I have been asked repeatedly lately how much weight i have lost, how i lost it & why i allowed myself to get so big. The post below answer these questions.
That horrible picture above is me & my lovely wife taken in the summer of 2009. September 2010 i was still the same size, in fact the trousers in that picture are the suit trousers i wore at a funeral almost exactly a year ago before i went off sick. They were size 48 inch waist, as are the ones in the after picture below.
I got that big & really the main reason is i like my food & ate too much. I ate lots of healthy stuff, but loved rubbish too especially chips Indian & Chinese food. The car accident 3 years ago scuppered my plans to use my sabbatical to get fitter & loose weight but really i was well on the way to being that size before then.
I was ashamed i got so big & there are very few photographs of me standing up without someone else carefully hiding me. I don't know how heavy i was because when i did try to weigh myself the scales didn't go high enough, & anyway i really didn't want to know, it was so embarrassing.
I was very unhappy. That thing you hear about fat people being happy & jolly was never true for me & I suspect its not for lots of people. I knew my health was at risk & I was depressed about it. I wanted to do something about it, but didn't know really how to start because feeling pressure or feeling down always fed into wanting to eat & especially at my last appointment i was under more pressure than i can explain.
Last September, the 26th i think I was signed off work sick & I knew i had to do something because the back operation i was waiting for was more dangerous if i didn't lose some weight. Big problem was i didn't know how to start because i physically couldn't do anything. I started to try hard by cutting down anything that was fattening & inputting less calories as i was flat on my back almost 24 hours a day.
Watching mind-numbing daytime TV reduced my world to a very dark place & one day in October i stumbled on the USA show Biggest Loser. I had always thought it was a terrible programme & I guess thats how most people view it, but its really helped me see that i could change how i looked & felt - if they could do it why couldn't i?
I noticed that i was the same size as some of the men on their & watched everyday & saw how they exercised & ate to loose weight. Sometime in November i got up & started trying to walk slowly on the spot for 5 minutes or so at a time. It was very hard; it hurt so much I would cry, but i knew i had to try. I kept going.
After the operation on the 2nd December i decided that i would do everything in my power to get fit. If i didnt my back wouldnt recover. I had to do it.
So within 3 days i was out walking 100 metres or so in the snow - hanging on to Jane because i was scared of falling! The next day we went a bit further, then again the next day. Then the next day i went out on my own. Within not much more than a week i walked around the estate. It took so long but it felt so good.
In January i walked everyday, a total of 108 miles across the month in some bloody awful weather. I kept up the healthy eating & continued to see weight go. Biggest Loser continued to motivate me & I started to do some very light weights work & a little walking on the spot as & when i could between the long periods of rest.
These exercise periods were very hard at times - several times i walked with tears streaming because the pain relief had started to wear off while i was still miles from home; its amazing what your body can do though if you push it.
Sometime in January i started making my own soup because i thought being liquid it would fill me up & stop what were quite serious hunger pangs. I got quite good at it!
The exercise has got harder since i went back to work in May, partly because of time & partly because at the same time i was trying to stop taking so much medication. Yet I am still loosing weight even though i cant quite do so much. I am though very strict about what i eat & don't ever think i will go back to treating food in the same way again.
I am off a very large amount of the medication now & was discharged by the Consultant today.
I said to our Hannah a month or so ago that i wanted to put the horrible picture above on the fridge to remind me not to eat stuff i shouldn't & she really made me feel proud because she said 'you don't need to because you have more will power than anyone i know'.
So one year one i am down 14 inches round my waist & about 6 around my neck. I feel happier about how i look than at any point in my adult life & looking forward to life.
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