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Photos - the importance of comparison

 


That's me above. Hello! Nice to meet you.You're looking well. 

That was a photo of me on the 1st of January 2022. Aroundabout mid day, away to take part in the Loony Dook where everyone runs into the sea and has a swim to welcome the new year. I'd been playing a bit of fives before this for a few weeks but my diet was its old self and not quite what it should be, to put it nicely.

I forgot to take a proper, official "before" photo or set of photos for when I started the Man v. Fat football programme and so the above is really the best comparison I have. I'm glad I have it; it shows off me at near enough my heaviest I've been, I was around 20st and 9lb at that point. I don't know precisely as I can only go from when I weighed myself shortly after Christmas so it's a few days out, but never mind.

There are points when you've embarked on your new lifestyle where it seems hopeless. Your clothes are still tight, your cravings are at their absolute meanest and worst and you're sore because you've started working out muscles that haven't been properly worked out for some time. Nobody said it was easy, as Chris Martin said. 

We have the unique disadvantage of seeing ourselves several times in every single day which means that any progress we see doesn't have time to provide a surprise, if you will. We tend to not stretch back to when we started all this to look for a pound lost here or an inch lost there and as a result, if can often feel like we're not seeing much in the way of results.

Taking photos before means that we can have a direct comparison of where we started and where we are now. It's a brilliant ego boost, when we're sore, tired and craving things you can look at a before and after and it does the world of good to know that although we don't feel like a different is being made, it truly is.


Above is me on the 5th of June this year. It's not quite the same pose, but it makes me smile to look at how different everything is. I still want to lose some more and tone up but when things don't feel like it's going as well as I hoped then I can look at that and see what a change has been made. 

Losing weight is a mental battle as much as everything else and having every tool in your arsenal to win that battle can only be a good thing.


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