by Tom Watson
In fact, the whole festival atmosphere was in stark contrast to the previous year’s, which had been somewhat subdued following the referendum result, and which had been marred by torrential rainfall. In 2017, however, Glasto-goers were treated to a glorious, sun-baked weekend, and, while the Labour Party had not gained power, it had been a perception-changing election, leaving the mostly left-leaning crowd in good spirits. Indeed, I’d never seen anything like the reception Jeremy Corbyn received before his speech on the Pyramid Stage that Saturday afternoon. The whole place was rammed, and so lengthy were the queues that I was only able to watch him from afar, at the rear of the field. There, I joined in the mass rendition of ‘Ooooh, Jeremy Corbyn’ that reverberated around Worthy Farm. It would have been rude not to.
Despite my efforts to avoid any controversy that year, I still managed to make the headlines that weekend. I was ‘papped’ as I tramped through a field while sporting a polo shirt and cut-off trousers combo, topped off with a blue canvas ‘newsboy’ cap. It wasn’t my finest look, to be perfectly honest, and the resulting photographs were unflattering to say the least.
‘Deputy Leader Tom Watson is back at Glastonbury and is looking as stylish as ever,’ mocked one article.
‘He wore espadrilles without any socks while mingling with other festival-goers,’ sniped another, as if I’d committed some heinous fashion sin.
David didn’t exactly help matters, either.
‘You look like the Pillsbury Doughboy,’ he chuckled, having spotted the offending photograph in one of the red-tops. I deflected his teasing with a shrug and a grin, as was my wont.
The summer recess couldn’t come soon enough.
CHAPTER THREE
Fit for Purpose
At 5.30 a.m. on Monday 7 August 2017, I was awoken by the shrill bleep-bleep-bleeeeeep of the alarm clock in my London flat. I rolled out of bed, wandered into my bathroom, stepped onto the scales and watched the digital display rapidly ascending to 308lb (140 kilos); exactly 22 stone. I then padded over to the sink, brushed my teeth, splashed my face and stared into the mirror.
Day One, I told my reflection. Bring it on.
After months of thinking, reading and planning, it was finally time to start afresh. It was, at last, time for me to regain control.
Laid out on my bed was a crisp, white Nike training kit, which I’d soon be wearing in readiness for my first session with a personal trainer. I had bought it on the cheap from my local sports outlet; raiding the XXXL bargain bin was one of the few advantages of being obese, and I’d saved myself a fortune. As for my trainers, I dug out a fifteen-year-old pair of barely worn Otomix that had gathered dust at the back of my wardrobe following a short-lived gym membership. As an added incentive, I also borrowed a Fitbit tracker from my mate Steve Torrance (he’d upgraded to a Garmin running watch) in the hope that, over the forthcoming months, it would help me to plot a nice upward trajectory.
All the conventional wisdom said that a successful weight-loss plan involved 80 per cent diet and 20 per cent exercise, so I knew that – whether I liked it or not – any meaningful lifestyle change would need to incorporate a basic fitness programme. Indeed, increased movement and activity was pretty much essential for those hoping to reverse their type 2 diabetes, as it helped to reduce your short-term and long-term glucose levels, and helped you to use insulin more effectively.
‘Insulin resistance, which leads to all sorts of blood sugar problems, often starts with inactivity,’ wrote the estimable Dr Michael Mosley on his thebloodsugardiet.com website. ‘If you don’t use your muscles enough, then over time, fat builds up inside the muscle fibres and insulin resistance develops. The best way to reverse this is to get active.’
For over three decades, my physical shortcomings had thwarted any conventional exercise – even half-mile walks were nigh on impossible – and I’d become part of that wider societal trend that saw people virtually chaining themselves to their desks or sofas, and spending comparatively less time outdoors. I desperately needed to break out of that sedentary existence.
