156weeks and 210lbs ago.

IanH

Silver Member
Just had a thought - it's 1st December today. Three years ago today at about this time - I would have been shopping in Tesco near where I used to work - stock piling food for the next week and buying uncoated meats and vegetables for the first time in I don't know how long. I had also just handed over the best part of £55 to someone who would go on to help guide me in my initial steps to the rest of my life. The best £55 I've ever spent.

It was three years ago tonight, and nigh on 15st ago that I first walked through the doors of a Slimming World group. I've changed groups since, I've also changed consultants (firstly with the new group and then with a change of consultant with that group). I've jumped out of a plane, I've walked on burning coals and walked up a mountain. In short -I've gained a life that I never had before. I've met (in real life and virtual terms) I don't know how many wonderful people who have helped, motivated and inspired me - as I hope I have helped others along the way.

Three years ago - I gave myself 12 weeks and didn't even see myself completing that. 156weeks later and here I am still. Guess what - I still plan to be here in another 156weeks too :)
 
That's such an amazing achievement. What an inspiration!
 
Love it! Great post x
 
Well done Ian, what a wonderfully inspiring post
 
That's great. How long did it take you to reach target?

Firstly - thanks all...

tara - that's not as easy an answer as you may think... I'm now on my 4th seperate target having officially only got there last week (i.e. the computer recognising me as being at target). This 4th (15st loss) target is slightly higher then my 3rd but i hit a rough patch earlier this year - put some weight on, and have found it extremely difficult to shift that weight so revised higher to give myself some breathing room and take the pressure off me - when time is right - i'll get back down to that third target (15.5st gone - which i originally hit in October 2010 and managed more or less to keep till August of this year - and when i was out of target range - it was because i was under, unlike now where i'm over) and maybe even go for a 6th target of loosing and maintaining 16st - who knows :)
 
Fantastic Ian. I agree with others here. You are a total inspiration. To have lost so much and be doing a fabulous job of maintaining is amazing.

Well done and thanks for the post.

Gail x

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Ian, You are fantastic. You keep going and I hope you look back on what you have achieved and go wow. That is amazing and so are you. You are an inspiration to a lot of people including me.
 
A truly inspiring post. Congratulations on an amazing achievement.
 
I've just expanded on this post and filled in a lot more blanks as although it was 3yrs on December 1st, I don't typically count the anniversary till the first weigh-in of the month - which happens to be tomorrow night. Not going to put it as a seperate thread though...

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36 Month Journal

Well, it’s been 36months since first walking through the doors of a Slimming World group following some awful wedding photos are one of my brother’s weddings in August 2008. I took a few months between photos being circulated at the end of that September to walking through those doors on December 1st 2008. I needed to be sure in myself that I was doing the right thing for the right reasons, plus working to the deadline of “D-Day” (Diet Day) gave me time to use up some of the stuff in the house and stock up on other things.

Most people think I was crazy for starting a “diet” so close to Christmas but I had set that date and that was it – Christmas was not going to get in my way (and it didn’t). I went into that room thinking I was never going to “stick it out” and that first night – I could have easily turned away at the door to a cold and cramped changing room (the usual meeting place was being used for a local Amateur Dramatic group’s pantomime) but I had promised myself that date and so I stuck it out. I was in for a bit of a shock though when after the new members talk I stood on some scales for the first time in many years. I weighed at least 5 stone heavier then I thought, coming in at 27st8.5lb caused a fair bit of swearing (and tears later in the car). Then the moment came when the consultant asked how much the new members would like to loose in the first week. “All of it” I initially joked, but there is no magic wand to be waved. “A couple of pounds” I revised being realistic – knowing that with that weight to shift – I was going to have to be in it for the “long haul”. I also to give me some motivation at “sticking with it” brought a 12week countdown, which plus membership fees meant I had handed over £55 that night.

So home I went, via the local Tesco for more provisions, and read and re-read my shiny new “Food Optimising” book (aka “The Bible”) and started the new day with this new “diet”. Cooking from fresh that following evening for the first time in a long long while I couldn’t believe I had ever stopped doing that – I was enjoying the taste of all this fresh vegetables and piece of steak I had cooked for myself. One day turned to two, to three, and so on and before I knew it I was stepping on those scales again. As we all do, I looked down as I stood on and saw that 8.5lb still there. “Drat – I’ve not lost anything” was my immediate thought until the lady doing the weighing gasped. The 27 had changed to 26. I’d lost a whole stone in a week. No-one could believe it during image therapy – I had trouble believing it. The following week, another 8lb, and the week after 6lb. I went into Christmas that year over 2 stone lighter then I was in that December, and just carried on loosing – averaging a stone gone a month for the next 7months or so.

One of my initial prods for starting a “diet” was after seeing those wedding photos and seeing just how large I had become, I didn’t want to look that way come my other brother getting married in August 2009. I need not have worried – come the time of that wedding I was 8 stone (and half a pound – those half pounds are important) lighter and guests from the previous August who were also guests at this wedding barely recognised me (including my own mother). It is also the day that I first consciously admitted that food optimising wasn’t a diet I was on but actually the way I want to eat – it had become my lifestyle.

It’s been a rollercoaster of a journey – I’ve had my gains and I’ve had my losses. There have been times where I couldn’t see “the light at the end of the tunnel” and wondered “What’s the point?” of continuing. But it’s easy to look forward and not look back at what has already been achieved – how much I had already lost, never mind how much I still wanted to loose. How much better my life was with the weight gone and imagining how much better it could still be as I continued forward to loose the weight. Loosing “just a pound” one week is disappointing when you’re used to loosing three of four (or more) but in the big scheme of things – it’s a pound nearer where I wanted to be.

