FROM ZERO TO HERO!
This is the story of how I went from a couch potato suffering from level 3 obesity to an Ironman.
"If i've learnt anything over the past couple years, it's that looking good in a Tri suit is no easy task. Same suit, 20 kilos lighter, 40 minutes faster"
“I’m too busy”, “I don’t have the athletic gene”, “It’s too late to start now” these are just some of the excuses that got me to where I was in 2017. My BMI was over 45 making me extremely overweight. I knew something had to be done but when you are at such a low it is really hard to know where to start.
Losing weight is easy, yes you read that right, specially when you are obese, shedding the numbers on the scale is achievable... for the initial stage that is. I’ve lost weight many times over the past years so I knew exactly what to do and I knew I had sufficient will power to execute a diet along with a mild exercise routine. However this time I wanted to do something different. I was looking at not only losing weight but perhaps the hardest part ,in my opinion, which is maintaining my weight loss. I was 50kg away from my ideal weight but this time i wanted to make sure that I was getting a one way ticket.
I needed to deploy a different strategy. Simply “diet and exercise” wasn’t going to give me what I was looking for this time around. I looked into different sports that I can take up that can potentially be part of my lifestyle. A sport that stood out for me at the time was triathlon. 3 different kinds of cardio was exactly what I needed to help me get rid of all the excess fat in my body with enough variety to minimize boredom.
I learnt that in a journey where we work on improving ourselves, we have to be prepared to endure months if not years to achieve stability. During this long mourning anything and everything can and will happen. We need to be good at not only picking ourselves up but taking the lessons learnt from every failure while staying focused on our goal. It is also important to link our goals to values vs numbers. For example a healthy lifestyle vs I want to reach 75kg. That ensures longevity and ensures results over the long term.
Tarmoom chooses to be head to toe Trisouq. He's wearing the Taymory T15.5 UAE Trisuit and rocking the new generation CloudFlows in Citrus Sea.
Available to buy here.
Lucky for me there was a race coming up which motivated me to train the three disciplines. Given the facilities and weather in the winter months of Abu Dhabi, it was perfect. My first race ended in a complete disaster but what it succeeded in doing was giving me a time to beat the next time around. I continued on this routine with constantly trying to beat my time, got a coach and joined a team. Before I knew it this sport was taking over my life (in a good way). More importantly I realized that I stopped checking my weight. I simply trusted the process and the excess fat was steadily shedding off. It was ironic how the moment I deprioritized the numbers I was getting on the scale was the moment my weight came tumbling down. I just continued racing, training and enjoyed the ride. Two years later I stand before my very first Ironman distance that I couldn’t even begin to imagine 2 years ago. All this while maintaining the best shape I’ve ever been in.
We all need to start somewhere and with enough commitment and drive the excuses will slowly begin to fade away. We need to change our lifestyle as a whole instead of focusing on calorie counting and the numbers on the scale which proved time and time again to only work in the short term for me.
I learnt that in a journey where we work on bettering ourselves, we better be prepared to endure Months if not years to achieve stability. During this long mourning anything and everything can and will happen. We need to be good at not only picking ourselves but taking the lessons learnt from every failure while maintaining focus on our goal. It is also important to link our goals to values vs numbers. For example a healthy lifestyle vs I want to reach 75kg. That ensures longevity and ensures results over the long term.
Mohamed Tarmoom is on his road to Iron Man 140.6. He's got it covered, no sweat.