MAKING A CHANGE to your lifestyle in pursuit of better health takes commitment. Many of us would consider skipping dessert if it might help us drop a few kilos. Many would be willing to add another gym session to their weekly schedule if it means they can get over the hump and bench their body weight. Many would push for an extra run per week if it results in increased endurance.
None of these decisions are very easy to make, but they won’t turn our lives upside down either. Now consider what it would take for you to make a wholesale change; a completely reworked diet, a brand new fitness routine, a total overhaul. To do so requires more than commitment. What it does require is something intangible that we can’t quite put our finger on. But whatever it is, Will Pattinson has it.
The 29-year-old Pattinson is originally from Orange, New South Wales, and now lives in London. He has completely turned his life around by going from 130kg to 82.5kg in just 60 weeks. Now, with a new lease on life, he’s still pushing to better himself and inspire others.
Here, Pattinson recaps his journey to this point and explains how he brought himself back from the brink.
Growing up, I always had a love of sport. I was quite a sporty and hyperactive kid, and I would play a lot of different sports. In Year 7, I moved to a boarding school, and I was very homesick for a year or two. I started to drink on weekends – not a hell of a lot, but a little bit here and there – and then things started to get progressively worse over the years. I was a really good rower until I got to Year 10, and then things fell apart. I was drinking most weekends and my fitness started to suffer.
Gradually, my life began to spiral out of control. Things got worse and worse over the years, leading to addictions with alcohol and substances. It basically took over my life for about 10 years. It was a roller-coaster vortex of not being able to focus on anything meaningful other than the magnetic pull of living for the weekends, when I’d constantly soak myself with alcohol and drugs.
I was a massive binge drinker. I wouldn’t drink during the week, but then when the weekend came around I would just drink all the time, abuse substances, and not eat. And then once the alcohol binge was over, I would eat junk food and processed crap for the next week to replenish myself. Then the weekends would come around, and the whole vicious circle of copious drinking and starving myself of food would start again. This went on for a good 10 years.
For years, I tried numerous intense diets and fitness programs, but my addictions and poor eating habits held me back. My weight increased progressively over time, and as the drinking and binging got worse and worse, my weight peaked at about 130kg.
That then led to a number of health concerns. I had high blood pressure, sleep apnoea, which put pressure on my insides, anxiety, was on the verge of type 2 diabetes, and had repeated gout flare-ups from excessive drinking and poor lifestyle and food choices. I had a lot of ankle problems, partly from the gout, and partly because I was carrying so much weight.
I saw a number of doctors and health professionals over the years, who were all concerned for my future if I kept living that lifestyle. They were basically saying to me, “If you don’t kick yourself into gear now, you’re going to live a short life.”
I was in a dark place, no doubt about it. I felt lost. I had no purpose. I had no drive or motivation for anything other than the next party and taking each day as it comes. Not being able to move properly in day-to-day life was one of the many low points. At that time, I was only 28 years old and seeing people double my age move better than I was.
To this day, I still don’t know if there was a specific turning point or lightbulb moment. I knew things weren’t right and that I wasn’t well, and when I reflect back over those last 10 years I think how the hell did I let myself get like that? At one point I thought I was bulletproof and could live forever, but then one day, it just clicked into place that I needed to change.
I’d read up about Ultimate Performance and I liked the way they went about things. I didn’t want to try every wacky diet or supplement under the sun, and waste time doing so. Ultimate Performance kept everything nice and simple, from the diet to the training methods. That appealed to me.
When I first walked into U.P. and met Paulo Cutin, my trainer, I remember feeling overwhelmed and embarrassed during my initial measurements and first-day photos. I thought What am I doing here? How the hell did I let myself get to this point? It felt like a huge uphill battle. But in that moment, I made a commitment to myself – I was ready to let go of the alcohol and drugs and finally take charge of my health and fitness. Up until that point, I was suffering from a real lack of confidence – probably mild depression, if I’m honest.
