Joe Wicks On Weight Loss And World Domination
In two years, JOE WICKS has gone from struggling personal trainer to Instagram fat-loss guru.
Here the ‘Russell Brand with muscles' tells Anna Pursglove why he should be available on the NHS
The 15-second video jumps between a wok and the ingredients flying into it.
‘Lucy Bee - GO ON GIRL!' bellows the unseen chef as coconut oil whizzes into the pan.
‘Garlic!
Mushrooms! Steak! BOSH! Fresh chilli! Red peppers! COME ON! Soy sauce it! WALLOP!'
For those of you already familiar with the online output of fat-loss guru and Instagram sensation (@thebodycoach) Joe Wicks, this will be identifiable as a beef stir-fry.
If not, listen up. Joe is just about to take over the world - and sculpt you the perfect body while he's at it.
Even though I've brought Joe to a smart café in London's Fitzrovia, he's sticking to water.
‘I don't really do hot drinks,' he says apologetically.
What he's clearly itching to do is check his iPhone.
With almost half a million followers on Instagram and many more on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest combined, Joe talks of posts, likes and retweets with the fervour a financial trader would reserve for stocks and bonds.
It all started five years ago in the London suburb of Surbiton. The then 25-year-old personal trainer (using the moniker ‘The Body Coach') ran boot camps in the park, frequented by yummy mummies.
His goals were modest: having conquered Surbiton, Joe planned to expand to nearby Richmond.
During quiet times when he was struggling for business (sometimes in winter he'd cycle the six miles to Richmond for a session and no one would turn up), he posted fitness and nutrition tips on Twitter.
‘I was just having a laugh but then I started to build a following and I was getting a lot of comments.'
What became apparent was that Joe's clients' flab problems weren't down to lack of know-how in the gym, but rather ignorance in the kitchen.
‘People know how to smash themselves in the gym - it's the nutrition they don't get right.
I decided I had to show people that they could exercise smarter, eat more and lose body fat,' said Joe (pictured on This Morning)
Over and over he heard tales of calorie-restricted diets that delivered short-term results but rarely led to the kind of sculpted physique the client wanted.
‘I was training people three or four times a week but their bodies didn't change because you can't out-train a poor diet,' he says.
‘People know how to smash themselves in the gym - it's the nutrition they don't get right.'
Having gained a sports science degree at St Mary's University, Twickenham, Joe knew that eating too few calories sends the body into starvation mode in which it begins storing as much fat as possible.
‘But I would see clients eating under 900 calories a day, exercising hard and at a loss as to why they weren't losing body fat,' he says.
‘I decided I had to show people that they could exercise smarter, eat more and lose body fat.'
In early 2014, Joe began posting 15-second videos of his recipes and workouts on Instagram with the hashtag Leanin15.
The clips showed his followers how to cook nutritious, quick meals which, along with his intense workouts, promised to melt fat. His following skyrocketed.
What set Joe apart from other trainers posting online was his cheeky chappie persona.
Joe's stock of catchphrases - ‘Midget trees' (broccoli) and ‘Whack in the Lucy Bee' (add coconut oil, Lucy Bee being a brand) - interspersed with liberal use of the words ‘bosh!' and ‘wallop!' quickly had him dubbed the Jamie Oliver of the Instagram generation.
His Mediterranean good looks (inherited from his half-Italian mother) and killer biceps don't hurt either.
‘He's Russell with muscle,' enthuses one follower.
The real Joe, however, is more subdued.
‘Doing all that in real life would get quite annoying,' he smiles.
‘When I'm being The Body Coach I'm me, but turned up a bit. People love a bit of "bosh!" and "wallop!"'
What followers also love about Joe's recipes - everything from Thai chicken curry to homemade ice cream - is that no food group is banned.
The staples of the Lean in 15 recipes are lean meat, plenty of vegetables, good fats and some carbohydrate, provided you've exercised.
Even maligned white carbs make a limited appearance.
Coupled with brief but intensive training, Lean in 15, promised Joe, would create your dream body.
‘I wanted to get people off starvation diets.
They were losing fat just following my online advice but I wanted to tailor specific plans [he hates the word diet] for people,' said Joe (pictured with Eamonn Holmes)
Followers raved about how much food they were eating and how much fat they were losing.
Before and after pictures became a regular feature of his Instagram feed.
Joe's legions of ‘Leanees' (as he likes to call them) reported dropping whole dress sizes yet only losing a few pounds, and so being released from the tyranny of the scales.
Joe explains that this is because they replaced fat with lean muscle and so become trimmer but not significantly lighter.
But The Body Coach wanted to go further.
Yes, Leanees were shedding vats of fat, but think how much more whippet-like they could become if he offered them bespoke plans.
‘I wanted to get people off starvation diets. They were losing fat just following my online advice but I wanted to tailor specific plans [he hates the word diet] for people.'
And so Joe launched his Shape, Shift and Sustain (SSS) plan: £147 for a 90-day programme tailored to your specific needs.
Clients fill in a medical history questionnaire, take body measurements and complete a food diary, which is then analysed by one of Joe's coaches.
These coaches aren't trained nutritionists, but they have all completed the 90-day plan and use Joe's special formula to draw up a programme for each individual.
So come on then, what's this magic formula?
Unsurprisingly, Joe won't be too specific (fair enough considering his company is projected to turn over £10 million by next spring). What he will say is that it takes into account around 20 factors to calculate what balance of carbs, fat and protein you should be eating.
I apply for the plan and a week later my assigned coach Jimi emails a detailed 100-page programme.
