Rethinking what health looks like

So earlier this year I wrote about 'Getting Strong'.  In that post I wrote about how I wanted to lose 5% of my body weight this year to improve my health.

When I wrote that post in February, I had already lost 2kg through exercise.  Until three weeks ago, I had maintained that 2kg of weight loss but hadn't lost any more.  But I didn't beat myself up about it and I didn't give up on exercising.  Being able to lose 2kg, JUST 2kg and maintain that weight loss for five months without giving up, getting obsessive or depressed was a massive achievement for me.

      My favourite chip of all chips.

But there was a reason why I'd only lost 2kg.  With the stress of Covid coupled with Murray's epilepsy, smashing back a bag of kettle chips at night had become a fairly regular thing.  Plus we were eating more takeaways.  Being tired and having our routines bent out of shape made it easy to justify not cooking.  While for the most part I ate a healthy diet during the day, I often binged on chips or sweets or too many glasses of wine at night.  To have something to look forward to.  To drown out the noise of the stress of my life.  And because I was exercising most days I wasn't gaining weight, so I felt vindicated.

My relationship with food is something I've always struggled with.  Whether it's obsessing about what I eat and how much I'm exercising or I'm shoveling chips into my face, basically since puberty my relationship with food has been problematic.  And I've known that since I was a teen.  At one point my body became so unused to consuming saturated fats eating any high fat food made me horrendously ill.  That really scared me.  It took some years before I could eat foods like icecream again (and I still don't really like it).  I've done lots of therapy around these issues and was extremely lucky to be introduced to OA meetings not long out of my teens.

While OA was helpful, unlike the other issues covered by the 12 Step Programs, it's not like you can just 'quit' food and work through your issues.  Humans kinda need food to survive.  Whether your issue is eating too little or eating too much.  Whether it's about body image or lack of self-confidence, what it all comes to is control.  And this issue is much bigger than considering what you're eating.  This issue follows you around where-ever you go.  So when parts of my life become uncontrollable, there they are.

About a month ago I had a massive reality check.

It's not just about diet, but it's a good start.    

Murray got some blood results back and his cholesterol was crazy high.  Like, he told me the number and I thought he'd misread it and asked him to read it again.  Before we'd even been to his GP for the follow up we'd downloaded a calorie and exercise tracking app and completely overhauled how we eat.  Because while there are other factors as to why that number was so bad, diet is the one thing we could do something about.

We're a team.  So if Murray needed to change his diet to manage his health then I would too.  It was the kick in the butt I needed to start making an active effort to address my bingeing.  Part of me hadn't wanted to address it because it needed that crutch to help me cope.  Another part of me was scared I'd replace it with different unhealthy, obsessive habits.  But when we got that news I didn't even consider any of  those things.  I just went 'righto' and we made those changes*.

I was worried that using a tracking app would make me fall into old habits.  But so far, that hasn't happened.  I think this is in part due to being very aware of these issues.  The app allocates an amount of kilojoules (or calories) you can have per day based on your age, height and weight and how quickly you want to lose weight (if at all).  I record everything honestly.  And I try not to eat more than 10% under my allowance.  I have days where I eat more than my allocated amount and I don't beat myself up about it.  I haven't cut chocolate.  Or chips.  Or wine.  I have upped fruits and veges and cut way back on cheese.  I'm not starving, or hungry or depriving myself of anything (like earlier iterations of me would have done).  I'm just very aware of what I'm eating**.

Last year this exercise felt impossible

 

I think the other reason it hasn't happened is because the way I think about my body has changed over the past year.  I have to credit this in part to the amazing osteo I was seeing for some issues with my hips***.  Because even though his other job was as a fitness instructor, even though I was overweight and he had to see me in shorts and a bra most weeks he only ever made positive comments about my body and what it was capable of.  And this helped me realise how capable my body was.  It was strong.  It was flexible.  It was fit.  I was now able to do exercises easily that I had previously struggled with.  At this time I was also spending a lot of time in the sauna.  Being in a close environment with other people wearing very little clothing forces you to feel more ok in your skin.  In the sauna I've met folks from many ages, shapes, sizes, ethnicities and genders - and we're all there for our health in one form or another.  This really impressed on me that what we look like and how healthy we are doesn't always look like what we expect it to.

