Client Snapshot
Mike Madden is a General Counsel, Non-Executive Director and Company Secretary based in Brisbane. Busy corporate job. Lots of stress. A young family competing for the same hours as everything else. Over five years, his weight had crept up with no single moment he could point to – just slow accumulation until he was carrying close to 99kg.
The Challenge
Mike had already tried to fix this himself. He’d come across Andre’s content online and started applying some of it before coaching even began, which brought him down slightly to around 97kg. But on his own, consistency was the problem:
“There’s a lot of information out there, some of it is very contradictory… I really struggled to get the weight off. And I think consistency for me was an issue as well.”
Part of what kept him stuck was how he was handling stress. A demanding legal and governance career meant pressure most of the day. His response was to go train harder in the evening, stacking a second stress load on top of the first:
“I’d put myself through stress at work. Then I’d go home and I’d go to the gym and put myself under another set of stress. It was a very… toxic cycle, which is probably why I struggled to drop any weight at all.”
Two stress loads a day, no recovery in between. That pattern kept him stuck for years.
The Approach
When Mike and I started working together, training wasn’t the starting point. Nutrition came first. Then sleep. Then stress management. Everything else – including exercise – sat underneath those three.
Sleep was the one that surprised him most:
“I always underestimated the benefit of sleep in terms of weight loss, recovery, and just general wellbeing.”
The bigger shift was how personal the plan became. Instead of a generic template, we used Mike’s actual bloodwork – cholesterol, glucose, mineral levels – to work out exactly where to focus first:
“You’ve got a more scientific approach to things as well, by having my blood work done to look at what my cholesterol levels are, what my glucose levels are, different minerals. So I think that’s also helpful because you can really target what specific areas need urgent attention… It wasn’t just a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all [approach] that you get from the girls or guys down at the local gym.”
Mike also flagged something most coaches won’t admit to – not having every answer on the spot, and what happened when Andre didn’t:
“What I really appreciated was when you didn’t know the answer, you just said, look, I don’t – but then I’d get a text or an email with an article or some useful information as to the topic we’d just discussed. I really liked the way you approached that.”
The Result
Twelve weeks after starting at 97kg, Mike was at 83.8kg. In his own words:
“I’m really pleased with that. That was an amazing achievement for me, given that I really struggled to shift any real weight, let alone that much, in a period of time… I just like the structured approach and the science that went behind it… I couldn’t be happier.”
What’s Next
Mike didn’t stop at 12 weeks. He continued into a second block, but the model changed: weekly sessions dropped to once a month, with Mike tracking his own nutrition day-to-day using Cronometer (macros, minerals, the full nutrient picture) and Heads Up Health, a dashboard pulling in his Garmin data, sleep, weight and blood results into one view. Less coaching hours, more ownership.
His focus shifted from the scale to what the scale doesn’t measure:
“I’ve seen a great change in my body composition. Again, I’m very happy, but there’s probably a bit more to go yet… how to really eat optimally so that you can get the most out of that exercise and also the body composition as well.”
What Mike Would Tell You (if you’re still deciding)
Isn’t being overweight in your 40s and 50s just normal?
“You shouldn’t accept the fact that being old, overweight, unhealthy… while society may make it seem like it’s a normal thing, it’s not a normal thing.”
Is it worth the money?
“Investing in a program with Andre will reap rewards, and the return on investment is much greater than having to go to the doctor for issues like major heart surgery and things like that.”
Does the coach do the work for you?
“Andre can’t do the work for you. You’ve got to be committed to it. But he will give you the tools and the guidance and the knowledge that you need to make some lifelong changes and sustainable changes to a better health.”
What would you say to someone on the fence?
“Don’t spend too much time thinking about it, dive straight in… I’ve had a great experience.”
