My Fitness Transformation Journey: The Good, the Bad, and the Unexpected

One of the noticeable changes I experienced early on in my fitness journey was doing more desk exercises. At first, it seemed like a novelty that I would get excited about doing at the beginning of each day. However, as time went on, I started to forget about it until it was already evening and I had to sit back down to work, only then realizing that I had done my workout for the day.

I tried out a few different exercises, but not everything was effective in the way I expected. One product that stood out was the Slendertone belt, which uses shock therapy to contract the muscles into working harder. While it seemed like an interesting concept, I found the setting to be quite high - starting at 10 out of 100, with 40 being "ticklish" and 100 being unbearable. The latter part didn't even come close, as by that point, I was used to its intense feeling. In fact, one of my biggest reasons for ditching this belt was not because it wasn't effective, but rather that it was more of a tone-up tool than a weight loss device - and I still had a layer of fat over my abs, so it wouldn't have made much of a difference.

Another attempt at fitness tracking involved installing an app on my phone to remind me to drink water throughout the day. At first, I thought this would be genius - after all, who doesn't love being reminded of something they need to do? However, by around week 10, the regularity of these pings almost made me tune them out completely.

On the other hand, there was one change that had a significant impact on my hydration levels. I realized that having a full bottle of water right next to my desk was what made all the difference. When the tap was just 10 steps away from me, I found myself drinking much less - only when I felt thirsty, which often meant I didn't have enough water in the first place. But with the tap being zero steps away, it suddenly became a habit to drink more regularly.

This newfound love of hydration had an unexpected side effect: feeling less hungry and more awake during the day. It was around day 75 that I started to notice this change, when I realized that I was getting more muscle mass through progressive overload - lifting heavier weights or doing more reps each workout. The kinds of weights that I was struggling with at the beginning now became standard for my cooldown sets.

It turned out that, over time, I had become much stronger, not just physically but mentally as well. As a result, even something like planking for just one minute had become child's play by around week 10 - and, on occasion, I would find myself taking three-minute planks instead.

As the weeks went by, I also started to see improvements in my exercise routine. My evening walks became more intense, from an initial speed of 5 km/h at a gentle incline of 5° for 25 minutes, to 6 km/h with an increasingly steep incline over time - eventually reaching 30 minutes per walk, while still burning twice as many calories per session than I had when it started.

Another significant change that took place was my sleep quality. When I first started this fitness challenge, I scored a mere 28% in terms of restful sleep - but by the end of it, I was averaging well over 70%. It wasn't just a slight improvement either; I was now regularly hitting 90%, and even the occasional night of insomnia was becoming less common.

The final piece of the puzzle that really drove home my fitness transformation was an air filtration unit for my bedroom. This device is designed to suck in all the allergens, dust, and pollen that were previously restricting my breathing at night - and it's been a game-changer. With this new system in place, I've been able to push past insomnia levels of sleep and into the 90s for the first time in my life.

This experience has had an incredible impact on my overall sense of well-being, from feeling more confident and self-assured than ever before, to enjoying a significant reduction in stress levels. With consistent exercise, healthy hydration habits, and improved sleep quality, I've been able to notice profound changes in how my body feels - including, although not exclusively, the development of noticeable abs.

