12 months, 90kg

In December 2012 my brother got married, the most important day of his life, and I hated the photos that had me in because I was so grossly fat. Combined with a few other things that prompted me to decide it was time to do something about it...

In January 2013 I set myself a challenge of losing 90kg before the end of the year, that's 198lb. That would bring me down to what I weighed at age 18 and be a big step towards being the right weight again instead of the 210kg (33st) that I was. I decided to go with the same approach the Hairy Bikers used and combine a 1500 calorie diet with exercise (no I didn't eat back exercise calories).

I started logging everything with MFP and realised very quickly that I didn't have any concept of portion size, Special K is only a healthy choice if you eat one portion at a time and not 5! So I weighed and logged religiously, learning what I could fit into the food budget and what I couldn't. That's all there was to the diet, if it fits in the calorie limit it's allowed, if it doesn't it's not. No "eating clean", no low carbing, just rigorous calorie and portion control.

In conjunction I started exercising, to begin with this was walking on a treadmill because exercising outdoors was just too humiliating when I got out of breath walking round the supermarket. Soon I added inclines and faster walking and by the middle of the year was running on a regular basis and doing weights 3 times a week at home. In October I joined the Leeds council gyms and added swimming, rowing, and cycling to the exercise regime along with a weekly BodyPump class.

At the end of the year I found myself having lost slightly more than my goal and my entire life changed as a result, I now weigh 119.7kg instead of 210kg and with only about 15kg left to lose I can see the end of the weight loss regimen getting rapidly closer! I do a 5km parkrun every week as well as HIIT and endurance runs, if I want to go somewhere and do something I don't think how embarrassed I'm going to feel or whether I'll actually be able to do it. I can live, and I'm more likely to live past 50 than I was! It was sodding hard at times but all the effort last year was utterly worth it, and not being single any more is a very nice bonus on top of having my life back and a big chunk of it was down to using MFP to track my food intake

The photo that started it all (me on the left)


Now


Coverage in the Daily Mail (boo, hiss!) - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2535309/33-stone-man-loses-15-stone-YEAR-seeing-horrific-pictures-brothers-wedding.html