Winning a Losing Battle E-Book

Gary Kirwan

• Herausgeber: The O'Brien Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 468

Beschreibung

'Gary Kirwan is inspirational. He talks the talk and walks the walk. You'll be impressed by Gary's determination, discipline and downright doggedness in his attempt to achieve his weight-loss goal.' Ray D'Arcy In January 2011 Limerick man Gary Kirwan was morbidly obese, so heavy that no domestic scales would take his weight. In desperation, he contacted The Ray D'Arcy Show's 'Fix it Friday' slot looking for a scales that could measure his exact weight and was weighed live on air; the verdict was worse than he ever imagined - 41 stone 3 pounds. He was devastated, but decided that this was the first day of the rest of his life … This is the story of Gary's dramatic journey from the beginnings of his obesity problem in childhood and the isolation and depression when he was at his heaviest, to taking control and becoming a new person. Today, he's outgoing, happy and loves life; he has even completed marathons and triathlons. Gary's transformation has gripped the nation, and he's determined to help other overweight people take control and find a whole new happy healthy life. Read Gary's weight-loss diary: his ups and downs, the determination to succeed, and the family and friends who, once he decided to make a change, supported him all the way. Get tips and expert advice from Gary's trainer and nutritionist to and learn how to lose weight and feel great …

Leseprobe

DEDICATION

When I first started writing the diary that eventually became this book, I never knew where it would lead, but I always held the dream of where it might someday end up close to my heart. On my toughest, darkest, hardest days where the diet became extremely hard I could always dream of the one thing I thought I could never have. That dream would always give me a sense of perspective and the determination that the rewards would far outweigh any hardships.

When I started this journey I believed I would never directly father a child, but I hoped that by losing weight it might open other doorways for Shelly and me to have a baby and so I held in my heart the belief that this would one day lead to us seeing this dream becoming a reality.

To our great joy we found out in July that we are pregnant and so the one thing that kept me going when times got tough – our dream – is now reality.

So this book is dedicated to my dream, our unborn child, this has all been for you in the hope that someday I would get to hold you in my arms and love you, to run around with you and to be somebody you can be proud of. I don’t think I ever saw it as more than just a dream, but knowing that shortly I will be able to do all of the above makes everything I have done so worthwhile.

So to you I say ‘thank you’, I already love you so much and you have already done more for me than you will ever realise, you gave me the strength to keep going and you are the greatest reward I could ever receive for my hard work.

Thank you, I can’t wait to hold you in my arms.

Love, your dad.

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

FOREWORD BY RAY D’ARCY

PROLOGUE

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE: EARLY YEARS

CHAPTER TWO: SCHOOL DAYS

CHAPTER THREE: MY WEIGHT BECOMES A PROBLEM

CHAPTER FOUR: A DARK TIME

PART TWO

CHAPTER FIVE: ‘THE FIRST YEAR OF THE REST OF MY LIFE’

CHAPTER SIX: MY FIRST MARATHON – DUBLIN 2011

PART THREE

CHAPTER SEVEN: 2012 – YEAR TWO

CHAPTER EIGHT: DUBLIN CITY MARATHON 2012

CHAPTER NINE: SHELLY’S STORY

CHAPTER TEN: ‘PURE JOY’

EPILOGUE

APPENDICES:GARY’S DIET TIPS

: NUTRITIONIST NICHOLA FORREST’S TIPS

About the Author

Copyright

Plates

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For over two years I was so lucky to have so much help; I can never thank all those who have helped me enough; your love, support, friendship, encouragement and kindness made this all possible.

Absolutely none of this would ever have taken place if it was not for my beautiful wife and best friend; Shelly, you have been with me every step of the way and have been there for me in good times and bad. You have done so much for me in this. Without you it simply wouldn’t have been possible; you are my rock and very soon we will have the rewards for our efforts.

You have always been there in the background doing all the small things that at times go unnoticed and un-thanked, but without which I could not have done so much. You do so much, from boring things like food preparation and getting my training-gear ready, to dealing with the ups and downs of the whole experience. Like a true friend you know when to listen and offer support and you know when to tell me to suck it up, cop on and keep going.

I don’t think we ever expected it to be such a big journey and we have had loads of ups and downs, but you kept me going on the tough days and luckily there were more good days than bad. You are always behind me and you have given me so much encouragement. I could not have done this without you. As one journey ends another will soon begin for us and I could not wish for a better friend and wife to share it with.

To my Mam and Dad, Lucia and Peter, who I am lucky to call my friends. Your support has been massively important to me, to see your faces in Dublin was bittersweet as I didn’t want you to see me in so much pain, but it kept me going and made me remember how much support and love I have. I know you spent the last few years worrying about me and my health and I am just so happy you will get to see your grandchild grow up and to see Shelly and I as parents. I have learnt from the best and he or she will have such fantastic grandparents. I am both lucky and proud to call you my parents and friends.

If it wasn’t for my beautiful niece, Nicole, I don’t think I would have had the drive and determination to want a family so much. I don’t think this would ever have happened if it were not for you, Nicole. I have enjoyed your company so much over the past few years and on my worst days you were the only thing that made me happy; you’re such an amazing little girl. You have brightened up my life so much with your love, kindness, wit and beautiful personality.

