A NI fitness coach who has gone viral with 110,000 Instagram followers and 1.3M TikTok likes has opened up about his recent success.
27-year-old Tony McAleavey from Newry was a full-time firefighter before growing his business on social media. He has been a coach for around five years now and says his own transformation and fitness journey began when he was picked on in secondary school - and stresses that his business hasn't been an overnight success.
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Tony told our lifestyle brand Be : "I went to the gym out of insecurities and just being unhappy. I fell in love with the training and not even the result, just the journey itself.
"My Instagram looks like an overnight success but the truth is, it's the opposite. I've been posting most days for four years. Year one - I had 1800 followers, year two - 5600 followers, year three - 20,000 and this is year four and I've just hit 110k followers which is a bit surreal to say! It has just really taken off this year after so many years of being consistent."
The coach shared his top weight loss tips and said weight loss doesn't need to be achieved by drastic measures.
He said: "Just focus on healthy habits, if we build our habits they build our bodies, for example, check your step count. If you naturally do 5,000 steps then aim for 8,000 a day. Try to have veg or fruit along with protein in every meal, focus on small positive changes as these small changes lead to big results in time!"
For those wanting to bulk, Tony added: "The first steps for bulking are really just take it slow, I've bulked fast and you just end up with a belly - not a good look! So slow and steady is the way to go, aim for 1 pound a week at maximum, anything more is just going to be extra fat!"
Tony's dieting hacks:
- "I find caffeine super useful to suppress appetite.
- "I push my first meal back to lunch time and save my calories for later in the day when I'm more likely to be hungry.
- "I always use 20% of my calories daily for foods I love like ice cream and chocolate - I never restrict from any food group.
- "I volume load. Just because your dieting doesn't mean you should eat small portions. I use foods such as cauliflower rice, veg and egg whites to bulk out my meals in order to stay full.
- "I weigh myself daily. Too many people are scared of the scales. They go up and down, get used to seeing it daily and monitor it over the month. You remove your emotion from it when you see it more often!"
The Newry man said a common mistake he sees people make is focusing on the small things.
"Such as, 'What supplements should I take? What's the best gym programme?...' When they need to focus on mastering the basics."
Tony said he massively struggled with body image, so much so that he only ever took part in PE once during secondary school.
"I was so self-conscious of my body, I skipped it [PE] for almost five years straight. I have been overweight and extremely skinny from over restricting myself. There's so much pressure at a young age to look a certain way. It can play with your head, however, I found the more I stuck to training, my discipline and confidence grew and I didn't care what I looked like as I was always just slowly getting better. The confidence came with time consistency and experience.
"Body image is something that absolutely everyone struggles with at one time or another," he added.
The fitness coach also explained how he believes "motivation is a myth".
"It comes and goes, some days it's there, some days it's not, you need a real 'why' behind you for when you do something. You need something to push you on the days you don't feel like doing it. Mine is always family - every meal, every rep, every hour I work, will provide them with the life they deserve. I take my mum, dad, entire family on holidays all the time and this is all made possible through fitness, so now it motivates me to stick to it."
The 27-year-old also added how exercise can help your mental health.
Tony said: "Even just a walk is good for clearing the mind. Good food really does improve your mood when you feel like you're ticking all the boxes. When hitting your steps, turning up and smashing each training session and nourishing your body with wholesome food and plenty of protein, your mind and body responds in the most positive way and you feel better and more in control of your life in a certain respect.
"When you do the most for you, you get the most out of you too.
"Mental health is something that I get asked about a lot, so many people are struggling and as long as we keep talking about it, keeping reaching out, and doing what we can to help, then that’s going to make all the difference."
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