Day 1 – My Health and Fitness Challenge

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A New Beginning

Over the past week or so, I’ve been measuring and assessing my clientele and it’s always so rewarding for me to see their faces light up when they see the fruits of their hard work.  I also have some clients who dread being assessed and for good reasons.  They’re in a different head space and as a result the numbers won’t make good reading, but what has this got to do with the title of this blog post, Day 1 – A New Beginning?

It’s quite simple.  Some people think that as a personal trainer & Strength & Conditioning Coach, we lead perfect lives.  We train hard every day, eat really clean every day and have fantastic fit strong and healthy physiques.  Well guess what.  I’m not perfect.  In fact, I’m human, just like everyone I work with.  I fall into pits, get down and depressed, eat comfort foods and stop training, just like everyone I work with.

This blog post is the beginning of a 90 day challenge I’ve set for myself.  To record in a daily post, my journey as I drag myself kicking and screaming from my dark depths of despair and back to where I’ve come from.  I’m doing this for two reasons, the first is purely selfish.  It’s a way for me to hold myself accountable to my training and eating goals.

Secondly and more importantly, I trust that someone out there in the interwebtisfacebookielinkedintwittersphere will find inspiration from my daily blog posts to drag themselves back from the brink as well.

So what went wrong for me?

Well it all started last year when my fabulous training partner Tracey and I worked our butts off for a photo shoot.  We set ourselves a goal and we trained really well, ate really clean and as a result of 6 months of solid effort we achieved some good numbers.

Here is my result, 107.4 kgs with 14.02% body fat. 

Then Tracey went off and got a job that precluded her from training with me and as a typical human being, I used that as an excuse to stop training, when in reality i could’ve kept going.

Since then my body has slowly but surely spiralled on a deadly downward slide to where I am today, 112.1 kgs, and 24.5% body fat.  In the space of 9 months, I gained 5 kgs in body weight, but worse was to yet come.  In that same period, I lost 8 kgs of muscle and gained 6 kgs of body fat.

How did this happen?  Simple, on top of stopping training regularly, I went back to eating whatever I wanted and it showed.  I became down on myself and sought solitude in comfort foods.  For me that’s anything with grains and cereals in it.

Fast forward to 6 days ago and I had reached rock bottom, so I decided to take some action.  I took some photos (Olivia helped) measured my body fat levels and wrote an exercise program and eating plan.  It sat on my desk for another 3 days until BOOM; I took more action and actually started the training program.

So, here’s the deal.  For the next 90 days, I’ll drop a few quick lines showing you my training program, my eating plan and my stretching regime.  I’ll write a few short words on how I’m feeling, (mentally and physically) and track my progress.

I hope you enjoy following this journey. See Day 2 here I cannot talk on the phone too long?!!!