Loughborough fresher loses eight stone and is now training to be a fitness instructor

21-year-old Olly Jagus always wanted to study Sports Science but felt his weight held him back.

At school, he was 21 stone with a 44″ waist. After sixth form he started an Art foundation course and looked set to apply for architecture. But then everything changed.

He decided to transform his life, shed an incredible nine stone in as many months and enrolled on Lufbra’s prestigious Sport and Exercise Science course.

After months of dedication and self-control, Olly is now living the life he always wanted to live.

We sat down with Olly, who commutes from home in Chesterfield, to ask what inspired his transformation and how he did it.

Olly transformed his life in less than 9 months

Hey Olly, did you always want to study Sports Science?

I wanted to do it but I didn’t want to go to uni being he weight I was. Plus I didn’t have the right A-Levels after studying Art, Maths and English. I then enrolled on an Art foundation course with a view to do architecture afterwards. But my heart wasn’t really in it. I knew I was running out time, and thought I can’t keep living my life in a way I didn’t wanted to. I felt like I wasn’t achieving anything.

Was there a moment when you realised you had to lose the weight? Did you try in the past?

I put on a lot of weight after my mum passed away after my GCSEs through stress-eating. But it got to a point where I couldn’t carry on. I thought I had to start living a little bit more. I was trying to diet years before that. I wasn’t good at sport. The bigger you are the less active you are in sport, so you end up getting even bigger. Because you’re not actively involving yourself you don’t improve. It was too late to get involved with sport at school so I had to find another way and turned to the gym.

So how did you go about losing the weight? Did you have a rigorous routine?

In my head I had an image of myself being thinner and always imagined it would happen. I was then ready to do it. I started off at 21 stone and my jeans were a size 44″. The first couple of weeks were really tough when I started going down to the gym five times a week. I could barely move. I did sessions on my own and with a personal trainer.

It can be intimidating going to the gym as a big guy – especially when everyone around you is so hench. But I got my head down and was losing a stone a month. It was consistently going down. I worked out hard for eight months overall. I actually did it too much and got a little bit too thin. I didn’t eat enough and dropped to 12 and a half stone before moving back up to 14 with 32″ waist now.

That’s an incredible achievement. You must be very proud. Where did you go from there?

I then had the confidence to get a job. Before I was to embarrassed but I have a new sense of purpose and confidence. I worked in a gym until I came to Loughborough, and I now study Sports and Exercise Science alongside two other courses: Level 3 personal training and a nutrition course.

You’ve really turned it around. Do you ever feel tempted to get back into old habits?

I like cooking and always have. I think it’s important for people to get educated about what they eat. A lot of diets don’t work and they get confused. But losing weight isn’t as daunting as people think it is. When I was 21 stone I never thought I would get down to my weight now.

But, really, I don’t care about the numerical value now. I’m more bothered about how I look in the mirror and how I feel. People forget that losing weight is a science. You may have an emotional attachment to weight, but the process of losing it is scientific: you have to burn more calories than you take in. The idea is simple but process is hard because of how it’s tied to psychological issues.

But the hard work is all in your head. Once you tell yourself can do it, everything becomes a matter of focused work and dedication – that’s the easy part. It’s literally about mind over matter. I did it, and so can anyone else.