To my brothers, sister and their partners, Orla and James, Darren and Ead, Rob and Becky thank you all so much for your love and support over the past two years, it has been greatly appreciated and will never be forgotten. You all got to share in the journey and contributed to it in so many ways and you are all booked in advance for baby-sitting.

To the Carrolls of Loughmore and London, thank you for your support and well wishes over the past few years and thanks for just being there for Shelly and me. To know Shelly has a warm family she can turn to is very comforting; like everybody else you will get to enjoy the next chapter of this story in the years to come.

I would like to thank my aunts, uncles and cousins for all their support over the past two years. I am lucky to have such a great extended family.

To Chris and Carly Delooze: Chris, words can never define how much I appreciate your hard work, friendship and encouragement. You are unlike any other trainer/sportsman/athlete/friend I have ever met and I hope that others are as lucky as I have been to work with you in the future. I really could not have done this without you; when I met you my life took an amazing twist for the better. Thanks also to Carly, Jamie and Corin for allowing Chris to spend so much time helping me, it cannot have been easy at times for you, Carly, but I am glad to say you also shared in some of the high points such as DCM and I thank you so much for allowing Chris time away from his wonderful family to help me. Thanks for everything you have done for me, Chris and Carly.

Tony Browne, you listened to my ups and downs, we had plenty of little chats and it was always great to have your input as you know more than anybody else the demands of such a diet; to have your input was always reassuring, thanks – now get back to work!

To the members of TriFit: thank you all so much. I have always felt part of the gym and considering the high calibre of people/athletes there that is such a great feeling. It has been and always will be a pleasure to be in your company.

I would like to thank the staff of Limerick Charity Boxing, Join Ray for 5k, i3 Swim, Dublin City Marathon, Great Limerick Run, Tri Athy, Fighting Cancer Triathlon, Gaelforce and the Dingle Marathon for your very kind invitations. Knowing I am welcome at an event makes turning up so much easier and through these events I have had some of my best days and experienced a new life. These experiences have given me tremendous strength and your kindness was the first, and probably most important, step in doing these events.

Deccy and Jeff Fitzgerald and family, thank you for your friendship, support and for allowing me to be a part of Limerick Charity Boxing, which has been a very pleasant distraction and gave me my first major goal. It was my first sporting endeavour and it was so enjoyable that it led far beyond a charity boxing event. Thank you also to all the members of Corpus Christi Boxing Club and all those whom I have met through LCB; it has been an absolute pleasure.

Emlyn Maher (physio and friend), I really can’t thank you enough for the chats. I am not so sure I can thank you for the pain you inflicted on me, but it kept me going! You have been a massive silent part of this with very little recognition, but it’s not really surprising as you are the quiet guy in the background helping everybody else. Thank you so much for all the pain.

Angela Lang, I speak of ‘that look’ throughout the book, but the look that you gave me was a very different look when we met in Dublin and I am glad to say you have become a friend since DCM and your friendship is very much appreciated.

I would like to thank my classmates and lecturers at Limerick Institute of Technology, I may not be the most sociable person and due to my hectic schedule am always coming and going, but being back in college has been such a pleasant addition to my life.

Thanks to Nichola Forrest (nutritionist) for all your help; you have been the final piece of the puzzle and have helped the whole thing come together. Through your knowledge I am confident that this is now my lifestyle and not just a diet, thank you for all your help and encouragement.

I have had the pleasure of meeting so many others who have helped me throughout the past two years. I really must thank: Denyse O’Brien, Eric Russell, Anna Murphy, Hilary Cleary, Wayne Raphael Reid, Gerry Duffy, Liam & Sophie Mulcahy, Helen and Chris Monoghan, Kay and Frankie Scanlon, Pa Tierney, Thecla Hartmann-Roche, Sharon, Paul, Ger, Miriam, Sinead, Seamus, Rebecca, Margaret, Gary Wilmott and, last but not least, Alicia Ashmore. Thank you all for your support and friendship.

I really could not have done this if it were not for the support I got, so whether it was a kind word at an event or while I was out training, an email, a Facebook message or just a text to Today FM you will probably never realise how that made me feel. Such experiences gave me a whole new outlook on life, which drove me harder to succeed and gave me the encouragement I needed to try new things.

I get a lot of emails from people whose stories are very similar to my own. I always love being able to offer some encouragement through my actions, so much so that nearly all the events I do I do to prove to others that it can be done. I hope by doing some of this it will change people’s perception and encourage people just like me to go for it. I just wish I could do more for those who have emailed me. I am always humbled by your stories and kind words.

To Michael O’Brien and his team at The O’Brien Press, thank you for giving me this opportunity to tell my story in detail; while it is still very surreal it has been a very pleasant and therapeutic experience for me.

The Motivation Weight Management Clinic who for the first twelve months helped me with my diet.

Thanks Nicola Pierce (co-writer) for helping me with this, it has been a pleasure to work with you – I hope it hasn’t been too stressful!

