- Every single body is different.
If something doesn't work for you,
you can't get caught up in this idea of I'm broken.
(lighthearted music)
I have always had struggles with my weight
for as long as I can remember,
and probably as long as I will be alive. (laughs)
Growing up, I went through a period
of disordered eating problems.
The problem for me has always been
that I don't see the results in the same way
as when I did when I was starving myself.
I feel like if I knew more about my genetics
and how my body works,
that would help me figure out how to just get my body
in a place where I feel optimal.
I think the scariest thing would be to do this
and not really have anything change about me.
- My name's Dr. Dan Reardon,
and I'm the CEO and co-founder of FitnessGenes.
FitnessGenes is a genetic testing and interpretation company
where we can predict how people should exercise
and how people should eat
depending on what their goals are,
but using their DNA as a framework
to deliver this information.
The best way to think about DNA
is that DNA is like a recipe book,
and genes are like the recipes.
And it's the recipes that code for proteins,
and proteins essentially tell the body how to function.
- Nothing gets more frustrating
than to hear people constantly talking about your weight.
And people saying that you don't work hard enough,
when I'm like, I dance four to five times a week.
I eat healthy.
You don't really know me.
Part of me feels like maybe it's my genetics.
Maybe there's something in me
that makes it difficult for me to lose weight.
- It can often be a lot more difficult
for females to lose body fat.
When you start to understand
the female's genetic information,
you can then really tailor, and guide,
and in fact, empower the female to understand
the things that are gonna work for them.
And therefore, they can immediately disregard many
of the fad diets that perhaps were promoted.
- I definitely don't want this to be a journey
that's all about weight loss.
I think that there's so much to help than just weight loss.
Thick girl nation, I'm all about it.
I still wanna be thick.
I just wanna be healthy.
(upbeat music)
- The first gene here is the FTO gene.
This particular gene has a relationship
to a hormone called ghrelin.
When you eat, ghrelin levels go down.
But then after you've eaten,
ghrelin levels will gradually rise again,
and it will make you feel hungry.
And then for some people,
that can be a very long period of time.
But for other people, you have variations in the FTO gene.
It's very quick, so they get hungry very quickly.
- You know what's funny?
I literally just had lunch maybe two hours before this,
and now I'm hungry.
(laughing)
- Certainly, eating small frequent meals through the day
to try and control hunger will be an important one.
The next piece to this is you actually carry a copy
of the gene variation for the APOA2 gene,
which would actually imply that you probably
have a degree of sensitivity to saturated fat.
- So that means it sticks to me more.
- Potentially.
- And what foods have saturated fats?
- Typically, foods that are high in saturated fats
will be things like animal products,
certain dairy-type products, butter,
coconut oil, things like that.
- But I love coconut oil. (laughs)
- Well, I'm certainly not saying you can't have it,
but it just means that we just need
to think a little bit about the quantity
that you might be consuming.
Based on your clock gene, you're probably a night owl.
- Oh, yeah, oh, my God.
Wait, my genetics told you that?
- Yeah, yeah.
- (laughs) That's wild.
- It's also important because if you try
and workout in the mornings,
you're actually not gonna get the types of benefits
that you'd get from working out later in the day.
We need to actually make sure
that your workouts are later in the day.
(upbeat dance music)
With Daysha, we're probably gonna be looking
for around about 1900 to 2,000 calories a day.
Because those gene variations where we know
that she does have issues switching
from carbohydrate to fat metabolism,
we're gonna probably be looking
at carbohydrates of around about 40%,
with about 30% of the calories coming from fat,
so only about 30% of the calories coming from protein.
So in terms of workouts,
Daysha is also somebody who probably responds very well
to high volume training,
but she has the added advantage of recovering well.
And we're gonna be giving Daysha
about 30 seconds rest between the exercises.
If we do something that's not sustainable,
then we've failed,
because that's typically what the diet world does.
And this is all about using this information
to kind of program your continued lifestyle change.
- I'm all about working smarter
and not harder (laughs) than I have to.
(lighthearted music)
Here's my day one breakfast.
Three egg whites and one egg,
a slice of Ezekiel bread, and some spinach.
The way I was eating before this video,
most people would be like,
Daysha's the healthiest person I know.
And then the adjustments that Dan would make me make,
it was like, oh, shit, now we're being real deal healthy.
My macros are 63 grams of fat,
142.5 grams of protein,
and 190 grams of carbs every day to hit 1900 calories.
I'm much more mindful of what i'm eating
and how much I'm eating.
Look at how much saturated fat is just in coconut cream.
Oh, my gosh.
No wonder I ballooned.
We did a hike together.
