“TO ME YOU’RE the perfect client,” says Andy Kenny, as he spots me on a bench press in his gym in Dublin’s Grand Canal dock.
“You play a bit of football and do some running so you’re active enough but you’re a bit overweight and you don’t have a clue about food. Lads like you are great because you’ll just do what you’re told. You eat what you’re told and lift the weights that you’re told to lift.”
Kenny has agreed to guide me through an eight-week programme through which I’ll — hopefully — get in proper shape once and for all. MaxiNutrition have volunteered the use of a nutritionist, sent me some of their product and I’ve committed to lifting dumbbells rather than pints for a couple of months. Mostly.
We’re halfway through… so I’m basically in aftershave ads now, right?
Presidential candidates in the US know that concession speeches should be free of bad language and excuses. But, f***ing hell, I’ve had a lot on over the past while.
On the day I agreed to volunteer my body to sports science, I was wheeled away from my weekly game of five-a-side in an ambulance and spent the best part of an eventful night in St James’ Hospital.
So I limped into Kenny’s gym for day one and, ever the professional, he worked around my injury. My goals were all about losing a bit of weight and toning up so it was doable on one leg, to be honest. And ladies dig a space boot, right?
Secondly, my wife only went and had a baby. (Handily, I had a dad-bod before the new arrival.)
A lack of sleep and a generally chaotic lifestyle created a blip on any graph I was charting but I needed to get used to that new reality quickly and get back on track. In truth, I stuck with it more than I expected to.
Andy Kenny is someone who’s travelled a long road to where he is now: running a successful business and teaching other people about fitness.
At one stage while away in Oz, he was so overweight and looked so uncomfortable while walking home that a sympathetic woman stopped her people-carrier to offer him a lift. He took the spin but it was a wake-up call.
He’s now one of those annoying people we all know who answers ‘any plans for the weekend?’ with casual talk of cycling to Sligo and surfing back.
For me the wake-up call was sitting across from Kenny as he told me my metabolic age was 55 (I’m 33), my body fat was 26% and I was generally not at all fit.
I love it when a plan comes together
So what have we done?
I’ve been hitting the gym three times a week at most (see initial plan above).
There it’s some core exercises which I was familiar enough with from a course of Pilates I did after hurting my back while putting some cakes in the oven one bank holiday weekend.
And as well as that, it’s all about weights. As comedian Kevin Bridges said recently, I thought an underactive glute was something my mother called me when I overslept for school.
In the past I would have done some cycling or running in the gym, then throw a few shapes on the various machines and maybe hit the steam room for a chat. Now I’ve a programme of free weights that are showing results – I’m benching 65kgs and have seen big improvements elsewhere. Gone is the intimidation around sliding under a bench press amongst the top-heavy gym rats.
We’re aiming for body fat of 18% and I’m currently around the 21% — Roy Keane was in single digits at his anaemic worst, I know. Seeing results has helped me keep on track.
Interestingly, in the past week, people have started to notice some weight loss.
Nutrition
I’d never met a creamy cake I didn’t want to get to know. But I quickly realised the success or otherwise of this project was all about my diet.
“Nutrition is one of those areas that we’re all interested in because it’s something that we do every single day of our lives but there’s so much information and unfortunately a lot of the information can be conflicting,” says Gareth McNicholas of MaxiNutrition, who took my various measurements in Dublin recently. I’ll share the data in a couple of weeks when we’re done.
“Who’s to know what’s the best way to approach something,” he continues. “And of course there’s lots of different ways to approach it. But we needed to be mindful about what was about to happen in terms of your life and lifestyle changes and I think it came across that you were very keen which was great because there’s nothing worse than doing something like this… I think a lot of this is about motivation.
“If you’re up for it, and you get a knockback or an injury or something of that nature, you still have the motivation to do it. Otherwise it’s very easy to fall back into the unwanted and unhelpful habits.”
I’ve been logging what I eat on MyFitnessPal, below, which I’ve found really helpful.
The main changes? No more white bread, which I miss more than Cork winning All-Irelands. Pasta is cut back and only wholemeal if I do have it. There’s a lot of yoghurt, fruit and plenty of water as well as one of their ProLean shakes every day or two on days I train.
“The role of the supplement is to completely support your existing diet,” McNicholas tells me. “To a certain extent it’s a bit two fold; in the early stages product can be very helpful in saying don’t eat this, eat that. Now, they’re not meal replacements in any sense. But let’s say for example you were making unhealthy choices around snacks — perhaps you were eating crisps and chocolate and stuff like that — it’s very difficult to cut out everything that’s bad and stick to it.
“Where product can help is that it’s kind of a stepping stone. It’s not to say that it’s not ideal. You can certainly do what you want to do by having a normal diet. But actually product does provide the right nutrients and ingredients in the right manner.”
At the start of the process a photographer from our friends at Inpho took my ‘before’ pictures. In a couple of weeks I have to go back for the post-regime photos. And then show you.
It’s plenty of motivation for the final furlong.
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