Beware the fat man...

It was the fat man who bothered me. He stood an easy 6'5" and resembled a barrel from the waist up. I found it hard to believe that he was a cyclist; he certainly didn't possess the frame of somebody accustomed to riding a bicycle. We were both admiring an electric bike. "A bit pricey," said I and the fat man smiled. "It's on offer," he replied and again I found it quite at odds with his appearance, his stature, that he was even working in a shop selling bicycles. It was clear that the man wanted an electric bike, he even went as far as to say that such a machine would be his next purchase. "I'll need it with all the cappuccinos and cakes that I put away," he said with a smile. Hearing that he was a cake and cappuccino man I was taken aback. He drinks cappuccino and eats cake and he's huge, massive, built like a brick shithouse and in urgent need of a diet. But hold the bus, my world began fall apart and soon I fell into a Dickens novel, A Christmas Carol no less. I was Jacob Marley staring face-to-face at the ghost of Christmases to come, a future where I and not the fat man before me was fat and barrel-shaped and in need of some serious exercise. I kept hearing the words 'cappuccino' and 'cakes' and thought of my weekend, that Millionaire's shortbread, the cheesecake dessert on Friday afternoon, the cookie on Thursday, those Bounty cookies in the office and that Ritter Sport chocolate bar that sits at this very moment in the bottom draw of my desk, awaiting my attention on Monday morning. What was to become of me I wondered. I seemed powerless to change my destiny, tomorrow belongs to cakes and cappuccino and me, a fat bastard. Surely there was something I could do about this awful state of affairs. Well, of course there was, I'd have to stop eating shit and start exercising. One ride a week was no longer enough and simply walking from Purley Oaks to home every night was insufficient. I'd have to double up on the walking and try my best to ride the Nobbler in the evening, perhaps not every night, but at least three. But words are one thing, actions another and the key to my success in this venture, which always comes at Christmas time, I hasten to add, is simply to get out there and do it. I won't go on anymore about my options, you know what they are and so do I. I'll simply have to make my decisions and act, there's no other way.

It's got to stop!