Sometimes you feel like, Oh I just cannot be bothered But you’re doing it for yourself, and I sometimes feel, Oh God, I’m really bad eating today, I need to get to a gym and burn And that’s because you think, it kind of like doesn’t make up for it but it makes you feel slightly better about it.

And I would go and do it more often but as I haven’t got any time, and some people, some people use that excuse and by saying that I haven’t got any time, and then end up nothing or, even worse, eating. And I, when I’m bored I tend to eat, and so I keep myself as busy as I can doing like youth work and so I think I do something involved with youth work five days a week, and so I try to keep out, but that cuts down the gym time. At one point I went to the gym about five days a week, and that was really good.

I’m now sadly down to about one, but and even then it’s a struggle, but that’s only in the time, it’s not due to lack of motivation because although sometimes when my Mum says, Okay, you can go to gym today I’m like, Oh yeah, I guess But it’s more, more acceptable to the idea because I think it’s doing something really positive, and dunno, as long as, as long as I have my ipod with me – because I mean, doing it without music is the most boring thing you can do.

When I went to my doctor he was a bit. He just said I need to like just take it easy, like wear running shoes, the information he was giving was something I could find on the internet. It was something I already know, so

Can you remember what he said to you?

I told him, like I’m trying to lose weight if he has any advice for me, and he said that I should rest between exercising and stretch before, wear comfortable shoes and yes, that’s it.

What advice were you looking for?

I was probably hoping he’d tell me like, give me like advice on nutrition and probably give me information where I could seek help with losing weight. But he wasn’t that helpful.

Do you remember the websites you looked at or?

What I found useful was the information about running and like how a big in a could start running and like increased the distance and turn my run far that was really useful. What else did I find useful was information about diet and so on like if you run you shouldn’t be eating certain foods because that could make you bloated and it could decrease your performance while exercising.

What else was useful?

Yes, there was information about how to get, how to get motivated like, how to motivate yourself to get up in the morning and go running. That was useful. Like how to get the will power to get out of bed.

Tell me that again? Because that’s very interesting. If you can remember anything about it.

I said information about getting, motivating yourself, and getting the willpower to get out of bed to go running in the morning. That was useful.

Do you remember or what did you do, what did you think, how you motivate yourself?

It’s like setting goals, like for one week, I would like try to run five minutes without going over that, and then the next week I’d try to keep bearing up on that time, and try to just be confident in myself.

Okay. So you were building up your routine, your exercise routine?

Yes. I can run for run for tenminutes non-stopnow. But firstI used to get tired after one minute and had to stop. I used to have a pain in my stomach. That’s why I went to the doctor to see about, and he said it’s just like, that’s normal, for runners, for beginners runners, to have that pain.

How did you feel when your Dad said to you, ‘I think you need to do something’?

I mean initially I sort of initially I did complain about it because it was sort of, it was like really adjusting my routine, which I’d sort of settled into. And then it was sort of like a bit of a wake-up call, sort of the first time I went to the gym, and then sort of, well yes, like I said after the first month it sort of, the ball was rolling by then so it just sort of, it started getting easier, and it sort of became more regular and it basically just kept on going from there.

And do you go to the gym with your Dad?

I did – well he doesn’t go as regular as I do – but occasionally he’ll go when I go, so, sort of like a team effort. Well at the beginning he went with me all of the time he would go with me as a sort of, just to keep me, keep me going, so he. And then, than after I’d sort of settled into that routine he would come less often, and then when I eventually sort of got to that stage where I didn’t really depend on him to motivate me, that’s when he eased off a little bit.

But I just haven’t managed to find anything. I mean he’s interested, for example, in martial arts but he said, Oh, I’m not going to do that if I have to go by myself. So I suppose peer support is probably something as well.

And I, I mean I, I must admit I do get very frustrated with him and, and I have to remind myself at times, I say, Look, he’s only just thirteen. Where, you know, I do find myself saying to him, You have to take a certain amount of responsibility. You know what you need to do. You’ve got a bicycle, can you get up and go out on your bicycle. [laughs].

So I suppose they would be some of the things really. It’s just finding [sighs] what makes people, sort of, motivated. It’s the motivation I suppose.

Because I would, you know, quite happily take him to the gym and, and things. And I have tried various rouses to get him to do things when I say, Oh, you know, I’m going out for a walk but it’s quite late, oh, I don’t know if I should go by myself. [laughs], Could you come with me? But he sees through that straight away [laughs]. I mean once or twice it’s worked but he just gets, I mean he just gets bored easily. That’s the other things I think with, makes me feel kind of old when you start saying these things but kids his age just seem to have this like they get bored so quickly. It’s, it’s difficult and I mean at the weekend, for example, we were doing some work in the garden. I said, Well, why don’t you come out? Because it was actually very good exercise [laughs] clearing up leaves. I said, Why don’t you come out and help us? Oh no, that’s boring. Everything is boring and it’s very hard to get them to do things against their will really at this age, you know, getting quite stroppy.

And what about the level of physical activity. Were you more active before?

Well that’s the thing. I was more active [before] because I think students in the Caribbean – like PE is compulsory, you have to do it – but in England it’s like you could opt out and it’s not compulsory in college either so that’s the thing I think in college they advertise that you can join clubs and so on, but when I went there wasn’t any clubs at all.

There wasn’t and the gym, it was just exclusive to people who are doing sports studies and so on. So you had to book and appointment, and like when you go, they say that, you cannot use it because there is a class being held there right now so it kind of puts you off from going back. And there wasn’t much people in the college that take part in sport activities as well.

How do you explain your weight problem? I mean what do you think caused it?

I think it was sheer the lack of exercise, that just spiralled and spiralled. Obviously because I weren’t going out in primary school and running around like the other kids and playing games like other kids were and things. It were just the sheer lack of me wanting to get involved and do exercise because even as a kid I was never the really confident person that a lot of primary school kids are when they mix with each other and things. I were never that confident in myself anyway. So, I just tended like from very, very early on, I tended to try and stop out of going out at break times, try and get out of doing PE, try and get out of doing other things that involved anything to do with exercise and things, because I just didn’t have the confidence to be able to try and do something, and.. I just had the feeling that other people were gonna laugh at me if I failed.

So what we’ve done is these blocks of time in my diary are, she said to me that she wanted to do some exercise so I thought okay, I’m going to find some exercise groups. There aren’t any, not for her age, so I said what about Aquasize, because she quite likes swimming, so I rang around all the groups who do the exercise in the pools, she’s too young.

She doesn’t want to do like the sports, I think it’s called Sports Culture or something, there’s something recent nearby where they go on a sort of Saturday morning and they do lots of different sports, she doesn’t want to do them because she’ll stand out. She hates to be the youngest, the eldest, the fattest, the slowest, the biggest, any extreme in anything, she just wants to be in the middle and blend until she’s comfortable and then she wants to lead it, but for this she will not even, she won’t even, she won’t even look at it.

So what we’ve decided to do because I couldn’t find a group, I couldn’t find any exercises class for her, so I thought okay I’m going to have to go with her and the plan was to find an exercise group and I’d go with her and then we’d see if maybe we could get a couple of friends to come as well, but none of them will take her at her age, I think it’s health and safety and insurance probably, I’m guessing. But that’s frightening, that is frightening.

Her school don’t do an awful lot of after school activities, she’s at public school but the one she’s at doesn’t, sport is way low on its list, it really is, and while she does games at school it’s no more than the state schools do and certainly not enough, nowhere near enough. So we’ve decided to go swimming so I now have blocked two, two nights in my diary where straight after school we go swimming , or we’re going swimming, we’re actually starting tomorrow with that one.