How I lost 120 lbs in 4 months and got my life back.

Back in 2009 I was about 350 lbs / 156 kg. I was MASSIVE.

I had been this way since I left university in 1999. Yes, I'm 6ft 6in and people said I could 'carry it well' - come on, I didn't. I couldn't. I was ill, my health was in danger. I needed help.

How did I change? It was incredible really. Someone very close to me, one of my closest friends wrote me the most beautiful pair of letters which snapped me out of my trance and allowed me to accept that I had a problem. I did what I should have done 10 years prior to that - I asked for help.

The letters were fictitious diary entries that I would write on my 50th birthday. One was written assuming I continued to live as I was doing, in denial. The other assuming that I had made a change in my life. The note from my friend was entitled, "A sad story and a happy story". I won't share what she wrote for me here, but it opened my eyes immediately and I owe her my life. I will be forever indebted to her. My eyes were streaming with tears. I read the letters on December 30th 2008.

On Feb 2nd 2009 I was at my first session with the Lighter Life UK program, sat in a room with 12 other guys - also hugely overweight.

By the way - should anyone want to read the letters that my friend wrote to me, if you're stuck like I was in a body that felt alien to you, stuck in a situation that keeps you up at night, keeps you away and hiding from your friends and loved ones - please email me or get in touch here and I will be more than happy to send them to you. 

The program consisted of eating 4 x 120 calorie food packs and drinking 4-5 liters of water per day. No cheating, no real food, just meal replacement drinks and chew bars. Every month I would go to the doctor for a check on my blood pressure, heart rate and lung capacity. In 16 weeks I went from what you see above to what you see below... from 350 lbs / 158 kg to 225 / 103 kg.

I kept to myself for the most part during the 16 weeks of being on the programme. I was 'in the zone'. The only person I saw day to day, besides my work colleagues, was the friend who wrote the letters. She got sooooooo sick of me talking about all the different things I was going to do and change about my life (and the first thing I was going to EAT when I was finished)... how she's still able to talk to me I don't know! Haha. Anyway... she stuck with me and I stayed committed to the programme. I did it.

Did I have a 6 pack after I finished? No. Not by a long shot. But I was healthy, I was happy, I was reborn.

How am I doing now? Nearly 2 years on? Well if you read my previous blogpost you will know that I've rather foolishly put back on around 50 lbs / 20 kg of the 120 / 55 kg just recently over the past 4 or 5 months. I'm almost as big as I was in the Week 6 photo above. Bugger.

It's not going to creep back on any further though. I'm back on a healthy routine eating properly, not letting the stress of work and other anxieties get to me... I've got 8 months until my wedding to the lovely Miss Musical and I'm not going to let her down nor myself. I'm going to be the slim, super happy, super confident, full of passion for life Tall Englishman I was when she met me... 

Miss Musical - just you wait for our wedding night! Meow! :)

If you're reading this and you need help, email me. I'd love to talk with you. Anything I can do to help or talk with you about - you've got it. It's important to me to pay it forward, so as my friend helped me, I'd like to help you. If you want to talk, hit me back!

A new world...

So much has happened to me over the past 12 months that sometimes I wonder how my head doesn't spend all of its time spinning on top of my shoulders.

Over the past 12 months I have gone through so many different, earth moving changes, each of them deserves its own blog post put to sum them up quickly...

1. I moved my whole life from one continent to another, leaving England and starting over in NYC.
2. I achieved the greatest success and accomplishment of my career to date in London, with the second largest client in my field, to only then land a job with THE biggest client in my field - in the world - in NYC. A bigger role, a bigger gig, higher stakes, the 'eyes of the world on me' kind of gig.
3. Through diet and exercise I managed to lose 120lbs / 9 stone going from a fat and mushy 350lbs / 27 stone to my now healthy 230lbs / 18 stone weight which I'm managing to maintain.
4. The relationship I was in for around 2-3 years ended at the start of the summer when my then-girlfriend left me. That sounds worse than it is, because it was a relationship that wasn't right for me and wasn't right for her - pretty much right from the beginning. We were together for the wrong reasons, we both needed someone but we weren't the right ones for each other and we had been kidding ourselves for a long old time, certainly I had. It was over about a year before it ended if you know what I mean. She's a star actually, a true star, and we're still really good friends but (and not her fault) it pretty much destroyed all my faith in love, relationships and certainly gave my confidence a swift kick to the dangly region. 
5. I regained that confidence by putting myself out there and worked out that I'm actually not a bad catch and that I shouldn't give up on life and love. And then... the most amazing thing that has have ever happened to me... that has me floating on a cloud every single day...
6. My heart was won by the most wonderful, most beautiful, most amazing girl I have ever met. She's so incredible in every way imaginable. My Miss Musical. From first date to falling in love in less time that it took to introduce myself to her, to getting engaged in 12 weeks!!! This really does deserve it's own post... or ten, or more. (If you're reading, honey - you're the best, you're my world. :)

