BodyBlitz Challenge Measurements Before Height – 186 cm Weight – 92 kg Chest – 112 cm Waist – 106 cm Calves – 36 cm Arms – 28 cm Thighs – 53 cm After Height – 186 cm Weight – 81.9 kg Chest – 108 cm Waist – 96cm Calves – 37 cm Arms – 32 cm Thighs – 54 cm

Having hit the big 4-0, I realised I was drinking far too much. From midweek to Sunday night I’d happily polish off two bottles of wine, and that was just when I was at home. Despite overcoming 22 years of bulimia, my eating habits had become terrible. I’d skip breakfast and even lunch most days and then gorge myself at night eating pizzas, Chinese or a pie with a conscience-alleviating side of salad —smothered in mayo, of course.

I started out with a plan to give up booze for three months and then a mate of mine told me he was doing BodyBlitz and asked me why not take up the challenge at the same time as him. Up until then I was going to the gym three or four times a week and sticking stubbornly to cardio while using a watch to measure supposed calories burnt. I would measure myself solely on the burning of 1000 calories in each workout. Combine that with my diet and I was going nowhere fast but Fatsville.

My personal trainer told me over and over again that if I wanted to change my body shape I need to mix up my training or it was a waste of time. Of course this idiot here thought he knew better. D’oh!

On the first day of the challenge I took the snaps and then went down to a supplements shop near my gym; $700 later I left the shop packed like a horse with plastic jars and went home. Once home I opened a book the shop owner had given me called Body for Life by Bill Phillips. From this I set out my exercise regime and diet. I must say that when I saw all of the before and after pictures of the people who had completed Phillip’s challenge I was very sceptical. I did not think for one minute fat men could rip and six pack up in 12 weeks. But the book was a huge motivation to me — even if perhaps at first only to prove it was a load of crap.

Week one saw my weight go up 600g despite training really hard and feeling very sore. Of course muscle weighs more than fat, but it took me a while to understand that. In fact it took three weeks to lose the first kilo. Then I pulled a muscle in my back and I was hardly able to walk, let alone train for a week. God I was so annoyed and was inches from packing it in. Lucky I didn’t!

While I could not train, I had kept strictly to the diet. It really wasn’t until week seven that the weight started to really fall off and my body started to change shape. That week’s weigh-in motivated me to up my game and over the next five weeks I doubled my efforts, absolutely smashing myself in short cardio bursts and pumping more and more weights.

I had started doing six days a week of training and on Sundays I would rest and have a cheat day on my diet and eat what and however much I wanted. But, of course, no alcohol. I had read that a cheat day shocks the body into losing weight and it worked.

By week nine, I rued the missed week from my bad back and felt time was slipping. Panicking that I was now really running out of time, I went to six days of exercise and no deviation on the diet seven days a week. By the start of week 10, I looked in the mirror and again panicked. I looked much better, but nowhere near the photos I’d seen in Phillip’s book. So in week 10 I pushed for seven sessions a week in the gym. Then all of a sudden in week 11 my body really began to change almost daily, and by week 12… well, the pictures tell the story.

On Wednesday of week 12 I looked in the mirror and I nearly burst into tears. The feeling of accomplishment that had just washed over me was a massively powerful euphoric release.

The hardest part of the challenge was actually not giving up the drinking or the diet, although I craved carbs after 5pm something rotten. For me it was the waking up in the morning aching from head to foot until about week 10. I would sleep like a baby, open my eyes feeling so refreshed… and then I’d try to move!

Thanks so much to my dear buddy for telling me about BodyBlitz; I hope he is a winner in this competition, as he truly deserves it more than me for his amazing dedication. Also, thanks to me for not giving up and for losing 40 years of an ‘I think I know better’ mental attitude. I’ve broken the mould of the old physical me. IM