My fitness journey: The college days and becoming a fitness instructor...

It's been a little while since my last post, so I'll give you a brief summary of my story so far...

I started off at primary school in good shape, running around with the other kids and having fun, but as I got older and entered secondary school, things took a turn...

I started eating more junk food, sweet treats and the amount of activity I was doing reduced, leading to quite a weight gain. This led to not enjoying sport at school, avoiding it as much as possible and playing video games at home.

Fast forward a few years and when I left school I wanted to become a marine biologist, which, unfortunately wasn't an option, as my biology grade wasn't high enough. Next, I turned to wanting to become a zoo keeper and so began studying Animal Management at a local college. I love being surrounded by animals and the college had a whole centre there for students to help look after and learn all about different animals.

At this time, I realised how unhappy I was with how I looked and finally decided to try and do something about it. Thankfully, my mum was on board with the idea and was also looking to drop a few pounds herself, so we decided to go to the doctors and see if there was any help we could get. From there, we were enrolled into a GP referral scheme at a local gym, where we had gym programs designed for us and regular check-in appointments to see how we were getting on. We both worked hard in building the habit of going to the gym and calorie counting to see what we could achieve.

On the program I was given, the instructor included 15 minutes of running, which I told him I couldn't do, but he was determined to help me get there. We started with 1 minute running and 14 minutes walking to build up my endurance and after a lot of hard work, I finally did it! If you know me in real life, I'm sure you wouldn't have ever guessed that would've been the case.

Over a year or 2, I managed to lose around 3 stone and keep it off (this was particularly hard when friends were going for nights out and eating junk food). It was only because friends and family kept telling me so, that I realised I'd lost so much weight.

Unfortunately, when I finished my animal course, I applied for work at the local zoos and wildlife parks, but no one would take me on as I was under 18. This made me feel lost and not know what to do next. My mum then turned to me and mentioned taking what I'd learnt through weight loss and training, and teaching it to others. This is when I decided to go back to college and study Fitness and Exercise Instruction.

When I started the course, I was surrounded by people who had played sports or been dancers for a long time so felt quite out of my depth, but thought lets keep going. This course was very practical-based which I enjoyed, and I trained with other students on our lunch breaks, which kept the challenges coming.

After a lot of sweat and hard work, I qualified to be a gym and class instructor and realised that the next step for me would be to pursue the dream of becoming a Personal Trainer. Again, luck was not on my side because I couldn't afford the college fees without working full-time.

This is when I discovered what is now known as distance learning. I was still able to work and study at the same time, and only my practical assessments needed to be in person. I did, however, start up my first circuit training class in the meantime, and I'm still running it now.

My Personal Training course was unlike my previous courses due to distance learning and taking a long time to qualify. I had to take my final practical exam twice, but I got through it with a lot of help from my now wife. Alongside this PT course, I studied kettlebells (of course), suspension training, lower back pain management, functional exercise, GP referral and a few others, which have served me well over the years!

Next stop... find a job.