Step

44

Don’t start moving

The next three steps overlap a bit like in the diagram below. I’m going to tackle them in the opposite way to which they actually happened in my life starting with physical fitness.

Where are you with that right now? Probably reading this book, sitting down. My friend Jim says: “Sitting is the new smoking.” I’d agree. The thing is, you’re probably not moving. Which is perfect if you want to fuck up your body.

“Sitting is the new smoking.”

Here is a brief history of mine and what I’ve put it through: from ages 12 to 16 I was in the Scouts – see step 40. That involved loads of football, games of British Bulldog¹, hiking and headless running about for no reason other than it was fun. I was also a pretty decent rugby union winger at the time too. (Not of course the proper form of rugby which is league as played by my team, the mighty Leeds Rhinos.) Legal. Violent. Fun.

Then I discovered girls and drinking, started a career in advertising and stopped any form of physical exercise. Not quite true. I did go Northern Soul dancing most weekends till my mid-twenties. But the health benefits from that were definitely outweighed by the other forms of recreational activities we indulged in. If you know what I mean.

Anyway, what with kids and work, for the next 35 years or so I did pretty much nothing physically. I wasn’t a couch potato. I did walk a fair bit. And in my second career I was on my feet a lot running Presentation Mastery Workshops and doing that motivational speaking malarkey. But I was also on a plane, train or in a car for hours on end. Or sat at my office desk. I’ve always eaten reasonably healthy foods, apart from a brief period as a kid which consisted mostly of Cadbury’s instant Smash followed by Bird’s instant Angel Delight. However, in my adult years, my liquid diet was way beyond recommended levels. Read the next step in this guide for my more in-depth drinking CV.

It should come as no surprise to you that:

One. I put on weight.

This was such a gradual process that I didn’t even notice. ­Fortunately, neither did my wife. She recently looked at a photo from only a few years ago and said: “I never realised how fat you were. Look at the size of your big melon head.”

Two. My health suffered.

Again gradually. And sometimes invisibly. It was only when I was applying for a mortgage in my mid-forties that an insurance health check showed I had both very high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

How did I deal with this? Well I was a busy father of three, running my own business. I didn’t have time to exercise. I just took the prescribed tablets. And my mostly sedentary lifestyle continued.

Then in my mid-fifties I got a major wake-up call, which didn’t wake me up. I’d started to do a lot more walking. I thought being outside in the country, a few hills and trees, fresh air and a few miles would be good for me. Turns out I was right. Don’t read Shane O’Mara’s remarkable book In Praise of Walking: the new science of how we walk and why it’s good for us because it will blow your mind on why the positive effects of walking go way beyond the fitness benefits you think you already know about.

Then on one walk I got a sudden and quite severe chest pain going up Janet’s Foss – insert your own joke here. It scared me a bit. The consultant thought it might be angina. I ended up having that thing done where they shove a camera up the vein in your arm to have a right good look around inside your heart – while you’re awake! They even asked if I’d like to look on the monitor too. It turned out my heart was all right. It showed a bit of ageing but nothing to worry about. You’d think seeing inside your own heart would encourage you to look after it in the future. Guess what I did? That’s right, bugger all to get much fitter. In fact, I spent less time going for walks.

Until at the age of 60, as you’ll discover in the next step, unless you skip it, – which by the way doesn’t count as a form of exercise – I stopped drinking for good. Forever.

And that freed up a massive amount of extra time, energy, vitality, motivation, meaning and purpose in my life. The question was what should I do with it?

Before we go on, can I say at this point I’ve always been a little bit wary of some motivational speakers. There seem to be bloody loads more than when I first started out over 25 years ago, who bang on about their long list of massive achievements. How they slept in a car before they became a multi-millionaire or climbed Mount Everest just using their little finger. Can I just have some practical stuff please? Just a right good, simple idea I might be able to use today. I wouldn’t, as a rule, usually talk about myself. Big heads don’t go down well where I’m from. What follows is about an ordinary, fat, old, unwell bloke from Yorkshire who got up off his lardy arse one day and changed his life beyond measure. I’m not expecting you to do the same.

To continue . . . I’d discovered that as you age you lose muscle mass and strength. (After age 30, you begin to lose as much as 3–5% per decade. Most men will lose 30% during their lifetimes.) You’ll already know this if you’ve tried lifting a heavy case into an airplane overhead locker. To help with this one task alone I thought I’d call in at my local gym and just see if it’s for me. My son Finlay has been going to the gym since age 16 and is built like a brick house (great bit of funk by The Commodores, that too). The gym is a second home to him. Not me. It felt strange just going into reception. I thought it could be very embarrassing being the only well-out-of-shape, grey-haired, 60-something man surrounded by mostly ‘Love Island’ contestants.

I was about to walk out to go away and think about it when the manager cornered me and sold me a one-year free membership if I signed up and paid for the eight-week Transformation Camp. Knowing all about the power of a commitment and holding yourself to account to others, I signed. Tip: this was in September. If you want to fuck up, join the gym in January. The failure rate is much higher mainly due to half-arsed, half-thought-through New Year Resolutions. The camp proved the perfect way to start for me because most importantly it created a habit. Three years on as I write this, I still go to the gym three to four times a week. That’s if I’m not running.

Ah running.² “How do you know if someone has run a marathon? They can’t wait to tell you.” I didn’t go out and run a marathon straight off. I started doing a bit of running but didn’t take it seriously until I hit 62. First, I ran the Leeds Abbey Dash 10K. Then the Leeds Half Marathon. Then my first Marathon, the brilliant Yorkshire Marathon, when I was almost 63 years of age. Three races in the space of 12 months. I learnt loads every time I ran. And got fitter and fitter. And lighter. Two stones lighter. I could write a whole book just on this one topic but who’d want to read that!

It turns out, maybe because I’d done bugger all for all those years, I was very good at this running thing. Who’d have known? ­Certainly not me. My times on all three were great. Even though the reason why I run isn’t about the time. It’s the feeling of joy it gives me. I’ve found it the best possible way to look after my mental health. The drugs it provides are free and you don’t need a prescription. It gives you a remarkable sense of personal achievement. The comradery of the other runners. And many other things besides. I also took up yoga and pilates because my friend and brilliant coach Leon Taylor³ said they would help a bloke my age. In fact, anyone of any age.

And why am I telling you all this? Because if you attempt to copy me you might well fuck up. Most people give up on exercise because they set impossible goals they can’t fit into their busy lives on a regular basis, instead of doing something simple, something they can do at home for a few minutes every day without even changing into Lycra and which doesn’t need any equipment. Like going for a walk. Instead they try going to the gym every day. Or run a marathon. They fail to do that. Then beat themselves up. Then stop.

¹ British Bulldog is a great tag game long since banned from the school playground due to injuries to players.

² What got me into running in the first place was my wife Candy. She started with the Couch to 5K running app when – she’ll love me telling you this – she was no spring chicken . She’s also run, much to her surprise, a half marathon and next up is her first full marathon .

³ Leon Taylor’s TEDx talk on the joy of movement is a must watch; the magazine Runner’s World is a great read; and the podcast ‘Feel Better, Live More’ is well worth a listen .