Women Vs Weight

It might be cold outside but that sure as hell hasn’t stopped us girls counting down the days until bikini time. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could just shed the pounds as soon as the sun came out as quickly as a Hollywood starlet sheds her post baby weight?

Sometimes though, it just isn’t as easy as all that. Emily Russell shares her story about her on-going battle with weight loss.

“Although I was never overweight as a young child or in my early teens, I found that in adulthood it became more and more difficult to maintain the shape that I wanted, weighing in at about sixteen stone, which even for my height (5”8) was still too much. From about 2002 I tried calorie controlled diets, eating only 1000 calories a day and it worked for a while, but I could never maintain the weight loss. In 2006 my sister asked me to be a bridesmaid for her the following year and so I really put my all into the programme, but I just came to a complete standstill. I simply couldn’t understand why as I stuck religiously to 1000 calories a day and attended fitness classes regularly. Eventually I paid for a personal trainer to help me. He was brilliant and massively improved my fitness levels but I still lost nothing. He asked me to keep a food diary because he thought I was eating too much, but once he saw it he actually upped my calories to 1500. After a year I had only lost 2lb and gave him up (mainly due to the financial side of it).

Then I met my now husband Chris. We moved in together and my weight rocketed by four stone. Admittedly everyone eats more when they are in a relationship, but my friends and family were concerned that I really didn’t eat that much to be the size that I was. By this point I’d joined a running club and participated twice a week and I was going to the gym too.

In 2009 I remember very clearly driving home and getting a really intense pain in my thumb on the left side. Over the next few weeks the pain moved up my arm and into my chest. I was terrified that it was because I was overweight and at the same time concerned that it was because I was over-exercising and that my body couldn’t cope with it. I was taken into A and E about a month later one night because the pain escalated so badly. The doctor pretty much told me that I’d wasted his time and not to do it again. He told me I needed to see a physio. So along I went to see one and low and behold, they told me that I was wasting their time too and to go back to the doctor. Over the course of the next year I was sent to and fro from doctor to physio whilst the pain just got worse and worse. I was fitted with a 24 hour blood pressure test but even that came back fine. Between the summer of 2010 and the December of 2011 I had an ECG, a series of blood tests and an ultrasound as whatever the problem was had now started to affect my menstrual cycle and I became anaemic. My weight continued to grow steadily and my hair had started to become very thin. I was constantly tired and my mother-in-law used to call me Sleeping Beauty because all I did was sleep. I saw a succession of doctors and was even referred to a counsellor with hypochondria as doctors thought my problems were a manifestation of stress. I had started to believe this myself truth be told, but I had one session and was discharged because the doctor said it wasn’t psychological.

By this point I was convinced I was dying and I drove my friends and family mad. Chris and I even split up in November 2011. I was Googling my symptoms all the time which didn’t help and I suffered panic attacks and insomnia. It was a very low point in my life.

Then I found a doctor that actually listened to me. By December 2011 he had already done three blood tests and all confirmed that I had a high ESR and a dodgy thyroid. Further tests to check my antibodies showed that they were actually attacking my thyroid gland and he started me on Thyroxine meds straight away. I was utterly shocked. I’d always believed that ‘thyroid problems’ were just a fat person’s excuse not to lose weight and I didn’t realise that the thyroid gland could produce all of the crazy symptoms that I was having. Unfortunately by this point I was having terrible menstrual problems and had to go to a gynaecologist. I was diagnosed with Ectropian and in March 2012 had my cervix cauterized.

With my problems finally diagnosed as Hypothyroidism, I started on a really strict diet and hoped that it would work. I went to the gym four times a week and ran at least once a week too. I lost three stone in the first three months. After that I was losing about 3lb a week – it was literally dripping off me. I religiously recorded my calories to make sure I didn’t over or under eat. Chris and I had now sorted our differences and were engaged. In January 2012 I got measured for my wedding dress as a size 22 but when I went for my final fitting in July they had to take it all the way in to a 12 at the top and a 14/16 on the bottom. The women at the dress shop said they’d never known anything like it! I even had to have my wedding and engagement ring taken down two sizes.

Life is good again now. My friends and family say that it’s like having the old me back. Now and again my weight goes up and down – like any normal woman- but I’ve joined a British Military fitness club to keep myself in shape. I have loads of energy now and I’m not so tired these days.  I will be on meds for the rest of my life but as long as I never feel the way I did again, then that’s okay with me.

For more information on Hypothyroidism visit http://www.thyroiduk.org.uk