OPINION:
My girlfriend’s comments on my physique were getting increasingly cruel. One day she said my body looked like “a dropped lasagne”, another “an under-baked meringue”. But it was when the scales tipped at more than 16 stone [101kg] that I knew I had to act.
I’ve always loathed the gym, but a good friend Aaron Beesley mentioned a 10-week boxing training challenge, with a fight at the end of it, meaning I could raise money for Rugby Against Cancer. My interest was piqued. Fast-forward to today, and aged 35, I’m 12st 13lb (82.4kg) having lost three stone in just 10 weeks. How did that happen?
How did I get so fat?
I’ve always enjoyed my food, but before taking on the challenge I ate like crazy. Instead of having one doughnut, I’d have five. Curry on the way home from work? I’d pick two with chips – and a keema naan. Biscuit with a cuppa? I’d scoff the whole packet. No coach will tell you to do this, but I felt I really needed to be disgusted with myself before taking action.
I became a dad for the first time in January 2020, and it was as if I was determined to put on more weight than my pregnant girlfriend. But because I could still roll around like a squidgy barrel on a rugby field three times a week, I convinced myself that I was in fine shape.
However, when a loved one says you need to lose weight, chances are they’re not nagging – they’re spot on.
Going cold turkey, and failing
Feeling confident because you look the part is a boost when you’re trying to lose weight. So I got myself kitted out in all the latest Adidas boxing gear, with beautiful gloves which, frankly, belong in a gallery.
I also decided to go “extreme” and limit myself to one 1000-calorie meal a day. While that was effective (I lost half a stone in the first week), I was constantly starving and had no energy to train. When I took to vaping in the car to stop myself snacking, I knew a better approach was needed.
So I called in Muscle Food, an online delivery system that provides you with all the ingredients and recipes for meals with lean meat. This was the turning point. It took out the need to think and plan myself, and by the end of week two, healthy living had become the norm.
I genuinely no longer wanted to gorge on junk food while slumped on the sofa and started craving exercise instead. I’d re-set my calories to a maximum of 2000 a day, which was much healthier – and achievable.
The hardest training I’ve ever done
The idea of Battle of the Clubs is that every rugby club in Hampshire, where I live, supplies one player to fight in a tournament. At 16 stone and 5ft 9in (on a tall day), there was a very real chance I’d get paired with one of the ogres in the group. Losing weight was now a necessity.
We all trained together at Basecamp in Portsmouth, under the sadistic watch of trainer David Birmingham, former English champion boxer Joel McIntyre and Michael Hart.
Although everyone had a basic level of fitness through rugby, boxing was the hardest training I’ve ever done. Keeping your hands high; moving your feet and head simultaneously; getting hit in the head and body.
I’d turn up, get blasted for an hour, then crawl home. I also switched up the training, so on top of the boxing on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, on Mondays I did sprints for half an hour, on Wednesdays I’d swim for 45 minutes, on Fridays I’d run for 30 minutes and on Saturdays I’d play basketball.
After four exhausting weeks of this routine, however, I got a niggling wrist pain and an old shoulder injury flared up. My body was telling me I needed to slow down. I cut back on the other sports and committed to the boxing sessions. It was addictive.
From secret eater to goal-getter
The thing that drove my weight loss the most was my total diet change. I used to be a secret eater. I’d go to the McDonald’s drive-thru for a flat white, and emerge with a coffee, two burgers, fries and a McFlurry. Then I’d get home and eat dinner with my family and wonder why I was putting on weight. Using the healthy delivery service was a game changer and worked out at about £10 [about NZ$21.50] a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I was also allowed three protein-packed, low-sugar snacks, which I’d always dismissed as something for “meat heads”, but soon I realised they were a great alternative to the junk I was gorging on before as they had real nutritional value and kept me full. If I stuck to what had been delivered, I knew that I wouldn’t cheat myself.
My evil 3.48am alarm
People often greeted my daily schedule with raised eyebrows, and it can’t have been fun for my girlfriend, though she was always supportive.
So here it is:
3.48am – alarm
4am – leave house in Portsmouth and drive to Wimbledon
5.10am – arrive at Wimbledon and cycle 10km to Victoria
6am – on shift
8am – breakfast
12pm – lunch and snack
4pm – leave work, cycle 10km to Wimbledon
4.30pm – arrive at car, drive home to Portsmouth and eat a snack
6pm/7pm – arrive home, and depending on how cruel the A3 is to me, catch the kids in the bath and put them to bed
8.45pm – boxing
9.45pm – peel myself out of gym and return home
10.30pm – set my alarm and go to sleep
I’m aware that only five hours’ sleep isn’t ideal, but I’ve got used to it over the years, especially with two children, now aged three and one, who are allergic to lie-ins. But on the plus side, the quality of my sleep went through the roof.
Cheat meals, rugby tour and drinking
I found that allowing myself the odd cheat meal meant the plan was sustainable in the long term. When I knew I’d be having a takeaway or a meal out (which happened four times in 10 weeks) I’d skip a meal the day before and after. My advice, if you try the same thing, is to cap yourself at just one cheat meal. If you fall off the diet wagon too hard, it’s tough to come back from psychologically. Same with booze.
I’ve never been a weekday drinker, I just like getting leathered occasionally with the boys. But a fitness challenge is a great reason to go sober. Remember that a glass of wine contains around 190 calories and a pint of beer has over 200. Stupidly, I had a rugby tour midway through the challenge. Between 18 of us we demolished 167 pints of sugar-heavy cider, countless gins and untold litres of a curdled home-made punch. As well as getting injured, the weekend completely knocked me out of my fitness mentality and it took me a week to get back on track. So keep benders to a minimum.
The final countdown…
The good thing about having a boxing match to win is that very quickly it all got very real. I might have shed my considerable heft but now I actually had to fight someone. After a last-minute tune-up from Stephen Addison at Box Up Crime, I was as ready as I’d ever be.
Before rugby games I’m often crippled with a fear of losing, and sometimes I’m violently sick in the changing room. Fight night on July 22 was all this, times a thousand. I walked in to Tom Jones and the Stereophonics’ Mama Told Me Not to Come. My friends, family and indeed mother (who had told me not to come) sat inches from the ring. Thirty seconds in, I was wishing I’d heeded her advice – I was getting battered. But I finished the round strong and dropped my opponent to the canvas with a flurry of headshots in the second.
With my opponent battered and bruised, I picked him off in the third and final round despite a brawl breaking out in the crowd. And then came the moment I had been waiting for. “The winner… in the red corner – Gareth ‘Custard’ Davies”. (I’d gone for “Custard” as my mates had teased me, saying that’s what my stomach had looked like before.)
That feeling was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in sport. Celebrating in front of my cheerleaders – who screamed themselves sick for me – was special, and a moment I’ll cherish.
This 10-week block has been revolutionary. I’ve returned to rugby training feeling like a whippersnapper, fitter than I’ve been since I was 18. Yes, I have put on half a stone in a month, but my mood is better, I have more energy and I haven’t caught every cold going.
My girlfriend is thrilled with the results, she’s very much a “treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen” type of girl, so her saying (privately) that I look “much better” is practically her way of saying she’s got the hunky rugby player she fell in love with back. We’re getting on better than ever.
The next challenge is to keep it off and stay at fighting weight. Watch this space.
- Gareth Davies is the Telegraph’s breaking news editor