Meet Grant, a Strongr Fastr user from Australia. He goes hard in everything he sets out to do- from studying engineering during a career change while being a great girl dad to getting his health in check and placing in the top 10 in his age group for a Spartan Race! His analytical, yet flexible, approach to crushing his fitness goals is a master course on how to win the mental game and see results. Get a notepad and a pen and be ready to take notes!
Tell us a little about yourself and why you decided to make a change to your health?
I am a 38 year old father of two young girls in Australia. I recently went through a career change from being an ecologist to a mechatronics engineer, which involved 4 years full time study whilst also working and parenting. The stress was high and I ate and drank as a coping mechanism till I found myself out of shape. Shortly after graduating and settling into my new career it was time to get my health back in order. I read Jeff Nippard’s book on body recomposition and it lead me to targeting calorie intake and controlling the macronutrient proportions in my diet. That’s when I found Strongr Fastr.
What fitness goals did you achieve in the last year?
I lost around 20kg [44lbs] and improve my fitness enough to get a top ten finish in my age group in a Spartan Race earlier this year.
What have been your biggest obstacles with fitness in the past?
Generally I think poor health and fitness are linked to being stressed and time poor, at least for me anyway. It is hard to get a quick and easy healthy meal on the run when I am not prepared and I end up eating fast food.
What have been the key factors to your success? Any big lessons?
Having clear goals– reading the body recomposition book helped me to clarify my goals; I wanted to lose weight and increase lean muscle mass proportion of my body. To do this I set my goal to lose 20kg by the end of last year. This allowed me to set the daily calorie and macro budgets to reach these goals.
Having a plan- the meal planning allows me to get organised ahead of time so I can ensure I am sticking to my macro and calorie budgets
Adjust the plan as I go- use measurements and feedback to adjust the plan- I never get it right the first time and need to allow a little more flexibility in the diet as well as reducing the calorie budget to lose the weight at my desired rate.
Have strategies to recover when I deviate from the plan– sometimes I break the rules or my life doesn’t let me follow the plan. Having ways to get back on track is important for me to stay focussed and motivated; such as ways to quickly estimate the calories I have eaten at a party and mitigating them later
How did Strongr Fastr help you on your journey?
I mainly use the meal planning/macro planning and meal tracking/logging part of the app to achieve my goals. It is really handy in planning macros, meals and shopping lists to achieve my goals through diet planning. I was actually surprised, pleasantly, by some of the recipes and what I can do with a high protein diet. So it opened my mind in that sense. The meal tracking, weight tracking and feedback are awesome, summarising my progress and estimating what calorie intake I need to have in order for different weight outcomes. And being able to enter my own foods and recipes is also very handy.
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What’s your best advice for someone just starting or someone who has been struggling to achieve their fitness goals?
If you have time, read a book or two on it. Get it clear in your head what you want to do, and make SMART goals – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time constrained. Then develop a detailed plan and follow it, regularly monitor (and record!) your progress and results, adjust it based on your results, and have ways to ‘get back on the horse’ when you fall off.
Any advice for staying motivated?
Go hard at the start, as hard as you can, to get results quickly. Once you see results, record them, remind yourself of them and use them as proof and motivation that what you’re doing works! If it isn’t working, change the plan, try again and continue until it does! And like I said above , give yourself some flexibility or slack to live your life and break the rules sometimes, but have strategies to get back on the horse.
What’s your favorite recipe on the app?
3 egg omelette with ham, cheese and salsa (I really didn’t know how low salsa was in calories, I use it everywhere now!) [recipe link]
If you have one, what is a fitness goal you have going forward?
I want to develop a strength goal, as I have enjoyed using the Strongr Fastr strength training plans, the progressive loading seems really smart and I saw some good gains on casual use. I would like to get serious about it and get ripped!
Thanks again to Grant for sharing his story and process!
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Are you a Strongr Fastr user who would like to share your story with us? Email mary@strongrfastr.com
Want to read more about motivation: Check out our blog post: Discipline & Willpower: 3 Scientifically Backed Steps to Form Healthy Habits
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