A peek back at day one…

In this post, I’ll be harking back to my first visit to the Slimming World group, back in January.

As I mentioned before, I had plenty of reservations. Even the word “slimming” is a bit cringe – always makes me think of 1980’s fitness tropes like jogging, legwarmers and running away from Michael Jackson.

It’s still better than “wellness” though. That word can just go and jump in the fucking sea.

I couldn’t make the first session as I was out of town, but Ski went along as a kind of forward scout to check for landmines and pyramid schemes.  I caught up with him a few days later and  immediately noticed a big soppy grin on his already big soppy face. “Mate, it’s amazing. I’m only a couple of days in but I’m already feeling better. It’s like they give you a cheat code for life”.

My first thought was that he’d got Slimming World confused with crack cocaine, or had accidentally joined the Moonies again. It’s easily done.

I remained sceptical, but there was a glint in his eye that spoke to me, and what it said was: “What if Ski’s right, and he ends up all svelte and lovely, while I’m stuck looking like a budget-range half-inflated bouncy castle that’s seen better days and has been dumped behind Debenhams, and is now quite frankly starting to smell more than a bit pissy”.

And so, with those slightly-made-up-just-now-for-the-purpose-of-this-blog words ringing in my ears, I rocked up to my first ever Slimming World session. I’ll keep things brief and bullet-pointy…

• Everyone was lovely.
• The organiser (is that the right term? Facilitator? Franchisee? Broccoli technician?) was a joy, in fact the polar opposite of the snarling dictator I’d imagined as a result of watching too much Marjorie Dawes.
• The word “diet” wasn’t mentioned once. There’s absolutely no calorie counting whatsoever, and no suggestion that you have to be miserable in order to achieve your goals. Instead there’s an emphasis on making sensible decisions and eating plenty of nutritious cooked-from-scratch food instead of the heavily processed sugar-laden versions. But where SW really seems to shine is in the abundance of love, support and accountability between the group. Titting hell, I sound like a hippy.   
• Ski got told off for eating Ryvita. I think I heard someone use the phrase “misery biscuits”.

I bloody love a bullet point.

Afterwards, as everyone filed out, I stepped onto the scales for the first time.

Just over 110kg.

…Except they don’t tend to use kilos at SW, preferring instead stones and pounds¹. So in fact, my actual starting weight was 17 stone 5½ pounds. Now, I’m no mathematician, but I’ve just checked and 17 is a MUCH lower number than 110. Nearly a hundred lower in fact, so it feels as though I’ve already scored a huge win.

I set my target weight at 12 stone 8½ lbs (about 80kg in new money) which was roughly how much I weighed back in my mid-30’s when I was doing actual big boy chin-ups, and running 15+ miles just for funsies, and around the time when this stupid little blog was at its prime. I know perfectly well that it’s important not to be fixated on weight alone as there are countless other factors to take into account, but everyone loves a goal. If I’m speaking my truth, my actual goals were:

1. To have a photo taken in which I don’t look like the result of a torrid love affair between a hippopotamus and a Cornish pasty.
2. To avoid type 2 diabetes².
3. To be able to run again (properly).
4. To fit into more of my clothes.
5. Just to generally say goodbye to that constant, suffocating, slightly ill feeling that comes with carrying this much weight, forever needing afternoon naps, and worrying that every ache, cough or twinge is going to be The Big One.

Speak soon 😊

¹ Which is great news for Ski, as he lives in the next village along from me where they’re very suspicious of the metric system, considering it to be a core element of witchcraft. Rumour has it that, just last summer, they locked someone inside a giant flaming wicker badger because he accidentally counted to ten.

² This is something I’ll talk about more in a future post, but basically a doctor stuck pins in me last year, and the results indicated that I was becoming pre-diabetic. I was offered a place on an NHS diabetes prevention programme where I received valuable insight into how to look after myself. Valuable insight to which I’d, up until now, applied my aforementioned “I’ll-definitely-start-doing-that-tomorrow” strategy.