A man who could polish off a tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream after scoffing a whopping meal at a Hungry Horse pub has lost more than 6 stone. Darren Rae's eating habits went on a downward spiral after leaving the Royal Air Force, where he worked as a chef, in 2015 and lockdown made it worse.
Getting a job making doughnuts at Nottingham company Doughnotts placed temptation in his path and he'd think nothing of eating up to 15 of the sugary treats at weekends. The 40-year-old said: "Once I became a civilian I could eat whatever I wanted. I could sit and eat a birthday cake if I wanted or ten tubs of Ben & Jerry's if I liked but I wasn't thinking about the impact to my health.
"I got to the point where I would keep money behind at the end of the month so I could afford takeaways instead of buying essential things I needed for cleaning the bathroom or washing up liquid. I'd always make sure I had £100 left at the end of the month so I could order pizza or Five Guys."
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No stranger to Hungry Horse's big plates, Darren had no problem working his way through a breakfast with four eggs, four sausage, four bacon, and four slices of toast or a burger with four patties and two chicken breasts. He said: "I was just smashing through them and not thinking what I was doing to myself, how I as making myself feel. It was like I couldn't satisfy myself with the amount of junk I was eating. I was still hungry so I'd go and buy a tub of Ben & Jerry's and finish that off."
Darren piled on the pounds, wolfing down a Greggs or Subway in his lunchbreak "which was like a starter" and a whole packet of biscuits. At home he'd order two large pizzas intending to save one for the following day but devoured the lot, plus chips and cola.
Then he'd work his way through a tub of ice cream, Pringles or chocolate bars without a second thought about the damage it was causing to his health. At his heaviest Darren tipped the scales at 21 stone and last year, at the age of 39, his metabolic age was that of a 75-year-old.
He said: "The diabetes risk was high, the heart disease risk was high. I wasn't thinking about my health, I wasn't thinking about how I felt. I just didn't care .I was just eating and eating and eating to make myself feel happier but I was actually making myself worse. I couldn't bend down to pick things up off the floor. Everything was a struggle.
"I was putting myself into a very dangerous position to be honest. When we came back after lockdown I was asked to do 100 doughnuts and just bending down to pick up the doughnuts off the bottom rack it physically almost ended me as I couldn't bend down. I was out of breath. I couldn't drizzle chocolate on top of them without my arms seizing up, It was ridiculous. My physical efforts were rubbish, I didn't have anything in me whatsoever."
At weekends Darren would spend all his time sitting down playing games on his PlayStation. "I'd order take-outs and do nothing. It as a sedentary kind of existence, feeling sorry for myself and not really wanting to make much of a change because I though that's the only way I could me. I didn't think I could change.
"As a chef I should know better but I did it anyway. I'd gorge myself on rubbish and just sit and play all weekend. I wouldn't move. I'd play for 12 hours and eating Rustlers burgers and crisps and four litres of coke and not care what was going on."
The epiphany came last year when he got out of the shower and looked in the mirror. "For some weird reason it just clicked in my head and I just wasn't happy with the way I looked. Once I get hooked into something or an idea in my head I want that path until I complete it. That's my goal.
"I looked at myself and without going into too much detail I thought you're a fat horrible mess. I looked like a thumb from the neck up as there was no neck - it was just fat. My stomach was huge. I'd got a dad bod and I'm not even a dad."
That was March 2021. Instead of hopping on an e-scooter as usual to get to the Doughnotts bakery at Queen's Drive Industrial Estate in Nottingham, he walked the 2.2 miles from his home in Radford Boulevard and back again. At weekends he walked to Wollaton Park and treed all the way around it before returning home.
His walks took him past Castle Marina, where he spotted a new fitness studio, called Orangetheory, was about to open. "It was subliminal, when you keep walking past a poster about group fitness classes. I'm more of an individual when it comes to doing fitness but that was just in my head because I'd never done a class before and didn't know what to expect.
"One day I saw people milling around and thought bugger it and walked in and said what's the deal with this place? They explained everything and I booked myself in."
Darren started off with incline walking on the treadmill and a low impact workout on a cross trainer. The rowing machine was a no-go though. "I was that fat I couldn't physically use the rower because my stomach was that big I couldn't get the handles over my knees. I had to split my knees open and looked like a frog. That's how I had to row, I physically couldn't do it.
"I felt self conscious at first as the mirrors are pointing at you when you're on the treadmill, and you see people come into the classes and they're all wearing skinny shorts and T-shirts and looking good and you're thinking 'is this the right thing for me?' but you have got to flick the switch in your head and ignore everyone else and concentrate on yourself. You're not in competition with anyone, only yourself. Once I got over that I concentrated on myself and was going four or five times a week.
"I felt better and and also a little more involved with people which is something that had been lacking for a long time. Leaving the Air Force I'd been on my own for five or six years and hadn't really had anything outside of work."
Darren's Orangetheory workout is centred around a coach guiding him through the five different heart rate zones: resting, easy, challenging, uncomfortable and all out. They say when to push harder and when to pull back for recovery. The goal is to spend just 12 to 20 minutes with your heart rate elevated in 'The Orange Zone' to boost your metabolism, burn fat and burn more calories. He is also lifting 70lb weights
Over the last year Darren has shed 6st 6lbs, and is now down to 14st 10lbs. Previously he was wearing XXXL jeans, almost needing XXXXL. His 42in waist has shrunk to 32in.
"It's great. It was like when I between 16 and 25 again and it was a high confidence boost. I'm able to talk to girls with a bit more confidence and they're talking to me rather than avoiding me because I look horrible."
His fitness has improved so much that on Sunday he took part in the 10k race at the University of Nottingham - his first since Iraq in 2007.
"I don't have any doughnuts whatsoever now, as daft as it sounds. I work as a doughnut baker but don't have any. I don't miss anything. The other mad achievement that I didn't realise until about a month ago is the fact I've not had chips for over a year. I do treat myself, I've had one or two pizzas. I might have a packet of digestives in the cupboard but they last a week and a half - they don't get scoffed on the first night."
Diet before
Breakfast: Double egg McMuffin, two hash browns, cup of coffee
Lunch: Greggs, or Subway
After work: Two pizzas, and two large fries and bottle of coke, tub of Ben and Jerry's, Pringles, chocolate bars
Diet now
Breakfast: Protein oats from Aldi
Mid-morning: Two boiled eggs
Lunch: Tin of tuna
Pre workout: Banana or high performance, high protein meal like turkey casserole only about 300 calories
Evening: Homemade chicken teriyaki, wholegrain rice and roasted broccoli