Toward the end of our trip to Glastonbury I’d summoned up the courage to have a heart-to-heart with my mate David about all things exercise-related. He had battled with his own weight issues in the past but having embarked upon a healthy living plan himself, I reckoned he’d be a good sounding board. The ensuing conversation was candid, bordering on brutal, as he reaffirmed what I already knew: if I was aiming for longevity, I’d have to get my act together and transform my whole lifestyle, from diet to exercise. David then made the suggestion that I should kick-start my new fitness regime with his personal trainer, Clayton. An ex-Special Forces soldier from South Africa, this guy had set up a boxing and martial arts gym in Bermondsey and also offered one-to-one private sessions.
‘Clayton’s the man to sort you out,’ my friend had said as we’d sipped cider in the Theatre Bar. ‘He’ll show you what to do, and he’ll keep an eye on you so you don’t keel over.’
‘Well that’s reassuring, David, but point taken,’ I’d replied, feeling both pleased and relieved that I’d plucked up the courage to confide in him. ‘I’ll call him when I get back to London.’
I turned up a few minutes early for my first appointment with Clayton, feeling somewhat anxious and self-conscious. I looked colossal in my new sports gear – even the XXXL kit was a pretty snug fit – and as I walked through the park gate I pulled down the peak of my baseball cap, worried that I might get recognised by a politics-savvy jogger or dog-walker. Clayton had asked me to meet him at 7.30 a.m. in the children’s play area in Kennington Park, a pleasant green space south of the river and not too far from my flat. The specific nature of the venue had intrigued me, but I chose not to question it.
Clayton was already waiting for me as I lumbered over. As wide as he was tall – the proverbial brick outhouse – he shook my hand, dispatched a cursory nod and opened the gate (David had already warned me that Clayton was a man of few words). As I followed him in – it was deserted at that time of day, thank God – I came over all queasy and nervous. This was new territory for me, since I was miles out of my comfort zone, and I was petrified that I was going to a) fail miserably and b) make a total and utter tit of myself.
We kicked off with some very gentle warm-up exercises like side stretches, knee bends and neck rolls, before Clayton explained why he’d chosen the kiddies’ corner as our workout area.
‘We’re going to do some low-impact, basic-level training to improve your stamina,’ he said, ‘and this playground equipment’s perfect for it. Now, let’s see where you’re at…’
First of all, Clayton asked me to do as many press-ups as I could. Just the mere request made my blood run cold. I could barely manage one – the utter shame of it – and collapsed in a pathetic heap on the tarmac.
Great start, I thought, feeling totally crushed.
‘No worries, Tom,’ said Clayton.
He then asked me to do some 45-degree press-ups off a nearby park bench instead and, despite my chest almost caving in, I performed two. Once I’d recovered from this Herculean feat, I was taken to the children’s sandpit, where I was instructed to jump on and off its wooden rim, which must have been all of eight inches high.
‘Let’s have fifteen of those,’ said Clayton.
Halfway through, I felt so weak and light-headed I genuinely thought I was going to faint. For a fleeting moment I considered turning on my heel, absconding from the park, heading to my flat and climbing back into bed.
Things didn’t get any easier. Dripping with sweat, I was ushered to a miniature bridge painted in gaudy colours, and was ordered to run across it, to and fro.
Why’s that fat bloke staggering around a kids’ play area? I imagined puzzled onlookers thinking as they passed me by. That bridge will collapse if he’s not careful…
I was wheezing like a set of old bagpipes after my mini shuttle run, and had to cling on to a climbing frame as I got my breath back.
‘I k
new I was unfit, but I didn’t realise I was this unfit,’ I panted.
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself,’ replied my taskmaster. ‘The fact you’re here in the first place is an achievement. It gets easier.’
I was under no illusions; I’d always known that personal humiliation and pride-swallowing was going to be a necessary part of this process, especially in the early stages. However, never before had I felt as exposed and as vulnerable as I did in that children’s playground. My desire to get healthy superseded any sense of indignity, though, and as I virtually crawled back home to Vauxhall I felt a genuine feeling of elation. Clayton’s session had almost killed me (I hadn’t even been able to say thank you or goodbye, since I could hardly speak) but I felt certain I was going to return for more of the same the following week. The switch had been flicked.
