Bye Bye Fatman, Hereford, Herefordshire (2026)

01/01/2026

Here are six New Year’s resolutions, grounded in reality, not fantasy versions of who I think I should be.
1. Get my health back to the centre of my life
Not for aesthetics. Not for approval. But for longevity, mobility, and being present for my wife and children. That means consistency over drama, fewer false dawns, and finally addressing the psychological side of my relationship with food, not just the physical one.
2. Stay visible, even when I’m struggling
No disappearing when things go off track. Bye Bye Fat Man was never meant to be a highlight reel. I will keep showing the reality, including setbacks, because honesty helps others feel less alone and keeps me accountable.
3. Protect my time and energy more fiercely
Fewer distractions. Fewer unnecessary debates. Less emotional labour for people committed to misunderstanding me. More time for family, deep work, rest, and the things that actually move the needle.
4. Use my voice with intention, not noise
Keep speaking on justice, compassion, and inequality, but choose impact over constant reaction. Write fewer pieces, but make them sharper, calmer, and harder to ignore. Less shouting into the void, more deliberate truth telling.
5. Build something that outlives me
Move from ideas to foundations. Take concrete steps towards education and sustainability projects in Zambia that empower local people and leave a legacy, rather than just talking about what should exist.
6. Choose joy without guilt
Dance more. Laugh louder. Be playful with my wife. Be present with my kids. Celebrate small wins. Life is serious enough already, and joy is not a distraction from the work, it is the fuel for it.

No grand promises. No overnight transformations. Just honest intentions and the willingness to keep getting back up.

Here’s to doing the work, again

01/01/2026

I have a dream (the Bye Bye Fatman version)

As the year begins, I want to allow myself to dream. Not in a reckless way, but in a hopeful, grounded, Bye Bye Fat Man kind of way.

First, the personal dream. I want to live a healthier life again, not quietly in the background, but openly and honestly. That has always been the point of Bye Bye Fat Man. For the past five years I have shared the highs and the lows, the discipline and the chaos, the success and the relapse. Even after regaining a considerable amount of weight, I have not disappeared or gone into hiding. I have stayed present. I have kept posting. Not because I have it all figured out, but because real growth is messy and real life is not linear. My first dream is still the one I return to every year, to sort myself out, for myself, for my wife, and for my children.

Alongside that personal journey sits a much bigger dream, one that I know I cannot build alone.

I dream of creating a green school and a Centre for Sustainable Development here in Southern Province, somewhere near Livingstone, close to Mosi oa Tunya and the extraordinary biodiversity of this region. A place rooted in Zambia, shaped by Zambia, and built first and foremost for Zambian children and communities. Education has always been my craft and my calling, but this would be education done differently. Not boxed into concrete classrooms and narrow outcomes, but education connected to land, environment, and lived reality.

At the heart of this vision would be climate change education and education for sustainable development, not as add-ons, but as core, cross cutting foundations. The centre would work in partnership with schools, supporting them to deliver the full scope of CCE and ESD in a holistic, practical environment. This would be learning that moves beyond textbooks, where students experience ecosystems, conservation, agriculture, water systems, and biodiversity first hand, and where global concepts are grounded in local context.

Children would still study academic subjects that empower them for the future, but alongside that they would learn real skills. Agriculture, farming, environmental stewardship, food systems, and sustainability would be part of everyday learning. The aim would be to help raise a generation of young people equipped to lead in climate resilience, food security, and sustainable development, rather than reinforcing a system where these spaces are too often dominated by outsiders living in bubbles.

This school and centre would not exist in isolation. It would work with the local community, not around it. Employment and opportunity would be created through agriculture, maintenance, trades, research support, and shared enterprise. Local knowledge would be valued, not sidelined. Craftspeople, technicians, conservation workers, and farmers would be part of the life of the project, contributing expertise and gaining stability in return. Learning would flow both ways, and dignity would be built into the system.

This is not a new idea. It is a dream I have carried for years, refined quietly, thought about deeply, and returned to again and again. What feels different now is timing, experience, and perspective. There is a sense that the next chapter could be built here, drawing on the work already happening in Livingstone and everything I have learned across decades in education, leadership, and community life.

Most importantly, this dream cannot belong to me alone. If it is to mean anything, it must be built with local partners, local voices, and local leadership. Zambia does not need imported solutions. It needs collaboration, trust, and shared ownership.

For now, I am dreaming. The structures, funding, and hard pragmatics can come later. Every meaningful project starts with vision. And as this new year begins, this is the dream I am choosing to hold onto.

