FOOD!!

Firstly please accept my deepest apologies to everybody who’s messaged me and not received a reply yet, sheer laziness and this new beta-blog format has meant things have been slightly slow within the Metro Male camp.

I’ve spoken a little on why I decided to loose weight, what could be said- my catalyst behind the big step. And that’s what I feel is the first thing to loosing weight- that big step. Now the step isn’t something you use to go upstairs, (crap joke) it’s the process you make in your lifestyle to help the long term process of loosing weight.
The first thing and perhaps the most obvious is your diet. At one point I was consuming more than 150 grams of fat per day. The recommended daily allowance for a grown male is 90, bearing in mind I was doing this from around the age of 14 to 19 so it’s any wonder I was overweight. A major problem I had to get tackle was the fact I had a really big appetite. Big breakfasts, morning snacks, lunch, afternoon snacks, evening meal and late night meals, mainly all consisted of high fat, pastry, takeaways and fried goods. Fantastic taste bud teasers and somehow deeply satisfying whilst eating as we all well know but not your best friend if it’s all day everyday. Now the list of meals and snack times I’ve got down on here pretty much hasn’t changed. I still have a large breakfast, smaller if I’m rushing out the door of course! Mid morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, evening meal and even a late night snack if I’m still hungry. There’s absolutely nothing wrong what so ever with planning your day around these meal times. (If anything, it’s what keeps me going!) You just have to take a step back and look at what your eating and make a sound judgement on whether it’s the right thing to do or not.

People have a preconception that eating healthily cost a lot of money, yeah I quite agree certain products aimed towards the healthier option ESPECIALLY ORGANIC, can be slightly more in price than the easy full fat option. What you need to do is think full. What can you buy lots of that you know you won’t mind eating 2- 3 times a week if not more as well be able to create different things with. Ok sometimes your shopping bill is going to be more than the previous weeks especially if your needing to buy things that last a while, olive oil, condiments, pasta, rice, juice etc. But once you’ve got the stock in your set to go. I’m a firm believer of olive oil; almost everyday now I will use it even if it’s to lightly garnish a chicken breast I’m cooking in the oven, I adore the stuff. Everyone knows by now that the Mediterranean has the best health and longest life expectancy. Most experts put this down to their diet of olive oil and not the fact they have nice non depressing weather down there, I’ll leave you to decide!

It takes time finding the foods you feel most comfortable with once you decide to change your diet. Its taken me 3 years of university and cooking for myself for probably eight years now to come to some sort of organised eat and routine, yeah at times I’m bored and I will get a pizza, Chinese and depending on how many pints of desil I’ve drunk a dirty kebab at the end of the night. It’s what you do and eat the other 6 days of the week which matter.
This week I be mostly eating- Actimel, fruit n fibre, wholemeal bread, skimmed milk, fruit, wholemeal pasta, white rice, chicken breast, turkey slices, natural yoghurt, baby sweet corn, baby carrots, fresh green beans, lower in fat cheese, pita breads, tuna fish in brine, low fat mayonnaise and spread, peppers and jars of low in fat sauces.

I’ve got a presentation to prepare for Friday but hopefully I’ll get enough time to do another post before then, I’m going to try and cover what’s good to cook and what condiments and helpful tips can aid you in your weight loss.
Lunch time, finally!

XXL

As mentioned in the introduction I had regularly noticed that with the majority of articles on people loosing weight most of them had experienced a moment or a certain event in their life which helped them to kickstart their weightloss.I had been unhappy with my current appearance but I would definetly say that my momment of realisation was in April 2001.

I was visiting NewYork with my college and was having a fantastic time, the second we arrived you instantly knew you were in NewYork. The buildings, people on the streets, even the smell seemed to match the images I had previously only seen on television or in movies. Baring in mind this was 6 months before the attack on the twin towers, the place was fantastic.

We've all heard of American size portions, their famous for their sizes and how large just about everything is, especially NewYork. I was in fat-lad heaven, Mcdonalds supersize was bigger than ours, pizza slices I thought only excisted in Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles cartoons, a famous cafe, visited by Jamie Oliver just as he was starting out his TV career, called the Carnigi Deli served food by the pound weight, the beef sandwich nearly suffocated me it it was that densley packed!

On a visit to a department store to buy clothes and gifts I was extremely happy, designer clothes in sizes which back home would be impossible to find. Growing up as large as I was meant my only source of clothing had to come from mens shops such as Burtons Menswear. Not because I particularly liked the stuff they sold their but basically because they stocked shirts and trousers above size L and weighst 36".

Browsing through the piles and piles of Raulph Lauren jumpers and Tommy Hilfiger polo shirts I noticed that none of my friends were with me. I looked around but all I could see were several overweight shoppers such as myself all busy looking at the designer clothes in the same way I was, joyful at the sight of XL, XXL and even XXXL. I looked around and also realised I was the only teenager in that particular section. These guys were in their late 20's and 30's and looked unhappy, unhealthy and basically overweight, sweating under the halogen shop lights, glistening with glee at the sight of a pair or trousers that would actually fit and look half decent in.

I was the only teenager in the section and I was hitting XXL for some of the bargains on offer, I never wanted to reach the XXXL mark that I now felt closer too then more than I had ever before. It was at this point I knew that when I got home I needed to stop with the way of life I had grown so used too and begin to make some major changes.

Introduction

Many issues sprung to mind when I decided to create this Blog. Politics, Current Affairs and perhaps even the fact Jennifer Ellison is here in Sunderland and im meeting her on friday, all valid and extremely important subjects but not really what I would deem interesting for myself or anybody wanting to get to grips with what it is Im actually about.

Perhaps the one thing in my life I've managed to stick too and achieve something with for a good 6 years now is being a full fledged gym addict. Superficial and egotistical I hear you think, and to some extent how right you are! The gym and the way of life I have devised that fits the style of training I have developed is something important to me and for anybody wishing to start out at the gym or are looking for new methods and pointers which will aid them in there current love affair with the treadmill please read on.

Up and till the age of almost 20 I was what we could say overweight. On my 19th birthday I weighed 18 stone, possibly more, I have some recollection of my mother tampering with the bathroom scales but this was a subject best not raised in our house for fear of rath of the mother so I could have actually weighed more! My parents, both overweight, had I felt passed their genes down to myself and due to a lazy dont go out attitude I spent many a night, day, infact 24/7 sat in front of the tv or computer doing nothing but watching and eating.

Now to those of you who think well so what big deal, it dosent matter what you look like, I can quite agree but 18 stone at 5ft 10 is not a healthy weight to be. I am not trying to say that everybody in this situation is unhappy and to some extent I was extremely happy. Good family, good friends, decent social life and I had just completed a college course in media studies and was contemplating University, my life was fine and on the outside I was doing great.

Ive read many magazine articles on women and men loosing vast amounts of weight, in some cases stones and stones. What I had noticed was a trend in why they decided to loose weight. Yes the common issues were health, image and a general pressure from society to look thin but what they all had in common was a point in there life when they had had enough of their current appearence and body size.

This blog will be a stage by stage process in how I managed to loose, at one point just over six stone. I'll try to give hints and tips on what I feel are good ways to develop a strong opinion of the gym and what the right foods are to eat and what methods and techniques can be used to maintain a healthy gym lifestyle around what I call a very healthy social lifestyle.
I drink quite often, I eat takeaways, Im not 100% perfect but I can perhaps show you that If you do feel your overweight you can make a difference to yourself and still enjoy the things in life which we are told are bad for us.