Gordon Brown saved my life

Before he became Prime Minister, and long before useless successors as Labour party leader (hello Jeremy Corbyn) and PM (hello Theresa May and Boris Johnson) made his time in number 10 look almost impressive, Gordon Brown was the UK’s finance minister and my unlikely and unwitting saviour.

At some point after my epic mega-weight, when I had managed to become a little lighter and marginally fitter, he launched a scheme to encourage people to ride bikes to work. It basically made buying a pretty nice bike absurdly cheap.

At the time, my fitness was not helped by my commute. Basically I went from bed, via a mobile armchair (my car), straight into the executive car park and into my Aeron chair, where I would stay for about ten hours or so, before reversing the trip and spending a little quality time on my sofa, drinking too much beer, until it was time for bed.

However, I wanted to be more active. I had always had an idea to start cycling. It seemed like the most practical thing to help get fit – I got somewhere at the same time and I didn’t have to suffer the humiliation of an audience in a gym or swimming pool.

My plans never got very far, though. I was so unfit that I could barely go 100m before being out of breath, exhausted and had to stop. I worried I might have a heart attack. The place I lived at the time was on a hill, so coming back was even worse. I usually walked. So the bikes I had bought over the years had averaged about one ride each.

However, this tax free thing was almost like a free bike and I thought a new bike might be just the motivation I needed. I like new toys. So I went and chose the most robust-looking bike I could find and took it home – in my car, of course.

It took me a while to actually ride it, but I thought I should ride it to work at least once. That was the point of the scheme after all.

By then I was living somewhere less hilly, and closer to work but it was a real struggle to make it the 5km or so distance. I wheezed and panted my way, pitifully slowly and embarrassed as everyone else whizzed by, some of them smirking at the fat, sweaty man struggling along.

Don’t ever do that, by the way. Being fat and unfit makes things incredibly hard. The effort required, the pain and exhaustion experienced, is hugely greater than it is for fitter people. The sense of failure, the realisation of what a state you’re in, the suspicion that you are stuck like that forever, the sheer effort required are huge barriers. Fat, unfit people making the effort are doing something which could transform their life. Egg them on, or at the very least don’t belittle them with sneers because they struggle with something you find easy.

Thank god they had showers at work. Coming back was even worse, very slightly uphill. I got home imagining I would never attempt it again.

But I also knew that I had to start doing something to reverse the spiral which sometimes felt like a slow suicide that I had been engineering for decades.

So I did it again, and again. I knew it would mever be harder than the first time. I made it through kneecap problems (caused by my dormant muscles springing back to life and pulling them out of position), and bike problems (I was putting a lot of strain on it) and hating it a little less every day.

I started to get fit. Fit enough to notice the difference if I spent a week or two off my bike for some reason. I got fit enough to prefer cycling, to enjoy it, to look forward to it, to find it quicker and cheaper than driving. I’m still on my bike, cycling many more miles every year than I drive.

I didn’t lose weight – that came later – but I did start fixing my body. I am pretty sure that, had I not cycled, I would have been much more likely to bump into things I have managed to avoid – diabetes and other obesity-related nightmares.

Thanks, Gordon. You saved my life.