A little bit about Chris Everingham
Hi, I’m Chris Everingham.
I’m a Fil-Aussie living in the Philippines, born to a Filipino mum and an Australian dad. I grew up in a small city in Australia with my parents and two brothers.
Boys being boys, we grew up with an inherent love for competition so sports was naturally our pathway for self-expression. It also symbolised our innate understanding of what it meant to be in a team – working in synergy with others and leveraging my strengths to help where possible. Unfortunately, at this time I also found myself encountering racism from strangers and even on-field competitors; but instead of dwelling on the harshness of those situations, I used this adversity to drive my performance – to not only rise above scrutiny but ultimately excel in sports throughout my life.
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At university, I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Nutrition and Dietetics fulfilling my need to understand the effect of food our overall health and wellbeing. Naturally, I furthered my education to include what I had experienced in sports by studying exercise and strength & conditioning based workouts.
After study, I joined a fitness club and rapidly rose to manager – I was finally getting paid to teach other coaches (and everyday people) how to maximise their health. But after years of doing so, I still found myself unfulfilled. Then in 2011, fate would present an opportunity to play international level sports for the Philippine Volcanoes national rugby team.
Without hesitation, I grabbed this once in a lifetime chance not knowing my life was about to change. I flew to the Philippines and the rest was history.
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We were winning games, promoting the sport of rugby throughout the nation and collectively writing Philippine sports history. Amidst the action, I was also gaining recognition and ‘fame’- we were on primetime radio and tv shows, popular magazines and even building sized billboards on major highways like EDSA, Manila. People everywhere wanted photos, fan signs and even autographs!
I was on a high. Dopamine levels were through the roof and for a moment in time I thought I was invincible.
But, I was blinded-sided.
I was sucked into the wrong crowd. Trusted too many people freely – even gave my money, time and attention where I shouldn’t.
I lived in a bubble and it had burst – so much so that it thrust me into a downward spiral of poverty and depression. I was dropped from my sky-high pedestal as fast as I was able climb it. It was a heavy hit to my mind, my spirit, and my ego.
What could I do?
I had two choices: give up or rise above it.
I chose the latter.
While it was a difficult choice, there was only one way – I embraced my reality with humility and fortitude. I took a step back for many months and hid away reading books in a local library as well as reflected on my life and experiences.
One day I remember reading one quote by Paulo Coelho (who wrote The Alchemist) and it had struck a cord with me, “Sometimes you have to go around the world to understand that the treasure is in your own home.”
A light bulb went off in my head.
There inside I already had the template for success – after all I was a 8 year long-serving international championship winning athlete – I just had to apply it to my own life.
And from that day I never looked back.
I dug myself out of my own hole by teaching my holistic performance secrets to corporate professionals and the next generation of international athletes. I was able to contribute to big and small company such as Adidas, Unilab, Fitness First, Optimum Nutrition, Color Manila, URC, as well as drive the elite performance of some well-known international championships wins for the Philippine Volcanoes:
- Back-to-back Division One Asian Rugby Champions for the men’s rugby 15s team in 2018 and 2019
- 2 men’s rugby 7s championships (Asian Trophy Series 2017 and SEA Games 2019 Gold medal)
- 1 women’s rugby 7s championship win (Asian Trophy Series 2019) and a SEA Games 2019 silver medal
- Top 4 men’s rugby 7s Olympic Qualifier finish 2019
- Top 3 men’s rugby 7s Asian Sevens Series finish 2018
- Top 8 World Series Qualifier finish 2019
And here I am today, I‘ve done a few cool things over my time, experienced more than my fair share of life and I look forward to sharing my secrets to holistic performance with you.
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Here’s some transformation stories from real people!
“I’ve been working with Chris for about 15 weeks. Before I started I just had two kids and I felt fat and not motivated at all to get into the gym and since then, I’ve achieved my goal of losing 6kg and not only that I’m feeling fantastic about myself – my self-esteem has really grown, even my husband comments that I’m looking pretty hot. So, umm, I’m really happy with the progress I’ve made… I’ve found that each session is very varied so it’s makes it very interesting and exciting everytime.” – Rachel, Lane Cove, Australia.
“…In 6 months I’ve lost 15 or 16kg, got much better balance and I’m all fired up…If you got a big improvement you want to make then Chris has put a good program together to suit you.” – Huw, North Sydney, Australia
Chris Everingham created The First Five Fitness Program
Chris Everingham spent many years in a variety of health and fitness roles including, Nutritionist Researcher and Personal Trainer. He is currently the Elite Performance Manager of an international rugby team and frequently sort-after keynote speaker. Throughout Chris’ experience, he started to notice patterns in health and fitness that distinguished the “fit & healthy” from the “sick & ill” and he summarized it into this statement:
“Healthy habits create healthy humans.”
In an effort to simplify a fit and healthy lifestyle into effective habits, Chris finally developed the First Five Fitness Program – his collection of the top nutrition habits, workouts & exercises, and mindset activities that bring a lasting impact to your health and fitness.
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