Cal Moores is a 27-year-old graphic designer. He plays football five times a week, but has struggled with his weight due to a poor diet. Here, he shares the approach that helped him to lose 13kg in three months (and keep it off).

I’ve always been into fitness and going to the gym, but I lacked the commitment and discipline to follow a proper diet and workout plan. This, along with my lack of gym knowledge, led to me doing the usual crash diets and sporadic workouts that obviously never led to any real results.

I realised I wanted to make a change after the summer of 2021. I’d been out socialising a lot while watching England play in the Euros, and a combination of lack of exercise and overindulging in junk food and alcohol meant I was the biggest I’d ever been.

I play football around five times a week and I’m very active, so you would have assumed I’d be in great shape. But that wasn’t the case. I would feel so embarrassed getting changed after games; I thought my teammates and people in the changing rooms would be expecting me to be in great shape, when in reality I was hiding all this extra weight.

I Started by Changing My Diet

When I started at Ultimate Performance, my diet changed massively. I’d gone from grabbing fast food after football to chicken and vegetables. I also began drinking protein shakes for breakfast; before, I used to grab whatever I could on the way into work in the mornings. I began really focusing on what I was putting into my body, and stuck to the program given to me by my trainer Nathan. Funnily enough, sticking to this kind of strict routine made me feel so much happier. Soon, it became second nature.

A typical day for me during my transformation would be a protein shake for breakfast, which included blueberries, spinach and peanut butter, followed by chicken or steak, with broccoli, green beans and sweetcorn for both lunch and dinner. I’d also have another protein shake in the evening.

The Workout Routine Behind My Transformation

During my transformation I was working out three times a week doing a range of weight and core training, while also doing football for my cardio.

At the beginning of my training my mobility was really poor and I was struggling to do certain leg exercises as a result, but my trainer gave me some tips and exercises to do that helped me.

At first I dreaded using the Pendulum machine, but by the end of my transformation I found it extremely beneficial and noticed it helped me massively in my football.

My Results

I started out at 80kg, and managed to get down to around 67kg. I weighed myself every morning over the course of the 12 weeks. It was such a rewarding feeling knowing I was surpassing the goals I had set with my trainer. My teammates had also started to notice a change in the changing rooms.

This experience changed my life. I’m much more confident now in the gym as I have been taught the correct form for lots of exercises, so I am able to enjoy it. I still stick to the diet, and I focus on getting enough sleep to help me recover from my training.

Other positive side effects have been my focus and enthusiasm at work. I think eating well has obviously helped, but feeling good and being mentally in a good place has also led to me creating better work.

I’m definitely not finished. My next goal now is to maintain a routine in the gym and make it a part of my life forever. I would honestly recommend getting a trainer to help you get started. Trainers can help you find a routine and tweak it to your needs, while giving you invaluable knowledge and tips that will last you forever.

If there’s one thing Kori Sampson knows, it’s how to optimise your body composition for performance. To tap into his knowledge as an elite athlete and coach, we asked him to create a 4-week plan to help you move faster, recover quicker and keep pushing when the fatigue sets in – all while improving your muscle-to-fat ratio.

Ready to build muscle, burn fat and come out the other side looking, feeling and performing better? Click here to get 14 days of free access to the plan via the Men’s Health app.