Meet Marcus White – health and fitness trainer, and like us, a true Life Enthusiast! Marcus prides himself on creating unique personalised workouts for his clients along with educating them on wholesome eating and fusing it with healthy mind habits. His personal journey towards wellness is absolutely refreshing and we’re truly excited to welcome him to the Twosixmag Community not only as a Local Love but as our new Twosixmag Men’s Health writer.
Can you tell us a little about you, your journey and where and why your interest in health and wellbeing started?
My journey towards health and well being started with football. My dream was to play AFL, like a lot of teenagers. But I made the decision very early to start trying to get ahead of the competition at around age 15. I started heading to the gym every day after school completing a lot of hard boxing training. Having my mental barriers pushed through hard training really opened a passion of the human body. I have since been striving to see how everything we do to our body affects our tomorrow mentally and physically.
Have you always been conscious of your own health and wellbeing?
I always thought I was health conscious, but looking back I really had no idea until I was about 18. I began professional sport and wanted to find an edge wherever I could. That’s where my spark for nutrition kicked off on top of hard training. I started to finally realise how much of an impact nutrition had on my body as much as training.
Can you share with our readers some of the challenges you have faced and how they have influenced your current choices?
There has been a period in my life that has really challenged me and I think has made me the person I am today. After being delisted from the AFL. I decided to move to Perth at the age of 21. At this point of my life I had been solely been focused on making it as a footballer, what I didn’t realise at the time was that I was quite lost. I spent 2 years in Perth and it was the loneliest time of my life. I didn’t understand myself, was extremely insecure and easily influenced. I still trained hard and was eating what I felt was healthy at the time, but was out all weekend drinking, trying to fill a hole. Without going into to much depth and details, I was at the lowest point of my life and decided to move back to Melbourne. When I got back to Melbourne, I went on a search to understand the way I think and feel about the world, to make sure I never felt like I did for those 2 years again.
You train people for a living but do you currently have your own fitness routine?
I have been training myself for roughly 10 years now. Most of the training I did for the first 7 years has been about performance in sport, now I experiment a lot of different techniques that I’ve learnt over the years to create programs that adapt to my clients goals. At the moment, my week is broken up between 3 days of power running, 2 days of cross training (rowing, ropes, boxing), 3 days of resistance training and I try to get 1-2 yoga sessions in a week. I stick to 30-45 minute sessions to make sure its done with quality. Most of my clients want their dream body, and I want them to look in the mirror and love the skin they are in, but the biggest part of my training comes from the mind. I train my clients to be able to push their mind further than they ever thought they could and always preach that the body will follow what the mind tells it.
Emma and I have found there is a huge focus on the physical, that most of us want to look fit and healthy, and yet we seem to have neglected the health of our mind. There is an enormous increase in mental illness, particularly amongst young professional people. What do you believe is happening? Is it social media? Is it societies expectations? What are your thoughts regarding mental illness?
I still believe that you need to make sure you are truly happy with the person you look at in the mirror, physically and mentally. I think the problem is that people are very influenced by others expectations. If you want to “look” fit and healthy, you should make sure it is for you. Not to make you feel like you belong. I believe I lost touch with who I am, and for a long period of time I spent my life being who I thought I should be. I’m only now getting more comfortable with who I am physically, emotionally and mentally, and I don’t care anymore what a broader community think of me. I think we all need to respect each other as individuals, no more judgment. Just because certain people don’t think the same as you, doesn’t mean they are wrong. I will attract people like me and who feel the same as me and I want to help these people to find true happiness within themselves, not just physical appearance.
Do you find men, in particular struggle to see the connection between their physical and mental health?
I think a lot of males find it harder to show they are unhappy because they see it as weakness. There are silly expectations put on men to hide their emotions. As much as it is getting better as time goes on, and there is more and more understanding into men’s mental health, I definitely think that a lot of males live day to day unhappy and confused about who they are but will never do anything about it in fear of not fitting into societies expectations.
What do you want your clients to take away from their time with you?
As much as I love fitness and nutrition, I want to have an impact on my clients on the way they look and feel about their true selves. My training makes them feel stronger, my nutritional advice stabilizes their emotions and helps drop body fat, but my connection with them as a friend and my belief in whoever they are is where I hope to make the most impact.
When do you feel most balanced?
One word I have never understood in life was balance, because every time I want something, I commit my mind and body too it, and that’s how I succeeded. It also drove a very narrow vision in my life. Earlier on this year I started yoga, something I always said I would never do because its too slow, but now I do it, and that hour is just for me to be in my own mind (still not very good at the poses). I know I’m balanced when my mind is opened to try anything.
Who has been an important influence in your life?
My father has had a massive influence on my mental strength, I believe I can train as hard and be as disciplined as anyone. I think this is what makes me a good trainer because in every hard session my clients have; I ride every sweat, tear and emotion with them
What do you believe is the most important change people should make if they want to be kinder to themselves?
The best thing I ever did for myself was to seek out a psychologist. It helped me to understand myself and dive into things in the past that have shaped who I am today, I now understand why I feel and think the way I do and I’m comfortable with that. If people don’t understand me or like me, that’s fine, because as long as you love who you are, you don’t need anyone confirm it for you.
Head over to People + Profiles to get to know the real Marcus and read his 26 things!
Instagram: @the_life_athlete
Visit Marcus at Ascot Fitness – 289 Maribyrnong rd Ascot Vale
Email him directly:
