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hundred days ago i challenged myself tn a fitness transformation this was me every day i was sleeping just four hours
a night walking an average of just 2 000
steps drinking four cups of caffeinated
tea scoffing food at every possible
opportunity i’m just generally feeling
like a sack of potatoes so i committed
to making 10 key lifestyle changes to
see if i could turn this all around 100
days is up this is what’s happened the
first five days were horrible i dropped
immediately from three to four cups of
tea and coffee a day to zero and while i
did think this would be challenging i
had no idea that i’d be practically
unable to function without it my eyes
hurt my forehead hurts my whole face
hurts and what made this slightly harder
was the fact that at the same time my
gym regimen had just tripled in
intensity more on that in a minute i was
running at every possible opportunity
literally until i could not take another
step plus i was making myself do 25
minutes of fast walking at an incline
every evening on top of that not easy
when you’re struggling to make it to the
evening it’s literally like 6 p.m i’m
dead but then on day 6 something
happened i’m just getting ready to film
our best smartphone for the year so far
video and i should feel okay i feel
awake i feel
ready i feel like i might not even need
a t
it felt wrong why do i suddenly feel
like i can film this video without my
caffeine of course the answer is that
the previous five days without it meant
that i was getting tired during the day
sleeping at a decent time and actually
getting better quality sleep because of
it it just taken my body five days to
readjust the functioning without that
caffeine stimulation i have had tea
since then but i’ve never had more than
one in a day and it immediately switched
from feeling like something i needed to
just a bonus
and while i was on this high i also
thought it’s been a week let’s do a
progress check i couldn’t believe it
turns out that within just seven days
i’ve managed to bring the average sleep
time all the way up from four hours to
almost seven the scales were saying 83.8
kilos and 20.3 percent fat i was on top
of the moon over the next couple of
weeks as well as all the other stuff i
started to properly turn my attention to
the art of meditation from everything
i’d heard about meditating i knew that
this was going to be the key to reducing
my overall stress levels and it seems so
simple you just sit there for a few
minutes a day but my gosh has this
fitness transformation revealed stuff
about me i couldn’t do it i was trying
to use the headspace app for this and it
starts you off with three minute
meditation sessions where there’s a
narrator who guides you through what to
think about things like focus on the
sounds around you and notice the way
your body is feeling right now sadly the
only thing i could notice was just how
painstakingly long three minutes felt
when you’re doing absolutely nothing i
wanted to fidget i wanted to move i
wanted to get on with a hundred tasks
that i told myself i was gonna do that
day not to mention that i’m allergic to
like 15 different airborne particles so
any moments of serenity i did manage to
get only drew my attention to how
blocked my nose was but i kept trying
every single day whether i was tired
whether i was at a party whether i was
in another country i would find some
time to sit and meditate and then one
day i think i finally get meditation it
kind of feels like i’ve just got up from
a deep sleep nope false alarm that
wasn’t it but then i feel like i’ve just
broken through the meditation barrier
for the first time done the meditation
and i feel great
yeah that wasn’t it either it was only
when i really understood what the goal
of this meditation was that i was able
to start to get there it’s not really
about sitting half naked on a mountain
and waiting for enlightenment like you
see in the movies the key thing that i
was trying to get from it was a sense of
mindfulness of being able to notice an
emotion or a feeling in my body and then
instead of reacting to it or stressing
about it just seeing it for what it is
and as soon as i got that i realized i
didn’t even need the app i was
meditating in the train station i was
meditating while working i was
meditating while getting my hair cut and
it really does work i also thought it
was time to check my progress 20 days in
i didn’t feel like i looked
significantly better but the moment i
taken this photo and put it side by side
with the first one i was shocked you
could see it at my belly you could see
it on my sides you can see at my face
and my weight was down yet again no
doubt helped by the healthier sleep
habits lower stress levels and the fact
that i was slowly but surely dialing up
the speed of my evening walks on this
fitness transformation how many times
