How HIIT Training Helped This Former Pro Athlete Deal With His Depression
When Davey Hoops was laid off, he started to spiral downward. The 29-year-old entrepreneur from Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK, was diagnosed as clinically depressed the following month, and stopped leaving the house. A former professional soccer player, he quit exercising and instead comforted himself with takeout food. He was depressed, listless, and embarrassed to do anything about it.
He gained 70 pounds, hitting 224 pounds. At 5’8”m that made him morbidly obese. He was 27. “I just wanted the world to swallow me up and I really felt like there was no way out,” he says. “It was a never-ending spiral of feeling depressed, eating to make myself feel better, weight gain and feeling depressed again.”
Hoops confronted himself one morning, taking stock of the situation. “I decided that I wasn’t going to let this period of my life define me and I was going to achieve everything I had ever dreamed of,” he says. He got off the couch and made himself take a half-hour walk. He came back motivated. “I decided my legacy was going to be how I overcame this illness, lost my weight and started to help others do the same,” he says.
He disciplined himself into getting up at 4 AM every morning to exercise: high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and bodyweight workouts. He prepared all his meals and tracked his calories. Where previously he had no motivation to do much of anything, he forced himself into a routine. “I would prepare my food the day before,” he says, “I would lay out my gym clothes the night before, and I would plan my workouts in advance.”
He had a friend who kept him accountable through online coaching, and had a pretty good knowledge base on his own from which to draw. As he got fitter, he felt like a better person; that, too, kept him motivated. “Going back to that terrible life I had before just simply was not going to happen,” he says.
In five months, he lost 70 pounds, putting him back to his pre-layoff weight. He was motivated again, ready to face any challenges in his life. “I had more energy,” he says, “and I developed awesome habits such as being an early riser, regular gym goer, and confident public speaker.”
It happened so quickly that even his family and friends were surprised at the change; they started to ask if he could help them lose weight, too. He launched a business to do just that. “Giving value and support to others is all I want to do and being able to do this was a great feeling,” he says.
For Hoops, it was a remarkable turnaround. But he believes anyone can do it. “Start small and do the simple things,” he says. “It will be scary and hard, but with consistent hard work and the right guidance you can achieve anything.”
You Might Also Like
