Personal Experience. Body transformation in 6 months – real or not?

Every day there are more and more people who want to challenge themselves to achieve the perfect shape. However, it is becoming more and more difficult to understand the huge number of variations of workouts. That is why we are pleased to introduce you to our new columnist – wellness trainer Андрей Семешов.

In the past, Andrei, a fellow journalist, transformed his body beyond recognition, and now he helps others to succeed. In his future texts he will be your guide through the confusing labyrinth of methods, systems and nutrition programs and will share the most effective flyhacks that will help you to transform externally and internally.

– Tell us how it all began. How did it happen that you moved from crime journalism to work as a coach and mentor?

– It started gradually, probably at the age of 25, when I needed to buy a new suit for work. I realized that I had to go to the store a la “Three Fat Men”. At that time I weighed much more than 100 kg with a height of 170 cm, so it was simply impossible to buy a suit in normal stores. Then I wondered where to take the money: either to the doctors or to the gym. I had never played any sport before, so I decided to take a risk and choose the second option. I bought the first season ticket, but unfortunately, I did not have enough sense to immediately turn to specialists. I spent 5-7 years on diets, which were at the peak of fashion, made a lot of mistakes, got a lot of injuries. In general, I went a long way to understand how everything works.

One day I wondered where to carry my money: either to the doctors or to the gym.

In the end I figured it out, because higher education gives you the opportunity to read books, to be able to analyze and systematize information (laughs). And when I began to systematically approach the issue of weight loss, I isolated what works and realized that the results can be achieved in six months. We are very lucky that in Russia there are strong methodologists who know how to motivate. I took a closer look at their practice, received specialized education and certification in the European coaching community, and eventually formed my own system. Then my acquaintances started to contact me, asking for advice, even those whose training experience was richer. And I realized that I like to consult, I like to understand. So gradually a certain program was born, which is based on common sense, logic and physiology.

– Where do you suggest a person who has decided to come to the ideal forms to start?

– It’s simple. Each of us has a smartphone, where there is a program called a pedometer. Look at how much you walk per day. Most likely, it will be no more than 5-6 thousand steps. And the first thing I advise you to do: bring the norm to 12 thousand steps daily. That’s not as much as it sounds. You will have to make an effort, but it will give results immediately, because about 300 calories will be immediately lost. This practice should be followed all your life, because our body is designed for movement.

Not for nothing they say that hypodynamia is the scourge of our time. And I welcome counting with a watch or a phone, because we cannot walk “approximately” 12 thousand steps. There was a similar experiment on food: if a person was counting, he ate 2000 calories a day, and “by eye” 300-500 calories were added on top. Steps – this is the easiest flyhack, it does not require any extra effort and additional skills. But you should walk in any weather.

In the rain, you have the choice of taking an umbrella or putting on a raincoat, but you don’t have the choice of walking or not walking. Then it will work.

– What’s paramount: nutrition or training?

– Unfortunately, nutrition. That’s 80% of success. You can kill yourself in the gym five days a week, but if there is no understanding of what and how much a person eats, results will not be achieved. Everyone needs to have a control mechanism in place.

– And what is psychologically more difficult: food restriction or regular physical activity?

– Who dislikes what more. There is a large percentage of people who think they cannot live without sweets. Here I advise not to eat it for one day. Yes, it will be a little uncomfortable, but everyone freely survives that day.

Of course, the problem of overeating is the most important. We were created with limited resources. Our brains don’t know if there will be food tomorrow, so since we’ve caught up with the mammoth, we have to eat everything at once. Plus everyone is overfed as a child, so correcting eating behavior is probably the most difficult stage.

– Do you have any tips and tricks on how to change your eating habits? For example, some people advise taking pictures of everything you eat.

– Well, if someone wants to be surprised, they can take pictures and at the end of the day see how much they ate. But I insist that the most effective method is to count calories. I try to explain to people that it takes 5-7 minutes a day, and giving up 300 calories a day is not that hard. There are many counting programs out there, they are so automated that you don’t have to do anything at all. Then you can go deeper and count the number of BGU, it is again elementary. If a person is motivated, there will be no problems. I once worked with a very successful lawyer and we were at the counting stage. He even went to events with small weights, and no one laughed at him, on the contrary, they welcomed the fact that he was looking after himself.

Transformation. Kirill, 40 years old. Term of 8 months.

– Do you have a definite training plan, what and how much to do? Or at first any physical activity is better than nothing?

– First I ask people if they do sports. If they already play volleyball, for example, I don’t persuade them and I don’t say that it’s wrong and that they should go to the gym. A person has found himself in some kind of motor activity that he likes, and let him become better, bigger, stronger in it. But most people are not familiar with sports. And then I explain that we have a lot of muscles in our body, some of them are created to move on four limbs. We can imagine that our body is a car, in which the lion’s share of parts is not used at all, it will start to rust and deteriorate. That is why I propose to load these parts, albeit artificially. Fortunately, recently there have been many interesting studies that tell us how our body works, and how it affects muscles and fatty tissue. And now it is already possible to appeal with great reason to such a concept as the amount of load, how many approaches to perform and how much rest between them.

– And what should be the frequency of training?

– The main answer is adequate. You can train six days a week for 30 minutes and it will be effective, or you can train two days for an hour and it will be no worse. If we take the results of studies, in terms of muscle hypertrophy, it is better to load the muscles twice a week. But again, this is a fact, and you can build a training program however you want. If a person can walk twice, do one program, if five – another, the main thing to calculate so that the body had time to recover. Exercise from 2 to 4 times a week – excellent.

– They say that at the initial stage you feel even more hungry after training. How do you deal with it?

– Yes, this is a well-known problem. A person trained, spent 400 calories in 1.5 hours, and then went and rewarded himself with a thousand. It turns out, crossed out the result of training twice. How to get out of the situation? You can transfer all the food to the evening, nothing terrible will happen, and in the morning to give yourself a little. The main thing is to maintain a daily balance.

Transformation: Alexander, 39 years old. Term of 6 months.

– By the way, when is it more effective to train: in the morning or in the evening?

– Individually, it depends on how the body is set up. As a general rule, most people have peak performance around 3-4 hours of the day. But if there is an option to exercise only at 6 am, the body will get used to it. The main thing is to exercise.