For men over 50 who know something needs to change
About Marc
Getting out of your own way.
The story behind what I do - and why it matters
WHERE IT STARTED
My mother couldn't — or wouldn't — care for me. I was fostered, and eventually adopted into a family who gave me love, a good life, and a place to belong.
By every measure, I was lucky. And I knew it.
But luck and belonging aren't quite the same thing. Growing up without blood relatives — without a mirror, someone who looks like you, thinks like you, moves through the world the way you do — leaves a gap that's hard to name when you're young. You just feel it. A low hum of not quite fitting. Of being slightly unsure who you are when no one's watching.
THE CLOAK
I got good at covering it up. I played sport. Went to university. Had fun. Worked hard. Built a life — a career I was proud of, a family I loved, a life that looked, and in many ways was, full. But underneath all of it, the voice was still there. You're not quite good enough. You don't really belong here. One day they'll find out.
Imposter syndrome isn't just something that happens to people who are struggling. Sometimes it sits quietly inside people who are doing fine — and it just waits. I know, because that was me.
"My comfort zone hadn't grown with me. It had quietly started to shrink."
Coming into my 50s, I felt something was lacking. I had more to give. I knew it. But knowing something and doing something about it are two very different things — and I'd spent a long time being an expert at the first one.
THE BUSY IDIOT
For a couple of years, I told myself I was working on it.
I had the website. I had the ideas. I was busy — always busy — researching, refining, waiting until it was right. Looking back, I can see exactly what I was doing. I was performing progress without actually making any. Gordon Ramsay has a phrase for it. Busy idiot. That was me.
And I say that as someone who coaches people for a living.
I'm not sure of the moment, even if there was a moment — but I'm sure it was around the 50 mark that I noticed a gap. Not between who I was and some ideal version of myself. Something quieter than that. A gap between what I said I was going to do and what I was actually doing.
I was avoiding discomfort. Dressing it up as preparation. Every time I got close to something real — a step forwards — some friction would appear and I'd stop. Find a reason. Blame the timing. Tell myself I'd come back to it.
The honest truth? I wasn't making the most of what I already had. And I'd had it most of my life.
The easy thing would have been to look outward. The kids. My wife. Work. The schedule. There's always something available to blame when you don't want to look inward. But somewhere in the middle of all that noise I got quiet enough to hear something I'd been pushing down for a long time:
"The answer wasn't out there. It never had been."
I wasn't broken. I wasn't defective. I hadn't been lazy or weak. I'd just been following the wrong manual, a default setting — one that I hadn't questioned enough. The manual that said keep going, stay busy, sort everyone else out first, don't make a fuss, you should already know this stuff.
Doing my own audit — if you like — was equal parts exciting and terrifying. Admitting that I — a fitness professional — had struggled to do for myself what I helped others do every day took something. Starting again from the beginning, not as the expert but as the student, was equally liberating and felt exposing.
But that's exactly where it started. Not with a perfect plan. Not when I felt ready. Just a decision to stop waiting.
I couldn't point to one moment. There wasn't a lightning bolt. Just a quiet reckoning — I said I'd be doing this. It's been years. I'm not getting younger. If not now, when?
And finally — maybe for the first time — I got out of my own way.
ASKING FOR HELP
So I did the thing that felt most uncomfortable. I asked for help.
I started working with a therapist. I had honest conversations with my wife Lisa that I'd been avoiding for years. I found the right people — coaches who could guide me through building what I actually wanted, step by step, without skipping anything.
And here's what I found on the other side of that decision: it didn't get comfortable overnight. The discomfort didn't disappear. But it changed. Each step I'd usually have avoided, each moment of putting myself forward — made the next one slightly more possible. The comfort zone didn't shrink any further. It started, slowly, to grow.
WHAT IT SHOWED UP IN MY BODY
There's something else. Something I nearly didn't share publicly, but think I should.
I'm a personal trainer. I've spent my career helping people understand exactly this stuff — what to eat, how to move, why consistency matters. I know the science. I've spent decades helping others apply it.
And I was diagnosed pre-diabetic. High cholesterol too.
My first reaction was shock. My second was something closer to of course. Because knowing what to do and actually doing it — consistently, over time, without letting things quietly drift — are two different things. I know that gap better than most. I'd built a career on it. And I still ended up in it.
Small changes, applied consistently over about twelve months. Both markers are back in normal range now. But what the diagnosis did was make the future feel real in a way it hadn't quite before.
"I don't want to be fragile at 70. I want to kick a ball with my grandchildren. I want to be around — active and present — for the people I love."
That's not a fitness goal. That's a life goal. And I'm more clear-eyed about it than I've ever been. What I do now either increases or decreases the chances of having the years I want. And yet — even knowing it — I still have days where I don't feel like it. Days where it's not perfect. But it's moving in the right direction. And I'm still learning to be okay with that.
WHY YOU
The people I most want to work with aren't lacking information. They know what they should probably be doing. They've known for a while.
What gets in the way isn't knowledge. It's that moment when knowing turns into doing, and something inside puts the brakes on. The voice that says not yet. You're not ready. What if you fail?
I know that voice. I've carried it my whole life.
My job isn't to shout over it. It's to walk alongside you until it gets quieter — until the uncomfortable thing you've been avoiding becomes the ordinary thing you do on a Tuesday.
It's what I now help men over 50 do every day. Not because I read about it. Not because I trained for it. Because I lived it. And if I'm honest — I'm still living it.
Rep by rep. Week by week. First things first. Nothing skipped.
If any of this sounds familiar — if you recognise the gap between what you said you'd do and what you're actually doing — you're not behind. You're not broken. You've just been waiting for something to feel ready enough, simple enough, safe enough to start.
This is where you start.
No pitch, no pressure. Just an honest chat about where you are and whether I can help.
: (44) 07976 268570
marc@overfortyfitness.co.uk
: www.overfortyfitness.co.uk
Privacy Policy + T&Cs