DARREN DONNELLY – THE coach who helped me through this challenge after my wife recommended him – was around 14 when he discovered the gym.
He has been an invaluable guide during my 12 weeks of dieting, exercising and the general mental tests of sticking to the programme.
The Dundalk man played rugby at school before becoming increasingly involved in the fitness industry.
“Team sports are great, but it’s down to the team also how things go,” he says. “And even if you played fantastically, if the rest of the boys weren’t at the races, you were still going to lose.
“What I liked about the gym was, I could go in and be fully in control of it. All the hard work that I would put in, I’d be responsible for the result I got.”
Donnelly moved to Dublin for college and worked in the Clarion Hotel along the quays.
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Underneath it was a gym, Sanovitae, where he was hired as an instructor before eventually managing the place.
He had been bodybuilding from a young age too.
“Bodybuilding to me back then wasn’t what it is now,” he adds. “All this Geordie Shore crap. That’s not what my thing was. I just enjoyed the lifestyle. It was just a nice, disciplined way to live for me, and it kept me away from a lot of things. I’m from Dundalk town centre, and a lot of my friends at the time would have gone one way, while I went to the gym.
“A lot of the guys from my area didn’t really do so well. A lot of them would have gone way off, and I think it starts in the teens, having a few sneaky drinks round in an alley somewhere. But a lot of the boys then took that to the next level and would have gone to drugs or different things. I never took a recreational drug in my life, never smoked a cigarette, so I was always a little bit more [disciplined].
“I can thank the gym for that, because it gives me that outlet and somewhere to go in the evening.”
Donnelly was making “good money” in Dublin but decided to move home and open up his own gym in Dundalk in his mid-20s.
He will be 39 next month and says the gym is doing better than ever. But there have been significant challenges along the way, most notably the Covid pandemic.
“You have to carve out your niche. And I figured out early enough that I was good at getting people in shape. How do I bring that to the masses?
“So I started doing body transformation group challenges. Covid struck, and I had just put a massive investment into the gym to refurbish it, and then we all closed. And to be honest, I had to pivot and think on my feet and do something that was going to still bring in some money so I could finish the job.
“If I had sat at home and taken that payment, I wouldn’t have been able to finish the job, and we were halfway through it. So I said I’d try to do an online challenge. So I got stuck into that during Covid, and I did two or three online challenges, and it was successful.”
Donnelly initially arranged it all via spreadsheets, but admits he was “winging it”.
He explains: “I had the expertise to do it, but I had to figure out how I was going to transfer that to people online.”
People used to check in with him through WhatsApp and email. And even beyond the pandemic, he decided to continue with a more digital approach.
Eventually, he was building programmes for clients on the Kahunas app.
“They’re just the facilitator,” he says. “Before Covid, I would have taken everybody in every week and weighed them with a weighing scale and measurement tape. But that would take nearly the whole weekend. Back in the day, we’d have maybe 150 to 200 people on these challenges.
“It was very time-consuming, but it also made it awkward for people having to come into the gym every weekend.”
In over a decade as a ‘gym owner, educator and transformation specialist,’ as his Instagram bio describes him, Donnelly has encountered people from different walks of life. But he feels his clients have more in common than not.
“We’re unique, but we’re not that unique, and that’s the reality of it. Everyone thinks their situation is totally different, and they have more work, or they’ve more stress, or their baby cries more, and their wife gives them a harder time than others. It’s not the truth.
“Everybody has a hard life, just in different ways. And when you’ve been working in the industry as long as I have, and coaching people, and helping people as long as I have, you’ve seen it all before.”
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Donnelly says he has around an 80% success rate of people completing the challenge.
“It’s still something I’m trying to work out how to really get this through to some people because, if you take on something for 12 weeks, and let’s say you come to me at the end, sit down. I feel amazing. The best I’ve felt in 20 years. I feel so good. I have more energy. I feel stronger. And the time I’m spending with my children is quality time because I can be more present. I have the energy for it; everything’s improved. I got a fucking promotion at work, whatever it may be.
“And then the 12 weeks are over. It’s up to you to keep reminding yourself how good you felt. And a lot of people, if they’re very clued in, they’re going to say, ‘Well, look, I’m feeling the best I’ve ever felt. Well, why would I change anything? I’m going to continue to live like this, and if there’s something on, I go, and I enjoy it, but I just get back to my set point, which is what I’ve done for the last 12 weeks to have me feeling the best I’ve ever felt.’
