Patient Stories
Caroline Robinson
No Shrinking Violet
While her body may be reducing, her personality is still larger than life. Caroline Robinson has embraced her new energy and physique with open arms. Emma Goodwin finds out what is behind her new look.
Caroline Robinson has dropped her trousers but don't be concerned, our town crier is not going to streak through the city.
She is however disappearing before our eyes with a dramatic weight loss that came about after lapband surgery.
Read Caroline's full story as it appeared in the Manawatu Standard.
Blair Watson
Shit where do I start ?? this is about my
journey/transformation/experience (call it whatever you want) from
190kgs to 109kgs in 2 years. First off, I have a wonderfully
supportive wife and family who I love dearly and it was this that
made me realise what an idiot I was eating myself to death. I have
always been big, no that’s not right, up until I was 13 years old I
was a skinny runt (who even played rep half back for Napier Rugby)
then I started to fill out. By 18 I was over 110kgs and by 25 I was
140kgs but still playing Rugby and was able to still fit a 2XL
shirt, life was good.
My daughter was born in 2000 and as my wife worked Saturdays it became apparent that someone needed to look after this bundle of joy so Rugby had to go, much to my parents’ disappointment as they had followed me all around the country side to watch and lend support. I gave up the sport but not the lifestyle and so all those Carbs (polite way of saying Beer) that I used to burn off at training and games started hanging around (my middle) and I woke up one morning and I was 190kgs !!!!
I used to (and still do) follow the Tour de France and was always
amazed at how these guys could ride for 3 weeks at high speeds
and
over massive hills and live through it. My Boss at the time was also
a cyclist so he talked me into doing half (80kms) of the Round Lake
Taupo cycle challenge. I went out and bought a bike and started
riding, I couldn’t ride anymore than 10kms without breaking both my
ass and my lungs. Time rolled around quickly and no matter how much
Lance Armstrong’s words meant to me I knew there was no way I was
going to be able to do 80kms so my ever suffering Father volunteered
to do the third 40km and I would do the last 40km. Three and a half
hours later and I was finished, I knew this was something I wanted
to do often but couldn’t get the energy/motivation to do it.
Something needed to change !!
A visit to David and the team at Waikato and 20kgs lost through hard work and diet saw me have the operation in Feb 2007. I spent the first year losing weight quite happily as most do and started cycling again, this time I was able to ride for quite long distances without needing an ass and lung transplant. I competed in various cycle events (I had moved to Oz by this time for work) and found a strong cycling community to be part of. While I won’t bore you with all the details, my top events for the year were Sydney to Woollongong (90kms Hilly 4hrs 24mins), Blayney to Bathurst (70kms Hilly 2hrs 42mins).
The next year I rode the Sydney to Woollongong in under 3 hours
and also rode Mudgee to Gulgong (65kms) and came in first which I
was stoked about (this was after countless Magpie strikes and a flat
tyre) and was finding myself up in the top 5-10% of riders in all
the events I was entering which was cool and although they were
supposed to be non-competitive they were anything but !!
I decided very early on that I was going to come home and ride the Lake Taupo challenge that same year and planned with my brother to ride it together. As with most plans they don’t turn out exactly how you hoped and I rode the event by myself. For those of you who supported or competed in the event last year will know how hot it was, I cramped up really badly at 90kms and had a less than comfortable time out there. I finished in 6hours 34mins and was disappointed as hell, I really thought I had failed myself – I had put in a heap of work and fell short of where I wanted to be (on reflection, I put way too much pressure on myself and it took all the fun out of it). During training for the challenge I had come to the realisation that countless hours on the bike was not for me so turned to another old favourite.
Triathlon, I had always watched Ironman as it was customary living in Taupo and always wondered what it would be like. I competed in my first Triathlon in Bathurst 3 weeks after the cycle challenge and went from a competent rider to a half doggy paddling/half flounder in the swim to an out of breath wheezing cyclist (still hadn’t recovered from the swim) to a broken down old man on the run (still hadn’t recovered from the swim !!!). It was terrible but I enjoyed it greatly and knew this was what I wanted to do.
Again I won’t bore you with details but I have since competed in
10 or so short and sprint distance Triathlons (750m swim 20km ride
5km run) in various locations around the NSW coast and have also
competed in an Olympic distance Triathlon (1.5km swim 40km ride 10km
run) which I targeted under 3 hours to finish and came in 2hours
59mins 31sec and didn’t drown (heaps of people pulled out due to the
rough surf) or get eaten by a shark !!!
Which brings me to now, having just competed in the last sprint distance Triathlon for this season (1hr 10min – PB by 18mins) I am now in solid training for a ½ Ironman in Queensland in August, with a few distractions along the way (115km cycle event this weekend coming – it is the Blayney to Bathurst that I did last year but decided this year I should do the long course) and a ½ Marathon in Mudgee in July (may be a Marathon yet – we will see). My goal at the moment (I swing between the two, is either Ironman NZ or Ironman Oz or maybe both ??).
I struggled with writing this as I always knew I would write something when I felt I had achieved a large enough goal to be worthy of putting pen to paper but as people close to me keep reminding me – I have come a long way now !!!
PS. For those who are interested I am averaging 14-18hours training a week roughly split into 4-6km swimming, 200 – 350km riding, and 30-40km running.
And you may ask why ?? Because I can !!!!!!!!!
Blair