Joe Wicks Interview Highlights: From Lean in 15 to PE With Joe

Joe Wicks’s audience followed him from one format to the next: 15-second cooking clips on Instagram, then bestselling books, then a daily YouTube PE class in the 2020 lockdown. His own account is plain: show up, give a lot away, and keep going when nobody turns up.

This post is for creators who want to turn a small following into a business, for brands weighing a family-friendly fitness partner, and for fans. It covers his start, PE With Joe, his childhood, his methods and advice, brand deals, the Killer protein bar backlash and his work in 2026.

Who is Joe Wicks?

Joe Wicks is a British fitness coach, cookbook author and TV presenter, known as The Body Coach, who built his audience with short recipe and workout videos on Instagram and YouTube and became the nation’s PE teacher during the 2020 lockdown.

He was born Joseph Trevor Wicks in Epsom, Surrey, in 1985, the son of a roofer and a social worker, and grew up on a council estate, according to Wikipedia. He told The Guardian in 2025 that the family was on benefits, that much of its money went on his father’s heroin addiction and that his mother lived with eating disorders, anxiety and OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). He was a personal trainer for five years before social media took off.

He married Rosie Jones in 2019 and they have four children. His older brother, Nikki, is chief executive of The Body Coach, the company behind his plans and app, The Standard reported in December 2025. He is on our list of top Instagram influencers.

How did Joe Wicks get started?

“I started running boot camps in my mid-20s. I was determined to be my own boss, and I didn’t want to work in a leisure centre for a tenner an hour. … Some mornings I’d set up; it would be freezing and raining and not a single person would arrive. But it didn’t put me off.”

— Joe Wicks, The Guardian, December 2025

At their peak the boot camps earned him £1,000 a month, he told The Guardian. He said in 2017 that he started Instagram only to get more customers. By 2016 the feed was a conveyor belt of 15-second recipe videos and before-and-after client photos, The Guardian reported, and the first Lean in 15 book was based on those videos.

“I don’t see myself as an entrepreneur. I just had an idea … You’re not getting paid, there’s no money in it, you can’t monetise this right now. But the book deal came off the back of that.”

— Joe Wicks, The Guardian, January 2017

The clips sold a paid product: a £147 90-day plan, with around 400 sign-ups a day in 2016, The Guardian reported. By January 2017 his three Lean in 15 books were the UK’s biggest-selling diet books since records began, according to Nielsen BookScan figures reported by The Guardian.

The order matters: a local service, free videos showing it, a paid plan, then books.

How did PE With Joe start?

“The first workout had nearly a million live connections. From then on, I did it every day, without fail, even though sometimes I was exhausted and I wanted a day off.”

— Joe Wicks, The Guardian, December 2025

He was due to tour schools the week the UK locked down in March 2020, he told The Guardian. Instead he and his brother emailed their database of 25,000 schools and went live on YouTube at 9am on 23 March. The next day’s live audience peaked at 954,000, The Observer reported, a Guinness World Record for a fitness live stream on YouTube. The paper said £580,000 in proceeds went to NHS charities; he ended the first run in July after 18 weeks and was made an MBE in the 2020 Birthday Honours.

“Near the end of it, I was tired … I wasn’t physically tired, more emotionally I just felt like it was Groundhog Day. It was emotional, but it was a relief, because in the end I was running out of ideas. And I’d run out of fancy-dress outfits.”

— Joe Wicks, The Observer, December 2020

Our Ms Rachel interview covers another creator parents adopted as a YouTube teacher. A daily live show builds a habit fast but wears you down, so plan an end date or a rotation.

How has Joe Wicks’s childhood shaped his work?

“Puberty was also the time I realised movement helped me process what I was feeling. I used to run two miles to school. I would turn up sweating, but I didn’t care as it was my release. Nobody talked about mental health back then, but I knew I was calmer once I’d done some exercise.”

— Joe Wicks, The Guardian, December 2025

On BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in 2020 he admitted that, angry after one of his father’s relapses, he had once said he hated him, The Observer reported.

“I have had that anger, and that has completely passed. The antidote to addiction is connection and love. It has allowed me to find peace.”

— Joe Wicks, on Desert Island Discs, as quoted by The Observer, June 2020

In 2022 he went further in Joe Wicks: Facing My Childhood, a BBC One documentary produced by Louis Theroux about how his parents’ mental health and addiction affected him, The Guardian reported. He told The Observer in 2020 that he shares the story because “it means that we all have a choice in life, we can all make our own path.” A personal story earns its place when it explains why you make what you make.

How does Joe Wicks decide what to make next?

“I love what I do, but there’s going to come a time where I probably can’t film the high-intensity HiiT workouts any more … This is a scalable way of getting into schools, getting into homes.”

