MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL

28^th June 2020

It never ceases to amaze me how things can creep up without you realising it and become part of your life, like they have always been there. With me, it has happened a few times, for example with weight gain, with the pain I am in increasing to the stage my walking is impaired, even with my hair growing during lockdown, which is a good one as it has been very short for quite a while and I quite like it longer.

What did surprise me when I realised it, around about the beginning of March this year, was that I had let myself be photographed less and less over the previous year, and more surprisingly I was not looking in the mirror so much, only if I really had to. We had no full length mirrors in the house, only ones that were large enough to see your face. When I did look in the mirror I didn't really like who was looking back at me. They looked old and tired, with face that, to me, was not me. What was even sadder was that I got very upset when I looked at mine and Steve's wedding photograph taken in 2004. That was really heartbreaking because our wedding was such a special day, so different from my first wedding, and now I couldn't look at myself and not recognise myself as the same person I saw in the mirror.

It was so terrible to think about myself like this and something had to be done. When I started to realise what had happened to the way I was feeling it was around the start of lockdown and an ideal time to try to get myself back to being me.

By this time I had lost about 2 ½ stones in weight, so I was beginning to feel a little more confident, and so I had a larger mirror put on the wall and started to really look at myself. It wasn't easy, but I did it.

Confidence, or the lack of it, does some strange things to us. Mine had never been that great, but it had gone right down, so it was time for me to make a plan.

I read a lot and watched a lot of relevant things, from mindfulness and sitting exercises, to skin care, nutrition and well being and what to wear. I had a lot of time on my hands, and I was going to try to use it wisely. I had no skin care regime, hardly any make up and really had not got any new clothes for quite a while.

While I was large, very large, there was no point in buying anything until I lost weight, was there?

I saw a chap on TV that had put his wedding off three times because he couldn't find anything to fit him that he liked. That is just so sad, but I know that feeling is so real.

You feel you are not good enough yet to buy clothes, and when you are thin you will look so much better. I realised that I had to start and make myself feel better now.

I started to look after my skin, including things into my diet would help and do the usual cleanse tone and moisturise and bought the first new make up in years. I didn't spend a lot, but it was a start with the basics. I did learn when I trained in beauty therepy that you didn't always need to spend a lot of money.

Exercise is difficult for me, but I did what I could. After all, something is better than nothing. I also bought some new support wear and some clothes that would look good now and still last me a while until I lose weight.

It has made me feel so much better in myself. It's still a work in progress, but work well done if it brings me back. I will be 62 years old in six days time and I am trying so hard to be more positive and that life has not been wasted or of no real value unless you are young, thin, beautiful as is often portrayed in the fashion world, media, slimming industry etc.

Looking and trying to achieve a way to look and being your best can be fun and so worthwhile and I am still enjoying my research :-)

It's still hard to look in the mirror sometimes, but I am working on it and I can now look at our wedding photographs with fond memories. Life changes us but that is not always a bad thing and we can always learn to look at the positives and cherish the memories we have. I am planning to be brave enough to have a birthday photograph. We shall see :-)

Jackie

xx

WHAT YOU SEE IS NOT ALWAYS WHAT YOU GET !!!

24^th June, 2020

I am writing this blog at 8:30 in the morning. I don't think I have ever started writing this early before, but there's a first time for everything. Firstly I must start with a confession. It was just the way I was feeling this morning, one of those times you feel the way you do, you don't know why and then my porridge boiled over in the microwave! That was it! I decided that was having honey in my porridge. Not only banana, but honey! So I had it. 50 odd extra calories in my porridge, the end of my world, my diet was spoiled for the day. I was going to put the four stones back on in five minutes, that was the end – NOT! It didn't matter, it was one of those moments and do you know what? I didn't even like it. It was far too sweet, but there you go, moment over, lesson learned as I chuckled to myself.

Now the reason for my blog title this time. Have you ever felt that when you meet someone they don't really get who you are, or have you seen someone that looked different and instantly decided you don't like them, they look scary, strange, they are not your type for whatever reason. Back in the early 90s I was studying for a qualification to teach adults. We were all sitting there at the start of the class, chatting away, when in walked this bag lady, a tramp, badly dressed and carrying two big carrier bags. She just walked in, chatting away. We just looked at each other in disbelief. She moved around the room, looking for somewhere to sit chatting to individuals as she progressed, causing both chuckles and embarresment to many people as she passed. It was a very strange situation as she couldn't find anywhere to sit, and one of the males students wasn't so happy when she sat on his knee :-). She moved back to the front of the class and we thought she was leaving, much to the relief of some of those in the room. But, no! She stood there and started to take some clothing off. All of a sudden there was a gasp in the room as we realised that she was the tutor!

