Neil Isaacson

When 46 year old Neil Hendon, North West London realised he was overweight and struggled to run 100 yards he knew it was time for a change. Having done no sport or activity at all since leaving school he knew that when a friend of his who worked for a charity and asked him to run a marathon for him it wasn’t going to be easy. Although completely the wrong shape, Neil decided to give it a go. He also did a couple of triathlons for charity and even though he was the second to last finisher at one of them he never gave up his goal.

However he still found himself overweight at 16 and a half stone, and wasn’t really losing any weight. As his blood pressure was still very high, he decided to take a visit to his doctor who put him on the weight loss pill – alli – he felt better in himself and gradually started to lose weight. This gave him the extra incentive he needed to get fitter and he joined a gym and did some classes.

He became aware that he didn’t really know what he was doing in terms of exercising and training – and started to feel that he’d like to learn a little more. He also hated the gym. Working full time, managing his own wine importing and distributing business. He felt increasingly as if it was running him. And his blood pressure was continuing to rise with the stress levels.

So Neil decided to take action. He enrolled on the Lifetime Level 2 course to increase his knowledge of how he should be training. He was surprised, and pleased, to discover that at 45, he wasn’t the oldest on the course. However, at times he felt distinctly out of his depth and felt that the others on the course had a distinct advantage over him with their experience from the gym. He found the course instructors were extremely good and he also learnt a lot from the others on the course. He managed to juggle his studying with his work. After learning a bit more on his level 2, he decided that he’d like to know more, so he signed up for his PT level 3.

At this point he was becoming more and more frustrated with the pressures of work. His business had been on the market for a year and a half (which he eventually sold). Although this gave him a nice lump sum, with 5 children and a wife to support, he clearly needed to find a new income stream.

After thinking about what he might like to do, he decided to try turning his hobby into a business ie fitness instructing and personal training. He thought it would be great to use his hobby as a form of income as he loves being out in the fresh air and being outdoors.

He left his business completely in October 2008 and began working as a PT. He has started to build up his client base. Whilst doing this, he stumbled upon a lucrative spin off – parents concerned about their overweight children were asking him to train them.

So he started doing one to one training with children – but then he decided that because this is slightly intimidating it might be better to move the training into groups and he launched a club – ‘Circuits for Kids’.

So Neil now trains various groups of children once a week – 8-10 year boys, 10-13 year boys and 14+ boys. He has also teamed up with a female trainer who teaches parallel girl groups. He has really tapped into the child fitness market and also goes into schools a couple of times a week to teach pupils. 

Neil feels that his life has been transformed since doing the courses with Lifetime. His work/life balance is much healthier and he has plenty of time now to spend with the children.

Also personally he is much fitter and healthier than he’s ever been in his life. He has now lost 2 and half stone and is under 14 stone. Moreover, he’s now come off all his blood pressure and weight loss tablets. He feels that since first helping out a charity, he has now come full circle and it’s now led to him helping himself.

One of Neil’s first clients could barely walk when he came to Neil, as he was so unfit and overweight. His goal was to be able to dance at his daughter’s wedding in three months time. With Neil’s help he managed to achieve this and he even ended up tightening his belt a notch. So not only is he helping people in a similar situation to him, but he is ultimately leading a healthier lifestyle and enjoying a rewarding career that he loves!