Ibby, 33, from Manchester in the United Kingdom, tells Men’s Health how he lost weight, built muscle, and changed his outlook on life by pursuing an 11-week transformation program.
When I was at my heaviest, I felt depressed and very unhappy. I was 31 years old, and I was 196 pounds. The weight had piled up slowly over time due to overeating and an overall lack of activity, as I had become incredibly complacent in my unhealthy habits.
I remember just waking up one day and thinking, what am I doing here? I needed to make drastic changes to get my health and wellbeing in order otherwise I was going to fall into a horrible trap of bad habits, poor food choices and weight gain. My motivation came from a holiday to Dubai, which I had planned for my birthday. I wanted to be in the best shape I could possibly be in time for the trip. This motivated me, and in that journey, I found my “why”.
I started educating myself on nutrition, and figured out what sort of training worked for me. I sought assistance on beginning my body transformation at Ultimate Performance Manchester, and with the help of my personal trainer David Cogley, we began the journey.
David and I worked out three times a week; these were total-body sessions with lots of compound exercises and heavy weights. We performed two exercises back-to-back in a superset structure, and each workout contained three or more of these supersets. One example of a superset we performed was a Barbell Romanian Deadlift and a Dumbbell Bench Press. I also performed calisthenics-based training, and did light cardio two to three times a week, and most importantly stuck to the goal of hitting 10,000 steps every day.
Ultimate Performance
I was motivated by achieving weekly and monthly targets which David set, but above all I was driven by my “why”. I wanted to be in the best shape possible for my 32nd birthday and this was my main motivation. David provided me with a meal plan that recommended servings of lean meat and fish, lots of vegetables, and complex carbohydrates such as rice and sweet potato. A special emphasis was placed on consuming adequate protein to help me recover from the resistance training sessions that I was doing. I was also educated in terms of portion sizes and food choices that would help me achieve my goals as quickly as possible.
My training also changed in that a greater focus was placed on progressing my performance in the gym each session. All training loads were tracked, rest times were monitored, video analysis was performed on certain exercises, and of course training intensity increased massively. I learned that progress in the gym is not just adding weight to the bar, but it can mean doing each repetition with better technique or doing more work in less time.
I lost a total of 37 pounds in 11 weeks, and finished off the transformation with a professional photoshoot. The photoshoot put me outside of my comfort zone, but was a brilliant experience and showcased all the hard work I put in. The process was hard at times, but I guess in life nothing worthwhile is easy. This makes the achievement more satisfying, so you can eventually appreciate the hard work you have put in when you get where you want to be.
Ultimate Performance
There were so many positive side effects to training. My day-to-day activities became much easier, and I began to resolve issues with more confidence. I have a positive impact on people around me, my energy is super positive, and mentally I feel great. I feel like anything I want to do is achievable.
Now that I am in a place where I am happy with my physique, I am pursuing strength goals. I set goals of doing a chin up with 110 pounds attached to me, deadlifting 400 pounds and bench pressing 265 pounds. I reached the chin up and deadlift goal last week and expect to hit the bench press goal in the next month. However, I am not finished with achieving exercise goals. Exercise and training are now a central part of my life, and between myself and my trainer, we will come up with new targets in the near future.
If I could give one piece of advice to anyone looking to make a change in their own personal fitness, I would just say: don’t hold back, take action today. Don’t wait until tomorrow, because tomorrow never comes.
Philip EllisPhilip Ellis is a freelance writer and journalist from the United Kingdom covering pop culture, relationships and LGBTQ issues.
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