Last, but by no means least, thanks to the people who made it all happen (I know Ray will say, ‘But sure we didn’t do anything!’), but that is simply not true. For many years I have listened to the Ray D’Arcy Show and, like a lot of people, Ray and his team became a part of my life – so much so that I turned to you for help. Walking into studio on 17 January was terrifying, but at least I felt I had met you before so I felt a little bit comfortable. From day one Ray and his team showed me compassion, support and an overwhelming amount of kindness. So much so that I felt comfortable talking about what lay in the darkest parts of my heart. Through your interviews I have grown and shrunk in so many ways. I can never thank Ray, Jenny, Mairead, Will, Pam, Roisín and Siobhan, who have all been part of this for over two years, enough. I know you will all say you did nothing, but you gave me kindness and the opportunity to talk openly, which has, in many ways, become my therapy. I truly believe I could not have done this without you and from the bottom of my heart I thank you all for everything. I had a lot of contact with Jenny and Siobhan in particular and I would like to say ‘thank you so much’ to you both, you really went above and beyond and have always been there for me, which was such a massive safety net as I always had your support. Thank you both so much. A special thanks to the warmth I have been shown by the staff of Today FM: the smiles, kind words and even the odd round of applause was always so much appreciated when I was leaving studio. Thank you for adding to the experience with your kindness.

As you can see, I should really be writing a book about all the great people I have had the pleasure of meeting (maybe it could be the sequel!) and who have helped me over the past two years. I have been so lucky to have had so much support. It has been incredible to go from where I was in life to having so many people rooting for me.

To all of you who have shared this journey with me, thank you all so much, no matter how small a part you played it was always very much appreciated and I hope to able to repay your kindness in the years to come.

FOREWORD BY RAY D’ARCY

Back in January 2011 we got a run of the mill email into ‘Fix it Friday’ asking could we locate a weighing scales for a listener’s husband. He was too heavy to use a domestic scales and desperately wanted to know his weight. All he knew was that he was over 30 stone. That woman was Shelly and the man was Gary Kirwan. Gary came in to us and asked to do a live weigh-in on the industrial scales we had located from a company in Naas. Gary was a big man. He was out of breath when he arrived to studio after little or no exertion and throughout our initial chat his breathing was laboured. From the off two things were obvious to me: he was determined and he was eloquent.

Gary immediately struck a chord with our listeners. His story of being grossly overweight and everything that goes with it was a sad story. He wasn’t well physically or mentally either. The latter was on the up. When the moment came for Gary to step up on the scales, neither of us knew that this was to become a regular feature of the radio show for the next eighteen months and more. Around 35 stone was Gary’s guesstimate of his weight. He was wrong. Six stone wrong. Gary weighed in at 41 stone.

After the collective shock abated we heard how Gary aimed to reduce that to around 16 stone – that’s a weight loss of 25 stone. That’s more than two of me. Gary hasn’t achieved his goal yet, but he has achieved, I believe, much more. ‘Inspirational’ is an overused word in a world where we have to remind ourselves of the word’s true meaning. Gary Kirwan is inspirational. Gary finishing the Dublin Marathon in darkness, after walking for 10 hours and 46 minutes, was a truly Herculean achievement. Gary Kirwan is impressive. He talks the talk and walks the walk. He was always very honest and frank about the ups and downs of his weight loss.

Since day one, Gary has kept a ‘warts and all’ diary of his life, which now provides the basis of this book. I know you will be impressed by Gary’s determination, discipline and downright doggedness in his attempt to achieve his weight-loss goal.

RAY D’ARCY

PROLOGUE

‘IF I DO NOT GIVE UP I CANNOT FAIL’

This quote means an awful lot to me. I found it in relation to a piece I’ve watched on YouTube – many, many times. In fact, I would well believe that I am responsible for at least a thousand viewings of the clip. It’s from the 1992 Olympics, which were held in Barcelona, and features the British runner Derek Redmond. He held the British record for the 400 metre sprint and won gold medals at the World Championships, European Championships as well as the Commonwealth games. So, you can imagine that he was a popular favourite for a medal at the 1992 games.

I can only guess the hours, days, weeks and months of training that went into preparing him for standing at that start line in Barcelona. The crowd was huge, about 65,000 watching the runners stretch their legs and then line up, their faces a study in tense concentration. It is all about winning, or, at the very least, doing the very best you can do, no matter what.

At last, the gun is fired and the runners take off, chasing themselves and their dream of an Olympic medal. Redmond is looking strong and powerful, until, that is, about 150 metres into the race when something goes wrong. Suddenly he is clutching his leg in agony and coming to a shocking standstill as his competitors overtake and leave him behind forevermore, as far as that race is concerned. He falls to the ground, his body utterly gripped by the pain caused by a torn hamstring. And you might think, well, that’s it then. God love him!

But you would be wrong.

Somehow, he finds the brutal strength to stand up … and then, unbelievably, he starts limping forward, his injury forcing him to sort of hop along a track he’d only experienced as a champion sprinter. His face expresses more than a thousand words could – sheer pain, sadness and raw emotion. You can sense the bewilderment of the crowd and the race officials. One guy approaches him, no doubt to help the stricken runner off to the side, but Redmond keeps going. I am sure that everyone is wondering what the hell is going on.

And Redmond just keeps going.