31/12/2025

Stepping on glass within the first 5 minutes of 2026

So 2026 didn’t exactly tiptoe in gently.

Just as the clock struck midnight, the kids were woken by their older cousins and charged outside to watch the fireworks. Ours, the neighbours’, the whole neighbourhood lighting up the sky. I was last out, doing the usual dad sweep, making sure everything was shut and everyone was accounted for. I followed behind my youngest, Cian, barefoot and half asleep, not expecting any drama within the first five minutes of the year.

What Cian hadn’t mentioned was that he’d knocked over an empty Coke bottle on the steps moments earlier. It had shattered quietly. No noise. No warning. Just a step now covered in glass. And then I stepped on it. Barefoot. Full weight. Instant regret.

I’ve cleaned it as best I can, pulled out what glass I could find, drowned it in antiseptic and crossed my fingers. It’s sore, but manageable. More annoying than anything. Still, not exactly the dream New Year moment.

But here’s the thing. Somewhere, in some culture, this has to count as good luck. A bit of pain upfront so the rest of the year behaves itself. That’s the story I’m sticking with.

So no, it’s not an omen. It’s a sign. Slightly stupid, slightly painful, but very on brand. If the bad luck is out of the way in the first five minutes, then maybe 2026 will be kinder from here on in.

#2026

31/12/2025

I have a strange relationship with New Year.

When I was younger, I enjoyed it. Or maybe I enjoyed what surrounded it. The drinking, the late nights, the sense that something big was happening just because the clock said so. Back then, New Year felt like possibility. Like life was stretching out in front of me.

Now, if I am honest, I find it one of the most depressing moments of the year.

It is not because anything bad has happened. It is because New Year forces reflection whether you want it or not. Another year gone. Another notch closer to the end. Another quiet inventory of all the things I thought I would have done by now.

And if you set high standards for yourself, you will almost always come up short. No matter who you are.

I think New Year magnifies that gap between intention and reality. Between who we thought we would be and who we actually are. That gap can feel uncomfortable, even painful, especially when the world insists you should be celebrating.

There is also something about how New Year is celebrated that no longer sits comfortably with me. I am naturally an introvert. I overcame that for years through partying and drinking, through noise and crowds and bravado. But when all that falls away, when I am left to my own devices, I do not really enjoy the performance of it all.

The countdowns. The forced joy. The idea that happiness has to look loud.

The only part of New Year I can still relate to is the idea of hope. The thought that the future might be better than the past. But that hope feels separate from the fireworks. It does not need champagne or shouting or staying up late just to prove something.

Sometimes I wonder if this means I am turning into a grumpy old man. The Grinch of New Year.

But the truth is simpler than that.

I have realised I am happiest in ordinary times.

Not big moments. Not milestones. Not spectacles. Just ordinary days. Being with my wife. Being with my children. Sitting in peace. Feeling grounded. Feeling present.

That kind of happiness does not need marking. It does not need an audience. It does not care what date it is.

New Year celebrates novelty. I value continuity. New Year celebrates reinvention. I value presence. New Year asks us to perform happiness. I am learning to choose peace instead.

I do not think that is sadness. I think it is acceptance.

Maybe growing older is not about losing joy, but about refining it. Stripping away the noise and keeping what actually matters.

If that makes me ordinary, I am fine with that.

I have learned that ordinary is where meaning lives.

31/12/2025

2026, A Year of Renewal

I have written a lot over the years about my weight loss journey as Bye Bye Fatman. The highs, the lows, the binge eating, the discipline, the joy of movement, the pride, the relapses, the frustration, the quiet shame, and the stubborn refusal to give up.

This is not a new fight for me.

I know what it feels like to be trapped in a body that does not cooperate. I also know what it feels like to be lighter, fitter, more mobile, more confident, and more at peace in my own skin. I lived there for a few years. I maintained a huge weight loss. I danced, I moved, I felt athletic again. I felt like myself.

And then life happened.

Stress returned. Old patterns crept back in. The binge eating disorder that never truly leaves waited patiently for the cracks. The weight did not come back overnight, but it came back quietly, persistently, until one day I had to face the truth that I had lost momentum and direction.

But here is the important part.

I have done this before.

I am not starting from ignorance. I am starting from experience. I know my triggers. I know my excuses. I know the difference between discipline and denial. I know that quick results can give momentum, but quick fixes cannot be the foundation of a healthy future.

If 2026 is going to be different, and it will be, then it has to be about more than food and movement. It has to be about mindset. About stress. About emotional regulation. About learning to sit with discomfort instead of eating it away. About understanding that obesity is not a failure of willpower, but a complex mix of psychology, habit, emotion, and biology.

