A Leeds chef has shared his weight loss journey after consuming up to 5,000 calories a day during lockdown.
Matthew Cantrill developed bad habits during the pandemic and would eat mounds of takeaways and junk food, drink beer every day and barely moving which affected his mental and physical health.
On an average night, he would have four to eight cans of full-fat beer and "naughty type food" including deep-fried chicken, take away pizza or Chinese.
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The 33-year-old admitted his beer belly would dig into his belt when he would fasten his shoelaces.
During the second lockdown, Matthew, from Pudsey, realised he wasn’t happy with his weight and decided to do something about it.
Despite having no experience in a gym, he decided to sign up to Ultimate Performance Personal Trainers Leeds after walking past the gym one day.
He has since lost 12kg since starting his fitness journey achieving his goal of getting a body like Hollywood star Chris Pratt’s in Jurassic Park.
Speaking to Leeds Live, he said: “It was a depressing time for everyone. The second lockdown affected my mental health.
“I wasn’t enjoying my job, my weight wasn’t right. I ended up leaving my job and getting into fitness, things started to get better. It was hard at the time.
“I was struggling to commit to a run by myself then decided it was time to join a gym. Being a tight Yorkshireman I wanted to get my money’s worth.”
Prior to lockdown, Matthew would get up to 20,000 steps in a day however this plummeted to around 1,000 steps mainly from walking his dog.
After joining the gym and having a personal trainer, he was taught how to use the gym equipment properly and would do three one hour workouts each week, and he increased his steps to 5,000 a day.
After 50 sessions in 19 weeks, he dropped all the weight and stated he “feels a million times better.”
His blood pressure has come down, and he is now much more body confident and happy as a person, he added.
Matthew describes what a typical day was like for him before he started his fitness journey
"A day in the life of me, on a workday – say it's Monday; it's wake up, maybe I have some Pop-Tarts, so just sugary carbs, I'd have a coffee, probably three or four coffees in the morning.
"Breakfast, a couple of sausages, just on the fly with some hash browns. Again, just dirty food. That's if I had time to eat it.
"Lunchtime, again, we had a lot of naughty-type food, like deep-fried chicken and things like that, which would be on the menu. So deep-fried chicken, even if I had it as a salad. It's just loads of hot sauce, and I didn't realise the amount of calories in hot sauce – just the worst ones with so much sugar in them.
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"Get home, and then for tea, it might be a take-away pizza or Chinese. On average, I'd probably be having anywhere between four to eight cans of full-fat beer a night, not like Bud Light or Budweiser.
"Just every night; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday were even bigger blowouts. I wouldn't even realise it because, throughout lockdown, it just became a norm to have constant drinks.
"When I came back into work, I was like, "Oh, it's Monday. Yeah, we always have a drink on a Monday". So my mentality was, "Let's have a couple of beers". The next thing you know, I would have about 1,500 calories in beer a day, on top of all the dirty foods.
"I'd be well into the 4,000 or 5,000 calorie mark, and each day it was just increasing and increasing. It affected me mentally and physically."
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