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!?!

Love your nuts!

Well, I did promise updates - as of this morning I weigh 260.4lbs - down from a start of 280lbs so just shy if the 20lb mark.

This is a brief update - I will let you know more soon.

As for the nut thing - my diet now includes more nuts than I ever thought possible - more of that later too.

Only 60lbs to go!

Much lost, much gained...

As the title of this post suggests the past 2 years have been eventful to say the least. Since my last post, I have managed to lose two parents, a dog and a job ...

I have however gained more dogs, a new job and sadly a considerable amount of weight..

Ah, the weight. So what is it you ask? Well, let's start at the beginning......

The last time I ventured onto this blog was way back in July 2008 - 2 long years ago. At that time I was fairly disgusted to be 247Lbs - well ladies and gentlemen, not 1 month ago I weighed in at 279lbs! Just shy of my traditional ‘tipping point’ of 20 stone (280lbs).

This has at last shocked me into action and I am quietly confident that my time has come - my time to get the job done that is. So what is different this time? Good question well presented

I FEEL different about the whole thing, that’s for sure - I have run out of excuses NOT to sort myself out. I am now exercising more than I have ever done in my life (twice a day most days) and I am following a wheat, gluten and dairy free diet very rigorously. On top of all this I have enlisted the help of a personal trainer - maybe an extravagance to some but he provides the willpower boost and motivation to push me beyond anything I have ever done before. He could very well be saving my life...

All this has meant I have lost around 14 pounds in 5 weeks and this morning weighed in at 266lbs.

My next target is 247lbs and then the game begins again - I am not looking back though and positive thought is going to push me on to achieve an even greater goal - 200lbs! I am in no hurry and am not going to set any ridiculous timescales - I will do it and it will be done when it is done.

I am back and this time I really mean it. Yeah, I know I have said that before but TRUST me, this time it is going to work!

Please comment if you feel the urge but please don't try and sell me your diet pills or your get thin quick websites etc as I am not interested. Losing weight is about effort and application in both physical expenditure and dietary control - nothing more, nothing less.

There are no shortcuts and the walk starts here....

I will try to update once a week from now on to let everyone (?!) know how I am getting on.

The same old same old...

Well, so much for the "post every week on a Monday", "never be this weight again" tush! Yada yada yada... I am boring myself now!

Anyway, this is how it is people - hear his.

As of this morning I weigh 247.2 Lbs - duh! This is not as bad as it sounds though. On the 17th June I was 251.8 lbs (Double Duh with sprinkles on!).

For various reasons (some really good and others downright lame..) I have not be able to get to the gym as often as i would like this week. yes dear reader, I said G Y M. Yes, really!

The whole Biggest Loser tv-fest is getting me in the zone for change (Sky TV are showing the whole season of Biggest Loser Couples with an episode each night! This is like self inflicted Chinese water torture for fat people! I love it - the tears, the rows, the unadulterated schmaltz of it all, God Bless NBC ! That last bit was a joke by the way - sarcasm in fact).

Seriously, I AM motivated by this as I see real (life-changing) development in people that previously believed it to be impossible (as I do/did) - it all boils down to how much you are willing to do to get it - it's not enough to want it really bad you have got to expect and accept the incredible mental and physical tornado that will hit you. This is a BIG lesson for me.

I am there - in the zone, ready to change and at the moment I am frustrated that I cannot get to the gym as often as I would like. For 2 days this week I was without a car as Mrs FBT's wagon was being MOT'd and to top it off, my Gym is at an hotel/spa complex that is very close to the Silverstone GP circuit so with the British Grand Prix this weekend, it is bedlam to say the least - I will be back on Monday to start again!

America - next time you see me I'll be on the front cover of FatBlokes International (swimsuit edition). Yuk!

“Daddy, why have you got a fat belly?”

Well, no sooner than the medical profession view me as a threat to the planet as a whole and indeed everyone on it, my biggest fan has started to ask some seriously probing questions about my physique…

My son is 4 years old and clearly does not yet know that "directness" is not always the best policy (lying is OK for adults, right? Especially to yourself, right?) Anyway, it’s my own fault for trying to bring him up to be an open and loving child – WHAT was I thinking??? Why can’t he lie to me like I lie to myself every time I pick a bottle of white wine from the cooler at the supermarket? Kids today – bah!