We had to go up the Culver City Stairs multiple times.
Not just once.
Getting up it once is like, yes.
We just did our first walk up the steps.
I'm dead.
And we're gonna do it again.
My lower half hurts so much.
I really think it's about your mindset.
So I went into this being like, I want change.
This is something that I really, really want very badly.
There has to be that moment of intensity and discomfort,
and that moment of you don't know if you're gonna make it,
you don't know if you can lift that thing up one last time
in order to know that your body
is actually going through a significant change.
But it's hard.
This morning, I could barely walk.
(upbeat dance music)
This is the beginning of week two,
and I'm actually going to Vegas today
for the next four days for a BuzzFeed video shoot.
And I didn't wanna be tempted
by all the bad, naughty things that are out in Vegas.
So I literally meal prepped an entire week's worth of food.
This whole bag is full of food.
And it's all just so that I won't be tempted to cheat.
I'm bringing my measuring cups.
This is getting serious.
I had to get up really early
a lot of the days that I was traveling.
I had energy that I don't really feel
like I've ever had before.
If I would have to get up really early for shoots,
I got up around 6:45 today.
I honestly, my eyes would just be dragging to the floor.
Not only was I doing shoots,
but they were food-related shoots,
which was definitely a challenge.
Oh, my fucking God.
Cookies are my weakness.
And Brent has the audacity to get a cookie in front of me.
It just kind of holds you accountable.
I think that that's a piece
that I was missing before I did this.
We're at the end of the Vegas trip, (laughs)
and I feel like I did okay, right?
- I think you did great.
- It was insane.
The amount of free, delicious food that was pushed
in front of her face that she denied was crazy.
I can't even explain.
She went to the city of sin and committed zero sins.
(lighthearted music)
I definitely think that I'm hitting my mental roadblock,
where I just wanna be like, fuck off.
I just mentally feel like this is just a lot.
I don't wanna say I don't have it in me to finish,
because I've come too far.
This is something that I've always wanted,
and here is someone who's investing so much time
and energy into me.
- [Dan] Good job, Daysha.
- [Daysha] Woo.
- Run the entire way down the canyon.
Very impressive.
No, go, go, go, go, come on.
Get to the end. (Daysha groans)
Get to the end, come on, Daysha.
Get to the end.
- I was really lucky to have friends
that were invested in seeing me do my best,
and being willing to workout with me, and push me.
I'm testing my limits.
Made it to the top.
- [Both] Woo.
(upbeat dance music)
- There's a week left,
so I'm really challenging myself this week.
I'm being super clean.
We're working out every single day.
I would say the biggest muscle that I flexed
in this whole experience is my brain.
- [Dan] Right with your arms, come on.
(Daysha groans) Come on.
- And just pushing myself to those limits,
to that point where I'm just like,
where I literally just wanna scream,
I can't fucking do this, and then doing it.
I'm not gonna quit,
and as long as you keep going and you just don't stop,
it doesn't matter if you're last or not,
it just matters if you finished.
First of all, congratulations for this last 30 days.
You've absolutely killed it.
In terms of the numbers,
so your starting weight was 192 pounds,
and your weight today, 181 pounds.
- Oh, my God.
(laughing)
- So that's an 11-pound loss.
- Oh, my God.
- That is amazing.
Outstanding.
But it gets better, it gets better.
Now you did have 79 pounds of body fat,
and you now have 71 pounds of body fat.
- Oh, my God.
- So you've lost eight pounds of body fat.
- Whoa. - Yeah. (laughs)
- That's insane.
- That is a huge result.
- I'm so proud of the numbers,
but honestly, I feel like such a different person,
so that's like icing on the cake.
- Absolutely.
- I can't believe it.
I think I was honestly just surprised
because nothing has ever worked for me in the past.
It's really amazing that I lost 11 pounds,
and I'm so proud of myself,
but it wasn't necessarily about the numbers for me.
This experience brought to me a lot of things
that I've always been looking for
and I've never been able to find.
I feel like a new person on the inside,
and I think that's really important to me.
- You've showed the results that you can get
when you do things right based on your FitnessGenes results.
Now we just gotta apply it the next 30,
the next 60, the next 90 days and just keep it going.
So I'm proud of you, amazing.
- Oh, my God. - Good job.
- Oh, my.
(laughing)
I can't believe I did it. (laughs)
- Yeah. (laughs)
- I feel like we live in a culture
where everyone's trying to tell you what's healthy or not,
and this gives you the piece of mind of knowing,
no, I know what's healthy for me.
This is only the beginning.
I just wanna be a strong, thick chick, okay?
I just wanna be Wonder Woman-ing everyone. (laughs)