Fifty, Fat & Unfit

The snap of a latex glove and the ominous phrase “now you’re over forty” will resonate with any man who has submitted to a doctor’s examination at that stage in their life. Mine occurred at a company medical, a biennial event that involved me pretending that I didn’t drink too much and the GP pretending to believe me. Prostate checked and composure recovered we addressed the other reoccurring elephant in the room. “Your extra weight is all around your stomach which is the worst place for it”, he would say, “and it’s much easier to shift that weight at forty than it will be at fifty”. His own failure in this regard merely underlined his point, I suppose.

I am now in the position to put his supposition to the test. I shifted much of that extra timber in my forties but will now have to do the same in my fifties, having put it all back on plus a little extra for good measure. For it is true to say that I am currently heavier than I have ever been in my life right now, tipping the scales at seventeen stones. I am down to a reduced wardrobe of my largest clothes and can only look wistfully at some of my better-looking outfits. What’s more, my fitness is at its lowest ebb – it’s a shocking state of affairs that I can no longer ignore.

My current body shape

This is, as I have already suggested, not the first time I’ve bent my will to slimming down. Nor is it the second or third time. My weight has yoyoed between thirteen and a half and sixteen and a half stones throughout my adult life (that’s eighty-five and one hundred and five kilograms respectively, kids). Despite what the Slimming World ads may suggest, it is not only women who worry about size and shape. Men are hit with just as many impossibly-perfect body images as women and my Facebook newsfeed regularly displays half-naked pictures of Tom Hardy and other adonises, with accompanying excitable and lewd comments. Body issues are not exclusive to the female populace and can become just as unhealthy an obsession. Be that as it may, I know the reality is my fat to muscle ratio needs to be turned on its head and it is time to get serious about it.

So, to the tricky subject of diets. I have tried all manner of them; shakes, cabbage soup, low-carb, good old-fashioned calorie counting and others. They all worked to some degree but none of them proved effective in the long term, as I simply went back to my standard behaviour once the diet was over. Fad-diets are never going to completely solve anything; a permanent change in eating habits is what is required. And one other thing has to happen; something drastic. Where Sherlock Holmes outwitted Moriarty, and James Bond outfought Ernst Blofeld, I must defeat my own nemesis – that of beer. I have been a pub-based lifeform for over thirty years and it’s an environment I love. However, with that environment comes the unavoidable pull of those empty calories and so I must become a less frequent visitor to these licenced establishments. I've been told that I could sit in the pub and slurp soft drinks, which is true, but then I could also stick six-inch nails through my thighs and achieve the same level of enjoyment. 

Other brands are also available

Of course, intake is not the lone factor involved; output is just as important and that has been sadly lacking of late. When I worked in town a couple of years back, I belonged to a gym and it was fairly easy to give up two or three lunchtimes a week to get my fill of exercise. I actually became quite fit for a time but working from home rather put the brakes on that and my gym-time dwindled away to nothing. I can now spend the whole day not leaving home; my ultimate exertion being the two flights of stairs in our town house. However healthily I eat, this level of activity is not going to cut it, so a gym membership has once again been procured and the gym kit located and freed from its moth balls. More of that in my next Blog.

So, my “battle of the bulge” returns for the seventh iteration in its long-running series. I am hoping it will emulate the success of Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens, which relaunched the Jedi into a bright and prosperous future, and not that of Police Academy 7: Mission To Moscow, which was pretty much disowned by the film studio and killed the franchise. You’ll never see half-naked photos of me on anyone’s Facebook wall, but one day I will fit into that cool T-Shirt my wife bought for me from the V&A. That’s good enough for me.

One day....

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