When 40-year-old Michael Hutchison came to Britain from South Africa in 2004, he weighed more than 21 stones. A year on, the 2005 EAS Body-for-LIFE Male 40+ category winner has a new house, a fabulous career, a brand new body - and a new wife!
Michael's health wasn't at its best. He drank heavily and smoked 30 cigarettes per day and he had suffered a series of mini-strokes. Yet it hadn't always been that way. 'At the age of 18 I was a competitive swimmer and swam the 50 metre freestyle,' he recalls. 'I had the 12th fastest recorded time in the world. But when I first came to Britain I was very overweight and had a body fat level of 36 per cent.'
Despite that, he set about starting the EAS Body-for-LIFE Challenge and lost an amazing four stones in just 12 weeks. Business Development Manager Michael drew on the dedication levels he used to apply to his swimming to focus on the Challenge. Fitness-wise, results came pretty quickly. 'I was very short of breath when I first began exercising but after about three weeks there was a noticeable difference,' he says. 'My pulse rate came down dramatically and I lost weight rapidly. I liked the fact that the Challenge combines cardiovascular training with weights.'
Michael adds: 'Physiologically it was going very well but the biggest obstacle was getting my mind to agree to go to the gym first thing in the morning! But I kept up the Challenge because I was lonely and going to the gym was a chance to meet people.
Since completing the Challenge, Michael has turned his life around. 'When my body starting changing and people began noticing I felt confident and started talking to more and more people,' he says. 'The change definitely started physically and this contributed to my self-confidence and self-esteem. I knew I was really achieving something,' he says. Best of all though, Michael met Nicky and on March 18 they were married.
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