Adys Journey from Obese to the Virgin London Marathon 

My life my way

 

Introduction

 

Welcome to my world, by picking up this book to read you are possibly intrigued on how I lost my weight and what made me take on one of the biggest challenges in my life, The virgin London marathon, well here it is this book will give you an inside into my character and world of violence death threats, from gangsters,thugs, and the avarage jo was a build up for me to stand Trial in her majesties crown courts and a deep anxiety depression which I have put behind me and a you will have a vivid picture of who I was and who I am now along with the blood the sweat and the tears I had along with my journey to survival.

 

               This book is in memory of my father who was my hero, He was the tipping point in my life that changed me for the better, and the message was clear but unfortunately he had to die for me to get the message as I saw my own reflection in the hears that was carrying his coffin. From the start of my journey it has been an experience I will never forget and I cannot and will not forget as you read through my book you will see how my journey has begun, During my journey I have been involved in quite a media storm and interviewed by newspapers and many radio stations and TV too including being asked to be filmed as one of the inspirational runners of the London marathon by BBC Sport in 2013 which was moving for me to be asked but did not realise how I moved thousands of people in the uk to follow my journey to get up, get going and go the distance which we will talk about as we go from page to page.

            I would never have thought I would have got so much attention for trying to lose weight. I hope you enjoy what I have to say and maybe be inspired like many people who have contacted me since my achievement of the London marathon, If you have been inspired I hope after reading this book your mind has begun fully tuned to wanting to change your life like I have changed mine for the better, please enjoy reading about my transformation in life in the knowledge that anyone can achieve what I have in the past year you just got to get up get going and go the distance.

  

               During this journey I have had the pleasure to meet an inspiring chap called Simon Bozeat who also shifted a load of weight in fact he shifted over 5 stone and with the conkers park runs not enough to satisfy him he has taken on a challenge too, he plans to do three triathlons yes you read it right three wow. Simon also has been a featured inspiration in a triathlon magazine called Triathletes plus, we have teamed up with the same passion to help others in the same condition as us to shift weight with our boot camps which is what you will also see as you read this book from page to page.

 

You will also read about a person that guided me along the way and was responsible for me running the London marathon, His commitment loyalty to want to help me can only be described as a true friend who I will never forget, he is also hero to our country serving her majesty’s armed forces, he is a person I respected as a friend as well as a person who wanted to train with me to keep himself fit as well as a friend to train with and it just kept me going through the rough patches of my journey but then I have also had the please of support from family and true friends even the ones who at first became negative towards my journey as well as growing to respect and support me to the race day which led to even more respect that was just overwhelming.

 

 

 

The Tipping point

It all started in May 2011 when the most devastated news came my way after making a dash to Gateshead queen Elizabeth hospital with my sister Lora to meet my step mum Christine and my brother Daniel as my father was in hospital after suffering a massive heart attack, My father came out of a controlled coma and made a positive change in which we were confident he was going to pull through, The next day we were sitting in a café in the metro shopping centre waiting to visit my father in hospital when the phone rang to get to the hospital as he is having a bad turn, We rushed as fast as we could and the faster I was trying to get there I felt everything around me was in slow motion it was like the world had come to a standstill.

 

                  Arriving at the hospital we were kept out side with everyone ells, this was the moment you just knew something was very wrong and when the doctor and nurse takes you into another room you just know the news is not going to be good and there it was my world had fell apart around me, he just laid there which was a moment I will never forget the want for him to wake up and the want for him to squeeze my hand was not going to happen, my father died of multiple organ failure due to his Diabetes attacking his organs causing his heart to collapse. My inside changed the nasty viscous demand I once had inside me was brewing like a kettle while my outside was like a crying baby to everyone ells, this was all a cocktail to what was about to happen in life the biggest turnaround I would never of imagined would happen.

 

               I left Newcastle area for a few days to be with my wife Naomi and my children but my journey back with my sister wasn’t good as the demand inside was waiting to lash out and with me trying to fight the emotion all I could do was blank her even though she was going through the same as me, sadness and hurt we lost our dad too early but like many in this world it’s something we have to deal with. I remember on my first day back home my breakfast was a beer as if it was like having a glass of milk because I was in a state of didn’t really know what I was doing but my wife did and she stopped me from getting drunk at breakfast time, she knew it was wrong and so did I but I just wanted to drink it all away and food was even more tempting, I ate the fattest of foods from chips to crisp’s and chocolate you name it I secretly was buying it over those few days, my attitude of ignorance was used to this type of behaviour and just loved the extra attention but this was all to change over the next few days, the attitude of ignorance to the imbalance of my life.