Charity Witt: power lifter.  Superwoman.    

Plus The Titan Games.  The host, Dwayne Johnson, handpicks athletes that represent diversity.  Contestants come from a variety of backgrounds including disability, health conditions and overcoming great adversity.  One of the contestants was Charity Witt.  Charity was diagnosed with cardiac arrythmia at the age of 18.  She was told she'd be on medication for the rest of her life.  She didn't like the sound of that so she sought a second opinion, and was told that with exercise and a healthy diet she should be able to mange without the meds.  And she started exercising. Not only did Charity set records in US power lifting, but she won the first season of The Titan Games.  Watching her pull a giant ball weight so easily blew my mind.  She made it look like she was taking her dog for a walk while other contestants struggled to even get it moving.  And in regular clothes, she didn't look at all like what we're taught 'health' looks like.  Because we're not taught to equate strength with health with women.

And this made me think about all these amazing female athletes performing at the top of their fields.  All these different bodies.  All exceptionally healthy bodies at their absolute performance peak.  Not all of these bodies look like what we're taught 'healthy' looks like.

Look at all these bad ass women's bodies.  All in peak form.  All different from each other.

And this reminds me of this awful weight loss/health trope.   I've seen it on almost every fucking weight loss miracle thing that's ever existed: The aspirational before and after pic.  I don't mean the one where they flick up a picture of 'before' when they are over 100kg and it's at a bad angle and they've chosen a bad outfit and they've 'overcome' that image of themselves.  I mean the 'before' they got big pics.  The photos you 'should stick on your fridge' pics.  The 'I wish I looked like that now' pics.  Because being smaller does not necessarily mean being healthier. 

If I were to choose a 'fridge' pic that represented me at my aesthetic best I would probably choose this:

This pic was a local magazine cover.  I was just a guest singer in this band, but the magazine wouldn't do it without me because then it wouldn't fit the aesthetic they were looking for.  Yes, it's been photoshopped - my regrowth was shopped out, my skin has been cleaned up.  But my size was not shopped.  At the time of this shoot I was 24 years old and quite mentally unstable.  I was a size 8 and underweight.  I was exercising excessively, I was eating erratically and I was a pro at putting away vast quantities of free wine at exhibition openings.  I cannot deny that I look like what we're told 'pretty' looks like in this photo.  But I was definitely not healthy.  This should never be an aspirational pic for me, or for anyone else.  Yet women this size (usually smaller) and just as unhealthy grace our magazine covers with far more regularity than women like Charity Witt ever do.  It's unsurprising as to why so many of us have messed up notions as to what 'health' looks like.

And the reality is that whether we've been this ill or not, aspiring to look like we did 10 or 20 years ago is just weird.  I've had kids since this shoot.  I have less organs in my body than when this photo was taken.  I'm 16 years older.  Without extensive plastic surgery, it's literally impossible for me to look like the person in this picture.

I understand why people use these photos of themselves - visual cues are a great aid when we're trying to make behavioral changes.  But the problem is that for many of us, a 'healthy' version of ourselves now does not have a visual we can attach to it.  I don't know what a healthy today me should look like.  So I'm doing my best to let go of visual cues other than those I'm starting to see when I look in the mirror.

A more accurate aspirational pic.  Me last year.           
A little lighter than now with my Millenium Falcon.        

I've even let go of the idea of 'my ideal weight' because I honestly don't know what that will look like.  BMI is a shit measure of health.  And it's especially shit for anyone at either end of the bell curve.  I'm short.  And I'm trying to increase my muscle mass.  So I don't use it.  Now I'm tipping 40, what's considered 'healthy weight' is also different than when I was 24.  I do want to be a little smaller than I am now, but I have no aspirations to ever be as small as the waif in that picture ever again.  I've set a weight goal, but if I feel good in myself before I get there then it just means I got there early.

