From Active Teenager to 147kg at 21
As a teenager I was active, sporty, and could eat anything without thinking twice about it. I was one of those kids who just stayed lean no matter what. I didn't think about food or exercise. It was just part of life.
Then I left school, started earning money, and real life showed up all at once. A job. Study. Bills. The kind of low-level stress that doesn't go away because it's just Tuesday. I didn't have great tools for dealing with any of it, so I did what a lot of people do. I turned to food. Not just eating a bit more, but genuinely using food to celebrate, to comfort, to decompress, to get through the day.
Between 18 and 21 I went from 82kg to 147kg.
I told myself I was fine. My knees hurt? Must be the job. My back was sore? Long days on my feet. Couldn't sleep well? Stress. I had an excuse for every symptom and I believed every one of them. Looking back, I was kidding myself completely.
The Wake-Up Call I Didn't See Coming
The thing that changed everything wasn't a doctor's appointment or a health scare. It was my soon-to-be wife getting in the car for a date, looking at me, and saying: "You've become really fat. It's unattractive and you need to do something about it."
Not exactly what you want to hear from the woman you're quietly making an engagement ring for.
But it was the most honest thing anyone had ever said to me. And somewhere underneath the sting of it, I knew she was right. Not just about how I looked, but about everything I'd been avoiding. I had an outward problem, the weight, but behind that was a whole set of attitudes, habits, and mental patterns that had quietly allowed me to get there. Fixing one without fixing the other wasn't going to work.
I tried to get a personal trainer. They handed me a generic plan that I'm pretty sure came off a bodybuilding forum. It wasn't built for me, my life, or my situation. So I decided to figure it out myself.
The Journey Was Messy. Here's What I Actually Learned.
I made a lot of mistakes. For my first six months I ate chicken, broccoli, and kumara. Three meals a day, every day. I lost weight, but I would never recommend that approach to anyone. It's not sustainable, it's not enjoyable, and it teaches you nothing about how to actually eat for the rest of your life.
But slowly, I figured things out. About training, about food, and about the stuff underneath it all that nobody really talks about.
Binge Eating
This wasn't just overeating. I would eat until I was physically sick, and then keep eating. I'd pick up a full KFC bucket on the way home on a Friday night, fries, a 1.5L drink, the lot. and be in the McDonald's drive-through at 10pm ordering a family box to eat by myself.
It took a lot of honest work to understand why I was constantly chasing comfort in food. That kind of eating isn't about hunger. It's about something else entirely. Understanding that, and working through it, was one of the hardest and most important things I've ever done.
Training
I didn't enjoy gym training. I still don't. So I had to figure out how to make it work for someone who isn't naturally motivated by lifting weights alone. The answer for me was making it social and making it efficient. To this day I don't train alone. If I have no one to train with, I won't go. Knowing that about yourself and building around it isn't a weakness, it's just being smart about how you're wired.
Self-Esteem
This one took the longest. I had to learn how to actually like myself, not based on what I looked like, but based on what I could do and the journey I'd been on.
At 18 I wasn't happy with myself. By 21 I was wishing I looked the way I did at 18. When I got healthy at 23 I still wasn't satisfied, constantly chasing leaner, thinking that if I just got a bit more defined I'd finally feel good about myself. Now at 30 I look back at 23 and think I looked and performed brilliantly.
That's the trap. The goal post keeps moving if you let it. What I've learned is that the goal can't be a look. It has to be about what your body can do, how you feel, and the habits you're building for the long run. I'm genuinely happy now with where I'm at, and more importantly, I know I've built the foundation that'll carry me through the rest of my life.
Why I Do This
Everything I went through, the weight gain, the binge eating, the bad advice, the slow and imperfect climb back, all of it shaped the coach I am today.
I'm not standing on the outside looking in. I've been through the health journey, the real one, with the false starts and the mental battles and the days where it felt pointless. I know what it takes, and I know what the mistakes look like, because I made most of them.
That's what drives me. Helping people avoid the hard way where they can, and helping rebuild people who've been beaten up by life a bit and are ready to start again. Whatever stage you're at, you're not too far gone. I'm proof of that.








