It occurs to me how much of all of this life style changing stuff is actually mind over matter. None of it is complicated, difficult or inherently challenging other than getting into the actual mind set of it all. Now obviously I have been committed to making changes probably since the back end of February, and a lot of things have been gradual, and its only really the last week that I have started doing things that make a LOT of impact.
And it's that where success is to be found, I remember when I lost all of the weight before, it was always so simple, mathematical even, calories in needs to be less than or at least equals to calories out, and this was always where when people would stop me and want all of my "secrets" the one thing I could never get across to them.
Obviously there is a underpinning knowledge to what I am doing, and out of safety an understanding of how to do physical acitivity safely, but none of that is anything that out of this world, or needs a degree for. I think this is an appropriate juncture to mention my very good friend Professor Paul Gately, who has taught me pretty much everything I know on this subject through going to, and then working on the Carnegie Weight Management Summer Camps, (www.more-life.co.uk) when I lost all of the weight before.
To me this process is simple as I said, its easy, "mathematical" but then controlling the mind set is possibly where the challenge will come in, and that, just like comfort eating is a bit of a spiral, so is the weight loss, a little bit of success spurns you on, and on and on. That's what the "Diet" industry really should try to bottle and sell, because that, certainly to me is the vital and key ingredient!
Saturday, 28 April 2012
Friday, 27 April 2012
Actually this is quite fun...
Well stepped into the gym with the intention of training today (queue EYE OF THE TIGER) I had said before that I was slightly nervous about this, but knew that I would enjoy it as I always have, and to be honest, it was just like riding a bike, well I suppose to a certain extent, it WAS riding a bike!
Anyway I surprised myself slightly, the anticipation was that I'd find anything difficult, and probably feel like quitting after 10 minutes was not actually how I found it. I had set my self an initial target of 20mins cardio work, which ended up being 45 mins, so very pleased with that!
Came out feeling on top of the world, and well haven't really come down all day, which to be honest has been a bit of an odd one, with a random trip to Hitchin, for 15 minutes, and wandering around Peterborough city centre every which human way possible!
Ended up having the most disgusting tea in a "Mexican" restaurant which really wasn't worth £18, we should have gone to Wetherspoons, oh well live and learn.
Anyway I surprised myself slightly, the anticipation was that I'd find anything difficult, and probably feel like quitting after 10 minutes was not actually how I found it. I had set my self an initial target of 20mins cardio work, which ended up being 45 mins, so very pleased with that!
Came out feeling on top of the world, and well haven't really come down all day, which to be honest has been a bit of an odd one, with a random trip to Hitchin, for 15 minutes, and wandering around Peterborough city centre every which human way possible!
Ended up having the most disgusting tea in a "Mexican" restaurant which really wasn't worth £18, we should have gone to Wetherspoons, oh well live and learn.
Thursday, 26 April 2012
It all starts somewhere...
Well hello there and welcome to my world!!
Oh dear that probably sounds like a scary concept for most of you! Hell it's a scary concept for me, and I always hate these introductions, its like "How much exposition do you give?". And there's that slight akwardness of who is actually going to read this, and this slight anticipation that it's going to turn "viral" (oh look at me and my buzzwords) and all of a sudden you're a minor celebrity, well to be honest I've been there, done that and got the sex, lies and videotape to prove it (hey I got to meet Jerry Springer, how cool am I?") .
Oh well I'll thumbnail myself for you actually, this was actually a description one of my bosses used about me, not quite sure how to react to it, but it does what it says on the tin: "From Sunderland, 26 (I was 24 at the time but hey ho), Station Manager, Likes Trains and Boys Willies and could do with loosing a bit of weight" All true really, so I guess that's me, that's Col...in a nutshell, although were I actually in a nutshell that might be cause for more questions.
Anyway, I guess I should talk about what I wanted to talk about, and where I am headed...
Basically, the whole weight thing has been getting me down my love, like a cat in a bag waiting to drown (okay I digressed courtesy of Richard Ashcroft!), for sometime now, and it's one of those things that seems to go up and down dependant on mood, attitude, and emotional well being, but even when things are going good I never seem to be able to control it, and it always seems to be in a bit of a free fall.
I'd done it before, remember me saying been there and done that about being a celeb? Well you couldn't walk down the street in Sunderland without someone asking me about "How did you loose the weight?" "Give me your tips" barely a week went past without being on the TV or radio or in the local news. It was an exciting time, but sadly, things got on top of me and I ended up on a loosing streak, turns out that the drugs don't work! (Look another Richard Ashcroft reference) It was less drugs though and more food.
