An unhealthy diet catches up to almost everyone eventually, and Gabriel Jones was no exception. While Jones, now 23, who works in retail in Atlanta, Georgia, was in relatively good shape through most of his college years, he’d started to carry some extra weight around his midsection and knew he needed to make a change to hit his goals. Here, Jones breaks down the action plan he put into place to emerge months later in the best shape of his life.
While I’ve never had problems with my weight, I started to notice it creeping up throughout my last year in college thanks in part to four years of hot wings, pizza, and liquor. About six months before graduation, I decided not to pursue a career in neuroscience, but to join the Army and I realized that I was more out of shape than I thought. So I planned to spend the next year just getting bigger, faster, and becoming a more well-rounded, athletic person.
I found out pretty quickly that my entire lifestyle wasn’t compatible with my goals. The staying up late, lack of exercise, and, sadly, hot wings had to go. I did everything cold turkey: I bought the Athlean-X Max Size program which introduced me to heavy compound lifts like the bench press, squat, and deadlift. I started going to bed at 9 pm and waking up at 5:30 am to lift or run. I used an online calculator to determine how many calories I had to eat to gain muscle and lose fat and ate mostly whole foods like chicken, salmon, rice, sweet potatoes, and plenty of veggies.
Admittedly, I went totally overboard with the “clean” eating thing and almost ruined my relationship with food. I was scared of eating “bad” foods like Oreos and fried anything. My friends would roast me so bad for bringing meal preps to restaurants and stuff like that. One of the biggest things I learned is that the overall amount of calories matters a lot more than the “goodness” or “badness” of the foods. My diet is a lot more flexible now and I can enjoy eating out.
As I started working out more, I found lifting pretty easy to grasp, but I really struggled with running, so I hired a local running coach, Tina Klein of Balanced Running, to help get me into peak cardiovascular condition. She’s maybe 5’2,” 100 lbs soaking wet, but she kicks my ass every time we work out together. She’s intense. I also had a nutritionist, Ilana Katz of Onforlife Nutrition, to keep me accountable on the diet.
While my motivation spiked the first week, though, it quickly faded—almost like a New Years’ resolution does. I would listen to those cheesy workout motivation videos where it would have someone like Jocko Willink or Mike Tyson monologuing with the brooding music in the background just to get myself in the gym. I even watched these bodybuilder motivation videos when I felt like I couldn’t get another bite of baked chicken down. But it worked. And once I started getting results, the motivation took care of itself because I wasn’t going off of blind faith anymore. I knew I could get results.
The gains happened relatively fast: I noticed that I was getting stronger before I felt or looked any different. I was incline benching 70 pound dumbbells when I started with 45s. It took about 3 months before I was visibly bigger and leaner. I lost 25 pounds total and built some serious muscle. They say other people notice before you do and that was very true in my experience. A few months in, before I had even noticed much of a difference, someone asked me if I was an Atlanta Falcons player at a grocery store. Made my week.
The most difficult part was getting consistent. After I made fitness a part of my life, it was all autopilot after that. I definitely feel like it was worthwhile—I’m healthier, stronger, and faster than I’ve ever been. I can’t imagine where I’d be if I stayed with my previous lifestyle. At first, my friends and family were skeptical. All the weighing out food and time in the gym seemed obsessive to them; but when they saw me after some time in quarantine, they were so impressed and couldn’t stop talking about it. After that, everybody wouldn’t stop asking me to train them and even meal prep for them.
Since then, my confidence has soared. I’m proud of my body and it shows in how I carry myself. Working out teaches you things that carry over into different areas in life. It’s taught me that if you approach something with discipline and consistency, you will accomplish whatever that thing is. Now I plan on branching out into other forms of fitness to challenge myself in new ways. I’ve been looking to take Muay Thai. I don’t think I’ll ever be done working out. There’s always somewhere to improve. —As told to Mike Darling
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