and lesson of proof…
You may have seen me mention Annie (63 at the time of this) in the last few emails, working on her “2-Month Reflection Letter”…
In case you missed any of the previous reflection letters from other clients – a reflection letter is something I usually ask most clients to write, around the 1, 2 or 3 month mark…
Some clients I have wait a bit longer depending on circumstances and timelines….
What these reflection letters do is bring deep awareness and concrete truth to how far a client has come in their early coaching plans with me.
They also serve as one of the key elements that cements and “locks in” each client’s success for LIFE.
And with permission, I like to share these reflection letters with others so that the proof and power can become a catalyst for others to achieve their own success in ways they never thought possible..
So, today, I share Annie’s VERY powerful and inspiring “3-Month Reflection Letter”…
It was supposed to be at month #2, but with her super-busy schedule, we needed to move it to month 3…
Nonetheless – this one will last a lifetime.
Enjoy, take some notes and feel free to share this with anyone else you know who might be currently locked up in tier own “body prison”…
NOTE – to cut down on incoming emails I will share right here that Annie, just like all my coaching clients, is following the Sample Schedule fitness training routines that I guide her on here in Total-Access, which anyone can join and use, even if you’re not doing private health-fitness coaching with me.
Here we go!!
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Hi, I’m Annie Camp and I’ve been working as a one-on-one remote private coaching client of Joey’s for about three months now.
I’m 63 years young and this is my 3-month Reflection Letter, requested by Joey to share how far I’ve come so far.
One of my passions in life is to challenge preconceived notions about “aging”, take advantage of all the information we’ve learned about health & longevity and put it into practice to get the results and benefits.
I believe we don’t have to accept decline, I say let’s outsmart it! Let’s redefine aging. I decided to embark on a coaching plan with Joey to help me do exactly that.
I’ve been working out more or less for over thirty years.
I was a runner for a long time.
When I lived in NYC I used to run from the World Trade Center to my apartment in Hell’s Kitchen which is midtown, eat lunch, and run back down the lower half of Manhattan to get back to work.
That was my idea of fun (huh?)
Additionally, I’ve been a gym member with a trainer using a Nautilus machine circuit. It was here that I jacked up my inner thigh tissue doing heavy weight on the abductor/adductor machine following the advice I found in a fitness book. By the way, all that is smoothing out since I started working with Joey.
I’ve done free weights using routines I found in books and later on YouTube, including traditional pushups and other mainstream exercises.
In doing those, I developed wrist injuries and tried to work through the pain, only to end up in a physical therapist’s office for rehab while studying cello at Juilliard and needing to practice many hours a day.
I then did an isometric style routine called Callanetics for a good while and even went to classes at a Callanetics studio in the Carnegie Hall building to get trained in the method. It pulled in some things and jacked up other places.
All the while my behind looked worse and worse. I stopped wearing a bathing suit in front of anyone.
At one point I bought a used (ancient) Bowflex machine with warped carbon fiber rods (comical, really) and devised an arm workout routine which I did for a while.
That thing is massive and takes up about 1/5 of my basement (anybody want it? It’s free!) The workout gave me limited results.
I was up very early one day and watched the Total Gym infomercial and bought that contraption on payments which I tried but didn’t see how in the world I was going to get a good workout, let alone results, rolling up and down on that ramp holding those silly pulleys (it’s free to a good home also).
I bought some resistance bands, watched some videos on YouTube and put together a routine I thought would help me out.
I supplemented with some poorly designed dumbbell moves and soon enough I began to have back injuries.
In my quest to address the cellulite issues as I journeyed forward, I learned about the plastic claw thing to treat cellulite.
I bought it and raked it over my hips, thighs, arms and stomach three times a week for four years.
I also consulted with their company for advice on how to get results with the device.
They suggested all kinds of things. Faster, slower, harder, soft and brisk, more frequently, less often, heat the tissue in the hot tub, longer treatment sessions.
I studied the book looking for what I may have been doing wrong to not get good results.
I thought this must be the “worse before better phase” they talk about.
Well, that “worse before better phase” never ended!!
I finally looked in the mirror about six months ago and realized I had ground my legs into hamburger meat.
It was horrifying and I was desperate for the right advice.
I needed sanity and I needed results. I needed improvements and I don’t give up.
I would see those exercise machine commercials and watch the actors doing their HIIT moves and think that must be what I have to do.
I was considering getting up early to do a grueling HIIT routine every day.
I tell you this so you know I’ve tried a lot of things, and I’m disciplined enough to execute whatever program I think will help.
It wasn’t for lack of will or discipline or time or desire. I had all that.
I just didn’t know what would work.
But I sure learned a lot of things that did not work.
I ate healthy between trying extreme diet plans.
I’ve struggled my entire life to keep my weight where I want it.
My closet spanned three sizes at any given time, which was expensive and very frustrating.
You would think after all these many years of eating clean and working out I would have results to show for it.
