Jess’s passion for diet and exercise started 20 years ago, but at age 14 this preoccupation was everything but “heathy”. With a driving factor of poor self-image, she began skipping meals during the day and binging at night, combining this with obsessive exercise at home, her poor relationship with her body became heightened.
By age 18, Jess was allowed to join the local gym in town, where she became even more infatuated with exercising to the extreme. She was the absolute cardio queen. At this point, her diet had not improved. She was still in the routine of skipping meals and gorging herself on food at night. Although not overweight, she was “skinny fat” and had very little strength.
A friend of a friend at the time was a body builder and it was suggested that Jess have a chat to her for some guidance. This woman took Jess’s training and flipped it on its head. She cut out all her cardio, and told her to commit to a weights program 4 days a week and simply to trust her. She also gave Jess some rough guidance with her food to sweeten the deal. Jess was terrified, but trusted the processes. Three weeks later, she checked in and was down 5% body fat!! This was with minimal changes to her diet, just by changing her training and cutting out the excessive amount of output she was exerting. Jess was converted then and there and her love for weight training blossomed!!
For the next five years, Jess religiously began lifting weights and doing little to no cardio. She began to get leaner and stronger by the week.
Unfortunately, her relationship with food was still no better from when she was 14, the skipping meals and binging routine was still well intact. She was trying every silly diet under the sun, giving everything and anything a crack. In the end she would always fall back into her bad habits. This showed in her body, it would only change to an extent and that’s where the sneaky excessive cardio would creep back in.
Jess’s world changed when she moved to Australia in 2012. She was training at the gym at 3:30am every day, to then work in an office job she absolutely despised. Her hours were long, not walking through the door back home until 7pm most days. She’d continuously be ridiculed at work for turning down morning teas, saying no to the cookie jar and opting out for no takeaway on Fridays. Being told she was weird, and that one bite wont hurt. Jess stood her ground, and although her amazing self-control got her through the days, by night she was beyond exhausted and reaching for whatever was available to suppress her hunger and boost her mood. There was no balance.
One day, Jess connected with a friend who was a Personal Trainer at the gym she was training at. She began doing sessions with him, and eventually he planted the seed for her to follow the same path.
The people in Jess’s life encouraged her to quit her job. They could see how miserable she was. So she did it! She left! She took the leap!
She decided to study at HPC (Human Performance Centre) on the Gold Coast and obtain her Certificate 3 and 4 in Fitness. Before she knew it, she was working at her local gym as a Personal Trainer. Within 6 weeks, she had a waitlisting list of people wanting to be trained by her. For the next three years she’d work 15 hour days doing exactly what she loved!
During her time there, she met a Coach from ASN (Australian Sports Nutrition), who believed she had what it took to compete in Sports Model competitions in the body building world. After tossing it all up, she decided to give it a go to help boost her business.
From here the discovered the wonderful world of Macronutrients. Her relationship with food finally changed.
After meeting with her new Coach, he upped her food, changed her diet and cut back all her training. Again, Jess put her trust in the process as she had years before. In the first few weeks she lost a HUGE amount of body fat, so he ramped her food up. Within a few weeks, Jess’s small 50kg frame was consuming well over 2000 calories. Her body was loving these changes and reacting accordingly.
After entering her first INBA Sports Model Competition in 2014, she ended up placing first in the novice category as well as first timers.
At this point, people started to notice who she was and in 2016 she was pointed in the direction of a “body builders” dream gym. She then began taking her own training here away from where she worked. One day while she was doing her thing, the owner (who would never talk to anyone) approached her and they got chatting. He offered her a position to be the first female coach at this renounced facility. After initially brushing off the offer, Jess later discovered how amazing this opportunity was and took the leap!
At this facility Jess then completed her ISSN Sports Nutritional Specialist qualification to become a certified Recomposer coach. This is one of the few qualifications available that allows you to provide both advice on nutrition and training which is backed by and cover under insurance.
While Jess was a Coach here, the other Coaches on the team were all competing in Season B 2016 in the INBA. At this point Jess thought this would be wonderful for her business yet again and began to also prep. This time she decided to be coached under the guidance of her boss at the time.
Alas, this time around, her body did not respond in the same way. After reversing out of last competition and introducing her love for excessive cardio over the last two years, her Coach was now working with a different base line.
He ended up throwing in cardio and dropping her calories down to a scary 1000 a day. After a few months of extreme consistency, the dedication was worth it as her body began to respond. Thus was born Jess’s favourite saying…Consistency is key.
Jess went on compete in the INBA Tropic’s in Townsville. She ended up taking out 1st Overall Sports Model and 1st North Queensland Champion. After competing she found out if she would hold on another week, shed have the opportunity to compete for the national titles in Sydney.
At this point, Jess was beyond depleted, she was running on fumes and barely functioning as a human. She was also in the process of opening an F45 Training Studio with her business partners. As such she had to complete an induction for this in Sydney…The same weekend as the national titles. The decision was therefore made for her. She would push through and compete again.
Jess ended up taking out the following titles. 1st in over 30s Champion, 2nd in Open Class Qld Champion and gaining her Pro Card by placing 1st in Pro Qualifier Australian Champion! She did what she came to do, and took out the top crown!
That very next day she began reserve dieting out of her competition lean state. Not a gram of food was missed, neither was a training session. Because of this consistency over the last four years, Jess has managed to increase her caloric intake from 1000 calories a day to just under 3000 calories a day, all while maintaining a very lean athletic physique.
Due to Jess’s amazing success and elite qualifications, her waitlist began to grow and she was in hot demand across the globe. She no longer had enough hours in the day to continue coaching people in the gym face to face. Her client list strayed away from “comp prep” clients and grew to become everyone and anyone from all walks of life.
From here Online Coach Jess Williams was born, and she now is able to help 1000’s of people every year around the world achieve their goals and aspirations no matter where they are at with their relationship with food and training.
