In March last year I had Megastar coach Bruce Morris write an article about “BMX and Weight Loss“, prior to that he wrote “Can Riding a BMX Bike Get You Fit“. Both generated a lot of traffic and were very interesting to this ageing long time BMXer who’s hooked on burgers and milkshakes. But not enough to make me want to kick the habit. You see I was a gym junkie from a young age, I raced in a era where power was more important than bike skills. The track often had a couple of jumps per straight and a heck of a lot of pedaling. Decades later, when I started to get injuries I’d put on weight, the injuries became more severe over time to a point where I decided it was time to enjoy the riding and not worry so much about training, it was easy to justify, I’d done ok over the years.

At some point, it was probably when reading Bruce’s articles, I had reached 126kgs and I decided it was time to get back to my true fighting weight. Bruce had an idea for Project 84. Basically you would end up 84% of your current weight. The magic number is from his race number, but it seemed achievable to me.

It took a while for him to formalise it and come up with a test pilot program for myself and Chris Logan. In May last year I’d already started to make changes, I’d decided to cut bread from my diet, eating salads pretty much every lunch. I started to ride my bike during my lunch break at work, because it was going to be difficult to find time to do it any other part of the day with a 3 hour commute.

Project 84 started 4 weeks ago. I’d already lost 5 kgs before the program started, with little effort, so I knew I could do it.

To get started with Project 84 we were watching what we eat, calorie counting, which is something I’d never done before. It was a real slap in the face. I went from having a Milkshake or two a day to nearly none at all…but I’ll never lose the taste for it. I have switched from a BBQ lunch at every opportunity to fruit. I’m riding more regularly with greater intensity and increasing the distance and duration just about every ride now.

When I have a day of questionable eating it costs me, I can see that in the numbers.

Can I lose 16% of my body weight in 16 weeks? It would take me to around 100kgs, which is a nice round number for me, but it’s been a long time since I have been close to that. I’m already on track having lost 5kgs, but now is the time that I have to really knuckle down.

With coach Bruce and fellow test bunny Chris Logan in my corner and my friends and family supporting me I’m sure I’ll get there.

Watch this space.