Josh: Hi guys, this is Josh from the DVCC and I’m sat here with a client of DVCC Bedford, Vish Jassal, who has just had a pretty awesome progress tracker.
So without further ado, I’m going to let Vish introduce himself and he can tell you when he started at the DVCC and what results he’s had in that time.
Vish: My name is Vish Jassal; I joined on the 2nd February this year and I have gone from a XXL down to a medium and a 42” waist down to a 37” waist.
Josh: And weight-wise, what has changed?
Vish: Weight wise, I’ve gone from 100 kilograms down to 88 kilograms, gained in muscle and *lost heavily in fat.
Josh: So that’s something in the region of, with the muscle gain, about 30 lbs of fat *lost, so it’s a huge, huge amount. Just going back to before you joined the DVCC, how long were you concerned about your weight?
Vish: I’ve been concerned about my weight since I was about 16, when I was at my peak weight – I was 18 *stone plus 42” waist again. After I left school I was really self conscious, really weak, really tired and lethargic. I was really conscious about I looked and just didn’t do anything.
At that point I made a decision to sort myself out; I’ve been through Thai boxing, been through various diets and exercises, and always gone up and down. But here is where I’ve got the biggest gains really.
Josh: Did you have any reservations before joining the DVCC?
Vish: No I didn’t. The main thing was, because I used to do Thai boxing before, when I moved to Bedford about 3 or 4 years ago, I was struggling to find a place to train; because I was so used to Thai boxing, I kept looking there, but none opened late enough, and then I came across the DVCC on the website and decided to give it a go.
Josh: Did you have anything in your mind about what you thought it would be like before you actually turned up?
Vish: Not really. To be honest with you, I had that stereotypical image in my head of people in front of mirrors, posing with weights and doing weightlifting all the time, that kind of gym.
Josh: Did you want to get involved in that?!?
Vish: Yeah, I thought I’d have a bit of a vain moment in my life!
Josh: So were you a little bit disappointed when you came here, that there were no mirrors?
Vish: Yes, there was less looking at myself and admiring myself, and more sweating and destroying the body!
Josh: How did you find the training when you first came to the DVCC?
Vish: Absolutely fantastic; it reminded me exactly of how I used to do my Thai boxing where the type of work is all intensive training, high heart rates and plyometric style. And it was great, because each day you felt the gains and through the sessions you could feel your body changing, getting stronger and better and faster at everything you did.
Josh: Aside from the training, you’ve made some pretty big changes nutrition wise. Did you do any diets or try anything to *lose the body fat before the DVCC?
Vish: Yes, the main thing was because it was trying to do more weight *loss rather than muscle gains or even fat *loss, to try and get back into the ring, it was just cut out carbohydrates and just eat pure veg. No no-one has ever been able to tell me how to diet because of being a vegetarian and that’s my main struggle.
But when I came here, with the meal plan, it showed me all the different food groups, and I supplemented the meat, fish and eggs purely for tofu, bean curd and soya. And I got even higher protein intakes and less fat and carb intakes because I was able to do a 100% pure vegetarian diet, which a lot of my family members struggle with, for religious reasons, and I was able to *lose the weight and still have the energy that people who weren’t vegetarians could.
Josh: That’s awesome, that’s good to hear. Because you can always make adaptations; one thing that Vish has done is just pick up another protein – again that’s another thing that’s helped his training.
How have you found adopting the nutrition stuff?
Vish: Very difficult to start with, because as everyone knows I like my coco-pops and pizza! At the beginning it was hard because I did cut all that out, now on my reset meals on the weekends I tend to enjoy them still. But I’m still getting the weight gains and fat losses that I want, so it’s been great.
Josh: What do you enjoy most about being at the DVCC?
Vish: It’s just the camaraderie of it all. With everyone grouping together, there are always challenges that we all do together. We have little mini competitions in the sessions, we get to have a good banter with everyone, it’s more of a family themed organisation rather than just come here, train, go home.
