Run Fatboy Run

I'm not quite sure at what point it was that I became fat. When I started primary school all those years ago I was pretty skinny. By the time I left that school at the age of 9, I had chunked up considerably, to the point that when getting changed for PE class, some of the other boys encouraged me to move my arms inwards, compressing my chest and making what they thought looked like a pair of breasts. They found it funny and that early age I learned to laugh at myself.

As I grew older, progressing into secondary school I was always the fat kid. The fact that I was usually the tallest in the class probably meant I got away with quite an easy time of it. I was never really bullied, though there were one or two characters who made my life less easy than it needed to be. Towards the end of school, the 6th formers took over for the day as part of a long running tradition. In the performance we put on, a take off of TFI Friday was staged. You won't have to guess too hard which role I had. Yep, I was the Fat Lookalike, a role I embraced standing in front of 900 or so people declaring I was a fat Mr Warren (sports/japanese teacher). It was always easier to make a joke of my size rather than do anything about it.

At university, I became affectionately known as Big G. When I got back into watching Slough Town after I graduated, I adopted the forum name BigFatRebel (Slough are nicknamed The Rebels), which seemed pretty appropriate. It was a persona that has hung around even to this day, with my Twitter account using the name and the blogger account from which these posts are generated from called BFRweightloss. Even thought I've lost the weight, the name has hung around as some sort of security blanket.

And yet despite outwardly being the typical 'jolly' character that is stereotyped about a fat guy, I was never really happy. I hated having to buy new trousers, either because I'd bust a seam or because my mammoth thighs rubbed together creating holes. For years I wouldn't sit on a toilet seat for fear of breaking it. Having to order clothes online because no high street shops stocked my size was pretty horrible. But rather than do something about this, instead I chose to eat and got bigger.

It took someone very special to get me to change my ways. I hate to think of what sort of state I'd be in right now if my gorgeous wife hadn't seen past my size and unlocked my heart. Probably on a Sky Living programme about a big guy who can't leave the house and needs to have MRI's at a vet because I'd be too big for the ones at hospital.

So I lost weight. This year has been a good year for me to date. More than 3 stone lost and heading towards my lightest as an adult. And to provide the exclamation point, in the last few months I've discovered running. Readers of this blog will be sick of me going on about it, but it has become an important part of my success. Today I did something that wouldn't have been possible in the past. I participated in the Moor Park 10k, and while I await the official time, know I crossed the finish line with 56.something minutes on the clock. The cherry on the top comes in the form of my colleagues and I collectively raising more than £900 for charity, which we're hoping will nudge up to four figures.

I've achieved my weightloss goals for this year, and now completed a life goal to run a 10k. Not bad for a fatboy. Time I moved on and got myself a new name.

Runner 1226 - with a medal for finishing the race

Bloke in the middle used to be 24st - well done to my colleagues too!