Nathan Brown’s Story

nathanbefore nathanafter

12 months ago I walked through the doors of Matrix Boxing Gym at 150kg. I started out doing the Boxing Circuits…. the first couple of weeks were real tough. Then I got to a stage where I felt great after class, the more I trained the better I was feeling. After about 4 months I wanted to do more, so I started to go to the Novice Boxing Training class. By this stage I was down to 130kg, and I was feeling good.

Again I wanted more than just 3 days a week training, so about a month before Christmas I started training 5 days a week. After Christmas my weight sat at 125kg, so I enlisted the help of Nadine Brown. Nadine helped me with the amount of food and type of food I should be eating. With my new nutritional plan my weight started to drop again. At boxing Training I started sparing Isaac (one of the fighters), I really enjoyed sparring. I honestly thought that this was as far as it would go for me.

Then one day at training Steve asked me would I like to have a fight. I was taken back, I didn’t think I would have ever been good enough or fit enough to have a fight. There was only one answer to that question, and that was yes. For me this meant new goals to work towards. Steve said to pick a date, I picked 2nd of October (at Inala), Steve said “no….I think more like June or July”. So I started to spar twice a week, training that bit harder and really watching my food.

The date of the fights came up very quickly. It was the day of the fights, we all meet at the gym at 6:00am. We had to be in Bundaberg by 12:00pm to weigh-in, i weighed in at 110kg. I was as nervous as I have ever been in my life. Over the course of the day Steve, Nadine, Zac, Josh and Sam all had a talks with me, this really helped me out.

It was my time to fight, I was nervous again. The first round I lost, and I knew it…. but I wasn’t going to give up. I was standing in the corner thinking I was done for. With some good words of encouragement from Steve and some pointers I felt good. I thought I had lost, that this bloke had won the fight. But that didn’t mean I was going to give up. So I went out and gave it everything I had, I could hear everyone yelling out to me.

When I was standing in the middle of the ring with ref waiting for the result, I had it in my head that I had lost. My name was called out and my hand was put in the air by the ref….. all that hard work and training had paid off, I was so happy just to be having a fight let alone win it!

None of this would have been possible if it wasn’t for everyone at the gym helping me to achieve my goals. My next goals are to get down to 100kg, and to keep fighting. I know I will achieve these goals because of the support I get at the gym.

When I first started all I wanted to do was lose weight, as I progressed my goals changed. I lost 40kg, and have had my first fight (and won!). It’s amazing what you can achieve by surrounding yourself with the right people. I can’t wait to see what the next 12 months bring me.

Also thank you to everyone for their support and help.

Nathan Brown.