From fat to fit

Nowadays there are lots of short cut methods to get fit. Couch to 5k is very popular, and there are couch to 10k or half marathon plans too. Whilst they are all good and well, they don’t really set you up for a life time of fitness. So here is my story, it isn’t exactly the ideal way of doing things, but it is how it happened for me.

I was overweight from age 17 onwards, usually around 210lbs (95kg) even though I liked to play soccer, softball, and cricket as well as cycling quite a lot on the summer. The problem? I like my food, my staple diet was pizza, garlic bread and ice cream, I used to enjoy eating until I felt sick, then I would sleep it off for a couple of hours.

I moved to Germany from England late in 2011 and stopped the midweek sports and started to balloon. My clothes were all getting tight or too small for me, so I decided I had to do something about it, so I bought myself some bathroom scales.

The first time I weighed myself I was 235lbs with a 31.65BMI, officially obese. I set myself the target of getting to below 100kg (220lbs) then finally getting down to 90kg (198lbs). Reaching 83.7kg, i.e. not being overweight wasn’t really a consideration, I would never manage that. I decided on a high fat low carb diet and the weight started dropping off me. I was never hungry, so I didn’t eat much. It was great, at the same time I joined the local soccer club, so started to train a few days a week.

I was cycling quite a bit in 2012, but even though I was cycling up some alpine mountains, I was still fat (that’s me on the left) I was down to 90kg by late 2012, and after a trip to Columbia I lost a few kilos more, weighing 87kg when I got back. Winter laziness soon got me back up over 90kg, but my flirting with obesity was over!

In 2013 I signed up to ride La Marmotte, a 110mile bike ride in the Alps with 16,000 feet of climbing, ending at the top of the famous Alpe d’huez. That was a huge goal for me and I set myself the goal of getting to 80kg and getting a silver medal, a time band, not 2nd place in the race!

After my poor riding in 2012, I decided to train right. I was riding 200 miles a week, pretty much every week. I was climbing every up every local incline at full pace — strava segment hunting and loving every second of it. I was down to 85kg in May and after some big 100 mile training rides, I touched 80kg just before the ride and I managed to get a gold medal time, which was a big achievement for me, and still ranks up there as my proudest sporting achievement to date.