I have created this blog with the purpose to impart the knowledge that I have gained over the last few years and to share my journey of experiences of training, nutrition supplementation and stumbling blocks, so that you can know I am fallible, but the difference between me reaching success and the next person who fails, is that unlike them, I refuse to give up the fight, as failure is the outcome of quitting.

First a bit of backstory – This is my foundation

At the age of 6 my father died in a car accident, I remember the day quite well. I remember sitting in our lounge surrounded by people and being told by a family friend, “You are the man of the house, you should be responsible for your mother and sister.” This had a profound impact on the rest of my life and the first time I remember worrying. That day my childhood ended. I took that burden on myself and tried to build myself to not be a burden upon my family. I still to this day try not to place any burden upon my mother or sister.

As a child this took it’s toll and by the time I was 9, I was being treated by a psychologist, as I could not sleep and had severe nightmares.

As a young child I wouldn’t say that I was overweight. I started gaining weight quite rapidly at the age of 10 and became quite big by the time I was 12. Being the fattest child at school was quite torture and I hated every minute of it. Like most overweight children, I was severely bullied over my weight. This was not just confined to school. I remember a family incident from my childhood, where on my 13th birthday, my uncle proceeded to tease me about my weight. When my mother laughed, I remember hitting her. After which I got punished with a spanking.

In High School it didn’t get much better, I ended up being even heavier and at one point at the age of 15 was weighing in at 220lbs/100kg. I would most probably mark this as the worst period of my life, I have fond memories of friends, but very few good memories of myself. I remember lying in the tub and thinking “Maybe I should drown myself”, yes, being overweight made me want to end it all and I think people who eat and become morbidly obese, in a way try to kill themselves, just in a different way.

I really did try at school to lose weight, but had no knowledge and no support network to understand what needed to be done. And looking back, realise that my parents didn’t have a good idea of what was healthy either. So diets became the norm.

Anorexia didn’t work, I liked food too much. Longest I made without food was 24 hours!

Bulimia was a fail as well, I have no gag reflex.

I come from a family that loves eating and my mother would easily serve me 2 plates of food for dinner and maybe throw in a dessert, we have this pattern of thought within our culture that big means healthy, we even have saying for it; Round and Healthy.
Food became a coping mechanism for me. When I was ill or things didn’t go well, my mother would comfort me with food. To this day when I am sick, I crave Sprite, Bread with Marmite, Black Tea with Honey, a pie and some crisps. When I performed well or excelled in anything my mum would treat me with a meal of Waffles and Milkshakes at a local restaurant. Like most people, I connected my feelings with food. Saying all of this, I don’t blame my mum at all, she did the best she could as a single mother raising me and my sister, and had to sacrifice a lot for us. For that she will always have my eternal respect, love and gratitude. She is my hero after all for what she has achieved in life.

After High School I moved out of my childhood home and took it upon myself to lose weight. I joined a gym and got into it a bit, but never really went the distance. I would lose weight and then gain more weight than I lost in the first place. I had always dreamed of being a bodybuilder, but had been told my entire life that I would be overweight and it is just the way I was made. Accept it! Words which should never be uttered, as my believe system now is based on a concept that the only inevitable thing in life is death, the rest is all within the limits you place on yourself.

After years of my weight taking a roller coaster ride, it reached a climax in 2008, my weight really spiralled out of control, my personal life was a mess, I was in a very destructive relationship and I ballooned to 120kg. I have many pictures of myself smiling, but was deeply unhappy.

One of my major triggers that lead to my change were when I saw a photo of myself and couldn’t believe how enormous I looked. I was in a downward spiral. Consequently I decided to make a change, at this point the decision didn’t feel very different to any of the other times I embarked on a journey of weight loss, but sitting here and having come as far as I did, I look back now and realise it was very different, as the way I felt was different. Compare all of those times to when you decided to make a change and look at them closely, the promises you make to yourself is the same, the way you approached it most likely very similar.

By making major changes in my diet and adding in a bit of exercise I lost 44lbs/20kg within the first 4 months. I started reading as much as I could about nutrition, exercise and supplements.

It gave me a taste of where I wanted to be and I became even more motivated. Believe me though it was not without it’s ups and downs getting to this point. But no matter how many times I fell down I just got back up, which is something I never used to do. I had some really tough days and over the next 4 months I went through a very difficult personal time in my relationship. Instead of having it hamper my progress, I used it drive me further. Anger and pain can be good motivators.

I lost another 22lbs/10kg during this time, which brought me to my current weight, but even though I was at a “normal” weight, I was hungry for more and still had a problem with those bloody love handles and stomach pudge, you know what I am referring to, that bit of stubborn weight around the waist that jiggles when you move. Also my body wasn’t sculpted, I had just done the first part, lost the weight.
My next goal that I had set myself was to try and change my body composition, which is what I have been doing over the last 2-3 years, by driving down my body fat % and changing my shape by adding muscle. And it has giving me new challenges, new ideas and new motivation.

I have come to love challenging myself, going further than I ever thought I would, breaking through the barriers that people and I myself had placed on my mind and abilities. The journey has taught me a lot and in the process I have grown as a person and built this Alexandrian library of food and fitness knowledge. I think the biggest virtue I have acquired, is that of self control, but believe me, I still have to battle with my inner fat boy every day. I have just become better at beating the shit out of him, but being a worthy opponent, some days I still lose.

So why all of this backstory, well to understand where you are heading to, you need to understand where you came from. Only a foolish man builds his house on sand.