Then there was his visit last summer to Canopy Tours.
"They have a weight limit, I got on the scales and zoomed over it, I'd spent the weeks around Christmas eating and drinking."
His self-confidence plummeted.
"I had a flash of how I'd be in ten years, all the health problems Maori are afflicted with, and didn't want that to be me."
He gave himself a stern talking to, cut out the junk food that he'd eaten almost daily, downloaded appropriate apps and took to running.
"I knew I had to radically change my diet, I'm not the type to live on carrot sticks but I started counting calories and began running regularly. I've always enjoyed it and have had a few stop-starts over the years but this time I stuck to it."
When he began George couldn't manage the length of Lytton St. Six months on he runs form Glenholme to Owhata and back every second morning . . . "I'm getting faster and faster."
His iPhone's his constant companion.
"The app works out how much you should be eating in the terms of calories so it's pretty motivating."
Another keeps him on the move if he starts to flag mid-run.
Describing himself as being 'driven and meticulous in certain areas', George credits these qualities for giving him the determination to reinvent his body image.
But being a 'good boy' hasn't been a piece of cake. Once he'd have eaten the whole cake and there have been times he's been tempted "but now I realise if I want to avoid health problems and be proud of myself I have to keep my radar fixed on who and where I want to be."
Lest this sounds like any run-of-the mill weight-loss story let us introduce you to George McLeod the person - slim line or supersized.
Thousands of Rotorua school kids know him well. He's been the Rotorua Museum's education officer for a dozen or so years.
And, no, he doesn't have a teaching qualification to his name, although his mother's a teacher and her family are orators: "Two things that have been really important to me in this job."
George joined the museum after a couple of years in the hospitality industry.
"I walked in here [the museum] one day, thought it would be a great place to work, asked for a job, there was a visitor services vacancy and I filled it.'
Fourteen months on the educational role came up but the entree to it was far more competitive.
"Going for it was a last minute thing then, blow me, I found out I'd beaten off 300 other applicants. Initially I was reluctant dealing with children, they weren't really my thing, but after a while I developed a great affinity with them, they give off such a great vibe."
At times George can find himself dealing with up to five large classes a day . . . "really crazy times".
He heaps praise on Ngati Whakaue's Educational Empowerment Fund that pays for students from decile 1-5 schools to visit the museum.
"It's a huge thing for those kids, they come in and find out that from a historic perspective the museum's not a collection of dusty shelves, it's interactive and engaging... a place where they learn about their tupuna [ancestors] and their history."
George's own whakapapa [genealogy] is Ngati Whakaue, Tuhourangi, Ngaiterangi (Tauranga), English, Irish and Scottish; naturally the latter's where the McLeod name comes from.
"My great-grandfather about five generations back came to Tauranga, apparently in the early 1800s. We're not sure if he was running away from a bad past, but he married a local wahine [Maori woman], that union's where we all come from."
George has visited Waipu, New Zealand's home base for the clan McLeod.
"They had no record of John, he pre-dated their arrival from Nova Scotia. I feel a real affinity for my Scottish link, to me it's as important as my Maori side."
Via Facebook, he's made contact with Irish and English relatives.
"They were thrilled to find out they had a Maori connection, one of the kids did a project profiling Maori and kapa haka. It's great to have such diverse links."
Taking him back to his weight loss we ask what's pleased him most about its dramatic results.
"The surprise I get when I clasp my hands together and feel skinny little fingers or feel cheek bones I've never felt before.
Then there's the clothes. "I've reached the point where I go 'wow, I can go into a shop and buy off the rack', before that I'd grab something jumbo sized and hope it fitted; now I have to hold these things up with a belt."
