From 22 stone to the cover of Men's Fitness - Daniel Wheeler's top tips on turning your life around

by Daniel Falconer | 5 July 2016

Six years ago, Daniel Wheeler was an unhappy 22 stone man who spent his days eating, but knew deep down that serious change had to be made. Giving himself the goal to be on the cover of Men's Fitness after three years, he turned his entire life around.

Daniel's incredible transformation

Two years after making the biggest change in his life, Daniel lost eight stone in body fat and weighed 14 stone, but was still determined to carry on with his progression, learning about training and nutrition.

In November 2012, Daniel achieved his goal, featuring on the cover of Men's Fitness Magazine UK before setting up his own business, Life Changing Fitness (LCF).

Five years on, LCF now has 10 online coaches and elite personal trainers, who have helped over 1,000 clients lose over 2,000kg in fat.

With a 100% success rate in achieving client objectives, LCF is keen to uphold its incredible standard and has since its formation tailored fitness and nutritional plans to every individual onboard.

We got the incredible opportunity to chat to Dan about his top 10 tips for those looking to turn their life around exclusively for Female First readers - find out what he had to say below:

Consistency - Consistency is king and nutrition is queen in my book. A bad diet done consistently will reap better rewards than the best diet in the world done sporadically. Do something day in and day out and you'll start to see measurable results.
Nutrition and diet - It's quite broad, but the priority here is to make sure people understand their basic metabolic rate (BMR) and to base their nutritional plan or direction on their BMR, plus their activity levels. People will under eat massively, which leads to binge eating. So, understanding how much food you actually require and meeting those requirements day in and day out consistently will lead to good results.
Hydration - The body is made of 98.9% water and has to be hydrated at all times. Think of it like a car engine that needs oil - our bodies need water and therefore when our body is optimally hydrated, we can metabolise the most amount of fat and synthesise the most amount of protein, so being dehydrated slows down progressions.
Having optimal levels of protein - People just don't eat enough of it, there are scaremongering tips from the media saying protein is bad for us, which is just not true, it's a complete myth! Women should be consuming at least 1.5 grams of protein per kg of body weight, and men should be consuming at least 2g per kg of body weight. Protein is vital for muscle recovery, organ health, skin health, immune system, brain functions and energy.
Increase dietary fat and optimise carbohydrates to your energy levels - A lot of people don't realise that dietary fat is a fantastic source of energy to anything low intensity and carbohydrates are a fantastic source of energy for when you're being really active. So it just makes sense to consume carbohydrates when we're being active and increase dietary fat when we decide to not be so active. For example, when you're sat at a desk for the majority of the day, carbohydrates aren't going to be your best friend, but a dietary fat would be an excellent source of energy. But if you then decide to go to the gym and do a hard workout, you would need carbohydrates before and after the activity. So you just need to be aware of how those macronutrients work and optimise them.
Get adequate sleep - This is the secret to success... Sleep defines how much fat we burn, how stressed we are, how ill we are, how much muscle we can build, how good we feel the next day is really the daddy. We need to make sure we get at least four to five sleep cycles in our night's sleep. Sleep cycles are defined by sleeping for a 90 minute period at a time in which we hit all four stages of 'a sleep', which are the stages one to four. Stages three and four of those sleep cycles are when all the magic happens, so we need to be touching stages three and four, four to five times a night.
Quite simply, be more active - What I mean by that is taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or walking to the shops instead of driving, or walking back from the gym instead of driving. Small things like that add up massively over the year and every little helps. It really does. It will increase your NEAT energy, which is the amount of non-active calories we burn and the more we do that, the more fat we burn over time.
Use a heart-rate monitor - It's a great way of tracking fitness through cardio and through training, weight training, circuit training. It's a really powerful tool to see how intensive you're training, but also the durations and therefore seeing how much energy you're using and optimising. It's a great way to measure progress in terms of fitness levels.
Get a new gym kit - It's a weird one, it sounds odd, it sounds non-essential, but there's nothing better than feeling more confident when you're training, and if you're wearing the clothes that make you feel more confident, you will want to go to the gym or train more. Therefore, that small investment can actually pay dividents. I wear a brand called 'Be An Athlete' and I find them to be the best quality, and seem to my clients [to be] the best.
Ensure you prepare for success - Preparing your food the day before, preparing when you're going to the gym, preparing meetings so you can schedule your life around them, just preparing for everything will define success, combined with tip number one. Prepare your meals the day before and it will keep you on track the following day. If you can't I'd recommend using a meal prep service, for example Yolo food company. They're a really good way to ensure you can free up your time throughout the day, so you don't have to cook, if you have that luxury and can afford it, then it's a really good tool. I would highly recommend that.