And I've now lost 5% of my body weight!  This was the first of many things I have in place to mark progress in terms of my health.  It means my heart health is better, my cancer risk is lower and I'm less likely to get type 2 diabetes.  But I have other things in place to mark progress.  I want to chafe less.  I want to fit some of my clothes more comfortably.  I want to have better body tone and I wouldn't mind having more definition through my cheekbones and chin.  And I want to teach my kids that size is not an indicator of health.  I want them to have a healthier relationship with food than I've had.  And I want to live a long time so I can spend as much time with them as I can.  These are the indicators I'm using to measure my health.  These are the things that truly matter.

I want to live until my kids are old enough THEY need regular colonoscopies

* This was easier for me than it would be for many due to my existing experience and skill sets.  My love/hate relationship with food has meant I've had many jobs where I work with food.  For a while, writing healthy recipes was a part of my job.  And as a lapsed vegetarian, cutting red meat out and replacing it with healthier, vege based options was not difficult.

** When I do feel like bingeing a crunchy snack I have replaced the chips with carrots.  After one carrot, I'm full so don't feel like eating any more anyway.  And I really like carrots.  And I still occasionally knock back a bottle of wine - but it's one of those 187ml teeny dealios.  And only sometimes.

*** Ahhh, broken ankles.  The gift that keeps on giving.

On a fresh start

It was a tough year last year.  I lost two friends to cancer and had a few unexpected things come up which required some serious lifestyle renovations.

But we got through.  Pretty much intact.  Losing people you care about sucks but there is one positive: it really helps put things in perspective.  Especially when those people have fought through so many barriers to achieve what they did during their own lives.  While I struggled not to be swallowed up by grief for a time I realised neither of my friends would want me to do that*.  They would want me to get out there and live my life and appreciate all that I have in front of me.  I am blessed with the gift of living in this world while they have moved on.

    Recent pic of me - much bigger
than I feel comfortable seeing myself

This realisation helped me to understand that I've been stuck in the quagmire of grief for quite some time.  Ever since my health diagnosis a year and a half ago, I have struggled to make sense of how exactly to manage my life.  And I have used it as an excuse rather than facing my feelings head on.  While yes, I do normal Mum things and have a job and pay the bills I have been using numerous crutches to survive day-to-day.  Namely food and alcohol**.  And it has slowly been killing me.

Being heavier has been killing my confidence.  It is an awful thing to admit when you pride yourself on being a feminist, but I have discovered sadly, just how much of my confidence is tied up in how I look.  I have always been ok with being curvy.  I have pretty much never been a 'skinny' girl.  But I have always been roughly the same give or take a couple of kilos.  The reality is, that when I had this realisation I was about 20kg heavier than I was before I got pregnant with Abby.  And when you are short like me, 20kg is a LOT.

What brought me to this realisation?  Seeing friends get off their butts and do this for themselves.  The good and bad thing about social media is that it allows you a sneak peek into the lives of others.  And while these peeks should always be taken with a grain of salt, sometimes they really are the kick in the behind you need.  Because when pondering how amazing it is that a friend could write an amazing book after surviving brain cancer, you also see friends in the here and now making huge changes in their lives it drives home the fact that you can do it too.

I have lost 6kg since then end of November.  2kg so far this year.  I'm still heavier than I was the last time I attempted to lose weight, but it's still a significant achievement.  Especially given I've achieved most of it through entering a new territory: planned exercise.

Me before having Abby.     
Oh to be this size again!     

I've never been an 'exercise' person.  It's just not my thing.  I'm just not one of those people who thinks it's 'fun' to go for a run or 'hit the gym' or go tramping.  Fun things for me are board games and writing and comedy and cooking and drawing.  While for me some sports are fun (soccer and touch) I am not very good at them and thus anxious about joining a team.  And while I do enjoy being in nature and walking, in truth, the outside world is not my friend.  Bugs love me.  No matter which sunblock I use, the sun will burn me.  Going for a bush walk will result in welts and burns.  The beach is the same.  Summer is not designed for people like me.

