The unknown beginnings

I guess it's about time that I started talking about what actually happened, and where I started, inadvertently, to change the way in which I saw, and managed my lifestyle.

As with everything...it started with a girl.......NO. Actually, it didn't.

A couple of friends decided to stop drinking for a few weeks, and it just so happened that I was working away with them at that time, so joined in (without really meaning to).  I should probably make it clear that my lifestyle had slightly changed prior to this, but I'll cover that with another historical post at a later date, as it's not hugely different at that stage.

At this same time as this 'dry' period was going on, I was having some, shall we say, gastric issues.  Essentially my stomach hurt, a lot, and I was regularly vomiting in the mornings (something which had been going on regularly for probably 15 years, but I was at this point in a "regular" phase).

Through this, I was trying to stay off any "heavy" food, and ended up eating different varieties of salads and water, with the occasional J2O.

Guess what? I not only felt better, but I also lost a little bit of weight. Nothing noticeable, but enough for me to know about it, and enough to set the foundations for what was to happen in November 2010, when I was on Holiday in Florida and lost my appetite completely, but not only this, on or around the 18th Nov (I can't work out the exact date!), three of our travelling party decided to go out for a jog near our Villa.  This jog would have been around 600m from door to door, and I have to say, while I never let on at the time, but with it being fairly obvious, I was pretty distraught and embarrassed at not even being able to make it to the end of the street, 150m).

This was the trigger, and while it took me some time after returning, it will always be the moment I decided to work on my fitness, and lifestyle.

I think everyone, in some way or another, always needs a little push.

The History

Before I truly engaged on properly losing weight, I attempted many a thing to see if any of them stuck, but mostly there were reasons behind why they didn't,  or at least why for me they didn't work.  Some of them are reasonably obvious as them being stupid, some are less so.

While living in Leicester and working at the university, I often attempted to do some small things to work on my weight, and ultimately none of them worked, but they were a good foundation for what later has begun to work, giving me an understanding of how many body works.

The Stomach Shrinking

There were times when I felt that shrinking my stomach may help me in restricting what I ate, something simpler than a gastric band, and all I really did was limit my eating to a single chicken roll per day (no breakfast/dinner).  While the shrinking worked, and after a period it meant I had a much smaller appetite but it never lasted, and let's be fair, killing your appetite won't help if you're eating the wrong food.

The Salad Obsession

I went through a week of eating solely home-made salad, limited to Lettuce, Tomato, and Cucumber.  Again, a fad which was never going to last, especially when you don't use dressing and you think salad is boring!

The Distant Gym

When my time in Leicester was coming to an end (not that I knew at the time), I felt there was a need for me to do something more towards losing weight, so I decided to sign up to a Gym for the first time in my life (Yes, at 20!), the obvious mistake here was that it was the complete other end of town, making it an extremely awkward triangle between home, work, and the gym.  I'd spend 20 minutes in the gym on my way home from work, which made my walk home take ~1h 40.  Annoying, and ultimately unsustainable.  As it happens, a month after registering for the gym, I ended up moving back to Wales from Leicester and was lumped with an 11month Gym membership I couldn't cancel.

While these things may not have been the most sensible, they taught me some valuable lessons and have formed part of the significant changes I've made over the last 4 to 5 years.

Annoyances...

I'm currently sitting on a plane on my way home from a brief visit to Munich for a business meeting, and it's just reminded me of all those things which used to annoy, which I am either now on my way to not experiences, or no longer experience.

Some of you may know exactly what I'm taking about while some of you may never experience it.  Below is a short list of things which I've time and previous to 2009 would cause dissatisfaction and I suppose pain, and it's those things we don't want to admit to ourselves hurt.

- extremely tight seatbelt on a plane

- unable to cross legs

- inability to sit comfortably (lean forward etc)

- taking up more than your seat

- football turnstiles (not that losing weight helps in all turnstiles!!)

I'm sure there's many more things which have irked me in the past that I'm unable to remember right now, but it's only really after losing weight I'm able to appreciate the difficulty I once had with those things.

Work and other things...

At the time, late 2007, I'd accepted a new job, and was very much the new guy, having never really worked for any big companies in the past, I kept myself to myself and didn't really get too involved in things.  As time went on, I began stamping myself a little more on the job and 6months in I was having to spend a lot of time on the road, but still had no feeling that I wanted to, or had the power to do much about my weight or lifestyle.

Come early 2009, I had begun thinking about how I could go about losing weight, but as I was working away I was out drinking most nights with a group of people, and having meals each night, roughly three nights a week. It was a slippery slope, and I was actually feeling quite bad (health wise) at the time.

I challenge anyone to say no to a group of friends asking you to go out for some food and drinks in the city, away from home, on the companies dime. It's a hard one to turn down.

At this stage I was really struggling to get myself in to any kind of pattern, and was eating extremely unhealthily with burgers, pizza, and large evening meals regular occurrences.

Introduction

Introducing myself where I was five years ago is never an easy thing to do, but I think the best way to explain it is that I had no real value in my personal appearance, no interest in my weight or health, and often went long periods without cutting my hair or shaving (not that I can grow much further than patchy stubble!).

Below is a picture of me taken in 2006, which I think highlights this very obviously :)

At this stage of my life I weighed 128Kg/282lbs/20st, and while this was huge, it was stable. And at no point did I exceed 135kg, but i'd been around that size for probably 5 years, and remained at that weight when I began all of this in February 2009.

A couple of other stats are that I had a 44" Waist, and a 20" Neck.

Note: You've probably noticed the MFP icon on the right showing my progress, this is a little of a spoiler, but I felt it worth placing just to show my progress to date.

Welcome

I've been meaning to start up a blog to discuss and share how i've been adapting my lifestyle over the past few years to lose weight, feel better, and most of all, enjoy life more.

Over the period there's been a general feeling that I should be just creating a blog to talk about my direct weight loss activities, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised that that alone did not show how I have managed to lose weight, and ultimately started to be able to enjoy myself a bit more.

With that said, i'm going to try and bring you up to the current day over a period of time (there's a need to cover around 3-4 years for the full picture), followed by hopefully some articles or sub-blogs of what my lifestyle is now like, and how i'm heading towards my target weight.