Aria’s 12kg transformation gave him ‘vigour and energy’ to be a role model father

“This whole process has made me even more health conscious, not just in the gym, but in terms of getting healthier, improving my lifestyle, and focusing on everything I’m eating”

34-year-old Aria has completely overhauled his lifestyle with Ultimate Performance and no longer feels ‘like an old man’ before his time.

He enjoyed a carb-heavy diet, he would regularly dine at fine restaurants, and the temptation of the office chocolate bowl was often too much. His weight slowly crept up year after year as a result.

Aria’s gut health suffered, he regularly felt bloated, and he would wake up with back pain every morning due to worsening sciatica.

Feeling old in his mid 30s and firmly in ‘Dad Bod’ territory, Aria decided he needed to change – not just for his own sake, but for his eight-month-old daughter too.

He joined Ultimate Performance alongside his wife and has not only lost over 12kg (26lbs) but it’s given him an anti-ageing effect too. Now his back pain is gone, he’s got more mental clarity, and he’s enjoying renewed vigour and energy – whether he’s at work or army-crawling with his daughter as she grows.

In this Q&A with his trainer, Aria talks about the changes he’s made to his diet, how he conquered his sugar cravings, and his time-blocking technique that has helped him fit his fitness regime into his busy life…

Your journey so far has been impressive. What were your main motivations for joining U.P?

I wanted to live a longer life and have more energy for my daughter. She’s eight months old now and she’s army-crawling around! I’m not an older dad by any means, but you do need to have a lot of energy to keep up with your children when they’re young. That’s one of the hardest parts about being a parent. I wanted to be able to keep up that energy level, and just teach her good habits, particularly around nutrition and eating, and the importance of sticking to whole foods, and focusing on micronutrients and all their benefits. I think that it’s important for anyone to follow that sort of lifestyle, and I wanted to go through that process myself so I could reinforce those messages to my family.

Absolutely, that’s so important. For you, it seemed to more about your overall health, than losing weight. Would you agree?

I wanted to get my health in check. I felt like I was getting old. I would joke to my friends ‘I’m an old man’ in my mid-30s. I would wake up with back pain, I was getting bloated when I’d eat, I was gaining a little bit of weight each year. Around the holidays, you’d pack on the pounds, and then summer would come around and you’d tell yourself ‘I’m going to lose it’ but then you’re always left with a little bit of extra pounds left behind, and it was just slowly becoming a recurring thing where I’d gain weight every year.

I was working out – or, at least, I thought I was working out, but it would never shrink the weight.

How were you feeling physically before the transformation, and how did that affect you mentally?

Like I said, I had back pain every morning. I knew what it was and that it could be better with exercise and strengthening my core. I was seeing a physiotherapist, and he gave me a few exercises, but to enter a program that is dedicated to making you healthier, not only physically but also with your gut health and your mental health and exercise, helps you with all that.

The regular bloating when I’d eat – I guess I was eating more and more so my stomach was expanding and getting bigger, so I wanted to get that in check, which I’ve done.

I just felt like I was becoming an old man, I’d have spurts of sciatica once every few months, it hurt to sit for long periods. That all just went away! It was miraculous. You hear that it can do that for you, but you don’t truly believe it, so when it actually happened, it was amazing.

At the beginning, it wasn’t necessarily a ‘weight loss’ thing for me because I didn’t know that I really needed to lose that much weight. I didn’t feel like I was overweight by any means. Now I do think I was overweight!

How would you describe your diet prior to joining U.P?

With my diet beforehand, I wouldn’t say that I was unhealthy. During the week, we would eat normally – protein, chicken, vegetables, carbs – probably quite carb heavy, breads and pastas. It just didn’t make me feel good.

My wife and I are very social people. So, we would always go out to eat at restaurants with friends, and it would consist of a decent number of desserts. We’d also eat a lot more artificial sweeteners in our food – Stevia, things like that. I’d always feel bloated. I think it was a lot of oils as well that we were eating, especially at restaurants, like seed oils.

You’d kid yourself you were doing yourself a favour by eating quite well in the week, but that’s not true, and then the weekends would come, and your calories would creep up.

There was also always a big bowl of chocolates at work, and I’d always grab one during the day. And then at the end of the day, I’d eat some frozen chocolate chips because they’re delicious, and it was fixing a craving.

Would you say your gut has improved on account of the dietary changes we’ve made?

When I started the U.P. program, I found cutting out chocolates and alcohol made me feel way less bloated and sluggish. When you first start, you really notice the difference,

Focusing on proteins, and carbs such as sweet potatoes, and fats, and on the good parts of those macros.

Fruit has really helped with any cravings. Instead of giving in to a craving, I knew I could feel full by eating a tangerine, or an apple. That would really satiate me. But there was also a mentality of: “Come on. Hang in there.” And then eventually those cravings went away. So, I can pass that chocolate bowl at work now and I have no interest in eating it.

I look at it sometimes and it’s like: “Damn, that might be pretty good” but then it’s just not worth it, because that tiny piece of little chocolate is going to fill up 100-something calories and you’re not going to feel good either.

It’s great to see you have so much willpower, and you’re clearly motivated. Would you attribute that to your time at U.P?

Both my wife and I have always been quite driven, motivated, disciplined people. So, I would say that mentality actually helped me during the transformation. But I will say that having a trainer there to basically monitor what you’re eating, and to keep you honest, is one of the most important things because that’s why it’s so hard to follow a diet long-term.