Anyway, I answered this devastatingly direct question with an equally devastatingly direct answer.

“My belly is fat because I eat too much and don’t exercise enough.” (Can you hear the thud?)

Simple, to the point, and possibly the single most depressingly direct thing that I have ever said in my life. What’s worse, it is the TRUTH! More importantly than that though is that if I know it, why in the name of jumping Jehosaphat do I not DO something about it?!

In answer to this, he looked at me and said thoughtfully “I only eat little chocolates so I don’t get a fat belly, don’t I dad?” – Oh please! – lay in on a bit thicker, why don’t you son?

At this point, I feel like I am trapped in a very bad 1950’s health film flickering and jumping around on the cinema screen between Flash Gordon (Just kill Ming when you get the chance – what is so difficult for God’s sake???) and some Laurel and Hardy. Another fine mess indeed…

I think I have kept up this denial long enough don’t you?

That same day I watched the latest series (season if you like) of the US Biggest Loser show – I lie to myself that I watch it for motivation but in reality (no pun intended) I mostly watch it to try to kid myself that I am not really fat – these people are proper fat, that’s spelt F A T, not like me, I’m just a ‘bit big’ – but as my wife groans and goes ‘uh yuck!’ every time one of them takes their shirt off for the initial weigh-in, I sigh inwardly knowing that I look just the same if not worse – she says that I don’t but I know I do – this is really not negative thought… just reality. I am genuinely not repulsed by my appearance at all (why should I be?), but my wife clearly hides her disgust, and that makes me feel bad – really bad. She really shouldn't need to do that.


We’ll leave ‘body-image’ for another day (BIG SUBJECT), but If I needed motivation, I got it, not from where I thought it would come but from an innocent question from an innocent little boy – and like love, sometimes you just have to get motivation from wherever you find it. As Mr Micheale jagger once said...'You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need!' - Amen to that brothers and Sisters!

TIME TO REDEDICATE

This morning I am 246.4lbs. I will NEVER weigh more than THIS EVER AGAIN!

I will be 215 lbs by the end of this year. WATCH ME BECOME OVERWEIGHT (now that's an ambition...!)

I will post at least every Monday morning from now until I get to 215lbs!

Its official, ITS ALL MY FAULT!

I HAVE OFFICIALLY HEARD IT ALL...

Just look at this....

ps - where do they get off using a picture of me without my permission!!?

pps - yes I DID shoot JF Kennedy...that was me too!

More about this when I calm down a bit....

April fool on me - Back by popular demand (ish) !!

Well, its been a while, I'll grant you that and reading my previous post, everything has changed and nothing has really changed. I'll explain...

On April 1st (how poetic!) I weighed in at 254.4Lbs (yes, really!) - that's only around 10lbs down on my starting weight just over a year ago!! This morning I am 245Lbs (I have been 241 as recently as last Monday but I am struggling again at the moment) - the call of the grape (both red and white varieties) grows ever stronger like a call to arms! I am sure I should have been born French (I have the nose already so that's a start I suppose...).

This recent wake-up call led me to my latest weight loss torture - 'death by fruits of all nations' - this unsurprisingly involves consuming so much fruit you begin to hallucinate cake,bread and biscuits. By crikey it works though, but the side effects are fairly troublesome and mostly ruinously anti-social. I did lose 14 pounds in as many days though, but keeping up this regime is harder than a big box full of REALLY hard things all wrapped up with tape with a label that says REALLY REALLY HARD STUFF INSIDE!!

My plan now is to keep up this fruit and water torture (no boards involved Donald you little tinker) during the week and try and minimise my exposure to NICE THINGS (i.e. bad stuff I really like) to small doses at the weekend. Hopefully this will put me back on track.

Don't get me wrong, I like fruit, some I could stretch to love if they looked at me in the right way over a candle-lit dinner but however affectionate they are, most fruits are not naughty enough to be interesting (unless they are dipped in chocolate obviously)!

Sadly I do not have time for a more in depth meander through my head at the moment but save to say that Buddha is still in there along with the usual mess of other tat from daily life. I will post again soon - PROMISE!. Many stories to tell from me and Mrs Fatbloke - stay tuned.

