Bruce Byron - Fat Bloke Slims: How I Lost Three Stone

MICHAEL JOSEPH
an imprint of

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First published 2009

Copyright Bruce Byron, 2009

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-190860-1

The contents of this book have been carefully researched, but are not intended as a substitute for taking proper medical advice. If you have any acute or chronic disease, or are taking medication, you should always consult a qualified doctor or health practitioner. The author and publisher accept no liability for damage of any nature resulting directly or indirectly from the application or use of information in this book.

This book is dedicated to my beautiful Lily and Jack,
for supporting me the only way children know how
with all their hearts; and to my lovely wife Tanya
without whom none of this would have happened.

I have to be honest. The idea for this book was my wife's. Tanya has been trying, unsuccessfully, for quite some time to bring my attention to my burgeoning weight. Her father died of a massive coronary and she didn't want to lose her husband the same way. That alone sounds like a very good reason to bring it up in conversation, but the subject of my weight has always been a touchy one and she knew that to approach it was tricky I can be very defensive about the whole thing. But she took the bit between her teeth and said that I should try to lose weight and get fit not just for her and the kids, not just for myself, but also for all the other guys in my position. I should do it publicly in a newspaper column and book.

Why that didn't scare me straight back into my Fat Bloke shell, I don't know. Perhaps it was partly because I'm an actor and always seeking approval (being liked in print, yes please). But I think the real reason was that Tanya laid it out in a way that inspired me: it would be creative, it would be enlightening and informative. I could help myself and others at the same time. We had a laugh at the idea of checking out all the fad diets out there, faith healers, alternative weight-loss programmes, hypnosis, colonics and so on.

But there was no guarantee I would succeed. It could also be humiliating what if Fat Bloke Slims became Fat Bloke Just Keeps Getting Fatter? On the other hand, maybe the fear of failing would keep me on the straight and narrow

So, guess what? I took up the challenge. This is the documented journey of a soon-to-be-fifty-year-old, seriously overweight man who works long hours and wants to be around to see his children grow up, a man who wants to be able to play and do exciting strenuous activities with his family, and enjoy getting old with his beautiful wife. Basically, I want to be around long enough to enjoy the rewards of our very hard-earned life.

So where do you come in? Well, I hope that my journey is going to help others see what it takes to change for the better and for good. I'm going to talk about my life from being a fat child to skinny teenager to fat adult so you, and I, can see how learned behaviour is just that learned behaviour that can be unlearned. None of us are big-boned or just built that way: the simple truth is that we eat and drink too much of the wrong things and don't do enough exercise. We don't know when to stop drinking wine or beer or eating everyone's leftover chips and we don't know how to listen to our bodies.

But why should you listen to me? After all, I'm no expert on weight loss or nutrition. I'm just an ordinary bloke who feels he's earned his dinner and a drink at the end of a hard day and who prefers not to go near a set of scales if he can possibly avoid it. But that, I think, is the key. If I can do it, anyone can, and the problems I run into will probably be the ones that you run into.

This isn't about me preaching a holier-than-thou, born-again, look-at-me-aren't-I-brilliant ethos. This is about me realizing that I'm overweight, that I don't want to be that way and deciding to do something about it. I want to be healthy, and I believe there are lots of blokes out there, just like me fat, over forty and unfit who are looking, with very little support from anyone, at trying to change their lifestyle. If that's you, and you can pick up this book and read it and get inspired, that's great. That's what I want.

But a word of warning. If you're going to succeed, you have to be completely focused on what you want to do. You've got to make a decision that your life is going to change for good. Maybe this book will help you do that. But it's no quick-fix, miracle cure that will guarantee you lose weight. The durr factor is high in this I'm not going to tell you anything you probably don't already know. I'm just going to set out clearly and easily why you should take that decision and stick to it. If you're like me, you're old enough to know that there are no magic diets. The secret is changing your attitude. That's not easy. As you get older, your metabolism gets slower and you're quick to gain weight and slow to lose it, so it's easy to become dispirited. But if you're not focused and prepared to stick with it, you'll never do it.

I believe I heard what Tanya was saying because I was ready to hear it, and this mindset will be key to my success. I believe that my father-in-law's death affected me more deeply than I realized and I woke up to just how much my children loved me and how much I wanted to be around to love them back. For the first time in my life I faced my mortality and it didn't just scare me, it motivated me. Without that motivation and a desire for change, I could not succeed, I'm sure of that.

I don't plan on being on a diet for the rest of my life. I don't plan on denying myself the pleasures in life. I plan on, for once, being honest with myself when I look in the mirror, and changing my life for the better, for ever.

Today's the day I stop making excuses.

It is May 2007. I'm standing in front of the mirror, taking a good, hard look at myself. I've done this all my life, from the time I was just a kid. But this time it's different.

You see, I have a weight issue the issue being that I have too much of it. My life has been a rollercoaster journey with my weight. I've been chubby and I've been thin as a pole in my time but, recently, over the past three years actually, there has been a rather obvious trend upwards.