I don't have a healthy relationship with food at all, it controls me most of the time, and that's the link that I am trying to break. Sometimes I can break it for months, even years at a time, but then something goes wrong, work gets tough, or I have a bust up with someone, or I just feel shit about being overweight and BOOM, look what's there....ahhh Dominos my old friend, Cadburys how I have missed you, Fish and Chip's you love me don't you, you'll never leave me!?! Oh yeah that bloated feeling at the end of it is what love is all about!! Makes you feel really great on the inside!
Well now its time for change, and I know that that sounds all very well and good at the moment, so the fat boy makes a few pledges and then nothing really changes. I guess that's part of the reason why I want to put this in my own words this time, I want to tell my story my way, rather than through a press release, newspaper story or told by some journalist who never really understands what it's all about as they are dangerously anorexic themselves to try and stay ahead in what is their own highly image conscious industry.
A few things are different this time, me, age, it occurred to me only this week that it was actually 10 years ago when I lost all of the weight before, and that's a scary thought at how much of the past 10 years have been spent trying to get back down my ideal weight as a result a pretty huge set of knockbacks around 05/06 time.
My own health scares me, I'd say I've been pretty lucky so far, I've not had diabetes, chest pains, heart conditions, all of the major stuff that you associate with obesity (I HATE that word, more than the word "normal"!) but it has had an impact on my life massively, and the past two years has started to have an impact on my health. I spent the first half of 2011 in recovery from two minor falls that damaged my left knee, which because of the excess weight and pressure placed on it refused to heal, and ever since 2009, I have been plagued with cellulitis (no its nothing to do with Cellulite), basically its an infection between the outer layers of skin in the lower limbs caused by poor circulation, caused by...being overweight.
To be honest, I am normally hugely embarrassed by telling people this fact, and always lie about the origin of what the infection is, saying its a cut, or a blood infection, or I caught it off a nettle sting etc etc.
So anyway that's one factor, the second factor, I guess a pretty major one would be the death of my Mam last year, entirely due to smoking and weight related complications. I always kind of blamed her for her own poor health, and even now I maintain that she needn't have died if she looked after herself, and I don't want to be another casualty like that!
Then there's my job, which has certain medical pre-requisites, of which I only just scraped through, and would probably struggle with if I wanted to go into a more operational role, which I do.
Lastly, there's the influence of two friends who have butted their noses in recently in seperate interventions, the pair of them know who they are and I sharn't name them, but needless to say that anyone would feel strong enough to speak to me, and keep me motivated really means a lot.
It also occurred to me, that if I don't solve this now, and make a good fucking go at it, I probably never will, I still, thankfully, am relatively, phyiscally fit, I walked three miles around town today without any adverse affects, a lot of people my size wouldn't even be able to cope with that, but if the weight continues the way it is, then I will loose that ability and end up in a bed like those freaks you see on TV, and that scares me.
Anyway, had to do that horrible first step today of stepping into a gym, now this actually excites me. I actually enjoy going to the gym, in fact I would say a good gym session probably makes me feel better about myself than half a dozen KitKat's!! The issue, again is embarrassment, you walk in that door, and you yourself think that everyone else has these preconceptions about you, which in fairness they probably do, but as someone once told me what's your opinion on a druggie on the street taking crack, and what's your opinion of one walking into a rehab clinic asking for help of their own volition?
Sorted out all of my fitness planning till end of June, and food plans are coming along nicely for a similar time frame. Already spent money on a new outfit which I WILL be getting into in September come hell or high water!!
Anyway, if you're still awake that's the end....hope you keep reading...
Oh dear that probably sounds like a scary concept for most of you! Hell it's a scary concept for me, and I always hate these introductions, its like "How much exposition do you give?". And there's that slight akwardness of who is actually going to read this, and this slight anticipation that it's going to turn "viral" (oh look at me and my buzzwords) and all of a sudden you're a minor celebrity, well to be honest I've been there, done that and got the sex, lies and videotape to prove it (hey I got to meet Jerry Springer, how cool am I?") .
Oh well I'll thumbnail myself for you actually, this was actually a description one of my bosses used about me, not quite sure how to react to it, but it does what it says on the tin: "From Sunderland, 26 (I was 24 at the time but hey ho), Station Manager, Likes Trains and Boys Willies and could do with loosing a bit of weight" All true really, so I guess that's me, that's Col...in a nutshell, although were I actually in a nutshell that might be cause for more questions.
