AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING...

30^th August 2020

Since the last time I wrote my blog our grandchildren have visited and we have been able to have time enjoying different activities with them. I was also supposed to go and see the orthopaedic specialist, but sadly that appointment was cancelled. I am in so much pain at the moment, so I am in the process of trying to make sure I do get to see him. I don't know when that will be, but I won't give up.

Recently I been thinking while watching the children having fun with us and enjoying their food, ice cream and cake. I thought about my childhood and I started to consider where my issues with weight and food really started. Even though I have always been big and suffered because of it, as a child I learned to live with it. That's just the way it was. I was bullied, other kids didn't give me much of their time or I was the gooseberry when we went out and they found a date, but I accepted that it was that way. I loved plenty of good food so I carried on having my fun eating.

It wasn't until I met my first husband, who liked my quiet nature, that, with his guidance, I started to lose weight. Little did I know at the age of sixteen and a half that I would end up in a controlling and abusive relationship for twenty-six years and my battle with all aspects of weight loss would be with me for most of my life. Really, eating was the only thing I could control. I got sucked in because when I lost weight I got attention and people liked me more. I was special and I had worth, which went when I put the weight back on. Little did I realise until recently that what changed when I lost weight was my confidence levels and how I perceived things. When I was thin I had self worth and when I was big I had a feeling of worthlessness and failure. All these feelings started when I thought at a young age that how much you weighed mattered, I know now it does but not in in the way I thought. Excess weight doesn't help your health and mobility but it doesn't determine who you are. It shouldn't be about your appearance, but your health. Sadly it still seems to be about appearance and health gets forgotten.

For me, being able to look back through my life and see how things were I have come to recognise what has caused my problems and hopefully I have begun to change things.

This learning curve continues, but do you know? It's beginning to be fun. Still hard work, but fun, and the confidence is returning.

Next time, as I said before, my thoughts on size in all shapes and forms.

Jackie

xx

ON THE HUNT FOR SMALLER CLOTHES

18^th August 2020

I love a charity shop. You never know what you might find, and the money you spend goes to a good cause. You get a bargain, and the charity gains. Win win.

During lockdown they had to close and it was only recently that they opened back up. That was great because I had bagged up a lot of my clothes that no longer fit me, and was able to drop them off there.

Another bonus is that now I am a lot smaller I can buy things and try new things to see if they suit me without spending too much money. You can quite often get a bargain and I have bought many brand new things that have never been worn, well known brands and even designer items in the past. It's all a matter of knowing where to look.

I have gone down from a UK size 22/24 to a UK size 16/18 so it is nice to be able to experiment with new looks without too much expense.

The joy when I could fit into a size 18 pair of jeans was wonderful. Sad, I know, but there you are.

During lockdown I did buy quite a few new clothes, but I love to be able to try new styles and knowing I can do this without spending too much money is great.

We were in our village charity shop on Saturday and as we had a good look round I heard two girls chatting at the back. One was holding up a very skimpy swim suit and commenting about the fact the label said large, when it obviously wasn't. She showed it to me and asked me what I thought. I agreed it definitely was not large. It certainly wouldn't cover much if a person who was large put it on.

What followed was an interesting conversation about clothes sizes, what they mean, and how they can differ. The girl said that she had put six pairs of UK size 10 jeans on the rail and they differed in actual size by about four inches in width. How are you supposed to work out what size you are, if that is the case? And imagine how upset someone could be if they did not fit when that person thought that they were that size.

Clothes sizing can be a nightmare and it's tricky knowing what size you really are.

Does it really matter? To a lot of people it does, and I will cover this in my next blog as it is something I am passionate about, as this young girl could tell when we discussed the swimsuit. One thing's for sure, I won't be wearing it anytime soon! :-)

I will continue to see what each charity shop offers, and what new looks I can come up with, enjoying the excitement of the find. You never know, I might even take photographs in the futre of what I put together!

Jackie

xx

P.S. I love writing my blog and as I have said many times in the past it helps me to focus on how I feel personally and also about things around me. For the next two weeks I am giving my self a break as we have family visiting and I want to spend my whole time with them. I haven't had that chance for a while, and it will do me good I think. During this time I will also go to see the specialist, so by the time I come back I will hopefully know what is going to happen next. So, until next time when I put pen to paper, take care and I will be back soon.

Jackie

xx

THERE'S ALWAYS MOMENTS OF DOUBT

13^th August, 2020

Five years of pain, eighteen months of semi-seriously/seriously trying to conquer this weight problem that I have to benefit my overall health and enable me to have joint replacement surgery, and I am finding it hard. It's two weeks today that I go to see the orthopaedic specialist, and I feel at the moment that my positivity is waning. Can I carry on for the next two weeks and continue to lose weight and, more importantly, keep it off? I know it makes no sense to feel like this, but I do.

The common sense Jackie is talking to me and I know what she is saying makes so much sense. Let's look at this situation in a rational way.

I know I am in pain and it is getting worse, and my general health is not good. Despite all this I have gradually lost five stone since January 2019, three of those since March this year. I have spent the last 46 years of my life at many points trying to lose weight and I have done it, but because I have done it so many times before I don't really know what an achievement it can be – it's something I do.

What I do know is that weight is hard to keep off and I also know I have a lot to do yet to stop that happening to me again. I hope that because this time I have made so many lifestyle changes and lost weight so slowly that I stand a good chance of not putting it back on this time. This is technically my last chance and I am going through it so personally and sharing it here on my blog. I am human and will have blips, but I am hopeful, What I must remind myself at the moment is just what an achievement it is, and try to be proud of myself. For 78ish weeks I have done this and I have survived and achieved what I set out to do. It wasn't easy in the beginning, but I did start to be more motivated after I saw the specialist at the end of February and I have done what he asked me to do.

