How I Lost 15 KG In Six Months
After struggling for 4 years to lose weight I finally managed to lose all the fat and learn a lot of life lessons.
Picture Above: Year: 2018 on the left / 2024 on the right
Picture Above: January 2024 on the left / June 2024 on the right.
I struggled for 5 years to lose weight and become lean. I lied to myself for so long that I could lose my belly fat quickly, but the reality was that I couldn’t.
I tried different ways to lose weight, I started running, I signed up for gym classes, I downloaded all the apps that promised you a six-pack in 6 weeks and listened to podcasts, watched videos on social media and of course googled a ton of questions.
Nothing worked until January 2024. This is when magic happened. This is how everything changed, not just in fitness and fat loss,, but how this helped me become lean and how this helps me excel in my business, my personal life and my finances.
In the past six months, I have learned a lot of lessons that helped me to change and literally transform my life. There are three main lessons I learned.
There is no trick that I will share with you today that will do the job. I'm writing this article for the old Alex who was trying hard to lose weight, the old Alex who was too shy to take his t-shirt off in public, the old Alex who was embarrassed that he was so fat.
I went to the Tony Robbins event twice, I thought I came out as a new person, and now it was the time to change everything - business, mindset and weight. I read Atomic Habits by James Clear twice and believed that consistency would make me lean and shredded. Didn’t work. The advice a lot of people give to ‘just be consistent’ is BS.
Me with my mum at Unleash The Power Within / Tony Robbins 2023
Consistency doesn’t lead you to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s a pure lie. Most people are consistent with their habits. I was consistently eating a box of Pringles every Sunday. I was consistently going to the gym and running every week but I was still fat Alex.
This is the definition of insanity. Doing the same thing again and again, being consistent and then wondering why we haven’t achieved our desired results.
Walking down the street with a blueberry muffin in my mouth asking the world how come I’m still fat when I run so much.
“Just be consistent” is the wrong advice and all you hear people say is “Just be consistent”. I consistently wash the dishes every night, but my housework skills are worse than a newborn baby. I’ve been consistent with cooking for the past 19 years but I’m a very bad cook. My best meal is Quorn Nuggets with fries in the oven.
It’s not consistency that is the most important thing. It’s habits with iteration. It’s creating a system where you can track your KPIs every single week. It’s creating one or two metrics that you consistently check and then iterate. The keyword is iterate.
I used to listen to and believe all the gurus about calorie deficit and thought I was taking in less than I was burning. But the scale didn’t show me that.It showed me the opposite.
But before we deep dive into the lessons, here’s the context of how it all started.
In December 2017 when I quit smoking, I gave myself permission to eat whatever I wanted as long as I quit that filthy habit. Before that I wasn’t fit, I didn’t run, I didn’t go to the gym. I was a workaholic - working from 06:00 am until 23:00 and shouting that everybody should hustle, hustle and hustle. I used to admire people like Gary Vee and Grant Cardone. It didn’t even cross my mind how unhealthy my lifestyle was. I was eating at nearly midnight every night and fast food was my go to as I never liked cooking.
In 2018 I became vegan as well, so I started trying all the new processed vegan food. People were saying that vegans are so healthy so I thought that I was healthy while having a vegan doner.. That’s one of the most ‘unhealthy’ and nutritionally poor meals a human can eat.
In 2018 I looked in the mirror and I was shocked. I was fat. I was disgusted with myself. I started going to the gym. I thought that within six months I would lose the belly. Nothing changed.
Over the years, I learned how to put a slightly bigger t-shirt so people didn’t notice my incompetence. Dating wasn’t really a problem because I have a pretty face and knew how to hold an interesting conversation, but that can only get you so far.
In 2020 I signed up for F45 as I thought it would solve my problem. High-intensity workouts? They even claim that you burn around 500/600 calories per workout! Yeah baby, bring it on. I thought I just needed six months and my belly would disappear. Wrong. I think I lost a kilo or so.
When I quit smoking, I started running as I read in a book that you need to swap one habit with another. So that’s what I did. I was running on average 5km a time, with my ancient Nike shoes which had a hole in them. I didn’t know what Strava was, and didn’t have any fancy gear as I didn't care about time or any of that stuff (still don’t).
