This is the incredible story of a 21-year-old model and former gymnast who transformed her butt without doing a single squat.
Destiny Stephens from Ontario in Canada, was 15-year-old when she started going to the gym in an attempt to combat her anxiety and depression.
“The gym became my escape, and I loved it,” Stephens told cosmopolitan.com. Even as exercise alone doesn’t always cure depression or relieve anxiety, but in her case, it worked: “It helped me a lot mentally.”
According to the publication, Stephens graduated from high school in 2015, with plans to study dental hygiene at a local university. But after one semester, she changed and pursued a personal training instead.
She got her personal training certification in 2016, and learned how to target specific muscles and challenge herself safely.
It was also reported that she created a more consistent fitness routine with six weekly workouts, to achieve her goal of sculpting a six-pack and round butt.
In that same year, she signed up for a bodybuilding competition, and it was required of her to build her abs to secure a win. So she taught herself how to balance macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fat) to reduce her body fat, swapping her old favourites for rice and sweet potatoes and adding lots of chicken to her regular rotation.
“To gain and maintain muscle, my diet had to be very high in protein and moderate in carbs,” she says of the diet. She also began timing meals around her workouts to give her body the fuel it needed for exercise and recovery. The strategy delivered, and ultimately she won first place, cosmopolitan reported.
On on building her butt, she said: “To build a bigger butt you have to eat more, rather than shrink down,” she says.
According to her, she began eating more protein, more carbs and stopped weighing carbs and counting calories, as she’d done during her intense training period.
She said she spends between 60 to 90 minutes at the gym six days a week, working her bum four days a week, and focusing on other parts of her body on the other days. Then, twice a week, she tacks on a high-intensity interval training (HIIT) session for cardio.
Speaking about of one butt exercise missing from her regular routine, which is squats, she added: “I have gotten amazing results without squats!” which she avoids due to back issues resulting from years of gymnastics.
See more photos below.
