How swapping cardio for weights has empowered Melina to become strong for her family

“My body has never looked more beautiful than today after two pregnancies and that alone is a testament to my trainer Felix and U.P.”

Melina has shaped a figure she never imagined possible at the age of 39 to look “feminine, healthy and strong.”

She’d worked out for years but never really saw a difference. But after having two children in her 30s, marketing director Melina says she was constantly tired and noticed her body had changed a lot. She knew she needed to shake things up.

While many other LA mums were going under the knife and getting ‘tummy tuck’ surgery, Melina wanted to do it the natural way.

Ultimate Performance taught her the art of weight training and the principles of nutrition that have helped her achieve a stunning transformation.

Yes, she’s lost 18kg (40lbs) and reshaped her figure. But it’s also helped to refocus her whole lifestyle around health. Now she feels unstoppable as a leader at work, has the energy to love every moment with her family, and her children couldn’t be prouder of how strong she is.

Here Melina explains more about the changes she’s made to her diet, how she fits fitness into her everyday life as a working mum, and why swapping cardio for weight training has been so empowering…

Could you talk us through your motivations for joining U.P?

I was never really a person that was unhappy with my physique. I had always worked out, but I just never worked out to the level where I saw a real difference. After two kids, it was clear that I wasn’t getting away with it any longer. I had my first son was I was 34, and my second when I was 38, so my body changed a lot, to the point where I didn’t like it anymore. So, I asked myself what could be done about it.

I live in LA and every mum here has had a tummy overhaul through surgery. But I never liked that idea. I like things to be done naturally. You have to pay the price for what you eat and do the hard work as well. I did look into the whole surgery thing to inform myself and I realised that the recovery is just crazy. Mentally, I wanted to do something where I fully understood what I was doing to my body and to change my entire attitude towards food, towards movement, to everything.

I didn’t know what that looked like but knew Ultimate Performance from when my husband and I used to live in the UK. We found Ultimate Performance LA and it had really great reviews and results. Once you do your research and speak to the people who have trained with U.P., it’s impressive. That’s when I decided: “OK, I want to do it.” I had no idea what this entailed. I didn’t know U.P. was weight training only but was glad because I hate cardio!

How do you think your diet changed during your time with U.P.?

My husband and I both love food so much but we weren’t eating as well as we could have been. We have two boys who are highly active, but before U.P. we were tired most of the time. We both wanted to do something where we could be healthy.

I learned a huge amount about my diet through U.P. because now I see what I’m eating. Talking to Felix, my trainer, and using the app allows me to see what I’m putting in my body. I had no idea how important protein was before and no understanding of what it did to your body. You’re actually quite full and never feel stuffed like when you eat a lot of carbs so that was a huge thing I learned. Before, I couldn’t imagine living without carbs but nowadays it’s not a problem for me to avoid them. I do still eat them but the right carbs and the right portion sizes.

It’s so empowering knowing what to do and what to eat to keep my body healthy. I have a better relationship with food now as I know how to manage it. I’ve learned what portion sizes should be, how my plate should look and what a good snack looks like in-between. I look to get the highest amount of protein possible now every time I eat. If I want a slice of cake, I have one, but I know how to balance the rest of the day’s foods. I like being intentional about what I put in my body and it’s not hard because of how I feel and how much energy I have. I love the way clothes look on me now and I want to maintain that feeling; to stick with it for the rest of my life.

That’s brilliant you were able to learn so much. Looking back to the first consultation, how did you feel?

When I first walked in, it was super intimidating. You see the results wall, and even if you think they aren’t photoshopped, you think those clients aren’t real or, at the very least, they’re the absolute creme de la creme. There is no way that everybody looks like this and there is no way I will look like this. My thought process was that if I got to even halfway of what those people achieved, I’d be happy.

I still remember today, the exact moment, when I was sitting in the consultation room the first time and tried to look for a picture to select as my hoped outcome, but they all looked so fit that I was scared to pick one as I thought I could never get there.

And look at how much you have achieved! You should be very proud of yourself. At what point did you start to believe that you could do it?

You start to see results in a few weeks, and I thought, I can do this. This truly works. And I’m not even done yet! There were even times when my trainer, and the other trainers at the gym, had to say to me: “Melina, look at yourself, you look amazing!” because it’s still hard to believe that’s me!

How did you feel about the training? I understand initially you were worried about weightlifting making you bulky…

I did think: “Oh, weightlifting – I’m going to look so bulky.” But I knew I needed somebody who made me accountable. I knew I needed handholding to really get to where I am now. Ultimate Performance felt like the best of the best and I just went for it.

From August to December, I trained three days per week with a full-body workout each session. From January that went down to twice a week until April.

The main areas of focus were legs and glutes, so we did more lower body exercises. The pendulum was torture! But I really liked how my trainer would push me. Sometimes it would feel like I’m dying, and I’d want to cry, and my trainer would be in my ear telling me I could do it and I started to believe I could.

I started with split squats. I was terrible at the beginning. I hated it. And then after a while I realised, I was lifting heavy weights and I got really good at them. I look at videos of how I started, and my posture, and how little I was lifting, and now I’ve got 51 lbs in each hand. It’s not easy breezy, but my trainer was like: “Melina, nobody lifts that much!”

The trap-bar deadlift is amazing! It looked so scary at the beginning! And now I do it and I feel like Hercules when I lift that bar!

You’re a full-time mum. You’ve got a career as a director working in marketing. How did you find time to meet all those demands and fit in your workouts?

It was partly due to the mentality we have in our family. I have a super supportive husband, and neither of us like to be sat down all the time, we like to be on the move and always multi-tasking, so that helped me because I was always in a certain rhythm.

