This time last year I was spending a lot of time thinking about my own mortality and about how I wanted to change my lifestyle. I needed to do something about my weight and fitness and had done for a long time. I had friends and relatives who had lost weight and started exercising more and I was inspired by them. But actually starting the process was ridiculously difficult.

I eventually did however and you can read about that here but before I started I needed to work through some issues I had. I’ll touch on some and then focus on one in particular.

The Fears

Time

I co-own a business and felt that I had no free time where I could go to the gym or exercise classes. I spent time in the evening and at weekends working and couldn’t possibly imagine how I would fit anything more in.

I started my exercise regime with indoor cycling which I could do at home and I did it during the hour or so when I used to finish work and go and slump on the sofa to unwind. In the spring I started running which was also something home-based and then, during the summer, I started doing CrossFit classes in the evenings which, from leaving home to getting back, took up almost two hours twice a week. But by then I had realised two things.

  • The physical and mental benefits of exercise were an awful lot better at helping me unwind after work than sitting on the sofa watching TV was.

  • I was choosing to spend out-of-hours time working because it helped fill empty time I had available.

It turns out that exercise has been incredible for allowing me to create some separation between work and non-work time (I work from home which doesn’t help) and it has been an excellent way to help me unwind at the end of the day and reflect on things when things are stressful. The mental health benefits have been as important to me as the physical ones which is not something I was expecting.

Loose Skin

If you’ve ever seen videos about very overweight people dieting you’ll know that loose skin can be a side-effect. I was worried that when I lost weight I might have folds of loose skin too.

So far, having lost 20 of the 30 or so kilograms that I need to, this has not been a problem and even if it had been, or becomes one, compression clothing can help, particularly when you are exercising.

And perhaps this should be treated like a badge of honour rather than something to be ashamed of. It is, after all, a reminder of success, not failure.

Fear Of Failure

A couple of time before I have lost weight only to slowly regain it again. Did I want to go through it again? Did I want to start something which might have fizzled out and failed before I even lost a reasonable amount of weight?

Making lifestyle changes is hard and so is sticking with them. It is definitely not guaranteed that long-term the changes can or will be sustained. But, like almost everything in life, nothing is guaranteed and unless you try something you’ll never know if it would have worked or not.

The Cost

Losing weight and changing my lifestyle has not been cheap. I wrote about this previously but you can also add things like needing to buy new clothes, paying for gym memberships, healthy food choices being more expensive than ultra-processed ones, etc.

However the bottom line is that after any initial outlays, subsequent ones are probably spread out and more regular and manageable. My only significant expense which I resent was buying a new suit for a wedding and it already being too big for me. I should have rented one because I so rarely need a suit that it was not a good purchase.

The Long Term Commitment

Changing your lifestyle is a long-term commitment and this is the area I want to expand on because the idea of planning ahead a year or more before I started was probably my biggest mental barrier.

The Long Road Ahead

When I started reading stories about weight loss and people changing their lifestyles it was always from the point of view of them having started their changes a year or more in the past. Being impatient for change, the thought of needing so much time to experience the sort of changes other have gone through feels like an eternity. Rather than being an impetus to start as soon as possible, for me it acted as a deterrent and I felt that it was overwhelming and almost impossible to tackle. “I need to do something urgently but I know it will take a long time so maybe it is too late to start. Maybe the status quo is okay.”

In retrospect it feels and sounds ridiculous but I’ll bet that most people have had chores which need to be done but because they are hard or will take a long time they end up being ignored for as long as possible. But, as with those cases, getting started is the hardest step and then it (usually) ends up being easier than expected.

Fortunately I had moments of clarity and I decided that the status quo really wasn’t okay and even if nothing else happened I could change what I ate fairly easily and see how things went. I was worried, almost scared, of being hungry or missing treats but I decided that I needed to try and so I stopped buying crisps, sweets, unhealthy snacks, ready meals and as many ultra-processed foods as I could and focused on just eating better. I didn’t have a plan and didn’t count calories; I just thought I would see how it all went for a few weeks.

The First Fortnight

I decided to weight myself weekly and I told myself not to panic if I didn’t see immediate results. The trend is the important bit.

I started on 19 January and in the first week I lost 1.5 kg and then I lost another kilogram in the second week. I’d gone from 101.5 kg to 100.1 kg to 99.05 kg. I was below 100 kg. And then silly things started to occur to me… my stepladder has a recommended maximum weight of 100 kg so I was within range (if I ignored clothes and didn’t carry anything on it).

But the main thing was seeing some results and that encouraged me. If I could lose a kilogram each week, at least initially, then I would be at 90 kg around mid-April. Suddenly I had a target weight and a timescale.

I did in fact reach 89.95 kg on 13 April.

Adding Exercise

At the end of January I invested in a Zwift Ride which was a big financial gamble for me. I had no idea if I would enjoy it and stick with it but I rationalised that if HMRC allow a £0.45 mileage rate for business travel then I would “pay off” the Zwift Ride after 2,400 miles or 3,862 km (it cost me £1,080 and ignored the subscription fee, delivery cost, cost of accessories, etc.).

As of today I have ridden 2,057 km so I am over half-way there.

The key thing for me was finding and signing up for a “Back to Fitness” training plan which runs for 12 weeks and involves two training sessions per week. I suddenly had a structured plan to last me through to the end of April. Rather than thinking that I should be fitter in three months, a whole quarter of a year away, I could focus on two activities a week and just work through them until the plan was complete. I wasn’t looking at a distant goal, I had something immediate to do.

And then at the start of April I started the Couch to 5K running plan which was a nine week plan. Again, rather than thinking about June and mid-summer I could focus on three runs each week and let the time take care of itself.

I completed both plans and still enjoy both indoor cycling and running.

Six Months And Beyond

By the time I had finished both the Zwift training plan and the Couch to 5K plan it was June and I was almost six months into my lifestyle changes. I’d started noticing the difference and those first few months had gone very quickly. My weight was down to 85kg and I was feeling fitter in general.

In late June I started doing CrossFit and was settling into a routine of it, running and indoor cycling. The dieting was still going well and although the weight loss was slowing down I knew to just stick with things and see what happened.

I started looking forward to the future rather than worrying about it and how long or difficult it would be to reach future milestones. I was now enjoying the process rather than fearing it and because I had experienced a few months of seeing progress I knew that it was working.

Almost A Year On

And so, almost a year on from when I started, I can look back at the achievements and the milestones and plan, with some degree of confidence, the year ahead and set some goals for it. Rather than feeling that a year is a long time before I see changes I now look on a year as a chunk of time where I can plan what I want to achieve next. Time is now my friend.

You can see the goals I set for 2025 here and the goals I have for 2026 here.