This post is part of a continuing series which charts how I gained weight and then lost it. If you would like to read the story from the beginning, these posts are being indexed on the About Marchie page, as and when they are published.
After finishing university, I moved back in with my parents and I also started working for them.
Although I didn’t eat well at university, I didn’t have a stock of chocolate and fizzy drinks on hand to consume at any given time. When I moved home, this changed, and I indulged!
Another change from university was that Jenny and I were no longer living together. We would see each other on weekends. We were both earning money now and if we were ever sat in each others’ houses for more than a few minutes we were normally asked “so, what are you two doing this evening?” We usually ended up going for a meal and then some drinks.
Consequently, by the time I moved out of my parents’ home in February 2008, I was at my heaviest ever weight. I stepped on some scales at work, which are used for weighing fabric. These scales told me that I weighed 102kg (16st 1lb). These scales, which are calibrated on an annual basis, were telling me that I’d reached a metric century. What was my response? Total denial. The scales were wrong – I was nowhere near that heavy!
Marchie at his heaviest, New Years Eve 2007
I was that heavy.
It was at this point that things started to change for the better. Moving out of my parents’ home and into a city centre flat meant that I wasn’t being given three-course meals each night and I didn’t have a constant supply of sugary drinks and snack foods. Nor were there the temptations of readily available fast food that were abundant during my days as a student; indeed, my working day was sufficiently rigid to ensure that going to bed in the early hours was no longer an option!
I feel that the big change here was that Jen and I were now shopping and cooking for ourselves; there were no sugary drinks and snack foods in the flat because we chose not to buy them. We didn’t eat three-course meals because we did not want to, nor did we have the time or the inclination to make them.
Moving out of home was where my weight-loss journey began!