Wellman Fitness

This was me 12 years ago, aged 16 and weighing 15 stone and 8 pounds. I battled with my weight for much of my childhood, averaging a weight gain of a stone a year. This had a significant and negative impact on my emotional wellbeing and I became very creative in my attempts to cover the embarrassment I felt about my physical presentation. Not only was my self- esteem on the floor, so was my confidence. I remember Fridays at school very well, it was the day we had swimming which meant having to expose my physical form in front of my peers which I found humiliating and difficult to deal with. This ended with me trying every trick in the book to avoid swimming including skiving and feigning illness. My weight issues impacted on my passion for golf too, during the summer months I continued to wear a jumper in an effort to hide my body. I tried to lose weight through yo-yo dieting, self-education and slimming pills but nothing seemed to work and I was left feeling de-motivated and with my self-confidence at an all-time low. By the time I reached young adulthood, I had become very frustrated with the way I looked and knew that it was preventing me from reaching my full potential in life and I accepted that I had to make changes. I plucked up the courage to join my local gym and have never looked back. It was hard initially, I felt I was being judged by my size and initially the embarrassment did not leave me. All summer I would be training in the gym doing a mixture of cardio, weights and circuit training, this was in addition to playing several rounds of golf each week. My aim was to stay active all summer and this strategy achieved results; pounds were dropping off each week and my confidence grew as a result, I was more confident with the girls and was able to go swimming without being self- conscious.