This week I am delighted to introduce you to Raphael, a BootCamper who has been following the LeBootCamp method for a few days now.

Besides treating us to his splendid food photography on the LeBootCamp facebook group, he is candidly sharing his journey with us, failures and greatest successes as well as his goals for this new page in his life.

“I first discovered LeBootCamp in 2011 when I was browsing the internet and the Doctissimo website where a choice of 5 different diets were on offer. After some careful reading I reached the conclusion that it was the most suitable program for me (I am a real foodie). I had recently given up smoking and gained 20 kg (44 lbs) in addition to the ones accumulated during my party-chips-beer-pizza student years with my friends and was on the look out for a diet.

I lost 8 kgs in 3 months on the program and kept them off maintaining all the good habits. But entering professional life, a few lows and a sympathetic pregnancy took their toll… and one summer’s day I woke up to a 3 figure number on the scales. 100 kg! Alarm bells went off, it was time to act! I tried to take charge of the situation by myself relying on my good memories of being on the LeBootCamp program. Unfortunately, I ended up yoyo-ing for a year averaging 95kg. So, I decided that going back on the program was the best solution for several reasons:

– I am starting my own business : (http://artisan-photographe.fr), my mind is on that and I haven’t got the time to think about my weightloss. With LeBootCamp I have my meals planned for and I can treat myself to my Sunday morning pleasure of going the market with my shopping list. I know where I am heading. Not to mention the fact that as I am offering a rather high end wedding photography service,  It may sound silly, but I really think I need to look the part.

– Having a community really helps : people around me don’t alway “get” why I want to lose weight. “Oh why? The weight rather suits you and you really pull it off” “Excuse me buddy, but no one ‘pulls off’ excess weight or likes being fat, take a look at me in my 20s and you will understand”. So I’ll take any extra support I can get!

– I have a related photography project that is close to my heart. First because I love both food and photography. For the anecdote, my incentive to give up smoking 4 years ago, was to buy my dream professional camera. My yearly cigarette consumption covered the cost. So, I bought a camera on a 0% pay plan over a year and gave up smoking. It is one of my greatest prides to date (after my family of course). Photography freed me from my first addiction and I am convinced that it will free me from the second.

– Everything is going well in my life : I have let go of certain burdens in my life, I know what track I am on. I left the job I was stagnating in, I have the life have been dreaming of with free rein to get back in shape.

I used to be very sporty, I did a bit of everything: mostly swimming, martial arts, rock climbing and hiking. Today, it would be fair to say that I couldn’t jog for more than 30 minutes over a distance of 8-9 km (4-5 miles) without fearing to have sore knees… But at the end of the day, those figures aren’t what matter most to me. What bothers me the most, is to feel limited by my body (weary about skipping over a low wall, for example) when I used run like mad racing my friends downhill.

I got back in charge of my life and I now want to be back in charge of my body ! I currently weigh 94 kg (207 lbs) and my first goal is to reach 80 kg (176 lbs). The next one will be to reduce my body fat percentage and achieve a healthy clothe size and then hone my figure into shape”.