Today we’ve got a testimonial from a client who requested to remain anonymous, hope you enjoy it!

MY SEARCH FOR THE HOLY GRAIL OF FITNESS

I was a fat kid.

Back in the good old primary school days, while most kids were collecting playing cards and bright red angsana seeds, I was being hauled off to the tailor by my dad to customize my school uniform, because my school didn’t offer size XXL. Dumbasses.

The problem wasn’t that I wasn’t active. I tried to be. However, chasing a soccer ball was usually more than my chubby frame could handle, so I often ended up as the goalie. My tan got shockingly good, but I wasn’t exactly burning up the calories, not that I even cared about calories at the time.

JUST KEEP RUNNING

My journey to fitness really started when National Service came a-calling just around my 18th birthday. Not knowing what else to do, I coerced my dad into buying me a pair of Puma running shoes (I can still remember what they looked like) and started running, and running, and running.

This new regime didn’t come easily for me, and not just because I was overweight – I also had to deal with the fact that I was an asthmatic child plagued by chronic sinusitis. But through the knee pains, shin splints, heel spurs and blisters, I ran and ran, and gradually began to see changes in my 1.90m frame.

With six months to go until my enlistment date, I weighed 95kg. On enlistment day, I was 85kg. After the rigorous 10 weeks of Basic Military Training (BMT), I was 78kg. I could no longer wear the uniforms they measured me for 6 months before enlistment and had to use bungee cords and comms cord (Army guys will know what this is) to hold my pants up.

At this point, I was convinced that running was the key. I had essentially run myself into a love of running and could no longer function without my 3 or 4 runs a week. Running, to me, was the be-all and end-all of weight loss and exercise.

A couple of years after my National Service stint, I could still do a 10km run under an hour with relative ease, but strangely, I felt my waistline expanding again. Naturally, I blamed it on lack of sleep, work stress, lack of vitamins, haze and possibly even the government.

But the fact remained – all that running wasn’t helping.

SURVIVAL MODE

Then I found BJJ. For the uninitiated, the acronym stands for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I vividly remember my very first class and realizing that I knew NOTHING when it came to surviving a fight on the ground. I found it so strenuous that after a single round of surviving (aka rolling), I almost puked into my opponent’s face.

That was when the fact hit me: I AM NOT FIT.

What followed was a search for fitness that would help me in my BJJ game and thanks to Brad Robinson, I found Ritual.

RIGHT THERE WAITING

Within weeks of consistent 20 minutes sessions of HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), watching sweat pool around me in my chosen pod (I always take pod 2 by the way), I felt my cardio capacity taking a drastic leap.

It made BJJ sessions more about fun and learning and less about just surviving till the end of the round. It gave me a new spring in my step, even those going uphill. It gave me a chance to shop for clothes by Asian labels again.

It’s been a long search for fitness. By long, I literally mean thousands of knee-splitting miles with me pounding the pavement and hoping to find that holy grail of fitness welcoming me at the end of the road.

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The struggle is real, but we’re here to help. Hopefully that was the inspiration you needed to get off the couch today. See you at the gym!

Be Brave.