We can’t wait for our marathon adventure
THESE DAYS I ACTIVELY SEEK OUT RUNNING EVENTS
Ian Muncaster, 41, is an engineering manager and lives with his partner Francesca in Leyland, Lancashire
As a young child I was an average weight, but I started getting bigger after an illness in primary school and struggled with my size from that point on.
Being overweight as a child meant that I was teased quite a lot, which really affected my self-esteem.
I only really started to have fears about my weight and what the future held for me in recent years though.
Lying on the sofa one evening watching TV, I realised my resting heart rate was in the 90s – and with diabetes and cancer in my family, I was worried these same conditions could affect me too. I decided it was time to take care of myself.
My sister was the one who suggested I join Slimming World and dragged me along one Friday. Although I was worried I would be the only man in the group, I wasn’t and everyone was so friendly I never looked back.
Before joining Slimming World, my evening meals were frozen foods such as pizza and chips, and I snacked on crisps, biscuits and chocolate. Now my eating habits have completely changed, and I will typically batch cook and freeze my favourite meals, such as vegetable stews with beans and lentils, Slimming World chilli beef, or cheesy Cajun chicken pasta, so I still eat out of my freezer but now it’s something homemade and healthy.
In 2017 I was diagnosed with sleep apnoea and had to be hooked up to a CPAP machine to help me breathe when sleeping at night. During the initial sleep study, I stopped breathing on average 31 times an hour – it was scary.
Thanks to my weight loss, I no longer need treatment for sleep apnoea and was discharged from the sleep clinic in 2020.
I was never interested in sport, so inactivity coupled with how heavy I was meant I used to get out of breath just walking.
Joining Slimming World and finding out about its Body Magic physical activity programme has given me the support and encouragement to take up running.
When I first started, just the thought of moving for 30 minutes seemed impossible. But I did it, and I kept going. In September 2019 I joked with my grandmother while watching the Great North Run, “that might be me next year”.
Then in 2021 I did it. Now I actively seek out running events.
I lost my father to cancer in 1996 so I’m very happy to be running the marathon for Cancer Research UK. I can’t believe how far I’ve come, from barely moving to being excited to run the London Marathon.