DOUG CURTIS: If you want to lose weight and you want to play football, there is nothing better out there.
TERRY DOWDING: So, MAN v FAT Football is a football league, which is exclusively designed
for overweight men, so anybody in the inner country with a BMI of 27.5 or above.
TERRY DOWDING: So, I am the Project Manager for MAN v FAT Football so all of the
leagues that we have across the UK. So, it was held first in 2016 and since then we have
grown to 25 leagues and they range from as low as Portsmouth and up to Glasgow and anywhere
in between. Anybody in the country can go to manvfat.com/football and register.
DOUG CURTIS: I kind of, had a bit of a rough telling off from my GP, like, weight-wise.
I was borderline diabetic, I had high blood pressure and when I saw this, I knew I could
shift enough weight to not have those health concerns anymore.
DOUG CURTIS: Wasn’t sure what to expect. I thought I would be the biggest guy there,
I wasn’t. I wasn’t the oldest there either. There was a real good age range and size range.
DOUG CURTIS: The guys in my team and in the other teams are really great guys. We have
a lot of banter between us.
MICHAEL RICHARD: I was pretty nervous for the first time. I was really off the pace.
I didn’t really know my teammates. The pace was pretty quick for me actually and that’s
surprising, you think, you know it might be played at a slower pace. But I think the intensity
of this league, it’s really good. And if you want a really good workout, you can get it.
DOUG CURTIS: There’s teenagers and there’s old age pensioners playing. So, everyone is
in it for a different reason but they are all in it for the weight loss. You turn up
once a week, you play for part of a 30-minute game and then you look after yourself throughout
the week food-wise, exercise-wise and you gain points for your team that way.
PHILLIP SMITH: As a coach in MAN v FAT, my role is to support players, weigh them in
on a match day, giving them support around small changes that they can make to their
diet, their lifestyle and motivating them. So, basically for MAN v FAT, the key thing
is that you can earn goals from being off the pitch as well as on it. So, for losing
weight each week you can score a goal straightaway for your team. If you lose weight 3 weeks
in a row, you score an extra bonus goal called a hat trick.
PHILLIP SMITH: So, another kilogram off, which is fantastic.
TERRY DOWDING: It clicks for the male psyche, it’s, it ‘gamiefies’ the weight loss.
It puts that competitive edge on it.
DOUG CURTIS: You can lose on the pitch, but then win on the scale.
TERRY DOWDING: Tracking their food is always an important one as well which we provide
every player with a player handbook.
MICHAEL RICHARD: There is a food diary that you can fill in. So that way you can regulate your meals.
TERRY DOWDING: In addition to that, they have a weekly weigh-in with a coach. And that coach
will be able to use that food diary to hopefully signpost some good quality changes based on
what they have tracked over the last 7 days.
PHILLIP SMITH: How was your weekend?
MICHAEL RICHARD: Yeah, not too bad. Yeah, been keeping at it in bits. I was quite social
on the weekend but I made sure I did a lot more, like, floor work at home. Just got up
that a little bit earlier and just did a bit more, like, stomach work and things like that.
So, to make up for it, so, hopefully I have got a loss yeah. I was probably about 96 kilos
when I first started this MAN v FAT.
PHILLIP SMITH: It will fluctuate by 0.2.
MICHAEL RICHARD: Yeah.
PHILLIP SMITH: So, if you do it three times, that’ll be 90.2, two times and 90 the other way around.
Fantastic. You have lost weight.
MICHAEL RICHARD: Fantastic.
MICHAEL RICHARD: Yeah, brilliant. So, I’ll fill it in here with the 90?
PHILLIP SMITH: Yeah. No, I will put it.
MICHAEL RICHARD: 1.6, I think.
PHILLIP SMITH: Great stuff.
MICHAEL RICHARD: That’s great, fantastic. Brilliant, cheers.
MICHAEL RICHARD: When you come off the scales, it feels great. When you know you have made
a loss I think, you feel very relived because that’s what you have been working up to
all week.
MICHAEL RICHARD: You know, you’re gonna have to make allowances. So, for me in the
beginning I didn’t drink for, say, well, over a month. And that was like, crazy for
me. But, you know, it’s nice to see what you can do. The team is always there for you.
They can give you tips if you are struggling. They can give you support. I know a couple
of guys had to drop out for injury and this response that the other guys gave them on,
say WhatsApp, the encouragement was really great. So, you know, it’s nice to be a part of that.
MAN: The sheer amount of weight that the men are losing is the most exciting thing.
DOUG CURTIS: So, when I started my weight loss journey 18 months ago, I was nearly 25
stone and I am now about 20 stone.
PHILLIP SMITH: We have had some fantastic case studies. One chap in season 1 lost a
total of 26 kilograms over 14 weeks, which, for him, that’s a life-changing amount.
TERRY DOWDING: I think it would make sense for everyone in the UK to be able to access
it. I mean we have got around 67% of our men that are overweight and obese. So, we
should have football available to them everywhere.
TERRY DOWDING: So that, we aspire really in the next year to have MAN v FAT Football available
on any night of the week in any area of the UK.