This journey has taught me that small changes can add up over time, even if they don't always seem like a huge difference at first. And it's not just about reaching certain goals or milestones; it's also about discovering new ways to enjoy everyday activities and finding new levels of motivation and confidence along the way.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en100 days ago I challenged myself to a fitness transformation this was me every day I was sleeping just 4 hours a night walking an average of just 2,000 steps drinking four cups of caffeinated tea scoffing food at every possible opportunity and just generally feeling like a sack of potatoes so I committed to making 10 key lifestyle changes to see if I could turn this all around 100 days is up this is what's happened the first 5 days were horrible I dropped immediately from 3 to four cups of tea and coffee a day to zero and while I did think this would be challenging I had no no idea that I'd be practically unable to function without it my eyes hurt my forehead hurts my whole face hurts and what made this slightly harder was the fact that at the same time my gym regimen had just tripled in intensity more on that in a minute I was running at every possible opportunity literally until I could not take another step plus I was making myself do 25 minutes of fast walking at an incline every evening on top of that not easy when you're struggling to make it to the evening it's literally like 6:00 p.m. and I'm dead but then on day 6 something happened I'm just getting ready to film our best smartphones of the year so far video and I actually feel okay I feel awake I feel ready feel like I might not even need a tea it felt wrong why do I suddenly feel like I can film this video without my caffeine of course the answer is that the previous 5 days without it meant that I was getting tired during the day sleeping at a decent time and actually getting better quality sleep because of it it just taken my body 5 days to readjust to functioning without that caffeine stimulation I have had tea since then but I've never had more than one in a day and it immediately switched from feeling like something I needed to just a bonus Dam and while I was on this High I also thought it's been a week let's do a progress check I couldn't believe it turns out that within just 7 Days I'd managed to bring the average sleep time all the way up from 4 hours to almost seven the scales were saying 83.8 kilos and 20.3% fat I was on top of the Moon over the next couple of weeks as well as all the other stuff I started to properly turn my attention to the art of meditation from everything I'd heard about medit ating I knew that this was going to be the key to reducing My overall stress levels and it seems so simple you just sit there for a few minutes a day but my gosh has this Fitness transformation revealed stuff about me I couldn't do it I was trying to use the headspace app for this and it starts you off with 3 minute meditation sessions where there's a narrator who guides you through what to think about things like focus on the sounds around you and notice the way your body is feeling right now sadly the only thing I could notice was just how painstakingly long 3 minutes felt when you're doing absolutely nothing I wanted to fidget I wanted to move I wanted to get on with 100 tasks that I told myself I was going to do that day not to mention that I'm allergic to like 15 different Airborne particles so any moments of Serenity I did manage to get only Drew my attention to how blocked my nose was but I kept trying every single day whether I was tired whether I was at a party whether I was in another country I would find some time to sit and meditate and then one day I think I finally get meditation it kind of feels like I've just got up from a a deep sleep nope false alarm that wasn't it but then I feel like I've just broken through the meditation barrier for the first time done the meditation and I feel great yeah that wasn't it either it was only when I really understood what the goal of this meditation was that I was able to start to get there it's not really about sitting half naked on a mountain and waiting for enlightenment like you see in the movies The key thing that I was trying to get from it was a sense of mindfulness of being able to notice an emotion or a feeling in my body and then instead of reacting to it or stressing about it just seeing it for what it is and as soon as I got that I realized I didn't even need the app I was meditating in the train station I was meditating while working I was meditating while getting my haircut and it really does work I also thought it was time to check my progress 20 days in I didn't feel like I looked significantly better but the moment I taken this photo and put it side by side with the first one I was shocked you could see it in my belly you could see it on my sides you can see it on my face and my weight was down yet again no doubt helped by the healthier sleep habits lower stress levels and the fact that I was slowly bit surely dialing up the speed of my evening walks on this Fitness transformation how many times have I said that phrase so I want to I like a like a fitness transformation right now I want to get into the best shape of My Life by August 31st you might know that I'm partly through a fitness transformation right now I say that's like at least 10 12 kilos Fitness transformation I'm on a health transformation too many but the other side to this coin is the eating at the point where I decided to make this change I was eating horribly eating junk food had essentially become my way of pushing myself to work harder I I created an emotional connection between feeling overwhelmed and then using cakes and chocolates as the incentive to work my way out of it the meditation was already