Happiness, therapy and losing weight.

I was a happy, goofy, skinny child, with long limbs, a big nose and a small head. I loved school, especially sports, and was lucky enough to be picked for most of the teams, from hockey and rounders to tennis and diving. Until the age of 17, everything was about being outside and enjoying the fresh air; long walks with family every weekend, days out at the beach, exploring National Trust houses and gardens… in fact I can’t really remember a weekend when we weren’t exploring.

I was still very slim during my late teens and early 20’s, at art college in Salisbury and Design School in the States, and even though drinking and eating out were now a big part of my life, I don’t recall ever being concerned about my weight or how I looked. But I re-read some diaries recently and I was shocked at how hard I was on myself; about my huge nose and my small boobs, about my big bum and thunder thighs. I wrote page after page of tear-stained outpourings about getting stretch marks for the first time. I wrote: “All I can see are these horrible red welts across my thighs. I’m so disgusting. I will never get a boyfriend because I never ever want anyone to see them. I am just one big ugly stretchmark on the face of this planet!”. My friends and family will laugh at this because I have always been a little on the dramatic side (understatement), but it made me realise how, even at a young age, I felt people would judge me for how I looked.

When I was 21, a tumour was found in my throat. Because of the location, the surgical team had to remove my thyroid gland in order to save my voice-box, and I am forever grateful for my parents for making that decision (but it’s probably the reason you can’t shut me up now). I was told a week later that the tumour was benign and that I could live my life completely normally without a thyroid gland, with the exception that I had to take medication every day for the rest of my life, and that I no longer had a fully functioning metabolism. Fine with me I thought. But it became apparent rather quickly that a low functioning metabolism meant that it would be harder to keep the weight off. My lifestyle hadn’t changed but I began to get a little curvier.

And here, I just want to say how much a good mental state affects how you see yourself. I was left with a scar across my neck from ear to ear, and in my eyes, I looked like Frankenstein’s bride. To strangers, it must have looked like I’d been in a vicious knife attack because the reaction was a mixture of pity and fear. That scar has, subsequently, almost disappeared, but I was in such a state of shock when I first saw myself that I stopped looking in the mirror. My neck was also in a terrible state from the 8-hour surgery, having been extended and strapped over the back of the surgical table to fully expose my throat. I had no physiotherapy afterwards and no counselling. I felt like one of those Pez sweet dispensers with a flip top, as if my head could fall off at any moment, so I kept my head down. The result of this lowered head position left me with severe back and neck problems and to this day, I have to regularly see an osteopath.

Having been in hospital at least a dozen times since then, for both major and minor surgical operations, I wonder why therapy isn’t offered to people as a routine service? Beforehand, to ensure the patient isn’t too scared, is fully informed about what will happen, and for support…. And afterwards, to reassure them they will get better, to listen to how much pain they are in, and to be a friendly sympathetic face that talks in plain English rather than medical jargon. The NHS are so worried about lack of beds and how much time people stay in hospital and I’m sure having therapy as part of the process would speed that all up.

I have had therapy from time to time over my life and am a huge advocate for it. After the 7/7 bombings in London (I was on the tube only a few stops away), I began having panic attacks whenever I was in an enclosed space. My mother was convinced it was because of the incident itself but I think it was the result of being told (the week before), that at the age of 38, I would never be able to have children and was going through early menopause. I had lost control of my body once again, you see, and hated it for letting me down. It couldn’t give me the thing I most wanted in life, children, and I think it brought on the panic attacks. The diaries I wrote during this period are some of the most distressing. I thought my life was worthless. That there was simply no point. But I carried on with the therapy for a year, learnt to love myself again and that my body was ok. I was fine. I just had to look at my future differently and to embrace the good things in my life.

As the years went on my weight increased. By my early 40’s, I had already had several knee surgeries and was finding walking and sports harder and harder. I found comfort in food and stopped moving as much. I mean, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that equation… less movement, more food = more weight. But I couldn’t really see a way out. I was unhappy with how I looked and because of that, I didn’t want to embarrass myself by going to the gym to be looked at and judged. I had begun to be invisible to men too. They didn’t look at me appraisingly anymore, and after one horrendous date where the man said, “I had such an amazing time with you, but I have to be honest, you’re just a bit big for me”, I decided to stop dating.

Then came the major knee and thigh surgery at 47 followed by the Rheumatoid Arthritis diagnosis at 49. Both devastating for my body and mind. More soul searching as to what I’d done to deserve this. More weight gain from being on crutches for 6 months post-surgery and more weight gain from being on steroids and having full body inflammation and pain from the RA. I was more down in the dumps than ever before and so I began therapy again. My new lady is local. She makes me think, questions my choices and doesn’t judge. She lets me have rants and tantrums and sometimes she doesn’t utter a single word for the 50 minutes I’m there. Other times I say nothing and she looks back at her notes and challenges my ideas and motivations. She really is a great audience and even laughs at my jokes, but she is also crucial to changing my mindset to keep me looking at all the positives in my life, rather than focusing on the negatives. I know I am privileged and don’t want this to come across as poor me in any way, all I’m trying to do is explain that once you like yourself, many more things are possible.

