You might have missed it, but on the August 26th edition of STV’s Scotland Tonight, we participated in a piece about obesity in Scotland. It kicked off the show and featured one of our newest students, Martin, who is at the beginning of his health and fitness journey.
It all came about when an Assistant Producer, Morag, got in touch via our site to see if we had someone suitable at the start of their health and fitness journey. I instantly thought of Martin and asked if he might be interested in taking part. He was happy to help, and I connected him with Morag.
Filming was arranged to take place on the 6th of August at DMC HQ.
It was really interesting to just sit back and watch a professional TV crew at work, and try to imagine what the final cut would look like. As I’ve learned through our own video production, only about 20% of the footage makes it.
Once Martin had finished his interview, I got an opportunity to be interviewed too.
We were done and dusted in around 2 hours, and I was excited to see what made the final cut when the show airs.
I had no idea that my interview was part of the promo on the 6 o’clock news, I only knew because one of our students saw it. Luckily, STV kindly sent us a copy to watch. Here’s a transcript from my part in the segment:
“Being healthy is not complicated. It’s a pretty simple, straight forward 5-6 step process, but it’s not easy. People need to want to do it to make a change.”
Now if you said to 18-year-old Davie that 45-year-old Davie would be on the telly, he would have guessed, “on Crime Watch?”, not on the news as an authority on health and fitness. It shows how far I’ve come on my own journey.
It was on to the main event, the obesity piece itself at 7.30pm. I thought all of the contributors were brave to share their struggles with weight loss. It was inspiring to listen to their stories. Martin did us proud.
Martin appeared quite a lot in the second half of the segment. Here is what he said:
“I’d go out and play football and things like that. Usually I’m out and about, walking. I was working from home and I was starting to tip into 22-23 stone. That scared me to be honest because that sounds like a real problem”
(When asked about being a new dad)
“When you’re in a place where you don’t have as much time, don’t have as much energy, it’s very very easy to consistently make poor choices. It was a lot of takeaways, a lot of unhealthy food. I don’t think there was anything wrong with that in moderation, but it wasn’t in moderation, it was massive quantities.”
“I think I have always been overweight, and been obese previously. I don’t think I’d ever been morbidly obese which doesn’t sound great, obviously”
(When asked why he made a change)
“Because I felt unhealthy. I could really feel it, even when things started to settle down with my sons sleep, it still felt quite sluggish. Also, I want to set a good example for my son aswell. I think that is important. My son was making better food choices than me… and he was a baby, so I thought that wasn’t a good thing”
(When asked about working out at DMC Fitness)
“I started about 3/4 weeks ago. I feel a bit more mobile already. It’s all about gradual change that are going to build up over time to really significant changes, and that’s exactly what I’m looking for.”
Overall the piece did a good job of highlighting the type 2 diabetes and obesity issues that we have here in Scotland. One particularly shocking statistic from Obesity Action Scotland (March 2021) found that 47% of Scots say they put on weight during lockdown, and 31% say they had more takeaways than before the pandemic.
Hopefully, it has opened some eyes and made viewers think a bit more about their eating and exercise habits. I look forward to seeing if any of our future clients found us through the show to see if it helped influence their decision to fall in love with fitness.
Until next time, “Strength for Life”
Davie
Davie McConnachie
Davie McConnachie is Scotland’s leading health and wellness coach, multi-award-winning gym owner, motivational speaker and the founder of DMC Fitness, a fitness education facility known as the premier choice for 1-2-1 personal training. He has inspired thousands of people to fall in love with fitness – his true purpose and mission in life.
Diving into the world of fitness and wellness has helped Davie to deal with his own trauma and inner demons. He, overcame many dark times using his own unique methods to continue his cycle of healing.