helping to combat that feeling of being stressed out so regularly but it's only when I compounded that with actually good food that's when things really started making a turn my strategy was effectively just to Plate myself the original meal that I would have normally had but then just shift the proportions away from the chips and the rice more towards the veg and the protein and I would strongly recommend that for anyone else trying to make this kind of change because it almost doesn't feel like you're missing out on anything I mean sure I still crave chocolate I'm human but then I substituted that for these mini dark somewhat healthy little chocolate bars that I could treat myself to and yeah I did still crave the odd fizzy drink but the best thing I did was to not deprive myself of that I just substituted my Fanta for soda water mixed with some fresh orange juice I know it sounds strange but it hit the spot this challenge really forced me to get creative with my recipes like if you follow me on Instagram you'll have seen my various attempts at smoothies I remember one quite distinctly which involved a few too many rocket leaves or there was another day where I was really craving pancakes obviously I couldn't make myself the full fat version but that allowed me to figure out a recipe that was pretty lean very quick and really tasty when served with some blueberries and a bit of Honey the further I got into this challenge though the more it started to dawn on me that when it comes to all this health stuff you can't control everything sometimes a friend will host a meal out sometimes you do have to take a work trip away like I went to America for 9 days to film that video with Mr Beast do I regret reget it not one bit but was it practically impossible to completely stick to my plan while being a jetlagged b traveling sat down for long periods of time C working really long hours and D in a foreign country surrounded by restaurants and nowhere to cook my own food yes yes it was but I think what helped me to get through times like that was partly just being as healthy as I reasonably could like instead of getting the full fat onion ring deep fried burger opting for the rice dish and then instead of having all the pies on the airplane just having one and then asking for fruit and it was partly just switching my point of comparison away from the super militant level of control that I was able to have while at home and more towards just comparing myself to how unhealthy old me would have been in that same scenario it's it's the best I could do and thankfully about 50 days in halfway through the time I'd given myself it seemed to have paid off big time by this point I could actually feel like I was in better shape I felt lighter I felt more agile not to mentioned that my weight was now sitting at 81 kilos which isn't even close to actually factoring in the full difference because as well as using the fat I was putting on muscle at the same time so even with all these minor stumbles I had with my diet I think the fact that I wasn't too hard on myself when I had to be a bit unhealthy meant that I never felt like it was all over or what's the point anymore which allowed me to just dive back into being more healthy as soon as those opportunities presented themselves whenever I have a problem I love the idea of a multi-pronged attack so like if I have a sore throat I will make myself one drink that contains seven different ingredients that are all supposedly good for your throat it's just it's satisfying to me me knowing that there are multiple mechanisms all fighting to help you at once and this ideology is also what I've applied to this transformation because it's not just the eating well and the intense workouts and the meditation it's also all the standing I've been doing 3 months ago I got myself this standing desk and I spent an average of 4 hours per day working from it I could not recommend it more because it's not just that you stand and you keep your core active but you also find that you move your legs more your arms more and you're just generally active for four more hours a day which is enormous and this board that I've been using it kind of reminds me of when I was a kid and I got my first play on one of those spinny office chairs it just it just makes it more fun and then every now and again I've been swapping it out for this vibration plate which basically exercises my body for me let's not talk about the amount of drinks I've spilled while working from it working at a standing desk is one of those things that's a very noticeable change when you start doing it but then after a week or so you kind of forget and you're only reminded at the end of each day when you eventually sit back down and kind of feel like you've already done your workout not everything I tried was super effective like one thing I used was the Slendertone belt that shocks your abs into Contracting many times very quickly I remember starting by thinking oh there's tickles until I realized that the setting was on 10 out of 100 by about 40 it was painful and at 100 well this should give you an idea of how it felt okay to be fair I was actually okay with the pain part of it the reason I decided to ditch this belt was more that it wasn't really designed to help you lose weight more to tone your your abs but since I still had a layer of fat over my abs you wouldn't have been able to tell anyways or another thing one of my other resolutions was to install a water reminder app on my phone that pings me every 2 hours to make sure I drink I thought this was genius I thought this was going to solve my hydration problems forever and to be fair it did give me a nudge at the beginning but by the time we're approaching week 10 the regularity of it almost made me start to just tune out the notification that said