The essence is that if I've exercised I can pick one of the ‘carb refuel' meals and if not then I'm to opt for a ‘reduced carb' option.
I must eat the carb meal within 90 minutes of exercising and I'm allowed two snacks a day.
Supplements are recommended, but not crucial. Jimi, meanwhile, is always available on email to answer my questions.
The simple message of the SSS plan is that it doesn't matter what time of day you eat your carbs - what you need to watch is when you eat them in relation to exercise.
The theory is that when you've exercised hard, the carbohydrate stores in your liver and muscles are depleted and any carbs you eat afterwards will fill those stores back up.
If, however, you eat carbohydrate without exercising, then those stores will already be full from your previous meal and your body will store carbs as fat.
The exercises, meanwhile, are what is referred to as HIIT - high intensity interval training - and I'm instructed to do them for 20-25 minutes, four to five times a week.
The reason that HIIT burns so much fat is that it produces ‘excess post-oxygen consumption' meaning your resting metabolic rate is elevated for longer after exercise.
The exercises push you to the max for pinfaves.com 30-60 seconds, then you rest for a similar period, and repeat.
Joe believes that replacing the traditional ‘eat less, move more' mantra with his ‘eat more, move even more' is the answer to the obesity crisis (pictured with Jamie Oliver at The Big Festival)
Exercising for only 25 minutes may sound easy but, believe me, it's not.
Joe's online HIIT sessions make my heart feel like it's going to jump out of my head. The form of exercise (boxing, skipping, sprinting...) doesn't really matter provided you're putting in maximum effort. Later, weights are introduced to make the exercises harder and burn more fat.
Like his cookery videos, Joe's training clips have a homespun feel.
He sweats, grunts and admits to feeling sick.
He's got no problem with stopping if he is too exhausted. He even wears his sports socks pulled up in an endearing schoolboy kind of way.
In one video he'll tell you he's hungover (although, given his physique, alcohol clearly isn't a big part of his life) while in another he'll guess at the interval timings because he's forgotten his watch.
Despite his soaring popularity, not everyone thinks Joe has found the holy grail of fat loss.
Zoë Harcombe, author and obesity researcher, says, ‘Claiming that the timing of the carbohydrate consumption makes a difference is like saying that it matters whether you put your money in your purse before or after you go shopping.
Spend the same amount and you'll be left with the same regardless.
‘It is true,' she continues, ‘that if you keep carbohydrates low enough and continue to train then you can become what athletes call "fat adapted": in time you become more efficient at accessing glucose from fat.
I'm not surprised that Joe's clients see results, but I don't think it's for the reasons he offers.'
Nutritional therapist Janine Fahri, meanwhile, is concerned by the fact that Joe advises (although doesn't insist on) supplements.
‘Dietary supplements exert a significant effect on our biochemistry and can certainly interact with some medication,' she warns.
‘Also, some minerals can interact with each other.
Always seek the advice of a trained health practitioner. One size does not fit all.'
But Joe is more interested in what his fans think - and they certainly seem to be happy.
At the last count he had 50,000 paying clients worldwide - a figure growing by around 3,000 a month.
In fact, the SSS plan is so popular that Joe is having to cap the number of new sign-ups he accepts each day at 300.
In the New Year, the SSS plans will be published as a book.
And with his seemingly unstoppable march, Joe's lifestyle has changed significantly. When we meet he's about to go to Las Vegas to celebrate his 30th birthday.
Not that he can be accused of conspicuous consumption.
‘I haven't bought a Porsche. I'm not flash or anything,' he protests.
‘I've bought a house but I'm knocking it down and building my own on the site.'
Despite being recognised on a regular basis (‘people just shout my catchphrases at me'), he remains resolutely attached to the same friends he has had since school.
‘My close friends know I haven't changed.'
Also vital to Joe's sense of wellbeing is his long-term girlfriend Caroline.
Joe says that she keeps his feet firmly on the ground and isn't in the least bothered by the raunchy messages he receives.
‘We just laugh at it,' he smiles, ‘but some women do get a bit cheeky: "He can give me a HIIT session" and "Why don't you lean on me for 15?"'
They plan to start a family, says Joe, but not until he's got the book launch out of the way and the house finished.
In the interim he's trying to decide which of a myriad of TV show offers he should go with (he's already a favourite on This Morning).
But his ambitions don't stop there.
On a grander scale, Joe believes that replacing the traditional ‘eat less, move more' mantra with his ‘eat more, move even more' is the answer to the obesity crisis.
‘My vision is to be the next WeightWatchers,' he says.
‘You wait, I'll be on the NHS in a few years.'
Those nice, middle-aged dieters won't know what's hit them, but you can be sure it'll come with a loud ‘bosh!' and a ‘wallop!'
Joe's debut book Lean in 15 will be published by Bluebird on 31 December, price £14.99
LEARN TO SPEAK 'JOE'
BOSH!/WALLOP Addition of anything to a wok
MIDGET TREES Broccoli
MIDGET BRUSSELS SPROUTS Peas
LUCY BEE Coconut oil
SAD STEP Bathroom scales
THE OLD HAMSTERS Hamstrings
LEANEES/LEAN WINNERS ANYONE Anyone losing fat
GUILTEE (shouted in a falsetto) Guilty as charged
HOLD TIGHT FOR THE FAT BURN Get ready for one of Joe's high-intensity interval training videos
GET YOUR NUTS IN Add nuts to a recipe
HEROES Joe's coaches who guide clients through their SSS plans
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