My Story

Let's go back to the age of 4. This is where I first learned, how important it is to be kind & not only that but understood at such a young age no matter who you are, we all have things going on in our lives which will be completely oblivious to another - and for that reason, it is always important to be kind.

When I was growing up in the UK, I was fortunate to have a loving mother, however, our family was riddled with extremely dangerous living conditions, I did not know my father nor much more information about my childhood. As a kid, being exposed to such a lifestyle I was taken away & adopted into a new family.

Before adoption, I was taken into foster care for a few months, upwards of a year or so, moved around plenty of schools & different families. It's very cliché to say, but your past does not define you, nor would I let my upbringing define my future.

From these experiences, it has been installed inside of me to always;

1. Be kind to everyone, even those who are not kind back.
2. Try to view every conversation & interaction from the opposing person's perspective & understand with compassion.
3. Equality & the opportunity to live life the way you want is not always going to be accessible to everyone, it was almost not for me. So utilizing what you have is the most valuable thing you can do, instead of always wanting more. With access to the internet, reading this we are already far more privileged than a lot of the world, so what is stopping you?

There are many more stories & learning curves I could write, but that's for another blog.

From there, I have been active ever since, potentially too many sports! Looking back, I guess sport was one of the most impactful reasons why my childhood was so great in the end. I found something I loved, that made me happier than anything in the world. I guess I turned out pretty alright & things could have been a lot worse if I hadn't found an avenue to take my mind off circumstances going on in my life at the time.

The reason I say "too active" is because I often played football every waking second, ran most days, and did every sports club imaginable. This equated to an unprecedented amount of hours each week, doing what I loved. However, this leads to my biggest insecurity ever.

My weight.

Despite eating tonnes of pasts & lovely home-cooked meals from my amazing personal chef, my dad - the energy I expended per day was far superior. You see, to gain weight we need to be in a caloric surplus, which means we are consuming more calories per day than we burn through our daily activities which include, breathing, sleeping, digestion, your activity & more. We call this our total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). To lose weight, it is vice versa & to maintain your weight, you guessed it, equal on both sides! (We consume the same energy as we use per day)

Underweight at 55kg & just shy of 6 ft - at age 17 led me to seriously contemplate who I was. Despite it not directly leading to any sort of bullying, I did feel self-conscious swimming or even taking my shirt off at beaches & pools.

Looking back I cared way too much about what people thought & this is what knocked my self-esteem in the first place, distracted me from what I loved, my sports & instead led me down a new path.

At age 18 I got bullied for the first time, not because of my acne, weight, or appearance, but for no reason whatsoever. I know their names, in-fact one of them the previous week was probably my best friend ever - not sure what happened for that to change so drastically and so quickly. Regardless, I felt at my lowest point ever & it affected me greatly. Not only that but discovering and hiding who I was added to the equation of losing myself. I had zero confidence and no way of sticking up for myself.

So, I joined the local gym. Finally discovered something that made me grow into the person I was destined to become. Training towards a goal, achieving it, and going one more built back the confidence I had lost in school, gave me direction to the person I wanted to be ( A personal trainer) & best of all, I started to make friends who were interested in the same hobbies as I at the gym too!

If you've followed my journey on social media over the past few years, you can see how the 4 years after have turned out, which has been documented on my YouTube & Instagram accounts. This leads us to the present time, right now…

I want to show people how to believe again, this is all it takes to change your life.

I want you to know just how one decision can alter the path you are to take forever.

I want you to live a more fulfilling life, take accountability for who you are destined to become & unleash who you are to the world.

Now, you don't have to believe in yourself yet, but what you do have to do is take that first step & never give up.

Thanks for listening to 1% of my journey.

If you'd like to join the journey, I'd love to have you here with us.

Love,
Ant