5 days from the book

Wales, the best country in the world. Snowdon, the best mountain in the world. And the best weather in the world.

We’d brought a group of turtles for the weekend, a few Scots braving North Wales public transport among them. We met in the morning in pouring rain. About halfway up, the wind kicked in. Lucy nearly blew off. We were holding onto each other, and one guy was doing it in flip-flops. Whatever they tell you about waterproof clothing, they’re lying. Every one of us got soaked.

The guides said it was the worst weather they’d seen in 9 years, so we turned around. We tell people we climbed. Look, it was too dangerous. We used our heads.

Afterwards I went over to the hostel where most of them were staying. Huge kitchen, everyone inside and cosy, going round in a circle saying why they’d joined and what they liked about it. I joined in and did a little speech.

Genuinely, the point was coming together and having a laugh. Sounds cheesy, but it’s true. Everyone has fond memories of that trip, even though the weather was a disaster.

We deserved to reach the top. The beauty of Wales will have to wait for another day.

Ask Ryan. I once ate 12 Krispy Kreme doughnuts in under 3 minutes, just to see if I could. Ryan’s got the video.

That was cool. It’s not cool, right? My stomach was massive.

Now I eat to about 80% full. I’m fuller from meals, and I can’t even eat what I used to. I don’t leave restaurants crawling out like a frog about to explode anymore. I walk out feeling decent. Chuffed, even.

The Stoics call it temperance. I liked the word so much I joked I’d name my kid after it. Temperance Flear.

Psycho-Cybernetics was written by a plastic surgeon, Maxwell Maltz. Some of his patients walked out with a new nose or the scars gone, and their whole lives changed. Shy one week, confident the next. The power of my hands, he thought.

Then he noticed the others. He’d do his best work, a perfect job, and they’d look in the mirror and say: I look just the same. You didn’t do a thing.

The ones whose lives changed had changed how they saw themselves. So Maltz started looking at how people saw themselves on the inside, and wrote a whole book about it.

It’s the same with weight. We think we’ll be happy at 20 pounds down. It doesn’t automatically happen.

It’s one reason I had every before-and-after photo taken off the Turtle website. I used to call them a necessary evil. Hypocrite, coming in here.

I started a health and fitness website in school to learn how to build sites and get them ranking in Google.

Slowly I learned SEO and the posts started ranking. On my way to uni in Cardiff, my brother-in-law phoned Cardiff Sports Nutrition and told them I do websites and SEO. The owner saw my results on One Stop Muscle and asked me for a meeting. His shop was 200 metres down the road from my halls.

I got a job with him and learned from him over the years.

New Year’s Eve, second year at uni. My mates Josh and Jonny convinced me to go to Bath. Josh was meeting a girl there he ended up dating for years. Anyway, we’re in Nando’s, they’re ordering a bottle of wine, and I’m skint. Then a message comes through. Someone wants to buy One Stop Muscle.

I said, “Yes, PayPal.” Within an hour, the guy paid. That money helped me survive another few months.

One New Year I was in Cape Town for a friend’s wedding, and I was overwhelmed.

What helped was the Uber drivers. Most of them were from Zimbabwe, and I loved chatting to them.

One grew up with 5 siblings. If they wanted to watch a Champions League game they walked 10 miles to the nearest place showing it, and back in the dark. I asked where he’d go if he could pick anywhere. Taunton, Somerset. What? Where did Taunton, Somerset come from? Fair play.

He’d left Zimbabwe on a bus that took 3 days. Knew no one. Slept on the streets. Then a shanty house where, in rainy season, they bailed out 6 or 7 buckets of water every night so it didn’t flood.

I asked him: didn’t you ever want to give up?

No. Never give up. I never, never give up.

His reason was his kids. He wanted them to have an education. One of them was now going to university.

I said, man, thank you so much for the chat. You’ve inspired me today.

Never, never give up.