Fitness coaches don’t all start out as slim and healthy twentysomethings. Here’s how three overcame obesity and illness – and their advice for the rest of us
‘Don’t go on a diet.” That’s one tip from personal trainer Graham Waugh, 50, and may be surprising given that he once weighed three times as much as he does now. A few years ago, he was 330kg (52st) and stuck at home, feeling as if he was waiting to die. Exercise had never been a part of his life, but after bariatric surgery, he began visiting the gym. When his weight reached 111kg (17.5st), the gym owner suggested he become a personal trainer. “I said: ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? I’m too fat and old.’” But then Waugh realised he could specialise in training people who had had similar problems with their weight and health. “I’d seen a lady in the waiting room at the obesity clinic and she looked plump, at worst. I thought to myself: ‘If she had a gym she felt comfortable in, maybe she wouldn’t need surgery.’”
Waugh isn’t the only personal trainer with a powerful life story. For many trainers, it is the enormous change to their health and happiness that they experience at the gym that leads them into their chosen field – whether they have lost weight, gained strength or tackled physical or mental health issues. A prominent recent example is the former deputy Labour leader Tom Watson, 52. When he announced he was stepping down from politics in November, he also revealed he was retraining as a gym instructor. Watson has been on what he describes as a “health journey”, losing 51kg (8st), and reversing his type 2 diabetes diagnosis through diet and exercise.
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