A colleague of mine has just discovered exercise. He comes into work every morning and regales us with his latest achievements………how many minutes of HIIT he has completed without passing out, how far he has run, how much better he feels, what his next challenge is. Turn the clock back twelve months and that was me, telling everybody about how many minutes I had spent on the cross trainer that morning and how much my legs ached. However, I used to be the most inactive person ever. But what happened? After approximately 40 years of inactivity, I had walked into the Sports Centre and said “I want to join the gym”.

When I say I’ve been largely inactive for the last 40 years, this isn’t strictly true. I bought the Jane Fonda video in the early 80’s; I dabbled in a bit of Callanetics; I went to the popmobility classes; I’ve bought and sold no end of bicycles (the selling occurring after I’d been out for no more than a couple of rides, meaning the bikes were in almost the same shiny condition as when they were unpacked from their boxes); I’ve been skiing on a number of pistes in Europe; I’m even a qualified scuba diver but, as that just really means floating and breathing, I don’t think of it as exercise.

Coupled with these half-hearted efforts at being fit and active are my many failed attempts at trying to lose weight. I’ve spent almost half of my life on one diet or another. The result? At my heaviest I weighed almost 3 stone more than when I walked into my first diet club on July 4, way back in 1990. Clearly I am neither an athlete nor a dieter. However, that all changed in March 2014 when I, too, discovered exercise.

Has it been easy? No, it certainly hasn’t. I remember my first session in the gym like it was yesterday. I could barely manage 5 minutes on the bike and the arc trainer was a no-go zone with its weirdly unnatural movement. And what were all those weight machines for? After 30 minutes I almost crawled out of the gym as my legs were shaking so much (I had no idea how I was going to drive home!) but I promised myself that I would go back.

And go back I did.

Twelve months on, I can use all those weight machines and the arc trainer is no longer my nemesis. I have a great PT who puts me though my paces every Friday morning – and who also puts up with my mad days when I come down hard on myself (it’s actually days full of self pity because my food demons are beckoning and I’m still fat and I can’t possibly do another 5 minutes of exercise, etc., etc., etc.). I’m sure he will tell you that I am very hard work sometimes but he has pushed me on and supported me through my good days and forced me through the bad ones.

Has all this made a difference to me? You bet your life it has. I’m still no athlete but I am now the fittest I have ever been in my life.

I climbed Pen-y-Fan (Brecon) in October last year; before I embarked on this journey, I would never have done that and know that I would have refused to walk any further than about a third of the way up. I also experienced the best diving holiday I have ever been on; not only was I able to drop 2kg from my weight belt, I was also able to kit up and then bend down to put my own fins on (a task normally undertaken by my husband whilst I tried not to float away) without wanting to vomit!

Am I still trying to diet my way to thinness? No, I’m not. I still struggle with food but I know that depriving myself only makes me want to eat more. I have made small changes to my diet not only because I know my body functions better when it is being well nourished but also because my sessions in the gym are hard work; that bar of chocolate I want to put in my mouth? Well, that could take me an hour or more of hard graft to get rid of. Whilst in my head I’m still a long way from where I want to be, my body has changed. I’m wearing a dress size smaller and I love trying on clothes only to be astonished that, not only is the number on the label a bit lower than it has been for years, but the clothes actually fit.

So, back to my colleague and his new love of exercise. We went for a walk together the other lunchtime. He walks a lot faster than me but, together, we covered a mile in 16 minutes 4 seconds. We have set ourselves the challenge of beating that time. Not sure how I would manage that but I can give it a go! Or we could set ourselves a different challenge and do the circuit twice.

This is only the beginning of my journey. It has taken a lot of baby steps to get here and it will take a lot more yet. For me it’s not about an all-out effort to get fit and healthy, it is about the small changes that can accumulate and ultimately make a huge difference. It is never too late to start moving more.

Ceri Spain
Statutory Returns Officer
Planning Office