Louise is ‘obese’ but says she’d beat Phillip Schofield in any race – sweet revenge after he humiliated her with a cruel ‘doughnut’ jibe live on TV

FITNESS instructor Louise Green says she would beat Phillip Schofield in any race – which would be sweet revenge after he humiliated her on national TV.

For she is 45, weighs 15st 9lb, wears size 20 clothes and her body mass index classifies her as obese.

Yet Louise has completed four triathlons, can perform endless burpees on demand and has a core stronger than most models with six-packs.

She says: “People often tut and stare when I compete in events — and I was fat-shamed on TV by Phillip Schofield. He wasn’t buying that I was fit and said, ‘Do you eat doughnuts?’ He was really rude and I was really shocked.

“I could outrun him in any race, even though I weigh one-and-a-half of him. It’s narrow minded, it’s people like him who need educating.”

Louise now trains other plus-sizers who thought they were “too fat for the gym” and her classes are so popular that skinny people have been begging to try them too.

But as research published this week said obese people are “deluded” to think they are healthy, can you really be both fat and fit?

A Birmingham University study of 3.5million Brits found obese people had double the risk of heart failure and a seven per cent greater chance of stroke. Dr Rishi Caleyachetty said: “The idea of being healthily obese is a myth”.

Society puts pressure on people — they make us think being fit is having abs and being slim. But it’s not the case

But Liverpool-born Louise disagrees. She overhauled her life ten years ago after becoming sick of being unfit, unhealthy and spending her Sundays hung over while watching fit young joggers run past her living-room window.

From her twenties to thirties, she worked a desk job in a law firm and admits she was “as unhealthy as a person could be”.

She says: “I was drinking a bottle of wine a night, smoking more than 20 cigarettes  a day, eating takeaways and doing no exercise. I’d get depressed if I saw people looking fit and healthy in skin-tight Lycra in magazines.”

Louise was fulfilled in every other aspect of her life — she and partner Gordon, who later became her husband, were parents to son Eli, now nine — but dreamed of being healthy.

She says: “Despite my lifestyle I always had this feeling that I wanted that athletic lifestyle.

“I so desperately wanted to be one of those women who got up early on a Saturday to go for a run, getting back sweaty and feeling great and ready to start the weekend — instead of  coughing my lungs up, hung over.

"One day I just decided I would do something about it. I thought, ‘Runners are lean, so I’ll run and then be skinny’.

“I went to a running club and expected a slim, toned trainer, but was amazed she was plus-sized.

“Yet she was so fit and could run for hours. Right then and there it completely changed how I saw  fitness and ‘fit people’.  I realised I could do this — it wasn’t my weight holding me back, it was me.”

Louise very slowly built up her running, achieving small goals she set herself and each time feeling amazing.

She says: “Over the years, I came to realise my body had power and could be fit, even though I was still overweight.

"I was eating healthily most of the time but would always have some meals that weren’t  classically healthy, like pizza and takeaways, and I’ve never been the sort who finds it easy to say no to my favourite cake.

“But I completely stopped drinking and smoking and concentrated on getting fit. It was hard but I wanted the lifestyle.

“I lost five stone but felt so amazing about my body because I knew what it was capable of.”

Louise began coaching at her running club and got a buzz  helping larger runners.

She says: “Telling skinny people to lose more weight didn’t resonate with me, I liked helping those who struggled.

“I saw people come to classes to lose weight but they would find it difficult, then not come back. I always thought, ‘What happens to them? No one asks how they are doing.’ So I made that my mission.”

Louise studied to be a personal trainer and since then has helped thousands of “fat” people get fit and love their bodies.

She works out at least five times a week, completes half marathons and triathlons, and this year will run her first half Iron Man triathlon in New Orleans — a 1.9km swim, 90km bike ride and half marathon.

She says: “Society puts pressure on people — they make us think being fit is having abs and being slim. But it’s not the case.

“I struggle to find a sports bra that fits, as the fitness industry doesn’t make them.

“It’s so ingrained in us that fat is not fit that I even have people knocking on my door, fat-shaming me, telling me I have no right to be a fitness instructor.”