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Hey there!

I’m Nelly Gustman

I am just a small town gal who loves to exercise, eat well, and travel. I live a healthy lifestyle, but I am all about balance. Did someone say burgers?

I love a good dad joke, and when the pun is intended. My idea of a successful day would start with a coffee and end with a gin and tonic. I prefer peanut butter (crunchy) over nutella. I get around 30 second dance parties in the kitchen, I think the hulk is the real MVP, and my favourite role that I play is being an Aunt.

I like trying all things fitness, learning new skills, and a bit of healthy competition. I am currently enjoying my crossfit training, and working on my goals, which are muscle ups, 1 minute handstand hold, back squatting 1.5x body weight, and doing the splits.

Back Then...

As a kid and a teenager, I participated in sports; gymnastics, swimming, track and field, basketball, and soccer to be specific. When I went to university, I was less involved in sports, and was more dedicated to the social scene instead. As a result I was binge drinking regularly, making poor food choices, and not getting enough sleep. I was stressed out because I felt like I never had enough time or energy to complete my assignments or study for exams. So what did I do to cope with this? You guessed it, I would binge drink and the cycle continued all year.

By the time I moved back home for the summer, I was burnt out, tired and depressed. My coping mechanism of choice was smoking pot and binge drinking. It wasn’t until my mom asked me what was I doing, that I even thought that maybe this wasn’t who I wanted to be. Since I am an all or nothing kind of girl, I quit smoking pot and binge drinking. I turned to fitness as a substitute, and never looked back.

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MY EXPERIENCE...

I am so passionate about making exercise and living a healthy lifestyle a priority because of the positive effects it has had on my own mental health. I can see how it has not only changed my body physically, but more importantly mentally. It helps me manage my stress, and it makes me feel good. It helps me be more mindful, and show up better for myself, and others. I am a better friend, daughter, sister, and aunty because of it. I am who I am today because of fitness, exercise, and healthy eating.

What fuels me? When clients tell me they aren’t in pain anymore, that they have more energy to play with their grandkids, or that they feel stronger. A fitness journey isn’t easy and it takes time, which isn’t ideal in a world where we are constantly looking for instant gratification. I love being that person that shows people what they are capable of, when the rest of the world, including themselves, is doubting their potential.

My Fitness Journey

The Uneducated Opinion Phase (2011)

This was the beginning. I call this phase of my fitness journey the uneducated opinion phase. Due to my involvement in sports my whole life I have always been fairly lean. This was me discovering resistance training, and experimenting with nutrition. My guide … instagram influencers. I cringe typing the words. This phase of my fitness journey strictly focused on exercising everyday twice a day, eating only foods that I labelled as healthy, and avoiding carbs. My training lacked structure, and didn’t involve a whole lot of compound movements. Coming to the conclusion that it was a very inefficient way of exercising. Naturally with my history in sports I included a large amount of cardio. Not to mention thats what all the skinny instagram influencers were preaching at the time. Cardio, lots and lots of cardio. I remember I use to go to the gym twice a day. One session was for cardio, the other was a resistance training session. I do NOT recommend this, it is not sustainable or realistic for anyone who, I don’t know, has a life. I was definitely the “I don’t want to get too bulky” kind of girl. My nutrition was not optimal either. I had the mindset that there was good food and bad food and you couldn’t eat the bad food if you wanted to be skinny. There was no balance, but hey it was a massive learning curve for me. Despite all the things that I now see wrong with this phase of my fitness journey, this was the most important phase. I had overcome the hardest part of the fitness journey, which was starting. I decided to make a drastic lifestyle change because I didn’t like who I was becoming.

Snickers to Twix Athlete Cut (2019-2020)

There was a lot of growth and development, working with other coaches, having surgery, rehabilitation after surgery, educating and learning, trial and error, traveling, experimenting with body building, powerlifting, and crossfit, and boom we fast forward to 2019. At the beginning of 2019 I felt like I had taken my body as far as I could go with the knowledge that I had. I started working with a nutritionist to take my health, fitness, body, and mind to the next level. Because even coaches need coaches. We cleaned up old habits that weren’t aligning with my goals, and built a solid foundation with my mindset, exercise routine, and relationship with food. Throughout the year I did a few mini cuts, but mainly focused on maintenance to build up strength. I was training crossfit 5 times a week, and doing minimal cardio. My nutrition was flexible, and allowed me room for balance. I no longer saw food as good or bad, and I wasn’t scared of eating carbs. I’ve always wanted to do an athlete cut, and I finally felt like mentally I was ready. So this begins the Snickers to Twix Cut phase of my fitness journey. This was a very enjoyable experience overall, despite being in quarantine for more than half of it because of covid, moving cities, being laid off, starting a business, and extending the cut by a month. We slowly reduced my calories, increased my daily activity, and cardio but maintained 5 days a week of Crossfit training. After 20 weeks in a deficit I dropped 16 lbs, was really hungry, and had minimal energy and motivation to complete workouts. The goal was to get lean AF, and that is exactly what I achieved. However, this weight, and lifestyle is not sustainable, which leads me to the next phase.

The New Me Phase (Currently)

After the athlete cut, I continued to work with my nutritionists to reverse diet out of the deficit. What does that mean? Slowly adding calories back into my diet, and reducing daily activity and cardio but maintaining the new physique. The goal is to bring my lifestyle back to being more realistic, and sustainable. Since May/June when I ended my cut I have gained 5 lbs, and my body fat has increased to a more sustainable number. My muscles look and feel fuller, and my energy and performance in my workouts have improved significantly. My calories are higher than they were in December 2019, but I still have the lean physique. This phase has been by far my favourite as I love seeing how far I can push my body, and what I am capable of. This has been the best investment I have made so far. Currently I am doing Crossfit classes 5 times a week, 1 sprinting session a week, and hitting my daily activity goals. I am still tracking my macros some days, and slowly including more intuitive eating each week to bring back more normality into my life. I am slowly making my nutrition, and exercise routine more realistic and sustainable so I can enjoy my gin and tonics, family dinners, sweet treats, and carbs, in general, without being restricted, feeling guilty, or viewing foods as good or bad. All while maintaining a healthy body, mind and relationship with food.

Location

Face to Face coaching is available in Los Angeles.

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Hours

9am - 5pm Monday to Friday

10am - 3pm Weekends

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