Bad medicine

I really need to start over.

For the last month, my weight has basically stabilized at the same crappy number. I've been exercising as before, but must admit that I'm a bit tired of diet food. At least it has not crept up too much.

Last weekend my wife and I had a weekend to ourselves, as the children went with their aunt and gran to the Kruger National Park. Suddenly we had some free time, which all parents will tell you is a bit disconcerting when it sneaks up to you all of a sudden.  We decided to stroll through our local mall, as it's normally a bit like herding a clowder of cats through a field of near extinct ground-nesting birds. Don't worry, I also had to look up the collective noun for housecats. Google also suggests a "nuisance" of cats, but that would more aptly describe two teenage boys, a tween and a toddler. Wait...

The local Woolies had a sale on summer clothes, up to 65% discount. Usually this would be an exercise in despair for me. I'd dive in there, just to find oodles of 28-34 sized denims, but nothing in more me-like sizes. It always ended with me leaving the store under a cloud of self deprecation. Lo and behold, there were a few 36's and a 38 or two. I took a 38 and a 36 to the fitting room. The 36 just for checking how far I'm off. As it turned out, it fits! This was such a positive experience for me. When I showed my wife how it fits, she said that I look really well in it, with a twinkle in her eye. So now I am a proud owner of a size 36 jean.

I remember the last 36 denim I had. My mom bought it for me at Markham in Landros Marais street, just down the road from the Astra movie theater in Pietersburg, in 1987. I had a look on Google Earth. That store is still there! It was a stonewash denim. My dad's comment was, "Why didn't you buy a new one?" Shortly thereafter I hit the 40's, 42's and at the middle last year I was knocking on 44's door. Embarrassing.

What's really interesting about the belt photo, and I'm using "interesting" in the rudest possible way, is the angle of the buckle marks on the leather. It shows how my stomach was putting stress on the belt... Right is six months ago. Left is 15cm away.

I've resolved to reboot my diet. As if today is Day 1. Wish me luck.

Most of the people I meet that haven't seen me for a while, have the same question: "What are you taking?" That is such a sad question. I know it's really a bad example but it reminds me a bit of the Nike ad by Lance Armstrong where he says: "Everybody wants to know what I'm on. What am I on? I'm on my bike, bustin' my ass six hours a day. What are you on?" It's embarrassing today, but honestly that's the type of answer I would like to give. I made me fat, I am making me healthy again.

All those miracle shortcuts? Bad medicine in my opinion.

Another one bites the dust!

Two important things happened this week. On Saturday, My daughter asked me if I can make a cart-wheel. Being the alpha- male in our house, a simple "Yes dear, I'm able" was not enough. My answer was more like: "Stand aside, I will show you!"

So I did it. On my first attempt, she said it looked ok-ish, but I did not point my toes. Of course this was a border-line insult as far as I was concerned. So I went for broke, I needed height and grace to pull off the perfect cart-wheel. The result was outstanding. I'm still proud. Unfortunately, I pulled my hamstring tendon as well, so much so, that my wife sitting a few meters away could hear it pop.

Went to the doctor and got proper meds and treatment. Thankfully, I think this will be a short problem. In gym, I continued exercising, but eliminated all hamstring related exercises. I actually replaced them by sit-ups. Sitting in that doctor's reception, I was terrified that I would have to lay off for a month or so. Luckily it did not happen. After x-rays, the doctor mentioned that the joint space of my hips are quite narrow, although nicely uniform. I should not consider doing marathons. So relieved! Maybe that is also a remnant of carrying excess weight around.

I started this journey on July 4, 2016 (Hey, the new me was born on the fourth of July!) Yesterday, weighing myself on the same scale, in the same Gym, 228 days later, I weighed exactly 30 kg less! This is the second significant event of this week. Some stats: Pant size: 44 to 38, Shirt size, 4XL to XXL, Belt, on 4th new hole. Because of my shoulders, I think XXL will be my shirt size in future as well.



I still carry significant weight around my lower belly. It seems those guys are the most difficult to shed. I still have 13kg to go. There is light in the tunnel!

I try to cut carbs out of my diet. So I am quite a connoisseur of broccoli and cauliflower by now. Both are good replacements for pasta, potato etc. Breakfast is a problem though, bread and breakfast go together like copy and paste. At the moment I eat low-GI bread with peanut butter. This will have to change I think. Lunch is Biogen Diet Fuel, I am well and truly hooked. After gym I'm as hungry as a hostage and it goes down like a smoothie.

It is extremely hard work to lose weight at the moment. It takes a lot of effort. I suspect the fitter me, deals with exercise a bit easier, so the level of effort need to increase to make a significant impact.

Speaking of fitter. Yesterday morning, before I got up from bed, my pulse was 38. That's pretty low!

Eye of the tiger

We had a very eventful state of the nation address last night, as it has sadly become customary now. It seems one needs some hand-to-hand combat training now to go to parliament. Which, if you think carefully, is maybe not such a bad idea. Let them, the people that instigate hate and division to push their own agendas, fight it out among themselves. That leaves us, the common citizenry, to continue leading our relatively peaceful lives, in harmony.
Another tradition that seems to have become entrenched now, is that the sign-language interpreter steals the show.