That day was our lesson, as adult education tutors, that all your students would not be the same, would not learn in the same way and to try to accept them for who they are. Individuality is something to celebrate, but unfortunately it isn't always accepted for many reasons.

We are judged by how we look, how we behave, how we speak, how we dress, and quite often wrongly.

I love many kinds of music from rock to classical. It's the music itself, not always who performs it. It's not always easy for me now to listen to some music because of my hearing problems, but I love the diversity, We once went out to an all day gig, a fundraiser for a local charity, and we got chatting to the chap who was running the event. I happened to mention I liked the American Progressive Metal band Dream Theater, and he said to me that I didn't look like the sort of person who would go to a Dream Theater concert! What does that statement really mean? I asked him that, and he just didn't know what to say! Steve has seen Dream Theater numerous times and I have seen them three times. Do you know, we have seen leather clad rockers, people in jeans and t-shirts, all ages. Once there was even a lady in twin set and pearls (not me, I hasten to add). Does there have to be a look to be authentic and true?

I think it is thought in society that this is so, and to a certain extent it has to be. In certain places an accepted look is necessary, whether it is in the workplace, some formal occasions, religious places etc., but there is always room for individuality. Knowing who you are and being able to express that in the way you look is important, but as I have said it is not always easy. Things change, we change and sometimes who we are sometimes seems to disappear. It's almost like all of a sudden we feel lost and unable to express how we feel. Some people do not really see us for who we feel we are. We almost feel, at best, misunderstood, or, at worst, invisible.

I know, with myself, that I feel that way. I am big (but getting smaller), a lot older than I was with my hair now a lovely silver white and I walk with a walker, but I don't feel seen or often not taken seriously by strangers I talk to. If I can get the chance to talk to them, then they often change their mind, but you don't always get the time to talk. I feel now is the time for me to change that feeling, and I am beginning to learn new ways that this can be achieved.

I should add, before I finish for today, that I am trying so hard to not let it matter what people think, but we all do feel that way sometimes, and anything that can be done to boost confidence can't be a bad thing, can it?

My learning curve just got steeper, but it could be fun. Who knows?

Jackie

xx

TO BE SCARED OF SOMTHING YOU LOVE

21^st June 2020

For many, many years I have loved food, tasty, good quality, gorgeous food. Now there is technically nothing wrong with that, it is the tool that fuels your body, but it how you use that tool to enable you to fuel your body correctly. I am not a driver, but I know that you wouldn't put the wrong fuel into a car, otherwise it won't run well or for long. A lot of us don't think twice about the fuel we put into ourselves. If we don't put the right nutrients in and have the right balance of food groups then our health is the thing to suffer.

As much as I love food, I have had so many issues about it. I grew up in Yorkshire until I was sixteen, and the food at home was good and plentiful. I lived with my Grandma and Grandad, who had both grown up through two world wars, and now there were no limits on food, it was there a-plenty. Having always been a large child and teenager, it got no better. I knew no different.

By the time I met my first husband, I was studying catering, and along with being introduced to Indian food, my love of food developed.

On the other hand, pressure was put on me, by my husband-to-be, to lose weight and the conflict started in earnest. This was 1975 and fast forward 44 years to 2019 and I still hadn't really learnt to live in harmony with it. As I have said before I am an all or nothing type of person, so it was eat it all, or don't eat it at all.

I have finally realised that had to change.

I am lucky that I have eaten in some really special places over the years and I had to do something to be able to bring good food into my life without the guilt. Even when I lost weight in 2014 I was still in the mindset of leaving out the foods that I loved and then “treating” myself to a lot of sweety, fatty, gorgeous tasting food before I started the next week cutting things back big time in an obsessional way.

I have said in a past blog that I even stopped watching cookery programmes on TV and looking at my many cookery books because I just couldn't look at food. I couldn't think about it, I just wanted to get through each day, get to the next and then get to the next weekly weigh in.

When I was offered a gastric bypass, I declined, because it wasn't for me. I couldn't bear to have the food I love taken away from me. I know a lot of people have had that surgery and have been very happy, but it wasn't for me.

Taking all this into account, I had to find a way, to find a balance with food. Not an easy thing to achieve.

In the past it was all about weight going down on the scales, not what I was eating.