In January, I began researching RA on a much deeper level, looking at all the ways I could help myself. I’ve always been curious medically and like to know what the drugs do to my body, what the surgeries actually entail, to the point of watching a similar knee surgery to mine on YouTube, from start to finish. My surgeon was horrified, saying it must have been like listening to an industrial workshop with all the hammering and sawing of bones. I agreed it wasn’t pleasant, but I felt informed, and to be informed means that you can then do the best for yourself. I knew my struggle with weight was a lot to do with my illnesses over the years, but I also knew that there must be a lot of things I could do as well.

Exercising while being overweight is tough, not just on the joints but on the mind (it’s embarrassing standing in Lycra looking like an over-stuffed sausage), so I knew I had to start with my diet. I have always tried to eat healthily but sometimes those foods are still fattening. Eating avocados, nuts, full-fat yogurt and dried fruit every day, for example, may seem like healthy choices but they are all high in calories and if you eat too much, you simply won’t lose weight. I was shocked at how much salt and sugar is added to everyday things like shop-bought bread, cereal and soup, so I went back to basics and began cooking every single thing from scratch. I was told that eating an alkaline diet would help with the inflammation for my RA too, so I reduced my alcohol, caffeine, dairy, salt, sugar, gluten and anything processed (ironically, that means many things I have designed the packaging for!) I began making sourdough bread with rye and spelt flour and every Sunday I batch cook; roasting a large chicken with heaps of root vegetables that can go in soups or salads throughout the week, I make a stock from the bones that can be used for loads of things, I make a huge vat of different legumes, and I make my own muesli. I only eat bread at breakfast, eat 7 portions of fresh fruit and veg daily, have upped my protein, and try not to snack, even though I do still have an addiction to salt and vinegar rice cakes and 70% dark chocolate, which I always allow myself. If you don’t let yourself have little treats, you crave them more!

But the biggest difference to how I eat now is that I always try and leave 14-16 hours between my evening meal and breakfast. Some call this intermittent fasting, but I see it as giving your body all the time it needs to digest, heal and restore itself. The body hates to go to sleep while it is still digesting food and it needs a good 4 hours to do that, so if you get a craving at 9pm and eat a small apple, your body still has to start the whole digestion process from scratch, which means you shouldn't go to be until 1am! So, based on that, I eat my evening meal at a terribly unfashionable 6pm, go to bed at 10pm, read for an hour or so, go to sleep, wake at 6:30am and only drink water until I have breakfast at 8am. My sleep has improved so much it's incredible, and I know this for a fact because I have a sleep app. It records your breathing and is so sensitive that it can tell the difference between your waking breath vs. your REM sleep breath vs. your deep sleep breath. Before January, I would eat dinner at 8pm, watch TV until 11pm, read for 15 minutes and then try and sleep. According to the app, it would take me 30-40 minutes to go to sleep, I would then snore for 40 minutes and wake at 6:30am. I now don't watch TV as late, I read longer and I eat earlier. By the time I turn my light off, my app tells me that I fall asleep after 2-3 minutes, I don't snore and I wake up at 6:30am. It's still the same amount of time in bed but the quality of sleep is better and so I feel great. Of course, if I go out socially or am invited to a dinner party, this all goes out of the window. I will eat everything that is on offer, stay up as late as I want, and heartily enjoy it but the majority of the time I stick to the above. 

I can report that I have now reached 3 stone in weight loss. That’s 42 pounds for my American cousins and 19 kilograms for the rest of the world. It has taken me 10 months to get to this point and, of course, with the benefit of having more energy and my joints not hurting as much, I have increased my exercise. I have recently been swimming every day for a challenge but now it’s over, I just swim whenever I want to (which is still 4-5 times a week). I do Pilates for strength, I see a Shiatsu and Acupressure practitioner to help my body release stress, and I see a therapist for my mind. And I sleep. I try not to tell people I’ve been on a diet; I simply say I have tweaked a few things and I cook from scratch, that’s all. It’s up to the individual what works for them because for all I know, the way I’ve done it may only work for me.

But the big question is, am I happier because I have lost weight? 

The answer is no. I am happier because I have taken control of my life and I’ve found ways to heal myself. The by-product of that is that I have lost weight. I no longer blame my illnesses and medication for how I look and feel, and I no longer let stress rule my life because stress makes me eat, and stress makes me ill. I have cut out toxic friends the way I would spring clean my wardrobe, I try and only do the things I love, see the people I adore, avoid situations that make me unhappy, and accept the things I cannot change. xxx