IN: DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION

“The basic reason I took part in FFIT was I had to do a company CV and they insisted on a photo on the front of it, and when I saw it, I was horrified. I had put on an awful lot of weight. And that was the catalyst. I thought initially it was brilliant, because everything I learnt, I knew nothing about – portion size, labels, everything like that, alcohol. I never even gave alcohol a consideration about calories.

I don’t even know where to start. It’s totally changed my life, altogether, aye, altogether. The most important thing is I’m sleeping a lot, a lot better than I ever was. I’m a lot fitter and I go to the gym two or three times a week, if I can humanly manage it, you know? And Football Fans in Training has changed the way my family eats. I actually said to the girlfriend, I was coming out shopping with her, and she would do the shopping and I was just looking at labels and putting them back on the shelf. Now, we eat a lot more fruit and we all go to the gym.

I lost just under three stone, and fifty centimetres off my waist. The biggest shock was when I went to try my kilt on, it wouldn’t fit. I had to get material taken out of it, the whole thing redone because they couldnae adjust the buckles. The company said it had never happened before, in all their years of making a kilt!”

 

“I had polymyalgia, an arthritic condition about two years before the course, and I was on steroids. I could hardly move my legs at all. And, like in a lot of physical conditions like arthritis I felt I would hurt myself if I actually tried exercise.

I think I was apprehensive to begin with, when I was signing up. And, I thought, “Well I’m not going to keep up with all these people. I might make a fool of myself. Maybe I can’t bend down, or exercise in the same way”. But, very quickly these, these concerns were dispelled. In a way it was going in with a group of like-minded people – we were all in the same boat. Somebody else said, “Oh I’ve got a bad hip, an arthritic hip.” So, then very quickly we got into it, felt welcome, felt part of the group. It was like a locker room type of feeling.

It’s made a big difference in to me physically ‘cause now I sorta aim for at least six to seven thousand steps a day. I’ve lost a couple of stone, two and a half stone now, and, I feel more energy, and mentally I feel fitter and more positive. And I’m using less medication. After the twelve weeks I almost cut what I was taking with anti-inflammatories in half. So I just take something once a day now, and I didn’t have to go back to the arthritic clinic again – within a few weeks of finishing the course they said, “Well, don’t bother coming back.””

 

To hear more from participants in the programme about the positive changes that they have made, go to the page on media coverage or look at our publications.

NEXT: THE TEAM