In November 2021, I got tired of being overweight so I started working with a PT who put me on 3,500 calories per day so I could build muscle. He said that I need to turn my fat into muscles. My first thought was that you need to lose fat first. He disagreed.
He signed me up for an app that showed me how to do all the exercises and sent me a recipe book. He told me that I should get off Huel (I used to use Huel for years) and start cooking proper meals. The first day I went to the supermarket to buy stuff for one of his recipe recommendations which was a Lentil Cottage Pie, my stress levels went through the roof. I can’t do that. It’s too complicated for me. I will stick with Huel. I worked with him for a bit and nothing much changed.
But I have to say it wasn’t his fault, it was mine, because I wasn’t mentally ready and maybe his coaching method was not for me.
In 2021 I ran my first 100 km race. I did a race called Ultra Challenge London to Brighton. Surely the training for this type of race would help me. I hired a running coach and started training. So I thought, I’m going from 10 km to 100 km, the amount of training I will do will help me lose all the excessive fat. It did help me, yes, I lost one or two kilos. But that was it.
My first trail race in September 2022
In May 2022 I ran my second 100 km race. Same as in 2021. Nothing changed. In June 2022 I started Barry’s, then changed to 1Rebel, then UN1T, and was going to all these expensive classes because I liked the idea that I don’t have to think about what workouts I need to do. Plus I hated lifting weights - strength training. In September 2022 I ran my first trail race. It was 125 km in the Peak District. Again, nothing changed much.
So I decided to look for another PT for advice. He suggested that I stop going to all these classes, as I’m doing enough cardio with my running, and instead I need to lift weights. Sign up for a ‘normal’ gym like PureGym which is £15 a month, and that will do. It was a tough pill to swallow. I didn’t want to do it.
But I signed up to PureGym in Holborn and started going there for my strength workouts. In that whole month, I might have gone to the gym twice. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the gym, I didn’t like strength training and I wasn't happy.
Then I tried Gymbox. It’s a boutique gym close to PureGym. A bit pricey, but I loved the atmosphere and the fact that they had classes and a sauna, and it was a really cool gym. It wasn’t boring. It’s a gym with a DJ and the whole vibe feels like it’s a nightclub. My excuse was that I could do strength training classes anytime I want.
Gymbox London
When you pay £90 per month for a gym membership you don’t skip leg days or arm days. Basically you don’t skip gym. I started being consistent as I was paying so much money. I was going 4 times a week. And I have to say I’m still going after nearly 2 years.
The only problem was I wasn’t challenging myself, I was lifting weights but I wasn’t anywhere close to what my potential was.
Then in July 2022 I decided to sign up for a full Ironman, Bolton 2023. Surely this will do the trick? You can’t finish a whole Ironman without being very healthy, fit and lean. I hired a good Ironman coach, Daniel Binghman. He is also the founder of Hampstead Triathlon Club.
Ironman Finisher 2023
On 4th July 2023 I became an Ironman finisher. I was the fittest version of myself.I was so happy to be able to finish Ironman in 13 hours and 30 minutes and I wasn’t last. It was a very good performance. My weight was 85 kg before Ironman and 82 kg after Ironman. In October 2023 I decided to take a short break from training so I went to Portugal with my girlfriend. I ate like a piggy. I came back to London and I was 87.5 kg.
I was devastated. Of course I didn’t tell anyone or show that I cared much.
Because you know, character is what matters most right? This is the lie that we tell ourselves. It doesn’t affect me much. Inside I was burning. I didn’t feel depressed but I didn’t feel good about myself.
January 2024 is when things changed. I met Alex Alvarez - a personal trainer. I told him what I wanted to achieve. He explained to me about the calorie deficit mindset and the plan. Every Friday I had to check in: send pictures of myself, send a screenshot of MyFitnessPal app of what I eat and my workouts in an Excel sheet.
