From the standard University lifestyle of drinking and eating way too much, to getting ripped and starting his own 8-week fitness plan. Callum Melly is proof that with dedication, you can turn everything around.
He started with a sporty background – skiing at the age of three and Karate at six. This adrenaline-fuelled sports addiction continued through primary and secondary, which hit a wall when he went to Uni…
Just like we all did, he drank too much alcohol and formed a love-hate relationship with junk food.
But shortly after graduating with a degree in Journalism, he looked at himself and wasn’t happy physically or mentally. He wanted to get fit and be happy, so that’s exactly what he did.
And the gym bug caught on BIG as he went on to invent his own fitness program BODY IN 8.
Weekly Training Plan
I follow my own BODY IN 8 virtual personal training programme purely because it works, and why change something that’s proven to work.
There are a few key components that make it successful, the first being the “brace position”; by implementing the “brace position” you are able to promote perfect form (neutral spine) and thus maximising mind to muscle connection, time under tension/load and reduce the risk of injury.
The programme itself consists of a variety of resistance/weight exercises to promote lean muscle growth and both LISS and HIIT cardio to promote fat loss, aerobic endurance, increases in power, strength and speed.
The resistance/weights programme is made up of two, four week cycles and each week focuses on a different training system, rep & set range, disciplined rest periods in order to target each muscle fibre for optimal lean muscle growth and fat loss.
No matter your gender, age, goal or fitness ability, my results driven BODY IN 8 programme is perfect for everyone as weight/load is our primary external stimulus that will challenge every individual.
Example Weekly Meal Plan
Again, I follow my own proven BODY IN 8 nutrition guide which is all about balanced nutrition. Let’s cut the bullshit, I’m sick and tired of seeing these high fat, low carb diet fads - practically starving your bodies and the results then talk for themselves.
Yes, you might have lost weight, but there is a significant difference between losing weight and then losing body fat whilst maintaining lean muscle.
It’s all about balance and to be perfectly honest it’s very simple to change your body composition, you simply need to train hard and eat well… but if you really want to take your physique to the next level, it’s important to understand nutrition in its entirety!
Ask yourself these… What is a calorie? What is a macronutrient? When is the best time to eat carbohydrates? If you don’t know the answers, then it’s not simple, but if you do, it is very simple; however, that doesn’t make it easy!
You then need to apply a positive mind set and have a goal and a timeframe to work towards to ensure you successfully roll out the simple part.
My daily nutrition is subject to my personal goals of reducing body fat, maintaining/growing lean muscle and maximising fuelling my workouts and recovery. (all food weight in (g) are dry/raw)
Hi, Callum – thanks for taking the time to talk to us! Let’s start from the beginning. Can you tell me about your sporting history?
Hey everyone, so my sporting history began at a young age. I can thank my parents for this as my mum was a PE teacher and dad was very supportive to me and my brother - always promoting sports and exercise to us.
In fact, I started skiing at the age of 3 and karate at the age of 6 where I went on to achieve a brown-white stripe belt (one below black, gutted I know). I played football at primary school and also did a lot of cross-country running, including a few competitive runs at crystal palace.
When I went to secondary school, my competitive nature took over and drove me towards success. I ambitiously trialled for all of the school sports which included football, rugby, basketball and cricket and actually represented the school in each and every sport.
The adrenaline that came with the sport fuelled me and I loved the social team aspect too. I then went off to university and discovered a whole new sport, drinking!
No but in all seriousness, for the next 3 years at Uni I only did a little exercise, drunk way too much, ate junk food and, of course, went to the odd lecture. The only sport I actually endured at university was snowboarding as I was an instructor at the local dry ski slope.
What made you decide to move away from a life of football, rugby, basketball and even becoming a snowboard instructor for a bit?
As I mentioned above, following 3 years of typical student life, I felt extremely unhealthy, I lacked clarity in what I wanted to do with my life, despite now having a degree in journalism and I really lacked self-confidence, I hated the way my body looked.
I knew I had to make a significant change to my lifestyle. It was then, in January 2011 I set myself a new Year’s resolution, one that I actually stuck to, which was to join the gym and get into the best shape of my life.
Now, I’m not saying this ambitious resolution was initially influenced by the most respectable reason, but I’m also not embarrassed to admit that I wanted to work as a lifeguard model outside of the front of Hollister & Abercrombie stores.
Several of my friends were Hollister lifeguards and I envied their bodies, I thought at the time it was really cool, the money was great and I did initially want to be that guy. However, anyone who actually knows me knows that I am actually very down to earth.
I’m not vein in the slightest and am just very passionate about what I do, and that’s helping as many people as possible to get fit and healthy.
What made you decide to set the goal to get ripped over the 6 months after this?
