Watch: James Duigan Schools us on Fitness

Last week saw the frankly amazing wellness and health expert James Duigan, address a room at The Marker Hotel full of enrapt fitness and health fans and those of us curious to find out about his Clean & Lean approach to life. The very first impression of this guy was how very nice he is. Seriously nice! And powerfully positive?

He does not advocate the restrictions of traditional diets and his Bodyism website full of his exercise tips and clean eating recipe ideas furthers that holistic, happy approach.

One of his talking points was about stress and how it can affect the accumulation of fat around one’s waist that for some people doesn’t dissipate even with exercise. In these instances, James always advises that people stop running, focus on yoga and meditation for a few weeks and that then, the fat will melt away as their stress is reduced.

An evening with James Duigan with Image magazine at the Marker Hotel. from Roger Kenny The Portrait Room on Vimeo.

It’s this kind of approach merged with seriously targeted fitness moves and a clean eating philosophy that has seen James reach the levels of success he has done – training some of the world’s most beautiful women (and men).

One of our favourite moments of his talk was when he spoke about his wife with such love and admiration for what she does. He says he is in awe of women generally for all they do and achieve as mothers, partners and professionals.

He then proceeded to show the audience his five key moves for total body fitness, with Sophie Kavanagh from No17 Personal Training, which had most people on their feet taking pictures and making mental notes to work out more.

The event ran in partnership with Newstalk and spot prizes for the lucky winners were €100 vouchers for Rustic Stone restaurant. Two Twitter winners each won a Bodyism hamper and James pulled a winner from the Business cards entered for one night’s B&B, dinner for two and spa treatments for two at The Marker.