For a couple of breathtaking minutes he is alone in the world, with his pain and his incessant need to keep moving forward. However, this ‘aloneness’ is just temporary. A grey-haired man, in a white tee-shirt, his face full of concern, rushes out to his side. It’s Redmond’s father, who was seated in the crowd and has had to break through tight security in order to get to his son.

His father says what everyone else is probably thinking, ‘You don’t have to do this!’ Redmond’s answer is immediate and solid, ‘Yes … I do.’ Without wasting another second in debating this, his father takes him by the arm and tells him, ‘Well, then we will finish it together’. The two men keep going, at a snail’s pace and, by this stage, the crowd realise what they are looking at … courage and spirit, an Olympic spirit that has nothing to do with winning.

Just before the finish line, Mr Redmond does the right and honourable thing; he releases his son so that he can cross over the line, alone once more. Those sixty-five thousand are now on their feet, roaring their support and admiration. Derek Redmond may not have won a medal that year, but I think you’ll agree that medals, in this case, are hardly the point.

So, that is what I watched, night after night, when things got really tough. I suppose not many people have stood on a weighing scale and had to read that they were 41 stone. At the beginning of my journey, my own personal race, I had an awful lot to do, in terms of losing stones of weight and the psychological weight that my massiveness involved. There was a time when I wouldn’t leave the house, for fear of people staring at me, pointing at me, calling me names. Things, I’m glad to say, are a lot different now. But it has not been easy.

At the end of this video is the epic tagline that has become my mantra: ‘If I do not give up I cannot fail’. I quite simply decided if I don’t give up I won’t fail. What I most admired about Derek Redmond is not the medals he won, but that he had the heart of a lion.

I’m not an Olympic athlete. When I turn up to take part in sporting events I have a fair idea that I may end up coming in last, or in the bottom few, but it doesn’t bother me. And while I may not win, nobody, including myself, can doubt my trying. As far as I see it, I’m already beating the thousands of others who won’t even take their place at the start line.

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

EARLY YEARS

There isn’t a time that I can remember not being big. They say that everything begins at home, so let’s start there. I am the second oldest in a family of four, with one older sister, Orla, and two younger brothers, Darren and Rob, who were all slim to skinny. The youngest did go through a patch of puppy fat, which he rapidly lost on discovering the opposite sex. My dad, a mechanic, and a dead ringer for Emmerdale’s Eric Pollard, is small and of normal build, while my mother, a born teacher and organiser, was always skinny.

For the first fourteen years of my life we lived in a small cul-de-sac, in Richmond Park, Corbally. At that time we were surrounded by green fields and it was a great place to be. There were loads of kids, aged six to sixteen, so there was always something going on, with loads to do. Plenty of football matches were played on our street or else we were up to mischief in the fields. When the building started, with new houses and estates going up, around us, these building sites became a haven for games of hide and seek.

My earliest memory is of the classroom that Mam set up in our house, in Limerick. There she minded us and other kids from the area. That classroom had everything you would expect to see. I loved anything to do with arts and crafts and created wonderful pieces of sculpture from the plasticine, or ‘mála’, that my mother made especially for us.

Later on she set up a ‘Play Scheme’, with her friend, Vera, in St Mary’s girls’ school. It was a summer camp before there were summer camps, run by local parents for the local kids. I don’t remember much about it, other than I loved it. Though I do remember taking part in a fancy dress competition, in 1985, the year that Barry McGuigan won the world title. I went as the Clones Cyclone, even going as far as blacking up my eye with soot from the chimney. My interest in boxing must have begun back then.

Money was always tight although we never wanted for anything. Therefore, a visit to Burgerland, Limerick’s version of McDonalds, was a rarity saved up for birthdays or equally special occasions. We didn’t get takeaways and our only real treat was the glass of fizzy drink and chocolate bar that we had on Saturday nights, in front of the television. I pretty much ate the same as my sister and brothers, our school lunches consisted of a sandwich, Penguin bar and a packet of crisps. However, I will say this; I ate faster than anyone else in the house. My poor mother was always on at me to slow down at meal times, but I never did.

It annoys me when people talk about families that enable children to become obese. My mother did not over-feed me and, yet, it turned out that I got fat while the brother next to me was always as skinny as a rake.

There was an incident that, thankfully, I have no memory of, as I was only five years old. Vera, my mother’s friend, had a teenaged daughter called Niamh who, from time to time, would take us kids swimming. The story goes that one day, on our return, she was very upset and had to be cajoled into explaining that some other children in the pool had been laughing and making crude jokes about me. As I say, I was just a five-year-old having fun and, therefore, was completely oblivious to their sneering.

I suppose my earliest memory about realising that my weight was an issue came two years later. It was 1987 and I was making my First Holy Communion. Mam took me out to buy my suit, bringing me to Noel’s Menswear, in town, where just about everyone I knew went to buy their communion outfits. Unfortunately they didn’t have a suit in my size so we were forced to traipse around a few other shops that catered for communion, confirmations and even men’s shops, before my mother gave up. Naturally I had little or no interest in wearing a suit; my favourite outfit, at that time, was my trusty tracksuit. In the end Mam had to go to a tailor and have a suit specially made for me, in green khaki. I’m only appreciating now, as I write this, that it must have cost a fortune. However, none of this unexpected fuss prevented me from enjoying my special day. There was a tradition in our family that when any of us made our communion or confirmation we went to our neighbours, the Scanlon’s, for lunch. Then, when the Scanlon kids had their day, they came to our house for lunch. We all got on well together, kids and adults, and it was always great fun. A grand total of fourteen of these lunches took place, over the years, between their family and ours, all of which were amazing days out with some great memories.

But, of course, more importantly I also made a small fortune, touring the relatives, in my green custom-made suit, enough to be allowed, at any rate, to blow some of it at my favourite toy shop.

Do kids still go mad about tennis the way we did back then? Once we had our fill of Wimbledon, watching the likes of John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova, all the local kids would fling themselves into the Kit Kat tennis summer camp. Like tennis, the camp would only last two weeks. I was never very good at the game but I still enjoyed myself as much as anyone else.

My primary school was Scoil Íde, and the years I spent there were pleasant enough. I liked my teachers even if I was bored by school work itself. Perhaps thanks to my mother’s play school my one and only favourite subject was art and crafts. At home I could spend hours building elaborate designs with my Lego and Meccano set. Fortunately I always had a great imagination, which I relied on to escape from the boredom of maths, Irish and pretty much everything else in school. People like children to read so that it will stimulate their imagination, but I never had much interest in books myself, even though our house was always full of them because my parents were, and still are, great readers.

When my Dad and his brother, Tommy, were young, they would come home via the local bookshop every Friday, armed with their reading for the weekend. On a few occasions the two men even rang in sick on Monday so that they could finish the book they were reading. Most nights my mother retired to bed with a book in her hands. Maybe it is a little strange that I did not inherit a love for this particular past-time, but there it is, I never had the least bit of interest in reading. I much preferred to look at pictures in the books and make up my own stories about them.

My spelling was always very poor. I could get the first and last letter of a word but the middle bit would be jumbled up, which concerned my mother. When I was about eight years old, she had me checked out and it was discovered I was slightly dyslexic. However, I did not suffer over it. I attended special classes, within the school day, for children with learning difficulties. I loved this class. The teacher was a Mary Kennedy who really understood how to relate to kids who were not into learning that much. It was like she taught us stuff without us even realising it.

Of course I was the big kid all through primary school but it was never an issue. Young kids don’t realise that they might have the power to upset a classmate, and get a kick out of doing it – that comes later. The only thing I truly hated about school back then was the annual sports day. Every year I came last in front of an audience made up of the entire school, including staff, which was embarrassing. As you might imagine, I could not wait for that particular day to finish. Though there was this one time, when I was in fifth or sixth class, and I was standing at the start line for the sprint; naturally I did not fancy my chances one little bit. The teacher blew the whistle and I took off, relatively speaking. Within a matter of seconds I was bewildered by the fact that I could not see any of my fellow sprinters in front of me. I was so used to spending races puffing along while having the time to study the backs of the other competitors. It turned out that the boys were behind me, walking slowly to allow me, I think, a shot at winning something for a change. Unfortunately the teacher spoilt the fun by calling us all back to re-start the race and things went back to normal: I was about twenty metres into the race while the rest were over the finish line and catching their breath.

But then my weight did become an issue, and one that could no longer be ignored by my worried parents. In April 1991 I had to have an operation to remove a testicle from my stomach. I was ten years old. It is a common enough occurrence, or so I’m told, and has nothing to do with weight. The matter has to be rectified before puberty hits or it can affect one’s fertility later on. However, what made my experience distinctive was hearing the surgeon a few weeks later, at my check-up, telling Mam that he had never had to cut through so much fat on a child. He advised her to have something done about it and made a few suggestions. All I cared about was the two toy wrestlers I got for being a good patient.

My mother had always been fairly strict about what I ate, but I think this worried her and it resulted in her bringing me to see a dietician in Limerick Regional Hospital. Now, at this point I would like to interject and again say that I was not eating loads and loads of crap with my parents’ blessing. Yes, I sneaked things from presses in between meals, but there would not have been too exciting a range of ‘bad’ food to help myself to. My mother did her best to make sure I snacked on fruit and healthy stuff like yoghurts. The only day of the week I had chips was on a Thursday when we had our chicken and chips dinner. Darren, my skinny brother, ate really slowly and maybe that helped him to feel full for longer than I did. If I felt bored or lonely, at this age, I did not go and stuff my face. I enjoyed my meals, but I did race through them as if I could win a medal to make up for the poor showing I gave at the school’s sports’ days. My one failing was fizzy drinks. If I had money to spend it usually went on Coke or Fanta, stuff like that.

Looking back now I can see how the diet programme at the hospital could not have helped me at all. I suppose not a lot was known back then about child obesity, or whatever you like to call it. The dietician, a lady, was nice but she never asked me about myself or my personal eating habits. Instead we came away with a ton of booklets, about diet and so forth, that were aimed at the masses. There was no interest in particular cases, like that of a ten-year-old boy who somehow was the heaviest in his slim family. She never thought to ask me if I was unhappy, or why I was always hungry. Meanwhile, the diet, in my opinion, was just plain wrong, in that it advocated lots of carbohydrates. So I ate lots of potato, bread, pasta and rice, thinking it was going to help me lose weight. I had to cut out sugar, but sure there was little or no weight loss thanks to the amount of carbs I was eating every day.

