Getting Fat or Geting Fit?

Not for the first time in my life I find myself struggling with my weight and eating habits.  As a youngster I was 'a big lad' with 'a good appetite' - meaning I was fat and ate too much of the wrong sort of food. 


At the age of 12 I got a scholarship to a private school.  Sport was timetabled three afternoons a week and it turned out that I was a decent rugby player and sprinter.  So with lots of school sport, and joining a rugby club, I kept my weight under control through my high school years.  At the age of 18 I was a stocky, but fit and lean, 12 stone.


Then I went to university and gave up sport for student politics.  The weight piled on without me really noticing it until I left university weighing over 16 stone.  Through my twenties and early thirties my weight varied between 16 and 20 stone.  From time to time I would try to eat more healthily, or go to the gym, but it was always a struggle.


A couple of years ago my wife and sister-in-law persuaded me to go to Slimming World and I got my weight down from just over 18 stone to just under 13 stone.  I kept it there for about a year and in that time I took up the challenge of running a marathon, which I did in May this year.


Since then though my weight has shot up again.  While I was training for the marathon I started eating the wrong food again.  I was able to get away with it as I was running over 30 miles a week.  Since May though I have hardly run at all.  To make matters worse I have not been able to find a full time job since my last contract ended in August.  Feeling miserable I have allowed my eating to get even worse.


I have decided to train for and run another marathon next year.  This time I will make sure that I am committed to the next race as well so that I don't stop running after I've done one.  I am still eating badly though.  It doesn't make me feel any happier.  In fact I feel worse after eating badly but I don't think about that when I'm putting the food into my mouth.  I know what I should be doing but at the moment I am finding it easier to make the wrong choices than the right ones.