2025 was a hell of a year and I’m glad to see the back of it. A lot happened, a lot of bad, but also a lot of good. Here’s to hoping the good can carry on to 2026 and the bad can stay in the past with 2025.
As far as my fitness journey goes, a lot has changed since the beginning of 2025. I started 2025 with a 4 at the start of the scales, that’s gone and won’t ever be coming back. At the start of 2025 I struggled taking Darby for a 15 minute walk, now I struggle with a 90 minute walk, and when I say struggle I mean struggle to end it because we could both keep going but sometimes it’s hard to find the time to just keep walking. A the start of 2025 I could only wear clothes from the fat shops, now I am wearing Adidas trousers, I’ve got Primark trousers in my wardrobe, I can wear all my sports shirts, I’ve been shopping for new gym shirts because the ones I have been wearing are so baggy they look ridiculous. At the start of 2025 it sounded like I had maracas in my pockets when I stood up because pretty much every joint from my hips down clicked and cracked when I moved, now I am silent as a ninja, maybe… I used to be in pain every day with my knees, now it’s not as bad, the pain hasn’t completely gone, I’ve had arthritis in them both since I was 16 so I accepted a long time ago that I would always have some pain, but comparing the start of the year to now is night and day. The reality is, as far as I have come this year I am still nowhere near where I want and need to be.
Towards the end of 2025 I wasn’t able to post weigh-ins because my scales died, but it wasn’t as simple as go on Amazon and buy a new set for next day delivery because the ones I had were expensive and weren’t old so I contacted Eufy customer support. Usually I hate contacting customer support, but in this case Eufy were brilliant. Sure, it was more hassle than buying a new device would have been, but after confirming a bunch of details and detailing exactly what was happening they sent out a replacement. Yay. I’ve set them up and checked they’re working, but that’s pretty much it because by the time they arrived I was already in holiday mode from my diet and didn’t need to be weighing myself, if I wanted to eat some Christmas chocolate then damn it I was going to eat Christmas chocolate and no scales were going to make me feel guilty for it. Since the new year, well, I’ll get to that.
Back to 2025… even though I couldn’t share it, my main focus all year was to make sure when I got on the plane to Paris after Christmas I could sit in the seat I paid for (on the emergency row for the extra leg room) and that I didn’t need the belt of shame. Yes, I am still aiming to get a seat in Formula 1, yes I am still aiming for a healthy BMI, but for 2025 all I was focussed on was that belt. 29th December came around quick, and despite the work I had put in all year I was still worried about how far off the wagon I had fallen in the Christmas period. I took my seat in the emergency row, all too aware that the plane was packed so if I couldn’t sit there then it would include the extra embarrassment of it being explained to whoever would swap seats with me. As Vikki handed me the belt my mind raced back to all the extra calories I had eaten and the days that I didn’t exercise. With the buckle in my hand I reached across to plug it in, but I couldn’t, not because I was too fat, just it was a bugger of a belt to plug in but eventually I got it. That’s right, no belt of shame for me! WOOHOO!
In Paris we walked A LOT. Remember, at the start of the year a 15 minute walk with Darby was a struggle, being able to walk a mile comfortably seemed like it was miles away, but I spent the end of the year walking a minimum of 8 miles every day whilst we were in Paris, getting close to 20,000 steps, and burning a total of roughly 6,000 calories every day. We also ate, not loads, but enough. My attitude was we were there and we were going to enjoy it without stressing about weight and diets. Be honest, if you know you’re there for 5 days, would you really want to walk past 100s of bakeries and not pop in to try something? You really want to be grabbing a protein shake for lunch? Nah, neither did I.
Since being home we haven’t got back on the diet immediately because we’ve had biscuits and snacks around from Christmas, so whilst we’ve got back to eating sensible meals, we haven’t been as strict as we usually are, but we’re getting there. Anyway, as far as I am concerned we’ve earned this little break, a chance to relax and not stress about calorie counting, as well as giving our bodies a break from being in a constant deficit. We are back to the diet now, and we are back to the gym, back to long walks with Darby, just generally back on it, feeling refreshed and ready to go for 2026. I have no secret trips planned, nothing I am targeting that I can’t talk about, so now the focus is getting to my target weight and zooming around Silverstone in a GP car, which probably won’t happen this year, but it’s the long term aim.
For now, I’m going to give myself another week before I start tracking my weight again, which I think is only fair given how much time I was off the diet. I don’t want any part of me to be regretting what we did over Christmas and in Paris because we enjoyed ourselves, and what’s the point of all the suffering if we can’t enjoy ourselves. I know not tracking my weight might seem like cheating, but my answer to that is, my blog, my journey, my rules.
As for 2025, it’s time to say goodbye. Goodbye to the roughly 100lbs that I lost. Goodbye to the pain. Goodbye fat shops. And last but certainly not least, goodbye to the belt of shame!