But no.
Except for brief periods of weight control and some very limited strength training results, all these efforts were pretty much in vain. Not even close to what I had envisioned and was aiming for.
I lived in hope, though, as we all should, but there came a point about three months ago where I realized that I must not know what I need to know to get where I want to go.
That is actually a very powerful place to arrive at.
I decided to ask my wise husband. “Honey, I’m thinking of changing up my exercise routine, but I don’t know what to do next. What do you think I should do?”
He and I reviewed all the things I’d done since he knew me.
He said “What about that Joey Atlas method you were doing last year? That was the best you ever looked.”
Flabbergasted, I asked him why he didn’t say anything before, and he said “Because you didn’t ask.” (slap palm on forehead and hold)
I first heard about Joey Atlas methods about a year ago, when I did a google search for cellulite cures.
I was pretty skeptical about finding anything viable from a search like that because for years I’ve read it’s about water retention, it’s about nutrient deficiencies and needing special supplements, it’s about using a plastic claw tool to treat the fascia, it’s about dry brushing, or worse, there isn’t a cure.
Well, in the search results was a link for Naked Beauty by Joey Atlas.
I clicked on it, watched a short video and decided to try it, so I paid the $49 for online access to the program.
I did it for about six weeks.
My jeans were getting tighter and I thought at the time I was bulking up so I stopped.
I do have a tendency to build muscle pretty quickly but in retrospect it wasn’t the Naked Beauty program, it was actually a few of those extra pounds I’d put on. Been there before.
So, while wondering what to do next, a few days later I got one of Joey’s emails he sends out periodically. I read the testimonials and quotes from the FB group and he mentioned private coaching.
I realized in a lucid flash that I could really, really, really use some guidance and some coaching on exactly what to do.
I was so. fed. up. just stabbing in the dark, guessing, trying to figure it all out on my own.
For it all, over the years, I had earned a glitchy knee and shoulder, sore wrists, battered feet from running (and years of wearing ill-fitting high heels), odd-looking lines in the tissue on my inner thighs, and a back issue that would flare up sometimes after my free weight arm workout.
Occasionally I’d throw my back out and have to take pain meds and muscle relaxants, which I carried around 24/7 for fear my back would start hurting.
Optimistic, I booked a coaching consultation with Joey, we discussed my past issues, current challenges, my top goals and I started the personal coaching program with him that same day.
It is absolutely remarkable to me how quickly my body responded to these new exercise routines I’m learning from Joey.
Within three days I remarked to him that I didn’t even move the same.
I wouldn’t have thought biomechanics would shift that fast, but he was not surprised, only thrilled for me.
Very quickly I could see changes in how I walked and even in my quality of sleep.
About a month into the coaching program, Joey suggested I try his style of flexible intermittent fasting.
I had been wanting to try it for a while but knew I needed coaching through it, so I got started on that as per Joey’s guidance and reported back the very next day after starting.
Happily, “the apocalypse” I was imagining had not been triggered by my lack of food for 16 hours.
I’m doing that comfortably every day right now. All my clothes are fitting better and some are now too big. I don’t take this for granted. It’s a dream come true.
The first thing I noticed was peace of mind.
I was given a plan of action and I finally knew what to do. Knowing what to do makes all the difference in the world.
It was fantastic to feel like I didn’t have to suffer through more trial and error as I failed my way to a finish line somewhere on the horizon that I could not see and at the rate I was going I would never see.
All the awful diets, the wild and weird workouts …over thirty punishing years of dysfunctional trial and error, doing all the wrong things, sometimes stupid things, but I just didn’t know better.
Well, I do now.
The second thing I noticed was how quickly my body was, and still is, responding to Joey’s training routines and stretch-mobility sessions.
Within about three days I noticed I wasn’t even walking the same.
And within a week or two, the chronically sore joints I’d had for a while began to feel better and the range of motion was improving.
Being in my sixties, this literally feels like I am getting younger as all the typical signs of aging that most people feel are being reversed. Like rewinding my age clock.
It took about two months for me to be able to do a bodyweight squat, but my knees have gotten so much stronger and flexible, and I’m now doing lunges and squats without any concern.
I’m a professional cellist and I’ve had a very sore left thumb for about six months, to the point I thought maybe this was going to be chronic and affect my playing, and I was really worried about it.
Joey had previously coached me through some lower back soreness using heat and stretching.
I took what I’d learned from him about the power of stretching and I worked on that thumb for a couple of weeks, using massage and gentle stretches.
One day I noticed I HADN’T noticed it all day – it had become a NON-issue.
I’m playing all those musical passages using the thumb without any pain now. This means so VERY much to me!
One of the sad things about not finding Joey and his amazing methods earlier is all the wasted time I spent faithfully performing badly designed exercise routines, damaging diets and destructive fascia treatment sessions when I could have been spending more time with my family enjoying being in great shape, healthy and strong, without all the anxiety and confusion I’ve been through.
