170 Kg & Counting

CW fitness editor David Bradford meets three men who between them have lost more than 170kg — 27 stone — en route to becoming racing cyclists. Let them inspire you...

- Rob Orr

Look at the inset photo. That portly, shy-looking guy in sunglasses, clutching a bottle in front of his stomach, is a pro cyclist. OK, at that precise moment he is a junior accountant with an over-developed taste for junk food, but he is already en route to becoming a full-time rider.

“That photo was taken in Wales, in a place called Merthyr Mawr,” says Rob Orr as we sit down for a chat in the conservatory of his home in Narborough, Leicestershire.The 37-year-old has recently moved in with his girlfriend, and the place is spotless. Orr is recalling summer 2002. “I was away coaching with my athletics team. That week, I’d got a bike, and each day after coaching I’d go out riding. So that photo, bizarrely, is from day one.”

As a sport-mad teenager, Orr had played football at county level and trained with the Leicester City youth squad, while also training hard and winning county titles as a long-distance runner. Lanky and lean in stature (“people said I reminded them of Peter Crouch”) and valued on the wing for his lightning turn of pace, he never imagined getting fat. But aged just 17 he began having trouble with his knees. Doctors were unable to pinpoint the cause, but he was forced to quit running for good. Though he stayed involved with his athletics club as a coach, the distractions of late-teenage life eventually derailed his determination to stay trim.

“I was fed up with being injured and depriving myself of fun nights out in the hope of returning to running. I started going out once or twice a week drinking with mates, eating whatever I wanted.”

Having turned 20, and now tied to a nine-to-five office job, he piled on weight — hitting a peak of 105kg (16.5st) — ending up unrecognisable from his former athletic self. Was he depressed?