Going Plant-Based and Working With a Trainer Helped Me Get Shredded
Logan Schwartz is 28 years old and works in finance in Los Angeles. A life-changing accident left him unable to work out for nine months, but afterward he decided to re-dedicate himself to getting healthy and in shape. Here, in his own words, he tells how he did it.
In September 2020 I got into a bad car accident. Honestly, I’m lucky to be alive. Afterward, I had a slow, grueling recovery that kept me from physical activity for nine months. For someone like me, who’d always used workouts as an outlet for dealing with stress, that was a real blow—not just physically, but mentally. By the end of those nine months, I started to feel a little untethered.
When I was ready, I decided I didn’t want to just get back into shape. I wanted to get into the best shape of my life. I started working with Ultimate Performance here in Los Angeles, which was a perfect fit for me, determined as I was to not just half-ass something, but to be fully committed. So for just about three and a half months I really dedicated myself to it.
I’ve worked 80-hour weeks consistently for the last five or six years, which means I really never made time to pay attention to my diet. I was doing a lot of takeout or delivery to the office. That makes it really hard to be intentional about what you put in your body. I say that as someone who lives a mostly plant-based lifestyle. So the biggest change I made during my transformation was I began meal prepping. I stuck with my plant-based diet, while adding egg whites to help reach my protein quotas, and fish every other week. I stuck to that diet pretty religiously, though obviously there were travel weekends or other interruptions that I planned around, allowing myself some cushion. I hope my experience shows that you don’t need to be sucking down animal protein to build lean muscle.
I did weightlifting with my Ultimate Performance trainer two or three times a week. (Deadlifts have always intimidated me, but by the end of my time with Kevin, my trainer, they were my favorite workout.) If I only saw him twice, I’d hit the gym at least twice on my own that week. I supplemented that with cardio two or three times a week, and one gym class, like rowing, hot yoga, or spinning. My job didn’t stop being busy, but I also tried to squeeze in one 10-15 minute walk a day.
By the end of the transformation, I’d dropped ten percent body fat and gained a solid eight pounds of lean body mass. The experience really helped me focus on living a healthier lifestyle; my friends were sometimes surprised that I’d choose to stay in on a Friday to get a good night’s sleep rather than go out drinking. But they were really happy to see me so focused on achieving my goals.
I was really proud of myself for showing what’s possible when you commit to something 100 percent. I’d encourage anyone thinking about a similar transformation: you can do it. It’s always a great time to get started, so don’t overthink things or look for excuses why not to do it. And don’t be afraid to ask for help—you can do great things with the right support.
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