For those that have followed me since 2007, you will know I have been through some massive ups and downs. One of the biggest downs was when the Dr told me I would be dead within 3 years if I did not sort my life out. This was the single event that triggered my weight loss. Nothing like facing your own mortality at 29 years of age. I was started on the Lipotrim diet by the Dr and was under the hospital. Weekly weigh-ins and weekly supplies of shakes (the Lipotrim diet is a meal replacement system) followed for a while and I lost about 5 or 6 stone straight away. The down side was how ill I felt, it would come and go, but it felt like I had flu for a long time. I passed out in the bathroom one day which gave me a shock; I badly bruised my ribs, neck and smashed my head on the toilet. I don’t know how long I was out for, but it was a while. That spelt the end of the Lipotrim diet for me. One of my clients at the time ran a diet company (The Diet Plate) and I switched onto this system. Now I am naturally sceptical and I scoffed at how a system which was as simple as this would work, but work it did and I carried on losing weight.
During this time I started kick boxing again and this culminated in being able to represent England at the WKC world championships in 2009. It was a good time in my life; I looked good, felt good and was amazingly fit. Now don’t get me wrong, the next 3 years of my life have been and continue to be amazing, I have met Kerry, have an amazing family, a good job which I enjoy and an amazing lifestyle. However, the stopping training, and the amazing lifestyle (fine dinning, staying at top hotels and eating at top restaurants, the hectic family life and working on the road) have taken there toll on my body. I have been unhappy with myself for some time as I have slowly been gaining weight. I am now (as of last night) back up to 30 stone 8 lbs. I am not sure how I feel about this really; I mean I have noticed for some time now that I have fallen back into ‘fat people’ habits. Eating over the sink, snacking, grazing all day long, playing the services game whilst on the road etc. These have all sneaked back into my life.
I have also noticed people’s reaction to myself, the snide comments, the pointing and laughing from youngsters. This has made me feel terrible, I have been here before. It hurts, the thing I feel worse about, more than anything else is Kerry wanted to go to Ireland for a weekend in August for a birthday treat, but I can not fit into the airline seats… So we can’t go. Yes I know there are other ways of getting to Ireland, and I am looking into them and I am sure we will get there, but the fear of having to try and get on an aeroplane whilst at this size struck a cord that won’t go away.
There is also something new I am facing this time around, and this is not something I have discussed or mentioned too many people. When I was big before, the weight had come on over a period of time, years in fact, but I had remained active. I fell into a group the Dr laughing referred to as very fit fat people. This time around though, the weight has come on so fast my body has not kept up with it. What I mean by this is I am now a different shape, I carry most of my weight around my torso, but I am inactive and my muscles have not kept up with the weight gain. What this actually means is that now I am in constant pain. My back hurts like never before, some small amount of ‘bone’ pain but mostly muscular pain, that sometimes goes into spasm and makes it very hard to move. My thighs and calves hurt like never before, and what I believe is happening is that my muscles are constantly straining and tearing to move my bulk around, which again means it is very difficult to move or do any exercise. The point being proved by playing in a charity football match against my son’s football team which left me in now small amount of agony for 3 weeks afterwards, even now I am still in pain. Certain things that we take for granted as every day things are proving harder and harder to do. I am not sleeping properly (nothing to do with the baby, honest) and even laying down I remain in pain, and I have started snoring. I find it hard to stay awake during the day and I am beginning to suspect I am suffering from a mild case of sleep apnoea, but I hope not.
So, that is where I am physically, where am I mentally and how do I feel about all of this? This is one of the hardest blog posts I have ever written, so please bear with me. I am afraid; I am scared that I won’t ever be able to get back to where I was. I am terrified that I won’t be able to stop the weight gain, or lose weight. I am struggling with motivation even now and even after admitting to myself and others about the situation I am in.
I don’t like myself indeed that is an understatement. I loath myself, I hate the person that looks back at me in the mirror, does this make me change something? No, it makes me eat more. Can I do what I did last time? I really don’t know. I have a family now; I only managed to lose weight last time by having a house that quite literally had no food in it at all, that is not possible now. Its like an addiction, I associate good and bad memories with food, if I get stressed I eat, if I am happy I eat more, if I am sad I eat.
I hate myself for it. I rationalise what I do to myself, to a degree anyway. I sneak food and eat in secret at times. I have even bought sweets in one shop then driven to another shop and bought more sweets so people don’t look at me and think no wonder he is gross, look at what he is eating. I mean they might not think like that, but in my head they do. I sometimes think Kerry and the kids would be better served with someone else in there life rather than a partner and father who is this big, sometimes I wonder if it is worth carrying on at all, don’t worry I am not suicidal, but I would be lying if I did not admit to that feeling being there from time to time, especially when I lie and make excuses to the children for not doing something.
So that is where I am at right now… I hate myself, I loathe what I have become, I am terrified, but I have started a journey.
I have started at slimming world now (well as of last night) and I am trying to do something. I am going to use this blog for what it was originally set up, which is to record my fight against the flab. I have pondered on the idea of trying to place a bet on losing weight but know very little about betting or if anyone would take such a bet.
All comments are welcome and encouraged, all I ask is you bear in mind I am a real human being with feelings and I am trying to be open and honest.
(Posted by James, FIXED AGAIN by Dan...)
OK, well maybe a strange month or more since my last blog at least... So I am going to break this one down a bit, I have kept quiet about riots and such, however, I have had enough.
We had riots, by all accounts quite small disorganised riots, which was just as well, since then most (apparently) have been rounded up and sentenced etc. I have no problem with large sentences, none what so ever, in fact I quite encourage it. What I want to know though, where is the prison sentences for the equally immoral behaviour of our politicians? Yes I know 5 have been sentenced but I am sure there was more than that. However, I understand that the rioters were handed higher sentences because there offences were committed with force and caused fear at the same time.
The most asked question, why were there riots? Well if you look back through history, people riot when they are unhappy with society, normally following economic uncertainty etc. Well we are in the middle of that are we not? Also society as a whole have eroded male role figures and emasculated men since the 60's as such we now have a generation of young people with no Male role models (except footballers? really? role models?) no respect (or fear, and yes fear works) for people in authority and who have no boundaries or restrictions on there behaviour. This is mainly due to the fact that parents can not discipline there children, teachers can not discipline there students and police men can not discipline anybody apparently, for fear of being sued etc.
Well I for one have had enough, I know most will look at it and call me a right wing idiot, but please people, please let a modicum of common sense step in, children need to be punished when doing wrong, parents need to restrict what there children are doing, teachers need to be able to discipline pupils and police need to become a force again instead of a social service....
