Nathan Honess has just taken me back to 2009 on his Power of Progress podcast, and he's making the point that I could have started sooner. "It's got to be that you're willing and you want to do it," he says.
I tell him that "for me, the key to all of this is making a decision."
Then I go further, and say "everything starts with making a decision, and a true decision means you cut off every other option."
That episode went out in April 2021.
The suit that did it
Nathan asked whether it all started back in 2009, and I said there or thereabouts. By then I'd known for a while I was on the wrong trajectory. I was travelling a lot for business, eating in restaurants and spending hours sat in the car or on planes. I got to just over 18 stone.
I told him I honestly didn't think I'd live to see my 40th birthday, and that my mental health was affected as much as my physical health. It wasn't just a case of becoming a fat bloke. It was really affecting my self-esteem. I talk about that side of it on purpose, because the more of us who do, the easier it is for the next person to say what's going on.
The final straw came in September 2009. I was on a two-day business trip with one suit, tore a hole in the trousers and couldn't buy another off the rack. The tailored one I had to get "was the largest item of clothing I'd ever bought."
"Of all the things to tip me over the edge, it was vanity."
I came home, asked for the number of a nutritionist I'd been refusing to see for years, and started losing weight. Over time it came to about five and a half stone. I came off my medication, and I went from getting out of breath on the stairs to running marathons and then ultras. That's the short version.
Who do you want to become
For me the decision is really about deciding who you want to become. On the show I put it like this: "Who's the person that's capable of living the life that you want to live?"
Then I pointed out to Nathan that how and who have the same three letters, and for me each one stands for something.
W is willing. You've got to be willing to play your part and put the work in. Nathan had already said that one for me.
Honest about the salad
H is honesty. "You've got to be completely honest about where you are in order to be able to get to where you want to go."
This is where I owned up. I'd tell you I was eating healthily, and at home I was. A salad and a piece of fish. Then I'd get a McDonald's on my way to wherever I was going that evening, or grab a kebab on the way home. And I'd convince myself I was doing everything I could when I wasn't.
Same with the person who says they rarely eat chocolate, but grabs the two bars for a quid every time they're at the petrol station and scoffs them before they're back in the car. That's not someone who rarely eats chocolate. "I'm saying this as someone that's done it."
O is open-minded. You don't have all the answers, and what works for you probably won't be the first thing you try. "I won't get this right first time. I will screw up." That's fine. You're still moving in the right direction.
Day 17 of 75 Hard
At the time I was early into 75 Hard, the challenge Andy Frisella came up with. Nathan brought it up: "Currently you've got a new challenge, which is the 75 Hard." I was on day 17, maybe 18. I won't go through the rules here.
What I told him was the decision part. I'd been missing chocolate, Easter was coming, and there'd be Easter eggs in the house I wasn't going to eat. I'd started anyway. "I'm a pretty determined person, so if I decide I'm doing something, I do it."
I also said "I've been kind of gentle on myself whilst also having the discipline", which mattered to me. Doing more than before, without pushing into injury.
And a book I'd been working on for a long time finally got finished during those weeks. I reckoned you could run your own version. Pick seven habits that lead where you want to go and do them for 75 days. If it's a book, write for an hour every day.
Listen to the full episode
The full episode is on Apple Podcasts and the other podcast apps.
Close one door
Pick the thing you keep saying you'll get round to. Write down who you'd need to be to actually do it. Then, on the same page, be honest about where you are with it today, petrol station chocolate and all. That's the start of a true decision.
If you want more on starting a change, I wrote The ABC of change with that in mind.
First published April 2021 on Nathan Honess's Power of Progress podcast. Written up here in October 2026.
