James’ blog – losing weight and moving forward

My name is James and I am ready to change my life. I am going to use this blog as a way of recording my progress as I change a few of the aspects that affect me and my family in my day to day life. I am going to face up to the things I know I need to do and log my thoughts and feelings as I do so, some of which won’t be nice I am sure.

What I want to change about myself is…

• My size
• Stress
• Approach

What I want to examine is…

• What happened
• How to keep moving forward
• Family and work life balance

The long term outcome I am looking for is….

• Stronger me (mentally and physically)
• Work life and family life balance

My initial goals are…

• Lose my gut
• Lose some stress

So, here goes…

 Day 1 Monday August 22nd 2011

So then, thanks to John here we go……….

Before I set out with a load of specific goals I wanted to start to explain why I’m here, what led me here and why I’m doing this? In reverse:

• Why I’m doing this because I want to be a better father figure, partner and I want to stop feeling like I’m on an emotional rollercoaster
• What led me here was John and admitting to myself that I needed to change
• Why I’m here is more complicated and really the answer is because I need to be but I will attempt to give a quick background below!

Over a number of years I had a tough time, not a little tough time, a very tough time, I was diagnosed with cancer of the throat, which in itself was a bit scary but around the same time my Mum was diagnosed with Breast cancer. I decided to keep my battle a secret from everyone. They cut out the cancer I had a load of drugs over a small period of time and I sounded like Barry White for a year or so. After a while I was given the all clear as was my Mum, happy days. I got married and after 2 years of working for big corporates I started my own business. Things were going ok, I was making very good money, had a number of very good contracts and was working very hard 7 days a week.

I was not massively happy at home, but things were not bad and I fell into the trap of eating bad food to fill me up and eating it at silly times, which meant I started putting on weight. I have always been a big guy (6ft2 and 16 stone) but this was generally due to Rugby and weights, not a belly! Then my marriage turned a bit strange, I was working from 6am till 11pm most days travelling all over the country, tiring, but my wife didn’t care, when I got home I had to do the household chores and look after everything bar the expenses, she kept a tight reign on this.

Then my mum became ill again, I was in the north, she was in the south and in between work I visited her in the hospital at this time my wife started making me feel bad for visiting my now dying mother and not being with her in the north. Eventually on the 1st of June my mum passed away, after a long and very, very brave battle, cancer got the upper hand.

After this my wife started hitting me, little at first but the attacks (verbal and physical) became daily, then my Dad became ill (down south) and ended up in the hospital, then my Grandmother became ill (up north) and I ended up looking after her, which only enraged my wife further. My grandmother passed away in the December on her 99th birthday, an amazing lady who raised millions for the RNLI. I had to arrange it all as my dad was still in hospital. He eventually got better and is still alive and well.

3 months later and after waking in hospital with a fractured skull I left my wife, the police did not believe that a (now 20 stone) ex royal marine the size of a house was being beaten by a 9 stone woman, but I was.

I was left pretty much alone, had no self esteem, no life as all I knew was work, my wife (now ex) hired a very expensive solicitor (after a week off with a bad head, I was too busy to get a solicitor and manage the court proceedings) with my money and took the inheritance that my grandmother left me leaving me with nothing, but I was happier being away from a bad relationship.

Whilst I was in the process of getting a divorce and with women the last thing on my mind I met my partner, she was amazing and wanted the same thing I did.

We moved in together and things were going really well, I started to lose weight and go to the gym again, got back down to my healthy 16 stone (ish) and I was feeling much better. I had my fitness, was starting to make friends in a new town, I had a sex life that gave me a new feeling of self confidence, I was away from the destructive past.

Then one day it all stopped, I bought a new house and instead of being happy my partner got moody, we stopped having sex overnight and I thought here we go again!

Anyway we found out that she was pregnant (which explained the lack of sex and the mood change). I just accepted that it would change what I felt was a perfect relationship.

It did, but there were a number of other problems that didn’t help. Thanks to my ex I had to close my successful business down, I had to get a mortgage for a new house and the recession hit the industry I was working in hard, I lost every job there was as all my contacts in the big companies took redundancy and disappeared with their nice fat pay off.

With all this going on it was tough for the next few years, we struggled personally and financially but kept together and I worked for scraps, during this time we had our girls and they were (and are) the best thing that ever happened to us both. Finally I sucked up my pride, went back to the corporate world and got a job.

Things started to settle down and in this time we had our 2 lovely girls who we both worshiped and adored and we spent those few years bringing them up, our relationship wasn’t perfectly on track but we knew the reason was down to pregnancy hormones and we made the decision to have kids very close together as this is something we had both always wanted.

Move to the present day and I have put on too much weight, become reliant on being comfortable and I need to change myself back to the way I was, happy, healthy and mentally ready for my family and my job. I have been eating the same as my partner whilst not being pregnant and not burning it off, we have just had our third, a little boy and we are both over the moon (although I think my partner wanted another girl).

I want to be the man I know I am inside, a big strong leader of my family, I want all my girls to know that there is no safer place to be than with me and I want my boy to grow up with the same values I grew up with and to be a man.

One last thing, I’m not material or sentimental in the slightest and I love my family more than anything, which is why I’m here!

Day 14 Monday September 5th 2011

Been very sick for over a week with a very heavy form of tonsilitis coupled with the flu and a temperature of 105! I have not been a well guy, and typical just as I was getting somewhere! Much better now so I suppose this is the start, oh and I also have some scales, which helps!

I have put together a daily routine for myself that works around increasing my fitness and cutting down on the quantities that I eat, being realistic I know that I’m not going to change what I eat drastically, it is more the way I eat so no more snacking and 3 meals a day.

Average day:

6.00 – 30 minutes of mixed weight kettlebell training (16kg and 24kg sets of different core excercise)

6.30 – Kids and breakfast of 1 bowl of special K or 3 weetabix

7.30 – Shower and off to work

13.00 – Lunch of baked potato or salad with cottage cheese or fish or chicken

18.00 – Home from work, time with family for 2 hours

20.00 – 30 – 60 minutes of workout, Kettlebells/bodyweight workout or a 3 mile walk

21.00 – Bath and evening time with other half and new baby.

23.00 – Bed

Weekends are off except for food intake which should have no problem remaining constant and 30 minutes excercise per day.

Rules:

1. No Alcohol
2. No fizzy drinks
3. Excercise daily
4. Weekly weigh in
5. One meal of choice per week if regime is kept up
6. Be honest
7. Keep active

So tonight I will put in here the measurements I am going to judge myself by and give myself goals to go with them.

Day 16 Wednesday September 7th 2011

Measurements and goals:

Weight - 21.4 st – Target 17 st

Chest – 53″ – Target – 50″

Belly – 55″ – Target 38″

Waist – 44″ – Target 38″

Bicep – 14″ – Target 18″

Thigh – 29″ – Target 26″

Calf – 18″ - Target 18″ – Woohoo hit one already!

Timescale – 6 months

The targets on my body size (especially focusing on the Belly and Biceps) are far, far more important than my weight. If I hit my bellysize changes I will hit my weight goal.

So today I managed 30 mins with the Kettlebells and had a bowl of 2 weetabix with a sprinkling of special K, 3 big coffees and nothing else, Jacket with beans for lunch, 11.43 and feeling ok!

Comments are closed.