BBM Motivation founder Dave Letele reveals how he lost 36kg after regaining half his weight
Boxer and BBM charity founder Dave Letele is reminding people that it’s never too late to get back on track after losing 36kg this year.
The 47-year-old fitness advocate says his recent transformation came after some “particularly stressful years” where he resorted to comfort eating and regained “around half the weight he’d previously lost”.
He started training for a boxing fight in February, but the weigh-in before the Taranaki bout became the real wake-up call.
“I was trying to get out of the weigh-in because, although I hadn’t weighed myself, I knew where I was, and it was really embarrassing,” he told the Herald.
Since 2014, Letele, also known by his professional boxing nickname Brown Buttabean, has been open about his health and fitness journey.
His charity, BBM (Buttabean Motivation), helps combat high rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease among Māori and Pacific communities in New Zealand.
“Depression never really goes. It’s just always just simmering there,” he says.
“But now I’ve got my eating back in order and feeling a lot better, and I’m able to handle life’s challenges better because I’m in a better state of mind and I’m feeling better about myself.”
Comfort eating and obsessive training at the same time “added to the stress”, he says, and there was no “magic pill or potion” to help him lose weight.
“When I was feeling bad, sometimes I might just go and gorge on like a whole bunch of Big Macs.... and afterwards I feel this extreme guilt, so then I would [overdo it] in training and end up feeling worse.”
Instead, hard work, a good mindset and careful planning were the keys to success.
Artificial intelligence helped Letele count calories and change his food choices, and “not obsessing over the scales” kept him focused.
He also scheduled cheat days, drank plenty of water, made menu substitutions and focused on getting a good night’s sleep.
“When I started my journey back in 2014, I went for a walk and I stopped drinking fizzy drinks. There was nothing too technical about it, you know, it’s just doing those basic things right,” he says.
“You don’t need to overcomplicate things, just start really simple, build that solid foundation.”
While there are still elements of stress in his life, he now has better ways to manage.
“When you get knocked down, what are you going to do? You’re going to get back up. And it’s exactly that,” he said, pointing to BBM’s ethos.
“We all fall off the wagon because that’s life, but it’s about having the tools of knowing what to do when you do fall off.”
Letele, who on Friday was running a 12-hour charity cycling event called Pedal for Purpose, said his next bout will take place in the Coromandel next Saturday.
He said he was looking forward to the challenge and feeling in great form.
“I was thinking the other day when I was training, man, I feel really good. Like I’ve got that extra gear.”