After a bit of a summer break, Ray Foley’s back on JOE. And he’s also back in the gym.
I have managed – with very little effort – to add 5 and a half kilos to my weight. That’s up 12.1 pounds; a little under a stone. Back in 2002, when my girlfriend (the unfortunate who ended up becoming my wife) and I hooked up, I was a chunky fifteen-and-a-half stone. I’m six foot two, so the bit of weight didn’t exactly make me look fat, but I would’ve looked like someone who needed to get in shape.
Once we moved in together, something happened. I ballooned. I had never lived with a girl before (at least not a girl I was having sex with) and really, it’s like you just give up trying.
Pizza, chips, Chinese, ready meals, beers, wine and burgers every night of the week all adds up. By the time we went off on our first proper holiday in early 2003, I had added another stone, tipping (or rather, smashing) the scales at sixteen-and-a-half stone.
I thought I was going to die clutching my chest on the floor of a chemists on Camden Street.
Living in a little apartment in Dublin city centre didn’t help either. I was working at the time as an evening radio presenter, so I had all day to sit on the couch and eat, get a cab or a bus to work and back, hit the pub around nine, then pick up a takeaway from one of the many choices on the way home. It was the best life ever. I was on top of the world.
It may have been the not-so-subtle hints from my missus, or maybe it was the friendly slagging from my mates at the time, but the notion occurred to me to call into the pharmacy on the way home one evening and do one of those body fat, weight and blood pressure monitor things. You know, the ones that measure your heart rate and height and print out a little receipt telling you how you should be living a better life.
How Ray might have looked at his worst
I was edging towards seventeen stone and not giving a shite about it. When I saw the result I nearly had a heart attack. No, seriously – my arteries were in such poor condition as a result of so much crap food that I thought I was going to die clutching my chest on the floor of a chemists on Camden Street.
Under control
From then on, I slowly got it back under control until I finally hit the gym properly a few years ago. I was nominated for an award and there was a chance I would be appearing on telly, so, giving it plenty of time (two weeks), I made an appointment with a personal trainer to get myself sorted. His name is Dave Mulqueen and he suffers from an annoying pain in the hole. Me. I know he just loves to see my enthusiastic, smiling face first thing in the morning.
It’s been three months since I last trained with Dave, but now I’ve added all the excess baggage, it’s time to get back to work. I made an appointment this morning and hit the ground running. Well, I say running – it was more of a light jog, and after twelve minutes I certainly did hit the ground. The room was spinning so fast I had to lie flat on my back to avoid getting sick.
I have seven weeks until my 30th birthday and the goal is to get back to my old shape by then. So I can go on the absolute lash until I’m forty.
