90 days to lean: part 1

Follow food and lifestyle blogger Sahar Aman (The Quirky Princess) as she takes on the Body Coach challenge in 90 days to lean: part 1.

You’ve heard of Joe Wicks, The Body Coach, right? He is really passionate about midget trees, sings through his window to people passing by on the street before cooking up his healthy fifteen-minute meals, and wants to make the world’s smallest pancake. He is also changing lives by transforming bodies with his 90 Day Shift, Shape and Sustain plan, a personalised meal and fitness programme that seeks to re-educate on the way we eat and work out.

Joe gained momentum on Instagram in a matter of months and now has over 240,000 followers in awe of the incredible before and after pictures of his clients that are either on the plan or have graduated. His plan is relatively straightforward: eat and train right for your body in order to get lean and stay that way.

I am not the leanest but by dedicating the last two years of my life to eating the alkaline way and educating myself on what to eat, I feel fabulously healthy. My teenage years were in the 90s, and my twenties in the first decade of the millennium – during which time there was always some new diet to try. I believed in order to weigh less you had to eat less. Like most women, I’ve tried them all.

I grew out of this thinking only a few years ago and now enjoy a diet that is relatively free of dairy and sugar (apart from the odd treat) and rich in plants, good grains, good fats, nuts, pulses and organic animal produce. As a result of that I have maintained a weight for the last two years that I can live with, but after almost two decades of playing havoc with my body with yo-yo dieting, my metabolism isn’t exactly my best friend.

How does the 90 Day SSS work?

The beauty of the 90 Days SSS is that it isn’t a fad diet but a complete lifestyle change. It is divided into three cycles and every month you get a personalised meal plan that is based on requirements your body alone needs. The first stage is designed to burn fat and get your body moving with four weeks of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and alternating food between high- and low-carbohydrate days. The second cycle also includes weight training to sculpt your body and increase muscle mass and the last stage of the plan is designed to maintain the results and help you to continue to lead a healthy lifestyle.

I already lead a pretty healthy lifestyle though, so you might ask why I signed up? Quite simply, to get lean. I want to increase my muscle mass without bulking, I want my metabolism to get as close as it can to being normal again and I want to get rid of my muffin top once and for all.

My plan for the first week: 

Over the next few weeks I’m going to be sharing my experience of Joe’s plan. I started on Monday 27 April and was super excited for the plan to arrive. It’s not going to be easy, but I don’t want it to be. I have to manage my HIIT workouts with at least four ballet classes a week. Next week I’ll be sharing how the first week was! Stay tuned to the blog and follow me on Twitter and Instagram to see how my transformation goes.