"A healthy lifestyle and keeping fit makes us feel and look younger too.”

This week we had the pleasure to meet and greet Duncan Abela, a bodybuilder and 5k marathon runner. Duncan started his body-building journey around the age of 16-17 when he signed up to a gym for the first time. As a teenager he had low self-esteem, was shy and generally hid. Duncan was not confident in his current body and this was all due to him being overweight. He didn’t believe in himself at all and did not believe that he was worth as much as the next person. With his training, his confidence has been boosted. He has achieved more goals and targets, for that he knows that nowadays if he believes in himself he can do and achieve anything. Fitness and a healthy lifestyle have helped Duncan stay in shape and keep his strength. At the same time, build his confidence and self esteem.

However, it was not always like that. A few years ago he went to live abroad and abandoned his new healthy lifestyle. He even stopped going to the gym, resulting in a significant increase of body weight were he reached his heaviest weight at 115kg.

This was until one day, during a check-up, the doctor recommended that he should get some exercise in and lose some weight as his health could be at risk. From that day on wards Duncan decided to go back to his healthy habits and resume a healthy, balanced diet and lifestyle.  After a while Duncan returned to Malta and kept his motivation towards enjoying a healthy lifestyle where he also signed up to the gym again and has been actively training for the last four years. Duncan is well known at the Cottonera Complex gym where he has many friends whom he considers as a second family.

On-top of his usual bodybuilding training routine Duncan enjoys participating in 5K runs meant for charity or awareness and this reflects his altruistic character.  He is always happy to give a helping hand to those around him and that shows why he has so many friends.

As we were half way through our chat we talked about nutrition, although he loves his healthy lifestyle he agrees that it is not always easy when you are on a diet to keep up with an active social lifestyle. However, he is more than happy to embrace a balanced nutrition as the final physical results are much more awarding than any food temptations.

When we asked him how he manages and combines his nutrition and training for optimal results he explained to us how he is used to do his training between lunch and dinner. This way he will have already taken all the carbs and protein he needs in his lunch. Then he loads himself up with more carbs and protein after training when he has his dinner. We managed to discover what is his favourite on the go snack, normally he opts for a portion of nuts and some fruit such as a banana or apple, this is usually his fuel 45 minutes before his strength training.

We wanted to know if he has any favourite athletes. Duncan admires athletes who started from nothing, those who had a difficult childhood and life in general.  Ibrahimović is his most favourite as he lived in poverty and managed to make his name only through sacrifice and determination.  The fact that now Ibrahimović is 40 and is still one of the best players, is one of the major facts Duncan considers him as his idol. 

We ended up discussing the importance of being surrounded with equal minded people. Through a fitness journey it is very important to have people around you who support you to achieve your goals and believe in you. There were a lot of people who helped Duncan in his fitness journey too. At the gym itself he found plenty of support through different friends, who were also on their way to achieving their goals which resulted in them complimenting each other. Duncan wanted to take this opportunity to thank his mother for being his greatest supporter. He described to us how his mother patiently supports him by weighing his foods and prepares meals for him when he is short on time.

Finally, as we do with all our meet and greet friends we asked Duncan to send a message to our followers. Duncan tells us :“There is no age to start your fitness  journey. Everyone can do it, obviously they need to start at the level they feel comfortable at. There is no need to overdo it. A healthy lifestyle and keeping fit makes us feel and look younger too.”

We at Balanced Bites Malta would like to thank Duncan Abela for taking the time to share his journey with us. We would like to thank you for taking the time to read the article. We hope Duncan’s journey has inspired you to follow in your own journey towards becoming a better-you.

If you would like to follow Duncan’s fitness journey check out his Facebook account below:

https://www.facebook.com/duncan.abela.7