What 7 years in the Brumbies Fat Club taught me about losing weight

Choose healthier ways to deal with stress, your why matters, and find what works for you.

The pinch all front rowers dread

In 2015, after 7 seasons with the Brumbies, I got out of the “Fat Club” for the first time.

As the name suggests, the fat club is for players whose fat levels are too high, and it sucked because I tried hard to get in shape, and hated doing the extra training like cycling on an exercise bike while facing a brick wall.

I was 127kgs when I first joined the Brumbies, and while I despised being in that club, I’m glad they had it because it forced me to face up to my eating issues, and taught me a lot about nutrition. Enough where I get frustrated hearing the confusion and reading all the myths about what it takes to lose and keep off some weight.

So I thought I’d share what I learned from getting out of it, none of which is a magic bullet, but they work for me and helped me lose 20kgs in retirement.

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How you deal with stress matters

The 2 sources of my weight issues were:

1. I didn’t know how much energy I was eating and how much I needed.

2. My habit of dealing with stress was to eat.

I don’t know when or how this habit formed, but once I realised the trigger for my binge eating was stress, I shifted my focus to exercising with friends or trying to get sleep as the main ways to ease stress.

But changing habits is hard, especially the ones for how we deal with stress. So if you are keen to make a change, please go easy on yourself and take your time.

Know your “why”

I think most people don’t actually know why they’re trying to lose weight, and they’re just doing it because they feel pressure from society saying it’s unhealthy to be fat.

All external pressure and little internal motivation.

But having a clear why helps me stay motivated, especially during tough times when I wanted to give up.

My why while playing was simply to just get out of the fat club, but in retirement, it’s to keep having the extra energy that comes from not carrying extra weight.

Energy I desperately need to juggle work and kids, and still have some left for having fun.

Eat a little bit less consistently

Losing weight isn’t easy, but for me, it’s been as simple as eating a little bit less than I burn consistently.

I emphasise “little bit” and “consistently” because anyone can just “eat less than they burn” for a week by starting a crash diet or running heaps.

But if they aren’t fuelling themselves properly, they eventually burn out or get injured, put all the weight back on, and feel worse about themselves for failing. A cycle I know all too well.

This is where tracking how much energy I eat has helped me, as I didn’t know how little I was eating when I was trying to lose weight, and was basically starving myself.

But now I’ve found a sustainable balance where I’m eating less to drop some kgs, but eating enough to have the energy to exercise and recover. A difficult balance to find, and the main reason I think people struggle to lose and keep off weight.

Find what works for you

After a year of tracking and getting out of fat club, I realised I was having about 400 calories a day in milk from coffees, and knew on average I was burning roughly 800 calories per day at training.

Then as the off-season approached, I decided I didn’t want to exercise much and give my body a rest but wanted to keep the weight off.

So I thought I’d swap my large flat whites for long blacks (1 calorie per cup), and that (plus one other small change to my diet) helped me stay the same weight over the off season, without much exercising.

Now I’m not saying everyone should start drinking long blacks, especially if you love milky coffees, but that was a small change I could stick to.

Copying other people’s diets is great for getting ideas, but once I focused on what I was eating and what small changes I could make, losing and keeping off my weight has been much much easier.

Anyone can do it

If you’re struggling to lose weight, you aren’t the problem… it’s your approach. And for whatever reason, people think losing weight is something only super-disciplined people can do.

Now I’m not saying anyone should lose weight, but I think there are loads of people who want to, but aren’t trying because they believe something is wrong with them, because they’ve tried and failed many times before.

But anyone can do it with the right approach, and feeling great and eating what you want is possible, despite what some online fitness experts will have you believe.

It’s all about balance.

A good few days eating in NZ

Summary:

• Choose healthier ways to deal with stress

• Know your why

• Eat a little less consistently

• Find what works for you

• Anyone can lose weight and still enjoy their food

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I also want to say I’m not against professional sports teams having these types of clubs, as being fit is part and parcel of being a professional athlete. I just think there’s smarter ways to help athletes who eat to deal with stress.