This much I know: Karl Henry

I WAS a very awkward child and I’m still quite shy. I struggled with fitness when I was younger although I did play rugby for 12 years.

I was a lot bigger back then so I was a prop.

The best advice I ever got was never to fear failure. As a result, it doesn’t really bother me.

My advice to anyone who wants to lose weight or get fit is to set goals. Realistic goals. I take an holistic view of my clients’ lifestyles and design diets and exercise programmes to suit each individual.

Fad diets don’t work. You need to find a regime that you can maintain. Diet is 60% of the battle in losing weight, exercise is secondary.

I don’t believe in fate so much as in the fact that we can each create our own luck. I come from a family of hard workers. My parents showed me what can be achieved by effort and dedication. I certainly never expected to be handed anything on a plate. I’ve tried to cut down on work but I’d still put in 70 hours a week. But, I love it.

I started getting interested in eating well and exercising properly when I was around 19. I decided to do Sports Management in UCD and qualified as a personal trainer as a way of paying my fees.

When I left college, I saw a gap in the market for a really well-branded personal training business. Then I got offered a few columns in magazines and newspapers which helped my profile. But what really changed things was when Noel Kelly asked me to train him. He’s a celebrity agent and the person who got me onto RTÉ TV’s Operation Transformation. We’ve just filmed the revisits to last year’s participants and everyone is getting on wonderfully, thankfully.

My dad, Pat Henry, has been at the forefront of fitness in Ireland for years. I’ve been hanging around his gym on Baggot St since I was four. When my own business started expanding I needed a town base so we decided to team up. We’ve renamed it The Pat and Karl Henry Fitness Centre, although we still have our own clients and specialities. It suits us both as we get on very well. We’re carbon copies of each other — both Capricorn, both very driven. Although, I’m a lot more organised than he is.

If I could change one thing in our society, it would probably be bad manners. Bring back chivalry I say.

West Cork is my favourite place to escape to. We also run a Wellness Centre there.

Other than training, my free time is spent with my girlfriend Jean, who’s a doctor in Cork. We both have a passion for old buildings and try to spend weekends staying in interesting places around the country whenever we can. And I’m big into books and films.

I like the saying “What Goes Around Comes Around”.

Each year I take up a new sport, working with the best coaches I can find in that field. Last year it was surfing. Before that, I started doing marathons, then triathalons and then ultra-marathons which can be up to 100 miles and are surprisingly good fun. I guess you could say I practice what I preach in terms of fitness.

It’s weird that I now do so much TV and radio as I’m still quite shy. I learned a lot from Gerry Ryan. He had a real gift for making the mundane sound interesting and was a very generous broadcaster to work with.

My own diet is pretty healthy alright. My guilty pleasure is fish and chips from Burdocks in Dublin.

Fitness expert Karl Henry will be back on our screens on RTÉ’s Operation Transformation and his new show Ultimate Street Challenge, from August. His book Real Results with Karl Henry has sold over 10,000 copies and is available nationwide, published by Blackwater Press.