After more than 2 years on my journey I just wanted to share what I’ve learnt along the way. I think there’s a lot of people, men in particular that might be in the same situation I was. 

Until Paul asked me to share I didn’t realize how much I’d experienced.

What I typically ate back then will give you the clearest picture of where my head and expectations about life were at.

I’m in construction and considered myself pretty active. So I started my day with a coffee and either a biscuit or muffin. Lunch breaks were a couple of pizza slices, a kebab or spaghetti and always flushed down with a can of sugar soft drink, plus a coffee with two sugars.

“Hey I need energy, I work hard and work it off anyways”, that’s what I told myself. However, clearly, my before pic tells a very different story to what I was telling myself.

clearly, my before pic tells a very different story to what I was telling myself....

After work on the way home, there was always a bag of m&m's in the car or a quick soft serve.

Dinner was always meat and carbs!

Curry and rice, Shepherd's pie with plenty of mash, chips and schnitzels. Everyone around me on the building site ate the same so I thought it was normal.

I also thought, “it's okay if you are over 30 and you start developing some belly fat, your muscle definition disappears and your waist line increases."

Looking back, I can see that I was becoming increasingly miserable and angry with the world.

These emotions were beginning to infiltrate both my marriage and my workplace. I’d try various diets with my wife that would last about a month, but they were not sustainable, so we would both give up.....

One of the biggest lessons I can share is little improvements, one after the other is all you need to focus on. For example, when I started I wanted to lose a bit of weight and to stop kilos from creeping on each year. As I’ve continued my goals just became clearer and clearer.

Another example is, I still love my meat and carbs but now I’m just eating much better versions.

When you try to change your diet too drastically it can be overwhelming and confusing. I start by selecting just one or two recipes from The Transformation Cookbook.

Just improve a few meals in the week. That’s all I did along with my exercise training. Nothing drastic or radical.

Often we'd try a new recipe for dinner. Then we made extra so I could start taking it to work the next day. This introduced us to meal prepping without realizing it.

When you start meal prepping, it solves one of your biggest problems, planning! Removing the guesswork and stress out of ‘what’s for dinner or lunch’ etc every day.

When you enjoy what you eat for dinner and lunch you start to eat similar for breakfast. Then you start to look more closely at what to eat after workouts. It’s just these small improvements that gradually infiltrate your week and your lifestyle. See my Tradies recipes we make to eat through a busy week. 

The Best Tuna Cakes
It's Not Butter Chicken
Shar's Apple Crumble

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