I’M NO BIG EA TER,HONEST! Corkman Richie Doyle is 42st... but both he and his ex insist he has a healthy diet. So what IS causing his obesity crisis?
I had enough - in the end his weight killed off our relationship
eaten that much, not enough to put on all this weight. I’m here constantly and I’m very strict on what’s eaten around him. I bring down dinners as well to him, chicken, fish, meat, with veg and potatoes.’
The pair may be clueless as to how Richie ended up with a waist which is now just under 54 inches and wearing up to XXXXXXXXXL clothing.
But the effects of his obesity are all too plain to see.
His tracksuit bottoms are slashed from the bottom of his legs to his knees to allow room for the heavy bandaging around his ulcerated calves.
A public nurse visits him at his home in Bantry, west Cork, every second day to change the dressings.
His size 14 feet look painfully swollen, although he says his trainers still fit him fine. He can walk outside as long as he uses his walking aid, a waist high frame on four wheels that sits in the corner of his kitchen. Not that he uses it that much. ‘I took him out last Friday for a spin in the car,’ says Treasa. ‘He’d been indoors for months, he wasn’t getting any fresh air whatsoever.’
The last time he attempted a walk, from the front door of his two-bedroom home to the local post office, a journey
I asked the doctor about it – he just told me to stop eating
Treasa, however, is a lot more aware of the possible dangers of his present condition. ‘When you care about someone so much and to see him the way he is, it does break my heart,’ she says. ‘Especially because of the kids.
‘He’s got such a big heart, he’d do anything for anyone. But to be honest his weight is what killed our relationship. I was sleeping upstairs and he was downstairs. I had enough of it, I needed to get on with my own life.’
Originally from Clondalkin, Dublin, Richie Doyle worked for security firms and in a food factory producing, ironically enough, pre-packaged salads.
As a younger man he was very average sized, with a 32in waist up until he was 18.
‘By the time I hit about 24 I was 36in waist,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t too bad.’
It seems the real trouble began when he moved down to Bantry in 1992 after meeting Treasa out one night in a pub in Dublin. Back then he was 6ft 2in and 16st. ‘I was always very active,’ he says. ‘I was a member of the FCA [the Reserve Defence Forces] for about 20 years and I did a lot of voluntary work for the Lifeboat Service and the Fire Service.’
‘He was handsome,’ sighs Treasa. ‘He was very active, my type of man. My friends couldn’t get over him when I brought him down first. They were asking; “Where did you get him?”’
The couple had two sons, Richard, 19, and Robert, 14. Richie continued to work in security, standing at the doors of nightclubs and pubs. He loved his new hometown but was steadily getting bigger.
‘It was a slow weight gain at the start then boom,’ he says. ‘When I was about 35 my waist was 44in. I was worried so I asked the doctors about a gastric bypass, they did tests and an echo scan on my heart showed it was enlarged, I don’t know why, so it was borderline.
‘Then they told me I had an irregular heartbeat. I asked the doctor what other way could I lose the weight, and he told me to stop eating.’
But both Richie and Treasa are adamant that his obesity was not caused by excessive consumption.
‘We were together for 20 years and I always did the cooking,’ says Treasa. ‘He got the same portions as myself, and I didn’t eat that much.’
Indeed Treasa is svelte size 10, who, last time she checked, weighs about nine-and-a-half stone. For what ever
FROM his well-worn, twoseater sofa, Richie Doyle points a finger towards the kitchen. ‘Go on, go over there and look in my fridge,’ he insists. ‘Go on, open it up and you’ll see how little food I have.’ Indeed inside there are just two cartons of milk, one whole fat, the other half fat. There is also a large container of homemade soup, two shop-brought tubs of curry sauce, a small tub of Dairygold butter and half a packet of chorizo sausage.
