1940: An Open Letter to Paul Glass, Slimming World Consultant, Upper Shirley

Hi Paul,

I was saddened to hear this evening of your impending departure from the Upper Shirley Slimming World groups, but completely understand your reasoning behind it and would like to thank you for your openness and honesty with the group. I’m sure everyone you’ve helped to date is very happy to support your decision, and will keep you in our hearts even after you start your new life supporting your new family.

I’m writing this as an open letter online for a few reasons. Firstly, and most selfishly, for vanity purposes: it’s a means of me celebrating my own achievements with Slimming World — something that would not have been possible without you, which I’ll talk more about in a moment. Secondly, I hope it might potentially provide inspiration to anyone who happens to be reading who has struggled with similar issues to me. Thirdly, it provides the opportunity for others to be able to chime in and voice their support and gratitude for what you have done for each and every one of us. Fourthly and finally, I’m not that good with saying this sort of thing out loud due to a certain degree of social anxiety; I am, however, and not to sound like I’m blowing my own trumpet too much, somewhat more skilled with the written word, so this seemed like the most appropriate medium through which to deliver this important message.

I have lost nearly three and a half stone since joining the group about four months ago. Those four months have flown by; in the meantime, I lost my job under fairly personally traumatic circumstances, have had to secure new work for myself, begin to establish myself as a local music teacher and figure out what on earth to do with my life — something that, at thirty-four years of age, I still don’t have a definitive answer for. Alongside that, I’m dealing with wedding preparation, other personal commitments, a friend who attempted suicide once and has threatened to do it again, and supporting my bride-to-be through a period of ill health. It has, in short, been a stressful, depressing and anxiety-inducing time.

In the past, my main means of coping with such a situation would have been to “treat myself” to something delicious, “because I deserved it” for dealing with difficult times. Unfortunately, as someone who suffers with depression and anxiety — conditions that I have recently started undergoing treatment for — I found myself relying on this means of emotional support more and more, which meant I piled the weight on and on, got bigger and bigger and heavier and heavier.

It had got to the point where I was embarrassed to look at older pictures of myself, because although I’ve been a fairly big fella for much of my adult life, I was conscious that I was far bigger than I’d ever been. It was starting to be physically uncomfortable. It was starting to affect my life, in that I was becoming increasingly conscious of silly little things like the fact that I was over the maximum recommended weight for a stepladder we have, that I was too fat to ride some of the rides at Alton Towers — one of the most humiliating experiences of my life — and that I was unable to participate in part of a friend’s stag weekend activities because I was too heavy for Segways and treetop “Go Ape” activities. I was disgusted to look at myself in the mirror, and I worried that my appearance disgusted others, too — though the only people who ever commented on it were random strangers who occasionally made hurtful comments as I passed by them in public, and thankfully this was a rare occurrence, perhaps largely due to the fact that I generally prefer to stay indoors!

I was starting to despair over it. I felt that, whatever I did, I couldn’t turn back this weight gain. I felt that I was doomed to continue gaining weight forever, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that I thought — knew? — it would eventually be the premature death of me. I tried various things. I tried fad diets on several occasions. I tried exercising on several occasions. I tried eating “better”, as I saw it. But nothing seemed to work; still the weight piled on, because still I had my weakness: my means of coping with difficult situations, and a life that seemed to attract said difficult situations.

I turned to Slimming World as a last resort. This was to be my last final push, my last attempt to do something about my weight, and if it didn’t work, I was going to do my very best to try and at least accept myself the way I was if I couldn’t change it. I chose Slimming World because my fiancee’s sister has had some noticeable success with it since she joined, and because the programme, as described online, sounded like it was both appealing and practical to fit in to my life as it is today. So I bit the bullet, took that step and showed up to the 7:30 Upper Shirley group for the first time. And, while there are many things in my life that I regret, taking that step over the threshold and joining the group for the first time will never be one of them.

