Big Fat Loser

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Mortified

One of the most embarrassing moments of my entire life was the time that I broke someone's dining room chair.

If memory serves, I was in my early twenties at the time, and had been invited with a whole bunch of other people round to someone's house for a meal. The host was a successful lawyer who had a huge lavishly-decorated house. His wife, I didn't really know at all, but I think she was a lawyer too, and (as it turned out) had a bit of foul temper.

The meal consisted of a buffet, served off the dining room table. As you do with these things, you go and load up your plate, and then keep hold of it as you wander around. Or, as was in my case, you try to find a chair and juggle the plate of food on your knee.

Anyway, I had been sitting there for about 10 minutes, on this rather uncomfortable stylised three-legged dining chair, chatting to a friend. And I guess I must have decided to lean forward and put my plate down on the table. Well, at that moment there was a cracking sound, and I suddenly found myself sitting on the floor. One of the three legs of the chair had snapped, and the whole thing had given way beneath me.

At that time in my life I didn't even weigh that much - certainly not in comparison to what I am now. I guess you would say that I was fat, but not yet obese. And at the time I didn't even consider my weight being a factor in the chair leg breaking. I assumed it was just one of those things. And I think most other people did as well, including the male host who rushed over to see if I was okay and help me up. Unfortunately, his wife was less concerned about her guest, and more concerned about her precious dining chair.

I was, of course, terribly embarrassed by the whole incident, and was proffering apologies to the male host, which he brushed away saying the chairs were quite cheap and prone to break. But his wife, barely able to control her anger in front of her guests, dragged her husband away into the kitchen, where she began shouting at him. I forget the exact words she used to describe me. Needless to say, they were not pleasant. And they were not quiet either. Just about everyone in the house heard her slagging off the fat boy that was destroying her house.

I don't really know how it all ended in the house, because I left quite quickly; not even stopping to pick up my coat.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006 | 1 comments

Monday, May 15, 2006

Man breasts

All heterosexual men are obsessed about breasts, right? Or rather, to be more exact, woman's breasts. And I must admit to an unusual interest in them myself. But it's not so much fun if you're a guy that's so fat that you have man-boobs of your own. They hold no attraction whatsoever, to anyone. In fact, they're a complete embarrassment. After all, why would any man want to have a physical attribute that is so obviously associated with femininity. It's kind-of freaky.

I've always tried to be quite light-hearted about my man-boobs. And I've shared jokes in the past with female friends about how big mine are, and whether mine are bigger or smaller than the girl's boobs. But I've never been terribly comfortable about some of the reactions I've had from other (thin) men to my chest.

Some men, who would never even dream of doing this to a woman, seem to think its absolutely fine to "cop a feel" at my man-boobs. As if groping someone of the same sex is somehow okay. They like to prod and poke them, squeeze and cup them, and basically jiggle them around - all the kind of things that they would probably love to do to a woman's breasts, but are genrally not allowed to.
Monday, May 15, 2006 | 0 comments

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Special number

I was rather hoping to make this announcement last week, but then had my setback, and didn't make my target.

I got back to losing weight again this week, shedding a whole five pounds to take me down to 22 stone 1 pound - which in itself isn't a particularly noteworthy weight. However, a much more important achievement is getting my BMI number below 40. The effect of which is that I officially drop from the 'morbidly obese' category to just the 'obese' category of weight for my height.

I can't tell you what it means to be able to drop this 'morbidly' word. Obviously, it's a very scary word to use to describe yourself. And although I never thought I would just drop dead in the street because of my weight, it was still a worry that I was knocking years off the end of my life.

Anyway, so here are the numbers:

Height: 6ft 2in
Start: 24st 3lbs
Current: 22st 1lb
Target: 14st
Lost so far: 2st 2lbs
Still to go: 8st 1lb
Current BMI: 39.8

Sunday, May 14, 2006 | 0 comments

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Learning curve

I sometimes think I should just "loosen up" and talk about my weight (and my current attempted weight-loss) with my friends and family. After all, this is a hard enough process to go through, without having to do it pretty-much on my own. But I can't seem to ever get past a self-imposed mental wall on the subject.

For more years than I care to remember, I avoided the whole subject of my weight. My mother would sometimes initiate conversations about it (she's overweight too), thinking that in me she would find a kindred spirit. But I just didn't want to know. I would mentally block out the conversation, saying the bear minimum or just 'grunting' some answers, until she gave up and dropped the subject. I guess I just wasn't ready to deal with the problem of my own size, and so I just avoided thinking about it altogether.

