In my 20s, I was very fit and healthy. I had a crappy job in a warehouse lifting 7 to 10 tons a day, and playing drums pretty much every night in different bands. Once I quit that job, I steadily started gaining weight, but was still active and healthy. Then, in my mid-30s, I stopped playing drums and started doing IT, long hours sitting came the real weight gain coupled with no activity and unhealthy eating… which brings me to my late 50s.
There have been periods in my life when I was healthy, active, and my weight was ok, a little heavy but ok… That was a long time ago, and over the years, I’ve successfully failed at dieting and getting fit. I was still active, which negated my need to be ‘thin’.
Working in IT/education for the last 20+ years, as well as raising a family, led to ignoring my physical and mental health. It’s easy to deprioritise your health and life, thinking you are doing the right thing, and it wasn’t until recently that I started to value myself and realised I’m worth it; it took me long enough. Balance is something very difficult to achieve in family life. Everyone wants what they want, saying no is a skill and saying no without an argument is a rarity, or can be.
My State of health, as it was (before COVID)
In my 40s the illnesses and health risks started to mount up, which I ignored;
- Sleep apnea was the first, but I got used to wearing a mask, I’m still wearing a mask to sleep now. The relief I got from sleeping through the night was rewarding so I chose to ignore my weight gain and just sleep through it. I was about 250lbs at the time and steadily gaining weight, eating whatever I liked and working long days. I’ve been wearing the mask for about 20 years now – still wearing it. (Obviously not the same mask, that would be gross.) This did affect my self-esteem and I slept alone after this most of the time.
- Diabetes was next. I’m still diet-controlled, so not on meds, but this did spark a desire to change somewhat, be a bit more active. My weight at this point was approaching 270lbs. I fooled myself, I still have plenty of time to get fit, to get healthy but my job was sedentary and I was never a sports-type so again I did nothing.
- Then came Cholesterol, which I wasn’t too concerned about; they gave me a pill which I’m still taking.
- Not long after that came High blood pressure. To be honest, I ignored this for a while until I had some serious health issues and warnings involving chest pain. I then went on meds, which had to be increased. This did have an effect, and I started putting a real plan together, more on this later.
- It’s not surprising that Exhaustion became a thing; this was powered by inactivity and mental health issues (anxiety, depression, etc), which made it harder to engage in healthy activity.
- ED was the icing on the cake. Due to conditions listed above and mental health, plus a history of self-loathing, I never really liked myself (happy on the outside, not so much on the inside).
Post COVID, mental health and beginning recovery
In my late 40s, I did manage to get my weight down a little, back to around 250 (still about 70lb overweight), but then I moved house and started a run on takeouts, etc. I started putting the weight back on until becoming the heaviest I have ever been during COVID, which was 330lbs+. I say + because when I get this heavy and unfit, I didn’t weigh myself, why would I, I had no plans to try and fix it.
It was in 2021, not long before the death of my father, I started building stuff, including a studio in the garden (I’ll do a post about this), a raised slabbed deck and other projects, none small and all involving a lot of physical effort. After the death of my Father, my mental health plummeted and I went off work sick with depression and anxiety. Building became part of a mental health recovery; I could see what I was achieving and touch it, not like a spreadsheet. It also improved my fitness and weight, I moved about 20 tons of material to and from the garden in a barrow, mixed concrete, laid turf, etc. It was hard work, and it tired me out, but I was motivated and staying off the computer.
Since then, I’ve done a lot of work on myself mentally, alongside introducing some physical activities which I’ve been able to maintain, mostly.
- Walking is a great exercise and available to everyone. I try to walk 40 minutes a day when I can, though the weather isn’t always agreeable. I stopped using the car to go shopping, and instead I’d take a backpack
- Drumming
- Building stuff
- DIY
Eventually, once the drums were set up, I started getting fitter, playing drums and walking every day, eventually getting down to 305 lbs.
I found it’s important to make time for yourself and protect that time, you are not a machine… well, you are, but not that kind of machine… even they need maintenance and repair.
If you are in a bad place mentally, maintaining physical activity is harder, as you need to be kind to yourself, and on the days you don’t do what you planned (life got in the way, you were down), try to accept it and move on, forgiving yourself and acknowledging you are human and not perfect. If you can learn something, then it’s a bonus.
I think the key here is finding some joy in your life, not just keeping things going, going to work to pay bills, etc. For me, that’s music and drumming. Without some internal motivation, you can just go through life reactionary and job-focused. This is probably the most unhealthy way to live, with no work-life balance, and why I haven’t taken care of myself at all, always pointless and directionless, so here I am at 57, defining myself for the first time.
In conclusion, I’m saying without a reason to do so, getting healthy was never important to me, but now I am beginning to find out who I am, what I need, and that is driving this positive behaviour. I want time to enjoy this, and I want to be healthy while I do.
