Lucy Wyndham-Read joined the British Army in 1989 and started her basic training with the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC). At the start of the first Gulf war her training was interrupted and she re-trained as a dental nurse.

Lucy described herself then as a shy and reserved young girl and as such, when she told family and friends that she was going to join the Army, they were taken aback but quickly saw that her new life in the Army provided her with a foundation of skills that she would draw upon time and time again.

Lucy says that she found her initial training quite tough but believes it gave her the foundation of grit and determination that she would tap into time and time again over the years. She said: “I remember in particular, one occasion when we had to drag ourselves through a long tunnel beneath a railway.

The girl in front of me couldn’t do it and it was my turn. I didn’t want to do it, but I did and that was the moment that changed me. It was physically very tough and mentally demanding, but I did it and I can still remember how proud I felt when I did.”

When Lucy left the Army, she found life pretty tough and often had to draw on that spirit of determination to get through. She believes that the Army and the skills that she took from it will stay with her forever. She says: “It is about never ever giving up and knowing that you are so much stronger than you think.

Life is always going to throw us so many different challenges and when you have the right attitude you can deal with them, and the Army taught me that hard work, sheer determination and that can-do attitude which has helped me be the person I am today.”  

Lucy’s has helped millions of men and women lose weight and stay in shape. She has attracted over one and a half million subscribers with over 200 million views on her hugely successful YouTube channel, LWRFitness.com which hosts her fitness workouts, motivational and nutrition videos.

She is a regular on TV, has written many bestselling books on fitness, health and nutrition and has had her own fitness columns in newspapers and magazines. Lucy says: “The Army teaches you to go that extra mile, and that is where the magic happens. In my industry, the only way I was ever going to succeed was to work harder and dig deeper and I learnt how to do that in the Army.”