Anyway, I guess I should talk about what I wanted to talk about, and where I am headed...
Basically, the whole weight thing has been getting me down my love, like a cat in a bag waiting to drown (okay I digressed courtesy of Richard Ashcroft!), for sometime now, and it's one of those things that seems to go up and down dependant on mood, attitude, and emotional well being, but even when things are going good I never seem to be able to control it, and it always seems to be in a bit of a free fall.
I'd done it before, remember me saying been there and done that about being a celeb? Well you couldn't walk down the street in Sunderland without someone asking me about "How did you loose the weight?" "Give me your tips" barely a week went past without being on the TV or radio or in the local news. It was an exciting time, but sadly, things got on top of me and I ended up on a loosing streak, turns out that the drugs don't work! (Look another Richard Ashcroft reference) It was less drugs though and more food.
I don't have a healthy relationship with food at all, it controls me most of the time, and that's the link that I am trying to break. Sometimes I can break it for months, even years at a time, but then something goes wrong, work gets tough, or I have a bust up with someone, or I just feel shit about being overweight and BOOM, look what's there....ahhh Dominos my old friend, Cadburys how I have missed you, Fish and Chip's you love me don't you, you'll never leave me!?! Oh yeah that bloated feeling at the end of it is what love is all about!! Makes you feel really great on the inside!
Well now its time for change, and I know that that sounds all very well and good at the moment, so the fat boy makes a few pledges and then nothing really changes. I guess that's part of the reason why I want to put this in my own words this time, I want to tell my story my way, rather than through a press release, newspaper story or told by some journalist who never really understands what it's all about as they are dangerously anorexic themselves to try and stay ahead in what is their own highly image conscious industry.
A few things are different this time, me, age, it occurred to me only this week that it was actually 10 years ago when I lost all of the weight before, and that's a scary thought at how much of the past 10 years have been spent trying to get back down my ideal weight as a result a pretty huge set of knockbacks around 05/06 time.
My own health scares me, I'd say I've been pretty lucky so far, I've not had diabetes, chest pains, heart conditions, all of the major stuff that you associate with obesity (I HATE that word, more than the word "normal"!) but it has had an impact on my life massively, and the past two years has started to have an impact on my health. I spent the first half of 2011 in recovery from two minor falls that damaged my left knee, which because of the excess weight and pressure placed on it refused to heal, and ever since 2009, I have been plagued with cellulitis (no its nothing to do with Cellulite), basically its an infection between the outer layers of skin in the lower limbs caused by poor circulation, caused by...being overweight.
To be honest, I am normally hugely embarrassed by telling people this fact, and always lie about the origin of what the infection is, saying its a cut, or a blood infection, or I caught it off a nettle sting etc etc.
So anyway that's one factor, the second factor, I guess a pretty major one would be the death of my Mam last year, entirely due to smoking and weight related complications. I always kind of blamed her for her own poor health, and even now I maintain that she needn't have died if she looked after herself, and I don't want to be another casualty like that!
Then there's my job, which has certain medical pre-requisites, of which I only just scraped through, and would probably struggle with if I wanted to go into a more operational role, which I do.
Lastly, there's the influence of two friends who have butted their noses in recently in seperate interventions, the pair of them know who they are and I sharn't name them, but needless to say that anyone would feel strong enough to speak to me, and keep me motivated really means a lot.
It also occurred to me, that if I don't solve this now, and make a good fucking go at it, I probably never will, I still, thankfully, am relatively, phyiscally fit, I walked three miles around town today without any adverse affects, a lot of people my size wouldn't even be able to cope with that, but if the weight continues the way it is, then I will loose that ability and end up in a bed like those freaks you see on TV, and that scares me.
Anyway, had to do that horrible first step today of stepping into a gym, now this actually excites me. I actually enjoy going to the gym, in fact I would say a good gym session probably makes me feel better about myself than half a dozen KitKat's!! The issue, again is embarrassment, you walk in that door, and you yourself think that everyone else has these preconceptions about you, which in fairness they probably do, but as someone once told me what's your opinion on a druggie on the street taking crack, and what's your opinion of one walking into a rehab clinic asking for help of their own volition?
Sorted out all of my fitness planning till end of June, and food plans are coming along nicely for a similar time frame. Already spent money on a new outfit which I WILL be getting into in September come hell or high water!!
Anyway, if you're still awake that's the end....hope you keep reading...
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