After a session with Alex Alvarez in May 2024
At first I thought, why is this guy doing a workout on an Excel sheet? I need to google every time what a BB Split Squats is and how to do it. It’s 2024, surely there is an app for that. But anyway, I went along with it. Every single Friday for the past six months I have sent a check-in, and every single Monday I do a weight reading to see how the weekend went. Then Alex goes through my check in and responds based on that.
Here are the three main lessons I learned:
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BASICS
I thought that I needed expensive classes in the gym, or to change my workouts every month.. I thought you need to be fasting (which I tried) and become lean or do these 10 exercises at home and burn fat quickly. Which is not true.
What Alex taught me through this journey is that it all comes down to basics:
Eat nutritious food: not all food is equal.
Work out consistently and iterate.
Strength training is key.
Measure everything that you eat if you want to really know your calories.
Know your macros (how many carbs, fats and proteins you eat daily)
I used to listen to people like James Smith - great guy ,don’t get me wrong, but he talks about calorie deficit all the time and I thought I was doing it correctly, but sometimes I wouldn’t measure my food exactly or I would have a croissant and not measure it as it’s ‘just a croissant’.
Big mistake, I thought I was on 2,500 calories per day, but it was probably more like 3,500 calories.I didn’t have a structure of high days and low days. I thought you needed to be extreme. No Pringles and no pizza, just broccoli and tofu for me for the rest of my life. But that’s not the way. This is what I love about Alex, you can have all the foods you want, you can have Pringles, pizzas and desserts. Actually he encourages people to have desserts every day! He encourages you to cook delicious food.
I think deep down we know what the basics are but our brain is constantly trying to look for shortcuts.
There are many ways to reach a point but we each need to find our own way.
FIND YOUR WAY
There are a million routes to get from London to Manchester. The most obvious is to get the train from Euston and go directly to Manchester. But I think sometimes we might need to drive to Birmingham and park there. Then take the bus to Snowdonia and then take the train to Manchester.
But why not go directly? Because we all have different paths, we all have different values and beliefs. I came to the conclusion that sometimes the progress takes longer than expected, but that’s our journey and sometimes our trip is longer than others.
It’s better to create our own way, but following the guidelines. For example, I was mostly on Huel. When I told Alex that, he didn’t just dismiss it and give his opinion, like others did. He just said: “You need to get 30% protein, 40% carbs and 40% fats every single day. How you do that is up to you’’. He did recommend that I eat real food vs Huel but the final decision is up to me.
Then I started doing my research to find out how I can cook and meal prep meals with high protein. I found my own way: cook enough buckwheat/quinoa for a week, and then every day cook Tempeh/ Tofu / Seitan with veggies. For dessert, Greek Alpro Yogurt with protein powder and frozen blueberries.
I remember I asked a famous PT on Instagram (Wes Watson) for advice - I told him that I struggled not to eat bread at night as I used to work out at night and then felt hungry. He replied with a video that I won’t share here, but basically his advice was “look down when you want to eat that bread, you are a man”. That’s the solution. What a bunch of bullshit.
That’s the solution, to look down. There is a deeper reason why we binge eat and feel hungry. Number one is I didn’t eat nutritious foods. Number two, I wasn’t mindful when I was eating (scrolling on socials). Number three I had little calories left for the night. So I was using all my calorie ‘budget’ during the day and then at night I didn’t have much left. His advice reminded me of the idiots at Just Stop Oil. They go and protest and destroy historic buildings with their tagline ‘just stop oil’ like it’s so easy. If it was that easy we would just stop smoking, or just stop drugs within a week.
Alex's advice on the other hand was tailored to my needs: he knew my lifestyle, he knew that I travel a lot. He knew that was in the office a lot and all the other details so he gave me specific suggestions and it worked. I stopped feeling hungry at night and I stopped eating bread.
That’s why I came to the realisation that we need to find our own way, and Alex helped me with that by giving me guidelines and letting me find my own path.
He didn’t start telling me that I should be eating this and that, and imposing his beliefs on me. He just advised and said that I need to be in this calorie deficit with this percentage.
The reason we need to find our own way is because we all have different lifestyles, different goals. For me, for example, my main sport is trail running and on weekends I usually have long runs. So we created an exact program that works for me, and in the end we are continuing to achieve our goals.
