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Just received my storm cap for the caged westy from sbfs ordered in December and arrived today, no pics as the car’s in bits 🙄 after the wee altercation at Donington before Christmas , so once parts arrive I’ll get some pictures excellent service and they kept me up to date via email so really happy with their service

First day off with dry roads for a good while. Couldn't resist a quick blast

Hi, New member here....due to the newly purchased Seight. It came on the 23rd Dec. So as yet I've not been far in it. Although not new to repairing cars I am new to Westfields. I did a bit of homework and I'm happy with the car I chose. I know there are faster ones out there but I'm not interested in racing it. All I wanted was a burbling V8 to tour a bit with, taking it on jaunts on a trailer behind my motorhome and explore the places my motorhome won't fit! No doubt there will be things to repair/fit/change so advice will be gratefully recieved. I'll look forward to meeting some of you when the weather gets better. Cheers, Tony

My name is Jeff and I am Fat. Mine has been a life long struggle I was first put on a diet when at 14 years old I was 14 stone. In my defence I was a good rugby player at the time, but still fat. Over the years I tried every diet going and some worked a bit but never lasted. I have two wardrobes, to my wife's one with clothes that are all sizes. I did have a thyroid problem, no honest, which I now take tablets for but that is really a side issue. I worked away from home a lot so the Premier inn breakfast is more calories in a meal than you need for the day. This was inevitably followed by feasting from the garage buffet and I too have a sweet tooth. At my heaviest I was 25 stone, or 159 kilo for those youngsters among us. When lockdown came I worked from home and as my wife was also home and doing all the shopping and cooking, I got down to just under 16 stone, 100kg. As soon as I was back working away it crept back up to where it is today at 19 stone, or 122 kilo. I now have a real motivation to sort this out once and for all. I had blood tests for my Thyroid and they found I was pre diabetic which is not nice to be told but realistically not surprising. I also have some joint issues which are weight related as it was pointed out to me I basically carrying an average weight 12 year old boy around all day, so again not surprising. I have now retired and the warden, sorry wife, is now back in charge and will help. I was also referred to an NHS programme to help, first one is Saturday, so not sure what to expect really at this stage. In my previous attempts what helped was setting realistic goals, getting weighed just once a week and making time to walk and exercise, which is harder the bigger you are. The bigger issue is keeping it off There are lots of us out there and I make no excuses I am ultimately to blame but it has taken years to get here 65 of them, so it is not going to be a quick fix however I am determined. Good luck to all who are trying

https://www.pistonheads.com/regulars/ph-spottedykywt/westfield-seiw--the-brave-pill/46678 Conclusion seems to be that the only brave thing about it is the Q plate. Interesting reading through the comments though. The consensus there seems to be little else offers the same performance/experience for the money. I concur.

As of this morning, I’m 19st 11lb. I’ll update once a week to keep myself honest!

Absolutely right, there are generally no other excuses except perhaps for some medications or conditions that can cause problems. I have no one to blame but myself, but the good thing about that is that it is completely within my power to do something about! All going well so far, had a really active day in and around the house doing jobs.

At the risk of too random a thread drift….most of my life I have considered myself to be mentally ‘f***** up’. But as time passes, I begin to think that perhaps I’m not quite so messed up as I thought and that there are an awful lot of folk in the world in a much worse state than me.

No, I wasn't expecting any flack from you... I'm just not sure everyone else out there agrees with us regarding the reasons for weight troubles. I'm sure some people will teach us that there are a myriad of reasons, certainly nothing to do with a lack of willpower. Who am I to judge who is actually right, all I know is that rarely do folks appreciate having to take a close look in the mirror. Just to add: I have more faults than there are grains of sand in the universe - I'm not trying to sit on a high horse. And there are plenty of faults of mine I'm more than happy to gloss over.

@stephenh or @David lear Im in Rugeley and I’ve had my magazine and calendar (last week). I’m no longer an owner and I don’t keep the magazines, so if either of you want to collect them, you’re welcome to them.

