“Can’t”.

“I can’t”.

“I can’t do this”.

“I just can’t find the time”.

“Can’t” was the word that rang in Minesh’s head for 2 years before he decided to join RNT.

He knew health was important. But he was paralysed in fear of the unknown. And fear that despite seeing numerous success stories of people just like him, he couldn’t do it.

“I had read all the transformations on the website and everyone looked so incredible! I really wanted that for myself but I didn’t think I was one of those people. I didn’t think I had time to meal prep, get my steps, head to the gym 3-4 times a week and I hated the idea of running!”

Despite all good intentions, Minesh continued to dismiss this inner voice urging him to make better choices.

Over the years he had put on a lot of weight around his belly: going from a 29 inch waist to nearly 39 inches.

He didn’t like how he looked and he certainly didn’t like how he felt, but he just didn’t feel ready to do what he needed to do.

“I had always been skinny but never lean or strong. And now knocking on 40, I had this really big belly. I wasn’t exercising, I was eating badly, I wasn’t healthy. In my 30s I had (much as I hate to admit) turned into a couch potato! And it all came into perspective one morning when I woke up to see my foot completely swollen with gout!

I had been to a cricket match and it was a day of eating and drinking to extreme excess. Pints and pints of beer with lamb and chicken and all the trimmings. And the next day when I woke up, my foot was hurting so badly, I couldn’t even put it down.

I took a photo of it and sent it to my dad (who has always suffered from gout) and he laughed and said, ‘Welcome to the club!’

That was when I knew there had to be a better way!”

The Process of Getting Started

That painful morning had pushed Minesh to sign up but it still took him a while to get started, 6 months to be exact.

“I had such a negative approach to the whole process. I still couldn’t see how I was going to make time for everything. I am a very involved dad to two young kids, I have a very demanding job, I have to travel frequently for work. Plus, I have my own hobbies and interests. I just didn’t see how I could make it all work.”

It took a big nudge from the coaches to get Minesh to finally get started.

“I realised that I didn’t have to have everything worked out to the last minute detail to get started.

It occurred to me that starting this transformation was a lot like learning how to drive a car.

There are so many things you have to pay attention to, but when you have a driving instructor guiding you, things slowly become more instinctive, and that’s what happened with me.

I just had to get the engine started and then the coaches guided me and helped me figure things out.”

Minesh’s slow and jerky start just shows that you don’t have to have a handle on things from the very beginning to achieve great results. Making the commitment to stick to the plan is all that it takes.

How To Make Time

The truth is that everyone’s days are full of chores, work and other life commitments. However, there is always a way, once you make your health a priority, you will learn to remove the clutter and make space for what is truly important.

“I pretty much pulled out an excel sheet and put down my schedule. I even calculated the amount of time it would take me to get to the gym and back.

I had things in my diary that I couldn’t change like dropping and picking up the kids from school, meetings and work commitments. I then identified gaps in my day to fit in my training and my weekly meal prep.

The great thing about the programme is, it’s flexibility. If for some reason you can’t go to the gym you can do a bodyweight only plan at home or if I was short on time, I’d go to the gym and get in what I could even if it was just for 30mins.”

Targeting Nutrition Despite Busy Schedules And Travelling

Making changes to what you eat and how you eat is the biggest challenge. We are very set in our ways and have very strong preferences of what we like to eat.

This is why all our members are strongly advised to pick foods that they enjoy and will be happy to eat for a long time, making the programme so much easier to stick to.

“I love my junk food. I Ioved to order in food from Uber Eats and Deliveroo on the weekends or after a long day at work when I couldn’t be bothered to cook. And changing all of that and switching to the RNT nutrition strategy was, I have to be honest, hard at first.

So I just followed the guidance and I identified the foods that I enjoyed and just stuck to it. I have been eating the exact same thing every day since I started in November and believe it or not I love the food on my meal plan.”

Another challenge for Minesh was learning how to manage his food while travelling for work. But with the help from the coaching team he found the best thing to do was to cook his food and take it with him on his trip.

“When I travel, I look for a hotel that has a fridge and a decent gym. I pack into tupperwares my home cooked food so I have at least one meal per day that’s on my plan. When I arrive, I walk around and scout around for restaurants with some good options.

I realise now that this knowledge I have gained through RNT is not only for those on a fat loss journey. It is essential for all of us. Being aware of what we are eating and being conscious of the food choices we make, is actually a necessary life skill we all need.”

We know that nailing nutrition is a key aspect to achieving any health goals, which is why our custom built platform, RNT Pro has an inbuilt food tracker that is so user friendly. Minesh used this feature to make this complicated process super simple and effective.

“I would just input all of the ingredients into Pro and adjust the amounts to make sure I was meeting my macro and calorie target. It was so easy then to prepare tasty meals that fitted neatly into my plan.”

The Importance Of A Training Plan

A big blocker, especially at the beginning of the journey, is the anxiety of training. A lot of our members have never stepped into the weights area of the gym before. They may have tried a few group fitness classes, used the cross-trainer or run on a treadmill, but very little else. That’s why the idea of picking up a set of dumbbells can seem a bit daunting at first.

The most effective way to overcome this anxiety is to have a training plan, going into the gym without a plan is tantamount to setting yourself up to fail.

Minesh had never trained before, he had tried a bit of callisthenics in the past, but nothing more than that. But, having a training plan that was tailored to his needs combined with the support and guidance from the coaching team helped him overcome any apprehension.

“Today, I love to train and I feel almost annoyed with myself when I miss a session. But it wasn’t like that in the beginning. I’m not embarrassed to admit that when I started my RNT journey I was pressing 16kgs for my dumbbell chest press and today I’m 30kgs lighter and lifting 50kgs which is just about 8 kilos shy of my body weight, and I love that feeling of strength.

I love to really push myself in the gym and feel my entire body shake at the end of every set. The rush you get when you finish a workout is really wonderful!”

The Physical Is The Vehicle

In 12 months, Minesh lost about 30kgs! His results are incredible and prove that the only thing that was keeping him from reaching his health goals were his own self-limiting beliefs.

“I love how I look now. But when I started RNT, it wasn’t about getting a 6-pack, although it is amazing that I have one!

The real win is that I now have so much better control in my day. I am able to focus on the things that really matter. I know that I will never go back to my old ways and I have my sights firmly set on improving my strength and cementing what I have learnt through the RNT journey.”

The Podcast

In Ep 297 of RNT Fitness Radio, Minesh talks to Akash about the struggles as well as the practical strategies he used to overcome them throughout his RNT journey. It’s a truly inspiring story that proves that anyone and everyone can change their life, all they need to do is commit and trust the programme.

In this podcast Minesh offers some valuable advice to other RNTers starting out on their journey, “Embrace everything. Get enough sleep. Drink enough water. Send in your training videos, they will save you from injury and ensure you make progress. Don’t worry if you find things challenging, it is hard but you will adjust and you will see progress and you will stick to the plan and you will get your results.”

Stats

Start - 87kgs

End - 57kgs