I even went to the extreme of using laxatives when I was young because I was frightened of what my then boyfriend and later 1^st husband, would do if I didn't lose weight. Fortunately that stopped and was a silly thing to do, but that was the pressure I was put under. Even when I had lost weight he still told me I was fat and ugly, so I was fighting a losing battle.

My attitude got a little better once we had split up and divorced, but I still hadn't got the balance I needed and really I was still scared to eat when I was in a losing weight mode.

Since last year I have started to look at what I eat in a different way. It started with portion control and knowing that if I wanted something “naughty” in the day it was okay.

Once I had got this into my head most of the time :-) I started to look at the foods and dishes that I liked and how I could adapt them to be healthy, and if I couldn't and still needed them, incorperate them into my daily plan with limited damage to my eating plan.

It was a simple plan. I know which food groups I should have and in what proportion and what calories I need to go in, to balance the calories I use in my daily living and using the right amount to enable weight loss. It was roughly 1,600 calories. Easy yes – well not really, but I was prepared to learn.

I had my calorie allowance, so I knew what I could use. I just needed to look at what I wanted to eat, that I enjoyed and were healthy, but gave me leeway to enjoy an occasional “treat”. It's taken me eight months of adjustment but I am getting there. I have porridge for breakfast most days, sometimes a full grilled English breakfast, but only once in a while. Soup or salad for my lunch, and then a healthy ordinary meal in the evening. This is taking it right down to the bone and it isn't always easy but it seems to be working. I am adapting recipes to fit in with my plan and I am starting to enjoy food again. The fear and anxiety is also a lot better than it was, but it's still a work in progress.

Up to now I have lost 4 stone and 5 lbs, 27 lbs in the lockdown period, so so far I have a good start for the rest of my journey.

So the correct fuel is going into the machine, I just need to drive it, and that's taking a lot more adjustment than just preparing and eating food.

It's got to be worth it, hasn't it?

See you next time.

Jackie

xx

LIFE CHANGED, AND THE SCALES ARRIVED! :-)

17^th June 2020,

We were there at the start of lockdown and it was obvious to everyone that things were going to change, even though at that time I don't think any of us really knew how and to what extent.

What was good was there seemed to be a lot on the television etc. to motivate people. Extra exercises put into TV programmes, and cookery programmes showing people how to cook the things they had in the house and be healthy. We were all learning to live a different way.

The previous year I had stayed in a lot, and only gone out when I really had to, so I was used to that, but now, like many others, I didn't even have the choice to go out to a cafe, the shops, the pub, the theatre or visit family.

As I have said, my dietician's clinic was closed and I now had to make a decision as to what I was going to do next. Not as serious as some things, but to me it was up there. I started to make my plans and this started by buying a pair of bathroom scales. It might sound like the simplist of things, but to me it wasn't.

When I have lost weight before it became an obsession. I am, or was?, an all or nothing type of person.

When something takes over like this it can be so emotionally painful.

Weight loss and food can be wrapped up in so much emotion. Guilt, shame, happiness, sadness, being good, being naughty etc. can all be there and sometimes the sensible way of thinking goes out the door – well it did for me.

This time it had to be different. I couldn't put myself though the old way again. It sounds dramatic, but that's how I felt.

I had made a start between January 2019 and March this year, watching the portions I was eating and conciously thinking about healthy eating. I was losing weight very slowly, but I got weighed every month at the clinic and it was progress. Then I had to buy the scales :-)

They arrived and I decided to get my husband Steve to hide them after I got weighed, and only bring them out once a fortnight for me to get weighed. That way I wouldn't get obsessed. Obsession in any form has a habit of becoming unhealthy if we are not careful and I couldn't let myself go there and spoil what I had achieved so far.

For the first month or two that is exactly what we did, and then one day I decided I had had enough. I was not going to be afraid of a pair of scales. I was doing my best, slowly but surely, to progress with my weight loss and I was going to conquer at least one of my obsessions. So I knew where they were and I did in fact, to cut a long story short, manage to still only get weighed every fortnight. It felt great to know that I could do it. All my research, thinking and planning must be coming together and I was no longer afraid to get weighed. Well, if I am going to be honest, I still did worry just before I stepped on them, because I wanted to lose weight, but if I had done my best – honestly done my best – I had to learn to live without guilt with what they told me.I only lose about 2 or 3 pounds every fortnight, but I am happy with that.

Here I am now thirteen weeks later and the scales are in THE BATHROOM! :-)

It feels great to have conquered that fear and hopefully that is one obseession gone for good.