Very good points from corsechris... Especially that last bit: Speaking of that, I think that's a tradition that needs some serious consideration - it needs to become less naughty. Ultimately, the only thing that will work in the battle with weight is something that will become a "tradition", i.e. something that you do all the time. That may include the occasional pigging out, but anything that is only a temporary effort will lead to yo-yoing back up once the effort stops. Sorry, no silver bullet available in my limited experience.

Excuse the slight play on words, but I’ve decided enough is enough. Despite some kind words from the Derbyshire crew to the contrary, I am living up to my nickname too much, even more so after a gluttony sprint over Christmas. At one point, whilst loading my plate up again on Christmas Day, my little eight year old muttered the immortal words ‘Daddy, if you carry on like that you will end up eating the hot plate as well!’ 🤣 Weight peaked at a horrifying level, well it began with a ‘2’ in stone if that gives an idea. Prior to the pandemic, I reached a similar point and embarked on a two year fitness campaign which got me down to around 14st, where I should be. Unfortunately lockdown was my undoing, particularly spending months ‘working from the kitchen’, about three feet from the fridge 😬 My biggest weakness is chocolate, and all things sweet (don’t mention cake please!), but so far I have managed to get my cravings under control and have been chocolate free for four days. Hopefully that’s all I need to get on the right track. My plan is to do what I did before, start walking everyday and build it up to a decent level. I was walking over 50km a week I guess, and there are some nice walks from where we are now in Crewkerne, so no excuses! Non Westfield related benefits: Health; avoiding diabetes! Energy levels; keeping up with said eight year old Happiness; I’m much less grumpy when exercising Sleep; Mrs Stu does not enjoy the snoring which comes along with the weight! More important (🤪) Westfield related benefits Should fit in my narrow bodied SEi more easily Might even be able to refit the seat Approx 40kg weight loss should improve acceleration without spending any cash on tuning! So, if anyone is in a similar boat, please feel free to post up here and we can give moral support to each other. Otherwise any encouragement along the lines of ‘You can do it chubby’ will be appreciated. Pictures of cake should be avoided, but if you must, you must, it will build up my resistance to temptation! 🤣. Coffee and Walnut pictures for me please 🤪 I’m back under the big 2 0 already, so next stop is something with an 18 at the beginning, target 14 by the end of the year ish 💪

Hello all & a quick message to show face. James May here from sunny Shropshire. Role on the top gear jokes! So my first steps to securing my dream toy! Boy am I excited for 2023!!! And this will likely be in the next few months, once I have sorted some other bits out. I will be purchasing Via Toy box cars. Shout out to Andrew for pointing me in this direction to join the club, and for some guidance on what I am looking for. I love Westfields and a huge petrol head. Due to a few things happening in real life, my view is now to tick off the bucket list sooner, life is too short!!! I look forward to meeting you guys once I am on the road or before at a local gathering or show. Kindest regards.

Just thought I would announce that we have a new AGM battery tried and tested and now listed for sale (We will have a new lithium one coming soon as well but we are testing that at the moment) This is a perfect replacement for the PC680 / Extreme Racing 25 and for less money. We use it on our Racing Supra and it starts it no problems at all. If you already have a cage for the PC680 we have found that most are compatible with this battery as it shares pretty much the same design and dimensions, and if you need a cage then the usual ones for the PC680 should work fine. We are making a nice billet Aluminium cage for it (Currently in a prototype) but that will be a few months away. The battery also comes with rubber boots and m5 screws for the battery terminals. We do have it on offer at the moment at £85.50 but for WSCC members you get an additional £5.50 off making it a nice round £80 plus P&P Just use code WSCCBAT on checkout. https://www.hawkemotorsport.co.uk/Store/electronics/batteries/raceseriesr68c

It's not really rocket science. Eat more than your body burns get fatter, use more than you consume you get thinner. Match the two stay roughly the same. Everything else is just excuses to yourself.

