From couch potato to competitive bodybuilder.
Craig O’Brien has undergone a remarkable physical transformation after deciding that enough was enough and swapping his sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy diet for the gym and a dedicated nutrition plan.
Craig, 21, made some significant but not undoable changes to his life and the results speak for themselves.
In one year, the Glaswegian lost a third of his total body fat, became a personal trainer and is now in the process of bulking up so that he can compete in bodybuilding competitions in 2018.
“I was literally the definition of a couch potato and at school on my lunch break I would buy chippies, rolls and sausages and bags of sweets,” he said. “You name it, I ate it every single day, Monday to Friday.”
Craig hit the gym in a bid to lose his belly but found that the training wasn’t paying off because he hadn’t implemented a proper nutrition plan.
“I had no idea what I was doing and thought all I had to do to lose weight was to do a bit of cardio. I didn’t realise how important diet was, so I would still eat a lot of crap such as sweets, pizza and other kinds of junk food,” he continued.
“I lost a little bit of weight but I still didn’t like the way I felt or looked, despite going to the gym for one hour every day.”
After getting into decent shape, Craig felt that he wanted to change his focus from weight loss to bulking up so joined a particular gym, Xercise4Less, that would facilitate him with the equipment and training expertise required to make a splash on the bodybuilding circuit.
Adding muscle mass meant that the 21-year-old had to completely overhaul his diet and he was kind enough to share with JOE the diet plan responsible for fuelling his transformation.
“I joined Xercise4Less and it is when I joined this gym I started noticing more improvements and better training,” he said. “It has a lot more equipment and allows you to have more choice from machines and free weights.
“I go the gym more or less every day. It may sound stupid but I see the gym as a place I can zone out from everything happening around me.
“Working out keeps me mentally focused and I just feel great from it.
“I have gained so much confidence and self-esteem through my training and going to the gym is almost like a type of therapy for me.”