‘You see,’ grins Richie. ‘Now, just above the fridge, in that cupboard, have a look at what’s in there.’ Again there is a rather meagre collection of supplies, a half empty packet of crackers, a couple of packs of Uncle Ben’s rice, pasta, sugar, tea-bags — certainly nothing out of the ordinary.
There are no signs of any kind of treats, no biscuits, cakes or crisps. It’s a fairly typical food store cupboard for a man living on his own. Yet Richie, an amenable 44-year- old with a ready smile, is far from being a typical man.
Last time he was weighed, back in March when he was admitted into hospital with breathing problems and diagnosed with ‘slight carbon monoxide poisoning,’ he tipped the scales at an astonishing 42st.
However, that was a small improvement from just over 12 months earlier when he stepped on the scales at the Loughlinstown Weight Loss clinic in Dublin. That time he weighed an even more extraordinary 44st.
He says he has ‘no idea’ how he got to be this large. And he flatly denies earlier reports this week that he ever lived on a diet of take-aways and sweets.
‘I’m not a big eater,’ he says, his large green eyes widening in protest.
‘I’ll go through a typical day for you: yesterday in the morning I had two slices of toast and marmalade and a cup of tea. At lunchtime it was a bowl of soup and one bread roll and then a mug of pasta with a bit of sauce — a sachet of curry powder — for my dinner. That’s all I have.’
His former partner, 39-year-old Treasa Pheur, backs him up.
‘Honest to God, even our kids can vouch for his eating,’ she says.
‘It baffles me why he put on the weight. We do have a theory about what could have caused it or kicked it off.
‘He was asthmatic when he was younger and on those inhalers. I’ve read up about them and there are steroids in them, which I found out can put on weight. But he really has never that should take less than ten minutes, it took Treasa and her friend almost three hours to help him get there and back. It is a situation that many would find desperately sad.
Yet Richie does not display an ounce of self-pity. In fact he is relentlessly good-humoured. He does plan on losing weight, a dietitian from the Loughlinstown Clinic is coming down to meet him in September and he says this time he is determined.
In the meantime he wants Cork County Council to give him a bungalow to live in. Since February 2012 he has been sleeping on the floor on his sitting room, unable to tackle the narrow staircase in his present house, which he privately rents for €80 a week, half of which is paid for by welfare.
‘I can get up but getting down is the problem,’ he says. ‘If I try to walk front ways I can’t see the step because of the belly. I can turn around backwards but even at that my foot could easily slip.’
This uncomfortable sleeping arrangement seems to be his biggest concern.
reason Richie was gaining weight, he was doing very little to lose it.
As a result his relationship began to badly suffer.
‘I met a tall attractive guy,’ says Treasa. ‘When he was in his early 30s I noticed he was getting a bit of a belly. I’d say I stopped being physically attracted to him well over ten years ago, when he got really big.’
Sitting on his sagging, blue coloured sofa, Richie seems not to mind that his clothes, a huge navy T- shirt and tracksuit bottoms, are not big enough to cover his massive stomach. There is a good 25cm gap, revealing a huge swathe of stretched, red skin. At times it is difficult not to stare. ‘I was on a clothing grant but it stopped,’ he cheerfully explains. ‘All I’d have to do was ring Mr Big ‘N’ Tall in Goatstown, Dublin [a specialty shop for out sized clothing] and tell him I need boxer shorts, tracksuits bottoms, T-shirts, he told him how much they were and I’d send him a postal order.’
Treasa found it to harder and harder to watch the father of her two sons continue to get bigger.
‘I started to disconnect from him and we were fighting all the time,’ she says. ‘There was serious frustration on both sides because of his weight. I was trying to motivate him but he went from sleeping on a bed with me to sleeping downstairs.
‘All the while the kids were watching this and it was hard for them, especially when they were small.’
Despite sleeping separately, Richie and Treasa decided to remain living together. ‘We tried living together under same roof because of the boys,’ says Treasa. ‘But the arguing became worse and worse. It nearly turned physical.’ The couple split up two years ago and Richie moved into his present accommodation.
