DAN HONG HAS what can only be described as an atypical approach to fitness. As a chef, he acknowledges that it can be hard to control his calories. So, for nine months of the year, he doesn’t worry too much about what he eats. He still trains anywhere from three to six times per week, but he doesn’t restrict himself when it comes to food.
But that approach can’t last forever. There comes a time each year (usually around Christmas) that Hong decides to lock in. He’ll typically do an eight-week shred, where he takes control of his diet and starts training more intensely at Acero Gym in Sydney’s East. This year, he wanted to enjoy the process and revel in the grind, so he extended the cut to twelve weeks.
For the last three months, Hong has been doing four strength sessions per week, engaging in structured recovery and developing better eating habits. He has now finished his cut, losing almost ten kilos. He’s gained a load of confidence, mental clarity, and is feeling great, but as he says, he couldn’t have done it without the help of trainers Jono Castano and Ben Putland.
Here, Hong walks us through his transformation process, in his own words.
“I START EVERY YEAR with a cut. I’m a chef, it’s hard for me to maintain a consistent weight. And with my training, I’m typically all in or all out. I like to enjoy myself, I love drinking wine, I love going out to eat. Because of that, I like to reset at the beginning of the year after I’ve had a blow out over the Christmas period. I get in control of my diet and training for a few months to get back into shape.
I wasn’t aiming to lose a specific amount of kilos this time around, but I wanted to look good and be happy with how I look. Throughout all of last year, I had been working out harder than before and doing progressive overload, so I knew I had more muscle than ever before and was stronger than before, but I wasn’t showing it. I wanted the definition and size to show.
Outside of this cut, I still train pretty much every day. It’s rare that I have a rest day. I usually do 45 minutes in the morning before I’ve even had breakfast, three to six days a week. During this shred, I’ve been training as much as I normally do. The big difference is that I’m being more mindful of what I eat. I currently eat between 1,000-2,000 calories per day, and I keep track of that, and I also make sure that I get at least 15,000 steps per day.
It wasn’t easy. Especially in the first two to three weeks, it was really tough mentally, but my trainers always keep me on track. They hold me accountable. They always check in on how I’m eating and what I’m doing. They’re really tough on me, like mentally, which is good because I needed to be mentally tough to do this.
The diet was absolutely the hardest part for me. Throughout this process, I’m always so hungry because I’m so used to eating more than 3,000 calories a day and drinking whatever I want, eating sugar, bread, carbs, whatever. It takes time to get used to eating less.
The key is really understanding what you put in your body. That’s what a lot of people don’t realise. People ask me, ‘What’s your secret [to weight loss]? What do you do for training?’. They don’t understand that the training is the easy part. The training is business as usual for me, I train like that all year. The hard part is tracking your diet, measuring out teaspoons and tablespoons so that you don’t eat too much. Even a tablespoon of olive oil is still about 100 calories. You can blow out your meal just by adding some extra sauce to your meat.
I found a lot of hacks. For example a Splice, which is one of my favourite ice creams, is only like 75 calories. So I could still treat myself and feel like I wasn’t restricting myself.
To someone who is in the same position that I was in a few months ago, I would say that the most important thing is riding out the first month or so. It’s not going to be easy, but once you start to see the results in the mirror, that’s what really starts motivating you to keep at it.
After about a month, you start having more energy, you start feeling better and thinking clearer because you’re not drinking alcohol, you’re not eating too much sugar. You feel healthier. It’s also important not to drink your calories. It’s actually pretty easy to avoid sugar and carbs because you know what to avoid. But with drinks it’s easy to forget how many calories you’re consuming, especially with alcohol. That’s something you need to stay on top of.
Since my cut, the changes haven’t just been physical. There are huge mental benefits to losing weight too. Like I said, I feel like I have more mental clarity now and so much more confidence. It feels crazy putting on an old pair of pants and needing to wear a belt. My old T-shirts also fit again and all of that just brings so much new confidence.”
