{"id":38574,"date":"2025-12-22T01:52:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T01:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=38574"},"modified":"2025-12-22T01:52:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T01:52:06","slug":"joe-wicks-success-is-having-nice-food-and-the-heat-and-gas-on-things-i-didnt-experience-as-a-kid-joe-wicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=38574","title":{"rendered":"Joe Wicks: \u2018Success is having nice food, and the heat and gas on \u2013 things I didn\u2019t experience as a kid\u2019 | Joe Wicks"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Joe Wicks in 1987 and 2025. Later photograph: Simon Webb\/The Guardian. Styling: Andie Redman. Grooming: Jo McKenna. Archive photograph: courtesy of Joe Wicks<\/span>Joe Wicks in 1987 and 2025<\/span><\/p>\n

Born in Epsom in 1985, Joe Wicks is a health and fitness coach and author. He studied sports science at St Mary\u2019s University and\u00a0started posting recipes and workouts on social media in 2014, while working as a personal trainer. His Lean in 15 videos went viral, leading to a bestselling publishing career. During the pandemic, Wicks hosted daily livestreamed PE lessons, raised more than \u00a31m for charity and earned an MBE. His 13th book, Protein\u00a0In 15, is out now.<\/p>\n

I was always covered in food as a kid<\/strong> \u2013 a real messy eater. This was probably readymade spaghetti from a tin. Our family didn\u2019t have the greatest diet \u2013 we were on benefits, a lot of our money went on Dad\u2019s heroin addiction, and Mum was young and didn\u2019t know much about nutrition.<\/p>\n

Mum left home at 15 and was living in a squat when she met Dad. They had my older brother, Nikki, when she was 17. A year and a half later, I came along. We lived in a one-bedroom council flat in Epsom, and I was straight on formula milk and weaned on pre-made jars. As I grew up, my diet consisted of ultra-processed foods like potato waffles, baked beans, spaghetti hoops, crispy pancakes and frozen pies. There wasn\u2019t a lot of fruit and veg at home, but I had unlimited access to a cupboard full of chocolate, crisps, Iced\u00a0Gems and Wagon Wheels. I would raid it as soon as I came in from school. Even as an adult, I really struggle to eat junk food in moderation.<\/p>\n

I was definitely an anxious little kid. As well as Dad\u2019s addiction, Mum had her own mental health issues \u2013 eating disorders, anxiety and OCD. We\u00a0had a very clean house \u2013 it was like an Ikea showroom. She was strict about everything \u2013 I\u2019d get told off if I\u00a0didn\u2019t put my shoes in the cupboard or hadn\u2019t made my bed in the morning. It felt like most days I\u2019d come in from school and she would be deep-cleaning the cupboards. I wasn\u2019t allowed to make much noise and there weren\u2019t any sleepovers or birthday parties at ours. I was quite on edge, and me and Mum would row a lot.<\/p>\n

At school I was hyperactive, loud, very cocky, always swearing, screaming, shouting; generally climbing the walls and looking for attention. I don\u2019t know if it was my diet, or how my brain was wired, but I\u00a0was useless when it came to academic subjects like maths, English and science. Unless it was technology or\u00a0PE\u00a0I was a pain in the arse. There were a lot of detentions.<\/p>\n

My teen years were the hardest<\/strong> \u2013 that was when I started acknowledging the\u00a0reality of my family situation. I\u00a0could tell when Dad was relapsing and felt let down every time he\u2019d disappear or lie. I worried it was going to go on for ever; that he would never get clean. Puberty was also the time I realised movement helped me process what I was feeling. I used to run two miles to school. I would turn up sweating, but I didn\u2019t care as it was my release. Nobody talked about mental health back then, but I knew I was calmer once I\u2019d done some exercise.<\/p>\n

My childhood definitely shaped my\u00a0approach to drinking and drugs \u2013 I\u00a0was really worried that it was going to affect me in a similar way as Dad. Thankfully, it didn\u2019t, but it has made my attachment style quite anxious. I\u00a0was never single, because I always wanted the security of being in a relationship. I loved feeling close to\u00a0somebody.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s my biggest fear, losing my family. I don\u2019t want to realise I\u2019ve spent too much of my life distracted by work<\/p>\n

