Who I am

I wasn't always the man I am today. For most of my life, I was a performance.

The Fat Kid Who Learned To Perform

I grew up as the fat, funny drama kid with a perfect brother who was popular and captain of the first 11. Not really what was expected of a son. Not sporty enough, not quiet enough, not straight enough - though I didn't have the words for that yet.

So I did what a lot of gay kids do. I learned to read the room and become whatever it needed. If being funny kept people close, I'd be the funniest person in it. If being loud meant nobody could ignore me, I'd be the loudest. If achieving things earned approval, I'd achieve everything I could get my hands on.

I became a lawyer. Partly because I was good at arguing. Mostly because my parents would be proud. I collected qualifications, accolades, and the kind of CV that made people nod and say 'well done.' I performed my way through school, through university, through my career, through coming out, through every room I walked into.

And it worked. On paper, I was smashing it.

Underneath, I was drowning.

60 Kilos Of Armour

My body told the story my mouth never would. I ate my feelings for years. Food was comfort, reward, punishment, and anaesthetic all at once. By the time I was nearly 30, I was carrying over 60 kilos of extra weight - I was 134kg.

I knew it wasn't just about food. It was about what the food was doing for me - numbing the anxiety, filling the emptiness, giving me something to control when everything else felt chaotic. But knowing that didn't stop me reaching for it. Understanding your patterns and actually changing them are two very different things.

I tried diets. F*ck me, I tried diets. Every plan going. I'd lose weight, feel momentarily better, then put it all back on because nothing underneath had changed. I was treating the symptom while the cause sat untouched.

The weight wasn't the problem. The weight was the protection. And until I understood what I was protecting myself from, no amount of calorie counting was going to shift it permanently.

Flipping The Script

In 2009, I’d had enough and I dropped 60 kilos. For the first time in my life, I had a body I didn't want to hide. I fell in love with training - the discipline, the progress, the way it made me feel capable rather than broken. I became a personal trainer because I wanted to help other people feel what I was feeling.

But I also knew that muscle alone wasn't going to cut it. I'd changed my body, but the man inside it was still running the same old software. Still seeking approval. Still performing. Still measuring his worth by what other people thought of him.

So I trained as a life and performance coach. Because the physical transformation had shown me something important: the body is the starting point, not the finish line. Real change - the kind that actually lasts - has to go deeper than the gym and calorie tracking.

I thought I'd cracked it. New body. New career. New confidence. I genuinely believed that becoming thinner meant becoming acceptable. That the outside finally matching some imagined standard meant the inside would follow.

I was wrong.

The Relapse

In 2020, I moved to Sweden. New country. New language. My husband was stuck in the UK and couldn't get back. Then COVID hit and I was completely alone for the first time in my adult life.

And I dealt with it the way I'd always dealt with things. I ate. I numbed. I disappeared into the one coping mechanism I'd never fully dealt with.

Within 18 months, I'd put 30 kilos back on. Right back where I'd started. The shame was unbearable. Not just because of the weight - but because I was supposed to be past this. I was a coach. A trainer. A man who'd already had his transformation. And here I was, hiding in my flat, ordering takeaway at midnight, disgusted with myself.

"Nothing works for me. What's the point?"

"I'm different."

"I've tried everything."

I told myself that story for years. That I was uniquely broken. That the rules didn't apply to me.

But the truth was simpler and harder to face. I'd lost weight before from shame. From desperation. From wanting to be accepted. I'd never built a body, a mind, or a life from a place of actually giving a shit about myself.

The Question That Changed Everything

Who am I when I'm not performing for someone?

That question hit me like a freight train. Because I realised I didn't have an answer. I'd been so busy being the good son, the reliable friend, the impressive professional, the acceptable gay man, that I'd never stopped to ask what I actually wanted. What I actually valued. Who I actually was when the audience left the room.

I'd gone straight from hiding as a kid to performing as an adult. There was no gap in between where I got to figure out who I was. Just decades of shapeshifting, people-pleasing, and building a life designed to earn approval I never actually wanted.

I wasn't failing at life. I was succeeding at the wrong one.

So I started pulling at the thread. Examining what I actually valued versus what I'd inherited. What my body was actually for beyond looking acceptable to other people. What I wanted from my career, my relationships, my future - not what looked good, but what felt true.

And slowly, uncomfortably, honestly - the performed identity started coming apart. What was underneath was someone I actually liked.

The Man I Am Now

I'm a coach who's lived every pattern I help my clients break. The weight gain. The shame. The performing. The people-pleasing. The slow disappearance into a life built for everyone else.

I'm also a qualified lawyer who still works at a huge international company in Sweden - it’s important to me that my clients know that I get it, I have career demands like them, and I’m not pretending to be some guru who floats above it all. I know what it's like to balance a career, a relationship, and the ongoing work of becoming yourself. I'm not coaching from the top of a mountain. I'm coaching from the middle of it.

I'm a gay man in my 40s who's finally stopped apologising for taking up space. Who's built a body he's proud of - not just because it looks a certain way, but because it's strong, capable, and actually his. Who's found his voice after decades of moderating it for other people's comfort.

My struggles gave me more than scars. They gave me empathy, courage, and a fire to connect with people on a level that surface-level coaching never reaches. They gave me the confidence to lean into who I really am - unapologetically loud, unashamedly visible, the man who can own a stage in front of thousands and still get emotional talking about what this work means to him.

I rewrote my story. I made myself undeniable. And now I help other men do the same.