Pilot turns his ‘dad bod’ into six-pack abs and fixed his heart health risk in 16 weeks

Vikesh always imagined himself as a hands-on and energetic father.

But as a 44-year-old airline pilot juggling shift work, back pain, and chronic fatigue, that image was slipping away.
He could see the classic ‘dad bod’ in the mirror and found himself breathless playing with his daughter.

But the wake-up call came during his annual medical. The cardiologist warned that this heart age was 56 – and if he didn’t fix it soon he was heading for a heart attack or stroke. Determined to avoid becoming “that dad with a big belly,” Vikesh turned to Ultimate Performance.

With expert coaching, tailored nutrition, and total accountability, he not only lost 13kg (28 lbs) but drastically improved his cholesterol levels in just 16 weeks. Now bursting with energy and clarity, he’s built a future-proof lifestyle for his family – and himself.

What made you realise you needed to change? 

I’ve always been conscious about my health and body shape for the last 10 years since I was in my early 30s.
I felt my health was deteriorating in the sense that at the time my daughter was about two years old, and this is when I could really see the difference in my body.

When she wanted to run around and she was getting a lot more energetic and active, and she was running around and saying ‘Papa, Papa, I want you to play with me?’ I’d play with her, but then I was feeling out of energy and out of breath. I was like, ‘this isn’t me’.

What else motivated you to transform? 

I knew we had a son on the way as well. And I was like, I’m going to be 44 soon. I don’t want to be that dad sitting on the side having a big belly. That typical stereotype, dad, which is in his mid 40s, coming into his 50s, not very active, loves to eat, can’t play with his kids.  

I want you to be that fit dad. I want to be running around with them, running with them, playing football with my son, playing football with my daughter, running with them endlessly and not being out of breath. 

I want to be able to take my kids to the pool, take my kids to the beach, take my top off, and my daughter and my son and people to think ‘oh, wow, that’s your dad!?’ It’s something for myself to feel proud of.

Was there a specific wake-up call that pushed you to take action? 

What really pushed me, and was like the final nail in the coffin and was when I went for my medical. Because as an airline pilot we have to keep a good level of health every year. 

I went to have my medical renewed. My BMI was around 27/28, which was close to being classed as obese, and if your BMI hits 30, you wouldn’t even be able to get an interview with an airline, let alone fly. So, I was basically told by the doctor that I needed to sort myself out and lose some weight.  

They wanted to just investigate my cholesterol levels because they’ve always been at a high level. I had blood tests that were still very high.  It’s about 5.5 mmol/L, which is  borderline high. Sometimes it’s gone up to 7 mmol/L.

They said, ‘look, we need to just send you to a cardiologist’. The cardiologist spoke to me, and he gave me the hard truth. He said, ‘look your heart age at the moment, putting in all these figures, is 56. You’re 44. I need to do additional tests on you.’  

I had additional tests and a CT scan, and it turns out I have mild plaque build-up in my main artery which is feeding the heart, and also in my neck. That can potentially cause a stroke.

What did the cardiologist say to you? 

He gave me two options. He says ‘You either carry on like you are and you’ll probably end up having a heart attack or stroke. Or we can slow down the process, but you need to change your lifestyle. You need to change your diet. You need to do more exercise. 

He said your bad cholesterol levels are not good. And your good cholesterol levels are not good. So he upped my medication, but said you need to start exercising.  

At that point, I said to myself: ‘Wow, this is not a joke anymore. This is serious. My job relies on me being at a certain level of fitness to fly. And my family relies on me to have this job.’ 

I had already made up my mind and I said, ‘look, I’m joining this gym. It’s called Ultimate Performance. My younger brother’s been there. I’ve seen the results. I’ve seen what they can do. I guarantee you I will be in shape.’ 

He said: ‘I’m going to give you a year. In October, you’re coming back, and I need to see your cholesterol levels down to 3 mmol/L, and your blood cholesterol levels down to 1.8 mmol/L.’ 

How quickly did you start to see the results when you came to Ultimate Performance?  

After my first two months here, it was absolutely amazing. 

Obviously with my trainer’s hard work, putting me through my paces, my diet, making sure that I was on top of everything. 

My blood results came out, and my cholesterol was down to about 3.2 mmol/L. My bad cholesterol levels were at 1.9 mmol/L. This was after about six weeks. 

I sent the results to my cardiologist. He called me up literally the next day, and he said ‘I’ve seen your results. How did you do that? 

I told him my weight at the time –  I think I dropped about 5-6kg. And he just said ‘This is crazy!  I haven’t heard of this before. You’ve done very, very well because you’re on the right track. I can’t wait to see you in October. I have a very, very strong feeling that if you carry on like you’re doing now, not only have you brought your heart age down to what it should be, but I will probably take some medication away, if not all, or definitely reduce the dosage on my atorvastatin medication.’ 

I thought ‘Wow! Okay, this is working.’ 

What challenges did you face on your transformation journey, especially with your work schedule as a pilot? 

The biggest challenges were balancing my work and life, and routine. I’m really busy. I work really hard and I work odd hours. I’m getting up at 2am in the morning. Sometimes I sleep at 8am in the morning. 

