It's a wrap, I JFDI !!!

So here we are at the end of the road, my 12wbt is over! 


I J F D I = I Just F#%King Did It 


I lost a total of 9 kilos and am feeling great.  I'm a little sad though, there will be no more mindset videos, eating plans or work outs delivered to my email weekly. What happen's now? Do I panic, get lost and fall back into bad habits or do I remember everything I've learnt over the last 12 weeks, remain strong and stay fit and healthy. I'm thinking the latter. As the silly season approaches things could go one way or the other, espically with all the drinking and fine food dinning on offer but I'm determined to get through it and come out on top. I'm determined to not go weak at the knees and give in to the little man in my head saying "1 more piece of christmas cake won't hurt". Life is all about choices, we make them every day but very rarely think about the effect those choices have on other aspects of our life. I'm going to make this silly season my healthiest ever. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to be a stiff and just drink water and eat vegetables but I might only have half a piece of cake or stop at 3 beers, why not? I just made it through the last 12 weeks without any at all, surely I'll survive. The world certainly won't stop spinning thats for sure. Things for me are going to change for the better and it starts now, not next week because I have something coming up, it starts today. I can look for excuses all day about why it's hard to live a healthy lifestyle but in the end all I am doing is not taking responsibility for my actions. Today and for the rest of my life I'm taking responsibility of all my actions and making myself and my body accountable.

My before and after. 12 weeks !

This week, being the first after my 12wbt was crazy busy with work but I still managed to stay consistent with my training. If there were days when I couldn't do a normal session then I would find time later in the day to do something else like a training paddle or some in's and out's at the beach. Either way I just made sure that I didn't skip any which makes me proud. Keeping fit is all about consistency, It's the key element as far as I'm concerned. 


On Tuesday night I did my regular swim squad session but had another attempt at breaking 11:00 minutes for 800m freestyle before we started. Unfortunately I swam an 11:50 and am still a long way from cracking it. The good news is I spoke to my coach Steve Aldo after and he told me to totally ditch the weight training, it's no good for your swimming and have another crack in 3 weeks so thats my plan. The other good news is that afternoon I swam a total of 4.1 km's in the pool which is the most I'd ever swam in one session so I was still stoked.


On Thursday I couldn't make swimming training because I had a date with the Foo Fighters at the Sydney Football Stadium, it was the first one I missed in 13 weeks. They're one of my favourite bands so there was no way in Hell I was not going to see them live. The concert was epic and Dave Grohl cemented his spot in my top 5 coolest people in the world. To make up for skipping swim training though I went down the beach earlier that day and did some In's and Out's in the surf with the board. Our lifeguard race is changing format and coming up very soon this year. It's new format will be very similar to our M-Shape style course we do for our test so it was exactly what I needed to do anyways.

Best tickets in town !

The Fooies Rocking and Rolling !

Friday I was flat out. After work in the morning I had to shoot into the city for promotional job we did at Westfield's shopping center. It involved having photos and mingling with VIP customers at their Christmas cracker/Ginger bread bar in the shopping centre. The theme was Christmas on Bondi and we had a ball meeting everyone.

Because I have decided to ditch the weights I then did did a SUP training paddle in the bad at Bondi. It involved 4 large circle laps of the bay at Bondi where I covered between 8 - 10km's. I focused on sprint efforts to really get the heart rate up and I really got a sweat up. Felt great !


After my paddle I headed to a suburb in Sydney's inner west called Hoxton Park with Hoppo. A radio station called Mix 106.5 ran a competition where someone could win a fully catered christmas dinner with Hoppo and I as their guests. In friday afternoon peak hour traffic It took us about 90mins to get to the winner, Sharon's house, where we met her family and friends while we ate 5 courses of delicious food. It was an excellent evening with great company. Big thanks to Sharon for having us and the crew at Mix 106.5 for a great night, they all really looked after us and ensured we had an awesome time.

