Alana had a plan: move to London and start the next chapter of her life on her own terms. She knew what that chapter required, confidence, energy, and a body she felt genuinely good in. So five months before her flight, she walked into The Evolved.
She walked in with 12 kilos she wanted to lose and back pain that had been limiting her for long enough that she’d started to accept it as a permanent feature of her body. She walked out, five months later, 12 kilos lighter, two dress sizes smaller, deadlifting 35kg, doing RDLs with 55kg, and finally knocking out four band-assisted chin-ups after being unable to dead-hang when she started.
Then she moved to London. She’s absolutely crushing it.
The Back Pain That Became a Strength Milestone
When Alana first arrived, the assessment revealed that her back pain was limiting her movement in significant ways. Certain exercises were off the table initially, deadlifts, specifically, were something she could not do. This is a common presentation: women who have been told to avoid certain movements because of pain, without anyone addressing why the pain exists in the first place.
In most cases of non-specific lower back pain in otherwise healthy women, the underlying driver is a combination of weak posterior chain musculature, poor movement mechanics, and underloading: the back hurts because the muscles that are supposed to support it are not doing their job. The counterintuitive solution is not to avoid the movements, but to build the strength to do them correctly.
Alana’s coaches built her to the movement progressively. Starting with lighter loaded hinges, working on her hip mechanics, addressing the imbalances that were creating the pain. Over weeks, the movement improved. The pain reduced. Eventually she was deadlifting, first with modest weight, then with serious weight. By month five she was Romanian deadlifting 55kg without pain, with technique that would be competitive in any gym.
The Weight Loss Was the Outcome, Not the Method
Alana’s 12 kilos didn’t come from cardio. They didn’t come from food restriction alone. They came from building enough muscle mass to meaningfully elevate her resting metabolism, combined with a sustainable nutritional approach that The Evolved coaches helped her establish alongside her training.
The two dress sizes are connected to this distinction. When weight is lost primarily through calorie restriction and cardio, the body often loses muscle alongside fat, producing a result that looks smaller but not necessarily stronger or more defined. When fat is lost while muscle is being actively built, the body composition changes in ways that look and feel fundamentally different, more defined, more capable, more powerful.
Alana achieved the second kind. The dress sizes didn’t drop because she was smaller. They dropped because her body composition had changed. She was building something, not just removing something.
In Her Own Words
The Deadline Effect
Having London as a fixed, meaningful deadline concentrated Alana’s effort in a way that vague goals don’t. She wasn’t working towards “getting healthier at some point.” She was working towards showing up in a specific city, at a specific time, as the most capable version of herself. That clarity cuts through the days when motivation is lower. You know why you’re there.
She saw the ads for The Evolved for four weeks before she finally messaged. If you’ve been thinking about this for a while, consider that the delay doesn’t serve the goal. Alana’s advice, in her own words: “Don’t be scared. It’s a great community of people.”