I had been trying to get in shape for seven years – but nothing worked for me to get the body I truly wanted.
That’s what makes my transformation at Ultimate Performance all the more incredible.
It took me just 12 weeks to build a body that was shredded, muscular and fit – even now, looking at my pictures, I can’t believe it was even possible to make such a huge change in such a short space of time. It’s mind-blowing.
Everyone wants to know what my ‘secret’ is or what I did to achieve this transformation. There’s no secret – just being consistent with my diet and training hard under the guidance of my UP personal trainer James brought me these incredible results.
But there are some tips I learned along the way that really helped me achieve my new body over the 12 weeks.
1. I was in a calorie deficit
For years I had struggled to shed body fat and get the six-pack I wanted. What I now know is that I was eating too many calories to facilitate fat loss. I always ate when I was hungry and never tracked my meals.
But to be able to burn fat effectively I learned that you have to be in a calorie deficit. During my transformation, I had to keep my diet on track with a limit of 2,000 calories a day. For me, it was a reasonable deficit that’s why I only had food cravings from time to time. After a while I found a good way to get over it:
2. I drank more water
One of the best ways I learned to conquer my food cravings was simply to drink more water. So often you can mistake hunger for thirst. I started drinking more water and kept myself hydrated.
This method helped to suppress hunger – all the extra water helped to fill me up. In addition, I found that drinking more water kept me refreshed and focused. 2L – 3L was enough for me to keep me on track with my diet and avoid cheat meals that would have slowed down my fat loss.
3. I ate regular meals
I tried to make a schedule for my meals and eat at the same time every day. That kept me more organised and my body got used to this meal schedule and I didn’t struggle with cravings because of it. I learned that eating regular meals with nutritious food helped keep me full, fuel my body and keep my blood sugars stable.
Having regular meals every three or four hours is good discipline for your body after you get used to it – it then becomes far easier to control your diet and get the results you want on your transformation.
4. I did an extra weekly training session to speed up fat loss
I was training three times a week with my trainer at UP. However, one of the things my trainer advised me to do was get an extra weekly session in every week to help speed up my results.
The extra session on my own was to work on those body parts that I felt were the weakest. In my case, it was my legs that were my weakest muscles.
So, on the day I was off from training with my PT, I trained legs on my own or if I felt too weak then I just had a 30-minute steady-state cardio session on the Watt bike. This one extra session gave me a good boost in my results. My trainer found that my weight dropped faster with that extra session.
5. I ate foods that were optimal for my body
Eating ‘clean’ is one of the most important disciplines during transformation. I had to eat 2,000 calories a day, so my aim was to find the most beneficial sources of food for my body. I tried to avoid any ‘fast-acting’ carb sources, like bananas, white rice, pasta and sweets.
Instead, I got my carbs from sources like buckwheat, brown rice or oats. All three of these have a lower glycaemic index, which works better for my body (as I must keep my blood sugar level low because of an illness).
I also ate a lot of different sources of quality protein like chicken breast and wild salmon (which contains more essential nutrients than farmed salmon) – protein is key to helping repair and regrow muscle tissue from training and keeping protein levels in your diet high when you’re in a calorie deficit means you’re less likely to lose muscle.
6. I prepared all my meals
Food prep was a massive part of making a successful transformation for me. It helped me stay organised, it meant I knew exactly what ingredients were in my food and the amount of calories I was eating could be tracked and recorded. Plus cooking in bulk saves you so much extra time.
It can seem daunting at first but there are some very easy strategies you can use. I bought a steamer that helped me to prepare my meals in the morning.
I just placed my chicken breasts in one container and vegetables or sweet potatoes in another and left it cooking for 30 minutes. Once I was out of the shower and ready for work my food was ready and I had my meals prepared fresh for the day.
Having meals ready prepared also meant I was less likely to get hungry and run to the shop and make bad food choices with convenience food.
7. I ate fast-acting carbs around my workouts
The harder you train and the stronger you get, the more potential there is to build muscle. One method of keeping my workouts hard and intense was by supplementing with dextrin during my training.
It basically contains fast-acting carbs, and it’s only one source of fast-acting carbs that I allowed myself during my transformation.
This supplement helped me to quickly recover between sets and keep my training more intense. I didn’t feel the negative effect of eating fast-acting carbs during training sessions as I just burned through them during training.
8. I constantly tracked my results
Before I started my transformation with UP, I never tracked anything. This meant I never knew if I was making progress or not. When you don’t see progress it’s so easy to give up and just move onto something else – and never get any real results from your training and nutrition.
But working with UP was completely different. Keeping track of my results really helped. This way it’s easier to see your progress and this is great motivation, when you see that its works!
Every week, my trainer would track my weight, measure my body fat, monitor my energy levels, sleep, hunger levels and how I was feeling. We would take a weekly progress picture which shows how much you are growing, getting leaner and changing every week – this kept me going.
I would post some of the pictures on social media where my friends were supporting me with my journey and that gave me that extra boost of my motivation to attain the best possible results I could.
9. I ‘cheated clean’
If there were any occasions that I was struggling with cravings and I just wanted something sugary, I did it the correct way rather than just bingeing on junk.
I found healthier substitutes that tasted good, but stopped my sweet tooth and didn’t impact on my diet. One of the best things that worked for me was mixing Greek-style natural yoghurt with UP’s Chocotrients. It tasted amazing and stopped my cravings, but the combination is a lot healthier than eating chocolate ice cream and it doesn’t contain any sugar as it is based on Stevia.
If you want to start your own 12-week body transformation like Arthur, BOOK A FREE CONSULT AT UP NOW!
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