I also know this. Doing this alone is brutal.

Weight loss is one of the loneliest journeys a person can take. You fight battles in your head that no one sees. You smile in public while wrestling demons in private. And too often, shame keeps us silent.

I do not want silence anymore.

I want 2026 to be a year of honesty, renewal, and shared effort. A year where I stop pretending I can muscle through everything on discipline alone. A year where I learn from what did not work, without dismissing what once did. A year where progress matters more than perfection.

I am not promising miracles. I am not selling a system. I am not declaring myself cured.

I am declaring intent.

I am still here. I still care. And I am ready to do the work properly this time, inside as much as outside.

If you are on your own journey, struggling, restarting, ashamed, hopeful, tired, or stubbornly refusing to quit, then walk with me. Share your story. Support others. Let us remind each other that falling does not define us, staying down does.

2026 is not about becoming someone new.

It is about becoming myself again, wiser, more honest, and still standing.

Let us do this together.

31/12/2025

Being completely overwhelmed by the most beautiful woman in the world and having to pinch myself to remind me that she’s my wife ❤️

Some days you just stop, look, and think… how on earth did I get this lucky.

Love, gratitude, and a whole lot of disbelief, every single day.

31/12/2025

The Struggles of Weight Loss

For me, Bye Bye Fatman, weight loss is not a campaign or a phase. It is my life. And life is messy.

I have lost a huge amount of weight before. I have felt light, mobile, proud, and in control. And then, quietly, without drama or collapse, I have regained a significant amount of it. Not overnight. Not because I gave up. But because stress returned, routines slipped, comfort eating crept back in, and the voice of my binge eating disorder got louder again.

That is how it always happens. It starts small. One off plan day. Then another. Then the familiar promise, I will reset on Monday. Then Monday becomes next week. Then next month. And suddenly you look in the mirror and realise the body has changed again, even though you did not feel like you failed in any one moment.

That is the cruel part of this journey. Weight regain does not announce itself. It accumulates.

I will be honest. There are moments when I feel like a fraud. I speak openly about health, discipline, mindset, and recovery. And yet here I am again, heavier than I planned to be, further from my best shape than I wanted. I ask myself hard questions. Am I still credible. Am I letting people down. Am I letting myself down.

But here is the truth. With binge eating disorder, there is no finish line. There is no cured state where the work stops. This is not a straight line from fat to fit to forever healthy. It is peaks and troughs, breakthroughs and regressions, clarity and denial, strength and exhaustion.

Some days I win. Some days I do not. And over the past year, I have lost ground again. That hurts to admit. But pretending otherwise would be dishonest.

What I do know is this. Giving up would be the real failure. Silence would be the real lie. The fact that I am still reflecting, still owning it, still trying to understand my psychology rather than blaming anyone else, that matters.

My worth is not defined by the scale. My integrity is not cancelled by a setback. And my responsibility to my wife and children is not to be perfect, but to keep trying.

This is not a redemption post. It is a reality check.

This is life with an eating disorder. This is weight loss that is not linear. This is falling, standing up, and choosing to fight again, even when you are tired of fighting.

I am still here. And that still counts.

30/12/2025

“These People” and the Muzungu Mindset

There is an expression I have come to hate more than almost any other, and it is the phrase “These people.”

I hear it most often from white economic migrants who prefer to call themselves expats, living in Africa, and very much so here in Zambia. “These people” is never neutral. It is never descriptive. It is always loaded. It is shorthand for inferiority.

“These people” does not mean individuals. It means the mass. The background. The service staff. The bank teller. The waiter. The receptionist. The security guard. The cleaner. It is a way of stripping people of individuality and dignity in one lazy phrase.

You hear “these people” when service is not instant. “These people” have no customer service. You hear “these people” in restaurants when someone is not at the table within seconds. “These people” do not understand urgency. You hear “these people” at lodges, hotels, banks, clinics. “These people” cannot organise anything. “These people” do not care.

What is really being said is simpler and uglier. “These people” are not moving quickly enough to serve me.

That is where the white supremacy sits. Not shouted. Not explicit. Smiling. Casual. Over drinks and small talk. Supremacy rooted in expectation, the expectation of priority, of deference, of being served first simply because of who you are.

What makes this worse is that most of the people who speak like this are not Zambian. They are not locals frustrated by their own systems. They are migrants who have arrived from elsewhere and brought entitlement with them. They gather in bubbles, in WhatsApp groups, in social circles, and feed off one another. “These people” becomes their shared language.

