Ben Napier is known for beautifully renovating houses on the HGTV show Home Town, and when it came time for his own personal transformation, the 39-year-old star took the same serious approach and got astounding results. The 39-year-old has lost 65 pounds and his wife and co-star Erin Napier couldn’t be prouder. She celebrated the impressive milestone on Instagram and wrote, “@scotsman.co got hardcore about his health and fitness last winter ahead of his big shoulder surgery that was in March so he could sleep better on his back and lower his BP.”
Everything changed for the father of two once his children entered the picture, Helen, 5, and Mae, 2. Napier opened up about his health on an episode of the couple’s show that aired in January 2022. “I’ve got two daughters,” he said at the time, per TODAY. “I am getting older. I’m trying to take a little bit better care of myself.” In addition, shoulder surgery also prompted the HGTV star to focus on his fitness, which his wife shared a few months ago. In another post, his supportive wife revealed the hard work he put in to lose weight. “Somehow despite having a torn rotator cuff and us barging in and slowing him down daily, @scotsman.co has been building a gym in the barn and lost many lbs. and holy smokes what a babe with good blood pressure.” The TV personality did work out, but he also overhauled his unhealthy habits and switched up his lifestyle. Here are five ways Napier shed the unwanted pounds and what experts think about his fitness regime.
Staying active is vital when trying to shape up and one way the master woodworker got fit is by playing basketball. In a 2019 interview with TODAY, he explained, “I don’t get bored playing basketball, and could play for hours if I had the time.”
What the Expert Says: “Playing basketball is an excellent activity for weight loss,” USAW National Coach Jarrod Nobbe says. “Especially paired with a solid workout routine and a healthy diet, watch out. Basketball keeps you moving and is multi-directional by nature, providing a variety of movements that we see many humans not experiencing daily.”
Intermittent fasting has become a popular weight loss trend that experts say can be healthy if done correctly. Eating between certain hours of the day can help reduce calories and that’s something Napier did during his weight loss journey. He told the outlet, “I’ve also done some intermittent fasting a couple of days a week.”
What the Expert Says: “Intermittent fasting isn’t exactly the magic ticket to weight loss, as it doesn’t work for everyone,” sports performance dietitian Destini Moody, RD, CSSD, LD, tells us. “However, for someone like Ben, who likely has a very long working schedule that may force him into eating snacks that aren’t great simply because that’s all that’s available, it may be a better idea to fast. For IF, I find that people do best on a 16:8 fast, which means you fast 16 hours a day and give yourself a ‘feeding window’ of 8 hours. So, you eat your day’s worth of calories within a short window of time rather than throughout the day. This can be very effective in people who are used to eating very large portions of food but overeat when they follow the traditional pattern of 3 meals a day. In this way, utilizing IF can help you lose weight and stick to the calorie deficit.”
In a video clip aired by PEOPLE, Napier shared that he can bench press as he showed off his skills. “I’ve always worked out. I can benchpress more than a lot of people, but I can’t do a pull-up,” he said.
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What the Expert Says: According to Nobbe, “Bench press provides you with a challenging upper body strength movement. Where the squat and deadlift are the kings of lower-body strength training, the bench press is often regarded in the same light as the upper body. We receive an increase in strength, stability, and muscle size when incorporating the bench press into our fitness plan. For weight loss, the more muscle we have, the greater efficiency we will see in burning calories.”
Working on set means long days and a lot of snacks at craft services. He told TODAY, “The most challenging part has been the craft services (the snack table on set) at work and catered lunches. Fifteen years ago, you give me snacks all day and a catered lunch, I’d be in heaven, but while filming Season 3, it was torture,” he said.
What the Expert Says: “Craft services are like the apple in the Garden of Eden,” Moody says. “You usually don’t even want it until you see that it’s there, and then once you partake, disaster strikes. This results in you eating more calories than you probably should. Moreover, I’ve seen what they hand out at craft services, and it’s never precisely celery sticks and hard-boiled eggs. Usually, you end up stuck with low-quality, non-nutritious foods like chips, cookies, and bars with tons of added sugar. Ben mentioned he wanted to change his diet to prevent sleeping badly on his back and stop having high blood pressure, two ailments that often afflict people who are too overweight. And being overweight is exactly what you end up being if you snack too recklessly on low-quality foods.”
Another big change in Napier’s diet? His approach to carbs. He said, “I’ve always done well with cutting carbs. I try to stick to a low-carb diet until Thanksgiving every year and I try to do a good mix of cardio and weights five days a week. Most weeks, it ends up only being four days,” he shared.
What the Expert Says: Moody states, “I want to be very clear. There’s nothing wrong with carbs; you do not have to cut them entirely or go on a low-carb diet to lose weight. However, choosing the suitable types of carbs and displacing some of them in your diet with protein can make a world of difference in your weight. For example, carb foods that are low in fiber, like white bread and white rice, and high-sugar foods, like granola bars, digest too quickly in the stomach to keep you feeling full. When you can’t seem to achieve the feeling of fullness, you tend to eat more and more (usually carb snacks) until you can get that feeling and thus are trapped in a vicious cycle. If you cut down on those carbs and replace them with protein, like snacking on Greek yogurt or turkey jerky, you can feel satisfied and lose weight by reducing your daily calories.”
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