Nelson Mandela's Funeral (Itsy bitsy spider...)

2016 State of the Nation (Zupta must fall!)

2017 State of the Nation (F@#k you Steenhuysen!)

Speaking of fighters, one of this countries' most loved sons passed away this week. Joost I salute you for your inspiration to us all. He was actually my neighbour! When I was a student, I shared a flat in Sunnyside with a friend. My friend's family was a little moneyed, so it was quite up-market. He was just starting out and the Blue Bulls rented him a flat one or two doors down the passage. I recall his piercing blue-green eyes and the way he always seemed like a wound up spring. Even standing in the lift with him, you were kind of waiting for the energy to release. And it did. Once the doors opened, he was out of there like a bullet from a gun.
I missed my 30kg milestone by a few grams this week. Still down 1.4 kg for the week though!
My gym routine is constantly expanding. I am slowly pushing up the weight and number of repetitions. I am up to 25 repetitions on some machines. After the circuit, I also add extra exercises; sit-ups, leg-ups and Russian twists.
As an experiment, I weigh myself before and after gym. I leave about 0.6 kg in the gym. I think that is quite good.
Honestly, last year this time I would never have thought this possible.


Enjoy the weekend friends!

Today is that day

On this day, in 1959 Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and Mr. JP Richardson (The Big Bopper) died in a corn field near Clear Lake, Iowa. Later Don Mclean made a beautiful song about the events and this date is now known as "The day the music died". Buddy Holly was 22 years old at the time and I'm sure he would have gone on to be one of the biggest stars in the music world.

To me this date is also significant, as today is my 47th birthday. 47! Where have the time gone? To be honest, I still feel like a teenager inside.

I am lucky, as I have a great view of my life right now. I can look back at all the experiences, people, moments that fill my memories. I can reflect on the past and learn what needs to be learned. I miss my dad the most, I wonder what he would say today, if he would have been proud of me. At some level, I still want his appreciation. I can also see the future, imagine being what I aspire too for myself... you know, see it believe in it, work it, become it, as the self-help books would like us to believe. There is still a fair bit of future to work with! Something to be thankful for.

But as Winnie the Poo so eloquently put it, what makes this day my favourite, is that it is "Today". Today is a gift given to me where I learn from the past and faithfully build the future, as hopefully tomorrow and the day after that will be. In have made to-do and stop-doing lists to internalize throughout this year. Hopefully it will become part of who I am.

Enough mushy stuff!

Yesterday, on a whim, I tried on the suit I got married in 20 years ago. I am quite disappointed. It does not fit at all. The pants are way too big, by about 15 cm and the jacket is way to small. The sleeves leave about 5 cm of wrist exposed. When I bought it, my mindset was, as always, to disappear in the room. Of course this is a bit silly, seeing as it is your wedding day after all, but you can't argue with the sub-conscious... This is apparently a common phenomenon, as this guy so aptly explains. He has a great blog, by the way, although I don't agree with everything he says. If it was today, that suit may look a bit different, but the wife would be the same.

Embarrassingly, I kind of get the shopping addiction people have. I always dreaded going to clothes shops, even joked that they do not even make handkerchiefs in my size. But now things are different. Suddenly I have choices. Yeah! If only no 12 shoes were common...

I did an interesting experiment last night. I picked up my wife. No, not in a bar, I physically picked her up. She weighs a bit less than the weights I normally train with, so I wanted to feel if it felt more or less the same. She's actually light, I could carry her all day.

My body is definitely changing. This is an unintended by-product of all the gym sessions. My aim was always just to lose the flab and get fit, but I can see things going a different direction. My shoulders and pectorals are definitely widening and changing shape, although my belly is still very flabby. It seems the change works its way down slowly. I kind of like it! Weight-wise I lost 1.2 kg for the week. I worked hard for that.

Enjoy the weekend!

The Wall

Last Friday night, we had a little get-together at our house. My wife makes these beautiful "boere" Mediterranean pizzas. It has a wafer thin crunchy crust, covered with either olive or basil pesto, topped with powdered biltong, feta and parmesan cheese, baby tomatoes and fresh parsley. It goes terrific with a nice robust red wine, like a Shiraz... or whatever the cheapest one in the store was, which off-course was what I had.


Needless to say, I packed the stuff like there was no tomorrow. Both the wine and the pizza. It was so great I just could not help myself. In the process a cheat-meal turned into a cheat weekend, with overindulgence the next day on rump steak, boerewors and buffalo wings.


By Monday, I was up 3kg, and really depressed about it. Luckily gym is good therapy and I really hit it hard this week. I am still up 1.4 kg, but at least things are on the straight and narrow again. Furthermore, I need to learn to stop snacking on cookies which are readily available all over at my work-place. It's in every boardroom and I attend a lot of meetings.

It seems I've hit a bit of a wall now. It takes a little cheating to instantly gain a lot and a fair bit of work to actually lose the weight again. Challenge accepted.