I started running boot camps in my\u00a0mid-20s. I was determined to be my\u00a0own boss, and I didn\u2019t want to work in a leisure centre for\u00a0a tenner an hour. At the time, I was living at my dad\u2019s flat in Surbiton and would leave the house at 5.15am to get to Richmond. Some mornings I\u2019d set up; it would be freezing and raining and not a single person would arrive. But it didn\u2019t put me off. I\u2019d show up every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 6am. I always had this positive voice\u00a0in my head that kept saying: \u201cKeep going and someone will come next week. The week after they might bring a friend.\u201d Eventually it became a\u00a0decent business. At its peak I was earning \u00a31,000 a month.<\/p>\n

I was 25, happy and pursuing something I loved. Then: boom! Social\u00a0media came along and my career turned into something bigger. My intention was never to be an influencer, but by 2014 I had 50,000 followers on Instagram. That\u2019s when a publisher reached out and said: \u201cI love what you\u2019re doing and I really believe you could do a great book.\u201d I didn\u2019t have any confidence that I could be a\u00a0successful author \u2013 especially considering what I was like at school \u2013 so I was amazed when Lean in 15 ended up selling 1.4m copies.<\/p>\n

The week that lockdown was announced, I was supposed to go on\u00a0a\u00a0tour of schools in the UK. I was chatting to my brother Nikki and said:\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve got an idea. I\u2019m going to do\u00a0a\u00a0live workout on YouTube on Monday and I\u2019ll call it PE With Joe.\u201d A\u00a0few days before I was due to go live, I\u00a0was on my motorbike and smashed into a brick wall. I broke my hand. Even though I had a brace on, I had to\u00a0see PE With Joe through. The first workout had nearly a million live connections. From then on, I did it every day, without fail, even though sometimes I was exhausted and I wanted a day off.<\/p>\n

Now, success to me<\/strong> is stability and connections.<\/strong> Having nice food, and the heat and gas on; the things that I\u00a0didn\u2019t experience as a kid. I want to be an honest, loyal husband. I used to\u00a0think that I would never get married as all I\u2019d ever seen growing up was divorce and affairs. But everything changed when I met Rosie.<\/p>\n

Being a good dad is my main focus, too. With four kids, life can be exhausting. Recently I\u2019ve started going to bed at 9pm, which means I wake up naturally at 5am and I\u2019m energised. I can do my workout before the kids are up. Getting ready doesn\u2019t take long \u2013 I don\u2019t put any products in my hair, just coconut oil on my skin and a bit of chamomile conditioner. Then after 7am, it\u2019s full-on until bedtime. The kids don\u2019t stop talking, asking questions, especially as we\u2019re home schooling them.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve done a lot of healing when it comes to my relationship with my parents. They are separated, so I spend time with them individually, but I am very conscious that one day they will be gone and I don\u2019t want to have any regrets. I am probably quite needy, but I am always trying to pull them aside and saying: \u201cCome on, let\u2019s hang out and create a memory.\u201d It\u2019s my biggest fear, losing my family. I don\u2019t want to realise I\u2019ve spent too much of my life distracted by work, and that I\u2019ve run out of time.<\/p>\n

When I look at that picture, I think about the care and love a kid needs, and what a chaotic house I grew up in. But my memories of that time aren\u2019t of sadness and misery; it was normality. I now have a better understanding of everything my parents were going through. I know addiction wasn\u2019t a choice for Dad, and Mum has been on her own journey, too. She can even cook now \u2013 because she\u2019s got all of my books!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joe Wicks in 1987 and 2025. Later photograph: Simon Webb\/The Guardian. Styling: Andie Redman. Grooming: Jo McKenna. Archive photograph: courtesy of Joe WicksJoe Wicks in 1987 and 2025 Born in Epsom in 1985, Joe Wicks is a health and fitness coach and author. He studied sports science at St Mary\u2019s University and\u00a0started posting recipes and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[211,9135,1725,867,104,7042,5957,1448,873,15818],"class_list":{"0":"post-38574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-didnt","9":"tag-experience","10":"tag-food","11":"tag-gas","12":"tag-heat","13":"tag-joe","14":"tag-kid","15":"tag-nice","16":"tag-success","17":"tag-wicks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}