Well, hello there!

It's time to admit it. I'm a lard-arse. I am officially morbidly obese.

Although I'm 6'4" and perhaps carry morbid obesity better than someone, say, 3'2" - I need to lose SIX STONE (84lb/38kg) to get in that healthy weight bracket.

So, here's the challenge I'm setting myself:

I am going to lose six stone by this New Year's Eve, December 31st, 2018.

OR

I am going to lose five stone by this New Year's Eve, December 31st, 2018 - and that extra stone I didn't lose will be because I'm ripped.

I have spent most of my life in various depths of depression, and my brother, Paul, spent most of his life fighting to stay alive, after medics discovered, in his late teens, that he only ever had one functional kidney, and it was failing.

One  of the kidneys he received, when he was very ill and on dialysis, was from some poor young guy who was in a motorbike crash. In the midst of the most nightmarish heartbreak, his loved ones chose to let their son live on in others and gift them a longer life.

We didn't get along for most of our lives, Paul and I, but after our beautiful Mum died, he was truly my rock. He held the family together, even with his own awful medical issues spiralling out of control.

I once asked if I could borrow £20 from him. I didn't need the money. I just wanted to see if he trusted me, then. He didn't hesitate, and he didn't see me crying happy tears in my bedroom shortly afterwards. I gave him the same note back the next day, with thanks.

I think it was Christmas Day, 2014, when he had to have the first amputation on, I believe, his left foot. By May, 2015, they'd taken off the toes on his right foot and gone right up to just under the knee of his left leg.

He was such a passionate Carlisle United fan and he loved to argue (for example, he'd tell me something like: "I like Star Wars, but Star Trek is better, isn't it?" If I was a Star Trek fanatic, he would have told me he thought Star Wars was better.

When we first got online, at our old Mum's place, in Millriggs, just outside Carlisle, Paul wasn't interested in the internet at all. It was a new-fangled waste of time.

But when he learnt that he could argue with Carlisle United supporters, online and in real time, and also praise or insult the opposition supporters, and ridicule Manchester United supporters, he soon realised that the world wide web massively increased the amount of people he could argue with.

I once found him watching Jeremy Kyle, and I said: "Why do you watch this shit?"

He looked at me and said, with a big smile: "It makes me feel superior."

We went to one last Carlisle United game, all five of us siblings - we all knew it was the last one, I guess... Paul was very ill -  and he insisted on wearing his left trainer on the stump of his leg, so he could get some value for money out of them.

When I held his hand, when he was unconscious in hospital, before he died... and he looked like one of gaunt, piled up bodies from Belsen... knowing I'd never hear his voice again.... I would gladly have given him my body. So fucking gladly...

I will always remember the sound of his laughter. It was always so hearty and free, and, despite all of the medical shit, he laughed more than any other person I know. 

I let him down too many times, but he forgave me. 

Any fool can carry a grudge. It takes courage to forgive, and gosh, that guy had courage in spades.

He was a true hero, a warrior, like my other brother - they just fought their battles in different theatres.

I've really struggled over the past five and a half years, but that's all gone, now. The darkness is lifting and I'm starting to think maybe I can have a good life after all. I could be around for a few more decades. Maybe I'll become a famous writer, with a passionate fandom that flames all my trolls? 

Perhaps I could do some good in the world, if I really went for it?

I can't give Paul my body, but I can honour him and my Mum, and all our little furry friends, by living my life to the fullest.

Paul said to me once: "I think you're afraid of success."

I think he was right. Success occurs outside my comfort zone and my comfort zone is approximately the same shape as my flat.

Because of a bizarre family argument that could so easily be sorted, I'm left with no family. It's my birthday on Sunday and I know I won't get a card from my dad, sister or two surviving brothers. It breaks my heart every year. However, I do save quite a tidy sum by not sending them cards either.

6y7yth

(My cat, Atlas just wrote that, above, so I'll leave it there. Maybe it's a code to other cats on the Internet?)

I digress...

That profile photo was taken some eight years ago, when I first discovered my addiction to hill walking. I'm not lying to you. I don't look like that now. I look more like Hodor from Game of Thrones, at the exact moment he found out he was being written out of the show. Or if Brian Blessed crashed his submarine and his body was found two weeks later, washes up on a beach on the set on the set of Angela Lansbury's reboot 'Murder, She Blogged',  the sheriff would look at his bloated corpse and say: "Isn't that Les Floyd again?"

But I live in Cumbria, the hilliest and silliest county in all of Englandshire. We have a town called Cockermouth, and if you wish, you can climb Great Cockup! If that's too much for you - ladies and gentlefolk - Little Cockup is only a mile or so away.

"One of the most effective ways of preventing shark attacks is hill walking" - Anon

I am overweight not because I gorge all day on liver, fava beans and nice chiantis - it's because I very rarely leave the flat and you could describe my diet as unbalanced - a bit like me, I suppose!

I need to get moving again... physically, mentally and emotionally... and 'spiritually', too. Even though I'm pretty much a borderline atheist agnostic, from a certain point of view, I can see that the past five years or so could be regarded as an education of sorts. Like a series of tests, set by a rotten bastard that lives in the ether and roars with laughter each time he sees me cry.

I have a Stagecoach Megarider Gold (which isn't gold-coloured, sadly) which I will use it to explore Cumbria's absolutely stunning Lake District and, crucially, start getting up hills again three times per week. (I want my mountain arse back, thank-you-very-much, the Universe! I think a six-pack and a nice bum would be an adequate reward after the Universe did a Ragnarok on me. I half-expected to see Christians floating up to heaven and the multitudes of non-believers stuck in airports with all flights cancelled until the end of the Rapture, because the Christians kept blowing out the plane's engines when they hit them.

I also have a few bits of Fitbit bits that I can manipulate with the power of mouse symbiosis, granting me great insights which I will share with you, to show you, every day if you wish, how far I've been walking and how much lard I've burnt.

From Sunday, April 8th, 2018 (in two days) - my 44th birthday - I will take a topless photo of myself every day and post it on Twitter, at @Lesism.

I warn you, it's not going to be pretty, but it'll look good in a montage when I post the last one on New Year's Eve.

So - nine months! For Paul, for Mum, Titan, Orion, Scratchy, Mouser and for Anna Friel... game on!

Please be aware that I have a genuine 'stalker' who likes to invade comments I make on social media and may attempt some sort of cunning subterfuge about my secret, evil intentions for doing this.

This is JustGiving, not GoFundMe, so I don't deal with the money at all. I think the site takes a small percentage, but then the rest goes directly to the National Kidney Federation - "The largest kidney patient charity in the UK. Run by kidney patients, for kidney patients."

I'm doing this because my brother died, aged 49, from complications arising from kidney disease, and because he represented the National Kidney Federation at times, I believe... like I said, he loved arguing and he was very good at it!

Also, because I'm a lardster, of course

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.