Another part of my plan was to conquer boredom, to try to watch what I ate while at home all the time, and to try to exercise more despite the fact that my mobility is not good and I am in constant pain.

I will go into this more next time.

Jackie

xx

AM I NON CONFORMIST? DON'T GIVE UP, KNOW YOURSELF EVEN WHEN SOME PEOPLE AND SITUATIONS ARE AGAINST YOU!

14^th June, 2020.

As I have said previously, I struggled last year getting the help I needed for the pain I was in. I finally got to see the specialist in February this year. The referral had actually gone from my GP the year before, around about February 2019, but because of the system it had to go to be assessed by the musculaskeletal department before I could see a specialist.

I had already been told a couple of years before by another specialist that I needed a knee joint replacement but he wouldn't do it at the time because of my weight. I was left to do something about it myself, but as I was in a lot of pain, and my spirits were very down, I found it hard to motivate myself. Especially as I had lost the weight and it had started to go back on by the time I saw him.

At that time I weighed around fourteen and a half stone, but he wouldn't operate on me for his reasons. He wanted me to have a BMI of 25, which works out at a weight of ten stone seven pounds. That's two stone lower than my lowest weight of twelve and a half stone. As we already know, my weight carried on going back up until reached twenty stone plus again.

The musculaskeletal department assessed me over the phone and decided that I needed to see a physiotherapist, so off I went with hope.

It was decided, for whatever reason I'm not sure, that I needed exercise and there followed ten months of getting me in a pain group, and when that failed, seeing a physio and an assistant to be given various exercises to do, but I couldn't do them.

When I tried to explain the problem I had, they did not want to listen. In my mind it seemed as if they were saying to me that if I did the exercises that the pain would go away, but I wasn't able to do the exercises. I could hardly walk.

They told me that I was non-compliant and making excuses. Not only did my physical health deteriorate, but so did my mental health.

Finally a new GP gave me the results of of a knee X-Ray taken before those physio visits started. Once the physio saw those results, everything suddenly changed. All of a sudden I needed to see a specialist! Then, as I have said before, this new specialist told me I not only needed one knee replaced, but both, along with a hip replacement.

I cried when he told me, because at long last someone was telling me what I felt was REAL!

I knew that I had to lose weight and had started in 2019 to do something about it, but the fact that the health professional had admited I did have problems and was prepared to help me, helped my mental health improve and slowly my motivation returned.

Good job really as the lockdown changed everything.

I couldn't go to get weighed at the dietician clinic becaused they were now closed. This meant I had to make the decision to buy scales for the house. Now, that may not seem such a big deal to you, but in the past I had got obsessed with weighing myself and so didn't want any in the house. But now I had to get some to try and track my weight. I was trying to rethink the way I lived, to stop the yoyo dieting and the obsessions that had arisen in the past, and now I had to have scales in the house! :-)

Before when I was dieting, I was obsessionly rigid. I gave myself a daily calorie allowance, often as low as 1,000 calories, and stuck to it to try to lose weight quickly, because that it what I thought you did. What happened then was that if I went over my calorie allowance, maybe by as little as 100 calories, I had failed and decided to eat more and try again the next day. I would deprive myself so much of the things I loved that once I had had my weekly weigh-in I would “treat” myself to what I had missed and eat far too much, making myself feel too full and ill.

Then I would weigh myself at home so many times a day and feel great if I had lost weight and miserable if I'd put weight on. Looking back on it all now, it was a silly way to do things, but that is the way I thought it was done.

As my mind started to clear, and I decided I needed to lose weight, I knew I had to do it differently this time. I had to look at what I had done in the past and make conscious decisions on how I needed to move forward.

Up to March I still didn't feel I could do it on my own. I had found a support system to help me, but I did do a lot of reading and research to help me re-educate my mind which was helping. I was beginning to see that I could hopefully do it, but then it all went slightly pear-shaped. I had to do it myself and I had to buy scales. I have family support but when it comes down to what I eat, only I can decide. Only I can choose how it's going to be to achieve my goal.

Now, what am I going to do about those weighing scales? :-) 

Jackie

xx

THE BRIDGE WENT DOWN

6^th June 2020

Back last year I was in the position where I had to lose weight if I was to get the treatment I needed to stop being in pain. At that time I thought it was going to be just a knee replacement, but it has since been discovered that first I will have to have a hip replacement, and then one or possibly both knees replaced.

It is hard when you are in so much pain to summon up the motivation. I tried to adjust what I was eating, but it was slow going.