The irony is that, by and large, service here is no slower than in so called developed countries. Anyone who has queued in Europe knows inefficiency is not uniquely African. Yes, systems are sometimes less polished. Technology fails. Logistics wobble. That is reality. It is not incompetence and it is certainly not inferiority.

What unsettles them is equality. Being asked to wait their turn. Being treated like everyone else. That is the real discomfort behind “these people.”

I have seen this mindset for decades across Africa. It is one of the ugliest legacies of colonialism, not borders or laws, but psychology. The idea that some lives are central and others peripheral.

Zambia does not exist to serve white comfort. Zambian people are not extras in someone else’s African experience. They are not “these people.”

They are people.

And if that makes some uncomfortable, perhaps it is time to stop blaming “these people” and start looking at us.

30/12/2025

The Truth About VLCD, TFR, and the Myth of the Quick Fix

This is a hard one for me to write, because VLCD and TFR diets are not abstract ideas to me. They are part of my story.

As Bye Bye Fatman, I have used them. I have lived them. At my peak, I spent six months on this type of diet and lost nearly 150 lbs. The results were dramatic. The scale moved fast. Clothes fell off. People noticed. In moments where the road ahead felt too long, too slow, too overwhelming, that speed felt like salvation.

And I will never pretend they do not work.

They work. Sometimes remarkably well.

But they come with a price that is rarely talked about honestly.

Very Low Calorie Diets and Total Food Replacement plans are incredibly effective at weight loss, but they are brutally difficult when it comes to maintaining that loss. The body adapts fast. Metabolism slows. Hunger hormones ramp up. Energy dips. This is not weakness. It is biology doing what it has evolved to do.

Then comes the real challenge, going back to normal eating.

When you have spent weeks or months in a tightly controlled food environment, returning to real life is jarring. Food is everywhere again. Stress is back. Family life, work pressures, exhaustion, emotional lows, all the things that pushed you towards food in the first place come back into play.

And here is the uncomfortable truth. Those diets never tackled why I became obese.

They never addressed emotional eating. They never fixed binge patterns. They never dealt with using food as comfort, relief, distraction, or escape. All of that just sat there quietly, waiting for structure to be removed.

When it is removed, those habits return. Often stronger.

I know this because I have lived it more times than I care to count.

Weight loss drugs are not that different. They can be powerful tools. Appetite drops. Weight falls. The mirror changes. But again, the change often depends on staying on the drug. Coming off it can feel terrifying. Hunger returns. Old urges reappear. And unless behaviour has genuinely changed, the weight often follows.

Different methods. Same problem.

These approaches treat weight. They do not fix the system that created it.

That does not mean quick fixes are pointless. When you are obese and struggling, speed can be motivating. Seeing progress can restore belief when everything feels broken. Sometimes you need that spark just to start moving again.

But a spark is not a long term plan.

What I am slowly accepting is that real change requires more than restriction. It needs patience. It needs learning how to eat normally again. It needs finding ways to deal with stress that do not involve food. It needs sleep, routine, movement, and honesty about why we eat the way we do.

And it needs forgiveness. Because this is not a straight road.

I am at a point where I need a fresh start. Not another extreme reset that ignores reality, but a clean beginning built on health rather than punishment. I want to eat clean, be healthier, and approach the new year differently. I am open to ideas. Open to slower progress. Open to doing this in a way that might actually last.

Quick fixes can get you moving when the road feels endless. But staying on the road takes something else entirely.

That is where I am now.

And I am starting again.

30/12/2025

The Bit of the Weight Loss Journey People Don’t Like to Talk About

One of the biggest lies we are sold about weight loss is that it is linear.

That once you “get it”, once you crack the code, the weight just keeps coming off and life moves neatly in an upward direction. Progress. Success. Transformation. End of story.

That has never been my reality.

My journey has been peaks and troughs. Success followed by regression. False dawns. Restarts. Long stretches of discipline, followed by slow, almost invisible slippage. Weight loss, especially when you live with binge eating disorder, is never a straight line. It is a constant process of resetting, re evaluating, and starting again.

Five years ago I was around 410 pounds. At my lowest, I got down to about 265. That was a huge achievement. It didn’t happen by accident. It took focus, sacrifice, obsession, and an iron grip on my habits. And for a while, it worked.

But over the last twelve months, something uncomfortable has happened.

I have regained more than half of what I lost.

Not overnight. Not because of one bad decision. It crept up quietly. A bit more food here. A bit less movement there. A sense that I was “in control” even as the old patterns slowly re established themselves. And then one day you catch your reflection and the truth hits you. You didn’t fail dramatically. You drifted.