I knew I had to set myself a realistic time frame and I thought to myself, what is 6 months in comparison to the rest of your life to get fit and healthy? That right there sold it to me and once I began it became infectious, my competitive nature took over, I was addicted. I lived for that feeling of pushing myself to my limits within the gym, the pump, the burn, the sweat, I welcomed the failure and consequently watched my body develop and transform in order to better deal with the ever-changing stimulus I threw at my body each and every workout.
You see, that is what I love about the gym, you can never beat it, all you can do is come back stronger each time and be humbled by achieving failure, for when we fail, we learn how to progress.
And then following this achievement, what made you want to become a PT?
As I reached my 6-month timeframe, I had completely transformed my body, my mind-set and my lifestyle and then it began; people started asking me how I did it.
By this time, my initial goal to become a Hollister Lifeguard was dead and buried, I simply wanted to show people how I change my body and lifestyle and help them do the same.
Tell me a bit more about BODY IN 8 and how it works?
Following my new-found passion for health & fitness, I decided to pursue a career as a personal trainer with the intention to help people discover a more active, healthy and balanced lifestyle.
If I'm perfectly honest, it wasn’t long before I started to become frustrated as a PT because I couldn't help as many people as I wanted to. I felt I had so much more to offer but never had the opportunity, personal accreditation or platform to reach and help more than one person at any given time.
I have worked in some of the top fitness establishments in the UK, including “Equinox” in High Street Kensington. I would watch other PT's training their clients and NOT giving them 100% of their undivided attention, NOT encourage them, NOT educate them and ultimately NOT get them the results they wanted.
In fact, they missed out on the most important part of personal training, the "personal" part.
I made sure I didn't just focus on the 1 hour I was with my clients in the gym, I provided them with guidance and support around the clock, from nutrition, to additional workout material to motivation and lifestyle advice.
That is what provided me with the infrastructure of BODY IN 8 and enabled me to design and develop the ultimate lifestyle programme. I simply went back to the drawing board and offered what nobody else did.
Every day when I walk into the gym I see so many people training in a fashion that isn't going to get them the results they want, in fact, they are far more likely to end up injuring themselves or giving up as they aren't seeing the results they want. Ultimately, knowledge is power and results are simple to achieve in any aspect of life, if you know what you’re doing!
The hours I have invested in furthering my personal PT education, the additional reading and courses such as the globally recognised and respected ISSN Diploma (international Society of Sports Nutrition) that I am currently a student of, has enabled me to design and develop BODY IN 8.
My virtual personal training and lifestyle programme has helped people worldwide achieve the results they want and to be able to maintain that new healthy and balanced lifestyle.
BODY IN 8 is 100% unique - not only can I personally train each and every single BODY IN 8members worldwide, but I also offer bespoke nutrition via my “body index” calculator, two in depth and educational e-books (nutrition and exercise), a growing archive of BODY IN 8specific tasty, healthy and nutritious meals and 12 months of continued support through your membership.
Now, I know what you’re thinking… “How can Callum possibly personal train people worldwide?” Well that’s what makes BODY IN 8 so unique. I haven’t just created a high performance and results driven programme; I have created the world’s first 8-week virtual personal training programme, where you are walked step by step through every exercise, 5 days a week, for 8 weeks, with me as your personal trainer.
Even better, your 12-month membership means you can repeat the programme up to 6 times within the year and all you need to do to continue to make progress following the programme each time, is increase the weight/load you exercise with in small increments of 1.25kg / 2.5kg to add enough external stimulus to force your body to continue to develop.
My aim has always been to provide an educational service that will rehabilitate people’s lifestyles and as a result, their physical and mental wellbeing will be significantly improved.
Although you will certainly see a physical change in your body upon completing the BODY IN 8programme, as I said at the beginning, this is merely a physical representation of so many smaller lifestyle components that will improve your overall quality of life.
Finally, my years of research, design and development has finally paid off and personal training is now accessible and affordable to everyone worldwide from BODY IN 8.
How would shopping at Muscle Food fit into this BODY IN 8 plan – what would you recommend your customers buy?
Muscle Food is perfect for everybody, not just BODY IN 8 members as it makes clean eating affordable and convenient.
In fact, I have designed my own BODY IN 8 hamper which and crammed with everything you need to get started with your BODY IN 8 nutrition plan. Even better still, Muscle Food products are always fresh, high quality and delivered straight to your door for convenience.
Now let’s go onto your nutrition. If we were to invade your kitchen, and take a look in the fridge and cupboards, what would we find?
To be fair, my fridge is pretty good.
Obviously, it’s full of everything I promote in my BODY IN 8 Muscle Food hamper - but other additions include coconut oil, almond butter, Alpro coconut milk, plenty of bottles of water, fresh fruit (mainly berries), fresh vegetables (mainly greens) and a variety of carbohydrates such as potato’s, cous cous and quinoa.
