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"I was the fattest personal trainer in Australia"


NAME: SAM TALBOT
HOME: MORLEY, WA
OCCUPATION: SALES EXECUTIVE
AGE: 26
HEIGHT: 196cm

THE GAIN Nobody minds a fat chef, but a chubby personal trainer is as credible as a doctor who smokes. At least that's how Sam Talbot felt when clients didn't sign up for a new program.

"I felt like such a hypocrite," Talbot recalls. "I was preaching about the merits of an active lifestyle, yet inside I was thinking, 'You're not doing these things yourself'."
After hitting 100 kilograms, Talbot became resigned to his excess bulk.

"I just thought, 'What the hell, it doesn't matter' and it just crept up and up until I weighed over 130kg and felt breathless climbing stairs."


THE CHANGE At the beginning of 2007, Talbot resolved to get back into shape. It didn't last. "I lost the plot and the motivation," he recalls.

Talbot's partner pointed out that he was piling on the kilos. Meanwhile, his family found the dichotomy between his puffy physique and his profession amusing. One week after his 25th birthday, last April, Talbot decided to give his health "one more shot".

He devised a gym and cardio regimen which he broke up into six-week cycles to keep it fresh. He also tracked his exercise, diet and weight loss in a written log, which he used to gauge progress and sustain motivation.


THE RESULT Talbot had to lose 15kg before anyone noticed. "But once one person noticed, many others started to, which pushed me forward to bigger and better things and I kept losing," he says.

Talbot goes to the gym six days a week, runs up to 55 kilometres and attends the odd spin class. These days, fitness is something from which he gains more pleasure than profit.

Although no longer a personal trainer, Talbot still works part-time as an aerobics instructor. "Now I can walk around the class and not feel self-conscious about my body."

THE ADVICE Start now. "My biggest regret is that I put it off for a good few years," Talbot reveals. "If I'd got into it sooner, who knows what I might have achieved with my job?"

Keep it interesting. "If you can find new activities that you enjoy and new ways of getting fit, you're more likely to stick with it."