I’m currently in a fitness challenge with a fellow photographer Antony Hands (www.northcoastphotography.com.au) and it is a race to be the first to 100kg. We are neck and neck. This guy can pretty much lose weight by making very simple changes it seems, yet there are people like me who have to work their butt off to see any progress. So, as I said, it’s a fitness challenge.. and the loser has to wear a t shirt 2 sizes too small with the slogan “I’m a fat bastard” on it, for 3 days, in public. I really don’t want to lose this one.

Today, I’d like to share with you my recent training schedule & diet changes I’ve made that have helped me lose weight and gain muscle. I was finding that after photographing a wedding I was in so much pain that I just needed to do something to get me back in shape.
In the past, I’ve actually worked as a personal trainer (when I was 18) and have been in great shape in the past. By default though, I carry a lot of extra weight.

I was weighing in at up to 124kg, but now I’m at about 108kg. Also, my waist measurement has gone from 124cm to 111cm. I believe your weight isn’t necessarily the best way to determine weight loss, but to have another measurement such as your waist measurement it shows you more accurately if you’ve lost weight as you don’t generally put on a lot of muscle in those areas and muscle can throw out your weight goals.

What I have been doing to lose weight is as follows, and I thought i’d share it to inspire any of you who are looking to get in shape.

Diet – Breakfast.
2 poached eggs on 2 pieces of multi grain toast (no butter)

Lunch, generally some sort of salad and meat or fish.

Dinner: Meat and veges (small serving)

I also slip in a high protein meal replacement drink throughout the first 2/3 of the day somewhere to boost my protein intake to help muscle growth.

I also am only drinking water for the rest of the liquids.

Extreme Cardio:
7am 6 days a week –
Walking warm up for a few minutes.
a short jog.
Then I sprint.
I rate every sprint out of 10. I start with a 4/10, then go to a 5/10, 6/10 and so on and so forth until I reach 9/10 and I do 6 of those. I don’t have a great deal of time for exercise, but this really gets the heart going and I am notice weight loss and also my muscles are strengthening and my heart seems to be coping better with exercise as a result.

Weight training
5 or 6 afternoons a week I will lift weights with a set of dumbbells that go up to 40kg. I mainly focus on the upperbody as I basically get my leg workout with my sprinting as it is quite hard on my muscles.

I keep my workouts short and to the point. As far as I know, if you exercise for too long, you actually encourage your body to go into a catabolic state (muscle breakdown) which is not what I’m after. I am looking to increase muscle as muscle is metabolically active and uses energy just by existing, which will help keep the weight off long term. I’m not looking for a quick fix.

Let’s hope I win. Otherwise I will be a fat bastard..

Contestant number 1: me!

Contestant number 2: Antony with his beautiful wife MaryAnn. This is a photo from a shoot I did of them a few months back.It really kills me to put this awful text over this photo, but for the sake of good fun, I thought it would be ok!

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