FBT

Walking with my eyes shut (aka Blogging as therapy part deux)

Yes, I'm still here bumbling along the highway of life ( as the buddhist saying goes - Do not speak- unless it improves on silence!) .

My weight this morning was 246.6lbs ...so better but not exactly great.

When I was a kid I used to try and walk as far as I could with my eyes shut - only opening them when I sensed impending doom (pot holes, trees and main roads etc!). The journey was exhilarating and adrenaline producing (bear with me, I'm not one for premeditated risk taking!). I tried it again recently for no known reason and it transported me back instantly to my child hood. Spooky and exciting all at the same time - just like Scooby Doo.

But what you may ask has this to do with lardy Buddhists? Not a great deal as usual, but I have struggled to blog about my journey for a while now and it occured to me that like my 'blind walking', I need to rediscover the pure thrill of the journey rather than worrying about my lack of progress - does that make any sense?

I used to be acutely embarrased about my lack of success (weight-wise or spirituality-wise wise), to such an extent that I felt emotionally paralised and totally unable to communicate to those of you who clearly care (I am still V E R Y touched and humbled by your interest and support). I am sorry for this but now I think I finally get it - the journey is the thing, not the destination nor indeed where I am on the map at any given time.

I am not going to promote this blog as I have neither the time nor the ego but I will try and keep you updated about my journey as often as I can.

If I am meant to be thin, I will be. Every day is some small way I try to follow the Buddhist way of life - through thoughts and deeds. I fail often, the overwhelming noise of moden life sometimes intrudes so harshly that I explode but on the whole, I am happy with my progress - a good sign is that my cirmumstances haven't changed but my general feeling of wellbeing is greatly improved.

Just writing this makes me feel my journey is worthwhile. It is clearly a journey that will last for the rest of my life and it's my journey, no-one elses.

Blogging as therapy - part #1.

Whoa...it's been a while, hasn't it? Hope eveyone is OK...

Yeah, I know - new year resolution...blah, blah, blah! I really don't believe in the new year resolution thing - it's just another day - why should we all be so much more capable of rebirth just because we got a new 'puppies of all nations' calender from the mother-in-law?

Right, let's get this out of the way. I'm bad (not Lindsey Lohan bad, but bad nevertheless) - my weight as of this morning is 254.4lbs.

I really don't want to dwell on the negative stuff, though I am REALLY quite good at it sometimes and everyone needs a hobby... but I know I have just got to get my 'she-height' together and get the weight off, so here we go again!

So diet, exercise and positive thought then - simple? Deja-vu?

I watched Kundun over Christmas and it managed to rake over the near dying embers of my Buddhist fire. I know deep down that Buddhism is for me but it feels like it is just another hurdle I have to straddle at the moment. But I know I must negotiate this hurdle as I still feel very passionately that central to my happiness (NOT WEIGHTLOSS REMEMBER) is the Buddhist philosophy and from this happiness will come the weight loss I need to heal myself.

In truth, I have been lazy. Lazy in thought and action. Too lazy to exercise, too lazy to adequately control my food & alcohol intake and too lazy to work on my mental state. This is in many ways much more annoying than the weight gain. But failure as they say, is just a fresh opportunity to improve!

I am now at ground zero again.

I have started an 11 week challange to lose weight - a battle with a colleague at work. We will weigh in once a week for the 11 weeks and the biggest loser is the winner (if you see what I mean...).

I have just deleted the word 'Pressure' as I was about to type 'Pressue of work prevents me from beginning an exercise regime. What a load of crap - I'm embarrassing myself now! I must resolve to be honest with myself. I don't exercise because I can't be arsed - no other reason!

Without radical chnage I am going nowhere. So a new start...the journey starts here!


Resolutions :-

1. Be honest with myself. I cannot be honst with anyone else until I do...

2. Exercise in a sensible, sustainable way.

3. Control my food and alcohol intake to manage my weight more effectively.

4. Learn to play the drums ... sorry, that should read, study more Buddhist teachings and try and sort my head out. Then I can learn the drums...

So, If you stray on my lawn in the near future, feel free to shout through the letter box as usual. I still have an ego you know!