About Me

Hi, I’m Paul! I’m a positive, humble guy, a Rehabilitation in Exercise & Sport student at Marjon, a Nuffield Health Fitness Manager and Personal Trainer and this is a little about me…

Coming from a family struggling with Obesity, I tipped the scales at 14 stone when only 13 years old and later 16 stone in my early 20’s. After spending my early years overweight and struggling to understand why, I developed a keen interest in Fitness, Martial Arts and Nutrition. Through my new found love of fitness, Martial Arts and nutrition I went on to lose 2 stone in 2 months, followed by another 2 stone in 4 months. After spending years in an office based job and sharing my knowledge freely by helping and coaching friends to achieve their fitness goals, I decided to take their advice and get Qualified as a Level 3 Personal Trainer in 2013. It took a little while but I finally became a full-time PT in 2015 and am now a Level 4 Exercise Referral Specialist based at Nuffield Health Devonshire.

Since overcoming my own struggles with weight I have been involved in some sort of Martial Art or Combat Sport. Boxing was a massive help as a teenager with losing weight and building confidence. After a few years of that, a friend introduced me to Muay Thai and although always keeping in touch with Boxing, this became a new passion. After a few more years, while training Muay Thai, I got involved in MMA and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), which was new at the club. After receiving my Blue Belt in Dec 2010 I decided to apply my well-rounded skillset in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) competition and currently have a 2-0 MMA record, finishing both opponents inside 2 rounds. I have also been active in BJJ competition with over 40 fights under my (now purple) belt. This was before injury took the wind out of my competition sales and resigned me to being more of a hobbiest.

More recently I have been a keen Obstacle Course Race (OCR) runner. To date, I have completed 17 Tough Mudder’s, 8 in one year, with regularly doing 2 laps in a day Or doing 2 in 1 weekend over Saturday and Sunday. I have also completed the Spartan Trifecta, Toughest, Rat Race Dirty Weekender, Rock Solid and many more. I am currently 1 half of the official warm up team for the locally run Bush Farm OCR / Mud Stock.

I left school with very few options available to me and regretfully no hope of ever going to Uni so I decided to go straight into work. I started with call centre work and did various office based jobs for little over a decade following. For a long time I felt like I’d sold me soul with my only release being martial arts before injuries snatched that away. After a period of messy night outs, I got my act together and got out of my eternal damnation and into the light that is doing something you’re passionate about. After a couple very productive and successful years as a PT, I started wondering what was next… Early 2017, I lost a friend suddenly, which made me realise life is so brief and you’ll only regret the things you never did! That event led to me making one of the best decisions I’ve ever made and you reading this. In September 2017 I started Uni…