A lot of people ask me how I lost 67kg in 2009/10. These days, I’m very hesitant to “prescribe” diets. But, in May 2010, I wrote a feature article in FHM SA (RIP) detailing the exact specifics of the training and dieting regimen that got me from 158kg to 90kg in 14 months. For the full article, please click this image below:
It was called “Train Like Captain Beer” and it ran in FHM’s regular “Train Like” section, usually reserved for Springboks, footballers, movie stars and Olympic athletes. I was still the Features Editor of the magazine at the time (although I would resign some six months later after 8 years of loving service) and it was quite a thrill to detail my own “how to lose weight” program in a format I knew so well from managing amazing articles about actual superstars from around the world.
Today, I’m hesitant to prescribe specific diets, as I believe that obesity is dealt with in the heart and the mind, after which there are many ways to skin the proverbial cat, and they need not be as extreme as this program. I believe that it’s more important to find both exercise you love and a diet you can stick to for the long term (and, critically, to have the belief that you will succeed) than the specifics of any one particular diet.
That said, this certainly did work, and very effectively. I still occasionally use this rather militant “Carb Rotation” approach to cut weight, although I tend to substitute the oat-and-whey milkshakes with whole oats or rice and more natural protein sources in place of some of the daily whey servings. My day-to-day maintenance diet involves less carbs and wider variety of whole food.
This diet also contains a lot of carbs, which many will tell you cannot achieve the results that it did. I’ve written another detailed article on my experience with carbs vs banting here. For now, suffice it to say, this method requires dedicated exercise. And then it absolutely works, as sure as I am alive today.
For many more articles on my battle with obesity and the learnings, techniques, motivation and experience I’ve picked up along the way (including my 2013 Pica Award-winning Men’s Health feature about life in a new body) check out the Weight-loss section of this site.
