Ben Malka - A Weightloss Story





Ben Malka - A Weightloss Story



Thank you for inviting me to guest write on your blog Sam, it’s a pleasure.


Morning, afternoon, evening to everyone and thank you for taking the time to read my post.


Health is a very important aspect of my life. I wake up every morning at 5am to whack on my gear and hit the gym. My breakfast is usually the same during the week because I stick to timings (it makes everything more regimented). I have Dr Zaks protein toast with meridian peanut butter and a tsp of honey split across both slices. I grab my meal from the fridge and a mars bar and hit the road. I jump on the first train out of Edgware station along with all the builders who are all guzzling their Red Bulls to help them wake up. I am usually the first person to arrive at the gym, which opens at 6:30, and at this time I enjoy my mars bar, which all fits into my macros – so I can enjoy a sugar spike during my workout.


I split my training routine across 5 days and rest on the weekend. It’s never the same. Every day will be a different muscle group, (I sometimes train legs twice because it’s my favorite muscle group and my genetics lean more towards my lower body), with treadmill HIIT on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.


But it wasn’t all like this. When I was kid I was always the large one around town. I blame this to excessive eating. It’s not the fact I ate chocolate or crisps, it’s that I ate too much of it. I think this is where people make the mistake that sugar is bad for you and it isn’t! I still eat a mars 5 times a week and guess what, I have a six-pack! Anyway, overeating led me to my biggest size of 20 stone and 1 pound. This is a hefty number to see on the scale, however when you are this size you don’t actually notice how big you really are.



I was subject to all the fat comments at school, which made me go red and hope the laughter would stop! Sometimes it got quite bad and I even had a teacher make a comment in front of a class of thirty kids about my weight, which was quite depressing and killed my self-esteem further.


What really kicked me into my mindset to shift a few pounds was working with my old boss at my Saturday job. He used to continually give me the old spiel about how he used to be big… but never as big as me (another blow to the old esteem). I would be asked to run around Hatton Garden delivering rings to suppliers and as a result of this, I noticed my size 42 inch suit trousers becoming looser. I liked the change and decided to ring up my cousin Joseph, who was already into his fitness and told him I was going to join the David Lloyd Gym. He was the first and last gym partner who taught me the basics of lifting weights. This is wear my love for the gym began to grow into an obsession (a healthy one).


I proceeded to loose around 5 stone, but my diet was still my downfall as I had little knowledge of how many calories I was consuming. I used to constantly spend time researching and testing out new theories, but last year (December 2013) is when I saw the light. After getting an internship at a global media agency after being unemployed for nearly a year, I discovered macros – the holy grail of controlling food intake. Using Myfitness Pal, I would set a macros limit for protein, carbs and fats and stick to this. I saw my body change rapidly and saw gains in all my lifting, as well as my body fat slowly dropping. I also quit smoking in this time period, as the snowball effect from motivation in my training began to spill over into my work (I got made full time at the media agency on my birthday!).


What I want to express to you guys is that it is possible to change your body, but you can’t look at other people and say “I want a body like that” because you are not them! Instead go over to the nearest mirror and look directly in it because this is who your competition is; yourself.



My story got published in the Daily Star for anyone who would like to read it but thank you for having me on here. Everything I write is my personal preference and everyone is different.


Ben Malka