These are the Diet Changes and Smarter Workouts That Have Helped This Doctor Drop Over 16% Body Fat
Dr Steven Moser, 59, is a consultant interventional radiologist living outside of London. He knew that to perform his best in long, pressure-filled surgeries and also be there for his family, he needed to make workouts a priority. Changes in eating habits followed, and now he’s healthier than ever. Here, in his own words, is how he made change happen.
One of the biggest motivating factors to start my physical transformation came from my job. As a Consultant Interventional Radiologist, I live a very high-stress life. Being a doctor requires me to work all hours. My work schedule is incredibly demanding, and it’s unpredictable and chaotic. I perform various operations, often to save a patient’s life, and they can last hours. Those operations are obviously very draining and require huge mental and physical concentration.
I also have a very busy home life as a father to five children. I realised that I needed to address my health and fitness as I approached my 60th birthday. I knew I needed to be mentally agile and be physically in tip-top condition to continue to continue to save people’s lives and be the best at what I do.
About a year-and-a-half ago, I went to see a very influential life coach because I wanted to be at the peak of my performance in every aspect of my life. At that time, I wasn’t doing much in the way of formal exercise because I simply had no time – work was too busy. But he advised me that as I get older and if I want to keep performing at my peak, I would need to address my fitness. He knew it wouldn’t really be feasible for me to join a normal, commercial gym, so he recommended Ultimate Performance (UP). So I booked a consultation and was paired with my trainer, Caitlyn Haselgrove.
Before I joined Ultimate Performance, I was fairly active: I would probably walk about 4,000 steps or so a day. I wasn’t feeling tired and I wasn’t underperforming, but I wasn’t building any muscle, which I need for work. As an Interventional Radiologist, I have to wear a full-body lead gown that weighs between 10 and 20 kilograms for several hours during surgeries and operations. It's like a form of isotonic exercise, and I wanted to be stronger for that.
When I first started with UP, my body fat was 30%. After 59 weeks of working my programme, my body fat was down to 13.9% and I feel stronger and healthier. Here’s what worked for me:
1/ I Trusted the Programme
I'd done zero weight training before I went to UP. To this day, if Caitlyn talks about a certain type of exercise, I wouldn’t be able to put a name to it. I didn’t invest any brain power into retaining the names of certain exercises. Caitlyn would often laugh and say: 'This is your mindless time. Just do what I tell you to do!' I would never count reps or anything like that. I didn’t know how much weight I was lifting. I just handed over complete responsibility to Caitlyn.
My mentality was the same as when I perform an operation: I know what I’m doing, and my patients trust me to do it. I trusted Caitlyn to do it and run this operation for me and I would just do what she told me to do. One of the most difficult things for me as a doctor is when people come to see me and they won’t listen to the advice I’m giving them, despite 30-plus years of knowledge and experience, because they’ve done a 30-second Google search. So, in the same vein, it would have been detrimental if I questioned Caitlyn’s program. I trusted her completely. And I achieved the results.
I loved the experience on the gym floor, the feeling of fatigue and trying to push past that fatigue, feeling that ache in your muscles after a tough session – it’s a great buzz. After the first few sessions, there were times I could have just laid on the gym floor and gone to sleep. But now, although the sessions are still tough, I can have a quick shower and run straight back to the hospital.
2/ I Got More Steps In
Because I live about 18 to 20 miles outside of London, I motorbike to the hospital. Previously, I would park right next to the hospital, but now I park about 1,000 to 1,500 steps away, so that’s an extra 3,000 steps a day. When I first started at UP, I would finish seeing a patient and then motorbike to the gym, but now I either walk or run to the gym and then back again. My goal was always to hit between 15,000 and 25,000 steps a day, but on my best days, it was a lot more. I remember on one occasion hitting 55,000 steps in one day. I couldn’t just run 'for no reason', so I used these runs to buy food for my family between patients.
3/ I Cooked in Batches
Before UP, I would really only eat one meal a day, which would be a big meal when I got home from work, consisting of a plate of pasta, tomato sauce and cheese on top. Then I’d have to go to sleep. The biggest diet change was moving from this huge, carb-laden meal to doing big batch cooking, and having more protein.
I would prepare everything myself. I would make my own protein shakes either the night before or in the morning, put it into a flask, and have a drink first thing in the morning, and then again when I got to work. I’m a vegetarian, so I would do a big batch cook once every 10 to 14 days of foods like tofu and legumes, separate them into 15 or so little pots, and freeze them. I would also have protein yoghurts to help me hit my macros. To prevent my blood sugar from getting low, I introduced eggs, bran flakes and mandarin oranges.
4/ I Made Workouts Convenient
I invested in a small home gym with a bench press and adjustable dumbbells so I can work out at home, and I still try to see Caitlyn once a week. I didn’t want to go through this process and then go back to where I was at the start. I wanted this to be sustainable. I can also do more push-ups than anyone in my family now, including my son who is 16 and goes to the gym. So that’s a little thorn in his side. As a whole family, we are all eating so much better – much less oil, much less junk food, and more vegetables. So everybody in the family is healthier as a result.
5/ What I’ll Do Next
I certainly feel stronger and, looking back over the last 12 months or so, I know I can be proud of what I’ve accomplished. My life and my work remain pretty chaotic, but this has given me discipline with my eating and my running and my fitness – making them part of my daily routine. It has showed me that, even within the chaos of my life and my work and working in unbelievably pressurised circumstances, that is it possible to genuinely look after your health and get to peak performance, physically and mentally. I expect to do this now for all my days, even when I retire. I’m a better person for this.
I well up when I think about this journey, because it is so important to me to be at peak health for myself and my patients. And I feel now I can work at the level I do for many more years to come, and work harder, stronger, and better than other doctors 30 years my junior.
My advice to others looking to start their own transformation: just take one step, and one day, at a time. If you’ve got a stressful and busy job and home life, and there’s very little give in your schedule to begin with, and you somehow have to fit going to the gym and getting your steps in and eating healthily into an already packed schedule, just take it one day at a time. Don’t try to envisage the end, because it can be disheartening. Just take one day at a time and give it your absolute best on that day.
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