Dad’s amazing journey from 25st to toned personal trainer
“DAILY life was a chore and I would eat my feelings. I didn’t have a sense of purpose and I was stuck in a rut”.
This is how Julian Spiller felt when he “ballooned” to 24st in lockdown.
The now 38-year-old had always been a “bigger guy”, but this was his heaviest since he weighed 25st at the age of 30.
He lived on enough junk food to “feed a family” and even struggled to bend over to tie his shoelaces. Never in a million years could he have predicted how much his life would change.
After hitting rock-bottom in 2021 and deciding enough was enough, the dad from Blackwood began a journey to change his life.
More than three years later he is now 10st lighter and qualified as a personal trainer, hoping to use his first-hand experience to help others.
Describing how it all started, he said: “During Covid I think people went one of two ways – either you got really into fitness and had a health kick or you put on lots of weight and went more inward.
“I was in that category. I was depressed and at one point completely isolated, living on my own.
“I would binge eat for no reason other than that I was earching for endorphins to feel a little bit better. “I didn’t know how to get out of it.” Julian said he “hated” the person he was during this time.
He said his lifestyle involved little structure but plenty unhealthy habits.
“I’d get up whenever I’d get up,” he said. “I would have no plan and no idea what I was doing. I would go to work, but I was just going through the motions.
“Everything I ate was processed and either white or beige. I lived off takeaways, junk food, chocolate and cake.
“I would hide food so that nobody would know how much I had eaten.
“I was often up until 2am or 3am playing games and doing nothing productive. I didn’t want to go to sleep and have to deal with the next day.”
He explained how his meals would often be fried and of huge quantity, while he had no sense of how much a person should eat.
He said: “I went to the butcher’s and realised I could get all the ingredients I needed to make burger-van burgers. What I would make [for breakfast] would be like the biggest burger you could buy at the burger van – three burgers, bacon and egg.
“In terms of snacks, if I wanted chocolate it would be a whole bar of chocolate rather than a snack.
“The biggest thing I struggled with at the beginning was knowing what a normal portion looked like because everything I cooked was probably enough for two people.”
Julian’s turning point came when he realised he wanted to achieve something before he reached his late 30s.
He said: “When things started opening up again after Covid, there was talk about rugby starting back and real life starting back.
“At that point I had ballooned and was struggling to walk.
“I was seeing other people doing well and thought I had only a few years left playing sport.
“I thought, ‘I don’t want to waste the rest of my life’.
“I thought if I died in two years, could I say I had given life everything I could? I couldn’t change the past but thought from now on I can make my life positive.”
Julian, who now weighs between 15 and 16st, said he made a series of small changes in late 2020 and early 2021, which included going outside and doing short runs.
He would listen to motivational speakers so he didn’t have to listen to the negative voice in his head which told him to give up.
“I used other people’s success stories to inspire myself and started going out for little runs in the daytime,” he said.
“I would do sprint sessions which were equivalent to what a warm-up would be for me today – but it was huge for me at that time.
“I started building on it day by day, week by week until I lost around two or three stone.
“Around then I got a coach because I struggled with accountability.
“I learnt that perspective is really important.
“Yes, I used to struggle to bend over and tie my shoelaces at one point, but I also had two legs and I could breathe. I could go outside and run – even if it wasn’t for very long.”
As time went on, Julian said he focused on not giving up and changing his lifebit by bit.
Describing how his life looks today, he said: “Today I journal and practice gratitude, I listen to podcasts daily like the High Performance podcast, where I look for lessons.
“I also set myself physical targets and train pretty much every day.
“The main difference is that I now have a purpose and a ‘why’.”
In terms of his diet, Julian says he currently eats about “80% clean” – although he prepares his food in a way that makes it exciting and tasty.
He said: “I’ll start off with something like eggs. I might have some egg whites with two yolks and bacon medallions rather than regular bacon.
“I would have had a full breakfast every morning previously. However, my breakfast now will be in the rage of 400-600 calories rather than 1,500 as it used to be.
“For lunch I will have something with vegetables. I make carrot fries, green beans and peppers and spice it up so it tastes more like a cheat meal rather than steamed veg.
“I’ll have that with some chicken or some mince, so it’s meat and veg, whether it’s in the style of a curry or a burrito. I will batch cook that for the week.
“My evening meal might be something similar or something completely different.
“Cheat burgers are a common one for me, it’s a burger and chips meal but made with real mince, vegetables and potatoes.”
Around 18 months ago after making some progress, Julian said he became interested in the idea of personal training.
He enrolled on courses in fitness and nutrition and hoped that one day he would feel confident enough to launch his own business.
Having completed his qualifications style and developed a business plan, Julian finally launched his personal training business, Be The Change Academy, in early March.
He said: “Over the last six months I’ve been building my own confidence to be able to deliver this.
“I’ve had the plans in place for ages, in terms of how I would coach people, what check-in forms would look like, what questions I would ask and what I wanted my brand to look like.
“The gaining going.”
Julian, who still has a regular nineto-five job, said he is starting off by helping clients in his evenings and weekends.
His personal training is done virtually so he can help people in and out of his local area.
As someone who had long-term struggles maintaining his weight, he hopes he can offer an empathetic programme to help anyone who is trying to get healthy. hard the part was working on confidence to get it
Julian said he used to eat enough ‘to feed a family’ and weighed 25st at his heaviest (inset)
He said: “There are lots of personal trainers and coaches who have always been fit and who don’t understand what it is like to struggle with weight gain or the challenges of literally not being able to stop eating.
“I’m not a bodybuilding coach or a prep coach. I just see myself as a guide.
“Whether you’re a mum who needs support to achieve your goals, as well as confidence or motivation; whether you’re a dad who used to be in shape but has lost his way a bit; if you’re a kid looking for a community; or if you’re someone who has put on a lot of weight and feels selfconscious – I’m just there to put people on track so they get to a point where they don’t need me anymore.”
To get started, Julian is launching a free challenge in April which anyone can join.
He hopes it will begin a community of support.
He said: “I came up with the idea of the challenge, which is focused on free transformations for anyone.
“I can coach anyone who needs coaching, but you don’t necessarily need to have coaching to join.
“I’ve asked people to share my [Facebook] post and tag two people in it who might be interested.
“Then I will invite people to join a Facebook group.
“Everyone will post their accountability photos into the group as a place to start and then by the end of the challenge there will be prizes for the best transformations.
“I’m trying to create a community of like-minded people to challenge and support each other, so they get to feel part of something.
“Everyone will win by the end of it even if they don’t win a prize, because hopefully they will all have better mental health, a better lifestyle and some new friends going in the same direction.”