Couple transforms together in 12 Weeks

What makes a healthy relationship?

If you ask Danny and Kylie it all comes down to training hard together, eating well, and supporting each other’s goals.

Danny and Kylie said it’s not just their bodies that are stronger, but also their relationship, after taking on a 12-week transformation together at Ultimate Performance.

The Manchester couple both got in the shape of their lives working out alongside each other on personal training plans with UP…and they say it has brought them closer together.

Danny, who is a finance director, and his partner Kylie, who works as an accountant, both saw incredible results by spurring each other on during their transformation journey.

Danny honed an impressive six pack and packed on lean muscle, while Kylie shed a considerable amount of body fat, and her nutrition plan gave her life-changing improvements in her health, which was affected by digestive issues.

But the one thing they weren’t expecting was that doing their transformation together would transform their relationship.

Danny explained: “What we’ve got now is a balance. It’s definitely brought us closer together. We’re a team at home, and we’re a team at the gym, in terms of both trying to push each other and help each other get to where we want to be.

“It’s great to be able to do that with someone who has the same lifestyle as you, the same culture as you and the same kind of goals as you and I think it’s only made our relationship stronger.

For Kylie, it has made a huge difference too, and she says they both helped and spurred each other on to achieve their stunning results.

“Danny and myself trained together. We had different personal trainers, but it’s brought us closer together. It’s having someone else alongside you, throughout the 12 weeks, just helping each other out with any issues.

“Especially, I know for me, if I was being really restrictive and I couldn't have something, or I was being a bit stressed or being agitated, because it was cutting back on treats and things like that, and I feel like I took it out on Danny quite a lot.

“But we helped each other out in that way. So I think it was good to have someone who understood and who related to what you were doing and was involved in the same process.

So having him alongside me and doing the same thing, really helped out for both of us and both our results.”

They both made to decision to come and train at UP after seeing the results their boss had achieved at the Manchester gym.

Kylie explained: ‘I’m an accountant and I heard about UP from my boss. He had been training with Matt for a few months, and myself and my boyfriend Danny, who also works with me, saw Dave’s result, and it was phenomenal, so we thought we would be interested in doing it together ourselves.”

Kylie had also taken inspiration from UP client and Emmerdale Actress. Gemma Atkinson.

“One of our mains things was, especially starting with UP, was following certain girls on Instagram. So, one in particular was Gemma Atkinson, who trains at UP, I think she’s in phenomenal shape, she’s got a great mindset and a great attitude, really positive and talking about weights and I was like ‘how is this even possible?’

“I think females have the wrong perspective, and they think it’s manly and makes you bigger, but it’s definitely nothing like that. I would definitely recommend UP; I would definitely recommend it to anyone – and especially females.”

Both Danny and Kylie had done personal training elsewhere in the past – but had never seen the results they truly wanted.

Danny explains: ‘’So the difference between your traditional personal trainer at a commercial gym and UP is quite big actually.

“Both myself and Kylie when we joined we had seen a lot of PTs in the past, and we never felt you got value for money because actually, they were not overly interested in what you eat, and how you eat, which we knew was a massive part of getting into better shape.

“It also wasn’t actually particularly goal-orientated led you to believe that they just wanted you to work with them indefinitely.”

For Kylie, it was having unwavering support and guidance from UP’s world class personal trainers that helped her achieve her fitness and physique goals.

“Before when I was with a personal trainer I was maybe doing one session a week, and I wasn’t focussing much on my diet, so at the weekends I would have cheat meals, and then I would have my one session and it was quite relaxed.

“With UP it’s having a personal trainer (James) I would email him every day and talk about any issues I’d had.

“We would sit down before every session and discuss how the week had been since I’d last seen him. If he’d noticed any issues from my emails – whether it’s diet or sleep or stress. So it was more heavily involved in your whole lifestyle.”

For Danny, the results of his training and nutrition plan with his UP personal trainer were almost instantaneous.

“When you go in the gym, and you can only lift what you can lift, no-one cares. They’re just trying to make you better. That’s a huge difference in mindset and a huge difference in approach than anything we’ve ever come across before.

“And the results were almost instant. Within a couple of weeks, I almost dropped 2% body fat, and I felt stronger and happier, and I’d never had that before with a normal PT.”

It was incredibly motivating to see the body fat melt off and growing muscle, but it was just as important for Danny to become more goal-orientated in the gym which just keeps bringing results.

“I wanted to be able to improve my physique, but set myself targets and goals and actually achieve them.

“It’s difficult when you go and lift weights just for the sake of lifting weights, without having something to accomplish – whether that’s a body fat percentage or whether that’s how much you want to bench, UP has given me and Kylie that focus and motivation to do something tangible, rather than just be on the hamster wheel.”

Kylie has noticed the difference in her health and lifestyle outside of the gym that UP has given her.

“I feel like I’ve gained so much from it now. My sleeping pattern was all over the place before this and I didn’t realise sleep could have a massive impact.

“I would always be up late and on social media, then going to bed late. Then the next morning I would be absolutely exhausted going to work. I’ve tried so hard to really switch off, and James suggested different sleeping apps, and I’ve really focussed on that now.”

She adds: “It’s helped me in my work life overall too. So I’m not having that sluggish feeling at 2 pm and thinking ‘oh I need chocolate’ or whatever. I know what foods I should have and I know what food is going to help that.”

If training has given them anything, Danny believes it’s lifelong knowledge that will help them maintain their new physiques and be able to control their diets.

He says: “The knowledge we’ve gained from UP and how we continue to utilise it in our lives is, we know how to accomplish the goals we want to do. We know the impact that a meal will have, a session will have, incrementally on our lives and what we have now learned is how to find that balance. So we can still go out, we can still have fun, we can still have a drink occasionally, but still get stronger, still get leaner and still be happy and still be stress-free.

“That comes from being taught on nutrition patterns, being taught on sleeping patterns, being taught how to lift and being taught how to rest – and just generally how to maintain your life. I think now having that knowledge; there’s no way we’d ever go back to the way we were before because of what ‘good’ feels like now.”

Inspired by Danny and Kylie's 12-week journey? Find out more about UP Fitness.