*
As regards diet and nutrition, Day One heralded the start of a new regime of sorts. I didn’t feel quite ready to adhere to a structured plan, or set myself any massive targets, so for the time being I decided to go down a less prescriptive route based on monitoring calorie intake and trying healthier options. Determined to curb my long-term sugar addiction (with my fluctuating glucose levels, this had to be my main priority), I made a concerted effort to omit sugary carbohydrates from my diet (so no cakes, biscuits or chocolates) and I tried my best to limit starchy carbs like bread, rice, pasta and potatoes. I endeavoured to drink more water and eat more vegetables, and try to make more home-cooked meals. By forming habits and implementing rules – the most important being ‘cut out sugar’ – I hoped that I’d encourage certain routines, which would in turn morph into daily rituals.
Yet again, I looked to my old mentor Aristotle for some guidance in this regard, sticking one of his most famous quotations to my fridge door:
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Next to it I pinned a photograph. I had not long returned from a lovely holiday in Majorca with Siobhan and the kids – now and then we still liked to holiday as a family unit – and she’d quite innocently taken a photo of me diving into the swimming pool, with flab flying in all directions. The resulting image was hideous – I looked like a flying whale – and, as I affixed it with Blu-tack, I knew it would act as the perfect deterrent to any late-night fridge raids.
The morning after my inaugural Kennington Park workout, still feeling slightly weak-kneed and wobbly, I tackled a job that had desperately needed doing for months: a wholesale clear-out of my little kitchen. It was high time to consign all foods containing refined sugar to the green recycling bin, so this meant bidding a final farewell to a variety of sweet snacks (goodbye, my beloved KitKats) as well as my favourite breakfast cereals and muesli bars. I didn’t want to do anything in half-measures, so nothing remotely sugary was spared the cull. I almost had to adopt the strict, disciplined approach of a recovering drug user, removing all temptation in order to avoid a perilous relapse.
It seemed to me, having scrutinised their labels, that even many of the supposedly ‘savoury’ convenience foods in my larder and freezer were laden with sugar (61.2g in a supermarket sweet ’n’ sour chicken, no less), so into the bin went a stack of microwaveable meals, shrink-wrapped frozen pizzas, tubs of instant noodles and jars of cooking sauces.
Then it was time to clear the fridge of Guinness and Coca-Cola: the drinks that I’d swigged more than any other in my lifetime, but which had no doubt contributed to my health problems. I piled them up next to the sink, snapped back the ring-pulls and ceremoniously poured the dark brown liquids into the sink, watching them bubble and froth as they disappeared down the plughole. I reckoned I’d miss the stout more than the cola. To me, Guinness was a beautiful drink, was so lovingly made, and was best enjoyed in great company. Now I’d just have to find something else to drink with my pal Paul Latham in the Toucan pub near Soho Square.
As I’d planned to limit my refined carbohydrate – no more tempting, late-night cheese toasties for me – I duly donated the George Foreman Grill to the local charity shop. I had often used it to make two toasted sandwiches in one go, filling them with cheese and ham and gobbling them down in minutes. I chucked away any out-of-date ingredients, too (including a six-year-old bottle of black bean sauce) and donned my yellow Marigolds to scrub all the grease and grime from the fridge, the oven and the cupboards. It was, to all intents and purposes, a cleansing experience; a chance for me to reset the dial and start from zero.
That afternoon, I set aside some time to configure a lifestyle tracker on my phone and computer, which I’d use to measure my food intake and activity levels (I opted for the MyFitnessPal app, which seemed to best suit my needs). It came in really handy as a calorie-counter – I got into a habit of inputting my meals and snacks on a daily basis – and it also enabled me to gauge the ‘macros’ (macronutrients) of everything I ate, which meant breaking down the proportion of fats, carbs and proteins. My first ever food log comprised the following:
BREAKFAST: two large eggs, one avocado, two slices of wholemeal bread
LUNCH (BISTRO): crab salad, spaghetti carbonara and cheese, mixed salad
DINNER: breaded chicken breast and two rollmop herrings
DRINKS (NOT INCLUDING TEA AND WATER): four glasses of rosé and one glass of white wine spritzer
In total, that day’s intake came in at 2,348 calories, 43 per cent fat, 33 per cent carbohydrates and 24 per cent protein, which probably wasn’t ideal for me in terms of carb levels. Just logging this was a significant step, though, because I soon got into the habit of inputting all my food and drink into MyFitnessPal, which in turn gave me greater clarity in relation to calorific values and macronutrient balances. Weaning myself off that carb-heavy spaghetti carbonara and that sugar-laden rosé wine wasn’t going to be easy, but I was determined to give it my best shot.
