What previous FFIT participants say about the programme
Here's what some of the men who took part in the 2010/2011 programmes thought...
"The group really bonded very quickly, and I think that’s partly down to the coaches because they included everybody and everything. But also everybody has got a similar interest, we’re all round about the same age and all there for the same thing, so that helped us."
"I feel a hundred times better. I mean, I always knew I had the fitness in me it, it was just getting it out of me was the problem! I'd had a couple of years doing nothing, being a couch potato and just piling the pounds on eating. It’s been a total plus in my life, it’s been absolutely brilliant."
"I certainly found the difference with the walking. When I was going up hills to start with I was getting out of breath and struggling. But at the other end of the programme I wasn’t finding any problems, you know. So it certainly benefited me directly that way, fitness-wise and stamina-wise."
"The course itself was fantastic as well as the venue for it and this gave me the motivation to do well on the course. Having people who were on the course for the same reasons as me was also a good thing as we all worked off each other. I lost just under a stone in my time on the course and would recommend it to anyone."
Stewart McIntosh
Dear FFIT team - I just wanted to let you know that since I started the FFIT course at St. Mirren in January 2011 I have lost 30 pounds and I am feeling brilliant.
I am also training to run the Glasgow half marathon on the 4 September for charity, which also coincides with my 60th birthday.
It will be a major achievement for me if I can finish this race. *It just shows how a healthy lifestyle of eating and walking really works.*
Alistair Brown, Kilmarnock FFIT, Age 58 years
Lost 7kg/15.4 pounds (6.2% of start weight)
"My weight had been creeping up and up, and I tried to tie my laces one day and I nearly killed myself. A medical check through work had recommended a council-run programme to me, but I just didn’t fancy it. FFIT ticked all the boxes. It wasn’t a diet class and it was all guys with the same interests - all jelly bellies and fans of the Club.
The programme made me think maybe I can do things a wee bit differently. Our group are now meeting ourselves once a week at the local gym. I’m still doing my walking and I am eating far less junk, but there’s still a lot of scope to improve, so hopefully I’ll carry on taking it that wee bit further every week."
Charles Smith, Hearts FFIT, Age 55 years
Lost 12.8 kg/28.2 pounds (8.8% of start weight)
"I'd battled my weight for years with some success when I was younger, but in the last 3 years I'd let myself get to the worst I have ever been. My son died of leukaemia in 2008 and, having always been into comfort eating, I just saw my weight rise and rise to the point where I didn't believe I could get the better of it any more. A friend told me about FFIT and I thought "Well, okay I'll give it a go", because of the link with the Club, the fact that it was all men, and we were all in the same boat weight and fitness wise.
I always said I ate all the right things, but I ate all the wrong things as well, and I've managed for most part to cut out the wrong things and also to eat less of the good things. It's just getting that first step on the ladder, thinking "Oh I’ve lost a few pounds, I can do this".
It becomes second nature, you get to know without thinking too hard what you should and shouldn't eat, and how far you need to walk on a daily basis. I've signed up for the Maggie Monster Bike and Hike in Fort William next month. You do a 30 mile cycle followed by an 8 mile hike. If you had told me this time last year I would be doing something like this now, I would have said you were completely nuts!"
BBC reporter Paul Bradley lost over a stone during his time on FFIT. Here’s how he did it...
