There's THE photo for me. At a bowling alley with my family. I'm smiling, having a blast around 126kg, and I remember looking at it afterwards and knowing there was nothing behind the smile deep down. I hope I never have to see that photo EVER again realistically! You've got one of those photos too. The work do, the holiday, the one your partner took on the beach. It's the one you never posted & never showed ANYONE.
Day to day, despite me being at my largest, my life at that weight was small. Get up late, hardly move, Xbox until the light went, shit person to be around and not much daylight in between.
The most exercise I got was the walk to the pub (80% of that was the cab), where I'd sink eight to ten pints, then a takeaway on the way home. Vegetables & fruit… who were they. Does a dark fruits count?!
Simply put, I was unfulfilled doing anything & had no purpose behind my life. I was out of breath doing anything my old self found easy, I was scared of the gym due to judgement from everyone else, and I hated having my photo taken.
Effort was never the problem
I wasn't always that bloke. At 16 I had trials at Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, Cambridge United and Yeovil Town. I had the ability, I worked harder than most, and even then I was overweight, and the weight wouldn't shift no matter how hard I tried to diet.
Some of the best nutritionists in the world were a corridor away. Knowledge was everywhere I went. None of it stuck, because the real issue wasn't in the food, and nobody, me included, was looking at it.
Effort was never my problem, and information wasn't either. I'd bet the same is true of you. You've built a career on turning up when it's hard. You run a team, a business, a home, and none of it runs itself.
You've read the articles and you know what a good week looks like. The scales are the one place where all of that graft and all of that knowing hasn't paid out, and it does your head in.
Then football ended, I went to uni, I stopped moving altogether & the spiral began!
The fork in the road
By then I was scraping through university and blaming everyone but myself for it. No job, no direction, and a life I'd have struggled to call a life.
I was alive but not living.
One evening I looked at Molly after looking at myself in the mirror topless and the thought landed fully formed: if I don't change, I'm going to wreck her future and the family we hadn't even started yet, and it'll be my fault. I wasn't prepared to be the reason for that.
Yours will be a different room and a different face. The kids at sports day. The suit for the wedding. The number the GP read out. Same thought, though. Same fork.
What finally made it stick
I ended up losing 100lb. It took years, not weeks, and the thing which finally made it stick had nothing to do with restriction.
It was learning what to do on the bad night, and what to say to myself the morning after.
I've kept it off for over eight years. Since then I've run the London Marathon and a 100km ultra for Mind, a charity close to my family.
126kg to here. Over 100 lbs lost, and kept off for more than eight years.
100lblost
8+ yearskept off
120+members coached
100kmultra for Mind
The person I keep meeting
On January 1st 2022 I took the leap to make a change in the coaching industry & went self-employed, and Coached By Keevil opened its doors. Five years and over 120+ transformational members later, the person I keep meeting is the one I was at that bowling alley, twenty years on and with more to lose.
Good at his job. Kids at home who want him on the trampoline, not on the bench. A partner who has watched him start again more times than either of them count and probably will shrug off you saying this time is different. A diary with no gaps in it, and a snack drawer at 9pm he keeps losing to.
The London Marathon — most races raise money for Mind.
I've got an MSc from the University of Birmingham, I'm a Level 4 Transformational Coach, and I was named Lifestyle Coach of the Year for 2026/27. I also still have three coaches of my own, because I don't trust anyone with a plan for you who hasn't got one for themselves.
Qualifications
Lifestyle Coach of the Year2026/27, Prestige Awards
Amplifier Elite Member of the Year2025
MScUniversity of Birmingham
Level 4Transformational Coach
Origym Level 3Personal Trainer
EIQ CertifiedNutritionist
Amplifier Elite Member of the Year 2025, with Lewis Potts.
I'll be straight about one thing. I wasn't a dad of two with a business to run when I was at my heaviest. I was a student with an Xbox and a local. The trap was identical.
Knowing exactly what to do, not doing it, and then hating myself for the gap between the two.
I sat in it for years. I know how it talks to you late at night, and I know what gets you out.
More than the weight
Most people message expecting a laugh and a good chat, and they get one. What surprises them is how much I care about the rest of it. Your head, your sleep, your stress, how you're doing as a person. The weight is one part of it.
James put it better than I ever have, on our first ever call, before his first marathon & losing 2 stone: "You're a dickhead, but a funny dickhead, a knowledgeable one, and one that's going to take me to where I want to be in life." I'll take that.
Away from the coaching, I'm a carer, it means I know from the inside what a stressful, time-poor week feels like. I hate coffee and run on Monster Ultras.
I'm a Pokémon nerd (Squirtle is the goat, obviously), a WWE fan, a mythology geek, and a board game with my wife beats most things on the telly.
If any of this sounded like you, the photo, the pints, the effort which never turned into results, book a call. You tell me where you're at, I tell you straight whether this is right for you. If it isn't, I'll point you somewhere better.