the biggest thing that was actually a game changer was just making sure that I always had a full bottle on the desk with me it is crazy the difference in the amount of water I drink when the tap is 10 steps away from me versus how much I drink when it's zero steps away it's the difference between only drinking when you feel thirsty which usually means that you don't have enough water and actually being hydrated which I think I've only properly been for the first time in my life this last few weeks and it's made me feel less hungry and even more awake it was at around day 75 34s through the challenge where I actually started to notice that I was also getting much Str longer the way that I was using Progressive overload to go up just a little bit in weight or reps each workout meant that by this point having had so many workouts I was lifting about 80% more than when I started literally the kinds of Weights that I was struggling to lift at the beginning I was Now using for my cooldown sets which is such a crazy thing for me to wrap my head around not to mention that while at the start I was planking for about a minute ago by this point I was becoming able to do 3 minute planks um yes and as well as my main workouts getting more intense as we went so are my evening walks I realize how that sounds I'm I'm not actually joking the way it started was that every evening before I went to bed I would walk at a speed of 5 km an hour at an incline of 5° for 25 minutes but by the end it was 6 km an hour at an incline of 7° and I was going for 30 minutes which might sound like small changes but when added together I was burning twice as many calories per evening doing this almost 300 per walk and this much time spent on a treadmill also pushed me to find ways of just enjoying it I realized that with my Nintendo switch I could have the tablet section resting on the machine itself and then just detach the controllers and play my games as I was walking it made the time fly by by the time we got to day 85 my sleep was drastically better than the 28% I was being scored when I started this change I was now regularly hitting 70 to 80% Sleep Quality which was already a vast Improvement but then I found this product it's an air filtration unit that effectively just sucks in all the allergens the dust and the pollen that have been restricting my breathing at night and this one change has now pushed me closer to the '90s and Sleep Quality I've literally gone from insomnia levels of sleep to 90% that is one of the best feelings in the world and that leads us to the results this is me now I've never felt this self assured and confident in my entire life and as for the stats I'm now averaging just under 8 hours of sleep a day my daily step count has hit 13,000 my caffeine has leveled out to about 1 cup of tea per day and as for weight 79 kilos with a 16.9% body f sadly there's no six-pack but I will definitely take the fact that you can at least tell my abs exist I hope this helps you on your Fitness transformation and to check out me testing some of the craziest Fitness gadgets ever that video is here100 days ago I challenged myself to a fitness transformation this was me every day I was sleeping just 4 hours a night walking an average of just 2,000 steps drinking four cups of caffeinated tea scoffing food at every possible opportunity and just generally feeling like a sack of potatoes so I committed to making 10 key lifestyle changes to see if I could turn this all around 100 days is up this is what's happened the first 5 days were horrible I dropped immediately from 3 to four cups of tea and coffee a day to zero and while I did think this would be challenging I had no no idea that I'd be practically unable to function without it my eyes hurt my forehead hurts my whole face hurts and what made this slightly harder was the fact that at the same time my gym regimen had just tripled in intensity more on that in a minute I was running at every possible opportunity literally until I could not take another step plus I was making myself do 25 minutes of fast walking at an incline every evening on top of that not easy when you're struggling to make it to the evening it's literally like 6:00 p.m. and I'm dead but then on day 6 something happened I'm just getting ready to film our best smartphones of the year so far video and I actually feel okay I feel awake I feel ready feel like I might not even need a tea it felt wrong why do I suddenly feel like I can film this video without my caffeine of course the answer is that the previous 5 days without it meant that I was getting tired during the day sleeping at a decent time and actually getting better quality sleep because of it it just taken my body 5 days to readjust to functioning without that caffeine stimulation I have had tea since then but I've never had more than one in a day and it immediately switched from feeling like something I needed to just a bonus Dam and while I was on this High I also thought it's been a week let's do a progress check I couldn't believe it turns out that within just 7 Days I'd managed to bring the average sleep time all the way up from 4 hours to almost seven the scales were saying 83.8 kilos and 20.3% fat I was on top of the Moon over the next couple of weeks as well as all the other stuff I started to properly turn my attention to the art of meditation from everything I'd heard about medit ating I knew that this was going to be the key to reducing My overall stress levels and it seems so simple you just sit there for a few minutes a day but my gosh has this Fitness transformation revealed stuff about me I couldn't do it I was trying to use the headspace app for this and it starts you off with 3 minute meditation sessions where there's a narrator who guides you through what to think about things like focus on the sounds around