My Story – how I became a Personal Trainer

A northern beaches boy born and bred who worked very hard to enable myself to buy a nice house, drive a luxury European car and want for nothing. The work seemed to take over most other things in my life. I found myself travelling the world extensively, working weird hours given the global economy and no longer having to do the daily commute given the explosion of telecommuting. What I didn’t notice happening was my health and fitness deteriorating.

At first it was hardly noticeable, then the easy things we all take for granted being able to do, such as walking up a flight of stairs without becoming breathless, putting on a pair of shoes easily, getting in and out of a car without effort, fitting in an aeroplane seat without having to have an extension belt given to you.

Then one day I boarded a flight to San Francisco, and was pleasantly surprised to have been upgraded to business class. The only problem was my ever-expanding waistline now meant that even the larger roomier business class seat couldn’t comfortably fit me. I had come to the horrible realisation that I WAS FAT! It had finally dawned on me that if I didn’t change some things in my life I would be facing an uncertain future. Things like heart attack, diabetes and stroke came to mind. I was officially FAT!

The hard work began

After coming to the realization that I was FAT some 140+kg I sought the services of a personal trainer based on the northern beaches. For me this had to be someone who could inspire, educate and motivate me to become a fitter, happier and healthier person. The choice was made and the work begun.

Without going into too much detail, the decision to train was the hard part, the training was simple. Train regularly, train hard and be consistent. Only I didn’t know that sticking to this would be such a difficult task. Training up to 3 times a week at 6am for at least an hour at a time sounds great in theory, but the excuses began pretty early on, injuries began, motivation waned, results varied and frustration began.

Most of this was not actually happening, it was all part of a self-destructive behavior that I had made my specialty. Working through each of these issues I have certain milestones that I remember vividly and at the time these milestones felt like mental or physical breakdowns but now I look at those times as breakthroughs. My trainer and I worked through these issues to come out the other side mentally and physically stronger. Outside of the physical training I had to overcome the sabotage of emotion eating. Facing tough days at work, or in my personal life meant changing my normal response of eating badly, to taking the initiative to find other ways of dealing with the stress and not letting myself down and devouring a packet of Tim Tam’s (my biggest vice!)

Each day that I trained represented a change in my life. Whether it was just the victory of turning up to training, running from Narrabeen to Long Reef in the fastest time to date or being able to run up Warriewood beach driveway carrying a 35kg power bag for an hour. All these things represented great results. Easily my best results were changing my lifestyle to enable myself to become fitter, healthier and happier.

Over the time I have spent training, there have been many great results achieved. Setting goals from weight loss to competing in events have enabled me to keep motivated, especially during times of self-doubt and frustration.

The hard work pays off and the results

started to show

In August 2009, I completed the Pub2Pub fun run from Dee Why beach to Newport Arms. I set myself a goal of finishing the race first and foremost and my second goal was to try to finish within 2 hours. Not only did I finish the race but also I smashed my race time and completed the run in 77 mins. Some 43 mins faster than I had hoped for. This result blew my mind. It was a very emotional race given not that long ago I couldn’t fathom running 500 m let alone running 14km.

I remember running the last few hundred metres and I had so many thoughts running through my mind. From euphoria of completing the run to tears of relief that I had made the choice to change my life before it was too late.

In addition to achieving this goal, I reached a major milestone of being under 100kg. I hadn’t been that weight in so many years! I had gone from a size 42” pant to 34″, size 46” shirt to 43″. This was a huge achievement. The weight has stayed off too, which is so very important in changing my life.

My Personal Trainer

When you train with a Personal Trainer not only do you as the client under take a journey so does your Personal Trainer. My Personal Trainer and I have had an interesting journey to say the least. We have stood toe to toe arguing over my commitment to training, I have leant on his shoulder when I have had an emotional moment (and there have been plenty of these, I think he wishes he bought shares in a tissue company), we have laughed together at some of the silliest things, become really good mates but above all achieved my goals.

I am so thankful for the impact my personal trainer has made on my life and the changes that we have been able to make. I know that I would not have been able to achieve this without him. I was so inspired by his journey alongside me that I decided that I wanted to be able to do what my personal trainer did for me for someone else. This is one of the major influencers as to why I became a qualified Personal Trainer and started the Personally Trained ®Company. If I can have such a positive impact on another person’s life then I will be ecstatic.