One Million Lbs Lost!

MAN v FAT has been changing men’s lives for over a decade and, since launching its first sports league in 2016, has now helped men surpass 1,000,000lbs of excess weight lost.

This page celebrates some of those that have helped us to get to this momentous landmark – but it has taken thousands of men and women who’ve played their own part to build MAN v FAT’s incredible story to date. To each of you, we thank you!

The MAN v FAT Story

2014

MAN v FAT was founded by writer Andrew Shanahan, who was struggling with his weight but was frustrated at how local slimming clubs were aimed at women. This made him wonder how many other men out there were struggling with weight loss - and MAN v FAT was born. We started life as a website and digital magazine.

2016

We took MAN v FAT into the real world with the launch of MAN v FAT Football – a football league exclusively for overweight men who want to lose weight. Players are rewarded not just for winning games but for losing weight too, with weekly weight loss progress counting towards team goals. It was a hit, and since then, we’ve launched over 150 MAN v FAT Football clubs across the UK.

2017

We launched our first Scottish MAN v FAT Football club in Glasgow.

2018

2018 was a busy year - we launched our first Welsh club in Cardiff, went international with the launch of MAN v FAT Australia, were a finalist in the Royal Society for Public Health Healthier Lifestyle awards and we won a UK Active Healthy Communities award.

2019

We became a part of award-winning healthy lifestyle provider Thrive Tribe’s family of services and were able to expand our efforts to reach more men than ever before.

2022

We took MAN v FAT to Northern Ireland with the launch of our first club in Belfast, and expanded our mental health and wellbeing support, as the wider benefits of being part of the programme became clearer.

2023

We celebrated fantastic weight loss success with our first in-person MAN v FAT awards, and we partnered with leading sportswear manufacturer Hope + Glory to create some amazing MAN v FAT Football kit. We also hit a grand total of 500,000lbs lost by MAN v FAT Football members – incredible stuff.

2024

2024 was a huge year for MAN v FAT as we celebrated 10 years of supporting male wellbeing, kicking off with an incredible event at the Houses of Parliament. 2024 also saw us launch our MAN v FAT Rugby and MAN v FAT Soccer programmes, bringing support to more men than ever!

2026

A landmark year for the MAN v FAT programme as we surpassed 1,000,000lbs of excess weight lost by our community, with men in England, Scotland, Wales, Australia and the USA having contributed to that total. Our American expansion continued, as we hit 30 clubs – with many more to follow.