This Guy Lost 22 Pounds and Got a Six-Pack in 4 Months
Massimo Giusto loves challenges. The 39-year-old has lived with his family in Hong Kong for the last 14 years, where he owns and manages a company devoted to high-end timepieces and accessories. He’s a driven guy who sets goals and commits himself to hitting them.
He freely admits there were times in his life when he wasn’t as driven in his diet. “I used to enjoy more pasta, bread and sugary foods and drinks,” he says. Despite consistent cardio and weight training following the forms he learned on bodybuilding.com, he consumed too many calories, leaving him heavier than he liked. He often felt full and bloated, suffering frequent stomach pain. At his heaviest he weighed 203 pounds.
“In 2018,’ he says, “I decided to challenge myself to try and achieve the best body form of my life.” He researched online, educating himself about exercise and diet. He came upon the Hong Kong chapter of UP Fitness and decided to dive into a 14-week transformation, looking to super-charge the exercise work he’d already been doing.
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His job required flying to Europe every month, so Giusto built his workout regimen around that travel. In Hong Kong he’d do four sessions a week with his personal trainer, back-to-back exercises in supersets, with a maximum of two minutes’ rest between sets. During the week he traveled, he’d cut back to two sessions. “I was surprised to realize that after years of bodybuilding on my own,” he says, “there was still a lot of room to improve the form of some of the exercises.”
Like so many people, the key to losing weight was fixing his diet, he says. He switched to a high-protein, low-carb diet, restricting his calories to 1800 a day. He willed himself to stick to it, even during his business trips.
He started noticing results after three weeks. Seeing such early gains gave him a boost of confidence that helped keep him motivated. And, he says, “After around 10 weeks I was admiring my 6 pack at the mirror.” Sticking to his routine for another month, he finished the 14-week program having lost 22 pounds and dropped eight percent of his body fat. “At the end of the transformation,” he says, “I was feeling like a god.”
His wife also liked his new look, but Giusto says his sons were his biggest fans. They’d check his abs and say, “Papa, you have a six-pack!” He loves being an example for his sons, and, he says, “This transformation made me believe that I could achieve anything in life if I wanted to.”
Ultimate Performance
He’s still looking for new challenges. In November he’s doing the grueling 100-kilometer Oxfam Trailwalker charity fundraiser. (Last year’s event was canceled, but Giusto was among 1000 walkers who decided to unofficially take the challenge; it took a massive fire in the mountains to stop them at kilometer 83.) He’s also quit smoking—a different kind of challenge, but one of which he’s equally proud. Now that he feels like a god, he’s going to make the most of it. “Who knows,” he says. “I might decide to climb Mount Everest. The sky is the limit.”
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