A FORMER Royal Marine who sold his home to open a women’s gym during COVID is preparing to celebrate six years in business.
Scott Haliday set up Lymmitless, a ladies-only small-group coaching gym to help local women become stronger, fitter and more confident.
It is six years since he opened its dedicated premises at Tishon House, High Legh – but the story behind the business started several years earlier.
Founder Scott spent 11 years in the Royal Marines, a career which eventually came to an end, through choice, after an IED strike in Afghanistan.
He said: “I was a proper fat kid growing up, and when I decided I wanted to join the Marines, the weight had to go. Trouble is, I lost it in about the daftest way possible.
“I got very good at making myself suffer. That’s not the same as understanding food, and it took me years to work out the difference.”
Scott had also grown up watching many of the women in his family repeatedly try the latest fad diets and weight loss plans. Lose weight quickly. Put it back on. Try the next thing. Repeat.
And despite spending his adult life in one of the fittest organisations in the world, Scott found himself slowly piling weight back on too.
That experience eventually became one of the reasons he decided to properly study training and nutrition.
After leaving the Marines, Scott worked in private security in the Middle East before returning to the UK and working on the gym floor for several large fitness chains. But the traditional gym model felt too generic and personal training often amounted to selling individual hours of a trainer’s time.
Scott wanted to build something specifically for women – in particular, busy women aged 30 and over, many in their 40s, 50s and beyond, juggling careers, children, family life and the physical changes surrounding perimenopause and menopause.
Women who wanted to become stronger, fitter and healthier without feeling they needed to live in the gym, survive on salad or make fitness their entire personality.
The first version of that idea was a women’s bootcamp launched in 2016.
What started small began to grow. And remarkably, the first two women who joined that original bootcamp are still training with Lymmitless today, a decade later.
Over the years the bootcamp evolved into Lymmitless, a dedicated ladies-only training community focused on strength, fitness, realistic nutrition, accountability and creating something women could actually fit around real life. Then came 2020 and while much of the fitness industry was closing its doors during COVID, Scott decided it was the perfect time to take an entirely sensible financial decision…
He sold his house and used the money to open Lymmitless’ first permanent premises.
“I didn’t want another gym full of machines nobody knows how to use, where people join in January, feel awkward for three weeks, then quietly vanish.
“I wanted somewhere women could walk through the door, get known by name, get coached properly, and actually enjoy getting stronger.”
Six years later, Lymmitless has helped hundreds of local women. Its philosophy remains deliberately different from the punishing approach to exercise and dieting Scott experienced himself.
The emphasis is on consistency rather than perfection.
“Most of the ladies who come to us aren’t trying to become athletes,” Scott said. “They want to feel strong again. They want a bit more energy. They want their clothes to feel comfortable again. They want to run around with their kids or grandkids without feeling like their health is quietly getting away from them.
“And usually they’ve spent years putting everyone else first.
“We’re trying to show them that looking after yourself doesn’t need some ridiculous six-days-a-week plan, or another diet where carbs get treated like they’ve personally wronged you.”
That approach has helped Lymmitless develop into much more than the original bootcamp.
For Scott, however, the fact that members from the very beginning are still part of the community is perhaps the biggest measure of what has been built.
“We’ve grown a hell of a lot since those first sessions, but having two of the original ladies still training with us genuinely means more to me than most of it.”
“That’s what I want Lymmitless to actually be about.”
