Weight Loss Body Transformation

AskMen Body Transformation: This Celebrity PT Will Give You The Body You Want

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Alright? I'm Gav, I'm a 30-year-old fat guy who loves booze and sleep. I've taken on the AskMen Body Transformation Challenge because I want to make some big changes in my life. Here I'll be posting updates and progress pics of my fitness journey, every two weeks, until my final weigh-in three months down the line. In a nutshell, my aim is to get fitter and FEEL healthier.

My Week With Fabrice: Felt Like I'd Been HIIT In The Face

The first week with my trainer-man Fabrice has been tough. Not like working on a hangover or running out of toilet paper on the toilet tough. I mean like stupidly gruelling, why-the-hell-did-I-say-yes-to-this-shit tough.

Fabrice does high intensity interval training which is also known as HIIT – though if I ever call it that, you have my permission to take a piss on my shoes. Basically the training is meant to be a mixture of really intense workouts followed by less intense ones, though I’m yet to experience the less intense ones (he did let me walk in between sprints one time, mind). I’ve read a bit about it and though it’s really good for burning fat, one of the main criticisms is that regular old Joey Joe Joe Shabadoo won’t have the motivation to keep the intensity up by themselves. Luckily I have the perfect motivator: a former Mr London with a body that would make your Nan go weak at the hem.

Session 1

He didn’t f*ck about. Fabrice is the smiliest of dudes and laughed and joked a lot while I struggled to keep up. Never about the state of me helplessly floundering around in a pool of my own sweat but instead about how awesome he thinks I’m going to look at the end of all this.

“We’re gonna have ourselves a new Brad Pitt!”

“Ooooooweeeeeee, you gonna be lookin’ fine, buddy”

I couldn’t remember the last time I did any exercise before meeting him but the 7 minute warm-up on the treadmill was fine. How far is 7 minutes? Probably like half a marathon or something. Piece of piss. I then had to do a circuit of different exercises. I don’t know the names of all the workouts we did and he didn’t tell me.

“Why do you need to know the name? Just do what I tell you”

1st Bit: Lying down then trying to push-up for 60 seconds. They should call them “push-ups”.

2nd Bit: Lying down underneath some weights and pushing them up with my arms.

3rd Bit: What’s the thing called where you roll forward on a little roller-toy thing? Bit of that.

4th Bit: Burpees, which are kinda like all the shite bits of a bunch of exercises whacked together to make a Frankencise. I’m shit at them and they are shit.

5th Bit: Lying on my back then trying to scrape myself forward. For this bit, Fabrice stands on my feet and I high-5 him when I get to the top. Well, I high-5 him on the first couple and do a kind of sweaty palm stroke on the rest. It’s a thing we have.

I did these all 5 times and then as we were winding down I started feeling really rubbish.

“Has anyone ever been sick in your gym?” I asked Fabrice.

“Nope, not yet”

It was like a cartoon, as soon as the words left his lips I was already in his toilet spewing up horrible green bile. The first session had been an obvious success.

End of Session 1 with trainer-man Fabrice. We've got a long way to go, man. A photo posted by Gav Murphy (@jabbatojedi) on Jan 11, 2016 at 4:09pm PST

Session 2

I woke up in agony. I can’t even tell you the part of my arm that hurt because that would be an insult to pain. It went loads deeper than just “my arm is hurting” or “has someone set fire to my leg? Well, it’ll have to remain aflame as I can’t bend over to douse it”. It was still pretty funny though and when I got to Fabrice’s for the second training session, he was already laughing and we set about the next session, which started with a 9 minute warm-up this time – those extra 2 minutes felt like forever. If 7 is a half-marathon, 9’s gotta be like a full one. That’s just simple maths, really.

1st Bit: Curling weights and a bar up, I learned these are called ‘Bicep curls’. I don’t know why and to be honest, I don’t need to know.

2nd Bit: Doing the same thing but with dumbells instead.

3rd Bit: Lying down like you’re trying to whisper in a little mouse’s ear but holding your body rigid, apparently this works your “core”.

He keeps banging on about my “core” and has explained what that is multiple times, but I just don’t get it and I figure asking another time would kinda be an insult to him and probably to me. So we shall soldier on and hopefully the penny will drop at some point. After a bunch of circuits of that we did something new which was to get BACK on the treadmill. I couldn’t believe it.