I try to exercise twice daily now, although it doesn't always work out that way. Lunch-time gym and back to suspension training at home as well. I do about 80 sit-ups and 700 stairs every day, although not in the same session. Combined with the lifting in the circuit and on my suspension rings, I think that's not too bad for a middle-aged obese man. In fact, I'm quite proud.

I reconnected with an old friend this week. We worked closely together for a long time and made a great team. We still work for the same company, but not directly together any more, so we drifted apart a bit. To be honest he was always so disciplined about every aspect of his life, which I was a bit envious about. A few years ago he got into Cross-fit, or Functional Training. His transformation was remarkable. It was only now after taking a bit of control over my own life that I can engage with him without feeling insecure... I am strange that way, I'm sure he does not see it that way at all.

My friends asked me to update some "during" pictures. This morning I put on some new "thinner" clothes so it might be a good opportunity. Here's a picture from  May 2016 (as punishment they are also in the picture):

And this was this morning:

The original before photo is too gross for this post, you can see it at the beginning

In any case who would have thought Roger Waters can be brought into context with Sandie Shaw on a blog, the internet is a strange place.

Like a puppet on a string

Happy new year to you all!


So December holidays came and went... With all the indulgence that goes with that. We had a great time, even though we were at home.


Proud to say, everything that does not require special tools or equipment is now fixed. Bike service - check, tumble drier belt replaced - check, oven heating elements replaced - check, pool blue again - check, fence painted - check, half a cow, a pig and battery of chickens eaten - check, back-up fridge still needs gas though...


As my gym partner and I parted ways for the holidays, I was extremely worried about the inactivity. I attempted to join the three local gyms, closest to home, but the prices at two was very high, and the last one was trying his best to scam my credit card, so I left abruptly. The gym business really should clean up its act. It is really off-putting to have some pushy hyper muscled guy trying his best to part you with your hard earned money. That's my children's job you idiot!

To solve this, I did what every metro man would, I Googled for options. I've been following this program called Fit2Fat2Fit on TV, and I saw some nifty exercise equipment there. Specifically these things called TRX suspension trainers:

I went shopping for these things. Got them at Sportsman's Warehouse for... ahem... R2500. There was no way I was going to pay that, essentially for... rope? So I Googled again, and DIY'ed it big time. Made one for me and the children. There I was, on my holiday hanging on for dear life trying to emulate this:

And it sort of caught on. My wife is joining me, the boys are, albeit under duress. (Amazing what a wonderful tool Wi-Fi is for motivating teenagers!) So now, my patio is starting more and more to look like an outside gym, with four (yes four!) of these bands hanging there, multiple skipping ropes, a mini stair-master and a broken tread-mill.

I made one for a friend's young boy, kind of as a new-year's gift. The boy has a beautiful soul and his life has its own difficulties, like us all. He has sort of latched on to exercise as a way to express himself and he is doing a great job. To be honest, I have never seen a twelve year boy ripped like he is! He owns those bands. Does pull-ups like there's no effort to it at all. Here's to you Rein!

I finally went to see my doctor as well. He was very impressed with my lifestyle changes. Did an EKG, not sure why. In any case, all normal. He compared my vitals from my previous check-up: 27 kg lost, blood pressure down from 165/95 to 125/82, heart rate down from 95 to... 45!

So I've talked about everything except my weight. Cannot delay the inevitable I guess. Due to my over-indulgence, I picked up 4 kg over Christmas and New year. Very sad, felt like blubber-man. I almost lost hope, but decided I must just get back on the wagon. Since Monday it was back to eating healthy again, with suspension training sessions every day. To be honest, I never stopped eating healthy, it was just the extra cakes, second helpings and snacks that hit me.

This is truly the fastest weight loss I have ever experienced. I lost 3.5 kg from Tuesday morning to this Friday morning. Insane. Hopefully next week Monday I will hit the actual gym again as well.

So for now, we look like a giant puppet show at home and I love it. I think even the teenagers are loving it, although they hide it behind snide comments and bored expressions. I do see those involuntary almost-smiles sometimes though...

I got You Babe!

Yesterday was me and the wife's 20th anniversary. I was hoping to do this blog yesterday, but got a bit busy.

She's a special person, I know that, because I know myself, and she gets along with me. And handles four children, of which the youngest is really emotionally draining on her. Here's to you my love!

We went to Kream restaurant and boy was it a great experience. Kream is easily one of the best five restaurants in Pretoria, if not the best. In any case, we had everything, from champagne, made in the cap classique style, to starters, mains and dessert. Everything was top notch. Hopefully the after-effects will be financial only...

For reference purposes, this was me before the I started to loose weight:

I am so embarrassed. How did I let it happen?

Today I tried to hit the undo button on all that anniversary food in the gym. Lost one kilogram in perspiration only! Since the start of this week, I'm adding kettle-bell weight swings to my routine, as I understand it helps your abs a bit. I also do 40 sit-ups and 40 leg pull-ups after my circuit. It helps I hope, as I have a lot to lose in my abs, which I consider to be my worst aspect at the moment. I've got the stretch-marks to prove it!

As always, thanks for reading! You guys help me to keep going.