I have always loved swimming.  The thing is though when you are uncomfortable with your size, the scarier getting into a pair of togs feels.  While swimming with the kids was once a fairly normal part of our week, once I got to a certain size I made excuses to avoid it.  My endo is playing up.  Etta's just started school.  Everyone is sick.  But truly, most of the time I was uncomfortable chasing my children around with so little to cover me.  But then I saw my friend was doing it.  My cousin was doing it.  My colleague was doing it.  All around me people were sucking it up and putting their bodies in the water no matter their size.  And it was good for them.

So I did too.

Most of my weight loss has come from swimming.  And even before I lost that much a funny thing changed.  I stopped feeling self conscious in my togs.  While I did buy a suit that had a little more coverage, it wasn't the main factor.  I just got used to it.  I realised that I was the only person who cared what I looked like.  People did not stare at me in horror.  I was just one of many bodies of many shapes and sizes going for a swim.

Similarly, my self-consciousness over being 'good' enough to go swimming dissipated over time.  When I started swimming, I was extremely anxious about lane swimming.  I was worried I would be bad.  That others would be annoyed by me being too slow or too clumsy or too anything.  So I mostly waterwalked unless I could be in a lane by myself.  A few months on I no longer care.  I dive straight into a lane and swim.  Just swim, without thinking about what everyone else is thinking about.

When school holidays began, for a time my swimming life was over.  As the primary caregiver of our children, all the time I had free before to swim was now sucked into childcare.  For two weeks I did not swim.  And then I realised (again) that I was just making excuses.  Of course I could still swim! I just had to get creative with time.  Now I swim Wednesday nights once Murray is home from work, Fridays after work, and Sunday afternoons.  I am swimming 3 - 4 kilometers every week.

Gotta love a good spreadsheet!

And I love it.  Not only am I losing weight, but it helps give me space away, not just from the family, but from my thoughts.  Once I've been swimming for about 20 minutes or so I go into a sort of meditative state.  I get into my body and out of my head and actually relax.  This is quite a hard thing for an anxious person to do.  And with the help of my favourite Microsoft program I can track my weight-loss and set myself goals and incentives.  This is fun for me!  Making weight loss fun is just smart!  Today, I hit my first incentive goal - 2kg***.  Which means tonight I get a celebratory teeny vino.

     Me today not feeling as self-conscious

So my goal is to get back to my pre-Abby weight - around 60kg.  But I have set other goals along the way.  I have already reached my goal of being able to fit my clothes more comfortably.  I have reached my fitness goal of being able to swim comfortably for half an hour non-stop.  And in all honesty these goals are more important than the numbers.  If I am healthy, and feel good in my body, then I will be happy.  Basically, if I am between 50 - 66kg I am in the healthy weight range for my age.  If I manage to get to 66kg and feel good, then that will be ok.

I still have a way to go to to get there, but right now I am just focused on enjoying the journey.  I will do my best to keep you updated and who knows?  Maybe I can help someone else feel like they can do it too.

Big thanks to Miriam, Penny, Lashaya, Cass and Jess.  Seriously, you are all fabulous.


*Well, maybe Sam a little.  He was fabulous and liked knowing it.  It would be good for his ego knowing how sad the world is for us without him.

** Not in a classic 'alcoholic' sense, but definitely in a 'having more than is good for your health' sense. 

*** I started my weight loss incentive chart at the beginning of this year

On Week two of the Hannah Made Diet

I meant to do this on Monday, but on Monday I also had a very important scan, and then had a very unusual reaction to said scan. I’m still recovering! But I will write about the scan, and what the results mean for us later on. So back to what happened in diet land last week for me.

Well… despite saying I was happy with losing the 400 grams, I wasn’t really that happy. In my head I’d really wanted to lose a little closer to the one kilo mark so did make a few adjustments before going into week 2. I’m pretty sure they were healthy ones. I consulted with the Google Doc (apparently not a very reliable physician). There were varying ideas around food consumption, and I'd started off going for the high-middle end of it, so I decided to drop my max consumption down by 500kj – that’s just 7% less than what it was for last week. Taking that down must have made a difference, because in week two I lost 700 grams, which was pretty much bang on what I’d been hoping to lose in a week.

