MEN AND DIETING - can you see yourself here?

Hi, my name's TIM and I am sitting here writing my side of this journey through weight loss, over 4 stone lighter than I was knowing that if I can do this anybody can as it is simple and easy and to be honest with you I do not know why I did not know or was not told some of this easy life changing information.

I come from a family that is on the big side, both my parents and brothers are on the big side. Personally I know that I was obese all my adult life or at least the past 25 years. I have used all the excuses under the sun I am big boned, it’s in my genes, slow metabolism and of course for a lot of men it is the alcohol. Although I was obese I was also active with golf, skiing, playing refereeing and coaching rugby so I was fit but overweight. Some weekends I would even take part in two games of rugby and 18 holes of golf without too much bother, and I was, in fact doing significantly more exercise than I do now because I no longer play. The simple fact is I am now eating more food than I was two years ago and still enjoy those chips in the canteens when I choose to eat them but learning what I know has been a real lesson.

I would say I was a fairly typical bloke

and although I enjoyed eating  food, the majority of the time I used to treat food as fuel and did not really pay too much attention to what I was eating or when.  My job was, and still is one where I travel a lot and just pick up food as and when. The problem with traveling is that on many occasions it is what is available (yes another excuse just crept in see how easy it is) rather than eating what you would like; eating in canteens where the choice is the convenient deep fried or oven baked pre-prepared food that seems to be the norm, although I can say there are a few out there that provide some good food.  

As with many people who travel for work I would rather get up early, get the job done and get home, so on many occasions I would just leave the house with no breakfast or grab something from the cupboard on the way out of the door to eat when I had a moment.  Perhaps the honest answer is that I did not really want to get up – and would rather spend an extra 10 minutes in a warm bed (especially on a cold winters morning) than to have breakfast.  The average day would then continue in much the same way:  arrive on site get the job done and get home and eating and drinking would only happen if it was convenient or there was a natural gap in the job.  Then eventually as things progressed during the day it may be a quick visit to a vending machine for any of those delights that usually range from the cold rolls, sandwiches Chocolate bars or maybe even a pie or something similar (if the factory had a microwave in their coffee room) but more often than not it would be chocolate bars and then when I got home it would probably end up being one large meal maybe even a take away.  In fact it has to be said that quite often I would only have one meal per day.

Looking  back now over 4 stone lighter than I was I know where I was making my mistakes and why I was obese. The simple facts are I am now eating more food than I was two years ago and still enjoy those chips in the canteens when I choose to eat them but learning what I know has been a real lesson.  For instant on some occasions now I will deliberately stop and choose to have a bacon sandwich or something similar as it will be the best thing for me during that day.

I have to confess over the years I have not personally attended any weight loss classes as being a classic bloke again I see this as the realm of women and having seen the ones held at the local hall next to the rugby club I have only ever seen women attending. I know weight loss classes are available to both men and women but they appear to always be targeted at women, why? Saying that I have read a lot of books and magazine articles on weight loss over the years.  In the past, I have agreed to do the same diet as my partner while she attended the classes. I saw this as cost saving, 2 for the price of 1, which I bet goes on in many households. I think we have done every possible diet out there and some in between over the years with varying results. I found most of the diets very difficult to do due to having to find food, which fits into what is sometimes quite a very restrictive regime. People who stock vending machines or motorway services stock what sells not what the latest diet tells you to eat.

It’s mid-January, that time of year when Christmas and the new year is over and the house is full of the left over excess of the seasons over indulgence.   Were ever you look there are the nice little treats that have been bought with those familiar words “just in case” or “we always have those” yet they’ve never been eaten during Christmas for the last 5 years.

Then out of the blue my partner announces she wants to lose weight for the party. Two things immediately spring to mind “what party” and “oh no here we go again”.  After getting the answer that there is going to be a large family party in the summer that everybody is going to attend. The next thing I start recounting is all the weird and wonderful meals of the past diets when we were making swede chips and trying to convince ourselves that they taste as good as the real thing. I can confirm they do not but when you are desperate you will do strange things. No Carbs the diet that allows you to eat all the protein you want but in the same breath bans the bacon sandwich (this is criminal). Then there low fat, cabbage soup, maple syrup and the list goes on and all I know is that for the next few months eating will become a chore not a pleasure and driving up and down the motorway trying to find a maple syrup drink is impossible.

 The question is what will it be this time?  Even while thinking this is another futile attempt to lose weight I agree to join my partner on the next attempt. Over the previous years I think most diets have been tried and tested by us and to be fair we have lost weight when doing them but without fail we have slowly but surely put the weight back on, plus some.

The next thing that happened was we came up with an amazing eating method which has developed and changed along the way as our research, experimenting and knowledge of bodies requirements has improved.  The most amazing thing is that we have both lost loads of weight and I am now in the normal weight range and I am never going back to the size I was before as I now have the answer.

To put this into context, at the start of this journey I was bigger than 85% of the men in my age group in the UK. I am now 85% smaller.

Lose weight eating the food YOU love!

REMEMBER: We all have a calorie allowance - (see our page on calories) and we like to post our main meals to show you what we are eating. You won’t find us posting every last morsel though – but we hope this gives you an idea of how far calories can go!

Read about the UNIQUE METHOD of weight loss and find out how we have lost weight eating the food we love.

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