For his 30th birthday, Dustin Chaveleh wanted to get in the best shape of his life.
Late last year, the San Francisco resident was newly single and looking for a change. He had been spending long hours at a desk, building his career in tech roles at companies like Bloomberg and Goldman Sachs. His real dream job, though, was real estate, so his spare hours went to the extensive coursework for a residential sales license.
The hustle left him in a vicious cycle, struggling to stick to a healthy routine. He couldn’t find the energy to hit the gym after work, but the less he went, the more he felt lethargic, unmotivated, and unhappy.
“I didn’t want to just sit in a rut,” he told Business Insider. “I had lost sight of the gym, and I felt like I didn’t know where to start.”
In the autumn of 2025, he started working with a remote personal trainer from Enaz Fitness, hoping that by his birthday in late May, he could look and feel like a new man.
Within a few months, Chaveleh said he was lifting heavier, feeling more energized, and liking what he saw in the mirror.
Then a bigger change began to take shape: the networking connections from his new fitness routine helped Chaveleh kick-start his real estate career. He started to power through his real estate licensing process, buoyed by confidence and fresh contacts.
In early June, less than a year after starting his fitness journey, he closed his first real estate deal.
“Getting back into shape allowed me to say, ‘Hey, I can change the narrative.’ It’s part of the confidence boost, taking chances and trying stuff out,” he said.
The simple changes he made to burn fat and build muscle have become a built-in part of his lifestyle. Here’s how he did it.
A flexible diet for better focus and energy
One of the main problems Chaveleh wanted to fix was boosting his energy throughout the day. He wanted to build lean muscle and burn fat, but without feeling miserable from a strict diet.
The move: setting a protein goal of eating about 1 gram per pound of body weight, along with a calorie goal.
By hitting those targets about 70% of the time, Chaveleh said he lost fat without depriving himself of dining out with friends.
“You can go super restrictive, but that’s not sustainable,” he said. “I enjoy going out, so I didn’t want to cut out alcohol. It was about moderating it and being mindful if I’m going to drink, cutting back early, and focusing on more protein and less carbs.”
Chaveleh also found that being more mindful about eating protein throughout the day helped him stay consistently full, rather than skipping meals and then overeating later. He’s found that his energy and focus have improved, too.
“I wake up earlier because diet makes me sleep better, makes me feel better, and I perform better. I can think more clearly, and I have less stress in my mind,” he said.
Shorter workouts, better ROI
Chaveleh overhauled his gym sessions too, and said the biggest improvements came from working smarter, not harder, in the gym.
Previously, he had been on and off with his workout routine for years. He’d sometimes spend massive amounts of time exercising, two hours a day or more, trying workouts or movements he saw on social media. The complicated workouts were exhausting and hard to maintain, making it difficult to see any progress.
With the help of a personal trainer, Chaveleh started a more deliberate routine that included tracking his progress over time. He used a principle called progressive overload, gradually increasing the challenge to keep making gains.
“Something they taught me was to go in every time and have the mindset of what you want to achieve, a goal of more volume, fixing technique, or going heavy,” Chaveleh said.
Thanks to the more focused approach, Chaveleh cut his workout time in half, between 45 minutes and an hour. And he started seeing gains in both his strength and his physique. All of his major lifts have improved: he can bicep curl nearly twice as much, and added more than 40 pounds to his squat for sets of 12 reps.
He also significantly lowered his resting heart rate, a key metric of longevity, from 68 to 58 beats per minute, a more athletic rate.
“It’s the consistency and the tracking,” he said. “In the day-to-day, you don’t notice it, but because I had that log, I could see that the workout was working, I could see the work I put into it.”
Building muscle, confidence, and a new career
Chaveleh also learned he was making another common gym mistake: the “bro split.”
The bro split is typically a five-day weightlifting routine where you target different muscle groups each day, such as the shoulders, chest, and back.
Chaveleh used to hate leg day, preferring to focus on building his upper body. Sometimes he would skip it altogether, going two weeks without a leg workout.
He was missing out on a classic strategy for faster gains: compound exercises. Compound movements, like squats, presses, rows, and deadlifts, work multiple muscle groups at once, making for a more efficient workout.
With a new approach, Chaveleh said he learned to love leg exercises because they engaged other muscle groups to torch calories. By switching to full-body sessions for every workout, he burned up to 400 calories in less than an hour using simple movements, which is crucial for getting lean.
The downside: Chaveleh had to upgrade his wardrobe to fit his leaner physique.
The more efficient workout plan helped Chaveleh free up more time and energy for his social life, too.
“I run, I go out, and socialize more because I’m not dreading going to the gym,” he said.
And in San Francisco, where fitness is social currency, it started to open up new pathways for networking. He connected with potential clients at parks, on hikes, and at run clubs.
“A big part of that is the fitness, meeting like-minded people, ” he said. “It’s a hot topic in San Francisco, and it’s helped bring business.”
At one recent gathering, an acquaintance was so impressed with Chaveleh’s transformation that he insisted on re-introducing himself.
His latest goals are all about building: growing his business and bulking up to put on some extra muscle in the coming months.
The takeaway
Consistency is key to transforming fitness. If you hate your workouts and diet, you’re not going to stick to them long enough to see results.
Start with the basics: a few days a week in the gym, no more than an hour at a time. Pick high-ROI, full-body exercises like squats, presses, and deadlifts. Rinse and repeat.
Then, as you start to get comfortable with the routine, keep the intensity up. Add reps or weight so each set feels challenging, but doesn’t leave you crushed by the end.
Don’t neglect nutrition. Try tracking what you eat for a few days to get a benchmark. From there, you can adjust so that yourย protein intakeย is on point and your calories aren’t over the top, while still enjoying whatever foods work best for you.
Finally, lean into the lifestyle: fitness is a great networking tool, and it can translate into better performance in the office and beyond. The same habits that work in the gym (setting attainable goals and scaffolding small steps to reach them) are a great blueprint to build the life you want.
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