From Royal Engineers to 121kg — and Back
I left the army in 2018, aged 29. Nine years in the Royal Engineers — I'd done two tours, passed my para course, and could run 10 miles in boots without thinking about it. Three months later I was sitting at a desk in Crawley, 18 kilos heavier, eating lunch at my workstation because there was nothing else to do.
It wasn't laziness. I'd lost the thing that made fitness automatic: the structure. PT was on the timetable. Runs were mandatory. Without the army telling me when and how, I genuinely didn't know how to do it for myself anymore. That surprised me. I thought I was disciplined. It turns out I'd been using someone else's discipline for nearly a decade.
By 2019 I was 121kg. I'd been 78kg at my passing-out parade. I remember standing in a sports shop changing room holding a pair of running trainers I had no immediate use for.
What got me back wasn't a transformation challenge or a boot camp. It was someone who helped me rebuild the habits I'd lost — slowly, without drama, around a job and a young family. No motivational speeches. Just structure I could actually keep.
I did my Level 3 in 2020, Level 4 strength and conditioning in 2022. I've been training clients ever since — mostly people in their 30s and 40s who used to be fit and have lost it somewhere between a promotion, a house move, or a second child. People who know exactly what fit feels like. They just need help finding their way back.
"I went from running 10 miles in boots to standing in a changing room with trainers I had no use for. I know exactly where you're starting from."