you and notice the way your body is feeling right now sadly the only thing I could notice was just how painstakingly long 3 minutes felt when you're doing absolutely nothing I wanted to fidget I wanted to move I wanted to get on with 100 tasks that I told myself I was going to do that day not to mention that I'm allergic to like 15 different Airborne particles so any moments of Serenity I did manage to get only Drew my attention to how blocked my nose was but I kept trying every single day whether I was tired whether I was at a party whether I was in another country I would find some time to sit and meditate and then one day I think I finally get meditation it kind of feels like I've just got up from a a deep sleep nope false alarm that wasn't it but then I feel like I've just broken through the meditation barrier for the first time done the meditation and I feel great yeah that wasn't it either it was only when I really understood what the goal of this meditation was that I was able to start to get there it's not really about sitting half naked on a mountain and waiting for enlightenment like you see in the movies The key thing that I was trying to get from it was a sense of mindfulness of being able to notice an emotion or a feeling in my body and then instead of reacting to it or stressing about it just seeing it for what it is and as soon as I got that I realized I didn't even need the app I was meditating in the train station I was meditating while working I was meditating while getting my haircut and it really does work I also thought it was time to check my progress 20 days in I didn't feel like I looked significantly better but the moment I taken this photo and put it side by side with the first one I was shocked you could see it in my belly you could see it on my sides you can see it on my face and my weight was down yet again no doubt helped by the healthier sleep habits lower stress levels and the fact that I was slowly bit surely dialing up the speed of my evening walks on this Fitness transformation how many times have I said that phrase so I want to I like a like a fitness transformation right now I want to get into the best shape of My Life by August 31st you might know that I'm partly through a fitness transformation right now I say that's like at least 10 12 kilos Fitness transformation I'm on a health transformation too many but the other side to this coin is the eating at the point where I decided to make this change I was eating horribly eating junk food had essentially become my way of pushing myself to work harder I I created an emotional connection between feeling overwhelmed and then using cakes and chocolates as the incentive to work my way out of it the meditation was already helping to combat that feeling of being stressed out so regularly but it's only when I compounded that with actually good food that's when things really started making a turn my strategy was effectively just to Plate myself the original meal that I would have normally had but then just shift the proportions away from the chips and the rice more towards the veg and the protein and I would strongly recommend that for anyone else trying to make this kind of change because it almost doesn't feel like you're missing out on anything I mean sure I still crave chocolate I'm human but then I substituted that for these mini dark somewhat healthy little chocolate bars that I could treat myself to and yeah I did still crave the odd fizzy drink but the best thing I did was to not deprive myself of that I just substituted my Fanta for soda water mixed with some fresh orange juice I know it sounds strange but it hit the spot this challenge really forced me to get creative with my recipes like if you follow me on Instagram you'll have seen my various attempts at smoothies I remember one quite distinctly which involved a few too many rocket leaves or there was another day where I was really craving pancakes obviously I couldn't make myself the full fat version but that allowed me to figure out a recipe that was pretty lean very quick and really tasty when served with some blueberries and a bit of Honey the further I got into this challenge though the more it started to dawn on me that when it comes to all this health stuff you can't control everything sometimes a friend will host a meal out sometimes you do have to take a work trip away like I went to America for 9 days to film that video with Mr Beast do I regret reget it not one bit but was it practically impossible to completely stick to my plan while being a jetlagged b traveling sat down for long periods of time C working really long hours and D in a foreign country surrounded by restaurants and nowhere to cook my own food yes yes it was but I think what helped me to get through times like that was partly just being as healthy as I reasonably could like instead of getting the full fat onion ring deep fried burger opting for the rice dish and then instead of having all the pies on the airplane just having one and then asking for fruit and it was partly just switching my point of comparison away from the super militant level of control that I was able to have while at home and more towards just comparing myself to how unhealthy old me would have been in that same scenario it's it's the best I could do and thankfully about 50 days in halfway through the time I'd given myself it seemed to have paid off big time by this point I could actually feel like I was in better shape I felt lighter I felt more agile not to mentioned that my weight was now sitting at 81 kilos which isn't even close to actually factoring in the full difference because as well as using the fat I was putting on muscle at the same time so even with all these minor stumbles I had with my diet I think the fact that I wasn't too hard on myself when I had to be a bit unhealthy