before

I hit my first weight target on Sunday, so this week I'm posting the modified version of the things I wrote in anticipation of meeting said target before Chrimbo.

For as long as I can remember I have been overweight.

When I was young, this was simply on the scale of being plump, or, if you were less kind, fat. I remember a few trips to the doctor to ask about diets and I even remember the rather odd advice that if I didn't put on weight then, as I grew older and taller, I would kind of 'stretch' into fitting my weight.

I didn't do either of these and instead my girth grew with my height.

When I was a teenager I was starting to get into the territory of being obese, or, if you were one of my bullies, a fat fuck. It was only really at this stage that I actually started to be bothered about being fat. Before I hadn't actually cared, but now being fat affected how people perceived me.

But, and this is crucial, I never really had the desire to do anything about it. I dunno - it's difficult to explain, but even though I knew my weight caused people to make all sorts of snap judgements about me and generally regard me with disgust, I didn't do anything about it.

Why I didn't, I actually have no idea. I could claim that it was some sort of weird rebellion, but that wasn't true. I could say I didn't care what people thought of me, but that would be so far from the truth as to be silly. I could also possibly go for an argument that I was stuck in a cycle of knowing people saw me as disgusting and that made me miserable with the comfort eating that resulted only reinforced this viscous circle.

This would be closer to the truth, but it would also be ignoring a major factor - I'm greedy and I'm lazy.

That may come as something of a shocker - fat people rail against the stereotype, but whether it's generally true or not, it's certainly true for me. I could happily spend the entire rest of my life sitting down, watching telly, stuffing my face with junk food.

When I went to University I had entered, to use a stereotype, American levels of fatness. I had huge man breasts bigger than any girl I knew; I wobbled when I walked and people would stare at me in shocked disgust on the street.

And yet I still did nothing about it. In fact, the opposite happened - I grew fatter and fatter. After leaving university I eventually reached the point where no high street store sold clothes I could possibly fit into (well, I could buy socks, but it gets a little chilly if all you have to wear are socks). I therefore had to seek out specialist big clothing suppliers. I was introduced to the world of extra X's.

Most people are not aware that there is a world of extra X's, because they're looking at clothes that never contain more than the single X of XL or extra large. The world of extra X's goes further than this, starting with XXL and going up as far as 6XL. Yup. that's right - XXXXXXL.

I never quite made it that far, but I can assure you that I'm currently sitting here typing this in a pair of 4XL boxers and wearing a 5XL shirt. Admittedly the 5XL is because I prefer baggy collars, but the 4XLs were rather tight not so long ago.

Anyway, the real point here is that this last summer I finally consciously decided to change.

There's a line of thought with junkies and drug addicts that they won't ever reform until they reach rock bottom. For some, this rock bottom is so low that they unfortunately kill themselves before they get there. For others - those that relapse - they are stuck in some sort of half-way state where they never got that far down but managed to affect some change that keeps them bobbing up and down.

For those that truly rehabilitate, they hit the bottom and realise that they need to change and they make that change.

Now, I'd love to say that there was a conscious moment where I realised I'd hit rock bottom, but if there is I don't recall specifically what it was. What I do remember is that this last summer, not that long after my birthday (perhaps that was the trigger - reaching 33) I remember thinking something along the lines of "Why don't you actually go on a proper diet then, instead of just constantly thinking you should start loosing weight?"

And that's when I finally decided to start loosing weight.