That is one of the cruel realities of binge eating disorder. It never announces itself. It waits patiently. It whispers. It convinces you that you deserve comfort, reward, relief. And because the gain happens gradually, you don’t feel the danger until it is already back in the room with you.

I don’t want sympathy. That’s not why I share this. I share it because I promised myself I would be honest, even when the story isn’t inspiring.

Right now, I am not in the best physical shape I have been in for years. That is hard to admit when your identity has been tied so publicly to weight loss. It forces you to confront uncomfortable questions about sustainability. About whether the methods that worked before are actually workable for life, or whether they were just effective in the short term.

Because here is the hard truth I am sitting with.

When I revert to something resembling a “normal” pattern of eating and exercise, things don’t behave the way I expect them to. My mindset hasn’t shifted as much as I thought it had. The old psychology is still there, waiting. And that tells me that I still haven’t done enough work on the root causes, not just the symptoms.

Now I am in my mid fifties. Time is no longer abstract. I don’t have endless resets left. I don’t get infinite wake up calls. I have already had health scares. I know what is at stake.

So this is where I am. Not quitting. Not pretending. Not sugar coating it.

I know what I am capable of. I have proved that. But knowing is not enough. I have to find a way forward that is sustainable, realistic, and rooted in a mindset that actually changes, not just one that holds on through willpower alone.

This journey has humbled me. It has stripped away any illusion that weight loss is simple, or that success once achieved is permanent. It has reminded me that this is a lifelong conversation with myself, not a finish line.

I’m still here. Still fighting. Still accountable.

And maybe this chapter, as uncomfortable as it is, is the one that finally forces me to do this properly, not perfectly, but honestly.

Bye Bye Fatman isn’t a slogan. It’s a process. And right now, the process continues.

29/12/2025

Every time my wife gets her nails done, my heart lifts. The kids get excited too. It might sound small, but those moments matter. They remind us to notice each other, to show care in simple ways, and to make one another feel special.

Family love is built in the everyday things. Not the big gestures, but the small acts that say, I see you, I care about you, you matter to me. We all need that reminder sometimes, especially when life feels heavy. In our home, we try to hold onto those moments, because they keep us grounded and connected.

29/12/2025

As 2025 comes to an end, I find myself doing a lot of reflecting.

On a personal level, I need to get my health back on track. I have slipped into old habits again, and if I am honest, food has always been my default response to stress. This year has brought plenty of that. Weight loss and healthy living need to move back to the centre of my life, not as a performance for social media, but because I owe it to myself and to my family.

Professionally, 2025 has been unsettling. In October, I resigned from my position as headteacher at a local school. I gave the required notice and was effectively placed on what we would call gardening leave in the UK, still under contract but no longer working day to day. Resigning without another job to go to was not a comfortable decision. It is something I had never done before. With three young children and a wife to support, being technically unemployed weighs heavily. It has been a source of anxiety, even when I know the decision itself was the right one.

Looking ahead to 2026, our focus shifts to something new and deeply personal. We are involved in opening a new school in Livingstone at the start of the first term of the year. The school will be called Livingstone International School.

At present, I do not hold a Zambian work permit, so my involvement is informal and supportive rather than official. My wife, Debra, is the shareholder and will hold a formal role. I will, on paper at least, be a house husband, backing her in every way I can.

This project excites us because it is clear in its purpose. The school will offer a genuinely international curriculum, not a hybrid or halfway model. At the same time, it will be rooted in Zambia, respectful of local culture, traditions, and community life. The ownership reflects that reality too. The business is majority Zambian owned, with three Zambian partners and two international ones. It is homegrown, but outward looking.

There is also real risk involved. Over the past few months, I have contributed a significant amount of my personal savings into this project, invested in Debra’s name. That adds pressure, but it also brings meaning. Livingstone matters to us. It is Debra’s home city, and it is where our own story began many years ago. Building something of value here feels worthwhile, even when it feels frightening.

For now, my role is to support, encourage, and wait. I respect Zambian immigration law and the conditions of my spouse visa. I do not work illegally, and I do not complain about the rules. I simply hope that in the coming weeks or months, a work permit will be granted so that I can formally contribute to Livingstone International School.

So as we head into 2026, there is uncertainty, stress, and vulnerability, but also hope and excitement. We believe in what we are trying to build.

Wish us well.

If you would like to know more, or feel you might want to be involved in some way, you are welcome to reach out. More details will follow as things take shape.

Bye Bye Fatman

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