“Just under 17 stone!
That’s what my scales always told me. Despite running a few times a week, attending Karate classes at least twice a week and being a generally active person, those scales rarely changed. There may be a few pounds down one week, but they’d soon go back up again – no loss, no gain, fairly static.
As a Christmas present from my wife, I was given a 4 week coaching session with James McCarthy. Partly intrigued as to what it would entail, but mainly thinking I’d learn a few new activities I could do at home…but that was about it. I’d do it for the 4 weeks and that would be it.
Well…I was wrong. So, so wrong.
One of the first things that I learned when I first met James (for my consultation over a coffee in Starbucks) was how different he was than I expected. I figured he’d be this monster of a guy who’d be ‘beasting’ me in the gym, but instead he was extremely approachable, supportive and initially just wanted to learn all about what I was looking to get out him as my coach.
I think I said to ‘look better and to be honest, that’s all I wanted – to shift those scales down a bit, instead of staying at the same level day in, day out, week in, week out. We talked about what I do, what I eat, what exercise I do and have done. All sorts to get a picture of what made me ‘me’ and where my problems with diet/nutrition/fitness might stem from.
Initial ‘interview’ session over with, a few days later I received my personalised ‘pack’ which detailed what my goals and nutrition targets were, and we agreed the first training session.
This is where I was wrong…again! On two parts.
First, the nutrition
James allowed me to choose what I ate but was always available to give me insights into what might be better than what I’d have eaten previously. ‘Eggs are bad’ was very quickly replaced with ‘Eggs are actually really good’, I found myself actually eating more than I would have ever thought of before, but staying fuller for longer and eating, overall, far more nutritious food, whilst still be in a fairly sizeable deficit every day. I began making far more informed decisions about what to eat, things that would fill me up but without being calorie dense…or choosing to have something that I wanted (Pizza…beer…whatever) and knowing what that meant to my overall in-take of food across the week and knowing that whatever I ate, if I stuck to the principals that were now hardwired (by James) I’d still lose weight.
Secondly was the training
there was no shouting or screaming, no pushing myself until I was physically unable to move. The sessions were far more structured, considered and efficient than that. Working defined areas of the body, in controlled ways, ensuring on-going improvements meant that whilst each session didn’t feel like a ‘beasting' they were physically demanding but allowed for constant, weekly progress, and every week I saw myself getting better and better at each activity.
It was during one of these early gym sessions that James asked me to ‘try’ to do a chin-up and it almost killed me! That was when I realised that since my weight was dropping regularly, my goal of ‘looking better’ was now followed by another goal of being able to actually do a chin-up!
6 months in – my weight had consistently dropped and the scales were now hovering around the 12stone 10lb mark (that’s 4 stone loss in 6 months) but was maintainable due to the re-wiring around nutrition that James had done. I was self-sufficient and capable of making the right decisions around my diet – sometimes that was Pizza or a meal out, sometimes it was a chicken salad but overall I was never eating to the point of putting the weight back on – and THAT is a success, in my book.
I was also able to complete 3 full extension chin-ups – a first in the 41 years I’ve be alive!
Throughout the whole coaching period, James was there…at the end of a message, to ask about a food item, query an approach, question a decision…and THAT is where the value comes in – the knowledge and information that James provides is exceptional and by putting my faith in his fact-based advice and sticking to an approach proposed by him, I was able to lose approx.. ¼ of my entire body weight and keep it off”
“They say a picture says a thousand words.”