have i said that phrase i wanna i’m on
like a like a fitness transformation
right now i wanna get into the best
shape of my life by august 31st you
might know that i’m part way through a
fitness transformation right now i’d say
that’s like at least 10 12 kilos fitness
transformation
i’m on a health transformation
too many
but the other side to this coin is the
eating at the point where i decided to
make this change i was eating horribly
eating junk food had essentially become
my way of pushing myself to work harder
i’d created an emotional connection
between feeling overwhelmed and then
using cakes and chocolates as the
incentive to work my way out of it the
meditation was already helping to combat
that feeling of being stressed out so
regularly but it’s only when i
compounded that with actually good food
that’s when things really started making
a turn my strategy was effectively just
to plate myself the original meal that i
would have normally had but then just
shift the proportions away from the
chips and the rice more towards the veg
and the protein and i would strongly
recommend that for anyone else trying to
make this kind of change because it
almost doesn’t feel like you’re missing
out on anything i mean sure i still
crave chocolate i’m human but then i
substituted that for these mini dark
somewhat healthy little chocolate bars
that i could treat myself to and yeah i
did still crave the odd fizzy drink but
the best thing i did was to not deprive
myself of that i just substituted my
fanta for soda water mixed with some
fresh orange juice i know it sounds
strange but it hit the spot this
challenge really forced me to get
creative with my recipes like if you
follow me on instagram you’ll have seen
my various attempts at smoothies i
remember one quite distinctly which
involved a few too many rocket leaves or
there was another day where i was really
craving pancakes obviously i couldn’t
make myself the full fat version but
that allowed me to figure out a recipe
that was pretty lean very quick and
really tasty when served with some
blueberries and a bit of honey the
further i got into this challenge though
the more it started to dawn on me that
when it comes to all this health stuff
you can’t control everything sometimes a
friend will host a meal out sometimes
you do have to take a work trip away
like i went to america for nine days to
film that video with mr beast do i
regret it not one bit but was it
practically impossible to completely
stick to my plan while being a
jet-lagged v traveling sat down for long
periods of time c working really long
hours and d in a foreign country
surrounded by restaurants and nowhere to
cook my own food
yes
yes it was but i think what helped me to
get through times like that was partly
just being as healthy as i reasonably
could like instead of getting the full
fat onion ring deep fried burger opting
for the rice dish and then instead of
having all the pies on the airplane just
having one and then asking for fruit and
it was partly just switching my point of
comparison away from the super militant
level of control that i was able to have
while at home and more towards just
comparing myself to how unhealthy old me
would have been in that same scenario
it’s the best i could do and thankfully
about 50 days in halfway through the
time i’d given myself it seemed to have
paid off big time by this point i could
actually feel like i was in better shape
i felt lighter i felt more agile not to
mention that my weight was now sitting
at 81 kilos which isn’t even close to
actually factoring in the full
difference because as well as losing the
fat i was putting on muscle at the same
time see even with all these minor
stumbles i had with my diet i think the
fact that i wasn’t too hard on myself
when i had to be a bit unhealthy meant
that i never felt like it was all over
or what’s the point anymore which
allowed me to just dive back into being
more healthy as soon as those
opportunities presented themselves
whenever i have a problem i love the
idea of a multi-pronged attack so like
if i have a sore throat i will make
myself one drink that contains seven
different ingredients that are all
supposedly good for your throat it’s
just it’s satisfying to me knowing that
there are multiple mechanisms all
fighting to help you at once and this
ideology is also what i’ve applied to
this transformation because it’s not
just the eating well and the intense
workouts and the meditation it’s also
all the standing i’ve been doing
three months ago i got myself this
standing desk and i spent an average of
four hours per day working from it
i could not recommend it more because
it’s not just that you stand and you
keep your core active but you also find
that you move your legs more your arms
more and you’re just generally active
for four more hours a day which is
enormous and this board that i’ve been
