So here is a little back story that lead me to walk into a gym on the 16th March 2025.
It’s something I always wanted to do, but was never in the right frame of mind, or that was my excuse every time, but some truth in it, also I have always told myself gym is not for me, my frame is too thin. I was not fat but I was starting to feel uncomfortable with myself.
I believe there is normally a reason for a sudden change of mind, or “I need to do something about this now” and for me It was images that we took In Venice this year. Just to put the images I will share with you into context this next extract is the essence of the Venice Carnival.
From one of the models at the Carnival.
“What I like about this photographic series by Vale Venezia Pic Ketj Lovatel and Tim Swart is simply that, beyond the aesthetics and style, the staging that is very personal, it highlights and returns to the very essence of what Carnival is, that is. a reversal of values of an established order, a time of the year when social, religious, social, moral, conformist conventions were swept away. Certainly, Venice Carnival has become, and I have included myself, a plastic doll parade, sometimes extremely sought-after and refined, sometimes ridiculous and dusty, but the same people who strike strange and boring poses under the lanterns of San Marco find themselves in the alcoves of some. private parties in lascivious and unglorious poses. Everyone does what they want as they say in France, "with their ass" as long as there is no man's death
So, long live the madness, decadence, subversion in the Carnival because it is its essence itself, which will attract even to Venice all the subversives of a Europe of the 18th hypocrite and driven. Let's keep Carnival as a sanctuary, bacchanal of the Ancients to avoid the everyday world, it, becoming a tragic carnival”.
The first Image is the raw file, as you can see Its not really very nice, with my waistline essentially really large love handles and when I sat down I could feel the fat rolls and it felt terrible.
The second image is the edited image that everybody saw , as you can see no waistline, and looks moderately better.
Prior to that, the images that led up to this photoshoot was a few images we took at the blue door in Venice, and these images really shocked me, I looked at them and said, is this what I look like, If this is so and I want to continue wearing cloths like this I need to do something about it. Fast forward and on my return I decided this is it. I had no idea where or how but the mere fact that I had decided to do something was me crossing over the top of the hill.
I walked into Crossfit as a start, did one session but when they indicated once session a week I knew that was not what I wanted or needed. Popped into Core Gym and that was that. Met up with a PT and from then it was 5 days a week, not negotiable, minus a few days of injury time.
This journey was a commitment and a promise to myself, that I would never look a certain way, growing up my dad always had a beer belly and I swore I would never look like that, but I was on my way to it if I did not do something about it. At 53 and having never put a foot in a gym the odds were slightly against me given my age, but not impossible, I was not trying to look like a super model but just wanted to loose the weight. I gave myself a 6 month goal to reach 70kg from a starting weight of 83kg.
I would not have done this without a PT, simply because I had no idea what I was doing and wanted to prevent myself doing all the wrong things and hurt myself, become frustrated and give up. Invest in yourself they say, so I did. I will give numbers at the end. Now probably the most important part to this story is the fact that your diet plays the biggest roll, if you do not eat right you are waisting your time, and you have to be in a calorie deficit to reach your goal. So for 6 months I gave up just about everything “nice” tracked everything I ate, EVERYTHING! that is key, if you do not you are only cheating yourself, remember you are doing this for yourself. Thankfully today tracking your food is fairly simple with an app.
I used Nutra Check, simply because it has just about every food type in the UK and NI, it is a payed subscription per year, but remember you are investing in yourself. So you simply scan the item enter the weight you’r eating and bobs your uncle. For 6 months I did this relentlessly without fail and week by week I could see the weight dropping off, all in small bits, thats the key, there is no quick fix, CONSISTENCY!!!!!! Wins the race every time.
I weighed myself everyday to keep track of what was happening, measured my waist, arms, hips, neck, thigh and calf all to keep track so you know if you are heading in the right direction.
Toward’s the end of my 6 months I hit a plateau which happens, your body adjusts in remarkable ways, I needed to ramp things up a little bit, so in July I went on a zero carb diet, not easy to do, and no not completely zero but as close as possible, that helped. In the last two weeks I hade about 2 kg to loose and went even more extreme, I did this not because I had to but because I wanted to. In the end I managed to get down to 71.2kg in little over 6 half months In all the time I hardly touched a sweet, snacks etc, Ill not kid you, you have to want to do this, perhaps its too extreme and everybody has different goals.
I saw no changes initially for about 2 months or so, remember consistency, TRUST the process, then one day I noticed something, a change, this little change get’s you all excited and you think finally its happening and the motivation is absolutely huge
Six and a half months later here I am, I have lost the weight I wanted to, look and feel better than I EVER have and all that at 53. I lift weights 3 days a week and the other two days I love to just do cardio type stuff, in addition to that, 2 months into my trining I started walking at first 30 minutes before every session then I upped it to 1 hour walking before every session, trust me its boring as anything but the results speak for themselves. My resting heart rate dropped from 80-60 to 49-57 BPM. All this being said, if this is not your thing, one simple suggestion to you, get yourself a walking pad, walk at least 10000 steps a day and keep yourself in a calorie deficit and you can still loose weight.
Now that I have reached my goal, here is where many people fail, and they fail badly, they think thats it I have lost the weight and they get back to eating just like they did before, put on all the weight and they are back to square one. You need to maintain your healthy eating habits put yourself in to a maintenance plan and cary on exercising the weight does not just stay off. Now life can continue eat healthy , you can still snack and do takeouts , nothing says you can never do that again, but maintain a healthy eating habit and thats it. Hope you enjoyed reading about my journey and took some inspiration or motivation from it.
Totals approximately
PT - 6 months £1800
protein powder - £306
Creatine - £108
Food - no idea actually, was just part of the weekly shop, but definitely more that normal.
Below is the new me, I guess around 10% body fat give or take, a massive difference, one that I love and am very proud of, Its been hard work, but so worth it, I guess the hard work now is maintaining it, but if there is one thing I have learnt over the last 6 half months is that eating healthy and enjoying good food is so attainable and you can still snack away, I can tell you eat more protein rich foods, foods with less fat content in them, cut out processed foods as much as possible and your on your way ……
