Tamati's Story

My sisters thought I was drowning.

They heard my breathing from another room and thought I was drowning.

My boss was so worried he came out of his office one day and told me to go to the Dr. In the end my two sisters dragged me into the Dr's office to get a check. I was 230kg. The Dr pushed his finger into my chest and it took 8 minutes for the dent to disappear.

He told me if I didn't lose weight, I'd die. And I didn't even think I was sick. I was sent to the hospital. They had to wheel me down to the hospital kitchen as it was the only place with scales big enough to weigh me. l lost 30kg in 2 weeks - it felt great to be able to breathe again. I met another Maori guy in hospital (outside having a cig!) and got on really well with him.

I was like the house vacuum. I would eat five or six pies for breakfast, a couple of cream doughnuts and a couple of bottles of fizzy. Not the small bottle, the 1.5 L bottles.

The Dr gave me a Green Prescription so I went to the Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga gym. I sat in my car in the car park for 2 hours till I got up the guts to go in. I just said to myself "man, just get up and do it".