“Hello, my name is Christina, and I am 32 years old. I am currently employed as a legal secretary for a law firm in Sacramento. My journey with Sham started in October 2009, but let me give you a little background about me. I am 5’10” tall, so needless to say I always hid my weight well, but the weight was always still there. People were often surprised when I told them how much I weighed. They didn’t believe I weighed that much, so that added to my denial. I felt terrible, had no energy, was irritable all the time, always seemed to be in a brain fog at work and my sugar and food cravings were out of control.
I had been diagnosed with PCOS (Poly-Cystic Ovary Syndrome) and borderline diabetes a year earlier. I basically was told by my doctor that it would be really difficult to lose weight and was prescribed a drug, Metformin, (a drug for people who are diabetic). The doctor said the Metformin would make it easier to lose weight. The medication didn’t help at all. I guess my breaking point came in September 2009. My weight ballooned to around 242 pounds. I was basically 10 pounds lighter than when I delivered my son in 2005.
Over the previous year, I had tried numerous things, i.e. Weight Watchers, South Beach Diet, running and had even been to see a registered nutritionist. The nutritionist basically asked me what I ate and developed an eating program around how I was already eating. So that didn’t help much either. From my brief stint at running, I permanently damaged the cartilage in my knee and suffered from knee pain. I basically would lose about 10 pounds and then would pack the pounds back on. Nothing seemed to work long term which added to the depression and hopelessness.
Out of sheer desperation I made an appointment with a local medical clinic that specialized in a very low calorie, liquid diet. I was ready to sign up for the program, except my insurance didn’t cover the treatment. Again out of desperation, I was willing to fork out almost $900 a month out-of-pocket for the program. Needless to say, my fiancé disagreed and said there had to be another way. After some pouting and a night to sleep on it, I began to do some research online and found Sham. After an initial meeting with Sham at one of his boot camp sessions, we decided that his One-on-One Wellness program would be more beneficial to me. That decision was the best decision I had ever made in my life.
My initial sessions with Sham were purely educational. I learned that there were many different factors involved with losing weight and not just eating healthy and exercise. He made me aware of the roadblocks that were preventing me from being successful. Although I had been told in the past from doctors that the PCOS would make it difficult to lose weight, Sham’s program was able to prove the doctors wrong. I learned that certain types of foods were essentially bad for my system and essentially caused the symptoms I was experiencing. It was quite eye opening to say the least.
I’ve made permanent changes with the way I eat and feed my family because of it. In addition to the nutrition education, came the physical assessments. It was quite interesting to find out what was wrong with me, my muscles, and my posture, just by Sham watching me perform a squat. I also found out through an extremely painful session with Sham what the root cause of my knee pain was from. Although I endured the pain which Sham had told me “made grown men cry” by the end of the session, my knee pain was gone and I was able to do a 90 degree squat. I had been to physical therapy in the past for my knee and, from what Sham told me, the exercises the physical therapist made me do essentially made the problem worse. So with both the nutritional education along with the physical assessments, Sham was setting me up for success and not failure as all my previous attempts at weight loss had done.
All in all, my experience with Sham was very positive and successful. In about a 6 month time frame I lost 44 pounds and over 20 inches. I was able to increase my strength and endurance to the point I was able to run 5 miles. I felt great, had a lot of energy and my body didn’t hurt anymore. I was able to stop taking the medications I was prescribed, plus I learned all the tools to be successful by myself. I can honestly say that Sham’s program is truly life altering and successful. I have recommended Sham to my family and friends and they now are benefiting from Sham’s program and are successful themselves.
Sham’s unique approach is always positive and friendly. He is very easy to work with and will always answer any questions you have. His wealth of knowledge is phenomenal and quite contradictory to most of the common knowledge out there about “being healthy”. He never screams and yells at you at your workout sessions like many other trainers out there may do and talks you through difficult workouts to push yourself to the limit! While his workouts are tough, they are fast and efficient so any busy person can fit a workout into their day. I personally was able to complete my sessions with Sham during my lunch break from work. You will never see any hour or two hour workouts with Sham. I continue to work with Sham to this day and would highly recommend him.”
Christina