This week I planned in a lot more stay-at-home time, which made meal planning a heck of a lot easier. Also, Murray cooked one of the meals on a night where I didn’t get home until 7ish, and that was great. All I had to tell him was how much oil he could use as a maximum, and he made a tasty, nutritious stir-fry for me that was well within the amount I was allowed to eat. I found that even just having one week of habit forming things, like eating a proper breakfast, made doing that seem more natural, and less like being on a diet.

I learnt a couple of great things this week. As I’m still nervous about how many kilojoules are in foods I do tend to under-eat when choosing foods to eat when out. This week I was out, and hungry, so opted for sushi. But I knew that rice packs a reasonable kilojoule punch, so ordered the lowest KJ kind (vege without avocado) and had five of them, instead of seven or eight. I couldn’t check properly what was in it until I got home, and then realised it was a lot less than what I thought! So this week I’m going to do some more research around the take-out food I would commonly eat so I don’t worry and under-eat during the day.

I also learnt that I have some resolve and am good at compromising with myself. On Sunday night I did stock take at the shop, and was there from around 3 until 8pm. And I forgot to bring my dinner. Normally, this would cause me to snack, and then, buy some hot chips on the way home. On the way home I ummmed and ahhhed about buying takeaways because I was so hungry, and came to a compromise. I bought a small packet of potato chips with the kilojoules written on it (so I could count them and keep track) and then made a quick, healthy dinner when I got home. I was fed by 9pm and happy. And instead of snacking at work I had one sugarless lollypop, and just made it last!

The night I had my ‘free’ meal I was at a friend’s place for dinner and I’m really glad I made that my free meal. I ate super healthily during the day in an attempt to make up for it. The food was amazing! But there was so much of it, and it was so rich that after eating I was quite ill. I hate being a difficult dinner guest, so hadn’t mentioned about how high lactose foods make me ill (on top of gluten free vegetarian – what host wants to hear that?). I LOVE high lactose foods, and I got to have a lot of them with this dinner. I wish my body could love the foods that my brain and mouth love so much! This was a good lesson in letting hosts know everything, or (better yet), offering to do the hosting myself. But the cheese was honestly amazing…

Despite temptation and eating some very naughty things (also had RAH trust meeting dinner to attend on Saturday) I lost some weight! And it mightn’t seem a lot, but just losing what I have has pushed my BMI back down into the top of healthy range. Which I know is just a silly number, but it makes me feel as though I am achieving something through making little changes. I am making little changes in my life to make me a healthier, happier person.

I just want to ensure I’ve pointed out that I’m not anti-fat and I don’t care what size my friends are or judge people based on their BMI. I just want to fit my jeans again. I have been more overweight than this before, and for me it meant my cholesterol went up, and because I didn’t fit my clothes, I didn’t want to go out. Because I didn’t go out, I stayed home and ate junk food and was crap to my boyfriend. This made me a sad person. I like to be a curvy girl, but I like being a certain size (not meaning a measurable size) because that size is what’s always been comfy for me. I’ve been a size 8 person before, and that person was about as happy with herself when she was the size 12 – 14 person. It’s about fitting the clothes I have that make me feel confident when I wear them and feeling good in myself. And being a tight arse, and not wanting to have to buy new jeans for Winter.

So that’s it. I won’t be surprised if I lose a bit more weight next week based only on the fact that I haven’t really had a diet to regulate so far due to illness.

Monday 19^th March current weight: 61.5 kilos

Ultimate goal weight: 56.0 kilos

Weight to go: 5.5 kilos

On the first week of the Hannah-made diet

First I have to say that I like my diet. On my diet I can still eat chocolate and jellybeans and cheese and drink coffee and wine. And I’ve made sure there is a free-for-all day, which was very necessary this week as I got to go on an AMAZING wine tour on Waiheke Island for my friend Sara’s 30^th. And, on my diet you do lose weight. I hopped on the scales and I knew I couldn’t have lost much and I didn’t. I only lost 0.4 kilos.

I was a teeny bit sad because I’ve been so good, but then I realised two things:

a) I’m 30, and my metabolism isn’t what it used to be.

b) My life isn’t The Biggest Loser Australia.

