Motivational Speaker

Throughout most of my childhood and early teens I was fat.

Now I know I could choose another adjective and say that I was thick-set, kinda chubby or big boned, but the truth is I was an obese kid. I also know that it’s not very PC to call anyone fat these days but I figure if I’m talking about me, it’s ok. All through school fat Craig was known as Jumbo (always good for the self esteem) and by the time I reached fourteen I was tipping the scales at a lazy 90 kilograms.

Very lazy.

Now, if I had been seven feet tall, 90 kg’s would have been my perfect weight.

Unfortunately, I was five foot six.

At some stage in my fifteenth year I reached my discomfort and embarrassment threshold. Tired of being picked last for every sporting team, distraught at outweighing my class-mates by 30 kg’s, sick of swimming in T-shirts to hide my fat stomach and depressed by being invisible to girls, I arrived at the point where I was desperate to change my body, my life and my reality.

Having virtually no knowledge about exercise, nutrition or sensible weight-loss practices, I decided my strategy would be to simply eat less and start running. Pretty good plan for a fat kid with limited knowledge and resources. It wasn’t pretty in the beginning with Jumbo plodding around the soccer oval across the road trying to cover one kilometre in instalments of two hundred metres.

Ugly but effective.

To my complete amazement and sheer delight, over six months I dropped 30 kilos, went from fat to fit, made the footy team, began to lose my social invisibility and actually started to gain some confidence. By the time I was fifteen I was five foot nine, weighed about 60 kilos and bore virtually no resemblance to the fat kid of a year before. I went from not being able to run a lap of the oval to running between 10 and 15 kilometres most days. And while there were plenty of external changes taking place, it was the internal stuff; the emotional and the psychological, which was having the most profound effect on my life. Something big was happening; I was starting to see myself differently and the way I thought, processed and rationalised information and situations was changing dramatically. I didn’t really understand it then but I was gaining some much needed self-esteem and confidence. For the first time as a teenager, I wasn’t embarrassed by my body.

When I ran I felt great. I felt in control. I felt good at something. It was like I had stumbled across some little-known secret and had morphed into an athlete. The more I ran, the leaner I got, the fitter I got, the better I ran and the easier it became. I ran faster and further. I represented the school in running. I started to run morning and night. I started winning our compulsory weekly school cross-country runs, which a year earlier had seen me finish last every time.

By the time I turned sixteen I was running every day of the year and although I enjoyed the physical process of running, what I really loved was what the running was doing for my body and my life. People treated me differently, kids actually wanted me on their team, my wardrobe changed and I had a girlfriend (a monumental achievement).

Life was good.

My teenage nirvana came crashing down one Saturday playing footy with my mates when I stuffed my ankle while tackling someone. The doctor used a more medical term than ‘stuffed’ and told me that I had damaged some ligaments and should refrain from running for about four to six weeks.

He may as well have told me not to breathe for two years.

I didn’t want to cry because I was almost a man.

I cried anyway.

The drive home with mum was fun. I was distraught, my life was over and mum clearly didn’t get it. Despite her best intentions, "You’ll be right Darl" was never going to cut it.

The next morning I opened my eyes and hoped that a miracle had taken place over night and that I’d been healed. I swung my legs out of the side of my bed, looked at my swollen and bruised ankle and my heart sank. I tentatively stood and pain shot through my entire body. My life really was over.

Melodramatic I know, but that’s how I felt. That was my reality at that point.

The thing which (I believed) had transformed my life had been taken away from me. Looking back now I realise how stupid this might seem to people unfamiliar with exercise addiction (anorexia athletica as it’s known by the white coats) but to the sixteen year-old ex-fat kid, it was a physiological, sociological and psychological disaster. I was stressed, anxious, grumpy and scared. "What if I get fat again? I’ll lose it all".

For a few days I hobbled around on the stupid crutches and by about day four I decided to lose them and go solo, rationalising that walking on the ankle would strengthen it. Amazing what you can talk yourself into.

After a week of not running, being depressed and generally being a pain in the arse, I decided I was ready to run. Of course I was. Still limping and still the owner of a purple and swollen ankle, I figured that once I ‘warmed up’ I’d be fine. I spooned my fat ankle into my runner and limped out the front door. I walk a hundred metres down the road to avoid parental intervention and off I went.

Jogging. Okay, hobbling.

The pain was intense but I told myself it would decrease as I warmed up. It didn’t; it actually got worse. I ran, walked and limped down the road for about four hundred metres and came to a grinding halt. I did a U turn, moved towards the side of the road and headed dejectedly back home with tears in my eyes. Then something interesting happened. Walking with my injured ankle gutter and my foot on an angle, I suddenly realised that ‘gutter walking’ (supination) significantly decreased the pain factor. I walked with my foot in the gutter for about fifty metres and realised that my limp had all but vanished. Being the mental giant that I was, I figured that if I could walk with less pain then jogging wasn’t out of the question. I hesitantly started a slow jog and to my sheer delight found that I could run with my foot in the gutter with only moderate pain.

Realising I couldn’t run around the neighbourhood with my foot in gutter without being detected (or looking like an idiot) I spent the next three or four weeks ‘gutter running’ at a nearby new housing estate which had plenty of gutters and roads and fortunately for me, no houses or spectators. Perfect. Every day I would hop on my bike, ride three kilometres to the top-secret training facility and satisfy my addiction. Relief.

1. Always working out alone – many addicts prefer solitude so that their behaviour cannot be observed or criticised and so that people cannot keep track of their workout load.
2. People who lie about their exercise habits – once people start to lie about their exercise habits, there’s a problem (also people who avoid answering questions about their training).
3. Change in social behaviour – many exercise addicts change their social behaviour significantly; spending less time with friends, avoiding social settings, skipping classes or work, less tolerant of others.
4. Emotional changes – many people become increasingly frustrated, angry, fearful and anxious. These emotional changes often relate to something or someone interrupting or affecting their ability to exercise. Many addicts are preoccupied with exercise; their life and everyone and everything in it revolves around their workout schedule.
5. Exercising when injured or unwell – as we’ve already learned sickness or injury will not stop an addict from exercising.
6. Increased time spent exercising – addicts gradually increase their exercise commitment to the point where it becomes destructive rather than productive.
7. An obsession with weight loss – it is no surprise to learn that many sufferers of anorexia nervosa are also exercise addicts.

While there is no simple, quick-fix solution, step one is that the person acknowledges that they have a legitimate problem which needs to be addressed. Step two is that they arrive at a point (emotionally and psychologically) where they are genuinely ready to do whatever is necessary to change; this is the toughest part for most people. Step three is often to enlist the help of appropriate health professionals; doctors, psychologists, dieticians and trainers are some of the people who may be of value in the rehabilitation process. The answer is not to stop exercising, the answer is to embrace an exercise philosophy which will create positive physical, emotional and psychological outcomes and is maintainable in the long term.

Cheers,