does by butt look big in this ?

I hate being fat

I always have. It has been the curse of my life. Almost everything you do or try to do is affected negatively by being fat.

I had a brief reprieve in my early 20s, when I was a normal weight for my height. I only achieved that weight by developing an eating disorder, but was able to get out of that successfully when I got married. Either side of that I have been fat. Probably at my worst I would of been over 140 kg. I’m not too sure what my highest weight was because that is the weight where normal scales are not up to the task.

I want to do so much, but am held back by it. It always gets in the way. Always there to stop me.

I tend to forget that I am such a fat bastard. It can be blissful during those times, but there is always a reminder just around the corner.

Yesterday I went on my regular group ride. I can comfortably keep with this group – I would be considered one of the stronger riders in the group actually. They are all lean. Most cyclists are. A few of the guys regularly get together to climb on of the few hills we have around Townsville. I want to go, but cannot. I simply cannot climb. My weight just makes what is an effort for the other guys an absolutely gut wrenching event. I tried to climb many many times, but as soon as the grade gets over 5% I am gone, In granny gear and almost unable to turn the pedals.

 

Anyway, this means that I don’t wear shorts over my cycling pants like normal commuting days ( I worked out early on that abuse from cars is greatly reduced if I wear shorts), so I was leaving work and walked past one of the guys, saying goodbye on the way.

I could see that what he was seeing looked wrong.

He is a good guy – I am not saying anything bad against him – he is just reacting to what he is seeing.

He was fighting back a smirk with great difficulty, and started to jumble his words, probably started making a joke in his head which was being defused by the fact he didn’t want to embarrass me.

I know this could be paranoia, but I was feeling comfortable, but of course it looked ridiculous, probably like an overstuffed sausage in a colourful skin.

I am going back to wearing shorts, nobody thinks anything of you if you wear shorts.

Things I miss the most

So, I have been on this diet for a little while now, certainly enough to form the habit of eating a completely different way.

Every day is a battle however, I don’t feel like I am 100% out of the woods yet.

What are the things I miss the most ?

• Toast – especially when there is runny egg yolk that needs to be soaked up.
• Pancakes – I have become so obsessed with pancakes I find myself doodling them when talking on the phone.
• Sugar – only really the half teaspoon I put in my coffee really.
• Mashed potato – probably my favourite thing in the world.
• Rice – I’ve been making some really nice green currys of late, and damn would a cup of rice go well with them.
• Flour – you know, the stuff that goes in cakes,biscuits, tarts,scones,muffins aaaarrgghh

I still find myself getting a little queasy in the gut sometimes, and I’m sort of not really enjoying what I’m eating. For the moment I am going to continue because it seems to be working well. I will worry about what to do after I lose 30kg.

 

Diet update

well it has been about three weeks since I started a complete change in diet.

I would say that the first two weeks of this was one hell of an ordeal. This was a complete change in what and how I eat, and initially I actually felt quite ill in the stomach.

Eating absolutely no sugar or carbohydrates of any kind (except that found in fruit) is one incredible challenge. Processed food is off the list as well. I find when I go to the supermarket, there is no need to walk down 90% of the aisles.

I think at mid week two I really had some doubts that I was going to be able to continue, but for once I actually found some fortitude and kept going.

A couple of observations I can offer for this initial process

1. I quite quickly stopped being hungry and pretty much had to force myself to eat a lot of the time.

2. A couple of days I entered my food into a calorie counting website and found that 60% of the calories I was eating was coming from fat, which is ok I guess (from what I’ve read)

3. You really have to plan ahead – if you don’t, you will fail.

Well after this initial three weeks, I have lost 3.8kg, and I really do believe this is fat loss, not water. I am really never hungry, and I really don’t seem to be eating a lot of food.

I really feel in the groove now. I am not lusting after chips, chocolate or anything sweet.

Hopefully the weight loss I seem to be experiencing will continue.

The only thought I have in the back of my mind is that I really don’t enjoy eating meat so much, but to get the job done I am going to continue doing what I am doing.

another day, another diet.

I’ve been on a diet for what seems my whole life. Well, there have been times where I’ve been on the ‘eat everything without a care’ diet, but that is not a true ‘suffering’ sort of diet.

The only way I’ve ever been able to lose weight in the past is via out and out starvation. When I was around 19 I used this very successfully so go from 130kg down to 80kg. When I say starvation I mean eating nothing – for days. It probably worked well at the time because I was young and could get away with such an extreme method.

The last twenty years have been different. A lot of false starts. Not fad type diets, just me getting started on a low calorie program – the usual sort of stuff.

So over and over I would fail. I really had no plan, just cut down and hope for the best.

I’ve always been against the low carb movement. I think Atkins had a bit of a bad name, but now everyone has heard of the Paleo movement. I’ve always wanted to be a vegetarian, so really didn’t give any of these sorts of diets more than a sideways glance. My diet has always included carbs, even when eating low calorie.

Two people have now changed my mind on this, and I have decided to give it a go.

The first is quite well known, Drew Carey. He was always very overweight right through his career and it was sort of his  ‘thing’ to be a big guy. He lost a lot of weight and looks amazing. He even replied to a tweet I directed to him.

The other person is a photographer that lives on the Gold Coast, Adam Weathered.

I first saw him mentioned in the ex footballer, Matt Roger’s, Instagram mentioning how much weight he had lost.

From what I can tell Adam has followed a clean eating, low carb eating plan and lost over 100kg very quickly. He is now an accomplished cyclist and finished Ironman Cairns last year.

Adam pretty much personifies what I wanted my life to become over five years ago but have failed so dismally to do. Pictures like this equally motivate and depress me, but I can honestly say I have never tried to follow a strict eating plan for any great length of time.

I have taken a week to finish this post and have some further posts in the works with some observations of the diet. These will follow.

Hey Fat Bum

I’ve been fat pretty much all my life.

I think I first become aware of being overweight at around ten years of age. Could of even been before that. I don’t remember being teased much, if at all at primary school. Secondary school was a completely different kettle of fish however.

Physical education was compulsory for the first three years of high school, and this become by dreaded part of the day. I was too tubby to really do activities to the same level as normal kids, and there were a few boys that basically gave me hell because of it.

My greatest feeling in my third year of high school was my last P.E. class. I can remember feeling completely elated when the bell rang.

I guess puberty happened to me going from years ten to eleven. I was fourteen at the end of year ten, and turned fifteen not long after starting year eleven. Something must of happened over those Christmas holidays, because I was pretty lean and about the same height I am now (around 180cm). I managed to stay this way through my senior years and the couple of years out of high school.

Things went downhill when I started a drafting cadetship, and all of a sudden had a lot of disposable income. I basically become addicted to food. I was pretty active at the time, but that could not negate the effect of eating such huge quantities of food.

Every Friday I would stop at the fish and chip shop on the way home and buy about thirty dollars worth of food. This was 1988 and that bought a LOT of food. I would pretend I was buying dinner for my family, telling the staff that such and such wanted five beef croquettes etc etc.

Other amazing feats of appetite were :

Eating an entire six pack of cream coffee rolls before dinner.

Ordering pizza at 11pm a couple of times a week.

I think I went from 80 kg to 130 kg is about a year and half. I actually had no idea I was getting fat either. The stark moment of realisation come when the heart foundation brought a travelling health truck to work and we all had a go at getting our vitals tested.

This was the first time I had known my weight for years, and at first it didn’t mean anything. When I sat down with the nurse, a small woman, and she started saying things like : ‘do you eat large meals?’ my world really did come crashing down.

post to be continued…