If you look hard enough, you can see where I live... :)

So anyway, back on to this post... A new world.

The latest adventure of the past 12 months has just started since meeting my super-hot Miss Musical. I have been exposed to something I thought I knew, at least enough to say 'been there, got the t-shirt' and move on without paying it much attention, but how wrong I was...!

What is it? Musical Theatre. Yep, I didn't see it coming! (My wonderful Miss Musical is a stage actress, singer and dancer you see...)

My friends will not believe me, not me, not me and musical theatre. Not in the same sentence. I was (and still am) a kind of 'jock', as you Americanos call them. Working out, not dancing. Playing lots of sport (rugby, football, golf...), not playing characters. Acting the fool, not acting. Watching Hollywood action movies galore, not watching glamourous shows on Broadway. I did do English Literature at A-Level  (High School, junior and senior years), but drama? acting? musicals? ME? Nope! But yes, I'm getting drawn in. In fact, I AM drawn in. My eyes have been opened to an whole new world of working, entertainment, ambition, personalities, celebrity...

Small aside: This is one of the great things about Match.com by the way, meeting people you would never have met otherwise... I went out on dates with a TV producer, an opera singer, an artist/painter, a nurse... And my finally, my love, an actress in the world of Broadway and theatre. (I'm a management consultant by the way, my world is business change and project management. The closest I get to 'the biz' is holding the door open for Jon Stewart at Bubby's in Tribeca or celeb spotting in the Meat Packing district on a Saturday night.)

All of a sudden I'm watching broadway shows and plays on a weekly basis. I'm meeting people in 'the biz' who talk about completely different things, who have completely different work ethics and routines, who are driven by fairly different passions and different goals. My eyes have been opened up. It's hard to process it all! It's amazing, it really is. Everyone LOVES what they do, they love it. They're all so friendly, approachable and fun loving too. Not what I was expecting. I haven't come across any divas yet, or snooty types. They've all been great and very welcoming of me. 

It's quite overwhelming at the same time too though, at least it can be. Not all the time, but just now and then. 

Tonight for example, I picked up Miss Musical from rehearsal and we went to dinner with four of the cast and a few of the band members. I sat there for about half an hour without really having any idea what they were talking about or having anything to contribute! Haha. This is strange for me as people who know me can tell you. I'm not a genius but I'd say that I have above average intelligence and I'm great at meeting people, talking to anyone, making friends - I'm 'safe hands' socially, basically. Put me anywhere with anyone and I'm generally fine, I'll rock the show. Today, however, with a dozen actors and musicians, all talking about musicals and shows that I've never heard of before, naming actors who only real hardcore broadway followers MIGHT have heard of... It was tough to get involved. I was fine, but it's not often that I feel behind the curve. They were all awesome though and made me feel very welcome, plus Miss Musical has such a great way of making me feel completely at ease - wanted, loved, included, without any effort or trying really and without sacrificing her personality or her natural way of interacting with her friends and colleagues. She amazing. AH-MAY-ZZZING (am I making myself clear??). It's been a long time since I've felt out of my depth. I love the challenge of learning about a new corner or culture though. It's interesting and exciting even though it's a little challenging at times. Awesome.

The other side of this little world I knew nothing about though is the lifestyle. I work Mon-Fri, 8am to 6pm mostly. Miss Musical's last show ran for say a month or so in Florida. After a week or two of intense rehearsals, sometimes singing and dancing for 12 hours or MORE straight (?!?!?) they then went into their opening night (which was AWESOME - another blog post to write) after which they could spend all day at the beach or by the pool. They just had to be at the theatre 6 nights a week between 6pm and 10.30pm, 2 shows on a Saturday, but that was it essentially for a whole month! YES PLEASE!!! Where do I sign up for that?!?!? Haha.

