JEAN PHILIP DE TENDER

I became a junior manager in my thirties. With the appointment came plenty of business lunches and dinners. The result: I gained 8 kilograms; my husband Filip – although he didn’t join these lunches – 12. That lasted for a year or three until he decided that enough was enough. So overnight, we changed our eating habits. We now eat mostly fish or poultry with vegetables. And Filip also took the routine of going to the fitness daily. I saw how he lost weight and took form. He encouraged me to do the same.

Traveling a lot, that is more difficult for me, but I have found my routine. On weekdays, I try to practice for twenty minutes at home or in the hotel room I am in.  On weekends I’m in the gym for roughly 75 minutes and do cardio while listening to a podcast. I also try to walk as much as possible to hit my 70.000 steps weekly target.

To make all this work, there is also Jeremy from Paul Tucker Personal Training. I book a training session with him whenever I’m in Brussels for work or a stopover. 8.00 AM, first thing in the morning. He measures my weight, fat percentage, and muscle mass. Then we go for an intense workout. I also get plenty of tips from him for my home trainings. I have been seeing him regularly now for more than four years, and apart from being an excellent coach, he also is my consciousness. I can give myself plenty of excuses not to do any exercises, but that’s not something I need to come up with when we meet. That is exactly why a personal coach is so important.