I am 38 and I love working hard with weights. I have been in the 'overweight' category all my teenage and adult life. About 10 years ago I took up weight training but eventually gave it up when I moved countries, then had children and remained overweight!
I always missed lifting heavy at the gym but my real wakeup call was when I was unable to chase my young child down the street, I thought I was going to pass out from the effort. I could barely walk to the bus stop up the slight hill without feeling like I had to use ventolin.
In a massively fortunate turn of events, I became friends with a woman in a similar situation who was vegan and a qualified personal trainer. I wanted a trainer, she wanted a gym buddy so we hit the gym hard from our very first day. Her father was a comp body builder so she grew up having correct form drilled in to her, which she has now drilled in to me
In January 2011 I was nearly 20kg (about 44lbs) heavier than I am now. I cleaned up my nutrition but was not vegan. My trainer buddy told me that I didn't need animal protein but initially I was doing the whole omni BB diet like egg white omelettes, steamed chicken, brown rice, sweet potato... I eventually read The China Study and had been looking at vegan and raw/vegan sites and vegan BB and I changed overnight. I have been happily vegan since March 2012 and feel fantastic, although being confronted with the suffering my choices caused has been difficult!
I don't like to put numbers on things but I aim to lose another 10kg (22lbs) and more inches. I have been very slack with cardio and my nutrition has not been that clean and so my training buddy and I have really stepped up our cardio routine, tweaked nutrition and moved to a 4 day split with weights.
I still have body fat to lose but I'm gaining size (muscle) and I love it and want to be bigger. I had chronic back pain which has disappeared. I can sit up straight now without my back hurting three seconds later. I can see my abs under the fat too
So I'm very much looking forward to getting the body fat down to show off the hard work of the past year. I might even post my before-after pics, although the 'after' pic could still be considered a 'before' pic!I have my vegan bodybuilding tank tops but too embarrassed to wear them right now as I feel I should 'look the part' before flying the flag for vegan BB and fitness!
Thanks for reading!
