The State Of Me...

Me & Dude, 6th June 2015

A year ago today, I spent the afternoon sitting on our patio with Alison & Dude, enjoying the sunshine as I read “NOS4R2” (I was a judge for the BFS awards) and they made loom bracelets.  At one point, I got the camera and took some family photos but didn’t think too much of it until I downloaded them onto the laptop that evening.

I looked at myself in the pictures, one in particular and was disgusted at what I saw.  There was Dude, looking cool in his Superman t-shirt, cuddling up to Jabba The Hutt.  I knew I was overweight - looking back at pictures, I’ve been that way for a LONG time - but seeing this one image made me realise just how bad I’d got, how far I’d let things slide.  As I stared at that picture, fascinated, I decided I was going to change things.  I started dieting the next day but, since I loved my pizza and burgers and crisps, sweets and biscuits (and was afraid of falling at the first hurdle), I didn’t tell anybody I was doing it.  I started doing simple exercises in the morning - press-ups, stomach crunches - but kept them quiet too.

The first person I told was Dude, who caught me exercising one morning and asked what I was doing.  I told Alison next, though she’d already guessed something was going on.  My Mum mentioned it to me a couple of weeks later.

In the picture that disgusted me, I weighed 18st 6.75lbs (258.75lbs or just over 117kgs).  I’m 5ft 11 and even though I don’t think the BMI is a great measure, it showed mine as 35.9 and well into the “obese” end of things.  I didn’t do much exercise (I cycled with Dude but didn’t walk far), I sometimes got out of breath walking up the stairs and I was now buying, as a matter of course and without thinking of exactly what it meant, XXL t-shirts.  Staring at the picture, I knew something had to change because if it didn’t, I wouldn’t see my boy grow up (and my heart attack, less than two months away, would be a stark reminder of my mortality).

I’d got into the habit, somehow, of eating far too much crap.  Alison is a great cook, she makes lovely meals but her well balanced menu wasn’t the problem - it was the pizza (if not two) I had EVERY week, it was the burger & chips I had most weeks, it was all the chocolate bars and crisps I ate (some quite late at night), it was all the sweets I picked up over the weekend.

Feeling the cold... 
Walking in December 2014, in plenty of layers 
(scarf and sweatshirt not pictured!)

The picture gave me the trigger that I needed to make a difference.  I started walking, I took Dude out for more cycle rides, I cut the pizza down to one a fortnight, the burgers went almost completely.  I cut back on the crisps (at one point, I’d been eating 4 packs a day!), dropped the Club Orange bars from my lunchbox and replaced them with real oranges, developed a liking for chicken salad sandwiches.  I worked hard at it.  By the time of my heart attack, in early August, I’d already dropped 17lbs and it was noticeable to those around me (though I couldn’t really see it, except my work trousers were now being held up by my belt).  The cardiac episode strengthened my resolve to sort myself out, though it meant I had to take things easy for a while.  After a few sessions at the British Heart Foundation gym class, I gained the confidence to start pushing myself again.  I put the mapmywalk app on my phone, began logging the miles and soon I was doing two or three a night, more at the weekend.  Dude & I cycled until the winter air was too cold then I’d walk more (the weight loss and heart tablets meant I really felt the chill, so I’d bundle up with sweatshirts under my winter coat and body warmer).

The diet (it isn’t really a diet, it is simply a case of not eating crap) bedded itself in slowly and after a while, I didn’t really miss the chocolate or crisps (I now have one packet a day, with my lunch).  Alison taught me a trick she’d picked up at Slimming World, of a treat on weighing day so I took advantage of that and enjoyed it.  We still had chips on occasion but it was a treat, once every couple of months.  I really did miss my lovely Pinocchio’s pizza though and still have one a month, usually on the night of my writing group, then I walk for an hour or so before heading off to our meeting.

I work in Finance, I like lists, what can I say...?

That was a year ago.  This morning, I tipped the scales at 13st 11.5lbs, 193.5lbs (or 88.7kgs), a total loss of 65.25lbs.  My BMI is now 27 and I’m slightly off (the better side) the midway of overweight.  My fitness is better than it has been in decades, I easily walk a 17 minute mile and Dude & I can race upstairs and I’m only slightly more out-of-breath than him (a fit and active 10 year old).  I’m happy, I feel better than I have in a long time, I look a lot better than I have in a long time (the benefit of losing weight slowly - I averaged 1.23lbs a week - is that skin shrinks back properly so you’re not left with unsightly folds) and, more importantly, I’m doing everything I possibly can to help my heart.

There are a lot of lessons I learned from this process but the main one seems to be that if you have the resolve (and trust me, a picture is a real slap-in-the-face of a resolve), you can do it.

And just to put it all into context, this is how I looked a year ago (and no, this isn't the trigger picture...)

(it's also worth mentioning that I didn't do this completely on my own - Alison & Dude have been a fantastic support, as have my Mum & Dad (who found new routes to vary my walks) and friends, plus Iona and her BHF team who showed me just how far I could push myself.  Thank you, one and all.)