A GENEROUS SLICE OF MOTIVATION
On the cusp of reaching his half-century and with a career that requires eating pizza, Mark Wogan lost four stone and found a new recipe for healthy living that will last for life
With his 50th birthday looming, Mark Wogan knew that if he was going to get in shape, it was now or never. In recent months, he’d started to feel sluggish and motivation was hard to come by. At 102kg, he was beginning to feel his age, and he knew that he had to do something drastic. But his day job wasn’t going to make losing weight easy. As the creative director of Homeslice, it’s Wogan’s job to make sure that the restaurant’s wood-fired pizzas are fit to be served to the public, and that means tasting them. A lot.
Wogan is also a foodie and describes how, when he was growing up, his “food-centric” family, which included his dad, Sir Terry, encouraged him to eat and cook well “but in a very ‘eat whatever you like’ sort of way”.
Still, Wogan was determined to get, as he puts it, “fit as fuck at 50”. So, he sought the help of Reid Stafford, head trainer at Ultimate Performance. Under Stafford’s tutelage, he committed to a transformation programme that entailed weight training three times a week, walking 15,000 steps per day and fitting in a couple of cardio sessions, too. “If you master the Versaclimber, you can master the universe,” he says. Because of his job, Wogan couldn’t avoid eating pizza, but he would walk between his London restaurants and started to track his calorie consumption. He found that he was still able to have two slices for lunch.
Over the course of a year, Wogan has now lost more than 25kg. At one point, his weight dropped as low as 77kg, which he says is probably the lightest he’s been in his adult life. His body fat percentage has fallen dramatically, too. He had a BFP of 37%, but now it’s a lean 10% – and he has been as shredded as 7%. “You’re not pinching a lot there,” he observes.
On his 50th birthday, Wogan treated himself to a rib-eye steak and triplecooked chips with creamed corn. Unlike before, though, this meal was an exception, rather than the rule. “I have a certain amount of pride in what I’ve achieved, and I don’t want to give that up,” he says. The body that Homeslice pizza built isn’t going anywhere any time soon.
“I HAVE A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF PRIDE IN WHAT I’VE ACHIEVED, AND I DON’T WANT TO GIVE THAT UP”