May Member of the Month

Our member of the month is 17 year old Charley, who is truly inspirational. He decided to join Hatfield Leisure Centre as a base to turn his life around and make that change to be the person he inspires to be. Here is Charley’s story…

From a young age, I was always the fat one in the group being picked on for my size throughout my whole life. Lockdown didn’t help either where I reached 113kg. I had tried gym and weight loss before but always tried the most extreme ways such as a calorie deficit of only 1000 calories. Around the time I was in a relationship that ended with me on the receiving end of depression and loneliness and finding it hard to have fun, this continued to until the summer break after year 11, when a friend of mine (Thomas) suggested we’d start gym together and we became the fat and skinny combo.

At first, it was intimidating and embarrassing, so I always wore a hoodie which was noticed by members, I will always remember our first day walking up the stairs and watching members deadlift over 200kg with ease which had us both inspired. Later that day we were both looking up different workouts on how to build muscles effectively and what we should eat. A month had gone past of doing basic exercises I was at 106kg. 6kg down and now the gym is something I look forward to every day and I always think about my friend's progress but never my own until someone talks about it because currently I’m around 79kg and I'm more than happy to walk around with just a shirt on and love training.

My message to anyone trying to change is don't do it for someone else such as a love interest or partner as people and relations change if you truly want to change, do it for yourself and enjoy the pain and peaks within your training.