Déjà vu...

This is NOT a New Year resolution – REALLY!!

Firstly, let me be clear. I do not ‘do’ New Year resolutions – I hold the opinion that if you are going to do something, then just go ahead and do it! Do you feel differently today than you did last week – better equipped to achieve your goals – somehow more motivated? I don’t think so…. IT’S JUST A DAY!

Adding the pressure of a glossy Sunday Newspaper supplement induced ‘fitness guiltfest’ – lots of pictures of achingly glamorous and toothy fitness freaks jogging up a beach  in the bright sunshine – will not help you to achieve your goals either - FACT.

Having said all that… here we go again (groan..). Let the Groundhog Day begin.

Since my last post so little has happened that I don’t really know where to begin but I’ll give it a go….

My weight is a bit like some of Wall Streets finest investment opportunities – it goes down as well as up! At the moment I am quite happily bucking the planet-wide economic trend as my weight appears to be rising in adverse correlation to the worlds stock markets! Long gone are the heady days of dreaming of 220lbs but hopefully my own personal Wall Street crash is just around the corner…

The last time you heard from me I was 239.8Lbs – today I am a whopping 272.6lbs. Yes, that’s correct – almost exactly back where I started in June 2010... great!

The only possible redeeming feature to this tail of woe is that I now know that I can lose 40Lbs plus in 6 months – I know this for a fact because I have done it! Weight loss is no longer a mystery to me - Shaggy and Scooby can stand down for now. Mystery solved.

So what went wrong then?

When it comes to pressure (both internal and external), I realise that I am a sponge. I soak it up and soak it up with no visible effects (that I am aware of) on my character. I manage the stress levels I encounter from this pressure by self medicating with alcohol and comfort food.

Being overweight is both mentally and physically stressful – however, it is entirely self inflicted and I neither seek nor expect sympathy from anyone. I have the knowledge to understand how I got into this situation and I have the tools to dig myself out. It is time to start digging.

The mental stress from being overweight is probably the more pernicious of the two – it is the very hub of the wheel of self doubt, self pity and comfort consumption that leads to excessive weight gain.

The trigger for this initial pressure can be any significant event in your life – in my case it was overwork towards the end of 2010. The ‘drip-drip’ pressure of my job reached a tsunami in late 2010 / early 2011 – this pushed me so far that I could not sustain the positive mental outlook to continue my weight loss.

I am happy to say that for a number of reasons, I no longer have to endure the stress levels that I experienced this time last year. My head is in a much better place and I really have no reason whatsoever to avoid just getting on with it!

Dear reader, should you be interested, I will be following this highly complex plan:-

         Get the food right!

I will loosely be following the zone diet. It seems to work from me.

         Get the mind right!

The struggle to follow the ways of Buddhism continues…

         Move my fat ar*e!

I have no excuse whatsoever as I have a gym at work and a wife that likes to get the boxing gloves out – ouch! Just get on with it….

 The real key to breaking the destructive wheel of self doubt, self pity and gluttony is in the mind – of that I am sure. I understand what needs to be done – as I knew instinctively when I started this blog, the right mind will ensure the weight comes off. Happiness is not a large glass of red and a family size bag of crisps… it comes from increased mindfulness, respect for myself  and compassion for others. Working on that....

As a permanent reminder to me of the huge task in hand, I look at this many times a day to remind me how far I have to go…

The tattoo is an important symbol of the road I am heading down. The mantra is hard to explain so more of that another day...

I began this blog with a very pompous notion that I had an important narrative to offer all fellow pie-worriers. I have been humbled by the rocky road that I have travelled. - words are cheap and actions are dear indeed. 


I am back on the road though and I will record my thoughts here from time to time for my own enjoyment more than anything – please feel free to comment if you have something interesting/relevant to say but please respect the no advert policy – just saying ‘Cool Blog’ and adding your link to some probably illegal gadget/potion is really quite rude. If you come in peace then you are very welcome to come and sit on my lawn but please respect it as it’s mine not yours. 


Finally, I am not here to buy or sell – there are more than enough people doing that. I am here to find happiness and lose a little weight a long the way.

“Happiness is not something ready made. 
It comes from your own actions.” 

Dalai Lama XIV

Half way to somewhere…

For my sake it is just as well that I am better at losing weight than I am at updated my blog. I don’t seem to be able to do them both successfully at the same time! Maybe there is a lesson for us all here in the lardy blogosphere…

Anyway, now to the point of this post – as the more observant of you may have deduced already - the clue is the title.