To start with, I was strength training about three times a week, performing high repetitions of exercises. Over time, I increased that to four times a week. For the first eight months of my transformation, I was completely sober. That helped kickstart the whole process and accelerated the weight loss, because I didn’t have all those extra calories going into my body. It also helped me feel a bit clearer in my head.
A typical day during my transformation was very simple in my eyes, especially after getting over the initial hurdles of the first month and making a determined effort to stop drinking. I was in a calorie deficit and eating high-protein, low-carb foods. I cut out all the processed shit and the snacking and eating sweets, and obviously cutting out the alcohol was a huge change. Instead of the booze, I drank a lot of water. I used to be a sucker for flavoured milks and sugary soft drinks, and I cut those out as well. The high-protein foods would satisfy my hunger and keep me full, so very rarely did I need any sugary snacks. I’d have a protein shake instead. And as I saw the excess weight I’d been carrying around starting to fall off, it spurred me on to be consistent with my diet.
It wasn’t always easy. For the first two months there were a few struggles with my diet, and I want to be honest with people reading this that there was a short period of about two months during the transformation where I fell off the wagon a little bit with alcohol. But I did get back on track. I’m 100 per cent in everything I do. When I put my mind to something, I go for it. And so, in terms of my diet, I probably did it to an even more extreme level than my trainer suggested.
At Ultimate Performance, they give you an app to track your food, your macros, your sleep, your step count – everything. And in the beginning I found that very useful to help me stay in a calorie deficit, knowing the precise macros in certain foods, and training my mind to know what to eat and what not to eat. Over time, I’ve now developed a sense of being able to look at food and gauge the macro content.
The weight training was the catalyst for my love of running, but working with Paulo to get my diet under control and stopping the alcohol was at the core of this process. It was the alcohol that would lead me to poor decisions, whether it was binge eating or taking substances or heavily gambling, so stopping drinking was the biggest change.
Running helps me clear my mind of all those negative, impulsive behaviours and negative thoughts. It’s helped me to achieve a complete 180-degree change in my mindset. I’ve done five or six half-marathons now and I run three or four times a week, averaging between 45-50km a week. I’m currently training for the Paris Marathon on April 13th, 2025. A year-and-a-half ago, I couldn’t run 200m, let alone 50km a week.
This experience, and the journey that I am on, has improved my confidence. My energy levels have increased, my motivation is sky-high and I now feel like I have a purpose in life. My health has improved out of sight. From those initial blood tests which showed I had high blood pressure and high blood sugar and was extremely obese – all of those have been reversed.
To go from having to put ice packs on my ankles and not being able to move, to now being able to run half-marathons easily, and averaging 50k a week running, is a great feeling. I feel like I have a brand-new life and that I’m 10 or 15 years younger. I can now move freely, with no handbrake to stop me.
I’m proud of what I’ve achieved, but at the same time, I don’t like to rest on my laurels or look backwards. I can now think outside of the box in terms of opportunities and about things I would never have been able to before, such as starting up my own fitness brand.
I’ve got my own goals, but if I can help other people achieve their goals, that will bring me so much satisfaction, which is why I’m currently starting a new company, called WMP, which are my initials but also stand for ‘Willing. Motivation. Performance.’
It’s going to be a platform with a website and social media with the sort of inspiring content and motivational advice that helped me get through the tough times and come out the other side. I want to inspire and motivate people who might also be struggling like I was, and for me to help them.
My next goal is to run the Paris Marathon in April 2025, which is what I have been training for over the last few months. The drive and motivation I have to accomplish this goal is huge, and hopefully it will inspire as many people as possible that are in the same situation I once was. My mantra is ‘If I keep showing up and putting my mind to it, I can achieve anything’.
If you want to learn more about Will’s journey or are interested in joining his community of inspiration, check out @willing_motivation_performance on Instagram.
