Called 'Fatty'

Called ‘fatty’ for two weeks by Mother

Part 1

Before I start my story, I must give you a brief history;

June 2007, somehow I was convinced by two work colleagues to join them on the British Heart Foundation London to Brighton Cycle ride with four weeks to go.

Weight 19 stone, very unfit, no bike! and no sense.

Frantic searching for a training bike, found a steal at £40 hybrid with local collection, bought the bike and collected it the same day, then spent three hours applying love and WD40 to all the rusty parts as it had been sitting in a garage I assume for several months.

During the cohesion, I was convinced to join my two colleagues commuting to and from work, well this started and I was introduced to a new world of pain. I could just about keep up with them on the flat bits, but as the road went upwards I went backwards at lightning speed, Damn that gravity.

As both of my opponents were on proper road steed’s, I was jealous so bought some road tyres and a gel saddle, this made no difference all at and was continuously spat out of the back!, more times than I like to remember. Crunch time, decided I needed to spend more money and looked around at different sites and was absolutely gobsmacked and the prices, second bike for me then.

Ebay, for me then, found a Giant OCR 3, Double, 8 speed and paid £200, it arrived, I couldn’t work the gears out, so in the car to local bike shop to eat humble pie. The old guy looked at me with disgust, but the young assistant came to my rescue and took me around the block, 5 minutes later I was an expert and £80 lighter with a large bag of bits, big grin.

I was told that before embarking on any epic journey any steed should be treated to service. I was informed by a colleague that Halfords had a service scheme £15 for a year, free service (labour only, parts extra). I popped into the local Halfords and dropped the bike in, big mistake somehow the right shifter wasn’t working properly and told it needed to be replaced and £60 pounds disappears out of my pocket. Anyway collected the bike the gears now worse than ever, lots of crunching etc, by this time my patience was wearing thin. Well crap service and a further three hours wasted as they called in a guy from another branch to fix the gears, should have paid £50 in the local bike shop for a service.

I joined my colleagues for the normal commute, skin now introduced to lycra and I looked like a fat sausage in a condom my wife kept saying. Weight now down to 18 stone and those hills were getting a little easier and I could at least hold the gaps to a minimum.

I had just become a member of the clipless brigade and had several moments of fall over failing to clip out. Well the day came for the bike ride and with my friends I arrived on the line at 8.30 and off I go. I managed to finish and was well knackered.

I definitely by this time had the cycling bug, but on December 30th 2007 I was run over on a roundabout, driver failed to give way, bike a right off, bruised shoulder, road rash on right leg and elbow. This matter is just being finalised, but a new carbon steed and hopefully some cash soon, anyway they agreed to replace the bike and a nice new Carbon felt f4 arrived, hooray.

Started commuting on my new bike, but it was far too good for that, so I said to myself why not build one. Lots of reading and then embarked on months of research finding cheap bits, spread the cost over several months and the pile of boxes grew bigger in the garage. The new steed took shape slowly developing into my Felt F35 I've been riding on recent club runs. I built several others and sold them at cost on ebay, I just enjoy the tinkering, I even managed to rebuild wheels!

Anyway the next 11 months went by commuting and not losing any weight as I could eat like a horse and not gain any weight. But the morning before bonfire night, I left for work at the normally ridiculous hour of 5.10am, whilst going past De Ja Vu, well just down the road from it, some nice arse**le lent out of the passenger window of a passing car and gave me an almighty push when I was travelling at about 20mph, did a bit of pavement surfing and thought I was ok, a bit battered and bruised, bike looked ok so carried onto work, what a fool.

When I arrived at work I looked like I had been mud wrestling, then the pain started in the left shoulder, promptly went home. Visit to GP, might me broken and sent for x-ray, eight weeks off work, 6 months of physio and weight at 19 stone 12 Lbs as of the 27th January 2009. Parents had now arrived from Spain where they now live and was called fatty by mother for the whole two weeks of their visit, deep joy.

Part 2 to the follow the motivation;

Six months later and as clockwork each week I go for another Physio session, each time the pain got worse and no improvement, finally the physio convinced my GP to refer me to the NHS, hooray. Well after several injections, MIR scan and numerous appointments, I had the results and a date for an operation, 12th October.

Going back to being called 'fatty', I searched the internet, engaged several forum's and finally agreed on slimming product and maximum calorie intake and a minimum excersize period. There are several different names for the training plan, but it's generally referred to as 'ponk' training, this apparently teaches the body to consume body fat before using food to supply energy whilst excersizing.

Well the product was Promax Diet banana,chocolate and vanilla, buying 1.2kg every 4 weeks and with some ebay searching costing £28 pounds plus free P/P. It took alot of time to get use to, taste was ok and thank god it was only monday to friday. Also started a food diary and what a shock! it's amazing what crap you eat and the calories, it certainly opened by eyes.

I started losing about 2 Lbs each week and was told to only weigh myself once a week, it took some to get the calorie count right as I was feeling like sh*t after all the excersion, it took about eight weeks before I could survive on 2000 calories and stay awake beyond 9pm. Remember those gaps I talked about earlier with my colleagues disappearing to the distance when the road went upwards, they we still going away but the distance was shortening and sometimes I managed to stay with them!

I was now well and extremely addicted to cycling and was regularly cycling on the Sidcup Cycles Saturday ride with the fastish group, this is where I met Danny form GS Avanti. I was thinking of joining a club and had previously been out with WRKC, average age of their membership too old for me, anyway had numerous chats with Danny about all aspects of the club. I weighed about 15.7 stone and decided that next year I would like to race, but the day of the operstion was fast approaching so I delayed the joining process for a couple of months.

The operation came and went, six weeks off work and the inevitable happened gained half a stone and no time on the bike. Physio each week and after six sessions I was only allowed 1 hour on the bike a day. Did 2 hours anyway and suffered for it, made it through the pain and started commutting again. It took six weeks to lose the weight I gained and finally sent an email to GS avanti, mike replied and invited me along to a G1 sunday ride, struggle to keep up but stayed with them, what a blast and friendly punch, upon returning home filled in the joining form and sent the cheque off.

I spent every sunday with mike and a few others in some of the most horrendous winter weather, I was now down to 14.12 stone and had my substantial base miles and I was feeling good. I stopped taking Promax Diet but kept control of calorie intake and the weight came off but it slowed down.

part 3 to follow, Racing at 38 I must be mad!