By February 2010 I was 12st7.5lb lighter and my groups “Greatest Loser” filling in the paperwork for the national “Greatest Loser” competition. To much surprise (I didn’t think that I stood a chance) I received an invite to the finals in London in April 2010. I set myself a mini-target then – I wanted to go to that event a stone lighter then I entered it as (not that it’d make a difference to how I got placed as that’s all done via the entry forms). Two weigh-in’s before, and I needed 5.5lb to get that. I had to be realistic, I was averaging 2-3lb a week – I was never going to make that. I sat back and thought “So what if I don’t make that stone, I’ve done my best and will continue to do so, and any loss this week is good enough for me”. That weigh-in session immediately before the finals – I was surprised – I got that 5.5lb, I went to London being 13st7.5lb lighter then when I started the journey.

London was fantastic – so many wonderful people and so many great stories to listen to. And then I went and said something crazy on stage after being announced in at 9th place. I’d been giving some thought to doing a tandem parachute jump for charity – initially for loosing 10 stone but it turned out I’d still be too heavy, and then for my birthday that year – but had some medical problems that meant I didn’t want to take any further risks. So I announced on stage that I was going to do this jump. My fate was sealed – and two days later, I was booked for a tandem parachute jump for the NSPCC in July 2010.

July 2010 came around and even before I could consider jumping out of a plane, I faced up to being in the national semi-finals of the “Man of the Year” competition – and reaching the finals meant having to do something I have always feared – talking in front of a large crowd of at least 120 people. But I managed it – I didn’t get the title – but that doesn’t matter – I met a load of wonderful people and the key thing was – I got through it.

The following weekend, I did something else I had considered for loosing 10 stone – I walked up Snowden and then the end of July – the parachute jump. I recall walking to the hanger with the instructor I was to be tethered to and being asked “So, why a parachute jump?” My answer was simply “because I can now”. 18 or so months previously – the thought of jumping out of a plane, or walking up Snowden wouldn’t even have crossed my mind, but having done one, and about to do the other – I was finally living, instead of my previous just existing.

Then there was another chance to catch up on the live I had missed out on whilst carrying all the weight and in November 2010 I completed a 20ft “fire walk” over burning coals. The preparation/training for this walk being 4 times longer then what I went through to fall 12,5000 feet but all the time I knew that if I could loose 15.5stone (as I had at the time) – then I can do anything – including walking over burning coals.

February 2011 though saw the start of some bad times for me personally – I was 15st11.5lb lighter and finalist in the 2011 “Greatest Loser” competition but I was also made redundant from my job. I thought that this was it in terms of my continued journey – how was I going to continue maintaining (having previously called target shortly after the fire walk) when money was going to be so limited. But I also knew that there was “no going back”. I didn’t want (what could laughably be called) my life from before and though it would be so easy to succumb to cheap but unhealthy food – I made the decision to try to stick to food optimising and have generally succeeded. It’s not been easy and there have been some tough decisions made. But I’ve also had to revise my target weight upwards as there have been gains that I’ve not as yet been able to recover from (as I type this in December 2011, I’m still out of work). It wasn’t an easy choice to make having to accept this new target weight, but I had again been putting too much pressure off to get back to where I was that I was self-sabotaging and I needed to take that pressure off myself, and it was resetting or stop going to group (and that would have been fatal – the weight would easily have started piling back on without that “control” of stepping on the scales each week).

Once I’m ready and sorted, I will loose that half stone again and get back to that November 2010 target. For now, I’m happy where I am. Three years as a member, and I plan to still be going to weigh-in each and every week for the next three years to come. I know I don’t have to as a target member, but group has become an important part of my life and part of my social week that I’m not going to give it up. I’ve weighed every week of the last 3 years and have only ever not stayed to Image Therapy twice – once this year when I first got told that my role was probably being made redundant and once in 2010 when I went to weigh-in on my way to A&E with what was initially diagnosed as suspected appendicitis (in hind sight – not the best thing for me to have done but I wasn’t going to let stomach pains stop me from stepping on those scales). Image Therapy and the support, inspiration, and friendship I get from that has been an important a part of this journey as food optimising has been. And the support, friendship, etc. that I’ve also gained from sharing the journeys of other members on Facebook and the like can only be described as “priceless”.

I’ve learnt a lot over the last 36months, and I’ve also gained so much. I was fortunate to only have minor health problems with the weight I was – aching joints and continually being out of breath. Now I can, if I wish, and have done, walk 15miles or more in a day. I know if I want to do something that I’d never consider before – I can do it and already contemplating either a sponsored abseil (and I’m seriously scared of heights) or completing the three-peaks challenge next year. I have learnt to appreciate life so much more then I did. And now, having just become an uncle, I won’t be the “fat uncle” who can’t play with my nephew as he grows up for lack of energy of fear of hurting him. I can face the tough times much better now then I could before as mentally I’m in a much better place then ever. I’m not called names on the street or at least when I do encounter rube and obnoxious people who don’t have anything better to do – it’s not proceeded by the word “fat” – the first time that happened – it was all I could do to laugh, I’d made it – “joe public” didn’t consider me as fat anymore.

The next three years will hold its challenges but I’m ready to accept and beat them now having lost the weight. I don’t know what those challenges will be as yet – but I’m ready and waiting for them.
 
I love this new revised post. I think it's so important for all of us to acknowledge those highs AND lows and the fact that you feel the same as the rest of us in that you have those days where you feel 'why am I bothering'. I know i do. However you have also reinforced the reasons why we ARE doing this and just what we have to 'gain' on this journey.

So thanks again for a wonderful post.

Gail x

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