Twen­ty-year-old per­son­al train­er and gym in­struc­tor Kireem Charles ex­udes ra­di­ant health. His im­pres­sive physique bal­ances func­tion­al mus­cle with sym­me­try and pro­por­tion with ten per cent body fat. The wide shoul­ders and small waist­line ac­cen­tu­ate the dis­tinc­tive v-ta­per and his mus­cu­lar fig­ure looks like it has been care­ful­ly carved.

At 163 pounds, Charles can dead­lift 455 pounds, squat 405 pounds and bench press 285 pounds.

It is hard to be­lieve that six years ago he was an obese youth who weighed 220 pounds, was bul­lied in school and had low self-es­teem and con­fi­dence.

Charles' in­cred­i­ble trans­for­ma­tion was done through in­tense ses­sions with the iron, in­sane car­dio work­outs, eat­ing "clean" and no sup­ple­ments or fat burn­ers.

His goal is to learn as much as he can about train­ing, health and nu­tri­tion to help peo­ple in the gym who are go­ing through the same health chal­lenges he did six years ago.

Charles said he wants to make the world a health­i­er place and help peo­ple over­come de­pres­sion as he did be­cause he now has a pos­i­tive im­age.

Guardian Me­dia sat down with him to find out how he mor­phed from fat to fit, the lifestyle changes he made, the chal­lenges, his mo­ti­va­tion and as­pi­ra­tions on his jour­ney to health and fit­ness.

Speak­ing at his place of work and work­out at D Di­al Fit­ness Club in Ari­ma, Charles said "Through­out my whole life I've been obese up to when I was 14, 220 pounds over­weight at 5 feet 5 inch­es.

"I had it hard, peo­ple used to look down on me, they said I was so unath­let­ic, I couldn't do things be­cause of my size, I had no self-con­fi­dence, my grades were low I didn't want to go to school be­cause of the bul­ly­ing.

"I start­ed do­ing some car­dio and a lit­tle bas­ket­ball to jump-start my life-chang­ing lifestyle in 2014 and I no­ticed a lit­tle weight loss. Dur­ing the Au­gust hol­i­days I woke up at 4:30 am and went to the Mal­oney Sa­van­nah to run, I ate clean; steam veg­eta­bles, steam chick­en, wa­ter."

With­in three months he lost 20-30 pounds. Lat­er that school year he reached 170 pounds. "I was still over­weight but I start­ed to feel bet­ter about my­self."

The Red Hill, D'Abadie na­tive said he even­tu­al­ly came down to 150 pounds and be­gan train­ing with his un­cle Ke­ston Top­pin.

Charles said he didn't drink cof­fee, but lots of wa­ter, blend­ed fruits and veg­etable juice, he on­ly used pro­tein pow­der in his bulk­ing up phase in 2018 and stopped to get "ripped" or de­f­i­n­i­tion.

He said he used to spend five or six days in the gym weight train­ing and one day of High-in­ten­si­ty in­ter­val train­ing (HI­IT) car­di. As he dropped the ex­cess pounds he found he did not get tired as be­fore.

Charles said he left his tech-job to do a per­son­al train­ing course in Cunu­pia when he was 16. He want­ed to be a per­son­al train­er since he was 15 and he achieved that goal at 19.

He said when he was 18, he fine-tuned his di­et and ex­er­cise to de­vel­op ab­dom­i­nals, he want­ed to have func­tion­al mus­cle, not just for show, flex­i­bil­i­ty, strength, speed and agili­ty.

Charles said when he was over­weight he cut out all junk food and soft drinks, he didn't even care for them, his body adapt­ed to the train­ing and need­ed "clean" food as fu­el.

He said the re­sults on the scale and the mir­ror were added mo­ti­va­tion to cut out junk food. He said he eased up a lit­tle when he reached 150 pounds.

Asked about in­dulging in choco­late, Charles said the key was mod­er­a­tion. He said choco­late was good for you, es­pe­cial­ly the dark va­ri­ety.

His youngest client at the gym is 14. Some teenagers, he said, are try­ing to build mus­cle or want­ed to be fit and look a cer­tain way. The 20 to 30 year olds work hard and want to change their lifestyle. His ma­ture clients, who are in the gym to main­tain their health, are in their 50s and 60s.

Charles's ad­vice to peo­ple who come to him about how to lose weight or with oth­er health-re­lat­ed is­sues is that if he can do it, any­one can do it.