Nope, you're not alone! I can do little bits, but anything serious gets done in a garage. I love being able to tinker and love even more driving something so fast, so raw, so pure and all the while not going above my means. If I'm honest with myself and while we all love to dream, a Westfield is exactly the car I truly wanted and "needed" all my life. I genuinely can't ask for anything more! Thank you Bernie for selling yours to me!!!

I think there’s a general sense that you have to be a real kit car enthusiast/decent mechanic to keep a Westfield on the road (not being either of the above, everyone I spoke to thought I was mad when I bought mine). Fortunately I have a found a decent garage and treat it like anything else I drive. From a driver engagement perspective I don’t think much come close for the money. I wonder whether I’m in the minority, or whether there is a potential market of people like me out there that just wants to drive something awesome, but hasn’t considered Westfields due to the perception that you need to be able to build the car to have fun driving it? Not that I’m not in total awe of those who have done so! 🙂

Hi! Yes, saw that and quite enjoyed reading the comments. Definitely lots of points for discussion: Pinto engine, sold by Toybox, Q plate... Just not a brave pill in the usual sense as in "ruinous"...

Welcome, the SEiGHT is a fantastic option for touring, (even if it does mean visiting the pumps more often), the whole sound track and feel is addictive! Look forward to seeing some pics of the car.

Welcome Tony, I've already told you about our local meetings and runs, so just keep a lookout on here for anything coming up. Can't wait to see the V8.

Welcome from sunny Scotland , hope you get lots of fun in her and if you make it up north do give us a shout oh and remember we like pictures ( it’s almost compulsory ) above all enjoy her

Indeed, we need to make habits & routines out of the good things, not the bad. I know exactly what the problem is and exactly how to solve it. Knowing is only half the answer though, sad to say. If I hadn’t made some permanent changes, I’d still be 19 stone or likely more. I suppose it’s pertinent, given we are discussing behaviours. I smoked from age 12. I stopped during my brief fit period but restarted. I always knew it was bad for me. I carried on until my 26th birthday. I was driving home from work and it suddenly hit me that I no longer enjoyed the habit. I extinguished that cigarette and never smoked again. Clearly, given my weight, I don’t have superhuman willpower. I believe I quit smoking simply because I wanted to. Nobody told me to, I wasn’t giving up for any of the many good reasons. I simply wanted to. Equally clearly, I have never had that attitude to eating and drinking or I’d be back to my optimum weight. I’m always going to be a reluctant abstainer which, of course, makes it harder.

We have a 2012 X3 3.0SE, high miler with 160k on the clock but brilliant car as we live in the sticks, since having it we have got through 2 sets of Pirelli Cinturatos (as original figment), not impressed with them. Local BMW specialist recommended changing to Hankook Ventus S1 evo 2 (245/50 R18 100Y) better road holding, quieter, and wearing better so will definitely stick with these in the future. Also are run flats.

Have a great day @Andy Malone - Editor & @Jim RS 🍺🍺🎂🎂

@fatblokestu that sounds like a good target. Certainly attainable at your current weight although of course it gets harder as it comes down, and as you build muscle. I tend to weigh daily as well, if only to try to keep myself honest. Being busy works well for me. I can go a day without any urge to eat if I'm sufficiently occupied. Sitting around doing nowt is bad news on many levels. Sadly, that's pretty much my life these days, which makes it harder. To speak to what @jaykay42 says about perceptions etc, at 17, I was indeed a Greek God physique, but I've concluded that isn't the shape my brain wants my body wants to be, even though it can It was weird, I couldn't understand why I was suddenly popular with the girls. Who knew they don't go for fat kids??? I'm back on the wagon again now after Xmas, and my latest back issue subsiding (that didn't help, it hit me in September and stopped all activity for 2 weeks, although I did get back into the routine before our holiday...then Xmas of course, so it's been a bad few months), just finished the morning exercise session, today is a 'normal' food day but I'm going to focus on not pigging out on the few remaining treats left in the 'Xmas Naughty Box' Speaking of that, I think that's a tradition that needs some serious consideration - it needs to become less naughty.