 

                My children Ashleigh, Caitlyn, and Haydn gave me a hug and a kiss as they were going to stay with our friends Catherine and Phil while me and Naomi embarked on a journey I just didn’t want to do, secretly the need for food and alcohol to hide my hurt was very much needed, I was falling apart inside why my wife was holding the pieces on the outside, My sister and us arrived to see our brave brother Daniel and for the first time in years the whole of the Stohr family were reunited together. The next day was the funeral and the biggest change in my life was about to evolve inside me secretly and this was the part of the tipping point in my life as I see my reflection in the hears that was carrying my father’s coffin. The emotional state I was in and with my uncle Allen there supporting me in front of my father’s hears there was this reflection of an overweight Obese person I had never seen before staring back at me, The person was me I saw myself for the first time and it was freighting to see how the size of me had ballooned over the years and just by ignoring everyone’s comments that suggested maybe I should lose a little weight just sparked my aggressive side to just hit back with some nasty words or to just simply ignore what was said to me but this time I could not ignore what I truly saw for the first time in my life and I didn’t like it.

 

        After a few days of my fathers themed Elvis Presley funeral passed I said to Naomi (My wife) I need to get checked out Dad died the exact same age as granddad Stohr and I am way over weight I need help and so we did but didn’t know that the tipping point of my life was going to get even more bigger, I explained what happened to my dad and said I am not as brave as other diabetics and want to get checked out to see if I am, My father was a type 1, my concerns was more to do with my weight and getting a type 2 diabetes which is a major cause of type 2 diabetes, After a week or so the tests were revealed, my doctor said I would be a diabetic by Christmas of 2011 that’s if I haven’t had a heart attack or a stroke which due to my size could potentially be fatal, my death sentence was served well and truly, I was secretly alone but with the feel of my wife’s hand touching mine in comfort as I feel the tears wanting to flow as much outside as they were inside as I came to terms I have been destroying my body. With the cocktail of my father imbedded in my mind and my doctors message of death but committed support my journey began, my wife (Naomi) said lets go do some shopping and so off to our local supermarket we went armed with the advice from my doctor to make sure I choose all low fat and sugar food only and ditch all fatty foods and so I did. I chose salads, skinless chicken, and health bars as a substitute to crisp’s, this diet was the start of my determination to shift the weight.

           The temptation was there their and feeling depressed of failing to succeed was growing, I felt like a person on drugs trying to go straight but slipping back into it all again, I suppose the thought of dying was a urge to keep going for my family as this would not of been fair for them to grow up without their dad in any way, this was an added tipping point for me to succeed in losing weight, I tried the diet pills (Orlistat) prescribed by my doctor from my request to try them which was actually very uncomfortable to me to have unless I ate the low fat food only, being caught short in public was not ideal for me or for anyone so I had to become more stronger in my mind and do away with these and so I did, my mind became a wall to blocked out the negative part of me and the thought to want to get back into a world of burger and chips.

 

          It was the time of the month for my visit to the docs to see how I got on and I was rewarded with some amazing news, I lost nearly a stone in weight being surprised was at the time the best trophy to have and the kind and supportive comments from my doctor was worth more than anything I could imagine, I felt for the first time I can really do this. My doctor said Adrian this is a really great start and you should be proud, it was like going through the next stages of boot camp on the xfactor and I was loving it, The feeling of possibly walking my two daughters down the aisle on their wedding day were becoming possible.

 

I was now thinking of my next steps of training, I got back in the gym the next day and worked that bag like I was boxing with mike Tyson, I was throwing the right and the lefts and hitting hard, the bag was hit so many times you’d think it was surrounded. I could not stop I had to move on to the next one with the medicine ball in a sit down and moving it side to side with three sets of 30 and banging out a couple of press ups and side sits, I was seeing the steam come off as the sweat dripped away. The fat was burning or my body was crying either way I was on fire whoop whoop! In the short time of rest I had I could feel a slight cool down so hopped on the arc trainer which is a machine that is like a cross trainer type tread mill to strengthening your legs and abdomen, my best training machine in the whole of the gym, well as well as my sparring partner the punch bag for my upper body workouts.