My life is still my life and because I’m still 5 weeks out from surgery I can’t really work out so it’s just losing weight via diet. And I have a job and a husband and a social life, so it can’t just be about dieting and exercise and ‘me’ all the time. My diet also allows me to eat fun things, which I don’t think they do cos their trainers will blow their face off with their giant noisy face holes. I really think that treats are important even if they have no nutritional value. If I’m under my maximum KJ consumption for the day, I’m totally allowed some jellybeans!

So actually, losing 0.4 kilos is not that bad. It’s almost a whole American pound! That’s almost a whole block of butter!

What I’m really enjoying is how thinking about what I eat makes me both aware and accountable for everything I put in my mouth. It’s very easy to not think about taste testing the tasters at work, or eating a left over pie at the end of the day (waste not want not), but when you realise how many extra unnecessary kilojoules that is popping into your body it makes it easy to say no. I’m enjoying having a proper sit down breakfast with myself every morning and deciding on snacks to take to work.

I’m also learning that how I naturally cook is actually quite healthy to start with. I haven’t had to change much. The biggest change has been in being organised so we can HAVE a home cooked meal instead of takeaways. I don’t get home until just before 7pm three to four nights a week and have a husband who doesn’t cook. And I’m not one of those people who can come home from working a 9 hour day and then cook and then eat at 7.30 or 8pm. That would make me a hangry murderous kind of person. So usually about three nights a week we end up resorting to takeaway foods.

I’m finding ways around this. I made the batter for some sweetcorn fritters the night before we needed them, and had Murray cook them for dinner the following day (he can do that kind of cooking). We served it with a simple salad that I made when I got home. It took me literally about 7 minutes to prepare that batter, and we were eating by 7pm. Easy and tasty, it just shows I need to be more organised. No takeaways at all for me this week.

The bigger challenge was eating out. We went to a friend’s birthday dinner on Friday night at That’s Amore pizza. Because I was winerying on Saturday, I didn’t have a free dinner pass. Luckily, they don’t do gluten free pizza anyway, so I was restricted to eating salad even without being on a diet. I ordered an amazing salad with artichoke hearts, walnuts and parmesan and asked for the dressing on the side. It was so good that I didn’t feel left out of the fun of the pizza party. The only fail was the three glasses of wine… I almost totally drank the extra un-bought pizza.

This week is super busy and the necessity of meal planning is showing me that I do actually need to spend more time at home. Looking at it now, I’ll only have two nights where I’ll be home before 8.30pm: tonight and Sunday. This makes planning dinners tricky – but also has helped me look at how little time I get for resting and keeping sane. So all in all I think this losing weight thing may end up being helpful in other areas as I will try and trim back my social life and schedule regular time at home to cook, eat, knit and rest.

So this week coming, I probably won’t change much about this diet plan thing, apart from the free day: it should definitely be a free meal. After the wine tour I was a little tipsy and ate a bunch of naughty things. One wine tour with tipsy mistakes won’t be likely to happen again soon, so I think it’ll be easy to avoid this in future. Otherwise, I’ll keep on trucking with my meal planning and food maths – it’s seriously fun!

Monday 12^th March current weight: 62.2 kilos

Ultimate Goal Weight: 56.0 kilos

Weight to go: 6.2 kilos

OoooH! And here is a recipe along with the food math. I'll try and put one of these in every post:

Basic Stiryfry (serves 3 - 4)

2 eggs 648

1/2 tsp Chinese 5 spice 22

1 Tbsp vege oil 485

1 onion 117

1 capsicum 100

4 large button mushrooms 280

200g brocolli 200

2 cloves garlic finely chopped 60

1 red chilli finely chopped 25

3 Tbsp soy sauce 45

1 Tsp honey 267

1 tsp Fish sauce 30

2 Tbsp Japanese cooking wine 168

Total Kilojoules 2269

1) Scramble eggs with 1/4 teaspoon of Chinese 5 spice. Heat half the oil in a wok and fry the egg. Remove from pan.

2) Stirfry veges in remaining oil. I start with the onion, add brocolli and capsicum and lastly the mushroom.

