Dermot Bannon has revealed the fitness routine that helped him to get in shape.
The well-known architect, who fronts RTE’s Room to Improve, explained that one of his major objectives in recent years was to improve his fitness levels, and it only required a few simple exercise adjustments to achieve it.
“I got fit this year for the first time,” Dermot told RSVP Magazine. “I used to say to myself, I need to do 8,000 steps or 10,000 steps today and I’d try to but it takes ages! What I do now is a 15-minute walk in the morning, another 15-minute walk at lunchtime and then I’ll do half an hour in the evening. Then it’s done, it doesn’t take anything out of me and it’s made a massive difference.
“I’ve lost nearly seven kilos in weight and I’m fitter and healthier. It was all through tiny things, no big diets. It was just 8-10k steps a day and I go to the gym two nights of the week to a class. I go to the class because it’s good craic and we have a bit of banter. Lads Lifting it’s called, at the Edge in Clontarf.”
Room To Improve’s Dermot Bannon
The key factor that helped him establish his routine was viewing exercise as a social pastime and something to take pleasure in. “It has changed my life, because I now go to the gym to meet up with people and do something social and we have a bit of craic,” he said.
“It’s just consistency. That’s the one thing I’ve learned in the last year; if you put in the tiniest little bit of effort and just do it, get up off your backside and do 10 minutes of it, it’s far better off than thinking about all the big walks you need to go on tomorrow, that you won’t do.
“Do something right now, no matter how tiny. If you can keep doing that and do something consistently, things do change. There’s nothing like the feeling of being down a new belt notch, or the clothes that I bought five years ago fit me again. It might take a couple of months, but it will happen.”
RSVP February 2026 cover
We’re still in the early stages of the year, yet Dermot has abandoned New Year’s resolutions altogether.
“No, I used to do all that because that’s the kind of person I am, and I wouldn’t do any of them or I’d have failed by the third week of January and then I’d actually get really angry with myself,” he recalled. “Now, when I want to do something I start it right now.
“For the last few years, I’ve had a philosophy; instead of saying, in the new year I’ll get fit, I start something small right away. If I want to do something now, I just do a tiny bit of it. That’s how I design, and I brought the design work ethic into the rest of my life. If you want to make changes, make tiny changes all the time.”
Read the full interview in February’s issue of RSVP Magazine, on shelves now.
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