meant that I never felt like it was all over or what's the point anymore which allowed me to just dive back into being more healthy as soon as those opportunities presented themselves whenever I have a problem I love the idea of a multi-pronged attack so like if I have a sore throat I will make myself one drink that contains seven different ingredients that are all supposedly good for your throat it's just it's satisfying to me me knowing that there are multiple mechanisms all fighting to help you at once and this ideology is also what I've applied to this transformation because it's not just the eating well and the intense workouts and the meditation it's also all the standing I've been doing 3 months ago I got myself this standing desk and I spent an average of 4 hours per day working from it I could not recommend it more because it's not just that you stand and you keep your core active but you also find that you move your legs more your arms more and you're just generally active for four more hours a day which is enormous and this board that I've been using it kind of reminds me of when I was a kid and I got my first play on one of those spinny office chairs it just it just makes it more fun and then every now and again I've been swapping it out for this vibration plate which basically exercises my body for me let's not talk about the amount of drinks I've spilled while working from it working at a standing desk is one of those things that's a very noticeable change when you start doing it but then after a week or so you kind of forget and you're only reminded at the end of each day when you eventually sit back down and kind of feel like you've already done your workout not everything I tried was super effective like one thing I used was the Slendertone belt that shocks your abs into Contracting many times very quickly I remember starting by thinking oh there's tickles until I realized that the setting was on 10 out of 100 by about 40 it was painful and at 100 well this should give you an idea of how it felt okay to be fair I was actually okay with the pain part of it the reason I decided to ditch this belt was more that it wasn't really designed to help you lose weight more to tone your your abs but since I still had a layer of fat over my abs you wouldn't have been able to tell anyways or another thing one of my other resolutions was to install a water reminder app on my phone that pings me every 2 hours to make sure I drink I thought this was genius I thought this was going to solve my hydration problems forever and to be fair it did give me a nudge at the beginning but by the time we're approaching week 10 the regularity of it almost made me start to just tune out the notification that said the biggest thing that was actually a game changer was just making sure that I always had a full bottle on the desk with me it is crazy the difference in the amount of water I drink when the tap is 10 steps away from me versus how much I drink when it's zero steps away it's the difference between only drinking when you feel thirsty which usually means that you don't have enough water and actually being hydrated which I think I've only properly been for the first time in my life this last few weeks and it's made me feel less hungry and even more awake it was at around day 75 34s through the challenge where I actually started to notice that I was also getting much Str longer the way that I was using Progressive overload to go up just a little bit in weight or reps each workout meant that by this point having had so many workouts I was lifting about 80% more than when I started literally the kinds of Weights that I was struggling to lift at the beginning I was Now using for my cooldown sets which is such a crazy thing for me to wrap my head around not to mention that while at the start I was planking for about a minute ago by this point I was becoming able to do 3 minute planks um yes and as well as my main workouts getting more intense as we went so are my evening walks I realize how that sounds I'm I'm not actually joking the way it started was that every evening before I went to bed I would walk at a speed of 5 km an hour at an incline of 5° for 25 minutes but by the end it was 6 km an hour at an incline of 7° and I was going for 30 minutes which might sound like small changes but when added together I was burning twice as many calories per evening doing this almost 300 per walk and this much time spent on a treadmill also pushed me to find ways of just enjoying it I realized that with my Nintendo switch I could have the tablet section resting on the machine itself and then just detach the controllers and play my games as I was walking it made the time fly by by the time we got to day 85 my sleep was drastically better than the 28% I was being scored when I started this change I was now regularly hitting 70 to 80% Sleep Quality which was already a vast Improvement but then I found this product it's an air filtration unit that effectively just sucks in all the allergens the dust and the pollen that have been restricting my breathing at night and this one change has now pushed me closer to the '90s and Sleep Quality I've literally gone from insomnia levels of sleep to 90% that is one of the best feelings in the world and that leads us to the results this is me now I've never felt this self assured and confident in my entire life and as for the stats I'm now averaging just under 8 hours of sleep a day my daily step count has hit 13,000 my caffeine has leveled out to about 1 cup of tea per day and as for weight 79 kilos with a 16.9% body f sadly there's no six-pack but I will definitely take the fact that you can at least tell my abs exist I hope this helps you on your Fitness transformation and to check out me testing some of the craziest Fitness gadgets ever that video is here\n"