You know the kind of person that goes to the refrigerator every ten minutes or so? Just to see if this time they will actually find that hidden gem, that tasty morsel they have been craving? Oh, and if miraculously it is there, they never wonder how they could have missed it the last 300 times they looked?
Well that's me.
I am the world's biggest fridge magnet.
Well, I am for now anyway.
I am currently awaiting Bariatric Surgery and whilst doing so appear to have some time on my hands, mostly spent trying to keep my mind off food.
This time will be spent wisely or it will be spent blogging and I fear the second option will win.
So maybe a little back story would be good at this point so you might better understand who I am.
My name is Cameron and I am fat. That is to say not just a little overweight but medically speaking, morbidly obese.
It sounds absolutely dreadful doesn't it?
But now matter how many times I hear that idiom, it still always puts me in mind of that Billy Connolly piece when the Doctor tells the patient he has the flu, but he's afraid it's the morbid variety. Yes it loses the entire impact of the joke in that translation, but I'm sure you get the point.
I have been overweight off and on for the past 25 years but since a back injury in 2001 and some subsequent mental health issues resulting in medication, my weight has got steadily higher and higher to the point where I am 150kg and at only 5'10" that's not the best.
However, I am a naturally big guy. There is not really a pick of fat on my arms, my upper body or my legs so I carry quite a good deal of muscle apart from around my waist, where I carry a great deal of flab. I suppose this would be called the morbid part.
It soon became obvious that things were not going well after continually experiencing a vicious yoyo weight gain/loss cycle until I ended up in a weight loss help group.
Not my finest hour.
So I went through the motions and I did learn the lessons but as things were once again improving, I broke my leg.
Very Badly.
So badly in fact that walking any distance is still out of the question nearly two years on. So this put the exercise part of my weight loss regime right out of the window and now it would be down to plain old diet and diet alone if I ever wanted to appear in the 'normal' section of the medical reference books.
To cut a long story short, I managed to snag my way onto the Oxford Bariatric Clinic's information seminar and it has kind of developed from there. So much so, I am now on the waiting list to have the Gastric Sleeve procedure.
Meanwhile fast forward 12 months and here we are. I am writing my very own blog, telling the world about my story, offering my simple musings as a bariatric bound, self confessed fat bloke.
Top fun!
The blogging, not the fatness.
The blogging started after a visit from BBC Television, which came after a telephone interview live on a BBC radio talk show.
How did I get there then? Well, last year, I was asked if I would mind having a chat with a researcher who was investigating a story of increased Bariatric Surgery procedures in my geographical area. Being a thoroughly decent chap, I of course said yes and promptly forgot all about it.
A month or so passed and I was busy on-line looking at stuff I could never afford, when I received an email from the BBC referring back to my initial contact agreeing to talk to them all that time ago and could they now give me a call and have a chat.
GULP!
I really wasn't expecting that I can tell you.
Anyway, I manned up, answered the phone and really began to enjoy myself, I mean, who here doesn't like talking about themselves? Well, me actually.
I'm a total wallflower but because this was a discussion about the condition and surgical procedure rather than my own dietary history, I soon felt at ease. So much so, the researcher asked if she could tape an interview and once finished, asked if I would mind if they interviewed me live on the radio show on the coming Monday morning. Bolstered by my newfound confidence, I threw caution to the wind and said YES! What the hell!
Well I didn't sleep all weekend I can tell you and although I set my alarm for an early start on the day of the show, I was up, dressed and breakfasted long before that went off.
But then time started to pass so slowly. I waited and listened to the show on my computer but it made no difference, my introduction to the world was taking forever and the longer it took the more the nerves piled on. Then I got the call, by which point I could barely speak with nerves and cottonmouth handicapping anything my brain may have wanted to say. I listened to the show through my telephones earpiece, as my nerves ramped themselves up and up and up, until.....
"Morning Cameron, Happy New Year to you"
"Aha, morning Phil and a Happy New Year to you too!"
My nerves were gone, my mouth re-moisturised and I felt in that moment more at home than I had in many a year. It was easy, it was fun and then it was over.
But who cares. That moment was more fun than I had had in a long while. Then almost immediately the television crew called and asked if they could do an interview with me! I was so high on my last success I found my mouth saying yes most definitely before my brain had checked itself into gear.
Oh dear, what had I done? The BBC was dispatching a film crew to my house and they wanted to interview me for their evening news.
This was getting out of hand, surely my sensitive demeanour could not stand this kind of intrusion into my day, but somehow I soldiered on and must have put myself across well in the interview because as they left, they asked if it would be possible to do more filming with me whilst the surgery preparation process continued. Once again my mouth was well ahead of my brain, so I didn't stand a chance of saying no.
So that is how I came to write this first blog. The BBC asked me to do it and I have enjoyed it so much, I thought you might like me to do it here.