There and Back again (a sleekgeek story) by Antony Raison.

Age: 34

Height: 187cm

Start weight: 107kg

Current Weight 100kg

Goal:  Loose fat and gain muscle

The Problem

This journey like most other journeys started off in a pit of despair. I had found myself injured from years of sports such as gymnastics, martial arts and parkour. My knees just gave out on me, walking was difficult and at times impossible. I had lost hope and became demotivated with life and stopped pursuing my goals and before I knew it years had passed and I had fallen into a cycle of ineptitude and buying take-away meals, It took its toll on my body. I gained weight, and was simply unhappy.

Realization

I knew I was unhealthy and unfit, yet I lacked the motivation to do anything about it. How the change came about was quiet odd, one night at a party over too many drinks, my best friend of 17 years and I made a wager, he was to gain 10kg (he was too thin) I had too loose 10kg. We signed an agreement and had to accomplish our respective goals within a set amount of  time. Little did I know this was the start of a love affair with fitness.

The Process

At the outset I had no real concept of how to go about achieving my goals. I had never been a gym rat nor had I ever set foot in a gym. I had always just been a very sporty individual in my earlier years, and enjoyed being out and being active. I knew I could not go back to these sports due to my injuries.  I started looking around as to what I could do and my fitness journey began with weight training and cycling, cardio (as I couldn’t run at the time)

The hardest period was the first 3 months; I was so self-conscious about how I looked, and how little relative strength I actually had. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself inside the gym, as I had no clue what anything there was for. I resorted to the internet (as most geeks would do) I found a lot of information and started chipping away at home with a 60kg weight set I bought, and clean up the most obvious things in my diet such as  take-aways, sugary drinks and of course alcohol.

Evolution

After those first 3 or so months I felt quite good about myself, I started looking decent and had more energy. My confidence naturally grew, and armed with some of my new found knowledge on how exactly to use each machine I was finally ready to face a gym. I joined a Gym and  I soon realized that my fears had been unfounded as there where all levels of people at the gym. I continued, and grew both physically and mentality. I was gaining a lot of information daily in both training and dieting. Not too long after that I stumbled across calories and began using that information for myself. Weight training had actually helped my knees! I went from hardly walking on a bad day to running almost daily!

Joining Sleekgeek

During my first year of training, it was only my friend and I. We did not have support additional information on exercising/diets. We simply bounced ideas of each other. My continuous Facebook fitness updates soon caught a friend of mine’s eye and suggested to that I join Sleekgeek. After joining I instantly found so much more inspiration and information which has helped improve my life so much more.  I had learned so much more about diets, such as low carb high protein diets and H.I.I.T Cardio. The community was extremely helpful and welcoming. I no longer felt like the lone wolf that had this huge mountain to climb. I was now surrounded by People on the same journey.

TIPS

Having ventured down this road for the past two years and as such without a personal trainer or dietician I feel that I have learned quite a bit, and I am still learning. The tips that I can give are: DIET is key, and weight training with some form of HIIT cardio is very effective for weight loss. Understanding calories and how they affect you is a very good resource and an invaluable tool. Lower carb, higher protein diets work extremely well for weight loss, and basing your training off heavy compounds such as squat, bench, dead lift and overhead press really put on very good muscle. Having a friend to be accountable to helps a lot as you can be accountable to them.

Final thoughts

Why do we fall? – So we can learn to pick ourselves up again

Be happy, and help others be happy!

Don’t sweat the small things, try keep 90% of the things you do good, don’t beat yourself up over 1 cheat meal , stick at it, it takes a lot of time!

All the best

Antony

SUBMIT YOUR STORY AND WIN R500 Wellness Warehouse Voucher

Antony wins a R500 voucher courtesy of our sponsor for the “YOU CAN live life well” series Wellness Warehouse to be spent on their online store with free delivery nationally.

I believe very strongly that ordinary every day people like you and I derive great inspiration from the achievements of people who seem similar to us. If they can do it.. damn.. so can I! Right?

So through this program we will continue to tell people’s personal stories.

I want to great an archive of hundreds of stories of people who have changed their lives while others believe they cannot.

Submit your story to help@sleekgeek.co.za with the Subject line “You can live life well”

We require:

• Your story in your own words covering at least (How you got to a point of change, how you made the change, tips and advise for others)
• A selection of before and after photos
• As many words as you need to tell your story

In advance, we regret that not all stories may be published. Your story is as important as anyone’s story but we can only publish one a week and the editor will make decision on this.

If your story is published you will receive a R500 voucher to the Wellness Warehouse online store with free national delivery.