Early Saturday morning I was awake at Stupid o'clock again. On this occasion I was down at Bondi supporting a friend and fellow lifeguard Adriel "Bacon" Young who was on a mission to complete the distance of a full marathon (46 laps = 42.2km) on Bondi's soft sand. He was also using his mission to try and raise awareness and money for sick and starving kids in Africa. Bacon kicked off his run around 4:15am and was moving very fast right from the start. Through out the morning Harries (26 laps), myself (20 laps) and many others joined him for laps along the way. As anyone who has run soft sand before can tell you it's tough just running 1 lap so watching him get through 46 laps was very inspiring to say the least. His pure grit and determination got him across the line in the end and he finished up completing his run in 4 hours and 6 mins. I was so proud of him when he finished,it really was an amazing feat. I was also very blown away by the community spirt as random people yelled wishes of luck and support through out the whole run.

The sunrise we scored that morning wasn't bad, what do you think?

Bacon was all smiles after his marathon effort

Feeling quite tight and sore after my 20 laps on the soft sand I had a quick stretch and began making my way to Centennial park in Sydney's eastern suburbs with fellow lifeguard Deano. The big day had arrived, it was the 12WBT final group workout and there was 12WBTer's coming from all over the world. Now I'm not a smart man but I know when I've hit a gold mine. Having to train in a park filled with over 1000 lovely, attractive and very fit ladies sounds like a bloody good time to me and thats exactly what it was. Mish Bridges and her team of 12WBT trainers put all 1200 of us through a high energy body attack class for an hour. The whole vibe in the place was just electric, everyone was smiling, laughing, getting fit and having the time of their lives. It was just an electric place to be and I felt honoured to be apart of breaking the Australian record for the biggest outdoor group training session.

Guns, well semi :)

Deano and I were the least co-ordinated blokes in the park !

Crazy Craig was Mr Co-ordination !

Mish Bridges energy really is electric and she leads by example !

Mish Bridges and her awesome team of trainers

After the hit out in the park I went home and tried to rest up before the 12WBT finale party later that night but I was still on a high from the mornings events and couldn't seem to doze off. The finale party was held at the entertainment quarter, Moore Park in Sydney's Eastern suburbs. The venue was huge and easily had enough room to host over 1200 (now very slim and fit) women and a few men ready to celebrate their achievements from the past 12 weeks. When I arrived I got to chat with many people about how they went with the program and I'm pretty sure not one of them had lost less than 10 kilo's. During the speeches and awards ceremony I was in awe of the top 20 biggest transformations. Also during the speech by Mish Bridges, she paid tribute to everyone saying that it wasn't olympic athletes or Tour de France cyclists that gave her inspiration but more like your average person she usually see's out there having a go at exercise. I couldn't have agreed more Mish. The night was one I will never forget and again I felt honoured to be a part of such an amazing group of people, all giving life their best.

Finale party was pumping !

Meels & Tim looking fab

Always gorgeous Mish

12 weeks done and dusted, congrats Cath !

Yes Willow !

Pretty sure my butt is being pinched :)

Thumbs up !

With a couple of beverages under my recently shortened belt I ended up heading home before 12am, after such an early morning with loads of exercise I hit the wall pretty hard as the night went on. I spent Sunday on the lounge just taking it easy and with storms like the one below that swept over Bondi around lunch time it was the best place to be !

Crazy Storm. Photo taken by Corey Oliver at Tamarama on Sunday.

In this wrap up blog post for my 12WBT I'm gonna need to Thank a lot of people, I have to because I wouldn't have made it all the way and gotten the results I wanted without every single one of them. I'm going to start with all of YOU, the readers of my blog. A big part of what got me through was reading your kind messages, comments or posts on either Twitter, Fackbook or here on my Blog. You all gave me the drive to want to keep going, to want to keep writing and to want to keep having fun with it all. As well as hard work you have to try and keep it fun and interesting otherwise it gets boring and I was more likely to fall off the wagon. Thank you all very much !

Secondly of course I'd like to Thank Mish Bridges, Amelia Burton and all their team at 12wbt. The whole way through the 12 weeks they were amazing. Always quick to reply to questions and ready and willing to offer assistance when needed. I can't speak highly enough of the program as a whole, it was exactly what I needed to get back into shape. If anyone was to have any doubts about it I'd just tell them to look at the results from this round. A total of 40 000 kilos were lost by everyone, enough said !