— Joe Wicks, The Guardian, July 2025

He was talking about Activate, a series of five-minute animated workouts made with Studio AKA, the studio behind Hey Duggee. No broadcaster would take it, Studio AKA’s chief executive told The Guardian, so it launched on his YouTube channel, with the UK government as a partner. By July 2026 it was also on CBeebies, The Standard reported.

His other filter is friction, meaning anything that stops a viewer from starting.

“If you reduce the friction between you and exercise, you’ll stick to it … That’s the most important thing.”

— Joe Wicks, The Standard, December 2025

Hence 15-minute meals, 15-minute workouts and five-minute cartoons. Ask what stops your viewer from starting, and remove it.

What does Joe Wicks say works on Instagram and YouTube?

“I’m much more chilled out in real life. The Body Coach on social media is a character. … I’ve tried doing videos where I’m a bit more quiet, but then people go, ‘Er, what’s wrong? Are you having a bad day?’”

— Joe Wicks, The Guardian, June 2016

Viewers expect the loud persona, he said. In 2020 he added the other half.

“People like the fact that I’m out of breath when I’m training, or I’ll have a blowout, I’ll do a little choccy run. I make mistakes, I’m constantly learning.”

— Joe Wicks, The Guardian, March 2020

In the same interview he warned that viewers see through a front quickly and stop engaging. He also keeps the core free: “the forefront of what I do is free content and giving as much as I can,” he told The Observer in 2020. The formula: sustainable energy, visible struggle and a free core.

What mistakes does Joe Wicks say he made early on?

“You have to become antisocial to become a social media star. In the early days, I was addicted to social media. I had to be on it and be engaged. When I was with my family and friends I was just constantly on my phone, replying to everything.”

— Joe Wicks, The Observer, May 2018

He told The Standard in 2024 that he had once spent 10 hours a day on Instagram and had cut that to five or six. In lockdown he would sometimes spend up to seven hours a day answering fans’ messages, he told the Radio Times in 2022, as quoted by The Guardian: “Helping people is addictive … That feeling of helping someone is energising, but it also drains me.”

Our Ali Abdaal interview has another creator’s account of overwork. Set reply windows and phone-free hours before your audience can swallow your day.

What advice does Joe Wicks give new creators?

“I truly believe that it’s a personality thing … If you’re a likable person and you’re passionate, then people are drawn to that wherever you are in the world. And also hard work. Nobody wants to do the tweets. Nobody wants to write 60,000 tweets and post 1,000 videos when they’ve got no followers. People think you’re mad. But it pays off in the end.”

— Joe Wicks, The Guardian, June 2016

He tells the same story about his boot camps: on the mornings nobody came, he said in 2025, a voice in his head kept saying, “Keep going and someone will come next week.” He told The Observer in 2018 that most of the negativity he gets comes from other personal trainers who think he got lucky, and that he ignores it.

Post more than feels reasonable while nobody is watching, and don’t spend energy on peers who call it luck.

What does Joe Wicks say about working with brands?

“I’ve got a huge community, millions of people every month doing my workouts and so I see myself on my YouTube channel using this, doing a workout, and saying ‘Look, this is a great option if you want to try something different’.”

— Joe Wicks, on Dragons’ Den, as quoted by The Standard, January 2025

As a guest investor on Dragons’ Den in January 2025, he agreed to put £35,000 into BodyXcore, a portable gym kit, for a 12.5% stake, The Standard reported.

His own deals stay close to food, fitness and families. He was advertising Uncle Ben’s rice on YouTube in 2016, The Guardian reported; he launched a kitchenware range in 2018, according to Wikipedia; and he fronted Asda’s Cashpot for Schools campaign in 2024, The Standard reported. He also turned down a government offer to front an NHS campaign because it felt like PR, The Standard reported. Brands can check fit with our guide on how to vet a YouTube creator; creators can read our guide to getting YouTube sponsorships.

Then there is his own app, The Body Coach, launched in late 2020. In December 2025 ITV agreed to invest up to £3m through its media-for-equity fund, in return for the app advertising on ITV’s channels, The Standard reported. “I never imagined when I started my bootcamps in the park over 12 years ago that The Body Coach would grow into a brand reaching millions of people,” Wicks said.

Why was Joe Wicks’s Killer protein bar controversial?

“Making a truly harmful protein bar is a way of showing how easy it is to put really unhealthy ingredients into a bar and sell it to you as a health food. It’s provocative.”

— Joe Wicks, writing in The Standard, October 2025

The bar was the centre of Joe Wicks: Licensed to Kill, a Channel 4 documentary first shown on 6 October 2025, in which he teamed up with Dr Chris van Tulleken, author of Ultra-Processed People. NutraIngredients describes ultra-processed foods (UPFs) as foods containing ingredients and additives not commonly found in home cooking. His stated aim was to push the government towards health warnings on packaging.

