I’ve always been a chunky monkey.
When I was a child they called it puppy fat. Then, when I was a teenager, I burnt through quite alot of it, what with all the growing and keeping fairly activity. But, still, I was never exactly thin. And then, I went to uni, where I managed to turn an awful lot of, mostly, beer into an awful lot of exclusively fat.
I went on to spend the remainder of my twenties wallowing in a depression fueled drug stupor that did nothing to improve my physical or mental health. And, as I approached my thirties I was probably in the worst state of my life – fat as f@ck, eating sh!t, smoking tobacco and weed on a daily basis, and barely performing any exercise.
Then an old friend, only a few months older than me and pursuing basically the same lifestyle, had a cardiac incident. I realised that, but for an accident of genetics, that could have been me, and, if I didn’t change something, it would remain a looming possibility.
It was the kick up the butt I needed. I started to exercise. I, eventually, completely stopped smoking. And, mostly, managed, to clean up my diet and lost a bunch of weight. It wasn’t quick or easy. In fact it was a constant series of struggles that took me a decade of many trials and mostly error. But, by around Forty, I was starting to get into the groove. Although, it still felt a struggle and I never really seemed like I was in control, constantly teetering on the precipice of regression.
Then, along came Covid, and kicked all our ar$e$. I couldn’t get in the gym and slowly but surely I did less and less while eating more and more. I lost all the momentum I had accumulated and, even when things opened back up again, I couldn’t get back into the swing of things – not for more than a day or three.
Now, I’m a Forty-One year old fat-f@cker who has somehow accumulated an abdominal intramuscular injury (or something like that, according to the physio I saw) that means I can barely walk more than 10 or 20 minutes without pain and who has had more than enough of being that way.
That’s only the introductory tip of a mammoth iceberg that lies ahead for me. Hopefully, taking the time to blog this journey will help focus my intent and keep me accountable. Maybe, it might be helpful to someone else, if anyone else reads it. Either way, all I have to loose is the weight.
Around Fifteen Percent 