Maybe with a bit more knowledge and curiosity, the dietician might have discovered something that I only found out in the last eighteen months – grains do not suit my body. But that is probably unfair of me. She was following the rules set out in those brochures and would not have considered, like my mother and me, to question them.

I was to spend the next five years trying to lose weight on this diet, with frequent visits to the dietician. Since I never actually lost much weight it was frustrating for all involved – as well as being demoralising for me, in fact I put up weight gradually over this period.

CHAPTER TWO

SCHOOL DAYS

I started secondary school in 1992, in CBS Sexton Street, Limerick. I was in the class group that did the more hands-on subjects like woodwork, art and technical drawing. After my Inter Cert I had the option to go into a more academic stream, but I was adamant I wanted to do these subjects. The class had around forty boys or young men in First Year; by the Leaving Cert only fifteen of us remained. It was a bit of an eye-opener as there were some real characters in the class! On starting in Sexton Street, once again I was the fat kid but, this time, there were a few others too, it was a big school. The furniture was against me from the very beginning. Except for Second Year we had the old-style wooden desks, where the bench and desk are connected, and, ordinarily, there is room for two. I remember feeling sorry for Keith Prendergast, he shared my desk with me in First Year and it must have been a bit of a squeeze for him, but, to be fair to him, he never said anything.

First and Second Year went by without too much trouble. I was slagged over my size but it was just boys being boys, in that everyone, at one stage, got a ribbing over something. In First Year I took up hurling with a passion that was unequalled by the other, far superior players. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I was quite probably the worst hurler that every represented the school, but I genuinely loved the game – not least because matches meant half days from the classroom.

The ninety-minute PE (Physical Education) class was a very long one for me. As far as I remember, we seemed to do the ‘bleep test’ – a fitness test where we had to run between two points at ever decreasing time intervals – very frequently in First Year. I was always the first to be knocked out in anything that involved speed, so I usually spent the best part of that hour sitting on the bench with Allan Franklin, a skinny kid who hated PE as much as I did, but I think it was for very different reasons, he just didn’t like it and I was crap at it. We would watch the others, in silence, feeling that time was crawling to a standstill.

I was still an avid day-dreamer, mentally removing myself from boring classes and running entire films in my head based on whatever cartoons I was watching at the time. It was all too easy for me to completely switch off and spend forty minutes as a super hero or sports star, while one teacher or another droned on, and on, about algebra or Irish grammar. Naturally, in these dreams, since I was both the director and producer I played the starring role, and was always super fit, strong and very, very fast. I certainly was not the chubby kid squeezed into a desk that barely contained me and poor Keith.

And the thing about it is that I did not worry about being chubby, fat, or how I looked, since I had always been that way as far as I could remember. It was part of who I was. It was me. I am sure that it is fair to say that when I looked in the mirror, there were days when I might have hated the flabby person staring back at me, but then there were the days that I merely needed to check my reflection, to see if my hair was okay or my face was clean, before I left the house, and I would not have noticed my bigness, any more than I might have noticed my eyebrows. Other kids might fret about their acne or their height, or – especially boys – if feel they are too small, or look much younger than their friends, but they forget about it too, and get on with their day. We are allowed to forget about ourselves, up to a point, the point being when something happens outside of us, when we are suddenly shocked into viewing ourselves through another person’s eyes. The shock depends, I suppose, on who that person is.

My point was reached in Third Year. I was fifteen years old.

By this stage I was wearing heavy jumpers all the time, to hide my man-boobs. Out of sight, out of mind, and jumpers, I quickly discovered, formed the perfect barrier between me, the general public and my sagging chest, which was extremely embarrassing. They had always been there, but once I hit puberty they just grew and grew and I was extremely self-conscious about them. No matter how hot it got, or what month it was, nothing could make me take off my jumper. The school uniform involved a jumper, bearing the school’s crest. Now, this should have been glad tidings for me except for the fact that school jumpers might well be the most unforgiving of all jumpers in the jumper-world. Anyone who ever had to wear one, and was not built like a bean-pole, will know exactly what I mean. I know they are made from wool, so why is it that they cling to a body like a leotard, or a wet swim suit?

Brother Power was the principal and he was a typical one in that we were mostly terrified of him, for good reason, but he also had a decent side. It was my mother who approached him, she wrote to him about my problem regarding the school jumper. The brother carried a bit of weight himself, and I think this is why he immediately allowed me to wear a substitute navy jumper of my own, the only solution available to me. When I think about it now I really appreciate his kindness, as it could well have gone the other way, where I might have been forced to do without and go about in the white flimsy school shirt, which would have left nothing to the imagination. The problem was solved and I took to wearing a navy fleece that stretched over me nicely, with my principal’s blessing. It allowed me to hide my embarrassment; for a young man of around fourteen it was a huge embarrassment to have man-boobs bigger than most girls of the same age.

One afternoon my class was waiting for our usual teacher to arrive, I can’t remember which one, when the door opened and a man we did not know strode purposefully to the desk, shouting at us to be quiet. Maybe our teacher was sick, I don’t know, but this guy was ready for trouble. Our class did have a lot of messers in it, and he was taking no hostages. It’s strange, but I remember this as if it had just happened ten minutes ago; you know how there is always one scene from your childhood that stays with you forever and ever? Well, this is mine. He was very tanned, wore grey slacks, white shirt and glasses, had a real ‘prim and proper’ look about him – and he was as skinny as a rake.