Reaction split. The Guardian’s reviewer called it a bracing campaigning documentary; Professor Tim Spector accused him of scaremongering, The Standard reported; and NutraIngredients quoted an industry analyst calling it a broad-brush criticism and a food lawyer who said the bar may not fully comply with UK food law. Wicks replied on ITV’s Loose Women, The Standard reported, that the film was about the ultra-processed food system: “what I really want is just honest labelling.” Separately, The Standard noted in 2024 that his suggestion that ADHD was linked to diet had alienated some; he later said the comments were taken out of context.

“I was upset. I was emotional. I was sensitive, and it proper knocked my confidence”

— Joe Wicks, The Independent, September 2026

He told The Independent he came to accept that the film got more people talking about UPFs, but ruled out a sequel: “I’m not going to spend my life doing documentaries and putting myself in the fire — I can just be part of the solution.” A stunt buys attention and scrutiny; line up your evidence first.

What is Joe Wicks working on now?

“I knew I was bad with my phone, but it wasn’t until I was forced to give it up during one of the experiments that I realised just how much I reach for it without even thinking.”

— Joe Wicks, writing on The Body Coach blog, September 2026

That experiment is from Health or Hype, a five-episode podcast and video series made in partnership with Bupa, in which he tests health trends on himself; all five episodes were on his YouTube channel as of October 2026. This autumn he is releasing Healthy Start, his 14th cookbook, of family recipes, The Independent reported. In April he ran the London Marathon alongside the children’s TV character Daddy Pig in 5 hours 51 minutes for the National Deaf Children’s Society, The Independent reported.

His own goal for 2026, he told The Standard, was to be more present with his children and less fixated on screen time.

What creators can learn from Joe Wicks

Sources

• Meet the Body Coach, the man with the million-dollar muscles, The Guardian, June 2016
• Lean in 15’s Joe Wicks: ‘I don’t understand the clean-eating thing. I’ve just had bangers and mash’, The Guardian, January 2017
• Joe Wicks’s Lean in 15 books earn fattest sales of any British diet plan, The Guardian, January 2017
• Joe Wicks: ‘Other personal trainers think I got lucky’, The Observer, May 2018
• ‘My heartthrob days are over’: Joe Wicks on health, happiness – and training the nation, The Guardian, March 2020
• ‘The antidote to addiction is love’: Joe Wicks on learning to forgive his father, The Observer, June 2020
• Joe Wicks: ‘I believe when you give, give, give, the world ends up giving back’, The Observer, December 2020
• Joe Wicks says millions of parents suffering mental health issues after lockdown, The Guardian, May 2022
• Joe Wicks, The Body Coach interview: ‘Why I might go into politics’, The Standard, September 2024
• Joe Wicks invests thousands in gym kit business after pitch brings him to tears, The Standard, January 2025
• ‘I might annoy you, but my intentions are good’: Joe Wicks’ alien-filled new exercise class for kids, The Guardian, July 2025
• Joe Wicks: The protein industry is laughable. That’s why I created the UK’s most dangerous health bar, The Standard, October 2025
• Joe Wicks faces backlash over ‘Killer’ protein bar stunt, NutraIngredients, October 2025
• Joe Wicks: Licensed to Kill review – TV so vile you’ll never touch a protein bar again, The Guardian, October 2025
• Joe Wicks admits his ‘dangerous’ protein bar has ‘caused a lot of controversy’, The Standard, October 2025
• Joe Wicks says we’ve been ‘duped’ by health foods – and wants families eating protein for breakfast instead, The Independent, December 2025
• Joe Wicks: ‘Success is having nice food, and the heat and gas on – things I didn’t experience as a kid’, The Guardian, December 2025
• Joe Wicks on starting 2026 strong, realistic fitness goals and why you don’t need to smash January, The Standard, December 2025
• ITV invests up to £3m in Joe Wicks fitness app, The Standard, December 2025
• How your favourite celebrity did at the 2026 London Marathon, The Independent, April 2026
• Joe Wicks urges parents to be positive role models by working out with children, The Standard, July 2026
• ‘I grew up on ultra-processed food. I don’t want that for my kids’: Joe Wicks on childhood, raising healthy kids and facing his critics, The Independent, September 2026
• 5 things I learnt about myself filming my new podcast Health or Hype, The Body Coach, September 2026
• The Body Coach TV channel page, YouTube, October 2026
• Joe Wicks (coach), Wikipedia, October 2026

What to do next

If Joe Wicks’s path changes how you judge creators, look at what their recent videos do for viewers, not only at follower counts. Our methodology explains how we do that, and our creator lists put it into practice.

For other creators’ answers to the same questions, browse our creator interviews. For a very different route from daily videos to a business, compare our Casey Neistat interview; for a practicing doctor’s answers, read our Doctor Mike interview.