Brad Pitt’s Fight Club Physique – The Journey Begins

Why?

So, 6 weeks ago I finally had enough! Enough of my dad bod, lack of energy or motivation and the dread that it will only get worse.

I’ve been thinking and talking about “getting into the best shape of my life” since the year leading up to my 40th birthday, but they were just words and thoughts, and never turned into action.

This time is different, I’ve really had enough and want to do something about it, so I have.

I asked around to try and find a personal trainer as I wanted someone to do the thinking for me and for me to have someone to be accountable to. As luck would have it, one name popped up of a guy who has a gym set up for small groups literally 2 minutes walk away from me.

I messaged Tom Routly who owns TRHF Coaching to see if I could come in for a chat. He got back to me in minutes and offered an appointment the following day during my lunch break.

I went in to meet Tom and having listened to what I’m looking to achieve and what my struggles are, he said something that immediately resonated with me, that was he believes in “education over dictation”. This was perfect for me as I’m a fussy eater, so whilst I want to be accountable, there’s no way a strict regime of foods I despise will work for me and I don’t want to be relying on someone to train me for the rest of my life.  I want to learn as I go and improve.

Tom left me to go away and think over the options he offered, which to be honest, after a few follow up questions he answered, I was in, I knew this was who was going to help deliver the physique and fitness that I’m after.

What I’m After

That leads me here, the almost laughable feat of trying to attain the physique of Brad Pitt from the movie “Fight Club”.  WTF am I thinking!!

Firstly, I know there are limitations, given genetics; he’s somewhere around 5’ 11” and I’m somewhere around…a lot shorter!  He was probably around 10 or 15 years younger when playing the role than I am now, and then there’s the fact he had a movie studio at his disposal to assist with everything required to get into shape.  That’s by no means taking away from the effort he would have had to put in! And believe me, it’s effort alright!

Tom himself, probably like many coaches, has had numerous people bring up the ‘’Fight Club” physique, and like many others, has no doubt grinned to himself as he sits and wonders whether the person sitting in front of them really understands just what it takes to achieve it.

Back to the limitations.  I’m under no illusion that I’ll be walking around below 8% body fat as in every day life, I’d probably just be miserable, but I want to look athletic in a t-shirt, not overly big (especially since I’m only 5’…short) and feel fit and healthy.  I want to set an example for my daughter, rather than seeing her Mummy who’s very active as a dance teacher and then Daddy who barely goes further than his office desk.

How Long Will It Take?

I haven’t been too strict on a target date to achieve my goals, as my priority is to achieve them and to do so safely, with as little injury as possible, as this is something I want to maintain into the future.  I have a distant 2 years in mind as this is when my brother gets marries abroad, so being in shape for those beach/pool days would be nice and this seemed like a logical target.

The Plan

I’m not going to go into specific detail about my plan as it’s unique to me and won’t be of much use to someone else with a different starting point, end goal or daily life to me, but in short, Tom’s plan for me is tailored to my preferred foods (especially being a fussy eater), when I can fit workouts in and how many and what other activities I take part in, such as 5-a-side football, walking or any other sports.

My week looks like this right now, but is always subject to change depending on where I’m at in my journey and I have weekly checkins with Tom to discuss progress and any changes he wants to make.

• Monday – football
• Tuesday – TRHF strength camp
• Wednesday – rest
• Thursday – solo gym workout
• Friday – TRHF strength camp
• Saturday – 5k run (aiming for PB each week)
• Sunday – solo gym workout

I do a lot of weight training in my workouts and always have a gruelling Stairmaster session at the end of my solo workouts, which has just been upped to 20 mins – this is killer!

I’ll go into more about the plan in future posts regarding how it’s set up, what my struggles are, what’s working for me and how I track everything.

The Food

Thankfully, this is nowhere near as bad as I thought it may be.  Again, being a fussy sod, I needed some freedom here, so I have a calorific target which has a macro split that I work towards; the key being intake of protein.

The surprising difficulty is that I struggle to eat enough.  I’m somewhat of a light eater, so I have to be strict on eating my meals and not skipping, otherwise it throws out my next meal and in turn the whole day.  I’ve not once gone over the calorific target set, but have a few times not managed to reach the target.  This is something we’re slowly upping until I get used to the increase.

For me, repetition works best, so I consume rather that enjoy a meal.  I personally find it easier to whack it all in a bowl and shovel it down rather than having a carefully prepped, beautiful looking plate and I tend to repeat meals a lot through the week.

I’m allowed to eat what I want, but just need to be sensible and make sure Im hitting my targets, so if that means I need to allow more room earlier in the day for a large meal later, that’s what I do.  TRHF provide loads of meal options so if you are a foodie, there’s no getting bored.  So far, I’ve been really strict as I find I’m more of an all in kinda guy; it just works for me.  I still have 12 Peroni’s in the fridge from 6 weeks ago!

Progress

So, words…lots of words, but I suppose none of it means anything without pictures, so as embarrassing as these are (I’m genuinely mortified), here are my latest progress shots – the end of week 5.  I’m really pleased with the early progress, as I can see muscle building in my upper body, some fat dropping off and I’m starting to look like I lift more than a 4 finger KitKat each day! All in just 5 weeks, but, you be the judge.

To Wrap It Up

If you’ve read this far, perhaps you’re interested in following my journey, whether that be to laugh at me and my god awful pictures each week, to encourage me, to inspire yourself into action, whatever it may be, but either way, I’m aiming to post weekly with updates on how the previous week has gone, along with progress pics, for therapy for myself if nothing else!

I’m in it for the long run and I’m determined to achieve what I’ve now so publicly set out to do, but that all adds to the accountability!

Have a great week all!

Zach

P.S If you’re interested in Tom’s training, click here for his Instagram page and give him a shout.  TRHF have small group sessions for both men and woman and also do personal online coaching.  I’m really happy with the team and find their system works perfectly for me.