"Hovering around 15 stone, I feel clumsy and lumbering compared to the steady 11 stone I was from my teens to my mid-40s." Photo / Towfiqu barbhuiya, Unsplash
OPINION:
It's strange but true that among the earliest beneficiaries of political correctness were fatties. As early as 1970, for example, long before we started being kind and "inclusive" to some of the more niche groups in society, the Billy Bunter children's books – comedies about a corpulent, greedy public schoolboy – started being banned from public libraries for making fun of overweight children. More than 50 years later, despite two-thirds of the adult population being overweight or obese, it's still taboo to say someone is too fat. I write, I should say, as one of the porky community, so I think I have a licence to offend myself.
But I've finally met a man to give me, and the rest of us who need to lose a couple of stone, hope of doing so, and also "getting into shape" – meaning a shape other than the one we already have. It's evident within five minutes in the company of David Higgins, an easy-going 39-year-old Australian, how he has got stars fighting for the privilege of paying him huge sums to train them up.
He simplifies attaining a "Hollywood body", as he calls the ideal shape for someone who's not an actual athlete. At the same time he's so nice and non-judgmental that you're happy to do as you're told. Accordingly, A-listers like Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Firth, Margot Robbie and Claudia Schiffer are fans of the Higgins methods. He helped David Harbour, husband of singer Lily Allen, lose a spectacular 80 pounds (36 kilograms) to play an emaciated prisoner in Stranger Things.
Higgins – Higgo to the celebrity classes – is a classic laid-back Aussie and therein may lie his popularity and success. As many Telegraph readers pointed out when my colleague Mark Bailey interviewed him earlier this year, the stuff he teaches is no big secret. Like every successful politician, though, Higgo is all about simplicity of message and presentation. After two sessions and an hour listening to him, his methods and maxims have stuck with me in a way no other exercise guru has managed.
After a month, I am almost a stone (6kg) lighter, feeling better and moving better. My posture is improved and I am able in minutes to rid myself of the everyday aches and pains that are seemingly unavoidable once you get past 50.
Higgins has three key maxims. 1. It's not too late to get into better shape, even if you're a desk worker rather than a natural athlete. 2 Getting in better shape is easier than you think – just do a little and often. 3 "Put down the bloody fork, mate." Even by blunt Aussie standards, number three is an inspirational aphorism of rare vividness. From my experience, it's all you need to keep focused.
"People overcomplicate this thing so much," says Higgins. "Sleep well, move a lot, eat well. Repeat. This was the way we were supposed to be before our bodies adapted to the poisonous combination of a high-stress lifestyle and chronic stillness. But it's about people moving, and moving better, and finding the kind of exercise that is most beneficial to you to treat and prevent the aches and pains that chip away at so many people's health and happiness."
Higgins asks what my aims are. Primarily it's to have a chance of living longer. Hovering around 15 stone (95kg), I feel clumsy and lumbering compared to the steady 11 stone I was from my teens to my mid-40s. "Wanting to see your grandkids grow up is a significant reason," he says. "Most people make a choice between living a longer, happier life, or dying early and living a fast one. The problem is that no one really changes their eating pattern from when they were 15, and you just can't continue eating like a growing teenager and hope to remain healthy."
So to food: Higgins (a former Aussie Rules player who dropped out of contact sport after an injury) follows the well-known 16:8 diet that recommends telescoping all your eating into 8 hours of the day. "Any kind of restricted eating is going to work," Higgo says. "All it means is just don't have breakfast. And if you find that easy, my tip is to close the window down. So do 18:6 and if that works, take it down to 20:4."
Subsequently, I try the 20:4 option for three or four days a week – effectively having one sizeable meal each 24 hours. Although it makes the days a little featureless and boring for someone who loves their food, it works well, ensuring a pound-a-day drop on the fast days.
"David Harbour has been incredible, he just locks in and does it," he says. "Most people don't have that kind of discipline. But some measures which are drastic, but by no means impossible, do reliably pay off."
So what, I wondered, is really the role of exercise? "It's fair to say that exercise alone is not enough," he says. "The reality is it's neither one or the other. What's needed is an education across both. And not only that. Even if you're reducing the food you're eating and working out, then there are these things like postural dysfunctions you're going to have to iron out. It's a code that needs unlocking to find what you need to do and then maintain that. Then as long as you're consistent enough, you'll get there."
So, to our workout. Higgins starts with a tactful assessment of me. "Your neck, head and shoulders are quite tight and rounded, which is basic laptop syndrome, and your lower back may be in pain," he says. "Your knees may also be a bit funny and those hips look super tight." He takes pains to emphasise any positives, complimenting my legs and buttocks, while steering diplomatically clear of my stomach. "Those calves are really quite impressive, too." (My daughters refer to my weirdly over-muscular calves as cows.)
The Pilates routines are unfamiliar but not hard, although I am puffing and panting a little. We do a lot with a vibrating foam roller, a piece of equipment I have now bought for £59 (NZ$115). In the gym, Higgins uses it for what he calls "trigger-point hunting" – looking for sore spots in the bottom and back, then essentially rollering them out of pain. This now works as well at home too. Then we move to a more specialist piece of equipment, the Pilates reformer, a resistance-based machine that looks like a torture rack. It's not – I found it rather enjoyable.
Next came a spot of extension on a floor mat – meaning mobilising the spine. "I know you haven't really felt anything like this for a while," says Higgins. The exercise was like starting as a tightly rolled mat and unrolling yourself. Not exactly pleasant, but not too bad.
There were exercises with a Pilates ring, like a child's toy steering wheel, to "recruit my abdominals". In other positions, I feel like a turkey trussed up for the oven. Later, a floor exercise – "the floppy octopus" – makes me feel like a horizontal doner kebab. "Rotation is the most important movement in our bodies and we don't do enough of it," Higgins explains as I struggle on the mat.
But, on the whole, getting in shape the Higgo way is almost enjoyable. "I focus on the easy wins," he says as we wind down. Which, funnily enough, has been my preferred way of doing things most of my life.
"It sounds weird," says Higgins as we part, "but in a way my job is to put myself out of business." Fat chance of that ever happening.
• The Hollywood Body Plan, by David Higgins, Headline Publishing
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