As of this morning I weigh 239.8Lbs or 109Kgs (or even 17st 2lbs for the empire dreamers amongst us) – this is halfway between my starting point of 280lbs and my dream goal of 200lbs!

This is a total loss of 41.2lbs since June 2010. Wow, wow and thrice wow!

Well, what’s changed for it to go so right this time you may cry?

No pills, no potions, no expensive diet plans and no crazy mind voodoo just good old fashioned hard work and positive thought has got me here. Mentally I am in the best most positive place possible for this. It is the most important thing in my life for the last six months and the next.

Weight loss 101 – get your head straight!

The single biggest priority when preparing for weight loss is the creation of a positive mental attitude. Without this, I was wasting my time (and money) on a cause that was already lost. Put simply, my weight loss had to be the single most important aspect of my life for the period I intended to focus on it.

What I do have though is a great personal trainer who has pushed me beyond anything I ever thought I was capable of. When I first contacted him, I likened my bodily situation to an oil tanker gently steaming in the wrong (i.e. unhealthy) direction and I needed him to help me to slow it down and then start turning it around! He turned out to be a great sailor…

I really feel like I am starting to steam again in the right direction but it has taken 6 long hard months to get just this far along the way.

This change in my life’s direction has been brought about by a powerful combination of mental and physical effort.

The physical side is simple really (simple I said, not easy – there is a big difference); I have learnt to control my eating and to limit my intake of the things that will harm me. Also I can now push myself physically until I really can’t push any more and then I push a little more. Every time just that little bit more….it’s almost intoxicating. I never thought I would say that…

As for the mental side, Buddhist and Benedictine readings have helped me to prepare myself for what is a most rigorous test of my mental state – the urge to forget it all and have a large glass of Chianti and some ripe Shropshire Blue is never far away! Understanding that modern life can so easily prevent our happiness has helped me to overcome my non-specific dissatisfaction and focus on the weight loss. If you are serious about weight loss you must be serious about happiness and the root of both is purity of heart. If you want to know more, I suggest that you read this book – I found it helped me hugely.

As a direct consequence of this journey towards happiness and the weight loss that ensued, I now feel that my body is starting to be mine again – I really KNOW that I was not meant to be 280lbs and being that weight was almost like an out of body experience for me. Looking in a mirror was not disgusting for me, it was just downright confusing! I honestly did not recognise the fat person looking back at me and this confusion gave rise to a deep sense of unhappiness (not pity or dejection but the true definition of unhappiness).

The very best thing about this is that if I can do it I honestly believe that ANYONE can.

From a sedentary 280lbs heading inexorably towards 300, I am now fitter and healthier than I have been in a long time (possibly ever). I eat healthily; drink in strict moderation and exercise almost every single day.

If you are seriously (by seriously I mean 80-100+lbs) over your healthy weight I urge you to get a personal trainer and then shut up and listen to them (lesson 1). Get a good one (the one that’s going to push you the hardest), one that comes recommending for offering safe and consistent weight loss. The money this costs you can be more than recouped by smarter food purchasing and cancelling the gym membership you never use! The mind has to be ready though – total commitment or don’t bother. Let them guide you…

As my trainer told me, it’s great if you can go to a gym regularly but you really don’t need to. The process of pushing your body to higher levels of fitness combined with diet control will give you weight loss for sure. So bin the gym!

Your body is your gym – and he was right! The weights I needed to lift were attached to my torso! He can put me through a work out in my living room for 45 minutes that can reduce me to a near-vomiting wreck and no equipment required!

If you feel it’s time to make the change – YOU MUST DO IT. I put it off for the best part of 10 years and convinced myself that I was meant to be that way – I was not, am not and will not be that way again.

If you embark on a weigh loss journey, be it 2 months or 2 years, you will need to clearly inform friends, family and even the household pets that for the weight loss period, you will be focused on losing weight above all else! It must come first and it must be undertaken with the upmost dedication. If not, failure is just around the corner.

I am no expert but I know what worked for me - If you want to more information regarding what I have done and how I started then please feel free to e-mail me. You will be pleased to know that I have nothing to sell.

Next step is 220lbs by Christmas….tough but maybe I can do it!?!