Joshua Hillis

It was 2004. I was a new trainer at 24 Hour Fitness in Seattle. Most of my clients were women who wanted to lose fat (and occasionally dudes who wanted to lose fat), and I was training them in what was the "new" functional fitness style at the time - lots of single leg stuff, big movements like pushing, pulling and squatting, and mostly unstable for more "core work".

And for about three months, my clients got no results at all.

That was, until, I met a certification instructor for Apex Nutrition, who explained to me that I needed to have my clients keep a food log. He said it was the most, most, most important thing, and that if my clients didn't bring their food log in, I should make them do military style calisthenics until they puked!

I didn't take it that far, but I did really get the importance of the food journal. That the food journal was #1. Combining the food journal with ok workouts, my clients actually all started to lose weight.

I was so stoked to finally get people results that I may have gotten a little over-zealous that first year as a trainer. I didn't yet know how much or how little a change would be required in their food, so I erred on the side of too strict. People got results, but it was painful. If I could go back and apologize to all of my clients in 2004, I would.

Next, I started doing Fighter Workout Fridays. Most of my clients saw me Monday/Wednesday/Friday. I'd do normal workouts with them on Mondays and Wednesdays, and then on Fridays, just for fun, we'd do kettlebell style workouts (we had to use dumbbells and bodyweight, but I applied all of the same principles).

No one knew what kettlebells were, so I just told everyone that it's how military guys and mixed martial arts fighters worked out. People loved it. In fact, people started asking me if we could do Fighter Workout Fridays on Mondays and Wednesdays also. The more we did these "Fighter Workouts" (kettlebell and bodyweight workouts) the better results people started getting.

Somewhere in here I moved to Denver. For a year I trained out of my garage (hence the name "Josh's Garage" with actual kettlebells, barbells, and a lot of bodyweight movements. Then I went to Brazil, trained (as in, I was the trainee) in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu 30 hours per week. I met my (then future) wife, stopped doing Jiu Jitsu, started writing this blog, and moved back to Denver. This time I worked at 24 Hour Fitness as a Master Trainer.

I went to work on combinations of gym workouts and "kettlebell style workouts". Lots of ass kicking bodyweight and kettlebell combinations. I found I could get people off the charts amazing fat loss results in the short run (like 8-12 weeks).

Later, I found out that I couldn't just grind people into the ground with these hardcore workouts all the time, and we started doing different phases. We'd alternate between hardcore workout phases and more mellow workout phases. People were more psyched, had more fun, liked that it changed every four weeks, and new they had a long term plan. It began to get easier to get people results for longer periods of time. Later these phases of training, like seasons or tides, and even bigger phases of intensity would allow me to get people results for years.

As the workouts evolved, so did the food journal coaching. It became apparent that my sternness in terms of the importance of food logs combined with my easy going nature created an unprecedented level of clients actually keeping a food journal. On top of that, people actually got less neurotic about their food with me, and got better fat loss results. I really felt like I was making the difference I always wanted to make for people.

While other trainers were complaining that none of their clients were keeping food journals, I regularly had 35 clients all keeping a food journal. This was after another big change - I realized that if my clients all were keeping their food journal, I only needed to see them one time per week, instead of three. So instead of working with 10-15 clients 2-3 times per week, I worked with 35+ clients once a week.

I actually forgot what it was like to have clients not keep a food journal. Everyone kept a food journal, even if they were eating total crap. I'd just hang out, make one small change per week, and they'd lose weight. It was almost too simple. I think most trainers are dick-heads who preach perfection, and that's why their clients won't keep a food journal. For a while I even did trainings for gyms on how to have clients keep a food journal in real life.

That's my story, more or less. I guess one thing that isn't in there yet is that things really took a quantum leap when I wrote my first book. I fired all my clients that weren't the target market for that book (that first book was for women, 30's and 40's who wanted to lose approximately seven stubborn pounds) and then I recruited in the gym for more women who were in the target. I put them all on exactly the same program and tracked the results.

It wasn't even that the program was amazing (ok, it really was), but just that I got in the habit of putting 30-35 clients on exactly the same program all at once. I could start with a new concept in the morning, and after 8 clients I could have it refined. By the time the next 7 or 8 clients came in the next day, it was a well oiled machine. New things would pop up over the course of the program 4 weeks? 8 weeks? 12 weeks? and it would get refined.

Getting to test programs with lots of people was the best thing I ever did. I realized I could trim out all of the crap that didn't work in a hurry. Things got simpler, and simpler, and simpler. I realized that most of the stuff people do in the gym is totally unnecessary. I cut it all down to the things that make a difference in people losing fat only.

Josh Hillis is the author of: The Stubborn Seven Pounds, Fighter Workouts for Fat Loss, The 21 Day Kettlebell Swing Challenge, and System 6: Easy Fat Loss.

Josh has been featured or quoted by The Denver Post, The Los Angeles Times, and USA Today.

RKC Certified Kettlebell Instructor (RKC) 2004, 2006, 2009, 2011

Advanced Kettlebell Instructor (RKC2) 2005

NASM Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010

NASM Performance Enhancement Specialist (PES) 2006, 2008, 2010

Z-Health Movement Reeducation Specialist (R-Phase) 2008, 2010

Z-Health Movement Integration Specialist (I-Phase) 2009, 2010

My mission is to have people feel proud of how their body looks, and inspired by their own fitness. -Josh