Why? Because you helped me achieve something that I had started to believe was impossible for me. You inspired me to try my best, but to take my journey at my own pace without pressure. You even helped me to enjoy food again; food had become something that “just happened”, and it was pretty rare I found myself genuinely enjoying something, because it was often followed by guilt over whether I should have picked something “better” for me, or just passed altogether.

The wonderful support of the 7:30 Upper Shirley group counts for something, too, of course, as I’m sure you’d be the first to say. But your contribution to how much better I feel — both physically and emotionally — cannot be understated, and I will be forever grateful for you starting me on this path, as I’m sure I will be grateful for P’s support as she helps us all continue on our journeys towards becoming the people we want to be.

My journey may have been proceeding faster than I ever dreamed possible, but I still have a long way to go. Rather than this being a scary, demoralising concept, however, you have helped me rise to the challenge and feel confident that, with time, dedication, effort and the support of everyone around me, that I really can achieve anything.

Thank you, Paul, from the bottom of my heart, and I wish you the very best of luck in your future endeavours. The Upper Shirley groups will miss you greatly.

Pete Davison

1913: Loser

I blogged before last night’s Slimming World session so I wasn’t able to enthuse about my progress, so I’ll do it now instead.

After a small gain (1lb — I kind of expected it after an extravagant lunch on a training day for some new work I’m starting on) last week, I made up for that with a frankly somewhat surprising loss of 5lb this week.

I won’t lie: I’d been concerned that last week’s gain would herald the beginning of a “plateau” of weight loss, and force me into having to cut back even more on the things that I’m still able to have while losing weight. I’ve already sacrificed some of life’s particularly great pleasures like a lot of takeaways (though, pleasingly, if I eat carefully for the rest of the day I can still get away with my favourite curry, a dhansak), pizza, cake, non-diet fizzy pop and a lot of chocolate (though, again, I can occasionally get away with this if I’m careful) and don’t really want to have to give up anything else; it’s all very well saying that people should “eat healthily”, but if the things you suggest people snack on taste like wood chippings and don’t satisfy cravings at all, then that’s not going to help anyone.

Thankfully, as we’ve seen, that hasn’t happened; I’ve continued doing what I’ve been doing — following the Slimming World programme pretty strictly, except on occasions where it’s impossible to do so due to the food being out of my control — and I’ve made impressive progress this week.

One thing following the programme has done for me is make me think a bit more carefully about what choices I make when presented with a situation like going out for lunch. I had the pleasing opportunity to catch up with some friends I haven’t seen for ages the other day at a local bar/cafe/cantina-type place that we’re all rather fond of. It would have been very easy to simply order the “Hero Burger” from the menu — which is an amazing burger, to be fair, accompanied by skin-on crispy fries — but instead I opted for the jambalaya, which, while still not entirely “healthy” is probably better for me than a burger and chips. (It wasn’t bad, though a little oniony for my taste.)

I’ve also successfully made the transition to diet sodas for the most part; I’ve discovered that while Diet Coke still tastes like piss, Diet Pepsi actually doesn’t, to me, taste particularly different to actual Pepsi. If we’re talking full-sugar goodness, I prefer Coke, but in the diet sector, Pepsi is much nicer. I was also pleased to discover that diet Fanta (and Tesco equivalents) don’t taste any different to their full-sugar counterparts, so that was an easy switch to make, too.

For years, it’s felt like an unattainable dream to imagine myself as being a bit… all right, a lot slimmer. But finally, I feel like it’s something I might be able to achieve. It might — it probably will — take months, maybe even years, but I’m on the right track for once, and it’s nice to feel at least one aspect of my life is proceeding in the right direction.

1899: Continued Shrinkage

Slimming World tonight, and I’m pleased to report that I lost another 3.5lb this week, which puts me in the “Club 10” category; I’ve lost 10% of what my body weight was when I started. If I can keep at or below this weight for 10 weeks, I get a free week of membership: a small reward, but an incentive nonetheless.