It’s more of a - come here, have a laugh, enjoy yourself but work hard at the same time and everyone will cheer you on.
Josh: On a personal note, I’ve not seen many people volunteer themselves for punishment the way you do, Vish!
Vish: I do not volunteer, I’ll say that much, I get picked on!
Josh: If everyone else would like to see Vish do another prowler challenge, of which he’s done a few – I’m sure he’d be more than willing to oblige!
Vish: Can you record ‘crying’?!?
Josh: Maybe we can record crying afterwards! So going on more about those friendships – I’m sure people won’t mind being named – can you explain a little bit more about that and how it has helped you?
Vish: I’ve become really good friends with Tara, Hannah, Tracey, Kevin…
Josh: Trouble!
Vish: And then I see familiar faces each week, but mainly because I am always on the last sessions, everyone tends to do earlier ones. But I’m sure on Saturdays, if I came on a regular basis to the Saturday ones, I’d get to know even more people. It’s absolutely fantastic, but it’s mainly the evening crew that hang out with me.
Josh: I like that! So, aside from obviously the change in the body shape and the drop in the waist size, what are the other benefits that you’ve found?
Vish: Loads. I’m alert at work; I sleep a lot better, bearing in mind that I’ve not slept properly for going on to a decade nearly. I’m more active, I’m able to think clearer, and I just wake up with a bit more of a buzz as well, that’s the thing.
I do a lot of building work at home and I used to struggle lifting a bit of timber, I can now lift full 8 x 4 sheets of timber without hesitation. I can pick up all my equipment very easily and lift up bricks; it’s made my life so much easier.
Josh: It’s great to hear, because they’re the kind of things that go under the radar initially and a lot of people come for the fat loss, but stay for those benefits. To hear that it’s made your life easier on a day to day basis is a really powerful thing. It puts a smile on my face.
When you joined, did you expect it to work as well as it has done?
Vish: Because it was the second time I’d joined, because of travel and stuff, I expected it a lot the second time; but the first time I was a bit more apprehensive. Like I said, I was expecting it to be a body building, like a gym rather than an actual weight *loss. But when I got here and started doing it, it was just amazing, it was the best workout and I loved every second of it, clearly loved every second of it!
Josh: So you keep coming back for more!
To finish off, to those people who are listening to this who might be in your situation – they’ve got a stressful job and they find their weight steadily increasing and they want to do something about it, what would you suggest?
Vish: Although work dominates most people’s lives, it’s all about getting that work life balance. That’s something I struggled with for a very long time, so I told people at work that I want to focus on my health and I want two evenings every week where I will leave at a specific time, which was 5pm which was a normal working day.
I walked out of the office at 5pm, regardless of what people thought of me, and went and trained. I made sure I pushed myself to do that, and when I started seeing the gains, I pushed to keep on doing that again and again. Because, at the end of the day, work will always be there the day after and if you finish at 5 or 5.30 or 6, what you do in that last hour is pointless anyway; you can get better gains from coming training instead.
Josh: So did the people at work mind you taking that ‘me’ time?
Vish: Not really, when they saw what the changes were. They saw that I was more active at work, they saw how I was able to concentrate more, they saw that I was getting involved more, whereas before I was a desk jockey really – I sat in front of a computer all day, I did my job and went home. I took a lot longer to do everything rather than what I’m doing now, which is I quickly fly things out and get going with the next thing. So giving yourself that little bit of ‘you’ time makes everything else seem a lot easier.
Josh: Vish, that is awesome to hear. I’m so glad, and hearing about how much it’s helped, I look forward to giving you progressively heavier weights, so looking forward to that…
Hey guys, you heard it here first, heavier weights for Vish!
Ok guys, thank you for listening and I hope you learned a thing or two that you can implement in your *life to help.
If you want to see Vish on the prowler challenge, give this little interview a ‘Like’ and I shall see what I can do! See you next time guys!
