Publications
Partners
Jack Parow doesn't like going to the gym, he loves his braai and he ain't about to stop drinking alcohol – yet the Afrikaans rapper has shed 25kg of weight while training for a celebrity boxing match.
A mountain to climb
"I must say... I love it ... it has changed my life", says Parow about his new weight in an interview with News24Live, adding, "I can jump a little higher and sweat a little bit less, maybe, so I am really stoked about it."
It wasn't all fun and games though. Parow says the biggest mental challenge he had to overcome was to actually get himself motivated to get started. "You always feel like it is such an uphill mountain to climb, and it is so much easier to not climb it."
And once he got started, Parow was in for another hurdle. "The most difficult part was at the start [when] I had this bump where for about three weeks I didn't lose any weight." Parow describes this period as quite intense and super unmotivating. "The lucky thing for me is that I was taking part in this charity boxing event so I had to train."
So Parow persevered and he soon started seeing results. "All of a sudden my metabolism got faster, my 'muscle memory' came back and then it got much easier."
Regarding diet, he says he didn't make any drastic changes because he wanted to adjust it in a way that would allow him to maintain it. "I think it is all about making a more conscious decision about it for the future than just thinking about the now."
Watch: How Jack Parow lost 25kg in 4 months
And the secret to training is making it fun. "I'm not good at gym. I'm really bad at gym, and running on a treadmill is never fun," admits Parow.
He says he tries to do exercises that help him take his mind off the exercising. "I think that the main thing is to just do exercises that are fun and make you lose weight without you even knowing that you are losing the weight."
So Parow decided to become more active. "I've started playing "touchies" again; I play action cricket and golf and I surf and I box."
With this year's theme for Movember being "move", Parow says he is glad that the focus is on getting active to stay healthy.
Watch: This is Jack Parow's secret to drinking alcohol and losing weight!
Also read:
Fitness vs fatness: which matters more?
Avoid jiggling belly fat when you exercise