Great posts @jeff oakleyand @corsechris, thanks. My recent max was 20 st 4, previous ‘record’ 20st 9, always just after Christmas. Ultimately it’s is all mental, and fairly complex at that I’m sure. There is a whole piece around whether you accept ‘fatness’ so as to maintain self esteem and avoid depression driven eating, or adopt a harder approach and show how unhealthy being over weight is. Personally I have always accepted that I’m fat because I eat too much, simples, and that I need to do something about it. The harder approach on myself motivates me to lose the weight, but I know that doesn’t work for everyone. Absolutely right about mirrors not lying! The hardest test is being in hotel rooms with multiple mirrors which really do show you what’s going on! That’s certainly a motivator. My brother was diagnosed with diabetes recently, and being a very driven character he immediately embarked on a healthy diet campaign and within about 6 months had lost his weight and the diabetes went away! It’s all possible. Regardless of politics, Tom Watson very successfully lost his weight after years of obesity and talks a lot of sense on the topic if you read his books or blogs. I find exercise is key to all for me. It makes me feel better and brighter (endorphins and all that), and once I’ve exercised I’m much more likely to eat healthily or at least in reduced quantities. I’m aiming for 2lbs a week, and weighing myself everyday works for me in terms of keeping focused and on track. Thanks again for the input. It’s good to share and success is made much more likely by being open and having some support. Good luck chaps 👍

Same here. At University I was rowing and training ten times a week, and eating 4000+ calories a day. Trouble is when you stop training and continue eating the weight just piles on. I’m a serial yo-yo dieter. Once I’m ‘on it’ I’m very good at focusing and losing the weight via exercise and cutting out bad stuff. Trouble is, once I get to my goal I find maintaining boring, and it always tends to creep back on. That’s the thing I need to crack.

I was a 14 @ 14 as well. Not a happy place to be. I was swimming at lot around age 12-13 and despite my weight had been offered a place on the county swimming team….which I sadly/stupidly declined. Often wonder how my life might have turned out had I accepted that offer. I had a minor illness around then which provided an excuse to stop a lot of physical activity, hence my 14@14. At 16 I took up Martial Arts and turned into something quite different! I felt fantastic and was properly fit for the first and last time of my life. 12 stone of muscle and confidence. My downfall came when I went to college and started driving everywhere instead of running everywhere. I also quit the Kung Fu and that was it. A slow decline followed. I did try to get back into the Kung Fu again but was working shifts at the time, and neither work nor the school could accommodate that, so it didn’t happen. If it helps, I still have the book Have to say, nearly 50 years on and I still have vivid and happy memories of those times. Somehow, I’ve avoided any health issues related to weight (so far). Only thing is slightly raised cholesterol. Blood pressure is ‘perfect’, resting heart rate is low normal. I think the regular exercise has to take credit for that. Well, except perhaps some back issues, but they are as likely from years of bad practice as anything else. As far as ‘baring it all goes’, well, mirrors don’t lie, nor do scales, so I’ve never felt the need to try and hide the blatantly obvious. I usually highlight in fact, as some sort of half-arsed self-flagellation. Like most issues we deal with, it’s likely 90% or more mental I’m sure. I know my body can do the right thing given half a chance, so I can’t blame that. Yes, there are folk dealt a bad hand that makes this issue harder but ultimately, as I said before, it really is simple, eat less, do more. Decades of research bears this out but it isn’t palatable(!) for many, sadly, and yes, I understand why. As for the whole food-toxic environment we live in these days….that's a whole other issue and one we will never control given how loudly money talks (sugar lobby for example) and just how dirty a trick evolution has played on us fatties (famine species). Forgot to mention before, as well as the 5-2 thing, we typically do the ‘intermittent fasting’ thing of early evening meal and late breakfast. Typically 16 hours between those meals which allegedly helps.

@Hawkemotorsport just want to say great service! Ordered this battery yesterday at 2pm and its sat in my dining room already!! This arrived an hour after Royal Snail with some Christmas cards.... Today is Jan 6th!!

Just seen this post Julie. I went to veiw but just a tad short of funds as mine would of been a PX .Stunning car though