Meet Harry
When Prep Kitchen offered me the chance to work with a Personal Trainer (PT) while eating almost exclusively their food I was very surprised, but I instantly jumped at the chance. I was very much one of those people that would love to be happier with their bodies but did absolutely nothing to achieve that off my own back. I wasn’t even certain I could keep it up for the three-month period that I would be training, but I was optimistic. I was asked if I had any preferences towards who my PT was. I knew several PTs because of my work with Prep Kitchen, but David Baron was the person who sprung to mind. Every time we chatted he gave off a positive vibe, so it made sense for me to choose him to work with.
I sat down with David and talked about what we were going to try and achieve in the space of three months. He made it clear it was going to be a very big ask but, as with everything, if the work is put in then it would not be impossible. We spoke about nutrition and how this was already taken care of; Prep Kitchen provided me with the food I would need each week to achieve the goals we were undertaking, which has saved me unlimited time and effort.
Eating less food on a day to day basis was extremely difficult to start with, and on some days still is, but it was just about getting used to eating less calories than I was burning. So, with that knowledge, it makes complete sense to train as much as possible so that I could allow myself to eat more - that was a huge incentive for me to work as hard as possible!
The first training session was quite daunting. Up until this point I had never done any strength training in my life. Previously any time I had spent in the gym I was just running on a treadmill, not really knowing what I was trying to achieve. The structure to our sessions became clear very quickly. Push and Pull training: alternate training sessions, first on muscles you would use to pull, and then a different session training the muscles you would use to push.
Initially David wanted me to develop good posture doing the exercises we were doing rather than going hammer and tong and working as hard as humanly possible. This paid off, particularly towards the end where working smarter proved to be a lot more beneficial than just working harder (a theme throughout my training). For example, on days when I was not doing strength training with David, I was doing Low Intensity Steady State training (LISS). During LISS I would work my heart to around 120bpm, which was at the time a light jog at best. This training allows more oxygen to be available to break down fat than there would be if you were sprinting, therefore accelerating fat loss. It also allowed me to go for longer and burn a lot more calories than if I’d just pushed myself to the limit (smarter not harder!).
Once the technique was nailed, we started to increase the weight week by week. After just the first two sessions I found that I was enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would; it is so hard to not feel positive after a good training session and so it has a knock-on effect where you want to train more to keep feeling positive.
With this regime I lost 10lbs in four weeks and I didn’t even feel like I was working as hard as I could have. After the first four weeks, though, I found I was struggling to drop much more weight and so we knew we had to change gears. I was doing everything I could to get to the gym when I was not with David. And when I was with David, we began to squeeze absolutely everything we could out of the process. We started working to success/failure, where my body could not physically move the weight anymore. With this new regime I started to shift the weight again and my body began to transform.
There were times near the end where it become quite gruelling, although it was still enjoyable. You are pushing yourself to the absolute limit, further than your brain thought you could go. The whole way David pushed me for more, which I understood was the key difference between training on my own and with David: on my own I wouldn’t have pushed for more and would stop when my brain said stop, but David pushed me past that point, which is where the best results are achieved.
Having healthy pre-portioned meals on hand and ready to go at the end of a hard day of work and training definitely stopped me from cracking and buying fast food more than once. If I had not had Prep Kitchen’s meals I know I would have struggled to figure out what to eat, or how much to eat, and there would have been times where I would have cracked and ended up eating rubbish. Even at the end of the process I still wasn’t bored of the food (although I was definitely craving pizza).
Working with David was easy. The workload was challenging, but David creates great chemistry and really cares about you and doesn’t just see you as someone who’s helping pay the bills. This makes you want to go back and train regularly, which is how it should be! One thing he said that resonated with me was “Imperfect action is better than perfect inaction” so even on days where I was exhausted or just generally couldn’t be bothered, I would think of that and it would make me go and train, even if only for a half hour. David never had a bad word to say and was all positive all the time, which has its own positive effect on your training; you don’t want to just get in and get out, you actually enjoy your workouts!
At the end of the process I am 15kg lighter, many times stronger, and a lot happier and more confident. I absolutely would not have achieved what I did without David’s perpetual support and positivity, and Prep Kitchen’s meals, and so I cannot thank them enough.
Harry
Ops Manager
To see what David can do for you check out his website or visit his Facebook page!
