Sulu | Māngere, Auckland

“I suppose for myself, especially with lockdown, I’ve had time to focus on my fitness, and getting back into shape. I haven’t really done anything in terms of fitness for 10 years, but I took a leap of faith and joined a 10-week program for men, specifically and just really happy to say that I really stuck it out.

I really pushed myself to stay committed to the program, and throughout the period of lockdown, with all the baking and hot cross buns, I still managed to lose weight and I got close to the goal weight that I was after. I’m just really proud of myself for sticking to my guns, and I’m still on that journey to lose some weight, and to have better health.

I suppose there was a lot of time to reflect, and just really take a step back and think about, what’s really important in life without work commitments in the way. So, I suppose with prioritising my health and having that little bit of success and being proud of that, and just trying to think of moving that success into other areas of my life, having that same focus, and looking at areas where I can challenge myself. It’s been good having those seven weeks just to really think and reflect on things, and prioritise the areas that probably needed working on, and not making work the priority. 

I’m actually born and bred in Māngere. So, I grew up probably about 10ks around the road. My dad bought our first house in ’75. We lived there for 20 years, before he decided to move the family to Dunedin. So, we were in Dunedin for nine years and when he passed away, we came back to the family home, but this has always been my home, and I recently bought a house last year in Māngere Bridge, but really love this area. I wasn’t so passionate about the area back in the day but it was sort of like a re-discovery and I just really love being here now. There’s really nice cafes, but the people, the people really make this area. So, it’s great.

My first week back at work, my whole routine from lockdown was thrown out. So,  my whole workout routine, I kind of had to really work hard at sticking to that. Once the normal work life kicked in, it was just making sure that I stuck to those things that I really planned during lockdown. So this weekend, it was about a re-set. Making sure I stick to my fitness goals, and the challenges that I’d set during lockdown. But yeah, that lockdown period was awesome.”