3) Combine garlic, chilli, soy sauce, honey, fish sauce and cooking wine in a small cup. Add with egg to the stir fry once it has cooked.

Divide into 3 or 4 servings and serve each with 3/4 cup cooked white rice (760 kj) or with 3/4 cup brown rice (685kj) This gives you a tasty meal under 2000kj

On Family Health

In the last four months three out of four of those in my immediate family have been hospitalised. I feel sorry for my little brother as it’s been as stressful for him as it has been all of us. Mum’s had ongoing gynae issues which have impacted on other areas of her health. She had to go on the sickness benefit, which is really sad as she loves her job. Dad had a minor heart attack last week. He had two stents put in on Wednesday, and will have a third put in in a couple of weeks. He’s a box of birds at the moment. But his dad passed away when he was in his 50’s – Dad’s in his early 50’s now. Mum’s only 51. It does make you think.

And I’ve been in hospital with my latest ectopic and having my fallopian tube removed. I seem to be following mum in the area of bung gynae bits. And, as they pointed out when visiting Dad at hospital, heart health is hereditary, so Jim and I (and our cousins too!) should be careful.

My main concern with the gynae stuff is ending up with internal scarring from multiple surgeries and having complications down the line like mum. I haven’t had nearly as much surgery as Mum, but I had intermittent chronic abdominal pain for a year following my first ectopic which landed me back in hospital twice. Thankfully, after this recent surgery, I have not had the same issue. Everything appears to be healing fine and the pain is only there if I overdo things. All I can do about my gynae health is follow the rules and have faith in our ever evolving health system.*

I never really thought about the possibility of genetic heart problems until I visited Dad in hospital. Granddad Barry (Dad’s Dad) died of a heart attack young, but he didn’t have the healthiest lifestyle. His (Granddad’s) parents lived healthily for a very long time, so I always thought of Granddad’s heart attack as a family anomaly. I’m not too worried about Dad. Catching things early on and putting the stents in means that with a few lifestyle tweaks (quitting smoking, and maybe knowing when to slow down…), he should be right as rain for quite a long time. It does make me consider the health of my own heart though, which is something I never really thought about before. I don’t smoke, I eat pretty healthy, and my cholesterol is now ok (it has been high previously). I should watch my alcohol intake though…

And I have got a little fat recently. With getting pregnant just after Christmas (binge eating season), and then having surgery I’ve put on about three kilos. Pre-Christmas, I was already at a bit more than I like to be, and with this bit extra it means I’m about 6 or 7 kilos over what I’d really like to be. My BMI is a bit over what it should be and means I’m technically overweight. This is something which contributes to heart health, and is something that I can change.

So this week is my first week on a kilojoule counting diet. I’m naughty and doing it without medical guidance (cos I’m a tight arse) – but I am a sensible person who works in the field of food and nutrition so it should be ok. I’ve made Monday my ‘weigh in’ day – today I had my first one. I’m using the local chemist so I can track my weight loss more accurately. If I’m losing more than a kilo a week, I’ll adjust my diet to suit. I’ve set myself a kilojoule range rather than a number to be under as I think it’s healthier and a bit more realistic. I don’t want to be skinny – I’ve been skinny and I don’t think I suit it. I just want to be healthy, feel good and fit into my jeans again.

Focusing on this aspect of my health while I wait to find out what’s happening with the other area is really useful for my mental health. And, if we do have a good result with the scan, I can start my next pregnancy in better health, which will give us a better chance of carrying a healthy baby to term. Accounting for it is also good for my health, as I can get a little obsessive about these things. So I’m going to post a blog about this each Monday. I promise to also post any awesome recipes, tips and tricks I come up with too, to make it less boring if you regularly read my blog.

Monday 5^th March current weight: 62.6 kilos

Ultimate Goal Weight: 56.0 kilos

Weight to go: 6.6 kilos

*Seriously! Mum and I worked out that between us we've had an ectopic in each decade over the last 40 years. It's amazing how things have changed. Her first two they cut her hip to hip, mine were both keyhole and with the second one everything was glued - so no stitches! I think in ten years time it'll be different again.