He fired insults left, right and centre, obviously needing to establish from the very beginning that he was the boss and we were just a bunch of no-good hoodlums: ‘You sit down!’, ‘Shut up you!’, ‘You, there, take off that jumper!’ That last one was flung at me, where I was sitting, at the back of the room. I jumped, ‘Sir?’ All eyes turned to me as he repeated himself, in a voice dripping with contempt, ‘I said, take off that jumper. It’s not school uniform’. I am sure I must have been blushing furiously as I tried to explain that I was allowed to wear what I was wearing, ‘Brother Power says it’s all right’. As far as I was concerned, and any other of my fellow pupils, they were the magic words, just like the words ‘Open Sesame’ opened up the cave in the story of ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves’: Brother Power says it’s all right. End of story. Only it wasn’t. I don’t think I can quite describe the horror I experienced on hearing him reply, ‘You are in my classroom. Here, we play by my rules!’ It was utterly bewildering. This was not his classroom; none of us had ever seen him before and even if it was his classroom – which it wasn’t – Brother Power was the one in charge of all of us, not him. Panic set in, along with a bitter surge of helplessness. He was the teacher while I was just an unruly pupil who had absolutely no chance of evading his direct order. It was horrible, that slow dawning that, at this point, I had no option but to remove my fleece, my barrier, my safety net. I hated myself for giving in but, really, what else could I do? I was taught at home to be well-behaved and so was in no way prepared to stand my ground against a teacher.

He sat down at the desk and reached for his newspaper while I slowly took the bottom of my fleece in my two hands and miserably began to lift it towards my head. I cannot remember if I was aware that the rest of the class were watching me do this – however, it soon became abundantly clear that they were watching when, somehow, I managed to pull my shirt up, along with the fleece, thereby exposing my belly, by far the biggest in the room, for all to see. Everyone started to laugh at me, including the teacher. The sound of his chuckle and the laughter of the class haunted me for weeks, months after. He silently gave the class permission and his approval to see my size as a source of entertainment. What could I do but continue to remove my fleece, as the boys around me laughed and laughed. He said something, I don’t know what, but whoever heard it bellowed even louder. When I looked up at him, all I could see was the top of his head, behind the newspaper, shaking with laughter … at me.

This might not sound like much, but I am crying as I write this down. That was the worst day of my childhood and probably my life. Everything changed, from this point onwards. Up to then I never really considered my body as something to be considered by anyone else. What that man did was open my eyes, and everyone else’s, to the fact that my bigness was apart from me. Those boys had known me for years and were, no doubt, accustomed to me, not giving my belly a second thought. I was Gary Kirwan, a person first and foremost, and it was all part of the package. In those few seconds that teacher taught them to look at me differently, almost separating the boy they knew from the big body. Even now I hate myself for not, at the very least, having the guts to walk out of that room – however, I know I’m being unfair to myself. I was only fifteen years old and did not make a habit of causing scenes in school, as I had been raised not to. From that day forward I became both an emotional eater and a constant target for more than just a bit of slagging.

A lot of readers might be wondering what I might have been eating at the time and I understand that. I don’t like focusing too much on food itself. People put on weight without thinking about it and I’m sure plenty would agree with me when I say that it is the easiest thing in the world to do. So I don’t have any scandalous confessions to make regarding eating entire cakes or packs of biscuits. For the most part this sort of stuff wasn’t to be found in my mother’s presses. All I did was get used to eating in between meals. When I came home from school I accidentally got used to eating before my dinner. What started out as one sandwich became two sandwiches, or I would start pouring myself out big bowls of breakfast cereal … a couple of hours later I would have my dinner. It is as easy as that.

Around the time I was in First Year, Weightwatchers came to Limerick and my mother decided I should join. I think we had both given up on the dietician and the brochures, from the hospital, and were ready to try something new. The Weightwatchers meetings took place in the Glentworth Hotel and Mam came with me for moral support for the first few weeks, for which I was very grateful. I hardly knew what to expect. When we arrived at the hotel it was all women, or else I just cannot remember seeing any men around. I was the youngest by far, and I also have a strong memory of the fact that nobody looked as heavy as I did; in fact I can’t remember anybody bar myself being obviously overweight.

In fact their diet wasn’t too different from the dietician’s. We were allowed three meals a day and two snacks. I went once a week; Mam accompanied me the first few times until I was ready to go by myself. To be honest it did not make much of an impact on me. Looking back, I would probably make the same point that I made about the dietician, the diet was not specific enough for me, a thirteen-year-old schoolboy. I followed the plans rigidly, which resulted in Mam having to make me a different dinner from everyone else, and, yet, I don’t remember losing much, if any weight.