What Alex managed to do so well is have empathy. When I messed up and went above my calorie ‘budget’ he didn’t get upset or tell me off, he was kind and empathetic. He reminded me many times that if I need help, I can reach out. There were days that I didn’t feel well, I went above my calorie ‘budget’ and the next day when Alex saw MyFitnessPal intake he was kind, and when I did hit my daily goals he sent me a message saying that I did well.
My ‘boring’ food that works for me. (1,300 calories meal: Seitan, Couscous, Veggies and Alpro Yogurt with Protein Powder and Blueberries)
My 'boring’ food that works for me: Couscous and veggies.
NOT ALL ADVICE IS EQUAL
I started doing a PT Course in July 2022 because I wanted to learn about fitness and nutrition as I got fed up with all the advice on the internet -mostly from people that are not qualified. The comments and advice I heard were ridiculous.
When I started working with Alex I realized that learning PT is not that simple, it’s not just reading a course book, doing a test and that’s it. It’s a bit more complicated than that. This is where experience and coaching style matters a lot.
At the same time last year, I started doing a course with British Athletics to become a running coach. I qualified as a running coach in February 2024 and passed my CIRF (Coach in Running Fitness) exam as I wanted to learn more about running and specifically endurance trail running.
The reason why I wanted to learn and become a coach is because there is so much advice on the internet. If you follow different groups on Facebook you see a question about running and then 100 comments from different people giving their advice about what the person should be doing. And it’s pretty rare that those comments come from trained professionals!
So I got a bit fed up, plus I hired a coach for my first ultra and I worked with another for my Ironman, so I thought I would learn all this stuff myself and wouldn’t need a coach. Which is a mistake.
Right now I’m training for the Dragon’s Back Race (380 km race with 16,400 meters in elevation over 6 days) and I’m working with David Bone from Camino Ultra - an amazing endurance running coach.
I have to say that working with a coach makes a huge difference. A professional coach will give you the right advice which is tailored for you. There were so many times that I asked Alex specific questions and I got a response that is for me.
I hate Chat GPT and all the AI crap - it’s just a tool that gets information from the web. It doesn’t know us, it doesn’t know you. People on the internet love to get training plans for free and then cry like babies when they get injured in the gym or running.
I like how people think that a training plan on the internet will help them finish a race or become lean… yeah right. I’ve been there so many times and I’ve done that.
Personally I don’t think we should be giving advice if we are not qualified and we don’t know the context, and I don’t think we should be looking for advice on the internet as we do. We can research, we can read, of course, but I think the most valuable thing we can do is work with someone who understands us.
I’m a huge fan of the Rich Roll podcast, which I listen to on my long runs. There was a great episode about wellbeing and food with Gisele Bundchen as a really interesting guest. There was something she said about mindful eating which makes so much sense but I didn’t implement it. Then a couple of months later Alex mentioned something about eating mindfully without the phone and how important it is to comprehend and understand that we need to eat mindfully so our body and brain understands that we just ate a full meal. Guess what? I’m eating mindfully after Alex's advice.
We can listen to podcasts and watch YouTube videos all day long about calorie deficits and nutrition but I came to the conclusion that for me at least what works best is if I work one to one with someone to achieve the goals I desire.. If it’s really important to me, then I need to work with an expert who knows what he is talking about.
We really can’t argue with results, it’s plain and simple. Let’s have a look at my fitness levels. When I started working with Alex, my Strava Fitness showed that I was at 41 points, today I peaked at 95 points! That’s more than double! So my fitness level doubled in six months of working with Alex.
ValDaran 100km / 6,500 meteres in elevation/ Finisher /
When I did Ironman I was 60 points. When I did the Transgrancaria 126 km race with 6,800 metres elevation I was at 42 points! Just last month I finished the Ultra Trail Snowdonia 100 km with a brutal 6,500 metres elevation in 22 hours. Today I just finished Val d'Aran by UTMB race, 110 km with 6,400 metres in elevation and I’m at the highest peak of my fitness, I’m 97.. But this goes beyond fitness, weight and aesthetics.