When you’re on your own, you get diet fatigue. And then you start to think: “Oh, I’ll add in this little thing” and, suddenly, you’re off the diet. But having my trainer there was basically like having an accountability coach.

I really started to understand the process of everything we were doing at U.P., why I’d be eating the things I was eating, why I was working out the way we did. Beforehand, I didn’t really know what to do. But then the penny sort of drops that you’re cutting fat but trying to maintain your muscle mass. And the way you achieve that is through a specific diet and specific way of working out.

What’s so great about U.P. is that they make it so easy for you. It’s hard, but the process is simple because you don’t have to think about it or get confused by what diet to follow or what exercises to do. U.P. does all that thinking for you: planning your food, your macros, what exercises to perform. When you have to plan that out yourself, it’s so much harder.

I remember someone describing it to me as “outsourcing your health and nutrition to a third party”, and you just follow the process.

Would you recommend Ultimate Performance to other dads struggling with health and fitness?

I would 100% recommend U.P. It’s definitely a sacrifice, especially at the at the beginning, because you are dedicating yourself to something and potentially you need to spend less time doing something else.

But I’ll give you a good example. At the end of the day, my wife and I would watch TV together and that was our way of relaxing. But now, we like to wake up early and go out for a walk together. Yes, it’s a sacrifice to get to bed a bit earlier, but it’s so worth it because you just feel so much better.

My back pain in the morning is completely gone. It’s completely dissipated, and I 100% attribute that to working out with my trainer KeAndre and U.P.

Given that, how important would you say your trainer has been in helping you get the results you’ve achieved?

Absolutely pivotal. If I’d have had any other trainer, like an Equinox or something like that, I would never have achieved what I have. The problem with a lot of these other gyms, and the trainers, is that they’re almost incentivised to become your friends so you stay longer with them. The incentives are almost backwards. With U.P. the attitude is: “We want to get you to hit your goal as soon as quickly as possible and become as healthy as possible.”

With my trainer, we might talk for 10-30 seconds in between sets. But then it’s back to business. I’ve noticed in commercial gyms when someone is working out, the trainer just stays silent, count the reps, and then they’re done. My trainer at U.P. was constantly fixing my form and actively motivating me because you knew you were going to be taken to failure. He was constantly pushing me, which I really enjoyed.

When you’re working out by yourself, or even with a friend, or even with another trainer, you don’t go to failure. But with my trainer, we were going to failure all the time. And that’s where the walking has helped, and doing extra HIIT training has helped, because it’s helped me build up my stamina, so I go to failure during my workouts. You’re really pushing yourself and exerting so much more energy, and your body must get used to it, but once you have, you can see that results you didn’t think you could achieve are definitely possible.

Your wife Melody trains here too. Would you say that has helped shape your journey?

It was a tremendous help to have Melody alongside me, because we both understood why were doing this, and why we were eating certain foods, and limiting others. It was so helpful because neither of us were nagging the other, or doubting why were we doing it. We went through it together.

We both love it – it’s not like a game, but we motivate each other. She signed up and encouraged me. I was a little hesitant but now it’s super motivating.

How have you incorporated your learnings from U.P. into everyday life?

I go to bed earlier now because I need to wake up earlier. I was never really a morning person but now I’m usually up at 5am or 6am. I don’t feel as if I’m more tired because with the working out, the healthy eating, you get used to waking up earlier and I have a lot more energy now.

It’s all about time management and planning. My wife and I are both busy, working professionals. We plan ‘blocks’ of times. So, a block of time with our daughter. A block of time working out. A block of time at work. A block of time running together. The morning is focused on training, the day on work, and then we always make sure we have dinner with our daughter every evening.

At night, that’s when we try to get our steps in if we haven’t hit our 10,000 steps a day goal. I had a treadmill at work, and we also have one at home so we can catch up and hit that 10,000 target.

We’re lucky enough to have some help with our daughter on a Sunday, so we can fit in a five-mile run together.

What are the three main lessons you’ve taken away from training with U.P.?

The first is that anyone can achieve this if you have the discipline and dedication. I don’t care what anyone says, you can definitely achieve it.

Secondly, knowing what’s in your foods, tracking the macros, seeing what calories you’re consuming, and knowing what’s good for you and what’s not.

And thirdly, just how important your health is overall. This whole process has made me even more health conscious, not just in the gym, but in terms of getting healthier, improving my lifestyle, and focusing on everything I’m eating.

How has your time at U.P. changed you?

I’m definitely more confident. This happened so quickly. I started in November and by March I was taking my shirt off in Cabot! My back pain also went away – in the morning it doesn’t bother me, throughout the day, it doesn’t bother me.

Professionally, I have a lot more energy during the day. I hit the gym with more energy, especially after a workout. Now I start the day with such vigour and energy, and it helps me at work, gives me more mental clarity and that’s been such a positive.

I used to have crazy cravings but now I have a different perspective on food. My cravings to eat snacks are completely gone. When I look at a meal, I can probably guess the macros, the carbs, the levels of fat and what I should be consuming. Knowing how many calories there are, you can self-regulate. My stomach has shrunk and now I don’t want to overeat.

Want unstoppable energy and vigour as a parent and leader at work like Aria? See what you could achieved with a personal training program tailored to you. Enquire today.

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