The Fat Bloke Diaries

[sharper_fin]

THE FAT BLOKE DIARIES

Episode One – A Single Step

It was the “oomph” that did it.

That was the moment that I realised that maybe, just maybe I was a little bit overweight. Plump. Big-boned. Chunky, even.

It wasn’t even me that said it. It was my partner. And she said it at bedtime. I’ll spare you the exact details as to at precisely what point in the proceedings she said “oomph”, but suffice to say that her timing was impeccable and devastating.

I’m forty-three, male, and I’ve spent most of my working life behind a desk. In the last ten years I’d say that I’ve done approximately zero exercise; which just about matches the amount that I’d done in the decade before.

It showed. At five feet ten I know that I weigh far too much. Let’s get it out of the way now. I’m just the wrong side of nineteen stones. I get short of breath walking up stairs. Running? Yeah, I’ve seen guys on the TV do that, usually while I’m shouting at them to score with a beer in my hand.

So it’s time to do something about it. I’m under no illusions that I’m suddenly going to evolve into Peter Crouch’s shorter twin, but I could definitely do with losing a stone or five, if only to make those long-haul flights in cattle class a little more comfortable.

I could never go to a gym. I’m shy. No honestly, can you imagine a guy like me, forty inch waist and owner of the biggest ****s in my house, sharing the shower with those bronze Adonis types? Warm up those snapping towels, boys, I’ll bring the face, you kick the sand.

Swimming too would involve waving my bits in public. Why would I possibly want to submit myself to the humiliation of being semi-naked in a pool full of mums and school parties. No thanks. I’m sure that would involve me inadvertently contravening some child protection law. And my dodgy knee really takes any sport involving sprinting out of the equation. Or jogging. Or walking in a brisk fashion.

That only really leaves cycling as my exercising drug of choice, my gateway to an inner me, a thinner me. But churning away miles outside in the cold and wet doesn’t really appeal either. Here in the wild North it’s Autumn for around fifty weeks of the year and if I’m to see this through for more than a couple of weeks then I’ve got to be enjoying it. Hosing a street bike down every night after a few miles doesn’t appeal. Neither does trying to plough through rampaging hordes of feral kids in the backstreets of Barnsley.

A quick trawl through the Argos catalogue solved the problem; a static bike. Naturally it had to be sturdy enough to carry me through my journey to health and fitness, and fortunately I found one. It’s the size of a small family saloon car, and looks like a pile of badly erected scaffolding with pedals, but it’s just the job. A quick arm and leg donation and it arrived a few days later.

Now I’m the first to admit that I’m seriously unfit, but I thought I was a little better than this. On my first day I didn’t even turn the pedals; I was completely exhausted just putting the huge contraption together. But on day two I was ready to give it a go. I clambered aboard, not the easiest accomplishment in its own right, and begin to gently pump my legs. At this point I actually surprised myself. This was easier than I expected it to be. Admittedly, I had it on the lowest possible setting, but the first half kilometre sailed by without too much trouble. The sense of achievement when I passed a whole kilometre was almost palpable. I cheered a little cheer but didn’t break stride. I was sweating a bit by now and my pulse was up way more than it should have been, but this was it, the real thing. I was cruising, I was in the zone… I was exercising!

And then I wasn’t, because the saddle collapsed beneath me.

Apparently there was another nut that I’d omitted to tighten. Somewhere among the instructions that seemed to have been translated from the original Venusian by a one-eyed, drunken Barbary ape, there had been something about a push pin that needed inserting before connecting the saddle assembly to the main frame. It was a painful lesson, one that left me with a badly bruised ego and an even worse bruised coccyx, but these are the trials I’ll have to go through if I’m ever to become a thin bloke.

At the moment I’m just a Fat Bloke, but not for much longer. As of today, I am an exerciser!


© 2008 Shaun Finnie

 

[sharper_fin]

THE FAT BLOKE DIARIES

Episode Two – Heartbeeps

A quick recap. I’m a fat bloke, a heart attack waiting to happen. I eat and drink what I want, and I don’t want salad or anything isotonic. Correction; didn’t want anything isotonic. At the age of 43 I’ve decided that enough is enough and I’m trying to do something about my weight. To make a start, I’ve got myself a static bike.

