In The Biggest Loser, we see her barking orders at her team,
often reducing them to tears with her tough-love training style and
yet somehow she still wins us and her wobbly wards round. One of
the standout moments in series one saw her forcing a portly young
team member named Tracy to destroy and discard her cigarettes with
a vigour that would make Anne Robinson look like Bambi.
Having cut Tracy's daily food ration by half and convinced her to
swing an eight kilo kettlebell - a free weight that resembles a
canon ball with a handle - Angie went on to deny Tracy what she
felt was her last basic human right to drag on a fag. There were
tears. Oh, how we felt her pain. But we rooted for Angie, TV's
newest and hottest lesbian star.
'If I can help someone to tap into their
self-belief, that's it. Job done.'
TV fitness gurus have come a long way since the onset of Britain's
fitness craze in the 1980s. But from TV AM's Thin Lizzie and the
BBC's kindly yet somewhat ineffectual Green Goddess Diana Moran to
GMTV's Mr Motivator - the impossibly cheery, day-glo Lycra-clad
keep-fit man in the 90s - to mean military drill sergeant Harvey
Walden in BBC1's Celebrity Fit Club, none have hit the spot quite
like Dowds.
Naturally enough, among red-blooded lesbians of a certain age
she's developed something of cult following thanks to her
no-nonsense determination, her ripped torso and her tattoos. Like
Walden, Dowds is tough on her team of chubsters, but crucially it's
her blend of tough love rather than a blame 'em and shame 'em style
that's seen her change lives on and off screen.
Since the first series aired last year, Dowds has received
hundreds of emails weekly from the worried overweight, thanking her
for giving them the inspiration to change their lives. Whereas
Walden believed his celebrity contestants were the tip of the
iceberg of 'fat, lazy housewives and beer-bellied louts' he fears
are taking over Britain, Dowds' approach is markedly
different.
'If you've got to lose ten stone, you're going to have to go to
hell and back and out the other side to change your lifestyle. As
someone who's done that myself, I've got the tools and compassion
to help people find that transformative place to really turn their
lives around. I truly believe it's possible to make your life
anything you want it to be,' she tells me when we meet at a cafe in
Islington.
If you think that sounds too much like healy-feely American
self-help, you'd be wrong. 'Your average doctor says you can lose
2lbs a week safely, but I've proved that's bollocks. It may be
controversial, but during the ten weeks of filming the show some of
the contestants managed a complete transformation.'
She's referring to Lee, the Aerospace quality inspector who at the
start of the show had trouble taking his shoes off. 'By the end of
it, he was superfit and training like an athlete,' Angie says like
a proud mum. 'He lost six stone in ten weeks.' Then there was
27-year-old Jody Prenger from Blackpool, the larger-than-life
singer and funny girl. 'In the middle of a training session, she
broke down and told me that she felt genuinely happy for the first
time in her life,' Angie recalls. 'To hear that was amazing. If I
can help someone to tap into their self-belief, that's it. Job
done.'
The first time I met Angie she bounced up the stairwell to greet
me at her gym in North London, looking a million dollars. It was
only 7.30am but she'd been up since four, as she is most days,
radiating a vibrancy that I hoped would rub off on me during our
kettlebell training session. In fact, it cost The Biggest Loser
star - she was recently peer-voted Personal Trainer of the Year - a
great deal more than a million to get where she is today.
'Getting industry recognition felt fantastic,' she says reflecting
on her recent achievement. 'Ten years ago, I said to myself; "I
want to be the best at whatever it is I end up doing". I've always
had that inside me, even as a fuck-up!'
This is the first comment that hints at Angie's life prior to her
success. But typically she's not afraid to reveal her darker side.
Born in Canada in the late 1960s - her parents emigrated from
Liverpool - young Angie, aged four, returned to the UK after her
mum and dad split up. When her bohemian mother remarried and moved
to Wales, she found herself surrounded by drink, drugs and
violence.
From the age of five, she worked on a farm near where she lived
with her mother, delivering milk to neighbours while her mum got
sucked into the local hippie drug scene. By 13 she too had
discovered drink and drugs; at 15, she decided to leave her
dysfunctional home life behind and slept on friends' floors for
three years, getting a media job on a Youth Training Scheme before
heading for London. She won't be drawn into specifics. 'I don't
want to point the finger at anyone - that was what I used to do,
before I got clean,' she confirms. 'I was a victim and I had every
reason in the world to be, but I knew when I hit rock bottom five
years ago that that way of looking at things didn't work any more.
Its funny, Jane,' she says, holding me in her gaze as she does
throughout our conversation. 'Until I got clean I only had two
ambitions: getting absolutely wasted and working like a
bastard.'
Like a cat thrown from a great height, she landed on her feet when
she arrived in London, aged 18, getting a job as a video line
tester on film director Steven Spielberg's multi-million dollar
movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Five years later, she'd worked her
way up to the position of director's assistant. 'It was crazy; my
survival instinct was strongly bound up with a work ethic. It was
my only place for sanity.'
The turning point came at 33, when she realised that nobody but
herself could give her the life she wanted. 'I'd spent most of my
life feeling sorry for myself, and I knew that if I wanted to make
the most of my life I needed to take responsibility.'
If you ask her about her USP, and her record of success with
clients on-screen and off, she'll tell you that having forged her
way to relative happiness from the nadir of her addiction, she has
what it takes to help people achieve their deep-seated goals.
'Overeating, for example, is just another way of dealing with pain.
It's whatever is your drug of choice - it could be fags, booze, sex
even, but I know there's a way through it and I know the maths of
it. So, to start with I do their believing for them and carry them
through the scary bit until they find that self-belief for
themselves. That's why I like this kind of reality TV over
something like Big Brother. It inspires people and changes
lives.'
Angie's been with her actress partner Corrie and her two children
for three years. They recently got engaged. 'I got her a bigger
diamond than me - how romantic am I?' she admits with an
affectionate grin. 'I'm quite old-fashioned, in a way. I like that
role of the provider; I'm good at it. It's scary at times but it
feels really good to take care of someone very well.' Corrie left
the father of her kids to be with Angie a few months after she came
to Angie for fitness training. 'I've supported her from the moment
we got together. I knew I'd do whatever it took for me to raise my
game. I was only two years sober, and I'd only just learned how to
take care of myself. It was terrifying, but it made me who I am
today and helped me to develop a stronger sense of myself.'
She's never allowed her sexuality to be an issue. 'I've always
been upfront about it and I'd never want to hide it. Mind you, once
people have seen my muscles and tattoos they make assumptions. When
you worry about what people may think about any aspect of your
personality, its because you're worried about it.'
Her recent on-screen success has harvested new television
commitments: she's currently in discussion with producers about her
own show, and she has a growing waiting list of clients who want to
the benefit of Dowds' fitness and life-coaching skills. She's been
asked by health club chain Fitness First to mentor their personal
trainers nationwide, and - get this, footy fans - she's been
appointed as strength conditioning coach for pro non-league side
Fisher Athletic, managed by former Spurs player Justin
Edinburgh.
'I love footy, and being a coach in such a male-dominated world is
another ambition fulfilled. Getting guys to take you seriously and
making their training with me translate on the pitch is a real
challenge.' She shifts her glance to her feet as if she needs a
couple of seconds to take it all in. 'We're undefeated so
far.'
Letting out a sigh, she blows her fringe from her eyes. 'Never
give up. I try to live by that motto. I very nearly did once. I
really hope I never do again.' Somehow I think she'll be ok.
This article first appeared in DIVA magazine, November
2006.
