Weight-loss coaching in Cwmbran built on six small habits: strength training at your level, more vegetables on the plate you already cook, and coaches who never ask you to give anything up.
Coaching
01
One-to-one sessions in the first-floor studio on General Rees Square: strength training you can do at your size and fitness today, built up week by week, with the food habits talked through as you train. An hour £40, ten for £360, thirty minutes £25.
From £25 for thirty minutes; an hour £40, ten hours £360.
02
Rhys works on how you eat rather than handing you a meal plan: what you buy, when you eat, what happens at 9pm. One habit at a time, a thirty-minute call or studio visit every fortnight and messages between. £60 a month. He is a coach, not a dietitian, and refers on when it matters.
£60 a month, rolling, a month's notice.
03
Small-group training for six people at most, Tuesday and Thursday evenings or Monday and Wednesday mornings: forty-five minutes of strength and circuits at your own level, then fifteen minutes on one habit with people working on the same thing. £45 a month, or £8 a session.
£45 a month for two sessions a week, or £8 a session pay as you go.
04
An eight-week course for people who walk and would like to run a little: Tuesday evening on the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal towpath and Saturday morning round Cwmbran Boating Lake, walking with short jogs that grow week by week. £60 for the course, twelve people at most.
£60 for the eight-week course, two coached sessions a week.
05
Two-hour Saturday morning workshops at the community kitchen on Victoria Street: cook four lunches and a batch of breakfasts with Rhys, learn the plate method by doing it, and take everything home in glass boxes. £25, ingredients included, ten people at most.
£25 a workshop, ingredients and four lunches included.
06
For people who cannot get to the square, or who have finished training with us and want to keep going: a short check-in form every Sunday, a written reply by Tuesday, a home or gym plan updated monthly, and a twenty-minute video call once a month. £30 a month.
£30 a month, rolling, cancel any time before the next month.
The plate method
The first habit nearly everyone starts with, because it works with the food you already cook and the family you already feed.
Half the plate: anything you like, fresh, frozen or tinned, cooked how you like it. The easiest win there is.
A palm-sized portion: chicken, fish, eggs, beans, lentils, tofu, Greek yoghurt. It keeps you full until the next meal.
A fist-sized portion: potatoes, rice, pasta, bread, oats. Not banned, just measured by eye.
A spoon of oil, a little cheese, a dressing. Not a section of the plate, a finishing touch.
The energy estimate
Mifflin-St Jeor, the equation most dietitians use, times how active your week is, then a gentle deficit that never goes below 1,200 a day for women or 1,500 for men. An estimate, not medical advice. Not for under-18s or during pregnancy.
Prices
£40
Strength training at your level and one food habit agreed at the end. Ten hours for £360.
£25
A shorter session for people who train at home in between and want form checked and the plan moved on.
£45
Six people at most, three levels of every exercise and fifteen minutes on habits. £8 a session pay as you go.
£60
An hour-long first call, then thirty minutes every fortnight and messages between. Not a dietitian; refers on.
£60
Two coached sessions a week on the canal and round the boating lake, twelve people at most.
£30
A weekly form, a written reply, a monthly video call and a plan for wherever you train.
How we coach
We start with what you already eat and change one thing at a time: more vegetables on the plate you already cook, protein at breakfast, a smaller bowl for the evening cereal. Nothing you would have to explain at a family barbecue.
Two strength sessions a week matter, and so do the other 166 hours. Steps, stairs and the Saturday walk round the boating lake do as much for most people as another class would, and cost nothing.
Some people like the scale; some people dread it. We measure what you choose: a weekly weigh-in, a waist measurement once a month, how your clothes fit, the stairs at work, or nothing but the habits ticked off.
No crash diets, no promises of a stone a month, no before-and-after photos. If something sounds like it needs a doctor, we say so and wait until you have seen one.
Saturday workshops
Cook three dishes with Rhys at the Victoria Street community kitchen and leave with four lunches, a batch of breakfasts, the recipes and a shopping list costed at the retail park. £25, ingredients included, ten people at most.
Saturdays at 9am
Forty minutes round Cwmbran Boating Lake and through Llantarnam Park at a talking pace, from the café by the boathouse. Clients bring friends, friends become clients, and nobody minds if you are not one. Buggies and dogs welcome.
Clients
I came in expecting to be shouted at and spent the first session doing sit-to-stands from a chair. Eight months later I carry the shopping up our hill without stopping, I have joined the Tuesday group, and Bethan still writes every session down so I can see how far I have come.
Rhys never once told me what I could not eat. We fixed breakfast, then lunches at work, then the 10pm crisps, one at a time over five months. My clothes fit differently and, more to the point, I do not think about food all day any more.
The fifteen minutes with a cup of tea at the end is the bit I would miss. Six of us, all ages, all sizes, laughing at the same burpee alternative. I have not missed a Thursday since March.
No. Plenty of our clients never step on a scale. We can track your waist, your strength, how your clothes fit or just the habits you tick off. You choose what we measure.
No. There are no banned foods, no shakes and no supplements. We change one eating habit at a time, starting with what you already eat.
We do not promise a number. A gentle, steady change that you keep is the aim, and how fast that happens is different for everyone. Anyone promising a stone a month is selling something.
It is an estimate with every assumption shown, from a standard equation, and it never goes below 1,200 a day for women or 1,500 for men. It is not medical advice. We talk about it with you; we do not hand it out as a rule.
Usually yes, once your GP is happy. For diabetes, heart conditions, recent surgery, pregnancy or a history of eating disorders we ask you to check with your GP, midwife or a registered dietitian first, and we work to their advice.
Thirty minutes in the studio or on the phone: what you want, what has and has not worked before, and which of our services, if any, would suit you. No weighing, no hard sell.
In the studio or on the phone, no weighing and no hard sell: what you want, what has and has not worked before, and which of our services, if any, would suit you. Bethan or Rhys replies within a working day.