It’s a big expensive one. I’m working on the theory that as a proper Yorkshireman (complete with proverbial short arms and deep pockets), I’m going to have to make use of it to justify spending such a huge amount.

Much to my surprise, I’ve discovered that I’m actually enjoying this pedalling business. The rhythmic monotony of it is mentally relaxing, while the relentless leg action is physically demanding. Both of these states are new to me, and I’m finding them pleasurable experiences.

The monstrous metal beast sits in my dining room beside that icon of home comfort, the dining table. Its glistening tubular steel frame stands in stark contrast to the rough natural pine that holds such great memories of pizzas past.

I placed it there deliberately. It seemed a great idea at the time, but now it just looks on impassively, saying nothing like a disapproving mother every time I stuff something more substantial than a slice of dehydrated cucumber into my mouth. Which, being a guy that likes his food, is often. But a weird thing’s happened. I’m exercising, and it’s like my body’s burning amounts of energy it’s never needed to before. And that means one thing: If I’m burning more calories, then I can consume more calories, right? Four meals a day and a handful of snacks in between, then leap on the bike and watch the calorie counter tell me how many of those meals and snacks I’m burning right back off again. Which means that I can eat more… it’s a crazy, dangerous cycle (pun intended), and a quandary that I’m going to have to think about.

But I love the bike, and I love its heart rate monitor too. Those little sensors built into the handlebars read my pulse and report the number of beats per minute out on the screen, complete with a little thumping heart icon so that I don’t confuse such a high number with my speed. Which is a good thing. There’s also an alarm that you can set to go off if your heart rate exceeds a preset level. That’s handy; I wouldn’t want my chest to explode just as I broke through the 10km barrier. The only problem is that, with my earphones in and the beats a-pumping, I don’t necessarily hear it go off. Sometimes the only way I know that it’s been beeping is when my partner comes storming in, telling me that I’ve flat-lined once again.

And how am I supposed to know the rate I should be aiming for anyway? I’ve read that I should take 220 minus my age as the starting point, then aim at somewhere around seventy or eighty percent of that as my target heart rate. And then I subtract my dog’s previous owner’s house number. Or something. That last bit must be true because I read it on the Internet. The trouble is that I’m a fat bloke. My heart rate is about seventy percent of ‘what it should be’ the minute I get near the machine. Three revolutions of the pedals and it starts to sound like an episode of Casualty, and not the nice one with the lonely nurse has a drunken snog with the tall, dark, handsome doctor at the Christmas party

I’m pretty sure that I have high cholesterol levels too, even though I keep my cheese at the bottom of the fridge (sorry about that one). So I read up on the subject – thank you, Wikipedia – and found that there’s ‘good’ cholesterol and ‘bad’ cholesterol. Is there no cholesterol that’s simply misunderstood, or has fallen in with a bad crowd? Just wondering. Perhaps the sudden burst of exercise has made me light headed. Maybe I should cut back on it a little?

But I guess any exercise is better than none at all, right? So as long as the pedals are turning I must be doing some good. And I’ll keep telling myself that.


© 2008 Shaun Finnie

 

[legalsea]

I shall follow your future dieting/exercising career with considerable interest!

 

[Karibeth19]

I love it! Can't wait for Episode 3...

 

[Philagoofy]

Good luck & stick to it but don't burn yourself out and give up too quickly.

Very funny. You have a wonderful writing style. I'm looking forward to more episodes of The Fat Bloke Diaries. Eventually you'll have to rename it though.

 

[Dawn68PA]

This is a wonderful read. Truth, inspiration and humor. I look forward to reading more and more.

 

[JimmyPicker]

I'm really enjoying this!

 

[sdarwkcabemanmy]

Me too..this is hilarious.

 

[TwinkieMama]

Very well written. Add me to the list waiting for Episode 3.

 

[Chicago526]

Anyone besides me think the thread title was "Flat Broke" at first? I thought it was a thread about personal finances! I need to pay better attention!

 

[Backstage_Gal]

I'm in for the Ride too!

