How The Sleekgeek Health Revolution began

Have you ever wondered how Sleekgeek actually started over 11 years ago? Let me tell you the story….

It all began rather unintentionally, in November 2011, with me and 12 friends who decided to each put R500 into the “kitty” and see who could lose the most weight in 6 weeks before I was due to go on a holiday in Zanzibar. Winner took all.

Some of those early founding Sleekgeeks - from my then professional network - that I recall were Christopher M. JP van der Spuy Dirk Tolken Cherylann Sawyer Ravi Reddy (MBA) Randolf ?? Jorberg Marcus J.B. Zandhuis Lauren Prior Mika Stuttaford Vibeke Carver Christensen Wesley Cloete Theo Wilken ????? Samantha Perry Rory Mitchell Tim Shier Mark Seabrook Marc F. Dax Fernandez Bruggemann Jonathan Allan-Barrett and of course Eric Chowles our co-founder and equity holder.

At the time I could not look at myself in the mirror and was inspired by the “Body for Life 12-Week Challenge” and its results.

These photos are my starting “before” photos in the first ever Sleekgeek Challenge. (www.sleekgeek.co.za/challenge)

I never knew it at the time, but that moment gave birth of our Health Revolution.?

I was at the absolute lowest point in my life. I looked terrible. I felt terrible. I was an overweight chain-smoking workaholic couch potato for over a decade and this was the only way I would think of to make a solid COMMITMENT to change. I finally had ENOUGH.?

Boy am I happy it worked. It was the spark to change 1000s of lives.

Rather than competing against each other, we found that social support was incredibly valuable. Much like the ethos of the challenge and its teams still is today.

I created a discussion group on Facebook (www.facebook.com/groups/sleekgeek) that let us keep in touch with each other, share our progress, and give encouragement to whoever needed it. Can you believe that group is this very group today with over 99,000 members! - Amazing right!

Although this was a challenge where we were competing against each other, we were also all in this together. We even swopped strategies. We knew that we would all get better results working together than working alone.

This perfect blend of camaraderie, joint learning, and competitive edge produced some impressive results and was exactly what we needed to kickstart our motivation. In fact it profoundly changed my life.

This group started growing by word of mouth and through friends of friends, even after our challenge was finished. Everyone loved the supportive environment that we had created and wanted their friends and family to experience it too.

And so The Sleekgeek Health Revolution was born.

The demand for more officially organised Sleekgeek challenges increased. So we brought on sponsors to provide attractive prizes for the winners in addition to the cold hard cash and a new rocking body. We also got reliable and experienced nutritionists and exercise science experts involved to develop training and nutrition plans for a wide variety of challenger needs and capabilities.

(Subsequently we have developed our own powerful Transformation System with all that our team has learned over the past decade in how to help people eat, think, sleep and move better.)

I kept getting asked..”When is the next challenge??!” So we continued evolving to an 8-Week period. 3 times a year. New Year, Winter and Summer each year.

The community and brand was so exciting to be a part of – making change in people’s lives – that I left my corporate career and secure salary to take on Sleekgeek full-time. I was an executive in a listed company so it was a big deal. People thought I was nuts - and it was covered in the media.

I realised that life is better when you are healthy and my mission was to change the world with health as the weapon, spreading that message. The Sleekgeek Revolution had arrived!

Now 11 and a bit years later we have 35 successful challenges under our belt with over 31,000 people having gone through this tried and tested 8-week challenge system, achieving amazing results and being rewarded with incredible prizes! We have paid out over R3,7m in cash and prizes to winners over this time.

The Sleekgeek Challenge is no fly by night with a rich and reliable tradition of results!

This 8-week challenge process will help you take huge strides toward living a healthier lifestyle. It will also introduce you to an incredible support network of community members just like you who will be with you every single day for this challenge, as well as for all the years to come.

Sleekgeek is far more than just a challenge, it is a community organized around the vision of creating a healthier South Africa. We now offer coaching, workplace wellness solutions and much more.

When you enter our challenge and community you are not only giving yourself the right tools to create valuable lasting change, but you are doing a positive thing for others by helping to fund the overall vision of our community.

Our vision is to inspire 1,000,000 people to live a healthy lifestyle.

I am so proud that the community has become SO MUCH MORE than a 8-Week Challenge even though those are the roots. We now have a thriving community that offers so much more in addition to a daily conversation around living a healthy lifestyle.

- Elan ?