How one man dropped 170kg in 4 years
When Werner Burgin was handed a weight-loss testimony booklet, he initially ignored it.
The Papatoetoe man, who weighed 272 kilograms, saw nothing wrong with his life.
But after listening to what others had to say, he got thinking.
‘‘There are two people who know me as a co-worker [who] were that worried for my life and so they broached a really hard-toraise subject,’’ he says.
Based on that alone, Burgin decided that it was time to look at the testimonial booklet that Genetics Gym owner Buck Stowers had provided. He says the people’s experiences struck home with him because what they had gone through was a mirror image of his life.
‘‘I got me thinking and the fact that the way I was going I would be forcing my mother to bury another son before herself and that is something I didn’t want her to go through.
‘‘I realised I was well regarded and worth something to people other than my family, I started to really look at my life and decided to make a change.’’
Almost four years later, Burgin has lost 170 kilograms through diet, exercise and the support of the Big Boys/Big Girls programme and has managed to keep it off.
After Burgin’s first Big Boys class, he recalls trainer Buck Stowers’ tip for the day.
‘‘Buck said ‘ where the mind goes the body will follow’. Those eight small words have become the cornerstone of my desire to make a change in my life.’’
Burgin says along the journey there have been good days and bad days but the key is not to give up as long as you are trending down then and to use that as the motivation to figure out where you went wrong and adjust your thinking to get the results you want.
‘‘Other than keeping myself alive for my mother, the biggest motivation was that I had gotten my own mind to a place where this was for me and I was not going to let myself down like I had so many times in the past,’’ he says.
‘‘Both my trainer Darron Steele and Buck are the kind of human beings I try to be, they have given me a new life and the chance to experience life instead of existing.’’
Go to offthecouch.co.nz for more information on the programme and how to get a referral.