Rachel was always one of the bigger pupils in her school, and unfortunately, she was relentlessly bullied by other children as a result. She tried many times as an adult to achieve a healthy weight, but seemed to fail each time, no matter how hard she tried.

Her lightbulb moment came when she was pregnant with her first child, Ruby. She vowed that Ruby would not suffer the same unhappy childhood that she had, and gradually eased herself into new routines, with the intention of becoming a great role model for her new daughter.

Rachel shed 6 stones in weight, and became fit enough to run a couple of marathons too!

Already good friends with Rick through work, in late 2015, he approached Rachel to ask if she would be interested in helping him to set up a group, to help others achieve what she had. Rick knew that Rachel was an expert in nutrition, an all round genuinely nice person that always put others first, and shared his own selfless values.

Thankfully she said yes – and Be Strong was founded in January 2016!

Rick started to gain weight after his first son was born when he was 21, until he eventually topped the scales at 26 stones. He spent years trying, and failing, at various weight loss attempts.

At the age of 46, he told a Mum (Pat Rogers), who had lost her son (Adam), that he would do a charity run for her. He didn’t intend to actually carry out his promise, he would let Pat down with a plausible excuse, like he had done so many times, to others.

However, Pat was somebody that Rick holds in the highest regard, and he unwittingly found himself in a situation where he just couldn’t let her down! A strategy was devised to implement a graduated lifestyle program, concentrating on simple positive routines, a sensible nutrition program, that was simple to understand, and an incremental exercise schedule.

He ran that charity race, lost 12 stones in weight, and started to help others achieve similar successes. He established his own community group in 2013, delivering FREE Couch to 5K sessions, to over 600 people per night. Following on from that success, Be Strong was established in 2016, to specifically support behaviour & lifestyle change.

Rick couldn’t quite believe it when he received a British Citizen Award at the Houses of Parliament for Services to Healthcare! Who would have thought it?