“And then some people just totally go back to their old ways, and they’re the people that seem to go round in circles. They might be with me one portion of the year, and then they’re in Slimming World another, and they’re just going round in circles, but they’re not really buying into this lifestyle. And at the end of the day, that is something that you have to do. If something is leaving you feeling the best you’ve ever felt, and you feel amazing, well, you should continue that.”
He adds: “My wee girl comes down every weekend. I have her from Friday to Sunday, and I live like a monk during the week. I eat my meals so I can enjoy the weekends and whatever she wants, it’s a yes. And I can be present – I’m not starving.
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‘If something is leaving you feeling the best you've ever felt… You should continue that’
DARREN DONNELLY – THE coach who helped me through this challenge after my wife recommended him – was around 14 when he discovered the gym.
He has been an invaluable guide during my 12 weeks of dieting, exercising and the general mental tests of sticking to the programme.
The Dundalk man played rugby at school before becoming increasingly involved in the fitness industry.
“Team sports are great, but it’s down to the team also how things go,” he says. “And even if you played fantastically, if the rest of the boys weren’t at the races, you were still going to lose.
“What I liked about the gym was, I could go in and be fully in control of it. All the hard work that I would put in, I’d be responsible for the result I got.”
Donnelly moved to Dublin for college and worked in the Clarion Hotel along the quays.
Underneath it was a gym, Sanovitae, where he was hired as an instructor before eventually managing the place.
He had been bodybuilding from a young age too.
“A lot of the guys from my area didn’t really do so well. A lot of them would have gone way off, and I think it starts in the teens, having a few sneaky drinks round in an alley somewhere. But a lot of the boys then took that to the next level and would have gone to drugs or different things. I never took a recreational drug in my life, never smoked a cigarette, so I was always a little bit more [disciplined].
“I can thank the gym for that, because it gives me that outlet and somewhere to go in the evening.”
Donnelly was making “good money” in Dublin but decided to move home and open up his own gym in Dundalk in his mid-20s.
He will be 39 next month and says the gym is doing better than ever. But there have been significant challenges along the way, most notably the Covid pandemic.
“You have to carve out your niche. And I figured out early enough that I was good at getting people in shape. How do I bring that to the masses?
“If I had sat at home and taken that payment, I wouldn’t have been able to finish the job, and we were halfway through it. So I said I’d try to do an online challenge. So I got stuck into that during Covid, and I did two or three online challenges, and it was successful.”
Donnelly initially arranged it all via spreadsheets, but admits he was “winging it”.
He explains: “I had the expertise to do it, but I had to figure out how I was going to transfer that to people online.”
People used to check in with him through WhatsApp and email. And even beyond the pandemic, he decided to continue with a more digital approach.
Eventually, he was building programmes for clients on the Kahunas app.
“They’re just the facilitator,” he says. “Before Covid, I would have taken everybody in every week and weighed them with a weighing scale and measurement tape. But that would take nearly the whole weekend. Back in the day, we’d have maybe 150 to 200 people on these challenges.
“It was very time-consuming, but it also made it awkward for people having to come into the gym every weekend.”
In over a decade as a ‘gym owner, educator and transformation specialist,’ as his Instagram bio describes him, Donnelly has encountered people from different walks of life. But he feels his clients have more in common than not.
“Everybody has a hard life, just in different ways. And when you’ve been working in the industry as long as I have, and coaching people, and helping people as long as I have, you’ve seen it all before.”
Donnelly says he has around an 80% success rate of people completing the challenge.
“It’s still something I’m trying to work out how to really get this through to some people because, if you take on something for 12 weeks, and let’s say you come to me at the end, sit down. I feel amazing. The best I’ve felt in 20 years. I feel so good. I have more energy. I feel stronger. And the time I’m spending with my children is quality time because I can be more present. I have the energy for it; everything’s improved. I got a fucking promotion at work, whatever it may be.
“And then some people just totally go back to their old ways, and they’re the people that seem to go round in circles. They might be with me one portion of the year, and then they’re in Slimming World another, and they’re just going round in circles, but they’re not really buying into this lifestyle. And at the end of the day, that is something that you have to do. If something is leaving you feeling the best you’ve ever felt, and you feel amazing, well, you should continue that.”
He adds: “My wee girl comes down every weekend. I have her from Friday to Sunday, and I live like a monk during the week. I eat my meals so I can enjoy the weekends and whatever she wants, it’s a yes. And I can be present – I’m not starving.
“If you live like that, that’s balance to me.”
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darren donnelly Diet Fitness fitness challenge Interview October week 11