You see this is just a few months into my weight loss exercise and I am starting to believe in myself in a big way, The appreciation of what I am achieving in the gym all because I opened the front door and stepped outside, I got up, Got going, and I am working on going the distance, will I go the distance? You will see by the end of this book and you can make your own mind up.

 

One of the things about seeing results of weight loss and the great feeling of walking away from a gym with a good hard training session that you did on your own is the want to go back the next day, I like to call it the feel good factor and the buzz of the fitness world and your part of it, wow am I becoming a fitness freak, No! I have done this for my own existence and realised although training properly is hard and doing it right is hard, the whole process is to be honest easy, why? Because all you are being asked to do is open that front door and go outside, I am doing more I am going to the gym and beating myself until my body cries the fat off.

 

One of the things I must say to all who wants to change their lifestyle is although I trained hard and still do train hard everyone must have rest too, this is just as important as training and from my perspective a good 8 hours sleep at night and a day or two taking it easy. If you are pushing your body to the limits you must allow your body to have time to recuperate from the intense stress you have placed your body under, you will know if your body has had enough and when I say this I mean your body and not your mind of excuses, we don’t have excuses as we ditched them when we decided enough was enough and wanted to fight our Obesity full on, what I like to call the fight of survival.  

 

Remember this all came about from seeing myself for the first time at my fathers funeral, and for that moment I see my funeral and my kids there crying for me why my wife’s dreams and life become ruined by my bad attitude on life and poor excuses to change. My bad attitude grew from a young age believe it or not, as a child I was a happy one until my father left us and as a family we fell apart but stayed strong as a unit to later getting into mischief like many kids do when their parents are not around to deciding as a child being bullied at school I joined karate class not knowing how it would pan out for me, I learned to stand up for myself and fight back. The lessons I had from a great instructor and mentor held me in good stead for what was to come in years ahead, The doors (door supervisor)  and the underworld that people are unaware of but I was made very clear of  with one foot inside the circle and the other on the edge, it was like getting in a very hot bath slowly but once you was in it you didn’t get out you just did what you needed to do and so I did and although you was surrounded by people who watched your back as if their life depended on it, Their was a darker side to this and continuous world of death threats  scraps and scrapes with an environment of people with knifes, knuckle dusters, Koshes (Batons) and yeah trust me when I say guns that should not be on our streets. You also would keep the local police at arm’s length because with them being too close to you gave you a nervous feeling as I found out with many trips to magistrates and crown courts courtesy of them making sure I got there, not exactly a good role model for my future children or a future for my wife to look forward to, this was a life that eventually became short lived over the ten years of ducking and diving around trouble and teaching the bullies respect and the hard core violent criminals that crossed my path left me no choice but to stand on their toes why my colleagues watched my back and stood tall with me when times were hard.

 

A good role model I wanted to be when I was at my fittest in my martial arts world of fitness, body building and swimming but I used this gift that many young students liked from me to negative reasons like becoming a very violent person where you didn’t earn respect like in my martial arts karate club from other students and friends I changed and demanded it, I demanded respect even from the mouthy ones maybe I was becoming a shadow of my guvnor or maybe not, this was brewing up for years, The abuse violence and depressed feelings getting from violence from people and people who tried to get me another way with accusation of assaults that led to crown court trials to eating fatty foods, I ate take away burgers and chips from job to job and whenever I had time, My depression took a hold in a big way once diagnosed by my doctor and not wanting to go to work, the more depressed I was the more I seemed to eat it was like an addiction  to drugs and the food was my drug and so it stayed with me until my doctor after my father’s funeral confirmed my fears, for the first time I became scared and had a fear of dying, strange how someone dying can give you a wakeup call with this being my father’s legacy to me, a message for my survival and the only way I could do this was to leave my past in the past and reinvent myself and so I did allowing that feel good factor to grow more and more but never realised it would change like this next part of my life’s journey until my friend Richard Jacques turned up to drop his kids at our child’s school complimented me on my weight loss and asked to join me, Which was great, then I realised this guy is in the army, OMG well he wasn’t training me, he just wanted to train with me so he could keep his fitness up, little did I know it was circuit training at his pace!

 

These training session in the gym were becoming tougher and tougher, This was great because I was being pushed so if you can train with a buddy who wants the same as you then this can be a really great way to push each other and help keep each other motivated..............................................

 

Want to read more, I can honestly say this was one roller coaster of a life a fight like no other, Obesity was the biggest fight of my life. 

Adys Journey from Obese to the Virgin London Marathon 

My life my way going on sale soon.

(Date to be confirmed)