And because I avoided thinking about it, I avoided doing anything about it. And being obese became the 'norm' for me. For a long time I accepted that it was the way I was going to be for the rest of my (probably shortened) life. I didn't attempt to diet, and I remained pretty ignorant about anything to do with health and fitness. The kinds of foods I was eating were okay (I've always enjoyed such things as brown bread and salads), but I was eating far too much - and snacking on high-calorie foods all the time. Basically, I was free-wheeling through life, avoiding having to deal with anything to do with my weight.

But then I had my epiphany at the end of February this year, during which I came to the realisation that something could be done about my weight, and there was no point avoiding it any longer. But I had a steep learning curve to get over first. Like I said, I knew about the types of healthy foods I should be eating, but I knew almost nothing about dieting and calory counting, or indeed about exercise. I had refused to have any scales (both bathroom scales and food scales) in the house, and didn't even own a tape measure - and so I also had to invest in this equipment to help me monitor my weight and size. And it's been a big time investment for me too. Quite apart from the time spent walking (about 100 mins a day), I've spent a hell of a lot time researching on the internet and in books, about food and exercise. And I've learnt a hell of a lot of stuff that I previously didn't know.

In a way, I've almost gone to the opposite extreme of where I was before. From being almost entirely ignorant, I now consider myself quite well informed. But I still have this problem to overcome about talking to people about it. Some of my reticence, I think, is that I don't want to become a health bore - endlessly droning on about calories and heart rates to anyone who will listen. But it's also a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I may well fail to achieve the weight loss I want - and it would be less embarrassing to not tell anyone I'm trying, rather than brag about it and then have to admit failure later on.
Thursday, May 11, 2006 | 0 comments

Heart rate

My new heart rate monitor arrived in the post today. I've never used one of these things before, so it took me a while to work out how to set it up.

I must say that the chest strap thing isn't the most comfortable thing to wear - and you certainly don't forget you're wearing it. But at least it stays in position, and seems to work well.

I went for a walk at lunchtime to test it out, and with a brisk walk got my heart rate up to about 110 beats per minute over about a quarter of an hour. Unfortunately, the 'minimum' of the target range for my age/sex is 111 beats, so I didn't even make it into fat-burning mode. And to be honest, I was walking just about as fast as I could, so I don't see how I can improve on things too much.

Walking up the stairs was better - pushing up my reading to about 130 beats by the time I got to the top of three flights.

But the thing that interested me most was my heart rate while at rest. I've read that the healthy range for adults is between 60 and 85 beats per minute. Well mine turned out to be just 60, which is pretty low. Perhaps I'm fitter than I thought I was. After all, they do say that elite athletes have a resting heart rate range of 50-60. Or then again, maybe I've just got a mild form of bradycardia, which wouldn't be such good news.
Thursday, May 11, 2006 | 0 comments

Monday, May 08, 2006

Setback

I just had my first major setback since starting my weight-loss programme. I stepped on the scales on Sunday morning, fully expecting to have lost a couple of pounds, and to have achieved another exciting new milestone. However, I found that I had not lost at all. In fact, I had put on three pounds.

To say that this upset me is a bit of an understatement. I wouldn't have minded, if I had broken the rules. But for the previous week, I had been calorie counting like normal, and had not broken my daily allowance (as set by WLR), and so by all rights I should have continued to lose rather than gain.

The news rather threw me for the whole day - and unfortunately I ended up falling off the healthy eating wagon, so that I spent most of Sunday eating or drinking, including some fish and chips on the way home from the pub last night. I estimate that I must have consumed about 4,000 calories yesterday - about twice what I should have done - and I now feel really guilty and regretful about it. Especially as it hasn't particularly put me in good stead for the coming week.

For the first two months of my weight-loss, it all seemed quite easy to do. The weight was just dropping off, at a rate of about a stone a month. And I guess I just got a bit complacent, that it would remain that easy for ever. But I certainly don't believe that now. I now realise that I've got to step up a gear, in order to achieve what I want. I also need to have a long hard think about two things in my life: exercise and alcohol.

During April, for all kinds of reasons, my 5-miles-a-day walking regime went a bit astray. So it's a priority for me to get back into that, and consider what other exercises I may want to do in the future. And on the alcohol front, I started drinking again (after 6 weeks of abstinence) at Easter, and as such have been consuming a not-inconsiderable amount of liquid calories. I thought it was okay, but maybe I need to look at it again, and consider whether having a drink is as important to me as losing weight. But I suppose, for now, I can try to cut down on my drinking, or switch to lower-calorie drinks.
Monday, May 08, 2006 | 0 comments