Taz Etto might have been riding high after winning The Block with his partner, Britt, but behind the scenes, there was more going on.
Although he was over the moon to win the show, the police officer was also struggling with having become “unrecognisable” to himself.
Speaking to New Idea, Taz explains that he had a “wake-up call” after the show, realising he needed to be taking better care of himself.
“The [Block] environment was so different to what we used to, especially as police officers, you control a lot of your environment […] and the work, you’re very much in control of all the things you can do, whereas that control in TV land is just completely taken from you.
“You’re focusing on everything else that comes with it, like, you know, like the building process, and you’ve got to learn everything on the fly.
“So much of your energy is taken to learn new things, and that goes for a full three to four months.
“And anytime we did get to ourselves, it was just to have some time together.
“So it was definitely a wake-up call afterwards when [I] had a bit more time to go, now I need to take care of myself again because I’ve sort of made myself unrecognisable to myself.”
Not an avid gymgoer, Taz enlisted the help of his friend and fitness coach, Lachy Sawtell, and he lost 18kg in 5.5 months.
Taz hadn’t wanted to document his journey online; instead navigating it privately to become a healthier and happier version of himself.
However, he has now decided to share his personal experience in the hopes it could inspire or motivate anyone else on the same path.
“These weight loss journeys are very much a women-dominated sort of field,” he tells us.
“So I just thought, you know, I’ll throw it out there and it’s been overwhelming support, so it’s been really good.”
As for exactly how he achieved his goals? He swears by four things: A calorie deficit, going to the gym four times a week, reaching his daily steps and strength training.
The schedule
- 5.30am: Britt’s exercise window
- 6am to 4pm: Taz’s police officer work shift
- 4pm to 7pm: Taz prioritises family and childcare
- 7.30pm to 9pm: Taz and Britt’s quality time
- 9/10pm: Taz’s exercise window (sacrificing PlayStation time for gym time!)
- Midnight: Lights out! Taz goes to sleep (to get his six hours of rest – something he struggles with)
Taz has praised Britt for their tag-team approach to childcare and exercise, helping him achieve the results he hoped for.
“Britt’s just been awesome in everything that she’s done because she had to pick up a lot of the slack at home for me to be able to do a lot of the stuff that I do,” he gushes.
1. Calorie deficit
He stressed the importance of focusing on his nutrition and tracking his calories to make sure he was staying in a sustainable deficit for weight loss.
“I’ve played a semi-professional level of football, but even then, I’ve never really tracked any food or drink or anything like that,” he says.
“I knew if I trained extra harder than anyone else, I wouldn’t have to worry about my food so much.”
However, he says he was still eating the same when he was juggling childcare and not training as much, which made him realise the importance of nutrition alongside exercise.
“The calorie deficit and learning how to track food and having my nutrition tailored for me, that’s what Lachy was able to do, tailor it specifically for me at different times,” he adds.
He had to get himself out of the mindset that exercise was the only important thing in a weight loss journey, and he now swears by tracking food and eating more protein.
“The biggest thing for weight loss for me personally was like calories in and calories out,” he explains.
“It’s not all about exercise, which I had to really get that out of my head.”
2. Consistent gym training
His impressive results weren’t without serious effort, with Taz going to the gym at 10pm at night, not wanting to sacrifice his family time to exercise.
“I’m just never a morning person,” he admits.
“Britt goes to the gym in the morning, so she’ll wake up at 530 and she’ll go to the gym then.
“I just never been that person.”
Instead, Taz substituted his late nights playing PlayStation or watching sports for hitting the gym after he put his kids, Carter and Myla to sleep.
“Those late nights, because that’s when everyone else is asleep, you don’t need to rush, you don’t need to hurry back to look after the kids or anything like that,” he adds.
3. Daily steps
Taz says he never realised the importance of simply getting up and moving, with one of his main focuses being hitting 15,000 steps per day.
“The biggest thing for me was just how important hitting 10,000 steps a day is,” he tells us.
“I hit 15,000 steps actually a day ’cause I was like, I just wanted up it.
“But the importance of just any movement is so understated.”
Taz admits he was initially confused about why his trainer had only scheduled him to run once a week, not believing he would be able to lose weight without excessive cardio, before learning the importance of standard daily movement.
And it wasn’t all about getting up and active for Taz, who also had to prioritise getting a good night’s sleep to recharge his body, going against his habit of having four to six hours of sleep.
“You’re burning your most calories at rest, so you really need to take care of yourself as well,” he adds.
4. Strength training
Taz has never considered himself to be a passionate gym-goer, but he taught himself the importance of strength training to assist his weight loss.
“I hadn’t been on half the machines in the gym,” he admits.
“I wasn’t really a bench press sort of guy. I never went on a treadmill, always thought it was weird.
“People go on a treadmill, like just walk or run outside! But it’s actually so therapeutic, jumping on a treadmill.”
Now, it’s clear he’s a gym convert and managed to maintain a regular pattern of going to the gym four times a week.
“Strength training was something that I didn’t fully understand the importance of it, but now I fully do,” he adds.
“So I did that four times a week.”
He also admits that having a personal trainer who was able to hold him “accountable” was hugely helpful to make sure he was staying on track.
Results
Though he lost 18kg, Taz says it wasn’t all about the physical changes for him, but about getting healthier and happier, something even his kids have noticed.
“Mentally, I’ve got much more energy and I’m a lot happier,” he says.
“But the biggest thing for me is just how the kids are seeing it. The kids will say, ‘Oh, Daddy, you’re going to the gym today’.”
He explains that his children want to eat more vegetables now because they see him doing it, which has made it worthwhile for him.
“To see the impact on the kids has been something really special,” he gushes.
Looking ahead, he’s running a half-marathon and is eyeing up the Sydney Marathon in August, depending on how his training goes!
