This is a long post as it contains background and everything that lead me to this point. Think of it as the story so far…
When I started university in 1993, having just finished 4 years doing an apprenticeship after leaving high school, I was of normal dimensions (by normal I mean medically normal, not please don’t sue me because you think I’m saying you’re not normal) without being thin or skinny. Overweight tends to run in our family, which of course is a combination of a number of factors: meal planning, metabolism, culture (what and when people eat), etc. So while I was of normal dimensions, I was probably a few kilos over the ideal. I should note that I had moved out of my parents’ home during my apprenticeship, so it wasn’t a case of the classic “I’m fine while living on mum’s cooking but balloon when I feed myself” situation – I’d had a couple of years of feeding myself.
So once I hit university I began living the lifestyle, which included a lot of recreational – oops, I mean study – time. That naturally included drink and fast food and an unnoticeable change from a fairly active blue-collar outdoors lifestyle to one where I was sitting on my backside except when walking between classes, etc, and the occasional infrequent recreational sport. And once I left university that pattern persisted, only once I entered the workplace as a white-collar IT worker the spare time fell to almost nothing and it was just easier to get pre-prepared/fast food rather than cut into my now-limited “me” time by shopping and cooking.
I moved from Australia to the UK in mid-2001. I weighed myself shortly after I arrived in the UK: 127kg (280 pounds, or 20 stone, for the Luddites among you). That equates to a BMI of 40.1. If you compare that against a standard BMI chart or use a BMI calculator, you’ll see that it’s obscenely bad. And, in typical British style, here’s what the NHS has to say about my BMI back then:
Your BMI is 40.08
If your BMI is over 40 you’re very obese. This means you’re seriously over the ideal weight for your height. Are you eating too many foods that are high in fat and sugar? In order to lose this extra weight you need to make positive changes to your lifestyle and stick to them. Losing weight will help prevent severe health problems such as heart disease and diabetes and extend your life expectancy.
Bear in mind that the usefulness of BMI is debated by most health and fitness professionals, but it’s still a useful yardstick.
Since that point I’ve made a few attempts at addressing this problem. First I did some simple changes to my lifestyle and eating habits, and found that I’d dropped down to 118kg, which was a vast improvement. However, I found that weight stayed fairly static, and was somewhat compounded by my life as an IT consultant preventing me from starting up any regular evening or weekend activity, as I was often required to work late/early and on weekends (in fact, from 1997 until 2005, I did nothing on weeknight evenings that required a sign up and attendance or financial commitment, for that very reason).
In 2003 I joined Weight Watchers Online, which is done entirely over the Internet – without all that “weigh and shame” business that you hear standard WW members talking about. It was quite good, but the Points system requires the fastidiousness of an accountant in order to be able to continue it for very long. There’s a vibrant online community for members of Weight Watchers Online complete with periodic social gatherings and, although mostly female (makes it interesting being one of the males in the community), it helped a great deal. However after 6 months I found that the perpetual Points accounting took its toll, so gave it up. I did however lose 6kg in that period, so it did work, though I did put that weight gradually back on and was up to 117kg within a year.
In 2004 I discovered running, largely because of a friend’s wife who was a fitness instructor and a true iron-woman. She loves running, particularly the Pose Method, and regularly participates in one event whose name I can’t remember (Ironman Challenge? Hardman Challenge?) – it was a cross-country 10K or something like that. So, setting my sights much lower than hers, I researched various programmes and read a number of web forums, and decided on an easier version of the Couch to 5K. I started with 20 minutes of 30 seconds running and 90 seconds walk (30R90W) and ran with that until it wasn’t a challenge, then to 45R75W, and so on. The plan was to progress right through to 90R30W and eventually to 20 minutes of continual running, and then to increase the continual running time. However, at the end of 2004 I was told I was going to be made redundant, so my world fell out from me and I gave up running partly in unhappiness, but also because I ran in the early morning before getting ready for work, and when you’re not getting up for work every day you tend to lose motivation to get up for anything else.
In late-2006 I started archery, as it’s something that’s always interested me. Like some of my other interests, it doesn’t require a great deal of fitness to do well in (there’s a standing in-joke that it’s a sport for fat people), but fitness and shoulder/upper arm strength is a definite bonus when it comes to long bouts of 144 arrows or more, especially when your bow limbs are rated at 40lb (18kg) and you aim each arrow for up to 30 seconds at full draw. This provided me with the desire to improve my fitness again.
Not long after a started archery, I went down with food poisoning from a dodgy pizza place and things with my stomach were never right thereafter. A long story short, it turned out to be an H. pylori infection brought on by that pizza, resulting in a duodenal ulcer that’s exacerbated by some foods and things like caffeine. I went through the triple-therapy treatment and things looked fine after that. Except when I tried caffeine again recently, it had the same effect: I had to have steady paracetamol, lie flat for 24 hours (couldn’t even sit up to read), and wish either my life or the pain would just end. Either the ulcer is still there (to some degree), or I’m genuinely intolerant of caffeine now. This whole thing basically threw my summer archery out of the window, making this season mostly a no-show.
The end result of the lifestyle changes I made from December 2006 until recently is that I’m now 107kg. A full 20kg lighter than when I first arrived in the UK. This gives me a BMI of 33.8. Still far from good, but better than before – here’s the NHS summary:
Your BMI is 33.77
If your BMI is between 30 and 39.9 you’re obese. This means you’re well over the ideal weight for your height. This could cause serious health problems and affect your life expectancy. Are you eating more than the recommended amount of calories per day? Are you getting enough exercise? Once you gain the confidence to start exercising regularly you’ll notice a huge difference. See your GP for advice if you’ve tried to lose weight without success.
Using that calculator, I’ve discovered that once I hit 95kg my BMI falls into the “ideal weight for height” range. So although my target weight is 80kg, realistically I’ll be happy with 90kg. This means I’m over halfway there, with 17kg to go. Onwards and downwards!
Last week I was chatting to a friend (made via archery) who’s in a similar physical situation to myself and he’s realised that he’s just hit a big round number in age and needs to sort himself out. So he asked how I felt about the gym and running, both of which I’ve done before – I used to work out regularly when I was an apprentice and had great results, and running I particularly enjoyed – and we agreed to sign up to a nearby gym (for weight loss, fitness and to strengthen the muscles we need for archery) and to start running, and use each other for mutual support, motivation and general name-calling.
It was just the motivation I needed to get my own act together. Here we are… bring it on. 
