My personal journey into fitness

Welcome to my first ever blogpost, on my first ever web site.

If you’re considering hiring me as your personal trainer and nutrition coach, I figure you’ll want to know a little about me and my personal journey, so here goes. The photo is me (yes, really), taken with my son back in May 2020. He was four years old at the time. I often look at this photo - it’s a constant reminder of how far I’ve come.

At 49 years old, I was at least four stone overweight and working on average 12-14 hours a day. I wasn’t sleeping or eating properly. I drank way too much coffee and nowhere near enough water. I frequently went to bed at 1am or later but often woke up at 6am to begin work, some days not stopping until after 8pm.

I often didn’t eat until after 9pm, and when I did it was often takeaways or preprepared meals, washed down with sugary drinks and followed half a pack of chocolate biscuits. I was constantly tired, and frequently out of breath walking up a few flights of stairs or playing with my son in the garden.

Then, I came across a video which literally changed my life.

That video featured an interview with serial entrepreneur and author, Jesse Itzler, who was talking about his zest and passion for life. During the interview, Jesse explained that he had just turned 50 years old and that the average life expectancy for a male in the USA, at that time, was 78 years. He also shared that he had recently become fixated with the idea he might only have 28 summers left to live.

If you’d like to watch that video, here’s the link: Jesse Itzler on Impact Theory (fast forward to 17 minutes if you want to listen to the content which inspired me).

For several weeks after watching that video, I grappled with the idea of my own mortality and what I was going to do with the time I had left.

That change began when, almost at random, I watched the first episode of a documentary series called “Down to Earth” on Netflix in July 2020. That first episode was about renewable energy - I happened to be working for an energy company at the time - but I found myself watching every episode in the series over the next few nights.

I was particularly drawn to two programmes in the series, “France” (on the topic of water) and “Sardinia” (on blue zones and the Mediterranean diet). Watching that series led me to read a book, “Superlife” by Darin Olien, which I can honestly say was the first book about health and wellness I’d ever read in my life.

Reading “Superlife” led me to read several other books, including “The Lazarus Strategy” by Dr Norman Lazarus and “How Not to Die” by Michael Greger. I was especially interested in “The Lazarus Strategy” because I could see several parallels with my own life, not least of which was that the author was also an overweight, overworked 50-year-old when he too had his own eureka moment. I was also struck by the notion in that book, that the “absence of illness is not health”. I wasn’t ill (not in the conventional sense anyway), but I certainly wasn’t healthy.

Over the next few months, I watched several more documentaries and began scouring the internet for articles and information on diet, exercise, aging, nutrition and health. Much of what I watched or read played a little fast and loose with the facts, but one simple message came across loud and clear - something had to change.

But my physical health was only half the story.

A combination of long hours, a lack of purpose, work-related stress and the gradual collapse of my marriage had all taken their toll on my mental health too. So late one night, I found myself watching yet another documentary, this time about minimalism, which included an interview with Dan Harris, the ABC News anchor who is famous for a nationally televised panic attack on Good Morning America in 2004.

As a result of that panic attack, Dan embarked on his own personal quest to improve his mental health, writing a book about his experiences which he called “10% happier”. Like Dan, I initially found the notion of meditation a little ridiculous. But I read his book, and listened to him speaking about his experiences, and it encouraged me to rethink my own preconceptions about mediation, mindfulness and mental health.

Since I embarked on my own health and wellness journey I’ve lost just over five stone, reducing my waste size from 36 inches to 28 inches in the process. My diet is not completely plant-based - I still enjoy the occasional steak or bacon sandwich - but I’ve added a lot more plant-based protein, and carbohydrate, to my diet including soya, wholemeal pasta and brown rice. I also eat more leafy greens, vegetables and fruit. The first change I made was to drink more water, and I still have at least 2 litres every day.

I used intermittent fasting to help get the weight off initially, focusing on the 16/8 method, and as a result I often still skip breakfast, preferring a big glass of water and a black coffee. I usually make a protein shake for lunch, which includes fresh and frozen fruit, protein powder, taurine, oats and bran.

My supplement regime has changed several times over the past year, and I’ve played around with all sorts of things, but it’s settled into something I’m pretty happy with and includes a multivitamin made from natural fruit and vegetable extracts, Omega 3 (from algae, not fish) an antioxidant and several supplements to support cell repair and health aging .

I run 10km every couple of days and walk 9,000 - 10,000 steps on the other days. I also strength train twice a week at my local gym, and fit in some crunches, squats and press ups every morning before a shower. I find that level of exercise, combined with 5-10 minutes of meditation every evening, really lifts my mood and helps me handle stress much better than I used to.

I also sleep much better. Like nutrition and exercise, consistency is key, so I try to be in bed by 10pm every night and wake up at 6am every day. It doesn’t always happen, but I’m averaging at least 7 hours sleep a night which is a big improvement on what I used to get.

I am now 50 years old, and I can safely say I’m in the best shape - physically and mentally - of my life.