Brandon Epstein explains how life as a new father led to some weight gain—and what he did to get lean again.

In a recent video on the Jump Rope Dudes channel, fitness influencer Brandon Epstein shares how becoming a father and moving across the country recently led him to put on weight and acquire a "dad bod".

To clarify: in no way did Epstein actually have a dad bod (a term which, let's not forget, has pretty much lost all meaning due to overuse). But after managing to maintain his body fat at between 7 and 9 percent for a long time, these recent big life changes led Epstein to become less consistent in his training and gain around 10 pounds of fat, and so he made a series of adjustments that would help him "reel it back in."

The biggest factors in his weight gain, he explains, were that he was snacking and eating at a caloric surplus, and not getting enough consistent sleep (being a new dad will do that to you), which increased his appetite, creating a cycle of overeating. So the first thing he did was commit to a caloric deficit, as well as intermittent fasting.

"I wasn't moving anywhere near as much when I put on the weight as I was beforehand, and although I haven't started boxing full-time again, what I have done the last few months to lose the weight is just get more conscious about my movement," he says. He did this by readopting the habit of wearing a fitness tracker to measure his workouts and his sleep routine. "All that awareness helped me get in better habits, start to move my body more, start to get better recovery, start to sleep more, and all those things combined together helped me get better results."

Finally, there is one more thing that Epstein credits with helping him lose that extra weight and get back to his previous physique: "I didn't judge myself," he says. "Life is gonna happen. There's going to be adversity, there's going to be things that conflict with your healthy routine, and you just can't let that throw you completely off the wagon, you have to say hey, that's life, tomorrow I'm going to get back after it."

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