But the main reason was that I made this transformation a huge priority in my life. I got myself into a routine where I would wake up at 5:30am and go to the gym near where I live and get at least a third of my 15,000 daily steps in on the treadmill. Then I’d get the kids ready for school, do my work and go to the gym. Before bedtime, if I hadn’t got all my steps in, I’d go back to the gym.

My whole life, my whole day, shifted from: “What do I need to do today for work” to “How am I going to get my steps in?” And then I would co-ordinate where I would work from to fit them all in. I’d walk to a coffee shop and work from there for a couple of hours, and then walked somewhere else and continued working from there so I got all my steps in.

Even now, when I go to bed, I just plan it so that I always know that I’m getting my 15,000 steps in, which I can do now with confidence, without being nervous.

It was a pure priority for us. For my husband too. And we just made sure we fit in everything else around it.

You come across as someone so empowered in all aspects of your life. Would you say that’s because of your time at U.P.?

When you’ve got small kids, you have to be ‘on’ from the moment they wake up, until they go to bed. Now, after U.P., the amount that I can get done is amazing. While they’re awake and running around and playing, the joy and the thirst for doing fun stuff with the kids, such as being able to go to the pool or play soccer with them and just being active with them, and not being tired when you do, is just on another level.

I cannot put into words how amazing it feels never to feel tired like I used to. That was the key for me. It was a key driver for me to start a lifestyle change. Before starting at U.P., I could tell I was tired all the time, and I never had a second to myself. And now, being able to do all the things that I want to do with my boys that require a lot of activity… it’s just on another level. Now I’m like: “What are we doing today? What are we doing this weekend?” It’s super exciting.

Did any of your initial impressions change?

Yeah, I would completely say, forget what you think about weightlifting. Weightlifting is way better than going on a treadmill for hours. Weight training is what changes the composition of your body – it really shapes your body. Felix, my trainer, was so amazing. He listened so well to me, and what I wanted. I didn’t even know that this is how I wanted my shoulders to look like or my back to look like, but my trainer knew. He just listened and moulded me into exactly how I wanted to look, and I would not have imagined that that was possible.

And to do all of that while losing fat and building muscle, without having to kill myself on the treadmill… I still can’t believe it.

The training sessions at the U.P. gym with my trainer were the most intense I have ever experienced but they were also the best and most fun.

He watches me from every angle. Unless my rep is perfect it is not acceptable. The standard is so high that it makes you a perfectionist every time you step foot in that gym.

He taught me so much in the gym and I LOVE going to the gym by myself now to train on my own just like the big guys do lifting their weights. No intimidation anymore of scary looking machines or heavy weight because I GOT THIS!

That feeling is beyond rewarding!

Could you talk a little bit more about how this whole process has helped you in your career?

I think generally, in life, I have so much more energy now. I sleep now because I know I need to sleep, not because I’m so tired, but I don’t need it as much as I used to because my energy levels are so high. I wake up at 5:30am and I’m excited to go to the gym. I really love it. It’s how I need to start my day. I set myself up to be the best possible person I can be.

And now, anything can be thrown at me at work. I work in marketing. Everything is last minute and needed to be done yesterday. But now, I can do that way better. I can separate my work from everything else and when things happen, it doesn’t affect me. I don’t let it drag me down. That’s something I was never able to do before. I’m so focused now when it comes to work. I’m super-efficient. I think nowadays, because I have these other objectives in my life that I want to stay fit and I want to allow myself to go to the gym, I can get stuff done super-fast. But I can also do this because my brain is just ready to go from 5:30am every morning.

I’m not scared of things anymore. In my industry, you have to be ready for change. There was always a worry about whether I’d be able to deliver, but now I’ve changed my body composition, and that was something I thought was impossible. That’s given me this mental state of mind that I’m ‘unbreakable’. I can do whatever you throw at me and I will do it with a smile because I know I will get there. Maybe I don’t know the solution right now, but I’ll figure it out.

I’m now ‘Melina 2.0’ and I’m seeing that at work as well.

Your children were your biggest motivator, and you got them involved too. Can you talk more about that?

Every day, my eldest son, who is five, tells me he’s so proud of me and how strong I am, and how much I can carry. Before, he would see me struggle to carry him and his younger brother and manage with all the school bags and everything, but now he keeps saying: ‘Mummy is so strong now!’ and it’s so sweet.

It’s been a slow process, but I wanted Benjamin (my eldest son) to really understand what Mummy was going through. So, I took him to the U.P. gym several times to watch me workout and meet my trainer, because my husband and I both wanted him to see what a big life change Mummy was making.

Because he’s so interested in soccer and basketball, we take him to the gym, and we talk to him about food and try and connect the dots and help him understand that living healthily and eating well and moving your body is super important if you want to be fit and strong.

Would you recommend U.P. to others?

I felt like part of the U.P. community from the get-go. I never felt uncomfortable in the gym. It’s like a family there. You’re on an emotional and personal journey and that family environment makes it that bit easier.

This has been the best few months for myself and my family. I’m a huge ambassador for U.P. and hopefully by sharing my story it will motivate other people. I can now say I am a totally different person than I was eight months ago. This process has taught me so much and made me more confident.

My body has never looked more beautiful than today after two pregnancies and that alone is a testament to Felix and U.P.

I could have never achieved this without Felix. He has been phenomenal from day one. He has been there for me on my highs and lows. Pulled me up when I needed to get back on track and focused and supported me when life simply happened, and I needed guidance and advice on how to stay on track with my diet.

I was absolutely astonished by the commitment from my trainer and that gives you a whole other level of motivation!

Joining U.P. was one of the best decisions I have ever made for my physical and mental health as well as my confidence!

Melina’s going into her 40s full of energy and confidence and looking her best yet. Get in touch with us today to see how Ultimate Performance can do the same for you.

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