Joe Wicks, the famously curly-haired personal trainer, is best known as ‘The Body Coach’ to his fitness disciples. Three years ago, Joe launched his subscription-based 90 Day Shift, Shape and Sustain Plan, and went – stratospherically – from sharing amateur recipe videos and free fitness workouts online, to helping thousands of people trim down and get fit for a living. Now the Epsom-born fitness coach has a not-too-shabby 1.8m Instagram followers and 274k on Twitter, and he’s launched his fourth cookbook, Cooking For Family And Friends.
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Joe Wicks gets his gym on (Conor McDonnell/PA)
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Brimming with openness and charm, you can see his appeal – a combination of endless enthusiasm that pours out of him with every flick of hair or inadvertent muscle flex, and a monumental work ethic. That and the fact he’s not in the least bit starry, as he sits on a London rooftop terrace awaiting a ‘Joe-mito’ (a riff on his watermelon and mint ‘posh slush puppy’), at the launch party the new cookbook.
STORY: Joe Wicks gives fans a peek inside his new cookbook
He even excitedly, and non-ironically, Snapchats a selfie from in front of a bigger-than-life-sized poster of himself. Best to get it out of the way early in the night too – after all, he's built his career through social media, but he still has rules: "I never do social media when I'm drunk, because I might think I'm being really funny, but am really saying the worst thing ever!"
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EMBED END Instagram The former boot camp trainer has, perhaps surprisingly, included a few treats too – namely his all-time "top desserts", sticky toffee pudding and chocolate fondant. "Just because chocolate isn’t 'clean'," he says, fingers miming air quotes, "doesn’t mean you can't enjoy it and have it now and again. I'm not like, 'Don't eat this', and, 'Clean eating that'. Just enjoy your food! If you exercise, it works out, you know?" he says, adding with a cheeky-chappy grin firmly in place: "This is how I roll."
RECIPE: Joe Wicks' chicken pie
Joe admits that no one person got him into cooking – "it was just myself really. My mum couldn’t cook very well," – but in terms of becoming an entrepreneur, his ultimate hero is, without doubt, Jamie Oliver. Without taking a breath, he reels off his every encounter with the Naked Chef, the most recent being when the duo grabbed dinner together at Jamie's restaurant Fifteen.
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"We sat there for four hours on our own, talking. He's just so generous with advice, he downloaded all this wisdom and knowledge and experience. He’s on a mission. I told him, 'Mate, you work hard'," says Joe, visibly galvanised. And, aside from writing another four books, what else is left on his own mission? "The message is, no matter how old you are, you can exercise and feel good; you can take control of your body, you don’t have to starve yourself. I'm for everyone; fitness and food for everyone."
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Cooking For Family And Friends by Joe Wicks (Bluebird/PA)
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Cooking For Family And Friends by Joe Wicks is published in hardback by Bluebird, priced £20. Available now.
See the latest food news and recipes here.
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