I don’t think I was ever severely out of shape, but I put on weight pretty easy in noticeable areas – my face and thighs mostly. From my late teens, some of my best mates were professional athletes, so I was always a little conscious of how I looked. Instead of eating properly and doing the kind of workouts I do now, I would literally hit the treadmill for over an hour at a time. That led to marathons, long distance triathlon and then ultramarathons, but I’d get fierce sloppy looking between races. You’re so used to carb loading for events, when you cut back on the miles, but not the calories, the pounds soon follow.

When I took up MMA I probably looked my worst. I was about 85kg with huge legs from the running, but no real definition in my upper body. I signed up for a fight and the weight flew off me, ultimately getting my body fat down to 6% for the weigh-in. But even then I wasn’t carrying a huge amount of muscle; I was lean, but far from shredded.

Since then, I’ve hit the weights pretty hard and mixed it up by continuing to train in MMA. I’ve never done any classes in the gym and would generally get my cardio from the 3 mile run there, but there’s no truer indication of my fitness level than when I spar or grapple with the guys in SBG Charlestown. No one gives a sh!t how they look with their tops off, they are there to get rounds in and it always pushes me that bit harder than any gym class ever could.

Right now I hover around 81/82kg and train probably 6 days a week. Some days are obviously more intense than others, but, at 34 my body tells me when I need the break – I’ve just had to learn to listen.

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