I've been getting a lot of questions recently surrounding StoneWolf. Over the next few blogs, I will go over my journey into the health & fitness industry and how and why I created StoneWolf. 

 

My journey into fitness really had a mixed start. I left Newcastle University in 2016, unsure of really who I was, or what I wanted to be in life. I had always been active in sports growing up, but never “healthy”. Like most students and people my age, I drank a lot. I also smoked anywhere from 20-40 cigarettes per day and bored a lot of my friends with very weak efforts at quitting, which were so bad it became a bit of a running joke.

 

In early 2017 I made the decision to head to Australia and play hockey for a club out in Melbourne. As what else do you do, when you don’t have any career ideas than move to the other side of the world to avoid them for a bit longer? This is where my path into health and fitness really began.

 

Shortly after landing in Australia, a country where what seems like every other person is incredibly “fit”, I joined a local gym. I would wander around the gym, using the various machines, getting little to no results, following no routine, and generally no clue what I was/should be doing. All I knew deep down was that I NEEDED to quit smoking and get healthier. 

 

Overnight my whole world flipped upside down, my mum was diagnosed with breast cancer, and after some lengthy chats at home – my mum and stepdad were determined I was to stay in Australia, finish the hockey season, and if the time came, I could be back within 24 hours if I was needed at home. 

 

This was the moment that changed everything. From here, the health and fitness industry changed my life. It stopped just being something I made half effort attempts to go and do. That deep down feeling I had, came to surface - I knew I HAD to get healthier.

 

I remember walking into the gym the morning after finding out this news, stubbing out my last cigarette (yes, I always had a couple on the walk there), and being so set on this new path, that I went back the same day after work and did the same session again.

 

This was my “why” for the gym and training, I had lost my dad to Motor Neurone Disease at 13, and a mum who was now fighting breast cancer – if there was ever a reason to change my outlook on life, get fitter and healthier, and quit smoking, it was NOW.

 

Training became my outlet, an hour or two of my day where all I would do is focus on what was in front of me, whether it was a barbell or a rowing machine – all those emotions, anger, frustration, confusion, could be let out in a way I hadn’t experienced before.

 

to be continued.. 

Thomas Dodds