 

[minniecarousel]

ahhh....you'll be inspiration for the rest of us who are flat broke....I mean fat blokes (since I'm not a bloke, I'll just draw inspiration from your writing - great style, BTW).

 

[sharper_fin]

Thanks for the kind words everyone. The diary is my way of keeping myself motivated while I try to lose some weight. You can see from the picture (Disney Med Cruise, 2007) that I could do with losing a bit. About three stones or more really, but I'll take any loss. Stones? Oh yeah, I'm English. That's 42 pounds to those of you in other parts of the world, or about 19 kilos.

I started writing this diary on another site here in England (still do) and the post here is one episode behind at the moment. So the plan is for this week you get two episode, then one a week after that, OK?

Thanks again for reading - please encourage me - I need to be able to fit in the normal-sized (not fat-bloke-sized) seats on Universal's Hulk ride by the time of our next Florida trip in May!

Shaun

 

[JimmyPicker]

I've subscribed to the thread, sharper fin. I really like your writing style and that slightly sarcastic sense of humor. Can't wait for the next installment!

 

[sharper_fin]

THE FAT BLOKE DIARIES

Episode Three – A Heady Brew

I’ve learned a valuable life lesson since the last Fat Bloke Diary, and it’s this; Never undertake a serious session on your exercise bike after quaffing half a bottle of Shiraz.

Even though it was a particularly nice Chilean, and was very reasonably priced, it almost totally failed to complement the steak & ale pie and chips that it accompanied. But it did bring on the expected mild state of euphoria, and put me in just the right mood for leaping aboard my trusty metal steed and pedalling with great gusto for around five minutes. Which was just about the length of time it took me to realise that something wasn’t right.

I know there will be super-fit types reading this who can see it coming a mile away, but it was a huge surprise to me. Apparently alcohol raises your heart rate. I never expected my pulse to race that high. Heck, I didn’t even know that it could get that high without my chest exploding, and even I know that for a man as big as me it isn’t good.

I slowed down. I breathed deeply. I thought happy thoughts. I thought naughty thoughts, which were nothing to do with the bike; it was just the wine leading me astray. However, nothing brought my pulse rate down sufficiently. I had to quit after just a measly three kilometres of my evening’s ride to nowhere. I felt light-headed and my clothes were drenched with perspiration, something that doesn’t usually happen for at least another couple of kilometres. It was obvious that there would be no more cycling tonight. There was only one thing for it; the rest of the bottle would have to be punished for the evil that it perpetrated against me. And so, to my slight shame, I demolished it all.

Now even someone as ignorant in the ways of well-being as myself knows that alcohol is highly calorific. Not only that but it also has the unwanted side-effect of bringing on the dreaded Late Night Munchies, and it’s a ‘well-known fact’ that all calories consumed after midnight count double, just like away goals. So that drunken cheese on toast binge in the wee small hours will have a bad influence on the waistline. And probably the smoke detector too.

My minor dietary malfunction got me thinking; why do we drink? A night out at the pub is one thing, with its inherent social aspect. For right or wrong it’s almost expected in this country – or in Tallinn if it’s a Stag night. But drinking at home is something completely different, another kettle of cod-psychology completely. It can be symptomatic of much worse, deeply rooted problems. Addiction and depression are words that nobody likes to hear, even less when they’re being said about the listener. So I’d better stop right there, because I’m starting to scare myself. Let’s just say that the drink is getting in the way of the exercise.

The weekend’s booze-count consisted of the aforementioned bottle of wine, a fair few beers and a couple of decent tumblers of an exceedingly palatable single malt. Far too much, by the Government’s – or even any sensible person’s – standards. I don’t think this is the ‘five a day’ that they are suggesting.

Oh dear. Reading that bit back I suddenly feel like Bridget Jones! And that’s not a phrase that I ever thought I’d find myself typing, for so many reasons.

On a happier note, despite this pleasant (at the time) liquid setback I’m surprised to find that I can feel a difference in myself already. Weight-wise there’s not much change yet, but my breathing is deeper and easier, I’m sleeping better, I’m snoring less (so I’m told), and the million day-to-day problems and irritations at work don’t seem to wind me up quite as quickly as before. Except for the guy with a permanent case of the sniffles who sits near me in the office, snuffling and snorting all day. But I suspect that even Mother Teresa would probably be taking an axe to him before the working week was through.