using it kind of reminds me of when i
was a kid and i got my first play on one
of those spinny office chairs it just it
just makes it more fun and then every
now and again i’ve been swapping it out
for this vibration plate which basically
exercises my body for me
let’s not talk about the amount of
drinks i’ve spilled while working from
it working at a standing desk is one of
those things that’s a very noticeable
change when you start doing it but then
after a week or so you kind of forget
and you’re only reminded at the end of
each day when you eventually sit back
down and kind of feel like you’ve
already done your workout
not everything i tried was super
effective like one thing i used was the
slender tone belt that shocks your abs
into contracting many times very quickly
i remember starting by thinking oh this
tickles
until i realized that the setting was on
10 out of 100. by about 40 it was
painful and at 100
well
this should give you an idea of how it
felt oh chaos to be fair i was actually
okay with the pain part of it the reason
i decided to ditch this belt was more
that it wasn’t really designed to help
you lose weight more to tone your abs
but since i still had a layer of fat
over my abs you wouldn’t have been able
to tell anyways or another thing one of
my other resolutions was to install a
water reminder app on my phone that
pings me every two hours to make sure i
drink i thought this was genius i
thought this was going to solve my
hydration problems forever and to be
fair it did give me a nudge at the
beginning but by the time we’re
approaching week 10
the regularity of it almost made me
start to just tune out the notification
that said the biggest thing that was
actually a game changer was just making
sure that i always had a full bottle on
the desk with me it is crazy the
difference in the amount of water i
drink when the tap is 10 steps away from
me versus how much i drink when it’s
zero steps away it’s the difference
between only drinking when you feel
thirsty which usually means that you
don’t have enough water and actually
being hydrated which i think i’ve only
probably been for the first time in my
life this last few weeks and it’s made
me feel less hungry and even more awake
it was at around day 75 three quarters
through the challenge where i actually
started to notice that i was also
getting much stronger the way that i was
using progressive overload to go up just
a little bit in weight or reps each
workout meant that by this point having
had so many workouts i was lifting about
80 percent more than when i started
literally the kinds of weights that i
was struggling to lift at the beginning
i was now using for my cool down sets
which is such a crazy thing for me to
wrap my head around not to mention that
while at the start i was planking for
about a minute ago by this point i was
becoming able to do three minute planks
and as well as my main workouts getting
more intense as we went so were my
evening
walks i realize how that sounds i’m not
actually joking the way it started was
that every evening before i went to bed
i would walk at a speed of five
kilometers an hour at an incline of five
degrees for 25 minutes but by the end it
was six kilometers an hour at an incline
of seven degrees and i was going for 30
minutes which might sound like small
changes but when added together i was
burning twice as many calories per
evening doing this almost 300 per wall
and this much time spent on a treadmill
also pushed me to find ways of just
enjoying it i realized that with my
nintendo switch i could have the tablet
section resting on the machine itself
and then just detach the controllers and
play my games as i was walking i made
the time flyby by the time we got to day
85 my sleep was drastically better than
the 28 i was being scored when i started
this change i was now regularly hitting
70 to 80 sleep quality which was already
a vast improvement but then i found this
product it’s an air filtration unit that
effectively just sucks in all the
allergens the dust and the pollen that
have been restricting my breathing at
night and this one change has now pushed
me closer to the 90s in sleep quality
i’ve literally gone from insomnia levels
of sleep to 90
that is one of the best feelings in the
world
and that leads us to the results
this is me now i’ve never felt this
self-assured and confident in my entire
life and as for the stats i’m now
averaging just under eight hours of
sleep a day my daily step count has hit
13 000 my caffeine is leveled out to
about one cup of tea per day and as for
weight 79 kilos with a 16.9 body fat
sadly there’s no six pack but i will
definitely take the fact that you can at
least tell my abs exist i hope this
helps you on your fitness transformation
and to check out me testing some of the
craziest fitness gadgets ever that
make body like this