Between January and October 2019, when I finally received my dietician's appointment, I had dropped from 20 stone, 4 pounds to about 18 stone 13 pounds (I lost my record card :-)) and by January this year I had got down to 18 stone 5 pounds. By the time I finally got my appointment with the orthopedic specialist at the end of February I was at 18 stone.

It was great when I saw my dietician. She seemed to understand me and listen, which was very important to me. Losing weight is more than just watching what you eat. There can be, as I have said in the past, so many other factors that can contribute to overeating. Lifestyle, emotions and life experiences can all affect the way we eat.

You hear people say it's just will power, but it is so much more. What I have found is that I have to be very honest with myself. In the beginning I was convinced that I couldn't do it. I wasn't like some who are in denial that they are extremely obese – I knew I was. My problem was that I was in denial about the amount I ate. I know what is “healthy”. I trained as a chef when I left school, and later, as a mature student, I trained in beauty therapy, which involved a qualification in nurtrition. So I had a very good idea of what I should be eating. I knew all about hidden fats and sugars etc., but I was eating too many of the things that were high in these. Being immobile and, as I have said, in a lot of pain, you tend to eat what is easy to eat.

The dietician listening to me, along with the discussions we have had, helped me immensely, and my motivation began to increase. My orthopedic specialist also listened and gave me hope that at long last something was going to be done to help me.

He did say I would have to lose more weight before he would operate on me, but he wouldn't give up on me as long as I did this. We came to an agreement that was a compromise between us. I had to lose 2 and a half stone before I was to see him again, six months later, in August. That worked out at about a pound and a half a week. I know I can do that.

So I started to think seriously about what I needed to do and build on what I had already achieved. I saw the dietician on the 12^th March and was 17 stone and 11 pounds, so I knew I was still going in the right direction. I was going every four weeks for a catch up discussion and to get weighed. I didn't have scales in the house because I had had an obsession before of weighing myself two or three times a day, each and everyday. It was just getting silly so I got rid of them about five years ago now.

So my next appointment was scheduled for 9^th April. I had got this sorted. I knew I was answerable to someone. I had a goal of seeing the specialist in August and I was going to do it.

And then March 23^rd came around and the lockdown began. Everything changed. I was not sure what was going to happen and how I was going to adjust.

But adjust I did, and I'll tell you more about that next time.

Until then,

Jackie

xx

THERE IS A JUNCTION IN THE ROAD

2^nd June 2020

For the past few days I have been thinking about those times in my life that I have thought “Things have to be different”. To have a better quality of life, things have to change. I feel uncomfortable using the word “change” at the moment, as it has become synonymous with what is happening in America.

It is also that time of year when I reamember what happened in the Punjab in India in 1984. These, as so many other times in history, remind us that things in the world need to change.

Whether this will ever happen, I do not know but I have always thought that there has to be hope that they will.

I am a passionate person who believes that we all have the power to make things better on a personal or even wider level.

Sometimes I know I have not had the choice about things changing. We all had that feeling back in March when life as we knew it became different overnight. Looking back now, it's hard to believe what has happened over the last ten weeks, and now we are faced with things changing daily and not always knowing just what we can and cannot do. A countrywide time of control, with not a lot of choice.

Some people cope with change better than others, and having choice does not always make this easier.

I know myself in my life that having a choice to change my situation has definitely not always been easy, especially when I have had a lot of factors to consider.

Change can be good, but it can also be scary and it is so much easier, for whatever reason, to simply plod along and stay the way we are, even if we know we are not happy and often angry with that situation we are in. We feel trapped and helpless and find it impossible for things to be different. We feel we do not have a choice, even when we do.

For me, it's my health, my weight, being an older woman and being accepted for who I am that are the personal issues I would like to change, plus the cases of prejudice in many forms that I see all around me.

Obviously it is easier to change my personal situation, after all I am responsible for myself. It's only me that can make that decision that I need to. I do have a choice.

The issues I feel relevent to me are the challenges that I have the choice to change if I am not happy, and want things to be better. There are so many that I wish I had dealt with better. I wish I had said something. I wish that I had had the strength to fight back and change things when they needed changing.

I said many years ago that I wanted to end my days sitting in an armchair having no regrets, and honestly feeling that I'd done my best.

Whether it will be that way I do not know, but I will carry on trying to do the best I can.

It was hard for me to write this post in these very emotional times, having varying relevent personal thoughts and feelings. I enjoy my writing. It helps me a lot to get my thoughts down, as difficult as it can sometimes be. Hopefully, next time it will be easier.

Jackie

xx