YOUR HEALTH EXPERIENCE: My incentive to eventually get my weight under control was my health, says IMELDA KIRWAN
I WEIGHED 22 stone this time last year. I am about 10 stone seven pounds now. If you can picture someone putting an 11 stone person on your back, that’s what I was carrying around and that’s what I have lost. You are talking about an entire human being.
It had got to the stage where every joint ached – knees, elbows, fingers, shoulders. I had an enormous chest, so that caused back problems. You know you have a problem when you can’t walk down a corridor without hanging onto the walls.
I’m a teacher and if I let a pencil fall, one of the children would have to pick it up for me. I could never sit on a sofa simply because I would never be able to get off of it again. I was in such pain. My blood pressure was sky high.
The funny thing is I came from a very healthy household. I was brought up in Galway – we ate very healthily at home. As children we never got fizzy drinks or Tayto or chocolate.
All through my teens I was slim and athletic. I recently found one of my old tennis dresses and it looked like something a 10 year old would wear, but I fitted into it when I was 21.
I think because my mother had cholesterol problems and my father had an ulcer, they were conscious of eating good food and so we never had rubbish as children.
That all changed when I got my first job and went to work in Waterford. People ask why I started eating the way I did and I suppose the answer is because I could.
I had my first job, I was earning money, I had a car, I lived on my own and could eat what I wanted when I wanted. I was literally a child in a sweet shop.
I stopped playing sports – the other teachers in the school were very friendly but they were more interested in theatre than in active sports and, because I had a car, I stopped walking. I used to walk four or five miles a day to get to college.
When I moved to Waterford I was about 22 and I weighed about 10 stone. I remember having a 27-inch waist. But in the succeeding 30 years I did an inordinate amount of damage to myself, driving everywhere, eating convenience food, eating chocolate – all the things I never got at home.
I could go through two or three tubes of Pringles in one evening. I would buy six chocolate bars when I left work and have two of them eaten by the time I got home. I was a secret eater. I don’t know who I was hiding from – the dog, myself? I used to bring chocolate to bed and eat it there.
I did try over the years to break the cycle, but my weight just fluctuated. I would lose a certain amount and then put back on even more.
I tried so many weight-loss plans – I could have shares in slimming organisations. I got so big that it was as easy to go over me as to get around me, and then it became a vicious circle.
It got to the stage where I was not able to walk or exercise. I was on so many painkillers that I had to get medication to counter the medication. I was on anti-depressants and inhalers.
Of course, I was always the jolly fat person, always the centre of attention, getting all the laughs – but inside I was crying.
People can be very cruel. They seem to assume that because you are fat, you are deaf as well, and that you don’t hear them calling you names. You have to try to ignore the catcalls and the taunts.
My body mass index (BMI) was 49 – it should be 20-25. Getting clothes used to be a nightmare. If you got something that fitted you, you would get it in five or six different colours. The object of the exercise was to cover yourself, you were never going to look good.
I remember splashing out €1,500 for an outfit for a wedding and I looked like a lilac bus in it. I kept thinking of the Maeve Binchy book.
I had a gastric band fitted in 2005, but that did not work either. It’s amazing the things you can get past it. I was so bad that I would eat until I got sick and then I would resume eating again.
My incentive to eventually get my weight under control was my health. I was like a crippled old woman. And it was all self-induced. Of course, there was self-loathing there.
I hated what I had done to myself. I could use excuses. I lost both my parents and then my only sibling got leukaemia. I nursed my mother through cancer and then I nursed my brother. But he died 10 years ago and I know I should have pulled myself out of it.
I was about one ounce short of 22 stone when I tackled it. I had asthma and I was in line for a knee replacement. My legs were like tree trunks. I was a mess.
I tackled it on March 16th last year. I did it through the Lighter Life programme. It’s not for everyone, but it has worked for me. I did it under the supervision of my GP.
You take sachets which replace conventional foods but contain the vitamins, minerals, and trace elements you need, and it comes to 600 calories a day.
After four weeks, I lost nearly two stone. Most of the first stone was fluid. I did not put so much as a leaf of lettuce into my mouth.
Some of my former pupils have been dropping back to see if what they hear is true. The children in school tell me I should be a model.
Now when I get looks as I walk down the street I realise that sometimes they are admiring looks. I am no longer the object of ridicule.
I can go into shops on the high streets and buy clothes. I no longer have to go to the shops that cater for “ample ladies” because I am between a size 10 and a 12 now. I was a 30-32.
I could hardly move and now I am running around like a jennet. I have plans – I have a camper van and I want to travel.
I hope to be 100 per cent back on conventional food by Easter. But nothing unhealthy – no preservatives. I am monitoring my weight and I know that I should be around 11 stone. I don’t want to be lower than that, but I do need to tone up and I may join a gym.
I am on absolutely no medication now – no inhalers, no blood pressure tablets, no painkillers or anti-depressants.
My only regret is that it took 30 years for me to tackle this, but I have a new lease of life now and I am really enjoying it.
In conversation with
MARESE MCDONAGH