He was working up until about two years ago with a local security firm who did bouncing for nightclubs and pubs.
‘ I moved fast,’ he says. ‘ I got through the crowd quicker than most other bouncers. Work is scarce at the moment, that’s why I’m not working, not because of health reasons.’
Yet a little later he describes how he has to haul himself from his makeshift bed of two duvets and a couple of pillows that he throws down on his sitting room floor every night.
‘Each morning, I have to go up on my hands and knees, crawl over to the sofa and pull myself up after three,’ he says. ‘I still have power in my shoulders.’
Frankly, it is impossible to imagine him swiftly making his way through a crowded club to break up a fight or a scuffle.
Being the size he is, people must stare when he does go out?
‘One thing I’ve learned is to let things go over your head,’ he says. ‘I did get people saying: “Look at that fat b******.” But then I got them back by not letting them into the pub where I worked on the door.’
‘Kids are fascinated by him,’ adds Treasa. ‘But the kids don’t bother him. It’s the adults.’
‘I’ll see a couple of kids, pulling their mother’s hand and saying: “Look at that man’s belly.” And they’ll get a clip but I wonder why?’ Richie adds. ‘The child is only saying what he sees. I don’t let it get to me.’
He even stopped going into pubs around six years ago.
‘I don’t drink any more, there was a time I’d go out at night and have 13 or 14 bottles of cider.
‘But the last time I was in the pub was Richard’s 18th birthday and I had two pints of Coke.’
How do his sons feel about their father being so big? Do they ever say anything to him about it? Does he think they might be a bit embarrassed for him?
‘It’s hard to say,’ Richie claims. ‘The older boy is very quiet and the younger one...’
‘The youngest is worried,’ continues Treasa. ‘ He actually says: “I’m afraid dad is going to go on us.” All I can say is that dad will outlive us all. It is affecting him.
‘They do talk more to me about it and I do question them, it’s frightening for them. I’ve tried everything, I’ve tried saying things like: “You don’t care about me, you don’t care about the boys.” None of it worked.’
Yet despite her frustrations with her ex-partner, Treasa calls to him every day, helping to bathe and dry him every second day before the nurse calls to change his bandages.
‘He can’t get into the creases,’ she explains. ‘I have to push up the folds and I wash underneath and dry him and then put talcum powder on him.’
Treasa is hoping that a recent emergency trip to the hospital in March has finally given Richie the ‘wake-up call’ he needs to tackle his obesity. ‘ He kept saying that his chest and breathing were really bad, I was putting it down to his weight. But one day I came down, and he just collapsed, I had to ring an ambulance.’
Richie was able to walk into the ambulance, albeit painfully slowly. He was admitted for two weeks (a
I’ve no fear of dying – but I don’t want to go too soon
special big bed had to sent down from Belfast to accommodate him) and was diagnosed with low level carbon monoxide poisoning, which he puts down to the passing traffic outside his door.
‘I have the door open most of the time so I’m inhaling all those fumes.’
Since being discharged he has been relying on an oxygen ventilator.
Several tanks of oxygen and a couple of high-tech looking machines stand in the corner of his sitting room and each night he sleeps with a mask covering most of his face.
‘We thought we’d almost lost him,’ says Treasa. ‘And I think he got a real scare as well. We’ve been keeping food diaries for the weight loss clinic and someone is coming down to him in September. I think he’s really determined this time.
‘He did go to the clinic in Loughlinstown last year but he didn’t go back, his mam was desperate for him to do that. I’ve asked him so many times: “Are you not afraid of dying? Are you not afraid that your heart is just going to go?” His exact words back are always: “No not at all.”
‘No, I’ve no fear of dying,’ agrees Richie. ‘But I don’t want to go too soon, I do want to see the boys grown up and maybe some grandkids.
‘But I need to take these steps all in my own time. I’ll do it because I want to, not because I have to. It’s up to me to lose it. I know that.’