I’m pleased at how well I’ve managed to stick with it so far. The fact that the “diet” itself isn’t anywhere near as restrictive as a lot of other plans has helped me maintain my motivation to keep with it. I can continue to eat many of the things I enjoy, so long as they’re prepared appropriately — in most cases, this means substituting oil for low-calorie cooking spray, which I haven’t noticed having a particularly big impact on flavour. It obviously rules out things like deep-frying, which is a shame as there are certain things — hash browns are one — which are unquestionably superior when deep-fried compared to baked, but it’s something I can live without.

Or rather, I don’t necessarily have to live without these things so long as I pay attention to their “syn” values. Syns are abstract values that I believe are somewhat tied to calorific content, but also seem take into account things like sugar, fat and so on. The pronunciation of the name is perhaps a little misleading — they’re not “sins”, but rather short for “synergy” in that they provide controlled doses of the parts of a balanced diet that are easy to let run away with themselves — things like the aforementioned fats and sugars. We need these things to function — we need calories, too — but having too much of anything is where problems start. By limiting “syn” intake to 5-15 a day — I normally err towards the 15 mark, since I still enjoy my food — it’s much easier to keep a handle on what’s going in. And that, in turn, helps the weight continue to fall off: since I’ve started, which was, I believe, about 10 weeks ago, I haven’t had a single week where I haven’t lost weight as yet. I’m sure it’ll happen eventually — every week I expect to have reached that plateau and have to start working a bit harder — but for now, the efforts I’m making are being rewarded.

And that’s a good feeling. At a time in my life where I can’t honestly say things have been going particularly “well” — though things are marginally better than they have been thanks to me getting some sporadic work here and there — it’s nice to have one thing where I’m consistently and regularly having the opportunity to genuinely celebrate some success. And I’m pleased that the Slimming World group I’m a member of — as with most Slimming World groups, from what I’m given to understand — is more than happy to celebrate that success and keep me motivated to continue.

That and the fact I tried a pair of jeans on earlier that I couldn’t do up a few months ago and they went on easily.

1850: All Wound Up

The last couple of weeks have been shit. And they are likely to continue being shit. Particularly tomorrow which, without going into details, promises to be a real humdinger of a never-ending, toilet bowl-splattering, sloppy half-digested poo of a day.

I shan’t go into details for various reasons, but suffice to say I am Not Having a Good Time. I feel marginally better now than I did earlier today — more on that in a moment — but for the most part I am reaching one of those “troughs” with regard to my emotional state and mental health. And oh boy, it’s a deep one. I’d go so far as to say that there have been times in the last couple of weeks when I have been feeling pretty much as bad as I did when I hit my previous lowest ever ebb back in 2010 when my then-wife and I parted ways. That’s not a record I particularly want to try and beat.

There was one positive amid all the crap, though, and that was that at Slimming World this evening I had successfully shed another 3lbs, even amid all the stress, anxiety and depression that the last couple of weeks have caused me. I candidly admitted during the group session that my ongoing success — I’ve now lost over a stone in total — was one much-needed positive thing in the middle of a horrible period in my life, and that I was thankful for the support the group sessions — and the overall structure and targets of the programme — were providing me in this difficult time. I walked away with the “Slimmer of the Week” award, which was somewhat unexpected, and which netted me a bag full of (healthy, “Free Food”) goodies. So that’s good.

Almost everything else is shit though. And it looks like continuing to be shit for the foreseeable future right now.

I could be pleasantly surprised. But I’m not holding my breath.

Perhaps I should. Shit stinks, after all.

1836: Making… The Opposite of “Gains”

Before I write what I want to write tonight, I’d like to address something first.

