Nine years ago, at 45, I set out to change my body. In my early 40s, working as a freelance journalist, PR and events producer, I felt oddly insubstantial in my own skin.
I ran marathons and half-marathons, which kept me lean but did nothing for muscle retention or gains. In the mirror I saw skinny rather than the sculpted, angular version I wanted, and my confidence began to wane.
As a gay man, I faced another relentless spotlight: gay culture’s fixation on the lean, muscular, youthful male body. I was acutely aware of standing alongside men whose shoulders, chests and arms seemed to fit the ideal in ways mine didn’t.
There was no single dramatic moment, just a series of small jolts with an unflattering beach photograph as the final nudge. So, I signed up for a midlife body transformation by my personal trainer Dan Chapman and, as I wrote at the time, discovered the power of weightlifting, structured nutrition and seeing my body respond in real time.
A decade on, the real story lives not in that six-week programme but in what happened afterwards.
I’m now 54. Could I sustain it? Would the new habits survive busy years, changing work, ageing, and a cancer diagnosis? Certainly, the meaning of staying strong has evolved in ways I didn’t foresee, but I’m still strong a decade later. Here’s how I did it.
Treating the initial programme as rehearsal
My six-week transformation in 2017 was intense but straightforward: I did everything Dan told me. That meant three one-hour strength sessions a week with him, two solo sprint and abs sessions, and eating with intention – a protein-rich diet, no alcohol and early nights. The decade that followed was messier. My work as an events producer sometimes filled every part of the day and night, so training shrank. Weekly European and occasional international travel meant poor hotel gyms and waning enthusiasm; dinners and drinks often took priority over dumbbells.