My Fitness Levels from Strava
Finished 100km UTS (Ultra Trail Snowdonia) in 22 hours 12 minutes. One of the toughest mountain races in the UK.
BEYOND FITNESS
This is the most important lesson I learned in my fitness journey. It’s not about fitness, it's much more than that. What started as “I want to look good for aesthetic reasons” has now evolved into a much deeper reason why.
This helps me manage my finances better, because now when I think of spending or buying something I’m considering if this purchase is worth it, like with food. Let’s say I have £1,000, is registering for another race the most productive thing I can do right now, or is it better that I invest it to grow my business? Maybe I should pause Skydiving for a year and invest all that money into my business and therapy? You start to think like you think with calorie allocations and budget.
Of course it’s not just that. I’ve been going to therapy as well, so that helps as well. I believe BOTH helped me a lot - one in one area and one in another, and the combination is perfect.
I made some very hard decisions in the past 3 months, which is a topic for another day, but those decisions came because looking at what I achieved in my fitness journey I asked myself, if I managed to lose 15 kg in six months, surely you can manage to do X,Y & Z!
We can’t buy self respect, we can’t buy self-belief. In today’s world where everybody is glued to TikToks and Instagrams no wonder I think people are becoming weaker. What I love about fitness is that you can’t buy confidence in a store. Self-belief is a powerful asset. Nobody can give you determination, a strong body and fit body. There are no magic pills and no tricks and you learn that along the journey.
One of the biggest lessons I learned is that I started caring about myself more, I started loving myself more. Loving ourselves is not all the crap that people tell us on social media: go and get a massage, go get your nails done, go on holiday. Real love is being true to yourself. Is looking in the mirror and being honest with yourself and asking yourself are you reaching your potential?
There is a place and time for spoiling ourselves, yes, but there is a place and time when we get serious and look in the mirror and ask ourselves if we are happy with what we are seeing.
I was lying to myself that I was so busy that I didn’t have time to work out. I was lying to myself and saying why would I measure my food? I ‘love’ food and I want to ‘enjoy’ life. What does that even mean? Enjoy looking at my body knowing I’m putting crap in it and then posting a quote saying ‘my body is my temple’ - get out of here.
I think it’s really important to have empathy and to have people around us that hold us accountable and don’t sugarcoat things. Friends that will tell us the truth. If you don’t want to become fit that’s fine - say it but don’t tell me that you want to become fit but then your actions show exactly the opposite.
This is what I learned: discipline in achieving my goals is the best form of self-love and self respect. I wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and I love the hard work I’m doing and I never want to go back to being fat and chubby.
The last part is identity change. This one is huge and we will talk about it on another day. But in brief, my identity has been changing, and it’s been a struggle because even now sometimes when I do my readings I write 82 kg rather than 72 because it’s so ingrained in my subconscious mind.
Last week I went to buy Nike Trail shorts and t-shirt as my race gear is too big now so I took large to try in the changing rooms by accident as that’s the size I used to wear then saw how big the shorts were. I left the store with medium shorts and a small t-shirt! SMALL! I think I pissed a bit in my pants from happiness. I’m happy I had my dog Chanel’s poo bags just in case.
The only reason I think we hang out with people that don’t push themselves or hold us accountable to the highest standard is to feel good about ourselves. Funny enough I never hear fit and lean people say that we shouldn’t count our calories or workout. It’s usually from people that carry extra weight themselves. Nothing wrong with that, but I think we should look in the mirror first. You know the saying, if you hang around 5 roly polys you will become one - the same applies to fit people. I learned to smile politely and say nothing. I want to spend my energy on other things than arguing with people about health and nutrition.
Now it’s time for the second part of the journey. Alex, are you ready?
Btw, I highly recommend you get in touch with Alex if you want to lose weight and to go to the next level. He is not just an amazing personal trainer, man he is an amazing human being. Here’s his website link: www.fittestyou.co.uk
Tell him you read my article, maybe he will throw in a bonus for you.
Thank you for your story.
What an incredible—truly inspirational journey! 🔥🔥