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I was excited to write this blog as that picture above is so how I used to be. I used to wheeze up the stairs at home and stuff myself into my trousers complaining loudly that the cleaners had shrunk them again. I used to play sport, rugby actually, and was always considered a “big lad” and then a “big bloke” so I had this image of myself which stayed way after the person I was looking at in the mirror.
I was forty and fat and I had to admit it. It was a very low time in my life. I almost look back and laugh at this now because if one really knew how effort could change ones life, then to crack on and do it would be so easy and worthwhile. I looked at my balding dad and my pot bellied brother and part of me wanted to (yes strange I know) accept my fate and think “ok that’s me all done then”.
I wanted to believe I was the end product, that it wasn’t over eating, lack of exercise, laziness or lethargy, which were my downfall, but something bigger out of my hands, genetics. I wanted to believe it was all genetics and I would have to suffer my burden quietly with hidden pain, as all those around me seemed to be doing.
My BP reading was high and the doctor told me gently that this was serious and I needed to exercise and loose weight. “But its hereditary” I said, “I’m 40 (something) and it runs in my family”. The Dr reached into his drawer and pulled out a picture of a 70 yr old looking man bouncing on a trampoline laughing with two young children. “That’s my dad” he said, “with my children- he’s 78 years old and last year he went swimming with dolphins in Florida”. Then he turned the picture over and stuck to the back, rather crookedly (and my mind thought slightly conveniently) was another picture this time of a plump (fat) man holding a baby in his arms. “That’s him as well, 10 years earlier, holding his first grand child. He had just been told he wouldn’t live to see his 10th birthday because his BP was so high. He didn’t wait to ask for a second chance.”
As I left the clinic on that cold morning the words hit home. It sounds cliché but there it is. It was time to stop blaming fate and take it in my own hands. I joined a slimming club and although I was one of only two guys I didn’t care, it was a supportive environment. I started to loose weight. Then I started to exercise a bit, I walked around the block at first in the evening when it was dark and no one could see. Then gradually it became a slow jog and by the time summer was fading into autumn I could jog a respectable distance.
The cooling air of autumn reminded me of rugby training and I decided to go and watch a couple of games locally and that felt so, so good. It was like connecting with a part of me I didn’t think Id get.
I’m 51 now and look younger now, than I did then. I feel younger and more alert and alive. I don’t fear age I respect age as each age brings new dawning’s. My nephew got a trampoline recently and guess who was out there bouncing on it, yes, me.
Any doubters, please, don’t doubt, take action and reclaim your life.
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