Things got pretty bad about two months into Fifth Year. The slagging, the name calling turned into out and out bullying. I began to feel that every day was the same; I was the butt of all jokes in the classroom. I did my best to ignore it, but if you have to listen to stuff every day, five days a week, sooner or later you are bound to crack. I was never a tough guy, I wouldn’t have known where to start, so I think I must have surprised myself more than anyone, when one afternoon I had taken just about enough of the constant abuse. We were in class, I can’t remember which subject, when one of my usual tormenters laughed out loud at some joke cracked by one of his mates, about me, and I just saw red. I would love to be able to describe a much better fight than the one I gave him, but the truth of it is that I would have stumbled over to him and thrown a couple of messy punches – I was a very inexperienced fighter – that he easily protected himself from. His mate separated us and the teacher threw us both out of the room. It wasn’t a glorious moment, I’ll grant you, but it was an important one for me, since it was the very first time that I had stood up for myself and I silently vowed it wouldn’t be the last.

Once the bullying started I distanced myself from the others, choosing to spend most of my free time alone. I began to hate the school. At home I put on a brave face. Nobody knew I was being bullied, nobody knew exactly how miserable I was. After that first fight there were a few more. It was mostly the job of two boys, in particular, to constantly pick on me and call me names. There was a popular computer game that featured a character called ‘Big Boy Barry’ and that became my new name – when I wasn’t being called after some massive wrestler. Then there were the jokes, the innuendoes, and I’m glad I cannot remember any of them. I just remember feeling exhausted with the non-stop attention. Anytime I let down my guard they were at me, nibbling away at what was left of my confidence. I felt worthless, that is the simplest way I can put it … utterly worthless. When their audience laughed, it served as a horrible reminder of that day when the entire class had laughed along with that teacher. It was like an open wound that never had a chance to heal.

I think it is important to say that not everybody in my class set out to make my life hell, maybe just one or two people in particular and one or two more joined in from time to time, but by this stage I was around twenty stone, had acne and man boobs and they managed to find plenty of entertainment in that, while it was just these few individuals that made the bulk of the jokes most people laughed at them – or at least it felt that way to me.

A few weeks after that first fight, I walked out of the school, in the middle of the day, walked home, let myself into the house and told my parents that I wanted to leave school immediately. There had been another explosion of laughter at my expense and I thought to myself, That’s it, no more. Naturally they asked me why, and, for some reason, I could not tell them the truth about what was going on, what I was dealing with on a daily basis. Instead I just said that I hated school – which, I realise, is not much of a reason for anything. I hadn’t the heart to tell them how bad things had gotten. It was some sort of primal instinct to want to keep them from knowing how much pain I was in. I wouldn’t have upset or worried either of them for the world.

Well, education was important to them so there was no way that they could agree to me leaving school in fifth year. In those days you were nothing without the Leaving Certificate, and I knew that as well as anyone else. I don’t think I really believed that they would have let me leave; I probably just needed to do something, that day, to get away from the torment. Sometimes I wish now that I had told them the truth. They made me go back to school but, after a while, it all got on top of me again, so I did what was necessary. Each morning, I’d put on my uniform, have my breakfast, pick up my school-bag and say goodbye to Mam and head to school. When the slagging started, as it invariably did, I’d simply leave, ‘mitch’, and then make my way to the canal, which was nearby. There I’d spend the day dreaming and pottering around until it was time to go home again. I must have done that for the next year and a half. The strange thing is I was never missed, nobody at school ever wondered where I was.

However it wasn’t all bad. I did take up rugby, around this time. I was a prop – well, let’s face it; I was never going to be a scrum half. I played on the under-16 and under-18 team for Young Munsters, and, for once, my size appeared to be a good thing that I could benefit from. My parents were delighted; they were always encouraging me to get involved in sports. I was probably the most dedicated member of the team. Whatever the weather, it didn’t matter; I never missed one training session. I went twice a week and it was up to Mam or Dad to drive me there and back, since the rugby grounds were on the other side of town.

I was never very good at it. I mean, I loved it and enjoyed the training but as the team got better and better I found myself losing my place for the matches to other superior players who hardly turned up for training. Whatever about my hefty size being a good thing for a prop, I was much too slow, much too unfit to be of any real use. Chappie, the coach, was always very good to me and did his best to encourage me; he took a bit of an interest in me and was always trying to encourage me to lose the weight. Again the uniform presented a problem for me. I had to convince my parents to buy me an expensive jersey, since the ones on offer, for the team, were much too small. I was still very paranoid about my man-boobs; even the expensive jersey was useless in camouflaging them. Mam bought me a rubber belt that was supposed to be worn about the stomach and helped to make you sweat. I figured it would help me get rid of the boobs and possibly make them appear smaller in the meantime.

I’ll never forget my last day of playing rugby for the team. We had made it to the semi-final of the under-18s cup, to play Shannon RFC at the Tom Clifford Park. Needless to say it was an important match for us, a very big deal indeed. It was a close, tense match and I spent most of it on the bench until about ten minutes from the end when Chappie kindly gave me a chance to play (one of the props got injured and I was put on). The pace was fast, with plenty of sprinting and chasing, and I just could not keep up with the others. My lack was severely highlighted when, a few minutes before the final whistle, there was a ruck near the Shannon line and we had the chance to win the match if we could score a try. I was coming towards the ruck I should have stayed away, but to be honest I was out on my feet and I wasn’t thinking. The scrum half passed the ball out when I was running in and