I am 44 years old. I am 5 feet 8 inches tall. I weigh 17st 11lbs. I register as 38 on the BMI index. I am obese.
This blog is not intended to be a woe is me, nothing I can do about it type of thing. Instead, I intend this blog to be a record, over the next year, of my attempts to address the problem I have created for myself as I try to lose weight, exercise and hopefully become a healthier and more balanced person.
So, how did I reach this state. As a youngster I was never administered what could be be referred to as a balanced diet. I was brought up on a profusion of takeaways, a distinct lack of fresh fruit and vegetables and gallons and gallons of fizzy drinks. It got to such a ridiculous extent that my Grandad, a pub landlord and himself a man who stood at 5 foot 5 and weighed in at around 22 stone, even arranged for my school milk to be replaced with a bottle of cola that he would send with me to school every day. This gave me very unhealthy set of tastes from a young age.
When I started school in Bradford I was mercilessly bullied by a number of lads. Even at the age of 6 I was embarrassed by my size, but unable to do much about it. Those scars of bullying began to evaporate in 1977 when my family moved to the much more tranquil setting of Haworth. Children there were less judgemental and accepted me for my personality and not for for my size.
My teenage years didn't fare much better. At least I had the balance of playing rugby league and growing up in Haworth, affording as it did countless hours of moorland ramblings with mates. I also walked 3 miles to school, and the same return journey, every day. Although my diet was still calorie heavy I was almost always out of the house and active and this kept the weight to the lower end of extreme.
A lot of people in my family are large framed (I think that's a polite way of putting it). I've never viewed this as an excuse for my own surfeit of weight. Although my general diet began to improve in my early 20s, moving out of home meant that I took more control over my diet and being on the dole meant that I had to eat frugally and sensibly, I did drink most weekends; the definition of weekend being from Thursday til Sunday. It was a calorific liquid diet as well. Strong lager and Thunderbird wine were the mainstays.
My life settled down in my mid-twenties when I began university and also worked part-time in Keighley. Being a non-driver I regularly walked the 4 miles from Oakworth to town. The reverse journey, and anyone who knows the route will tell you it's a hell of a climb, helped keep my weight in check. By my late twenties I was a size 32 waist and generally hovering around the 13 stone mark. Too heavy for my height, but not of any serious consequence.
In 2002 I passed my driving test. I was determined that I would never be one of those drivers who jumps into the car to pop to the corner shop and for the first few months I abstained the lure of becoming a disciple of the dreaded automobile. I still walked the 2 miles there and back to the school I taught in at the time. The problem arose in that I was in a relationship with a women who lived the other side of Keighley, by now I was living and working in Leeds. Of course I'd stay over at hers at least a couple of nights during the week and this led to me using the car as a matter of normality. Soon, justified by the fact it saved time, I was using the car to drive one mile to the local supermarket.
That was the start of the slippery slope that has led me to where I am today (January 1st 2015). I am 44 years old. I am 5 feet 8 inches tall. I weigh 17st 11lbs. I register as 38 on the BMI index. I am obese.
What am I going to do about this?
I am going to take responsibility. I will not blame any condition, any external factors or anybody for my weight. I will take control and I will do something about it.
I will change my relationship with food. In future blogs I will explain more about how I feel that I have a relationship with food and when that relationship is thriving I eat better and I feel better.
I will exercise more and not find 1001 excuses for not going for that run, or not leaving the car at home and walking to the shops.
These small, but manageable, steps will hopefully allow me to address the issues associated with my weight in an honest productive way. There are many people out there with a range of reasons for being obese; some medical, some psychological. These are often the people we hear about and celebrate as they overcome their own demons on the road to better health. I'm not one of those people and I have nothing to blame for my obesity other than a poor relationship with food and a lack of exercise. It should be simple to do something about it then, shouldn't it? I'm not setting myself targets or timescales, I just want to begin to get my weight down and feel healthier. This is not going to be some emotive, life affirming journey in which I overcome the demons that haunt me in my struggle with food. Rather, this blog will just be a middle aged man trying to put things in order. There are a lot of us out there. I hope we can do this together.
