“Coya allowed us to have what we’ve searched for and done throughout our marriage together — finding those moments, those kernels throughout the relationship that bring us together for a shared experience.“
Twenty-four years together. Twenty-one of them married. And it took a Coya cohort to give them something they hadn’t quite been able to find before.
Samantha Harris is a familiar face — eight seasons co-hosting Dancing with the Stars, years on Entertainment Tonight, and the kind of on-camera career that keeps you accountable to your physical health whether you want to be or not. Her husband, Michael Hess, is a 25-year veteran of the financial services industry, a former basketball player, and someone who has built his career around one core belief: that a coordinated game plan beats a collection of disconnected advice every time.
Together, they decided to do something they’d never quite managed to do together before: take their health seriously, at the same time, with the same support system.
Pre-Coya Reality
Samantha had spent years on camera and in peak physical shape. But when her first daughter arrived at 37, life shifted. Michael noted that life after kids had become comfortable in ways that weren’t entirely serving him — he was still active on the golf course, but largely sedentary outside of it. The version of himself he wanted to be, the one who’d be around long enough to watch his daughters grow up and meet their children, required something more than what he was currently doing.
Both Samantha and Michael knew that health isn’t something to prioritize later; a breast diagnosis in 2024 had already made that clear. Samantha has been cancer-free since her double mastectomy, and today she’s thriving. But that chapter had a way of sharpening everything: the understanding that health isn’t guaranteed, that being around for your family isn’t something you can leave to chance, and that the time to invest in yourself is always now.
The Experience
Throughout the program, Michael’s coach met him exactly where he was. Changes were introduced one at a time and calibrated to a rhythm that felt genuinely sustainable rather than aspirational on paper and brutal in practice. When something didn’t stick, it wasn’t treated as a failure. They simply tried something else.
“I did kind of have this thing like, ‘holy crap, this is going to be so overwhelming. I’m going to have to try to make all these changes and then I’m not going to make any changes – but I did not have that experience.“
For Samantha, it was the coaching team itself that stood out. “The coaches with Coya, to me, are what make it a standout program — far beyond anything that I’ve ever experienced.“
The structure that made it work was the same for both of them: the accountability of a shared cohort experience, paired with data-backed coaching that was precisely tailored to each of them individually. The group gave them momentum. The coaches gave them frameworks that were uniquely theirs.
The Ripple Effect
Here’s what neither of them anticipated: doing this together would become the thing that mattered most.
“Coya allowed us to have what we’ve searched for and done throughout our marriage together,” Samantha said. “Finding those moments, those kernels throughout the relationship that bring us together for a shared experience.“
Twenty-four years in, most couples are firmly settled into their rhythms — the ones that work and the ones that are simply comfortable. A shared health journey isn’t the obvious place to look for a new point of connection. But that’s exactly what it became. They were learning the same language at the same time, building habits in parallel, and showing up to the same process from two different angles — which gave them more to talk about, more to build on, and more reason to keep going.
“Doing it together, but even separately, and then having those habits that we learned carry forward to continue that Coya connection into the marriage,” Samantha added.
The habits didn’t stay inside the program. They carried into their daily routines, into how they show up for each other, and into the future they’re building for their daughters.
The Results:
Restorative sleep improvement: Samantha saw a 33.54% increase in her restorative sleep which is #1 all time across the thousands of high performers who have come through the Coya program.
HRV improvement: Michael saw a 13.52% increase in his HRV which indicates a higher capacity to handle the stresses that are coming at him in the office, on the golf course, and at home on a daily basis.
For Michael, the proof also showed up on the golf course: “There’s no question in my mind — I’m hitting the ball further. I’m more on balance.” For Samantha, watching her husband change was its own kind of result. “I know that it’s been helping him — anything for the golf game, anything to keep him living longer, healthier, together — so that we can watch our girls grow up and be with their children.” That’s the goal underneath the goal. The one that makes everything else worth doing.
Post-Cohort Takeaway
They came in skeptical — a couple who didn’t exactly volunteer for this. They left with something they’d spent two decades quietly looking for: a shared experience that didn’t end when the cohort did.
“If you want to improve your relationship, even if it’s already good — well, it helped us,” Michael said.