“Fabrice...mate, I’ve already done a marathon on that fucker today. You can’t be serious?!”

But he was really serious and I was back on doing more running. Only this time, he whacked it up really fast for so I sprinted for 45 seconds, then slowed it down so I was walking for 45 seconds. Then he repeated this 5 times. Although it doesn’t sound like much, it's like when someone says “100 shots in 100 minutes?! That’s nothing!” about Beer Centurion. Then 100 shots later you’ve quit your job and now work in the bottom of your mate’s toilet full-time.

The 45 second thing sounded easy but it was horrible; I swear the last 10 seconds of those 45 when you’re sprinting aren’t like normal seconds. They take forever and it’s a cruel joke. I did some other circuit stuff after that but I’ll be honest with you, my head was in the shed and I have no idea what we did. I was a wreck.

End of Session 2: trying not to be sick. I can't imagine a time when these sessions won't be this painful. A photo posted by Gav Murphy (@jabbatojedi) on Jan 12, 2016 at 2:28pm PST

Session 3

I wasn’t just dreading going to Fabrice’s again for the third session – I was dreading actually moving. I lay in bed genuinely thinking “Seriously, a little bit of extra fat is alright innit?” just wanting to jack it all in. I had a quick scroll through my 'before' pictures though, made myself feel a bit sick and went into work.

Everything ached and even stuff I’d previously enjoyed doing, like walking to the toilet or lifting my arm off a desk, now made it feel like there was a war going on inside me every time.

I was absolutely terrified standing outside Fabrice’s door – more so when he crept up and scared me from the street. It was probably the last time I would laugh that session because there were more weights, rolling forwards (in some sort of 'core' movement) and then a bunch of other exercises I hadn’t heard of which made it the worst session yet. I was a mess after the 9 minute marathon warm-up. I didn’t say it to him because there’s no actual way I could, but I honestly didn’t think I could do any more that session. I was dead after the warm-up! It was ridiculous and I felt embarrassed and ashamed of myself. The best thing about having a trainer though is that whenever I feel like giving up, I just think, “Well, I’m sure this dude has plenty more places he’d rather be on an evening than watching me struggle doing sit-ups,” and that gives me a bit of motivation.

The fact that none of the sessions had been the same all week gave each of them a little bit of a surprise excitement, and it also kept me from getting sick of any kind of routine. If Fabrice has done that on purpose – and I’d like he think he has – he's a genius.

I finished the third session and there was a big stoney silence between the two of us.

“We’ve got a long way to go, champ” Fabrice said but instead of sounding scared, he sounded excited for the task. I left him with his excitement and threw up in his beautiful toilet again.

Three sessions down and I’d like to say it felt like I achieved something, but it just reminded me how much work I’ve got to do. And that’s not fun at all is it?

End of Session 3: Told trainer-man Fabrice I hated this machine. "Wait till we start putting some weights on it, champ!" Damn you, Fabrice. A photo posted by Gav Murphy (@jabbatojedi) on Jan 13, 2016 at 1:22pm PST

The Positive

The first two weeks have been a giant shitter. There’s absolutely no way of dressing that up at all. I was doing the home exercises Fabrice had given me but doing them at like 20% of the intensity I should have been. I was on this crazy detox diet which meant I couldn’t eat anything I enjoyed at all and each training day meant there was another part of my body I couldn’t feel for some reason. What was the point? Well, I’ll tell you. On the Saturday after the first week of training I got dressed to leave the house, when I found that my jeans just wouldn’t fit me. I had to actually bust a hole in my belt so they would stay up. I even learned that the best way to do this was to use a corkscrew. I’m not going to be weighing myself again until the end of the first month but for now this was an absolute raging success.

Next week I’ll be talking about whether or not detoxes are worth it but for now, here’s a picture of me breaking a perfectly good trouser-holder-upper.

13 days in, had to make a new notch in my belt. This shit is working! A photo posted by Gav Murphy (@jabbatojedi) on Jan 16, 2016 at 11:11am PST

Follow my 90-day body transformation here, every fortnight, and over on my Instagram account @jabbatojedi . Or take a look at weeks gone by...

Week 1: YOU ARE HERE