We are very pleased to present our newest ‘athlete’ to the bloggle, Mike Hutchison.
Mike approached us with an idea with a weekly weight loss entry and well, we said yes.
Welcome to the Bloggle Mike.

Hi Guys,

Who is this new athlete added to the athletes pages I hear you say, how did he sneak over the fence to get a Blog in the athletes diaries, I ask that myself at times. Did you not know there was an Olympic sport of Sumo Mountain biking, if you have not then your well behind the times and totally un-trendy. Talking of being un-trendy I was a bit concerned by what the guys in the wiggle workshop were listening to music wise the other day!

Seriously though, this has been brought about via discussions with Rob at Wiggle and an idea I put to him and I am glad to say is now happening.

I am a sprightly young 39 year Scotsman living in the inner suburbs of London. Having noticed of lately that I was getting rather rotund and I feel it has been possibly effecting my health and the worse scenario it could give me health risks. I am not a small chap by any means as I am six foot and three inches tall and reasonably well built. Though as I say I felt this weight had basically sneaked up on me to be honest. Though I believe I was just preparing for the Sumo Biking Gold medal honour.
So I decide I would go on a fitness kick and a diet via weight watchers. The fitness kick would be biking and mainly XC mountain biking as much as possible. Having emailed directly to various mountain bike manufacturers about what bike would be suitable for a rather large chap I never got one reply back? It was then brought to my attention they would probably not recommend one to me as it may effect the warranty as they are not built for solid blokes like myself, I was just disappointed no one got back to me! Never mind the fact of trying to get a decent pair of 40” waist cycling shorts, as for cycling trousers I just gave up.

So, I put this plan together to approach wiggle and see if one of there FOCUS bikes would be suitable. They came back with a few FOCUS bikes that they feel would be more than adequate for the job in hand. I then had this plan and an idea that may be of use not only to me but also www.wiggle.co.uk and a charity. The plan was then put together via Rob at wiggle and myself that I would do this weight loss as a charity event through hard graft cycling and via weight watchers, as weight watchers would be my official weighing station.

Now as I said I knew I was getting quite large, now I put myself down as nineteen and a half stones in weight. Boy was I gobs smacked when I weighed in at TWENTY STONES AND FIVE POUNDS, that is hefty. I was in shock for most of the night and watching Emmerdale and Coronation Street was but a blur. This was my first official weigh in on the 19th of September 2008.

So this is where Wiggle came up with an offer of sponsoring me a focus bike for the charity event if I would do weekly/fortnightly Blog on their Bloggle. I jumped at the chance as not only would it give me more get up and go but also a chance to push my charity event to more people, which will hopefully raise more cash. The bike in question is the ‘FOCUS Killer Bee’ which I have renamed ‘FOCUS Belly Killer’ for this event. Awesome bike and I look forward to riding it and losing weight so I can really give it a proper go in the hills of Scotland.

The chosen charity is very close to my heart and not just me but many more peoples hearts, it may even effect people reading this one day! It is Macmillan Cancer Relief, a very worth while charity. Macmillan Cancer Relief support Cancer sufferers and their families with a nurse to help them though the rough times ahead. So not only are they their for the patients, but also for the families too.
I had the unfortunate experience of experiencing this first hand. My father who went through so much yet was so tough through it all was an amazing man. How any person can go through so much yet be such a joyful character I will never know, as nothing ever stopped him from kidding and joking around even when he was dying.
It started when I was in my early twenties when he was diagnosed with a Heart Virus which basically weakened the muscles in his heart. This meant in his early forties he required a heart transplant which was to take place at Freeman’s Hospital in Newcastle. You have to remember this was in the early days of transplants so this was still quite new to us all. Anyway it took three years for a suitable new heart to be available for the transplant. The transplant went amazingly well, in fact the morning after he was told my mother and myself were watching through the window and could he do something to let us know he was okay. In true father fashion, he gave my mum the fingers and swung his arms like he was golfing to me. This meant he wanted his golf clubs back and would be playing soon, and he was.
I am trying to keep this story short believe it or not. The transplant certainly made him a new man and gave him quite a number of years, six in all. What happened though was the drugs he was taking to stop the heart rejecting the body gave him cancer. He had gone golfing to Ireland for a week and came back really tired and had not actually played much golf. Eventually a doctor was called after days in bed and went back to Freeman’s for diagnosis. He was riddled with cancer and given just weeks to live. What did my father say to it all, as long as they learnt by their mistakes, which they have as I believe they have now reduced this drug.
I do not remember much of this period, as my mind seems to have put a near total block on things. My mum or sister will recall and event, usually a funny one and I will just not have remembered it.
What I do remember is a Macmillan nurse being around and very helpful for my father but especially my mother, my sister and myself. It made things slightly easier as lets face facts it is never going to be an easy time. Though having the Macmillan nurse around certainly helped both mentally and physically and was someone there to chat to who knew what was happening.
So via the link on this page go to my just giving web page and dig deep as every penny counts. If you have been through this personally I would expect you will donate instantly, if not you may need to one day so dig deeper.
My target weight loss is 2 stones by September the 24th 2008, most people who I have spoke to will be donating per pound, to do this read my web page. In fact read the web page and it tells you how simple it is to donate.
I will be doing a weekly/fortnightly Blog here on wiggle so please keep up with what is happening and how things are going. I will be keeping you updated with the weight loss, how far I have been on the bike and where I have been. Along with photos of where I have been and nice scenic shots of what I have seen along the, way even in London.

To donate please visit http://www.justgiving.com/wigglethon

Regards,

Mike ‘on his Bike getting a Wiggle on’ Hutchison

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Mike Hutchison. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.