To my swim coach Steve Aldo Thanks for pushing and making me taste the acid on my tongue in every session. I may not have made my goal of breaking 11mins just yet but you've helped me fix my stroke and given me advice and the confidence to keep at it till I finally get there. Your a Champion !

Steve "Aldo" Alderman

To the boys at Shift 60, Nick and DC. I can't thank you guys enough. Every session I came to through out my 12WBT with you guys was tough, rewarding but also a lot fun in such a friendly environment. You guys never hesitated to help me with what ever questions I have and always take extra steps to ensure whatever it is I need to know or am not sure about is clear in my mind. I have no doubt that a big part of my all over body transformation and lack of over training injuries is because of all the great functional training sessions I did with you. After every class I really did leave wanting more and always looked forward to my next session. Im literally hooked on Shift 60 so I'm sorry to say this but your still gonna have to put up with seeing my ugly head at least twice a week.

Nick and DC are absolute legends, come up to Shift 60 to see for yourself.

Next up I gotta thank Greg, Loz, Nath, Sel and all the team at Body Science for all their supplement and compression help. From protein shakes after weights and Fuel 02 Advanced hydration powder during swimming training to their compression tights after a big run or weight session just to name a few, they had everything I needed and were always willing to help me along the way. Working 3 jobs, one of them being very physical, training between 10 - 12 times a week and doing it all on about 6 hours sleep a night I needed everything they had and don't think I would have made it with out. You guys are awesome, thanks for everything.

Love my BSc compression tights

Last but certainly not least and probably the most important factor in my total body transformation I have to thank my main man Phil and his crew at Hexey Foods. With the convenience of eating their fresh, healthy, high protein, low carbohydrate, delivered to your door daily food I was able to train harder and drop fat much quicker. Now like I said in a previous blog posts I really believe in what Mish Bridges says about needing to make your own food to help understand what the right things to eat are and when possible I did but with my super busy lifestyle it was just physically impossible and thats where the fabulous team at Hexey were there to save the day. Many of Hexey's meals are made from researching recipes from Michelle Bridge's cook books and they tailored my carb and protein intake to suit my style of training and what my goals were so it really was a no brainer. I can't stress how important eating the right food is for weight loss and body transformation. A lot of people can train hard but really struggle with the food side of a diet or training plan but high protein, fresh food will help repair muscles and keep your energy levels high which intern will allow you to train consistently, Consistency is the key! 

Phil, you and the team are excellent

As we move into our Silly season I have a few things coming up fitness wise. First is our first ever "Lifeguard Eliminator Race" next Wednesday at 7pm down in Bondi. Its similar to our annual Lifeguard challenge but the format is a little different. We will be racing in and out through the break at Bondi only. I can tell you that Chappo and I will be going head to head and I can also tell you that I have every intention of kicking his butt. Everyone is welcome to come watch so if your in the area please do!


Another prize I have my eye on is coming up on the 3rd of February. The guys at Shift 60 gave me the honour of placing me in their team of 12 guys that will try and break the Fastest 100km treadmill world record at their studio in Bondi. It was last set by a team of Americans back in 2008 with a time of 5hrs and 42mins. We have big plans to smash it and show the Americans what we can do. With 3 time world Iron man champion Craig Alexander heading up the team and many other great athletes also involved I'm quite confident we can come up with the goods. The only thing holding me back from getting serious about my running training right now is I have an infected big toe. Once thats healed I'll be ripping right in. BRING IT ON !

Toe infections bring much pain...

As I bid farewell to this small chapter of my life and move onto the next, I can assure you this won't be my last blog post. Im just going to take a break for a couple of weeks or until something comes up that I think is interesting enough to share. Thanks again to every single one of you oh so much for reading my posts and taking the time to comment. You all have your own little journeys in life and I wish you all the best with them. Don't ever give up on your dreams, its what keeps us alive !


Reidy :)