Over the last eight years, Dave Letele has helped thousands of people lose weight and get fit through his Brown Buttabean health programme.
The progamme is spun out of Dave's own journey in which he lost over 100 kilograms and turned his life around after a rough life as the son of a Mongrel Mob ex-president and youth spent in poverty.
Letele sorted out his own health and fitness, going from an overweight adult to professional boxer.
Now, in addition to running free fitness programmes, his organisation runs education on how to cook healthy food on a budget, youth and employment programmes, and a food-share scheme.
Dave 'the Brown Butterbean' Letele. a former boxer who started the BBM fitness class. Photo: RNZ / Rowan Quinn
Feeling frustrated and angry after his father was imprisoned for cultivation of marijuana, Letele at the age of 21 quit his job and studying and ended up going off the rails.
“I was sitting on the doorstep of this tinny house that I was living in and just thinking ‘man, surely this can’t be it, surely my life is meant for more’.
“The more important thing is I always encourage people to not stay down and feel sorry for yourself as easy as that can be and don’t wait for the system because if you’re waiting for the system, you’ll be waiting all your life.”
Despite initially finding success in sport and business, he ended up weighing more than 200kg and living at his sister’s house.
“Everything I’m doing now was born out of failure and that’s why I say to people don’t be afraid to fail because look at all the good that’s happened out of that, it’s just a matter of learning.
“I got up and kept working and surrounding myself with good people, and I never let excuses get in my way. I used everything as fuel, not as a reason to stop.”
His driving force was getting his children back, he says.
“There’s so many people who reach out to me on behalf of someone, and I always say the same thing, they have to want it. If you don’t want it, there’s nothing that can be done. You have to want it so bad that you’ll do anything to make it happen and that’s where I was.”
From there, his friend David Higgins of Duco Events gave him a chance in the ring, offering him a lifeline on Joseph Parker's undercard.
“Boxing gets a bad rap sometimes but it really did save me, it gave me an avenue to put my frustrations into and the goal was always to get my children back and I worked really hard to make it happen and to not disgrace myself too much in the ring.”
Amongst all the mail he got, some were curious about his weight loss journey so he started a private ‘BBM’ (Brown Buttabean Motivation) Facebook group and a boot camp.
“The boot camp started with me just helping my father-in-law’s mates to lose some weight, we were there, it was only a handful of us and I thought ‘man, we should see if anyone else in our facebook group wants to come’ … and that’s how it started.
“It’s amazing if you think about it, from that to what we are now, three gyms, a community kitchen and a food share warehouse. Pretty amazing.”
But it has been a nightmare for struggling families in the pandemic, he says, which is why he started the food share scheme.
“[Asking for help] can break cycles because if you’re a parent and say you’ve come from a gang background, and you’re trying to stay away from that background but times get tough and you’re looking at your kids and they’re getting hungry and you’re thinking to yourself ‘how the heck am I going to do it?’
“The temptation might be to break. And you go off and do something and you get caught, then you’re in a worse situation.
“I’ve been in that situation where I’m looking at my children and gone off and done silly things, so for me, the important part of this stuff is breaking cycles and making sure that families don’t go down that route because it may seem like an easy shortcut but it’s really just a massive detour.”
He says the programmes aren’t just about diets and exercise but learning how to change your mindset so that you have a long-term commitment.
“The families we work with are coming from generations and generations, as far as you can look back, of hopelessness, of people on the dole, there’s no hope, there’s no role models and they’re harder to change.
“So, it takes a long time – government, community, and business walking alongside [each other] for a long time - to give the kids a different view of the world, to show them what’s possible.”
Letele is hopeful for the new health reforms but wants to see more support for prevention programmes like his.
“What I’m seeing is people that are 300-kilo plus actually turning up to a gym with us, the system can’t even connect to these people to get even get them to turn up to a doctor’s appointment.
“So just the sheer fact they turn up to see us is a win and the other thing is we don’t focus on weight loss, we’re focusing on getting them to turn up, we measure all the health checks … and this is what we’re going to show is that what we do works and here’s the evidence.”
Dave Letele was recently named Kiwi Bank New Zealand Local Hero of the Year Award and is also appearing on Dancing With The Stars on Three and ThreeNow.