Any Muscle Food favourites?
I love the lean turkey breast mince as I can knock up my favourite BODY IN 8 meal, turkey meatballs with my home-made tomato and basil sauce on a bed of whole-wheat spaghetti. I also love the extremely lean ostrich steaks; they taste amazing and are a healthy alternative to chicken.
What are your thoughts on supplements – do they have a place in a healthy eating plan?
Ideally we want to get all of our nutritional requirements from whole foods; however, supplements are certainly an important aspect of my personal nutrition programme, as well as my BODY IN 8 programme. In fact, I offer a great deal of free supplement advice over on the “Nutritional Support” page of my website, it covers the supplements I recommend taking, why I personally take them, what benefits they have, when you should take them and how much you should take.
Now for fitness – you have a stacked exercise plan. What is your favourite exercise?
I love training chest and my favourite exercise is the dumbbell bench press, purely for the fact that it’s my weak spot as I used to do what a lot of people do, which is move the weight/load primarily through the anterior deltoid and triceps, hardly engaging their chest at all.
If I’m perfectly honest, I didn’t learn how to properly contract my chest until about 3 years into my training and this was all down to my posture, technique and trying to move to much weight/load.
So, if you can’t actively feel your chest controlling the weight and squeezing through the entire ROM (range of motion) of your chest based exercise, then guess what, you’re not using your chest to move that weight.
If there is one thing I have learnt, it doesn’t matter how much you lift, it’s how you lift it, and I would always promote the brace position, mind to muscle connection and time under tension/load, over trying to shift to much weight/load with poor form and momentum.
And the one you loathe the most?
Believe it or not any abdominal workout, oh and cardio, I hate cardio; however, I always get my LISS and HIIT cardio in around my BODY IN 8 programme as it is essential for fat loss.
Thanks to your dedication to fitness, you were given the honour of being the cover model for Men’s Fitness Magazine. How did that feel?
I know right, this really was such an incredible achievement, it is something that when I started never dreamt would have been possible. However, everything happens for a reason and I would like to think my persistence, ambitious nature and drive helped to influence this success of mine.
The cover shoot itself actually came at a time in my life where I was happiest, everything in my life seemed to be perfect. I was living in balance and not necessarily in the best condition I had ever been, but I was enjoying life and ultimately helped me with the final development of BODY IN 8. It showed me that the key to maintaining and enjoying a healthy and active lifestyle is balance!
That being said and I think it is important here that I am honest, in a time where I should have been absolutely ecstatic about my biggest fitness achievement to date.
I was actually in a very dark place and the harsh reality of life had brought me to my knees. I actually found out that I had got the Men’s Fitness cover on my birthday (19th November 2015) and as much as I tried to be happy, I was actually morning the loss of my girlfriend Emily who was tragically killed in a fatal accident with her family. Almost a year ago today the accident happened and I am still brought to tears almost on a daily basis and it is something that I now have to live with. But that is why it is so important I share this with you, because no matter what hardships you go through in life, there is always someone worse of that you.
There is always light at the end of the tunnel and life will go on. So in reality, the biggest achievement for me was being able to dedicate my cover and success to my girlfriend Emily and her family and that reason alone reminds me every day how important it is to live every day to the fullest and do what you love.
Your personal fitness journey began in January 2011, after a new year’s resolution that you actually managed to commit to! For the thousands of Muscle Foodies (including myself) who try and fail to keep their resolutions, how did you stay committed to the cause?
Look, if you want to transform your body it is actually very simple - you simply need to train hard, eat well and allow your body to rest and recover.
Obviously, this equation is different for each individual, but once you have the components (a structured exercise programme and bespoke nutrition plan) if you follow it exactly which anybody can do, you will achieve the results you want, it really is that simple, it’s just science.
However, that doesn’t make it easy, as it then takes mental strength to action the plan and remain persistent. The key is to set yourself an achievable goal, a timeframe and both long and short term goals; this way you can keep yourself on track and work towards something like a holiday, or photo-shoot or simply to just get yourself fit and healthy.
Now for some random quick-fire – Favourite movie?
My favourite movie is The Shawshank Redemption.
Favourite music to work out to?
Currently, I am loving “the weeknd – starboy” and “Dawin – Dessert”, I do like a bit of R&B, Hip Hop and chart.
Would you rather be a vegetarian for the rest of your life, or hunt your own meat?
Where’s my spear at? I would get my Bear Grylls on any day of the week.
And finally, are there any words of inspiration you want to share with our readers?
As my mum always says to me, life is not a role play, you have one shot, so live it well, do what you love, be who you want to be and don’t ever let a dream seem to big, because you really can achieve anything you set your mind to!
Useful Links
- Website: www.bodyin8.co.uk
- Instagram: @callummelly
- Twitter: @callummelly
- Facebook: /callummelly
