So what does Leon McNiece, the man behind some of the country’s most successful gyms, eat for lunch?

“I eat a carnivore diet,” the 56-year-old says.

That means mostly meat and fish-based meals, with only certain vegetables, little fruit, and tight restrictions on pasta, bread and grains.

During our High Steaks lunch at Brisbane’s stylish Fortitude Valley steakhouse Establishment 203, it’s a 300g wagyu rib eye with a marble score of six, accompanied by mushroom sauce and sides of roasted portobello mushrooms and broccolini.

However, he steers clear of the brussels sprouts and leafy greens also on the plate, as he insists they will upset his stomach.

While not everyone agrees with his controversial caveman-inspired diet – including his nutrition-conscious yogi wife Michelle, with whom he runs his gym empire – he says it works for him and has done all the medical testing, including blood work and a full-body MRI, to prove he’s in tip-top shape.

In fact, McNiece is “obsessed” with health and wellness.

It’s why his current Brisbane-based gym operation TotalFusion, with outlets in Morningside, Springfield, Mount Gravatt and Chermside, not only offers state-of-the-art facilities, classes and equipment, but his $80m Newstead flagship branch also features the likes of infra-red saunas, a snow room, cryotherapy, ice baths, a magnesium pool, and an entire team of medical experts including doctors, dietitians and physiotherapists.

“We really were creating a space and services that were all the things that we were interested in doing ourselves,” he says, with the brand also featuring a range of day spas, offering the latest treatments from facials and massages to laser therapies and peels as loved by Hollywood A-listers.

“There was no reason why we shouldn’t extend that out to the broader public because we knew having such a holistic and comprehensive offering all under one roof was going to make it so much easier for people through time efficiencies and cost savings, and coupled together would drive people to come in more than what they would to a normal gym.”

In fact, McNiece, himself spends several hours a day at his gyms using the facilities, training mostly twice a day, ranging from weight and intense cardio sessions to power or restorative yoga; and engaging in hot and cold therapy with ice baths and red-light therapy.

He even spends time in the Newstead TotalFusion Platinum spa, undergoing the facility’s latest treatments including laser therapy, skin needling and the celebrity favourite platelet-rich plasma facial aka the “vampire facial”.

“I would never say I was a great spa person, my wife’s done a lot more sessions than me, but now having the day spa, we’re doing a lot of fun things,” he says.

“It’s something probably out of my usual routine but I’m actually loving it.”

His obsession with health and fitness is part of a global wellness movement, with the market believed to be worth about $A8.3 trillion and growing at a rate of 8.6 per cent annually, according to the Global Wellness Institute.

Behind much of the growth has been Covid-19, motivating many consumers to boost their immunity levels and lead healthier lives to avoid disease.

The GWI data puts Australia in sixth position internationally in the wellness spend per capita stakes, forking out almost $5600 per year on everything from traditional medicine and wellness retreats to weight loss and physical activity.

McNiece says it’s a trend he has witnessed first hand in his health clubs, as more people put health as a priority.

“We find now that even though there’s a cost-of-living crisis, people aren’t actually cutting short on their health and wellbeing,” he says.

“Before they would cut their gym membership or their wellness offering, but now maybe they’re not shopping as much or maybe having a different style of holiday, or maybe they’re not going out as much, but they’re diverting some of their other discretionary spend into the health and wellness space.

“We haven’t seen any sort of drop off. It’s just such a huge priority.”

But it’s not about having bulging biceps, a six-pack or living forever, McNiece says, it’s about living well.

And it’s this that is his own personal driving force.

“My parents are a classic example, like my father has died but his last 10 years of life were horrendous; and my mother, who’s not very well now, I can see what she’s going through in her last phase of life and it’s not very pleasant,” he says.

“We’re really concentrating on making sure people have a good basis early and maintaining it and that will ensure quality to the end of their life.”

For McNiece, in particular, that means continuing dirt bike riding with his three adult sons, skiing double black diamond slopes and playing pickleball.

“I just want to make sure that I can keep doing all the things that I love doing for as long as I can,” he says.

That also includes growing the TotalFusion portfolio – something the entrepreneur is well-practised in having expanded Snap Fitness to 250 outlets across Australia and New Zealand before he sold it in 2018; while Goodlife became one of the largest gym chains in Australia by the time he sold it in 2007.

The first of the expansion will include a new outlet due to open early next year in Melbourne, where McNiece grew up and began his entrepreneurial career establishing and running a catering company with one of his best friends. There will also be more TotalFusions planned for the southern city, alongside extra Queensland outlets in Graceville, a 3000sq m-plus extension to the current Chermside venture, and a new South Brisbane offering.

But McNiece insists that despite his track record of selling up his gym empires, TotalFusion is a “forever” business.

He even reveals things would be different for Goodlife if he had his time again.

“If I could go back in time I probably wouldn’t have sold (Goodlife) but then I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today necessarily either, so it was all part of the journey,” he says

And while McNiece, who works with both his son Ben and wife Michelle in the burgeoning business, says he couldn’t imagine doing anything else, he knows that the journey to longevity may be a bumpy one as the number of wellness facilities explodes across the country.

“Sometimes it can be a bit of boom and bust,” he says.

“People will open a lot of boutique-style venues and they’re the hardest ones to maintain on a long-term basis because … going to a recovery place and they only have recovery and it’s quite expensive just to do your recovery at a place, they serve a good part of the market but they do become one dimensional.

“In most industries – whether it’s five, 10 or 20 years down the track – they go through consolidation so I’m sure it will happen at some point in time.”

For now though, he hopes the wellness boom continues, making for a strong and healthy economy and strong and healthy Australians.