I woke on the morning of Thursday 20th July 2023 knowing that I needed to make changes. 55 years old, 5ft 7in and weighing 110kg (17st 4lbs). I ordered diet meal replacement shakes from Protein Works. These arrived the next day and lunch time of 21st July my fitness “reboot” started. I had alreadt taken my “Day One” photos but little did I know where this journey would take me. A journey that was supposed to be just a simple weight loss diet.
I started building my own home gym in my garage but one of my mates told me to join a gym. I’d never stepped foot in a gym in my life. I had never been into fitness. The idea terrified me. My mate told me to “just get over it”, so I decided to take that next step a few weeks later once I had lost of little bit of weight. I set myself the target of joining the gym by the first week of September 2023. That gave me six weeks. In that time I was on a high protein calorie deficit diet and the weight was coming off nicely. After the first month I had lost 6.5kg (1st).
6th September 2023 (and already nearly 10kg / 1.5st lighter) was the day I walked into a gym for the first time in my life – JD Gyms at Thornton-Cleveleys. I was shown around and joined there and then. I also knew I needed a personal trainer from the start, so my details were given to a relatively new PT and within an hour he had made contact and arranged an induction the following evening. That was when I met someone who would be very influential in my journey – Matty Schmid (Active4You).
We discussed my goals – I had some big goals. I had just signed up to run the Great North Run (21k/half marathon) as part of Team Bowel Cancer UK and had exactly 12 months to get into some kind of shape that could manage it. I couldn’t walk and talk without getting breathless! I initially set the target of getting to 70kg by the end of April 2024 – that would be 40kg (6.5st) weight loss in just nine months – but that was thought to be a bit too ambitious.
Training started the following week and we clicked from the start. Matty was able to take an apprehensive gym novice and turn me into someone who would fall in love with the gym, with fitness and achieving things I had never dreamed of. I was in the gym at least six days a week, no excuses, and training with Matty two/three days a week, occasionally four days a week. I could see myself changing, not just physically but emotionally. The weight loss continued at the rate of around 6.5kg per month.
One of my original goals was also to get a tattoo… and so in December 2023 I booked an appointment for Saturday 20th July 2024 to get my very first tattoo. The date being the first anniversary of starting on this fitness reboot.
By January 2024, Matty decided he was going to take on the Great North Run with me, despite not being a running. To be fair, I had never been a runner either. I had started doing Park Runs in October 2023, but it wasn’t until May 2024 that I ran my first full 5k with just four months to go until the big one!
I had continued to take progress pics through my training and following my 56th birthday in February 2024 I took a few more. The contrast from my Day One pics was mind-blowing and Matty asked my permission to put together a success story for his socials. Seeing myself as a “success story” was something I’d never envisioned. Proud of what I had achieved would be an understatement.
Remember that goal I had set myself to lose 40kg by the end of April 2024? Well, I reached it a month early at the end of March 2024. I had shed over a third of my starting body weight (36.3% to be precise!).
Training continued at a pace throughout the Summer and on 20th July 2024 my tattoo appointment came around and another goal was ticked off my list. The following month I’d run the 7.5km Blackpool Night Run with Matty, a warm up for the Great North Run just 11 days later.
And so, exactly a year after signing up with JD Gyms and Matty, the day had come to take on probably the biggest challenge of my life – a half marathon! What a day! A day I will never forget! I lined up on the start line with one of my best mates (Ken) on one side and Matty my PT, now a good mate too, on the other side. We crossed the start line together. It was an incredible feeling having these two people alongside me, both instrumental on my journey. I crossed the finished line with Matty still alongside me. We got an identical finish time! I have the medal and running bib framed and in pride of place on my lounge wall. Matty really did go above and beyond to support me on that day!
But that wasn’t the end of the story. The running was just one goal on the road to building the best version of myself possible. Matty moved to Preston JD and so whilst my base remained Thornton-Cleveleys, I would drive over to Preston twice a week for training sessions with Matty.
All the staff at both Preston and Thornton-Cleveleys were friendly and supportive and I would talk to most of them as I became an almost permanent fixture in the gym, usually visiting two or three times a day for weight training, cardio, etc.
Unfortunately, the travel to Preston became a bit too much of a drain on my time and I had to make the very difficult decision to stop training with Matty in July 2025 after 22 months! But that’s not the end of the story – I still had more goals to achieve and so I signed up with Carol West (Carol West Coaching), at Thornton-Cleveleys. Carol would take control of everything from nutrition through to programming my solo training days as well as in-person training sessions twice a week.
I’ve been with Carol now for four months and my future goals are now very much in sharp focus. They will take time to achieve but, with Carol’s help and support, I will achieve them!
Making the decision to join JD Gyms has changed my life. It allowed me to discover a life I never knew I needed and to fall in love with the gym. It really is my happy place. Choosing the right personal trainer at the start undoubtedly made my experience so much better and I have no doubt that with Carol West I will continue to tick off my body building goals! I’ll be 58 in February 2026, but I feel and look better than I have in my entire life. And yet I still has so much more to achieve. As they say “I haven’t come this far to only come this far”.
I created a website to track my progress from the start www.gnr2024.co.uk which does follow my progress through to the Great North Run in quite a lot of detail. I need to update it with my progress since and going forward.
Mark Brierley
mark@mk2.fitness
www.gnr2024.co.uk
www.mk2.fitness