There are certain topics I write about on here that seem to attract comments more than others, often from people who don’t comment a lot or whom I’ve never seen before. One such subject is weight loss and dieting. This probably isn’t a coincidence, as weight loss, dieting and all that sort of thing are the kinds of subjects that seem to rank rather highly in terms of search engine optimisation and whatnot, and consequently a lot of spam is based around them, because presumably they’re things that a lot of people are looking for.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with a popular topic inviting comment from people who I’ve perhaps never seen around this site before, but I did want to address one specific thing: with regard to weight loss and dieting, I have made my choices. I’ve gone for Slimming World, because I’ve seen it work on people I know in the “real world”. It fits in with my lifestyle and, importantly, doesn’t interrupt the lifestyle of people I spend time with. Not only that, but I’ve found it, so far anyway, to be a programme that doesn’t make me feel like I’m punishing myself for past food-related transgressions: I’m not starving myself and I’m not depriving myself of anything — I am, instead, simply moderating what I have of certain things and enjoying as much as I like of other things in order to fill full and satisfied.

Consequently, while I appreciate this is something that people have a lot of strong opinions on and, in many cases, believe that their way is the “best” way, I will reiterate that I’ve made my choices and I’m going to stick with them for the moment. It’s great that paleo diets or cutting out [x] and [y] or whatever works for some people, but neither of those approaches are for me, for the reasons I’ve outlined above: they don’t fit with my lifestyle, and they interfere with the lifestyles of people I spend time with. So, attempting not to sound too harsh here… I don’t want to hear about these other approaches for the moment, at least not in a “this way is better than what you’re doing” context. By all means share your stories if you’ve had success with them, but please, for the moment, as I begin down the long road to shedding as much weight as I possibly can, don’t cause me to second-guess the choices I’ve made and think that I’m doing it “wrong”. I need support in this, not criticism.

I thenk yaw.

Now, on to business.

It was my second Slimming World meeting this evening, and I’m pleased to report that I lost an impressive 8lbs over the course of the last week.

I’m frankly astonished. Last week I’d heard people talk about losing chunks of weight like this in one go, but having always been someone who’s struggled immensely to get weight off, I had begun to think it was the sort of thing that could never happen to me. My body repulses me; it makes me feel guilty and horrible any time I see myself in the mirror, but doing anything about it always felt futile. I’d go to the gym and do intense (for a fat man) exercise routines, and would never see any difference even after months of effort. I’d try and eat better, but again I wouldn’t see any results, I’d get depressed and end up bingeing on cake and sweets and crisps and whatever. But I still couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t be one of those people who could look at themselves, big belly and all, and say “yes, this is me, deal with it, I am happy with who I am.” Because I am not happy with who I am.

Losing 8lbs in a week, though, has motivated me to continue with following the Slimming World programme, which has so far proven to be unobtrusive, despite it forcing me to make a few changes about my lifestyle with regard to food and drink. I’m under no illusions, though: I know that this rate of weight loss almost certainly won’t continue past this first week, but frankly, so long as I can continue dropping a little bit each week — which, if I stick to the plan as much as I have this week, shouldn’t be a problem — I will be happy and satisfied, and with any luck will eventually reach the goal I’ve set for myself. From there I can decide if I want to go further, or whether I’m happy with that. And by that point, I should hopefully have got into some good habits that will be the norm for me rather than a significant adjustment.

If it turns out that losing weight is actually really easy and I’ve simply been being stupid for these last few years, I won’t lie: I’m going to be frustrated with myself for not having made these adjustments sooner. But at the same time it’s pleasing to know that it’s not impossible, that it’s not too late for me and that it is possible to take aim for something a little more akin to what I’d consider a “normal” existence rather than the slight detachment from reality and normal society that I currently feel as a fat man.

It remains to be seen how much progress I will make in the next few weeks, but for tonight, I’m certainly feeling very positive indeed. Let’s hope this feeling continues.

#oneaday Day 847: You Must be This Skinny to Ride

I’ve been going back and forth in my mind as to whether or not I should write about this, but given subjects I’ve happily covered in the past on this blog I figured what the hell. In for a penny, in for a pound, or something. Hopefully writing about this will prove cathartic, as I’ve been feeling fairly shitty for a fair chunk of the day.

