Looking back at these pictures, I am still astounded at the difference of the before and after pictures. Just looking at it, you will agree that the difference is huge. In blogs to follow, I will take you through my journey from “Fatman” to “Skinnyman”, how it happened and how I achieved this massive change and how I stayed motivated through the entire journey.

My journey officially started around the 28th February 2017, during a visit to my brother which was to be a reunion of our trip to Europe a couple of months earlier in November 2016.

It was on this occasion that we discussed the fact that my weight, which was then at a record high 140 kilograms had become an issue that started to impact on my life and my brother said to me that if I could lose 25 kilograms, I would be much better off as my feet and knees would suffer much less from the excessive weight that I am carrying around all the time. I agreed and told him that I felt I needed to lose even more weight as my target weight should realistically be closer to a 100 kilograms and I promptly committed myself to losing that 40 kilograms.

We had known for a long time that weight loss should not be too rapid as a person can realistically only lose around a kilogram per week for an extended period of time. We also knew that people that lost weight by going on special diets just picked that weight up again in a very short time because it is not their usual lifestyle and not a sustainable option. Other options like surgical interventions also yielded the same results in every case that we evidenced with the person losing weight rapidly and then regaining it again promptly when the situation normalised.

Special diets like the much hyped banting diet also meant a complete deviation from normal eating habits and great changes to every person in the household, which meant it would not last as a long term solution due to my wife having to prepare separate meals for her and me or follow the same diet, which incidentally she hates and claims doesn’t agree with her constitution.

We therefore had to work with revisions to my eating habits that would not be intrusive on the household and would allow me to continue losing weight constantly and for an unlimited period of time without robbing me from energy or breaking down my muscles leaving me a skinny weakling with no energy for anything.

Although I would never agree that I was a big eater, there were times when I really tucked in and had way too much food. It was quite easy for me to eat a kilogram steak with starch and receive a cap as reward and I would then proudly brag about it on Facebook. On motor cycle trips I became known as a man that had a huge appetite after a hard day in the saddle, so I guess that should be seen as an admission that I was the architect of my own downfall.

In the discussion with my wise little brother he suggested that I limit my meals to the amount that my wife eats. Looking back now that wouldn’t have been entirely possible but I did decrease my portions to more realistic quantities.

In future blogs I will discuss what amendments I did to my diet, but most importantly the biggest changes were as follows:

• No sugar
• No bread
• No eating after 17:00 (5pm) in the afternoon. The general indicator here is 5 hours before you go to bed
• Breakfast is protein
• Lunch is mixed protein and carbs
• Supper is carbs to prepare for the next day’s activities
• In between coffee or tea with or without cream
• Drink lots of water

Further I decided that my weapon for this war would be a bicycle. At the time I didn’t have a working bicycle and the one I had was in such a state that I didn’t see my way open to fix it. The truth is that in my overweight state, I didn’t have the energy to do anything. It was here where my brother decided to donate an old but very nice bicycle to me. He later told me that he never believed that I would get on that bike and ride it but he felt that he did his duty. Well I surprised him and became a mad man who can’t stop cycling and in the process lost a lot of weight and also motivated him to get active and loose weight.

My journey is not complete and there is a lot still to achieve although the focus has now shifted. I am less concerned about weight loss as I have achieved my first goal and I am now having a more relaxed approach while I am still continuing the journey. I am currently on 96,5 kilograms and will continue until I have achieved a weight where I am feeling that my body is in the optimum state to support my now active lifestyle.

Earlier I read some of my Facebook posts. It usually gave some humorous sketch of me crashing spectacularly due to my knees collapsing and me fighting to stay on my feet and eventually crashing spectacularly lying in a heap with a concerned pregnant girl bending over me and offering to pick me up while I lie there feeling sorry for myself and a suspected broken hand, seeing the humor in the situation where a young pregnant woman offers to pick up a helpless lump of 140 kilograms.

I thought I should include an incident that happened on November 12, 2016 for the humour content.

Apart from my hurt pride and the bent frame and a scratch on the left lense of my brand new glasses, I was okay, or so I thought, but soon I was told that I had some blood on the bridge of my nose and I also noticed the scratches on the coating of the brand new Zeiss lenses of my spectacles. Bummer! Well the travel insurance will just have to pay up.