Can you imagine?! I run my own company and there is inherant flexibility with that, but still - nothing in comparison to this past show of my love's. Then again, I earn about 5 or 6 times as much as she does. But then again, again, I'm learning that it's not about money though. I love my job, really do, but I work to make money essentially, even though I do believe in what I do. I help save lives, I help police and fire departments save more lives, respond faster. But the money keeps me keen. Miss Musical could make boat loads doing anything else really but she loves loves LOVES what she does. And she's so frickin' good at it!!!! It's incredible to witness and it's actually really inspirational to me. I am inspired. She has found something that gets her out of bed, that's she loves to do and that she's reeeeeally good at! Her reviews for her last show in the press... and I'm paraphrasing here...

Miss Musical "steals the show...", she "has what it takes... sexy, funny, perfect timing... amazing voice...", the "next big thing out of..." where ever.

For me, my clients get sick of me telling them they're doing their jobs wrong or that they could do them better. Often they don't want to hear it. God forbid anyone could point any kind of finger blame in their direction for anything. Many of the people I work with day to day don't care too much about their jobs or what they're doing, there is no pride. They talk shit by the water cooler trying to waste away a few extra minutes of their day so they can go home sooner. I'm in a profession where there aren't many professionals. Even the professionals you do find are often not capable of doing what you need them to. Of the dozens and dozens and dozens of people I have worked with I would only really rate or recommend (or trust!) around 5 or 6. Can you believe that?! That's over 11 years of doing what I do, across 4 continents, dozens of projects, dozens of clients. 10 people I would trust to do a good job, trust with my reputation. No one strives to be the best or do their best. Most of these people anyway.  Everyone here however, from the actors, the musicians, the lighting guys, the producers, the girl who runs backstage - they all love their jobs and try their hardest AND have boat loads of fun doing it! I sometimes wonder if they're all on drugs, drinking the love medicine. Is this a cult?! Haha.

Anyway... tonight.

Here am in Pennsylvania, at a beautiful theatre tucked away in the mountains, in the forrest by the Appalachain trail. Miss Musical's show has come here for 6 weeks and I'm here for her opening weekend. Tonight is 'Gypsy Night' - it's the night before opening night, their last dress rehearsal. I'm sat in a virtually empty theatre hall (sorry 'house') watching the cast go through the show bit by bit. I was expecting a straight forward run through of the show but they're stopping and re-tuning bits of the act, playing with the lighting, working the sound levels, changing the way a few lines here and there are delivered. It's so interesting!!! I had no idea how many different things go into to putting on a show. Of course, I knew it was hard work and they'd be working their asses off but I had no idea how technical it is. The positioning of the lighting, how the mic/sound levels differ along the stage and up/down the stage. Transitioning from one set to the next. Positioning of hands, eyes, fingers!!

It's really exciting watching it all come together. And what's more, Miss Musical is just so nice to me!!! She's the star in this show, working her ass off, doing her job and what she does professionally but she's just going out of her to make me feel included! I'd be happy just to sit and watch and not get in the way but in between takes she blows kisses to me and when they take breaks she comes into the house to sit with me and give me a quick hug and hello. I fall in love with this girl more and more, day after day, more and more and more. I'm speechless!! Literally speechless. She's so good to me. Sometimes I wonder what I've done to deserve such a beautiful gift in my life. I'm grateful every day for her.

So... It's midnight and besides a 90min dinner break, they've been working solid since 12pm.

The director called it a night just now as everyone started to look really knackered!! They made it all the way through act 1 and half way through act 2. Tomorrow afternoon they'll run through act 2 twice then act 1 once before putting on the show with a real live audience!!! 

Miss Musical has done this show a few times in other productions at different theatres so she's all over it. Rock star. Her supporting actors are all new to the show and although they're all doing an amazing job of picking it all up (really impressive job!) they haven't yet settled into their characters fully and their timing is a little off. Also, the band hasn't played together enough yet and it's not tight - at all. They've only had just over 1 week of rehearsals and they're professionals, they'll pull it together in time. Plus, who the hell am I to comment!?! My one attempt at acting was when I played the lead alien at a junior school play when I was 10. I was supposed to die after my 11th line, I think, but I died after my second line and just lay there on the stage. The cast and my head teacher / principle were left stunned not knowing what the hell to do. Haha.

And, scene.