Fighting fit
‘My workout sessions with the PM’S personal trainer’
There are not many things I have in common with the Prime Minister, so it was a surprise to open the paper yesterday and see that we shared a personal trainer. Dressed in a black T-shirt and baggy shorts, Boris Johnson was photographed puffing his way around Westminster next to the much sleeker-framed elite performance coach Harry Jameson – better known in the Instagram fit-spo world than on the political scene.
Jameson, who has 36,000 social media followers (and counting), has trained the rather more honed figures of celebrities including Love
Island presenter Laura Whitmore and former England footballer Wayne Bridge, along with billionaire executives, Middle Eastern royalty and, er, me.
So I know exactly what the Prime Minister is about to go through. Johnson, who is 5’10’’, is understood to have weighed about 17 stone – “too fat,” he said, himself – when he was struck by Covid-19 and ended up in intensive care in April. Since then, he says he has lost “about a stone and a bit” through healthier eating and exercise.
While Johnson was regularly pictured on his bike in his Mayor of London days and since then out on the odd sweatylooking jog, or tennis session with brother Jo, his decision to hire Jameson signals that he really is serious about getting fit.
Sympathetic but resolutely no-nonsense, Jameson is incredibly well read on sports exercise science and a fan of the kind of rigorous testing that elite athletes employ, such as cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPEX), which measures how your lungs, heart and muscles react together when you exercise, electrode monitors to measure stress levels throughout the day and DNA testing to ascertain what kinds of foods your body responds best to.
I first met Jameson on a press trip to run the New York marathon in 2015, which he obviously smashed in a much quicker time than me. But what struck me most was how generous he was with his knowledge – it wasn’t his first marathon, unlike mine – and, despite living a healthy lifestyle, how much fun he was off duty. He’s not a no-carb or no-booze man: “Eating healthily makes us feel great, but restricting our diets makes us miserable,” he told me.
We stayed in touch and after I had my baby, I had some training sessions with him at the luxury hotel Rosewood London, where he is the personal trainer in residence, training well-heeled guests and local clients who have booked in for the £165-an-hour sessions. (A snip, given his six-day elite body camp at the luxe One&only resort in the Maldives started at £13,690.)
So, how will he be putting Johnson through his paces? To start the day, he recommends a fasted run before 7am – for his Rosewood clients that is down the Embankment towards Parliament – the theory being that without breakfast, your body will burn fat from its own store to fuel your workout. Happily, Johnson is also a fan of an early morning start. In a video to launch Britain’s obesity strategy in July, he said: “The great thing about going for a run at the beginning of the day is that nothing can be worse for the rest of the day.”
Next, juice for a burst of energy, before a yoga session to calm the body’s levels of the stress hormone cortisol, raised by the cardio burst (or, perhaps, calls from your Secretary of State). Finally, a hearty breakfast such as eggs and bacon or avocado on toast, before any red boxes are opened. Jameson isn’t one to restrict caffeine, either,
which he calls a “performance enhancer”, as long as you have it at least six hours before bed.
Jameson is also into weights – as his gym-honed arms testify – for both men and women, and especially for those who are ageing, to replace lost muscle.
But his MO is training for function, rather than just Instagram-worthy abs. Especially now he is the proud father of two-year-old Otis (who features prominently on his social media profile) with another on the way – one more thing he and the PM can chat about in their fitness sessions. An advocate for mental wellbeing, especially for men, Jameson believes that stress hampers the body’s ability to train efficiently, so he monitors clients’ levels – and will presumably have his job cut out for him with Johnson.
He advises lots of rest between sessions, especially for middle-aged clients – “as we get older, we need more recovery time between sessions”, he has said to me before. That means not just physical, but: “mental recovery, where you manage your stress levels; emotional recovery, where you take time to connect with the people you love; and spiritual recovery, which could be religious, or could be giving yourself time outdoors in nature.”
It also means prioritising sleep. He would have been horrified at Margaret Thatcher’s (and for that matter Donald Trump’s) claim of only needing four hours’ shut-eye a night: six to eight hours of good quality sleep is ideal. He even recommends meditating before bed, using the popular Headspace app and not checking your phone.
That might be the PM’S hardest challenge of all.
‘Eating healthily feels great, but restricting our diets makes us miserable’
He advises lots of rest sessions – especially for his middle-aged clients