2018 saw the launch of my brand new 6 week weight loss course entitled the LOSE IT FOR LIFE Programme. There have been many amazing success stories which my course participants and I are all incredibly proud of. The unique, habit-centric approach has helped provide all delegates with a variety of tools to ensure long term success… Success which has continued for all participants since they completed their 6 week programme.
I wanted to explain why I wrote the course and how my personal journey influenced the creation of the LOSE IT FOR LIFE programme.
My Story
I have been a trainer for the last 21 years, gaining my first qualification in 1997. I always had a love for fitness and, in particular, weight training and martial arts. I started training when I was 14 and knew I wanted to be a trainer from the first day I set foot in the gym.
To cut a long story short, my mum was diagnosed with cancer when I was sixteen and she subsequently passed away when I was just 20. Life was tough but my younger brother and I learned to cope as best as we knew how at the time.
One of the ways I coped with the trauma of losing my mum was through comfort eating. Being so young, I never realised I was doing it at the time. I went drinking with my friends and enjoyed food both socially and alone. I’ve always been a ‘get on with it’ kind of guy and, at the time, felt like I was doing the best at the time considering my circumstances. I had always been fit in my teens and thought I still looked and felt the same in my early twenties as I always had.
Confidence
It wasn’t until I was around 25 and wanted to leave full time employment to set up my own business as a freelance trainer the truth hit me. I was telling a great friend of mine I was considering working for myself as a freelance trainer. He laughed and said I was too fat to be a personal trainer and no one would take me seriously. At first, I didn’t know how to take what he had said. Surely, after all these years of training he must have been joking, right?! However, after taking a long, hard look at myself I soon realised he was right.
While I was not obese, I was far from my former, confident and trim self. I found myself constantly re-adjusting and pulling down my t-shirt, generally feeling uncomfortable in my clothes. It was time for a radical change.
16 years on from that moment and I am now a different person. Literally. I no longer feel the need to comfort eat because I changed me, not just what I ate. I created different, healthier habits and learned not to eat my feelings. Now, at 41 years old, I’m in much better shape than when I was 25.
Knowing Vs Doing
The point is, knowing and doing are two completely separate things. Back then, as a trainer with experience, I knew what I needed to do to get myself back in shape. As a young man mourning his mum, my habits were much harder to break.
What we know and what we do, sometimes they are in complete conflict with each other. As human beings we generally make our food choices based on taste, preference and satisfaction. People don’t often sit in a restaurant and choose what they will eat based on the most nutritionally balanced option, we choose based on what we fancy on the day… Even if our choices move us away from our goals. In order to change, I knew I had to give myself different choices and create new habits.
Based on my own experiences I wanted to create a programme which offers people simple tools, practices, methods on how to change themselves, not just their food. I had a passion to help people learn how to combat emotional eating by learning how to manage their habits better. I was determined to find a way to help people enjoy all types of food while not feeling like they had to restrict or starve themselves in the process.
Helping Others
In December 2017, I decided to put pen to paper and create a way of doing all this. I wanted to facilitate a course, providing a socially supportive and motivational group environment for people who struggle with food management.
As I began creating the LOSE IT FOR LIFE course, I did so with my own experiences in mind. The course offers tried and tested professional solutions for what worked for me and the thousands of clients I have worked with over the last 20 years.
The outcome is a fun, motivational course which encourages you change your habits and thinking, not just your diet. A course which creates long term, healthy results, not simply dropping a few pounds before your holidays.
It doesn’t matter what you do for a living, whether you are a personal trainer, bus driver, a homemaker or lawyer. People are people. Being unhealthy is a choice, the same as choosing to be health aware. Our emotional state often controls how we eat, how we eat determines how we look and feel. When we look bad, we feel bad which can make us make poor lifestyle choices.
Don’t just break the cycle, smash it up and throw it away. Build a new cycle. Be a better, happier version of you. The LOSE IT FOR LIFE programme is the first step to initiating that change.
