Thread: Hunting fitness

Here’s a tale about fitness - a bit of a novel.

Maybe this isn’t the right place for this? Let me know and I’ll move it or just delete it. But going for a walk in the bush over the weekend really got me thinking.


I’m only 30, so still go plenty of miles in me yet. I always had a up and down struggle with my weight as a teen - but it never bothered me. I didn’t care about it, then as a 19 year old I started a building apprenticeship and lost a lot of weight and gained a lot of fitness - without really trying. But looking back I I couldn’t call myself healthy, I was a big drinker and a heavy smoker. I didn’t look after myself at all. But I was in shape enough that when I started hunting 5 years ago I didn’t have to pay any mind to fitness, I could just do it. Load up a pack and go for a walk and not worry. Then somehow I managed to start having hay fever, really bad and it kept getting worse from all the dust on building sites so I had to change careers. So I got off the building site and into the office.

And that’s where I sat down a lot and kept my crap diet of eating everything and anything and smoking and drinking - and I ballooned in weight. I went from a solid 107kg to 135kg in a couple of years, but I wasn’t hunting that often so I didn’t really notice it till I went to my mates farm, one that I hunted often enough and never struggled. I could park at the house, go shoot a deer in the back paddock and carry it back and not worry - One day I went for a hunt with him, I walked up a hill and I was absolutely exhausted. Huffing and puffing and struggling to breathe, my mate just looked at me and said - quit smoking bud, what really got me is that the house was in plain sight. I hadn’t even walked a full 1km up a slight hill and I felt ready to die.

That really woke me up. I immediately quit smoking and cut back on the drink and looked at my diet. I started making my own meals instead of buying them, I went for a walk to the park and back every day. First one loop and then 6 months later I could do 10km in one go easy as - around the local streets and I suddenly weighed 99kg (I’ve lost a lot of muscle as been off the tools for 4 years) - But my life only really revolved around exercising and my diet and that’s all I did as it’s all I had time for, I was hardly hunting - the whole reason I started to look after myself.

So I started hunting again and loved it, I also felt I needed a social life again!

Then I fell back into my old habits of eating crap (I joined my mates at the local 3 times a week for dinner and drinks - those damn quiz nights we kept winning bar vouchers) and I shot back up to 119kg but I was hunting every month and that was my only exercise and I noticed it getting hard again. Then my buddy booked us a fly in hunt for February and I realised I couldn’t let bad habits ruin a dream hunt.

So here I am again, back on the grind of exercise and diet - I’ve put in a good effort and in only 4 weeks my cardio has increased dramatically again, I went for a walk up in the kaimais and I felt really good. With work keeping me busy - a house hold to run and maintaining healthy relationships with my partner and family / friends I find it really hard to keep a good balance of health and fitness and finding the time to do it. (Im currently sitting at 115kg)

A long way to say: health and fitness has always been something I’ve struggled with - I wasn’t taught healthy eating habits, as a child I was forced to play sports I hated so fitness was never something I enjoyed doing so none of this has come naturally and there’s only one reason I even started to make good choices. To go hunting. Without it I think I’d still be drinking, smoking and well past 140kg. But now i place a heavy value on fitness - and want to figure this out.