Ditching the fat suit

I’ve been dreaming of a fresh start for a while, and the 2021 New Year seemed as good a time as any to make this dream a reality. I’ve been languishing in sub-optimum health for a while (a few years in fact) but I’ve realised I’m at the tipping point where I need to make significant changes fast.

Let me tell you a bit about myself – I was a skinny, sporty child who participated in tennis, softball and netball at school. I didn’t stop moving all through my childhood, and even when I hit my teens I still maintained a svelte figure. Probably the smoking I took up at 14 contributed to my lack of kilos, but then food wasn’t a priority for me. I pogoed through my late teens in the early 1980s burning off calories dancing to the Sex Pistols and the Clash. My self-image was of a slim woman as I sashayed through my twenties – I wasn’t doing much exercise, but my new found veganism certainly kept me trim. It was only a few years later when I became anaemic and I had to switch back to a diet that incorporated red meat that the kilos slowly started to creep on.

Fast forward to 1996 – I am 32, and have just met my future husband while living in a share house. One of the first things Chris did for me and our housemates was cook a delicious dinner the night he moved in. This set a precedent for him cooking for me for the next 24 years – we both knew he was a better cook than me, and he enjoyed cooking too. The only problem was the sorts of dishes he cooked were pretty high in carbs and fats (but tasted great!). Also he’d give me a man size serving which I ended up finishing against my better judgment. I don’t blame Chris for my weight gain, but his cooking was certainly a contributing factor, along with my lack of self-discipline and failure to exercise.

So here I am in 2021 and I weigh more than I ever have in my life – 93 kilos. This is the woman who was once 47 kilos in her late 20s (yes I was underweight but it shows the wide range I’ve covered in my weight loss/gain journey). I work in a sedentary office job and I usually handle my work stresses with a glass of wine and a bowl of ice cream when I get home. The only exercise I get is walking from my car to the office and back each day.

I started to feel really stressed and anxious about my weight. As I puffed up the hill to work I wondered if I would have a heart attack? I’m only 56, but younger people than I have dropped dead after physical exertion. I also felt an inner conflict between my former self-image as a slim person to the current shock I felt when I saw my reflection in a shop window and recoiled in horror at the overweight stranger staring back at me. I felt like aliens had taking over my body and left fat deposits there! I couldn’t reconcile the woman I was with the woman I had become.

However one night I was on Facebook and I saw a post from one of my cousins who I hadn’t seen in ages. I almost didn’t recognise her as she had lost heaps of weight and looked fantastic. I quickly messaged her and said “Hi Stacey, how are you? You look amazing, what have you done?”. Within a few minutes she had replied to me “I wasn’t going to post this on Facebook, but between you and I, I had a gastric balloon procedure. I asked her what it was and she explained it was a nonsurgical procedure done via endoscopy where they insert a silicone balloon in your stomach, then inflate it with saline water. She said that it took up half your stomach cavity space so you got fuller quicker and didn’t eat so much. I was intrigued, especially when she told me it was nonsurgical. I wouldn’t frivolously undergo surgery knowing that even the most insignificant surgeries can have drastic consequences. I spent the evening researching gastric balloon information and testimonies from previous patients, and before I went to bed that night I knew this was the kick start I needed.

The next day I saw my GP and got a referral to a gastric balloon specialist. Within two weeks I had seen the specialist, as well as a psychologist, dietician and exercise physiologist connected to his practice. I felt reassured that this would be a “team effort” where the experts would coach me to make the most of the opportunity to lose weight, ditch my bad dietary habits and gain new healthy eating and exercise habits. I knew there is no such thing as a magic bullet for weight loss and health transformation, and that the gastric balloon was merely a tool to be used in conjunction with my own decision making and self control. I was excited at the prospect of possibly regaining my slim self image (and slim reality) and having the energy and resilience of a woman closer to my age (when the dietician did my metabolic analysis she said I had the metabolism of a 71 year old!) I was shocked – I was trying to age gracefully but no way was I ready to be 71 yet!

I believe you can live well at any age. I don’t want to be 21 again, but I sure want to be a 50ish woman who lives life to the full and makes every moment count. I’m having my gastric balloon procedure in three weeks’ time – it’s expensive and I will feel like crap for a couple of weeks, but the long term benefits should make it all worthwhile. All I can say to younger women (or men) is don’t let bad health habits creep up on you – prevention is better than cure, and your health is your most important asset. Hopefully in six months’ time I’ll be well on my way to shedding my “fat suit” and living in the land of the slim and healthy again.