Wouldn’t eat that for a bet!

TA L E O F T HE S C A L E BR ENDA N LEE

AGE: 4 4 LIVES: ALBURY, NSW HEIGHT: 17 7CM WAS: 110KG NOW: 80KG LOST: 30KG

Competitive spirit

Father Brendan Lee bet his brother h e could lose 30kg in just three months. A shedload of punishing gym sessions and a junk food-free diet later, he did.

■“I get invited to afternoon tea and dinner by families and they always put on a big spread for me,” says Brendan, an assistant priest at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Albury on the NSW/Victoria border. It’s one of the prime reasons the 44-year-old clergyman had blown out to 110kg late last year.

His poor physical condition was a far cry from his school days in the Blue Mountains where he’d been a champion sprinter and rugby league player with a super-lean physique. Indeed, Brendan’s weight began to balloon seven years ago when he quit playing sport to focus on the pressures he was facing at work.

At the time, he felt despondent about his life and sought refuge in junk food. McDonald’s, KFC and Hungry Jack’s became his comfort diet as he moved to a small rural church with little to do, which only served to compound the problem.

“I filled in time with food,” Brendan says. Things didn’t get any better as he went on leave for a year and ended up living in an old pub.

Fortunately, his work problems were eventually resolved but his body issues weren’t. “I’d been trying to lose weight for years but just couldn’t budge it,” Brendan says. In October last year, his brother David and a local businessman bet him he couldn’t lose 30kg by Australia Day — a period of three months. It was a monumental task — one that even most personal trainers would steer clear of — but it was just the spur Brendan needed.

“I attacked it like a one-day cricket match,” Brendan says. “Instead of runs per over, it was kilos per week, so over 12 weeks I knew it would be 2.5kg per week, and if I wasn’t hitting that I’d have to lift my game.”

He blocked out the advice the naysayers were giving him about how di cult his goal was and relentlessly pursued a high-protein, low carb and high-water diet. Workout-wise, he completed a session in the morning to get his metabolism going, did a fast walk in the middle of the day then smashed a low weight/high reps gym session at night. “I did as much cardio as possible,” he says, “and stuck to the crosstrainer until I was ruined.”

He also politely told parishioners he wouldn’t be able to eat as much as he used to when they invited him over. “It was OK, though — 95% were with it. I’d have a cof ee but without the sugar and only one scone instead of two.”

The transformation “The nuns now say: ‘You can’t be Father Lee. We knew him and he was a fat man. Where did he go?’”

wasn’t easy, but Brendan’s faith kept him on target. “I often thought I would give up, but you have to have confidence in what you’re doing. I remembered that saying: ‘In doing great deeds it is glorious even to fail.’ I knew that even if I didn’t make it, I would have given it my best shot.”

The results were sensational: while everyone else was out celebrating the nation’s birthday, Brendan was busy having himself photographed on the gym scales, which revealed he had shed 30kg in just three months — down to a streamlined 80kg. He had won the bet.

The ef ect on his life and the people around him was huge. “People think I’m a dif erent person now. It’s true: when you’re fat people tend to think you’re undisciplined, but when you’re slim they think you’re in control of your life.

“There are a group of Filipino nuns here and they say: ‘You can’t be Father Lee. We knew him and he was a fat man. Where did he go?’”

His tip for losing weight is simple: “Food isn’t entertainment, it’s fuel. There are no better words to follow than ‘eat less, exercise more’. Losing weight is about having a new way of life.

“I went to the supermarket today to buy lollies and came away with fruit. It’s something I would never have done before.”