So the generally good start is beginning to pay dividends. I suspect that I’d see even greater improvements if I moderated my liquid and solid intake a little also.

But that, as they say, is another challenge for another day.


© 2008 Shaun Finnie

 

[airhead]

You've inspired me. Its not the reason I started to read your diary,believe me,but that's what happened! I dragged my stationary bike up from the basement into my bedroom. I'm going to get into shape and you're going to help me! So,thanks!!

 

[sharper_fin]

THE FAT BLOKE DIARIES

Episode Four - The Rhythm Method

It’s about time we talked about my exercise routine. That still sounds strange; me, a card-carrying, dyed-in-the-wool fat bloke actually having an exercise routine. But have one I do, and it goes like this.

On two of the five weeknights I get home from the office at around five pm, have an early meal, do some more writing at home and then change into some shorts and a t-shirt that I wouldn’t normally be seen dead in (my favourite shirt of the moment says ‘Legend in the Making’). Then it’s forty minutes or so on the bike before a long relaxing bath. On Saturdays and Sundays I attempt to push myself, seeing just how far I can ride each day. When the spots before my eyes get so bad that I can no longer see, I know it’s time to dismount, if I haven’t fallen off already …quot; something that’s happened more than once.

But I’m not alone on this voyage round my dining room. Accompanying me are the musical heroes of my formative years, the soundtrack of my life travelling in MP3 format. 1,200 songs on shuffle mode. Each cycling session is a random journey into my musical history, like listening to my own personal radio station. If I close my eyes …quot; which I usually do as I can’t see much without my glasses, and I don’t like having to clean the dried rivers of perspiration from them …quot; then I’m sometimes transported back to the seventies and eighties of my youth . As anyone who has made it to middle age will tell you, these were times when the songs were better, the summers longer and I hadn’t a care in the world, except for wondering which actor would become the next Doctor Who.

Back then I certainly wouldn’t have found myself in a darkened dining room with my eyes tight shut trying to reclaim my youth by pedalling the pounds away. I'm aware that it’s only ever going to be a partial success at best, but at least the music is still great.

Much to my surprise I find that my legs take on a life of their own, trying to match the rhythm of the song. As the beats pound so do the pedals, which is great if it’s Slade or Heaven 17 (did I mention that I'm an OLD fat bloke?), but not so good if it's something faster. The other day, for example, a dance beat track by The Prodigy came on, and I nearly killed myself.

Then a song started up by the darling of the depressive, Leonard Cohen, and I nearly killed myself all over again.

Finally, in a superb ironic twist, the batteries died and saved me the trouble.

I’m not a natural born cyclist, I’m a fat bloke. And I’m not a singer either, certainly not forty minutes into a session on the bike, but sometimes even I become a slave to the rhythm. Out it all comes, in a not-very-melodic stream of consciousness. For example, the other day ‘Tainted Love’ appeared on my player's random rotation. Brilliant. But the Soft Cell classic is a pretty fast track, so given the speed I was pedalling and the length of time I’d already been going, there was no way that I was ever going to keep up with Marc Almond’s singing, and of course with my earphones in place my vocals were a lot louder than I intended. So while I’d planned a gentle accompaniment to my furious leg action, what I actually produced was the following;

“Sometimes I feel I’ve got to…” (puff, pant, cough) “…Get away from the pain…” (gasp, heave, wheeze) “…Woah, Tainted Love”

As you can imagine, it wasn’t a Grammy winning performance.

And my partner isn’t particularly enjoying my singing cycler act either. She’s usually in another room with the door between us firmly closed, but her peace and quiet is often shattered by my pained vocalisations. She doesn’t know whether I’m joining in with the song or crying out in agony.

She may be used to the singing by now, but my embarrassment plumbed new depths the other day when she walked in to find me eyes shut, pedalling maniacally and air-drumming for all I was worth.

It’s one more reason why drum solos are just plain wrong.

