13 Months In and How My Life Has Changed

I have always been on the heavy side, from when I was around 16 or 17 anyway, but after my wife of 30 years died from breast cancer in May 2011 I got worse, much worse. I hardly left the house other than to go to work. I ate. I barely moved. I ate. I became very depressed. I ate. At 52 years old I was heading on the fast train to an early grave yet still I ate and hardly moved.

On the evening of March the 2nd 2012 I was at work and a colleague, who has since become a very, very good friend, told me about a gym he had joined and that he was looking for a training partner as it is so much easier to stay motivated if you train with someone. It was the kick up the butt I needed and I said I would train with him. He looked a little sceptical, and I don’t blame him as he gazed upon my 332lbs but he agreed it could be good. Saturday the 3rd of March I went into town and bought workout gear, 4XL UK sizes, and on Monday the 5th of March I met him at the gym and joined up. For many weeks I had been saying I would start eating better and getting fitter on Monday, but there were a lot of Mondays that came and went until that particular Monday.

It was hard, very hard. The first time I got on a rowing machine I struggled to 500 metres and wanted to vomit by the time I was helped off it, and helped off I had to be. The elliptical nearly killed me, the treadmill was my enemy, the exercise bike a devil in disguise while the weights and resistance machines just served to show how weak and out of condition I was. However I stuck at it, I grew to like those machines and I started to get the better of the weights. I changed my entire diet, although at no point have I been on a diet and have not denied myself anything I wanted to eat since I started this. Danny and I went 5 or 6 days a week and the weight started to come off.

By week 16 I had lost 65lbs



And two weeks later it was 75lbs



I continued to go to the gym. I made new friends, some of whom I now count among my dearest friends. In a Spinning® class one day I met a woman called Natalie, who has since become probably my best friend, and we started talking and found we had both just started running, I was doing the C25K program, and we decided to train together with a view to entering a 5k race at some point, she had also just given up a twenty year smoking habit and is still off them. We did a 5k race in November last year and we both finished in an okay 31 minutes, although conditions underfoot were very bad after a couple of weeks of almost constant rain and we’ve both gone faster since that day.



At some point in amongst all that I passed the 100lbs lost mark.





In another Spinning® class one day I met a woman called Debbie, who has since become a great friend, we got talking and we used to see each other in the gym and say hello after that. One day she was in the weights area bench pressing and she asked me to spot for her. I did and she told me she had just started lifting heavy stuff up and down and said I should join her and we could do our weight training together. That was at the end of October and we’ve been lifting together 5 days a week ever since.

I had discovered a real passion for Spinning® and I made it a goal to try to get certified as a Spinning® instructor. I did a home study course and passed an exam first then on the 2nd and 3rd of March this year I attended a 2 day workshop in London which resulted on the Sunday evening in me realising my dream and becoming a Spinning® Instructor, one day short of a year from the day I dragged my the 332lbs through the door of the gym for the first time. 364 Days, From Fat to Fitness Instructor, if I ever write the book of this journey that’s the title.

2nd March 2013, week 52


I’m now standing at 199lbs, down 133lbs from when I started. I haven’t lost or gained any pounds for a couple of months, I only weigh once a month or so these days just to check, but I have lost inches in places and gained them in others thanks to the weight training. The mirror, my clothes and a tape measure are far better indicators of my progress than the scales ever were or ever will be. I can honestly say I’m fitter at 53 now than I have ever been in my life before and it feels good. I don’t have to count the calories these days, that was another target I set myself, so I can live life ‘normally’ without counting and checking every single thing. I eat healthy probably 80% of the time and some days I consume more than I did when I was at my worst thanks to all the training, but it is different food to back then for the most part.

Three weeks ago I met a woman called Eloise in a Spinning® class, and we’ve become friends. You may be noticing a pattern here but it’s nothing to do with the reason I love Spinning® – well not the only reason, and we started talking. She has just entered a triathlon, her first, and she suggested I should enter it as well. The problem is while I can swim it has been years since I was last in a pool and I’m not very good at it. I told her this but she has swimming coaching qualifications and said she would coach and help me if I signed up for the triathlon, so I did. It‘s on the 2nd of June so at the time I signed up I had just 9 weeks to improve my swimming, I’m not worried about the cycling or running bit, and I’ve started working on the swimming. It’s not pretty and it’s by no means good but I can get up and down the pool without drowning or swallowing too much of the contents so progress is being made.

My son told me the other day that he was proud of me entering it and that was a very nice moment, then he had to say especially as a year ago the closest I would have got to any kind of triathlon was a 3 course meal. Damn him, he’s right!

Way back on the 5th March last year as well as joining the gym I joined MFP and it has played a major part in my change of lifestyle. I’ve made some fantastic friends on here, one in particular who is very special and dear to me, and it has been a constant presence keeping me accountable and focused with those friends offering encouragement and dragging me back on track when I had moments of doubt or hit a low spot. Today I logged in for the 405th day in a row but the best thing, and my biggest NSV, of all those 405 days happened yesterday on day 404.

I had an interview with the Health and Fitness manager at the gym which resulted in me being taken on by the gym as a Spinning® instructor, both to sub for other instructors when they are sick or on vacation and also to teach classes of my own. It‘s a dream come true and I hope I can pay a little back by inspiring and helping others to do what I’ve done. Part of what I’ll be doing is instructing Spinning® classes for the senior population and I’m really looking forward to that. So many of the older members at the gym tell me they are a little daunted at the thought of taking a Spinning® class because the instructors and most of the people taking the class are young and fit. Well, if they come to my class it certainly won’t be a young instructor up front guiding and encouraging. If anyone had told me a year ago I would be in this position today I would have thought they were drunk, high, mad or a little of each.

I sometimes find it hard to believe how quick the last 13 months have gone by and the changes that have happened in my life but I know now that practically anything is possible if you want it badly enough. Do whatever you can to make your dreams a reality. If you can, find a buddy to train with if you’re struggling training by yourself and while you don’t need to compete with each other you can push and motivate one another. Stay strong in your food choices but don’t deprive yourself of something you really want, you’ll only want it more. Use MFP to keep you accountable. Set goals, big or small, and go out and get them. If it is important to you, you will find a way. If not, you'll find an excuse. Find a way, not an excuse.

Sorry for the length of this post but I’m still buzzing after yesterday and I just felt like writing it all down today. I’ll wrap it up with this thought. If like me you are no longer as young as you were consider this; you're never too old to exercise, in fact, at any age, you are too old NOT to exercise.