As the month progressed, my outdoor exercise became more routine and, as my confidence increased, I began to feel less embarrassed in public. I started to go on lots of early-morning walks, too, often at the crack of dawn. I had always been more of a lark than an owl, and two or three times a week I’d awake at 5.15 a.m., throw on my kit, strap on my Fitbit and head over to Kennington for a leisurely stroll, bidding the park-keeper good morning as he unlocked the iron gate.
In the early days of my weight-loss plan, I set myself tiny but achievable goals – ambling from Lambeth Bridge to Waterloo Bridge, for instance, or completing one lap of Dartmouth Park in West Bromwich – but my lack of fitness meant that I rarely went faster than snail’s pace. In the park I’d often find myself being overtaken by a toddler in a toy car, or a pensioner on a walking-frame.
‘C’mon, Tom, keep going,’ I’d say, urging myself on as the sweat poured off me.
Occasionally my pal David would join me on my early-morning promenades in Kennington. Our chats were wide-ranging, encompassing current affairs, science, literature and, more pertinently, our newly found articles on men’s health. We offered each other a lot of support (we were both porky middle-aged men embarking on similar journeys) and we’d often engage in friendly, motivational competition although, at around 16 stone (102 kilos), he was much lighter and sprightlier than me.
‘Let’s walk past five lamp-posts without stopping,’ he’d say, striding ahead as I shuffled behind him, struggling to keep up.
As I gradually acclimatised myself to walking, however, I allowed myself to raise my targets and expectations. After a fortnight I was able to walk past six lamp-posts, then seven, and then eight. Soon, I found myself completing a whole lap of the park, triumphantly overtaking the toy cars and the walking-frames. Come late August, I was achieving 5,000 steps per day (my Fitbit would emit a congratulatory bleep when I passed the threshold) and, a month later, I’d doubled that tally. Setting these objectives and meeting my goals gave me such a fantastic buzz.
I reckoned that this target-based competitiveness probably stemmed from my deep-seated love of video games. This lifelong obsess
ion had started on Christmas Day 1982, when my parents had bought me a Sinclair ZX Spectrum home computer, together with various games cassettes. One of my favourites, Manic Miner, was a particularly exacting challenge that involved achieving one level and then the next, and which punished any mistakes by sending you spiralling down to square one. That was almost how I felt when I exercised; if I didn’t maintain momentum, and didn’t improve incrementally, everything would come crashing down and I’d have to start all over again.
I continued my weekly activity sessions with Clayton, which, as he’d predicted, became far less arduous. The exercises that I’d initially found impossible gradually became tolerable, and then – shock, horror! – they actually became rather enjoyable. It being a very dry and mild autumn, we had plenty of opportunity for outdoor training, and Clayton upped the ante by making me do daily press-ups, standing squats and burpee jumps (I was terrible at the latter, embarrassingly bad, in fact, and grew to loathe the damned things). And while I remained a fat, sweaty bloke, still bursting out of my supersized kit, at least now I was a marginally fitter, fat sweaty bloke.
One morning, during a hydration break, I showed Clayton some phone footage of my kids doing some boxing training. Their mum hailed from a family of keen boxing fans, and Malachy and Saoirse had always shared my in-laws’ passion for the sport. And, as my PT watched the video of my daughter punching seven bells out of some vinyl pads, he made a suggestion.
‘We could do some boxercise ourselves next session, if you want to mix things up a little,’ he said. ‘We could film a bit of it, and you could show off to your daughter.’