This blog is not intended to be a woe is me, nothing I can do about it type of thing. Instead, I intend this blog to be a record, over the next year, of my attempts to address the problem I have created for myself as I try to lose weight, exercise and hopefully become a healthier and more balanced person.
So, how did I reach this state. As a youngster I was never administered what could be be referred to as a balanced diet. I was brought up on a profusion of takeaways, a distinct lack of fresh fruit and vegetables and gallons and gallons of fizzy drinks. It got to such a ridiculous extent that my Grandad, a pub landlord and himself a man who stood at 5 foot 5 and weighed in at around 22 stone, even arranged for my school milk to be replaced with a bottle of cola that he would send with me to school every day. This gave me very unhealthy set of tastes from a young age.
When I started school in Bradford I was mercilessly bullied by a number of lads. Even at the age of 6 I was embarrassed by my size, but unable to do much about it. Those scars of bullying began to evaporate in 1977 when my family moved to the much more tranquil setting of Haworth. Children there were less judgemental and accepted me for my personality and not for for my size.
My teenage years didn't fare much better. At least I had the balance of playing rugby league and growing up in Haworth, affording as it did countless hours of moorland ramblings with mates. I also walked 3 miles to school, and the same return journey, every day. Although my diet was still calorie heavy I was almost always out of the house and active and this kept the weight to the lower end of extreme.
A lot of people in my family are large framed (I think that's a polite way of putting it). I've never viewed this as an excuse for my own surfeit of weight. Although my general diet began to improve in my early 20s, moving out of home meant that I took more control over my diet and being on the dole meant that I had to eat frugally and sensibly, I did drink most weekends; the definition of weekend being from Thursday til Sunday. It was a calorific liquid diet as well. Strong lager and Thunderbird wine were the mainstays.
My life settled down in my mid-twenties when I began university and also worked part-time in Keighley. Being a non-driver I regularly walked the 4 miles from Oakworth to town. The reverse journey, and anyone who knows the route will tell you it's a hell of a climb, helped keep my weight in check. By my late twenties I was a size 32 waist and generally hovering around the 13 stone mark. Too heavy for my height, but not of any serious consequence.
In 2002 I passed my driving test. I was determined that I would never be one of those drivers who jumps into the car to pop to the corner shop and for the first few months I abstained the lure of becoming a disciple of the dreaded automobile. I still walked the 2 miles there and back to the school I taught in at the time. The problem arose in that I was in a relationship with a women who lived the other side of Keighley, by now I was living and working in Leeds. Of course I'd stay over at hers at least a couple of nights during the week and this led to me using the car as a matter of normality. Soon, justified by the fact it saved time, I was using the car to drive one mile to the local supermarket.
That was the start of the slippery slope that has led me to where I am today (January 1st 2015). I am 44 years old. I am 5 feet 8 inches tall. I weigh 17st 11lbs. I register as 38 on the BMI index. I am obese.
What am I going to do about this?
I am going to take responsibility. I will not blame any condition, any external factors or anybody for my weight. I will take control and I will do something about it.
I will change my relationship with food. In future blogs I will explain more about how I feel that I have a relationship with food and when that relationship is thriving I eat better and I feel better.
I will exercise more and not find 1001 excuses for not going for that run, or not leaving the car at home and walking to the shops.
These small, but manageable, steps will hopefully allow me to address the issues associated with my weight in an honest productive way. There are many people out there with a range of reasons for being obese; some medical, some psychological. These are often the people we hear about and celebrate as they overcome their own demons on the road to better health. I'm not one of those people and I have nothing to blame for my obesity other than a poor relationship with food and a lack of exercise. It should be simple to do something about it then, shouldn't it? I'm not setting myself targets or timescales, I just want to begin to get my weight down and feel healthier. This is not going to be some emotive, life affirming journey in which I overcome the demons that haunt me in my struggle with food. Rather, this blog will just be a middle aged man trying to put things in order. There are a lot of us out there. I hope we can do this together.
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