MY STORY
I'M THE
BARIATRIC DAD.
Lost 88kg. Kept 80+ off for 6+ years. Not medical advice: always follow your own team's plan.
WHERE IT STARTED
I was never a small kid
I was chubby as a child and stocky as a teenager. But I was active: hockey in middle school, rugby union in high school, touch rugby whenever there was a game going. I was always the biggest on the field, but I was on the field.
Sport kept a lid on things. Then school finished, and the sport finished with it. No more training nights. No more Saturday games. Just work, more free time, and everything that fills free time when you stop moving. Video games. Takeaway. Soft drink by the litre. A few kilograms here, a few more there. Never one dramatic year, just a little heavier than the last.
I've always had a bad relationship with food. I ate too fast. I served myself too much. I made poor choices without thinking about them. None of it felt like a problem. It just felt like eating.
THE LIFE IT TOOK
The life it quietly took
By my thirties I was close to 180kg, and my days had a shape I couldn't see at the time. I woke up tired every morning. I snored heavily and almost certainly had sleep apnoea that nobody ever diagnosed. My back was always sore. My feet ached. My knees ached. I stopped thinking of that as pain. I thought of it as normal.
I worked harder than almost anyone around me, because I felt I had to fight the stereotype of what a big man is supposed to be. From the outside, life looked pretty good. A career. Good friends. Family around me.
But my world was getting smaller. Walking through a shopping centre looking for the nearest seat. Squeezing into a restaurant booth, wondering if I'd fit. Saying no when someone suggested a hike.
Once, in my early twenties, my brother and I couldn't fit on a rollercoaster. He still finds it funny. For me it went a lot deeper.
THE DECISION
Then I found out I was going to be a father
People ask what finally motivated me. I don't think motivation is the right word. Motivation comes and goes. Purpose stays.
I'd made promises to myself before and broken them. Started again, broken them again. I had convinced myself that because I'd failed before, I always would. That wasn't evidence. It was a story I'd repeated so often it sounded true.
One night I asked myself a harder question: if I don't make a different decision now, what will my life look like in five years? I didn't like the answer. Not because everything would fall apart, but because nothing would change. I'd still be starting another diet. Still promising myself Monday would be different.
That frightened me more than surgery ever could.
THE SURGERY
Surgery was a door, not the destination
I had a gastric sleeve. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. Not the operation, because I was asleep for that part. The hard part was everything after.
Relearning how to eat, one small mouthful at a time. Food that tasted great, followed by an hour of cramping and feeling sick. Learning what my body would accept and what it wouldn't. Learning how to train. Facing the emotional eating that no surgeon can operate on.
The weight came off fast. I reached my lowest, 92kg, about ten months after surgery. That's 88kg gone. But surgery didn't fix the habits. What it gave me was time: a window to build everything else before the old patterns could come back. It was only a door. Everything that mattered happened on the other side.
WHAT I GOT WRONG
What I got wrong
I didn't eat enough protein in the first year. I dropped weight faster than ever, losing muscle along with fat, and I had no idea. It took me two years of training to rebuild what I'd lost. I started lifting after a very humbling moment on my front lawn, under a three-seater leather couch. That story is in the book.
I became obsessed with the scales. I overtrained and got injured. Later, I believed that once I'd lost the weight, I couldn't struggle any more.
Then the scales crept up, week after week, until I stepped on and saw 99.8kg. Nobody else would have noticed. I did, because I'd seen that pattern my whole life. The snacks had crept back in. So I said, "Nope." I tightened up my environment, got back to basics, and the number came back down.
What I learned: maintenance isn't something you graduate from. It's something you keep practising. Not obsession. Attention.
THE HARD SEASON
Maintenance is tested when life isn't easy
My own was tested when my relationship broke down and we separated, and when I lost both of my dogs within about a year of each other. They had walked beside me through those first months after surgery.
I wasn't perfect. But I held on to my routine. I kept training. I kept showing up for my daughter. And for two months I took every Tuesday off as a mental health day and found a new place to climb. A waterfall. A mountain. A trail I'd never walked.
At the top of each one I felt something I would never have felt at 180kg. Accomplishment.
WHAT I DO NOW
Where I am now
I sit around 95kg. I'm heavier than my lowest, and in far better shape. I weigh myself once a week, on a Wednesday, and I treat the number as information, not a verdict. I train most days. I live in a blended family with three girls, and I can keep up with them.
I also spent over 15 years in manufacturing, where I learned one idea that changed everything: when something goes wrong, you don't blame the person, you fix the process. So I stopped asking "Why can't I get this right?" and started asking "What can this teach me?"
That became The 80KG System, built on five pillars: Identity, Nutrition, Movement, Consistency and Environment.
WHY I BUILT THIS
Why I built this
I'm not a doctor or a dietitian, and I'm not here to be another loud voice. I'm here to share what actually worked for me, and to be honest about what didn't.
The book, the guides and the app all exist for one reason: so that the second half of the journey, the part nobody warns you about, doesn't have to be as lonely as mine was.
Not medical advice. Always follow your own team's plan.
THE FRAMEWORK
Five pillars. One system that works together.
The 80KG System isn’t a list of tips — it’s five interlocking pillars from the book, each one making the others easier to sustain.
01
Identity
Becoming the kind of person who doesn’t need to start over — not just changing behaviour for a while.
02
Nutrition
Protein first, simple meals you can repeat, and room for celebrations, without the guilt or another restrictive plan.
03
Movement
Daily walking and simple strength training that builds a body capable of the life you want, not punishment for what you ate.
04
Consistency
Small, repeatable actions that survive busy weeks, not perfect ones that collapse under pressure.
05
Environment
Shaping your home, calendar, and defaults so the better choice takes less willpower.
THE 80KG SYSTEM
Start where you are.
The free guide and book preview is the easiest first step. Or go straight to the options.