So I ran a Marathon, so now what?

If you had been following my previous blog then you would know that I ran this year’s London Marathon. An amazing experience that I will never forget, for a number of reasons, one of which being how hard it was! Now, I know that a marathon is supposed to be hard, and also that it is hard for everyone, but I made it particularly hard for myself as I ran it being 5 stone overweight. Not a very good idea I know, I imagine I have done some lasting damage to my knees and when I think about the pressure I put on my heart and lungs to be honest I'm surprised I'm still here.

I imagine that there will be people reading this that are thinking, well why didn't you just lose the weight? Surely the training would have helped you to lose it? Didn't you think you should lose it when you got your place? And also, how did you get yourself into that state in the first place? If I had all the answers to these questions then believe me I would have done it already!

Usually when people are as overweight as I am, let’s face it, it's because they eat too much and don't exercise. That's just basic common sense right? I'm not going to deny that I eat too much, but I am far from lazy, doing some kind of exercise 5 out of 7 days a week, but this of course won't help me if I continue to eat as much as I do. What's the point in killing myself in the gym or running until I'm close to vomiting if I'm just going to think, "oh I can eat that I've just worked really hard" or "I'll work that off later." How stupid?

Looking back, I don't really know where it all started, it just kind of did. I've never been what you would call thin, as a child and a teenager I was never fat, the weight has kind of crept up on me. I was never really into sports at school, preferring cigarettes and cider, so PE was the only chance I got to do any exercise, if I could be bothered. At home treats were limited to two biscuits a day, no fizzy drinks and we would never be allowed a McDonalds or any kind of junk food. We all stuck to a healthyish diet, everything in moderation.

My lack of exercise continued into my 20's where I had continued with my 20 a day smoking habit and nights out that lasted all weekend (and weekends started on Thursdays back then!) also after over a decade of being a vegetarian, I succumbed to bacon sandwiches to cure a hangover. This soon lead to McDonalds, pizza and any other junk food that would cure a hangover or set me up for a night on the beer. I spent so much time yo-yoing and crash dieting, getting down to a size 12 then piling it all back on, and more until at 28 years old I needed an outfit for a friend’s wedding and had to buy a size 22 pair of trousers. How disgusting?! This is when I gave up smoking, I started exercising, using exercise dvds and a super strict diet then discovering a love for running I got down to a size 14 for my sister’s wedding, and ran a half marathon on the way. Three years later and I am back in a size 18 and dragging myself around wondering why I'm finding things difficult, note to self - it's because you are a big fat batch that's why!!

Since then I have ran numerous half marathons and 10k's, and swapped exercise dvds for hard gym sessions, but I still can't sort out my diet. I know what I need to do, what I need to eat and what foods are good and bad, but getting my head right is proving more difficult. To put it simply, I need to stop stuffing my fat face with crap that is no good for me. I need to stop kidding myself that because my meals are relatively healthy it's ok to eat chocolate and other equally disgusting things in between meals, it's not ok to treat myself on a Friday or ignore any kind of healthy eating when I eat out, which is happening more frequently. I don't know why I seem to think that being this size is either attractive or acceptable? It's neither, and I know that I really need to beat it this time. I think 5 stone is a good target, 70lbs is quite a good round number.

It maybe that I don't need to lose quite that much weight, I plan on doing it the sensible way and using weight training to build muscle which will then help me fight the fat, we all know that muscle weighs more that fat but knowing my starting weight (sorry I'm not sharing!) I think 70lbs is doable. I have a personal trainer who has been great and very patient with me over the last few weeks while I've been trying to get my head around my diet, he is also battering me in the gym, and giving me great work outs to do in between our meetings involving weight training and vile intervals! As for running, I haven't put it on the back burner, but I am now running just once a week, and concentrating on getting faster, so lots of hills, sprints and intervals. My aim is to get a sub 30 5k by the summer, so fingers crossed. I'm also back to a weekly spin class, hooray! (my favourite!)

So, here is a before picture. Don't panic, I haven't taken a photo of myself in my underwear or swimming gear, I wouldn't do that to you its gross. Instead I am wearing clothes, phew, but as you can see I'm pretty massive, so there is a lot of work to do.