Matthew: Hi, this is Matthew from the DVCC and I am here with Michael Coggin. I am just going to ask you a few questions, to get an insight into how you have got such great results.
So Mike, if you could please introduce yourself, and how long have you been at the DVCC?
Mike: Hi, I’m Mike Coggin, I’ve been at DVCC for six weeks.
Matthew: Fantastic. To start off, what have been any difficulties that you have had, as I am sure that there are literally thousands of people who find themselves in the same position as you were before you started at the DVCC?
Mike: Well, I play sport quite regularly and I have been a regular gym goer since I was maybe 12 or 13 years of age, doing various types of weight training; and I just got to a point where I lacked any sort of motivation to go to the gym, and do anything meaningful when I actually got to the gym, so if I did go to the gym I would spend the first 20 minutes walking round, wondering what the hell I should do, despite the fact that I had done it since I was 12 or 13 years old! So I just sort of lost the love for going in the end really.
Matthew: Ok – so, what results have you achieved since you’ve been at the DVCC?
Mike: I have personally noticed that my fitness level has gone up massively; I’m still playing rugby regularly on a Saturday, not so regularly during the week as I used to; but at 35, it was getting difficult for my body to get through a game of rugby on a Saturday. Since I’ve been at the DVCC; that has improved massively. And then in terms of the fat that I have *lost, I’ve lost just over 18 lbs of fat.
Matthew: 18.3 specifically.
Mike: 18.3 pounds of fat in the six weeks, which was beyond any sort of expectation that I had. Yes, lean muscle mass has gone up, body fat percentage has come down by 7.2% and just generally feeling much, much healthier, much more comfortable, much fitter. And confidence in my body image etc. has gone up as well.
Matthew: Good, awesome. So what were your struggles with weight *loss before the DVCC, if when you tried to *lose weight before, like you say you were a regular gym goer, what did you find you struggled with in regards to weight *loss?
Mike: I sort of yo-yoed a bit on various diets, which ultimately I couldn’t stick with over any period of time, and I think maybe part of that was the lack of motivation; the other part, as you well know Matt, is that I love food! So it was very difficult, without the motivation, to really *lose the fat before.
To stick to any sort of meaningful diet. Also as well, I fell into bad habits of sort of snacking and enjoying my food just a little bit too much, and not really understanding when to pull back from it; so that was the hardest thing prior to coming to DVCC.
Matthew: So, linking into that, have you ever *lost weight using nutrition and exercise, or has it always been one or the other?
Mike: No, I have *lost weight previously, when I was much, much younger – sort of 23-24 – I came out of a situation where I was working an awful lot, eating a lot of bad foods, into a situation where I took some time out and went back to university and stuff.
And within that period of time, my now wife and I went off and spent a month away from everything, got married and stuff like that, abroad. Prior to that I went on a big training regime, I watched every calorie and did lots and lots of various different types of weight training.
Having said that, I was 23-24 so my metabolism anyway was in a decent place; hormonally I was in a decent place and it wasn’t like I had an awful lot of fat on. I’d maybe gone up by half a *stone from 12 *stone to 12.5 *stone, which is what I used to be around at that age. So yes, I have done it previously, but it was in a much, much different point in my *life where it was much, much easier to sort of trim off a bit of fat here and put on a bit of fat, you know, depending on how I was running my lifestyle at that particular moment in time.
Matthew: Speaking of lifestyle, what does your lifestyle look like now, compared to before DVCC?
Mike: As I say, I have been quite busy over periods of time in my adult career, and lifestyle became about ease a little bit. Prior to coming to DVCC, I would eat what was easy, I’d have a lot of takeaways, I would eat out at restaurants quite a bit; I’d use my kids and their eating habits as an excuse for my eating habits.
You know, as kids, they can snack they can have chocolate and all that stuff, and you don’t deprive them of that, although you’re careful with them not to allow them too much of it.
But, as a parent sometimes you have to drag yourself away from actually doing it with them, and my lifestyle prior to DVCC was very much like that; I would enjoy everything they were enjoying and more, you know.
But I was in that sort of, whole, where I wasn’t really sure how I was going to *lose weight, I thought maybe I was too far gone to significantly *lose weight and I needed something like DVCC to sort of kick me into gear really.
Matthew: Brilliant. Do you have any specific tips with nutrition or exercise that you would like to share with anyone listening, something that worked specifically for you, or you found particularly useful?
Mike: Yes, stick with it more than anything. You know, it gets an awful lot better. On the MDS I struggled at times, especially over the first two weeks of doing it, but my weight *loss I was put an awful lot down to watching what I was eating, being careful what I was eating; not drinking so much coffee and tea, sugars out of that, taking the sugar out completely really out of my diet.
The only sugars I am getting are the small amounts that you find in vegetables naturally. And just to stick with it, don’t sort of be tempted to go in the fridge and nick a bit of chocolate out or any of that. You can have that on your metabolic reset meal and look forward to the metabolic reset meal and look forward to what happens after week 2, where you can add in the tomatoes and you can start getting saucy!
You can start adding sauces in and making sauces, and enjoy it. I got to play around at making food interesting again which is something I haven’t done in a long time. I enjoy cooking and I hadn’t maybe enjoyed cooking for the last 2 or 3 years, because I haven’t been bothered to.
By sort of embracing MDS and knowing what I can eat, and experimenting, I’ve sort of started enjoying doing it again, enjoying cooking – and not cheating really. And seeing the results, if you stick with it and you embrace it, undoubtedly you’re going to see results.
Matthew: You’ve done really well. Any final words, Mike?
Mike: Yes, I’d recommend DVCC to anybody in my situation: older, younger, anybody who feels that they’re just beyond help, anybody who feels that they’re bored of what they are currently doing. If you’ve got the financial resources to do it, if you’ve got the motivation to do it, and you want a change in direction, come to DVCC, try it out, you won’t be disappointed.
Matthew: Excellent. Thank you very much. I hope you found this interview helpful. I want to thank you for your time, Mike. Please comment below with any questions and we’ll get back to you. This is Matthew from the DVCC in Northampton; thank you very much.
