Danny Melts Away 38kg of body mass!

First of all Danny deserves a HUMONGOUS HIGH FIVE! I’m extremely proud of him.

What he’s achieved is just ABSOLUTELY FRICKIN INCREDIBLE!

Anybody that loses this amount of weight (6 stone!) deserves a medal. This isn’t something that happens over night, this is the type of accomplishment that takes times, patience, and endless amounts of hard work.

What I’d like to do is share Danny’s story and discuss the strategies that we’ve implemented along the way to help him annihilate body fat, build strength, and improve overall health.

There’s going to be plenty of KNOWLEDGE BOMBS shared throughout this article – which I hope will help educate and inspire people to start their own fitness/fat loss endeavour.

Starting A Long & Challenging Journey…

When Danny first came to see me his main incentive was to lose 2-3 stone of weight before his wedding. We both knew that this endeavour was going to take time – it wasn’t going to be some quick over night fix!

We committed to a 6 month time frame of working together and immediately set some tangible goals such as:

1. Lose 1-3 lbs per week
2. Complete 2 personal training sessions per week
3. Commit to 3 home workouts each week
4. Increase daily step count by 25% (6,000 steps per day

Personal Training…

Initially the aim of our personal training sessions was to keep things simple and improve fitness. I taught Danny how to lift weights correctly, how to contract muscles and control his breathing whilst exercising.

Our sessions lasted 45 minutes and were very moderate in intensity (50-60% effort). We would never stop moving though, in-between sets we’d keep walking to burn more calories whilst I educated him on fat loss and our plan of action.

Strength Workouts…

Overtime we’ve built up Danny’s fitness to the point where he’s now training very hard. Our sessions now focus on building muscle by lifting heavier weights.

To give you a little taster of one of our sessions it looks like this…

FAT LOSS WORKOUT:

1. Flat Dumbbell press (chest) + Incline DB row (back)
2. Shoulder press with dumbbells (shoulders) + Back Squats (legs)
3. Bicep curls with dumbbells (biceps) + Push ups (triceps)
4. Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift (hamstrings) + DB floor side raises
5. Plank (abs) + Cardio get ups

For each exercise he completes 8-15 reps and completes 2-3 sets per exercise, resting only 30-45s between each superset. This full body style of workout is very efficient at working out every muscle in the body (chest, back, shoulders, biceps, triceps, abs, quads, and hamstrings) and is fantastic for fat loss.

NOTE: Every 6-8 weeks we change the program to keep things interesting and work on new aspects of strength and fitness.

I can’t stress how important it is to improve your strength if you want to improve your body shape and lose fat. The more lean muscle you have the more calories that you’ll burn on a day to day basis.

Running Goal…

Alongside Danny’s weight training we’ve also included cardiovascular training in the form of running (2-3x per week).

We set a running goal to run up the steep and gruelling Carterknowle hill in Sheffield (it’s brutal!). We built up to the challenge slowly, for example first we started with 20s running, and 20s walking, and gradually progressed to 30s running, 20s walking (a bit like the Couch to 5k Running Program), until eventually we did the entire hill without any breaks whatsoever…

We’ve now permanently built running into Danny’s routine and he’s regularly completing 3-5k runs by himself! HIGH FIVE!

WhatsApp Accountability…

There are 168hrs in a week, and we only spend 1.5hrs together (2 x 45 minute sessions). In order to keep Danny on track with his goals we agreed that regular communication via WhatsApp would be essential outside of our sessions. He could then contact me with any questions, and provide regular updates on his training and nutrition. He would also send me a screenshot of every run completed (using the app Map My Run) accompanied with a selfie…

No Diet Plan…

To start with there was no diet plan. A common mistake I often see personal trainers make is that they drastically change their clients lifestyle overnight. They stick their client on a super restrictive diet (which may as well be rabbit food!) and train them like a bodybuilder! This more often than not leads to failure because the new and super strict routine is totally unsustainable.

For the first 2-3 weeks of working with Danny all I wanted him to do was keep an honest food diary, writing down what he was eating and the time he ate. I knew this would create accountability and highlight to both me and Danny what he was consuming on a daily basis. As time has progressed we’ve moved to a more structured eating routine, we also track calories and monitor total calorie expenditure through activity.

KEY INSIGHT: Whilst working together we’ve made changes very gradually. Remember the tortoise and hare story… ‘Slow and Steady Wins the Race’ 

Mindful Eating…

Half the time we don’t even taste food, we just wolf it down! It’s incredibly easy to munch through a bag of Maltesers whilst watching a film, without even properly realising what we’re doing (or how many calories we’ve just guzzled down!)

One of the things we’ve focused on with Danny is trying to stay fully conscious when eating food – by minimising distractions and taking time to sit down, and eat slowly. When we become mindful whilst eating, we not only enjoy our food much more but we are also far more likely to eat less and feel more satisfied.

Weekly weigh Ins…

We’ve used the scales everyweek to ensure that we are heading in the right direction. Has Danny’s weight always gone down? Absolutely not, there have been times when weight has gone up and times when weight has come down. As we’ve worked together we’ve addressed all the reasons for why the scales go up and down and took each setback as opportunity to learn, reflect and grow.

Mindset & Motivation…

There have been plenty of ups and down for Danny during his weight loss endeavour. He’s been pushed, faced tough challenges, and had to deal with uncomfortable emotions in order to move forward.

We’ve had plenty of open and honest conversations, digging deep in order to create postive changes both physically and mentally.

Over time we’ve replaced old, unproductive habits with more postive behaviours – which are conducive towards leading a healthier and happier life.

Simple But Not Easy…

Weight loss is typically very simple but just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s easy! The number one goal in any fat loss phase is to create caloric deficit – that’s the only way a person will lose weight.

In a nutshell, Danny has achieved an impressive weight loss through moving more and consuming less calories. But in order to get there he’s had to address lots of behaviours, and habits. Over time we’ve manage to rebuild both mind and body.

The Big Day…

Danny gets married on Saturday! It’s safe to say he’s smashed his original 2-3 stone target out of the park! In fact he’s doubled it (6 stone!)

On behalf of my self and the LEP Tribe i’d like to wish Danny the very best for his BIG DAY. I think you’ll agree that he’s done incredible and looks very dapper in his wedding suit…

Thank’s So Much For Reading…

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post and learned something that can help you on your own journey.

If you’ve benefitted from reading please share this article with a friend or leave your comment below! I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks,

Nick 🙂