Selecting a coach is goal and philosophy dependent. Do you need s lifestyle coach? Do you do it for competition; or recreation? Do you want an easy coach and a lot of support/yes man or someone who is going to keep you at 100% and be brutally honest and hold you accountable. Are you low dose guy, or want someone who will assess and manage risk. I don’t think you put enough info to help
Sorry for the delay but first thanks for responding and very valid so I’ll elaborate;
I’m assuming some lifestyle coaching would be good; since I’ve made a decade of poor choices leading up to this point my goal is shifting lifestyle completely. Guidance would be great in that capacity.
I think if I was designing my optimal coaching experience it wouldn’t be hand holding / coddled. I like direct and honest that’s how I would make change. Tho I would expect with how naive I am currently; there would be some balance of interaction and Q/A. Which I think could be mitigated by being given direction on where/what to read.
I’m currently reading the forums, active in chats and reading things like Justin Harris’ carb cycling nutritional books, some pub med articles, Stan Efferdins Vertical diet etc. I’m open to learn myself rather than coasting but I’m inquisitive and do ask questions.
I think I fall in the low and slow approach for onboarding; I think that’s the best approach for initializing new things but counter to that I’m open to risk as long as it’s informed and mitigation/monotoring protocols are in conjunction.
The reality is I’ve been unsafe and reckless leading up to this point just being unhealthy so some expected risk for health seems fair to me.
I’m 42 and am nowhere near categorized as a professional; solely recreational as it stands. The goal is to develop better habits and routines. Ideally utilizing compounds to help me achieve muscle mass rapidly since I’m so far behind.
I think also I’d trade extremes for injury prevention at this stage. My personal research has eluded to avoiding some exercises and utilizing the smarter not harder approach. The guys on ThinkBig bodybuilding all seem older and wiser and continue to suggest doing things different than they did/at their current age.
I hope that is detailed enough without rambling. I’m very open to criticisms and advice, I’ll take any and all ya got!