Mind, body and soul. As Evan Bass navigated his split from Carly Waddell, he took the breakup as an opportunity to work on his mental health — and get the body he’s always wanted.
“When I was going through hell, working on my body was the one thing in my life I could actually control. I’ve actually worked out for over a decade but never saw the results I wanted,” the Bachelorette alum, 39, began. “My trainer, Josh Stiglets, had been preaching to me for years about diet as a lifestyle instead of a New Year’s resolution. He taught me that a lifestyle of balanced healthy eating and physical activity was more beneficial than trying to diet for short-term results.”
Bass noted that he “figured out a path that felt naturally good without pressure” of getting in shape fast.
“The quick diets I had tried before felt manic and usually made me feel worse off at the end and I’d lost all my progress within a few months. Diet culture is horrible and the effects on the body, especially mentally, can be quite harmful,” he said, telling Us that he “actually ate more food than I used to.”
Bass explained: “But it was eating things like veggies, fish, and potatoes instead of bread, pasta and wine. I did have to lay down Root Beer, which I miss, but not at much as I thought.”
The Bachelor in Paradise season 3 couple announced their split in December 2020 after three years of marriage. They share daughter Isabella, 4, and son Charles “Charlie” Wolf, 2.
“I feel so much better physically which has positively affected my mental life. And when life is tough, even a little mental help is amazing. My trainer was there to help me focus on getting stronger instead of stress and angst,” Bass, who has three older sons from his first marriage, told Us. “I also work with a life coach (Chance Scoggins) who has, perhaps even more than therapy, changed my outlook from impending doom to cautious optimism. Between those two, and dealing with the trauma of divorce with my therapist, I was able to get focused and decrease my body fat from 15 percent to 6 percent and gain about 20 pounds of muscle.”
Bass “did almost no cardio and focused on weight training” during his gym sessions and went from 157 to 172 pounds.
“I never want to be a guy that stares at myself in the mirror for too long, I don’t really care about how much I can lift, or having abs forever but I do care about how finding muscle gains and healthy weight loss leads to feeling better,” he concluded. “When I felt like failure was everywhere in my life l found that changing my physical body for the better was somewhere I could find a win.”
With reporting by Diana Cooper