© 2008 Shaun Finnie

 

[Keli]

Subscribing...Love your blog!

 

[sharper_fin]

THE FAT BLOKE DIARIES

Episode Five – Little Victories

Finally! After weeks of furious pedalling and scoring null points on the weight-loss-o-meter I’m starting to see some results. Small ones, it’s true, but at this point I’ll take any encouragement I can. Friends have been assuring me that, as I have such a lot of weight to lose, it’ll pour off me to begin with. I should be prepared for the slow-down after the inevitable initial dramatic loss, they say. So I’d like to take the opportunity here and now to say to them all…, you’re total liars, each and every one of you. In the first two months I hadn’t lost a single ounce (for you youngsters out there, that’s a prehistoric unit of measurement that was used to weigh very small dinosaurs). I was going through all that pain for no visible gain. And most of I was getting really sick of hearing well-meaning people tell me not to worry because “muscle weighs more that fat”.

Then something miraculous happened; I lost two whole pounds. I have no idea where they went. Perhaps, like my homework all those years ago, the dog ate them. Or maybe I left them on the bus. Maybe they fell down the back of the sofa. Or was it that my scales were faulty? But no; a few days later another two somehow managed to seep through my skin and clothes, hopefully never to be seen again. I appreciate that in real terms this small drop in mass is nothing, about the equivalent cutting my hair when it gets to Brian May fright-wig proportions, but to me it’s a significant turn of events. Not great, but I’ll take it after going nowhere previously.

Well, I say I’ve been going nowhere, and that might be true if we stick strictly to the facts, as my huge static no-wheeler is still sitting hugely and statically in my dining room, but the readout screen says that the kilometres have been flying by. In the two months that it’s been a part of my life, my cycle and I have travelled a virtual 500km from my home in the North of England. That’s as far as Eindhoven, if we were measuring in straight lines, and if we ignored that rather large inconvenient stretch of cold, rough water in the middle. Actually I was pretty convinced that I’d cycled further than that. My legs certainly feel as though I’ve been to Mongolia and back at least. Perhaps my partner’s turning the clock back while I’m asleep as punishment for my singing (see FBD 4 for the whole sordid story).

The bike has ‘downhill’, ‘flat’ and ‘uphill’ modes, and I’ve been slowly edging it up a steeper hypothetical incline. As an experiment I knocked it back down to its flattest level the other day, just to compare how I feel now with how I did when I first began. To my delight, I sailed along at this lower setting with relative ease, so things must be improving. My legs are certainly leaner and more solid. They sometimes – though not very often, I’ll admit - feel as though they can keep going forever. I just wish I could say the same for my breathing though. I’m still getting winded far too easily, wheezing like a set of bagpipes with a slow leak.

But my lung capacity has certainly increased. I can tell that it has because I can now gulp down huge amounts of air when I get to the gasping-but-pushing-myself-anyway section of my training, the point where the trickles of sweat become rivers. I’ll not tell you where they flow to, but let’s just say that it isn’t the Atlantic. However, I still reach that unwanted exhausted stage far too quickly. I suspect it’s due to the huge weight that I’m still carrying around my middle. It’s steadfastly hanging around, like the bad smell in my dining room after a particular long session on the bike.

I’m not too sure if last week’s short break was beneficial or not. We had a long weekend at the eco-warrior’s Butlins, Center Parcs. It was a beautiful location, and my partner and our friends made for excellent company, but being away from the familiar routine of my exercise regimen has been surprisingly difficult. A few gentle walks were all that we managed. Which is why I’m doubly pleased that I lost a few more pounds while I was away. Perhaps it was the running away from the rabid squirrels that were intent on stealing my peanuts that did it?

I ended episode one of the Diaries with the words “As of today, I am an exerciser”. Now I can add to that. I stepped on the scales today and they miraculously said that my weight was down a whole ten pounds from my starting point. I never thought this would happen, but I can proudly claim that, as of today I’m not only an exerciser, I am a loser!


© 2008 Shaun Finnie

 

[DW2DH&DS]

That's Fantastic!!!!
Keep it up!!! Looking forward to meeting the "Thin Bloke"!