Today, as you’ll know if you have read recent posts, Andie and I went to Alton Towers. I was looking forward to this a great deal, as it’s been a long time since I’d been and I was very curious about the new rides — as well as going on some old favourites.

All was going well. We’d been on the Runaway Mine Train, the Rapids, the Flume and an awesomely fun rollercoaster called Air that suspends you in a “lying down” position as if you’re flying like Superman, and we were having a great time.

Then I tried to go on Ripsaw. I had a feeling there might be trouble when the seats felt a bit small. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so mortifying, however.

To cut a long story short, I had to get off the ride because I was too fat. The attendant didn’t use those words, obviously (if he had, I would have probably yelled more than a few obscenities at him and/or punched him) but there it was. Apparently the (already very tight on most people) safety harness thingies couldn’t be lowered enough on to me, so I had to get off. They gave me a “Priority Pass” to get on something else immediately, but guess what? All of the rides it covered also had very similar issues. I tried one and didn’t dare get on any others after that, as I was so upset.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so humiliated as when I was getting off Ripsaw and walking across the front of the ride area towards the exit. I didn’t hear anyone laughing at me, but it didn’t matter. I was mortified. I was The Guy Who Was Too Fat To Ride. I won’t lie, it upset me enough to make me cry. I have issues with my body shape as it is, and to have it “confirmed” by strangers was just the worst feeling.

I am totally insecure in my body shape. I’m not what you’d call “massive” by any means. But I have quite a “solid” upper body. I hate it. I feel revulsion when I look at myself in the mirror. I wish I could just be happy in who I was, but when a day out is spoiled by your own fatness, it’s hard not to take it personally, particularly when you’re already made to feel like a social pariah by the way the world is set up.

Every time I see statistics about the number of obese people in the country, I feel bad. Every time someone on Twitter makes some judgemental comment about obese people, I get upset. I gave up on Wii Fit in the end because I was getting so demoralised every time I did the Body Test and it made my Mii swell up like a balloon. I’ve even been insulted by complete strangers in the past because of my weight. The world is set up to make me feel like Being Fat Is Bad and that I should Do Something About It.

Here’s the thing, though: I am doing something about it. I am going to the gym regularly, doing at least an hour of cardio every time (plus some weights work) and burning anywhere between 600 and 800 calories in a session. I am watching what I eat, counting calories and trying to make sure I have a deficit of a decent size, but not so much I’m starving myself. And still I feel like a societal reject because the weight is hard to get off. I wasn’t expecting it to be easy, but I would have expected to have at least a little impact by now. Perhaps it has and I just haven’t realised or noticed. But it’s incredibly demoralising when you discover that despite your best efforts, you’re Too Fat To Do That Thing You Like.

I’m really not sure what I can do beyond what I’m already doing — perhaps trying to up the intensity further on my workouts, and making sure I’m being as consistent and disciplined as possible. But my experience today made me feel like absolute shit about myself, through no-one’s fault in particular. Besides my own, I guess.

I’ve known people who were pretty large who successfully managed to lose a buttload of weight and completely change their body type. I feel jealous when I see those people, and I wonder if I’ll ever succeed. On days like today, it feels like it won’t ever happen.

I have calmed down a bit since earlier. Shit happens, and the rest of the day was fun. I am thirty-one years old, and Alton Towers probably wasn’t built with thirty-one year old men in mind. Perhaps I just need to let go of the past and do things that are more friendly to thirty-one year old men instead of stuff I was doing around half my lifetime ago. Going to the gym. Sitting in the jacuzzi at our hotel (so relaxing — just the thing after a stressful day). Hanging out with friends and playing board games. Playing Diablo III. Being at peace with oneself.

I’m not sure I’ll ever manage the last bit unless I successfully manage to shed a whole buttload of weight. I certainly intend to keep on trying, but you’ll forgive me if I have occasional lapses in hope for my long-term success.

Thank you for indulging me with this post. We’re off to the Alton Towers Water Park tomorrow, so hopefully that will be a much more fun day.