I get up at let’s say 2am, and  I’m thinking, ‘do I eat? Don’t I eat? Do I weigh myself or don’t I?’ When I get when I’m on the flight, what do I eat? When I get to the hotel, what do I eat? I don’t have my scales. When I’m at the gym, what workouts do I do? 

These were the big, big hurdles that I faced and I overcame with the help of my trainer. I used to send my trainer a menu and he would say ‘Don’t eat that, ask for this instead. Tell them to tale the sauce out. Or eat your protein first, then your carbs.’ 

I used to go to the gyms in hotels, and every hotel that we stay at has different gyms. They’re not all the same. Some have a very good selection of weight. I would send my trainer a video of what I had to work with. He gave me a travel workout where I could pick and choose what to do on my travels. That was the biggest help.

What did you learn about how to train from working with your trainer?  

What I learnt how was to lift weights properly. It’s not just about swinging your arms about with heavy weights and letting momentum do the work. It’s all about the technique. It’s all about slowing your lifts down and really engaging your muscles. For example, my trainer, Andre, had a little ‘mind hack’ for me during split squats and would ask me to imagine going down an escalator and holding that position. And you’d really feel your quad muscles firing up. And he was always asking me to be more explosive during the concentric portion of an exercise, so you’d slow the eccentric portion of the lift down, hold the move at the bottom of that exercise, and then explosively push back up. And I’d be so locked in. And you really feel your target muscles firing up. And it made such a huge difference. For example, I love doing the pendulum now, it gives me such an adrenaline rush! 

How easy was it to make the changes to your diet? 

I very quickly found out that having healthy food is actually very easy to put together than if you’re having unhealthy food. It’s quite easy to do a chicken breast and put a very mild seasoning on it with some veg on the side… and it tastes great with a bit of olive oil. I always thought that to make healthy food is quite complex. 

I had a real wrong conception about food, and about what I should eat, what I shouldn’t eat. That was always something which was always, um, holding me back. I would always think ‘what am I going to eat on board (my flight)? Now I can order with the airline I work with. They’re great in the sense that I can just put a request in for a low-fat meal, and they give me, like lean proteins, a bit of rice, and some veg. It’s very healthy food.

How do you feel now having completed your transformation? 

When I look at myself in the mirror, I look younger and I feel younger.  My mind is a lot clearer. I can think clearer. I can think more positively. I’m happier. Coming to the gym. It’s hard. But when I leave here, I feel happy. Before,  I used to be grumpy. I used to be moody. And that’s all down to very poor diet and no exercise.

Now I just feel charged all the time. I can run around. I can pick up my daughter. I can pick up my son. We can play for hours. I’ve got so much strength. It’s an amazing feeling. 

What do your family think of the transformation you’ve achieved? 

When I was doing my photoshoot, my daughter looked at me and then said: ‘Mama, look at Papa. He’s so strong! Look at his muscles!’ And then she ran up to me and gave me a hug and a kiss, and said: ‘Papa, I really love you, loads.’ And she tensed her biceps and said: ‘Papa, you have big muscles!’ It was the best feeling in the world. It actually brought tears to my eyes. I won’t ever forget that feeling.  

 I could see my wife was admiring me during the photoshoot, and afterwards she said to me: ‘You look like the models you see in fitness magazines.’ Which was such an amazing compliment. And this process has had a really positive effect on my wife and my whole family as well. My wife has also adopted a very healthy lifestyle. We eat together, we cook together, and it’s brought us closer together as well. We send each other recipes, and we have fun experimenting with making foods such as protein cookies, or homemade protein bars, or our own protein flatbreads.  

My wife has been amazing. I couldn’t have done this without her. I always say that I’m the vehicle, but she is the driver of a lot of my success. She would always help me weigh my foods, make sure I had the right nutrients in my meals, and supported me every step of the way. It’s inspired her to start with Ultimate Performance later this year.

And what does your cardiologist think? 

 I saw him a few days ago. He was over-the-moon. 

He couldn’t believe what I’ve achieved, and how much my bloodwork has improved in just six months, and he’s already reduced my medication. And when I told him how much weight I’d lost, how much body fat I’d lost, and I showed him the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures, he couldn’t believe the change. He kept telling me how happy he was, and that in his whole career, he’d never seen anything like it. He even gave me a hug! 

He has his own online platform where he talks about cardiology in general, and what it’s like to work with pilots specifically because he works with a lot of pilots, and he’s asked if I will be a guest speaker to talk about how I’ve achieved what I’ve achieved. Because of our schedules, a lot of pilots do struggle to find time to train and to eat properly, and sometimes our schedules can become an excuse, but he said to me: ‘You’ve proved pilots can do it.’ He obviously sees pilots all the time and they do give him excuses as to why they can’t address their health problems, so he was really curious as to how I’d actually achieved my results.  

I told him about my training with Ultimate Performance, and my results have actually inspired him to join Ultimate Performance as well, which is fantastic. He was so happy with how I’d turned my health around, and completely changed my lifestyle, that both my cardiologist and his wife are now going to join Ultimate Performance. I feel very proud of that.

What would you say to others who feel like they’re too busy or too far gone to change? 

There were the two biggest challenges I had, uh, with work… That was one of the other things where I thought, how can I keep myself fit with my lifestyle? They’re just excuses. And I always remember the slogan that you have in the gym where the excuses stop, the results begin.

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