I am just so worried that when I see him, things will have changed. I know that they are not rational thoughts, but they are there.

I tell myself I have done my best, and I have, and if things have changed in this year of change, then there is nothing I can do about it.

I have learnt so much about myself and since March have near enough carried on by myself and have even done better than the previous year with my weight going down, even if was only a pound at a time.

So give yourself a shake, Jackie, it's only two more weeks before your appointment and you CAN do this and whatever happens after that you will always deal with it like you always have. Always remember you do have so much more supportr than you ever did before and you are stronger than you try to persuade yourself that you are.

Self lecture over, love yourself.

Love Jackie

xx

NORMAL

10^th August, 2020

Normal! It's a six letter word, but what does it really mean? We have gone through some pretty strange times since the end of March and many things have become “The New Normal”. What is really nice is to be able to get back to doing some of the things we did before lockdown. It was lovely, back at the beginning of July, when our local tea room opened back up and we finally had somewhere to go and socialise.

On Thursday, I had an appointment at the hairdressers, and as it was at 5pm we decided that afterward it would be nice to go to one of our really nice local pubs which is literally opposite the hairdressers. Well we did, although we didn't have alcohol, but we did have something to eat. It felt afterwards as if for the first time in a very long time we had done something normal, although it's sad there is no live music yet.

It's really strange just how often you don't realise how nice it is to be able to do things until they are gone. Current times aside, it is so easy to get into a rut with the way we live, and forget to do the things we enjoy. Life can so easily become mundane.

The way we live can become stale. This may have happened during lockdown, but it can also happen when our lives have changed in oh so many ways.

We can forget who we were. I know, for me, when I put so much weight back on and was in so much pain from the arthritis I lost complete interest in how I looked, and didn't really want to go anywhere. It was just so easy not to bother and simply exist. Strangely it was as lockdown started that I started to realise what I had missed.

Before it was there and I didn't want it, now it was gone and I couldn't have it and it was a very strange feeling. I consciously started to realise that I wanted things back. What was happening with lockdown was happening to everyone. It was said that we were all in the same boat, but really we were in our own boats in the same ocean.

I spent my time finding out who I really was and making the best of the time to discover what I really wanted. I wanted to be normal, but normal is not really the word. I just wanted to do my best to help myself, my mind and my body, and to be able to do it without restriction of being different. For me, it is perhaps easier than for others. My differences are easily solved (sort of). I can't change my age, I need help with my disabilities, but losing weight can be done, and is on it's way to being done. During lockdown I lost 44 lbs which has made things so much easier.

Things should be different. Everyone's idiosyncrasies should not make a difference, but unfortunately the media, fashion industry, the slimming business, and ordinary people won't let it be that way. I will battle on with the things I believe are wrong and don't give ordinary people the justice they deserve.

Perhaps one day it won't be just a case of discovery of who we were, but who we can be should be and perhaps “normal” will no longer exist.

Until next time,

Jackie

xx

HOW GOOD REALLY IS THE INSIDE OF THAT BOOK?

6^th August 2020

How many of us judge someone by the way they look or sound. I try really hard not to but none of us are perfect. That old saying “Don't judge a book by it's cover” is so apt, but I must admit that when it comes to books it's sometimes backwards. What I mean is, when we are in a bookshop (Steve and I love bookshops) so many times I look at the artwork and think “Wow!” even though I would not really read the book. There must be a lesson to learnt from that, I'm sure.

I have always, even as a young girl, loved anyone that was different from the norm. One of my first heroes, if I can call him that, was Quentin Crisp. When John Hurt played him in the film "The Naked Civil Servant" I was so taken not just on how he looked, but his ideas about life, in what must sometimes have been very difficult times. I wish I could have met him, although I don't know if I could have coped with him in real life.

I have seen and been very lucky to talk to some very different people over the years and it was partly because they looked different and it felt right to strike up a conversation. There have been ex-Hell's Angels, a monk on a train and many flamboyant people in London, when I spent time in Carnaby Street and other times on my travels.

These conversations left me with feelings of enrichment and memories to keep.

As I said at the beginning, we shouldn't judge someone on how they look and if I had done that, I would have missed out, but I know I have done it at times and it's not good.

I would not like to treat someone in a way that I would not like to be treated, but what has happened to me over the years reminds me of this.

I have been judged for being British, for being in a mixed race marriage, for being a woman, for speaking with a Yorkshire accent, for talking “posh”, for using a walker, for having grey hair, for being fat. The list goes on, but I have come to realise that I am me and what you see is what you get, but it took some time to get there. All the time a person is being judged it can have such a impact on their confidence and at the very least make them feel unworthy.

When you have a disability, or a challenge as I like to call them (thank you Richard Osman), people can treat you as though you can't understand what is going on. It's my legs, not my brain :-)

Having said that, because I have silver hair it doesn't mean I am dithery or don't like fashion or care how I look.

Now we come to being fat, or obese as it's called. It don't always mean when you see someone that is carrying a little extra weight, or a bit more, that they are lazy or unhealthy. Yes, to carry extra weight can cause health problems, I know, but it is far more complicated than that. Being overweight can not be blamed for everything and used against someone when they go to the doctors with a sore throat or have anxiety. It also shouldn't be rolled out that someone who has a weight issue needs to eat less and move more and that is it.

It is, as I said, far more more complicated than that for so many people. If we all tried to accept people for who are are and what they looked like and took the time when we can to find out why they are the way they are, and what made them that way, we may perhaps not only help them but possibly also enrich our own lives.

Idealist, I hear some say, but what have we got to lose when the opportunity is there and perhaps we can all gain something from it.

I will continue to my best to treat others as I would like to be treated myself.

Until next time,

Jackie.

xx