My kids are grown now and have their own lives, but I’m sure they have many memories of Mom’s absence while she pounded away at her elusive fitness goals, almost daily.
I love the private coaching structure because I get laser-targeted answers to my specific personal questions, and directions toward the right equipment, food & meal items, and fitness training techniques.
We’ve had coaching session conversations about nutrition and supplements which helped guide and fine-tune my food choices.
I’m a foodie; I love to cook healthy food and I love to eat.
I study nutrition as a personal interest, so I’m not a beginner in that respect, but I really needed clarification about some things, and the flexible intermittent fasting has been a game-changer.
The way Joey addresses the nutrition part of the equation is extremely liberating and has given me an entire perspective shift in how I approach my meals. And I’m no longer afraid I’ll wake up in a week and my clothes are getting snug, again.
With Joey’s “no diet” approach, what I’ve learned can be applied anywhere, even when traveling, because it’s principle-based — all based on physiological truths.
I know this, because it’s all working now. Everything in the past did not work.
I had two children after turning 40, and little did I know what that did to me internally. At that age, it’s more challenging for the body to recover from pregnancy.
The loss of muscle tone in my lower abdomen and the shifting of internal organs was profound, though I didn’t know it at the time.
It affected my marriage in a real way. I went to a gynecological surgeon who of course wanted to remove organs and sew things into place.
I declined but I still knew something needed to be done.
Now that I’ve regained valuable muscle tone & control in those areas in question, I’m a MUCH happier wife. I didn’t know that I was going to enjoy this benefit!
I also didn’t know when I started Joey’s program that I was joining a community that shares a similar attitude about health with me.
Giving the body what it needs to thrive, including the right amounts of nutritious food and the proper exercise, is key to maximizing your vital life energy.
It’s a sort of loving stewardship, really, of what you’ve been given.
This is a stark contrast to the mainstream hard-to-do diet and mass-market exercise programs, which feel more like you’re at war with your body and your own mind.
This method, Joey’s way, is sustainable for life, those war tactics are not.
To experience all these physical improvements, including dropping more than two inches from my waist, triceps that don’t jiggle, and the real possibility that I could wear a swimsuit next summer, has been a dream come true.
I know that I’m still evolving and changing and that’s exciting.
My belly is flattening, my legs are smoothing out, cellulite diminishing, and my behind is lifting.
It’s so exciting to literally BE a transformation.
Every day I wake up excited to see what happens next!
I look forward to my workouts because I know what they’re doing for me and they aren’t that hard lol.
How is it I’m getting these results without killing myself?
I see my colleagues at school look at me sideways, so I know they wonder what in the world I’m doing.
Thank God I found Joey and his ideas and broke out of that all too common middle-age rut of losing muscle tone, expanding more every year and struggling to fight it by inept means and failing, buying clothes for what they can hide instead of what they can accentuate.
Now, things are very different. This is a new story unfolding.
I’m literally giddy. And being only three months into this, I’m looking forward to continued progress, success and this new strong way of living the future phases of my life.
Excited and grateful,
Annie
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You may have noticed I bolded some of the powerful gems and breakthroughs in Annie’s reflection letter…
This is yet another real-life example of someone PROVING that the “age myth” is just an overblown excuse and/or a MAJOR misunderstanding…
At 63, Annie is blowing all myths and excuses out of the water.
She is learning what to do, how to do it, when and why….
We are clearing up all confusion… BLOCKING all the crazy distratcions that most people are people fooled and trikced by every day..
You know the ones I’m talking about…
All the crazy new things you see on fb and the internet every minute of the day….
All the wild body crushing workouts, the dysfunctional eating methods…
The procedures, the treatments, the “detox kit” that your friend’s hairdresser is selling, who still looks like she needs to use it (what the heck?)…
…the “blood, saliva, urine, hair tests”… What?? Seriously?
“personalized vitamins”? lol… No.
Don’t fall for any of that confusing, misleading, life-damaging nonsense.
All that stuff just blinds you to the real issues, the real blockages that you need to see, address and put behind you once and for all…
Just like Annie, and all the other testimonials you’ve read over the last few months…
I’ll be turning this one into a podcast PLUS an interview episode with Annie in a few months, once we make another 3 momths of life-changing progress…
So stay tuned, and if her story has you thinking of reaching the same levels of success by getting on a private coaching plan with me, I’ll need to let you know…
My schedule is full, as you might imagine, with the kinds of results you’ve read about above – I have a waiting list of new clients ready and committed to living in a healthy, strong and “free” body & mind…
So, If you’re interested in getting on the waiting list for one of the next spots to open, then contact us here with your “story”…
WHY do you need and want personalized, custom coaching to help you reach your goals? And why have you not been able to reach them on your own?
Onward we gooooo!!
Your trainer for LIFE
~ Joey “The Truth” Atlas