Can you talk to friends and family about issues to do with weight?

Friends. Not, not so much family. I do to my sister a bit, but I think she thinks, Oh Myra just eats too much. Because her attitude to food is so different to mine, but friends, yes, yes. My friend who’s lost three stone is ever so helpful and ever so supportive and she said to me recently, she said, Look, Myra, don’t beat yourself up if you’ve put a few pounds on after having a hip done because, you know, it, a) the hip is probably heavier than the one they took out [laughs]
Yeah.

.but also you’ve been inactive and recovering

Yeah, well certainly medical stuff I do. I mean people laugh and talk about, Dr Google,’ don’t they, but I think it’s quite helpful. I do, I do, yeah.

Which type of websites?

One thing that I found really helpful which not, about, about medical things and probably weight as well is some of the Facebook support groups.

Ah, okay.

There’s one I found for people who’ve had hip replacements which I found really helpful because it gave you all sorts of useful information before you go in for it, the sort of stuff you’d need when you come home.

And also with the adrenal tumours, it’s so rare that the changes of finding anybody else and meeting anybody else who’d had it is almost nil. But on, on Facebook you find people who have the same issues as you, and yeah, I haven’t particularly used it for diet but for health issues, yeah.

Okay and you sort of kind of chat, do you?

Well people put, you know, often put something on and people come back and say, Oh yes I’ve had that problem and yeah.

I think actually the nurses at the surgery are really helpful. I mean the GP, he’s so busy isn’t he and he tends to deal with the thing and we have had conversations about weight and he’s, he is very helpful now actually.

In which ways?

Encouraging and saying, before I went in for my hip, he said, Look, just try and because they said they were happy to do my surgery the weight I was, but if I could lose a little bit more and I did lose a few pounds, you know. He said, Well why don’t you just really concentrate on it until you go into hospital and, you know, he tries. But I think the nurses have a bit more time and they do, they do referrals to Slimming World and Weight Watchers, so you get a few weeks free.

They were the ones who referred you to start with?

Yes, I think it was actually. Yes, it was Slimming World. Yes, I got my first twelve weeks I think free which is, you know, a great help, you know.

What would you like to say to people who are interested in losing weight?

I think, I think I’d say you can’t do it on your own and that you really need to, most people I think would find going to some sort of group helpful because you get a huge amount of support and, not only from the leaders but from other people who are going through the same thing as you and you don’t feel quite such a freak, you know.

Okay.

And I think people are frightened that you’re going to be, your weight is going to be read out in front of everybody and you’re going to be harangued if you haven’t lost weight and it’s, it’s not like that at all.

No?

I know it’s not everybody’s thing, you know, but, you know, the lady who runs our group says that if you if you’ve, you know, if you’ve had a bad week, she won’t let you go home until she’s made you think positively and think what you can do to turn things round and I think that’s really important, you know.

I was really healthy until I was about thirty and then I had some gynaecological problems and they discovered I’d got endometriosis. I mean, I have always struggled with my weight to a degree. Very sweet tooth, you know, comfort eating. All the usual things. [m] But they discovered I’d got endometriosis and that involved sort of all sort of hormonal treatments which weren’t very nice and that, I think that probably had an effect on my weight. I had, later on, I had breast cancer and had to have chemotherapy which was really hard and I think that probably, I think that probably, I think the chemo if I remember rightly I did, did put on weight because you don’t know what you want to eat, and you just feel sick, so you just eat, probably eat all the wrong things.

In, about ten years ago, they discovered I’d got a really rare condition called Pheochromacytoma which is difficult to say, and I had to have both of my adrenal glands removed. Prior to being diagnosed, I couldn’t understand why I was suddenly able to control my weight and it was really, I was really not having a problem and it was because the, the glands, the tumours were producing loads of adrenaline, so I was just on a, on a high and really, and, you know, so my body was really going at 90 miles an hour. And my weight was really good, you know, and I had other, all sorts of, I used to get really, really hot and really, horrible effects but my weight was really good.

When I had the surgery for the hernias, the doctor then, I think because it was a very expensive operation and they really had to make sure you were totally committed to it, they, he said to me, You need to lose four stone And that was about three years ago, and I joined Slimming World and did it, did, lost four stone and I’ve lost, I’ve made, and I think when you’ve got an impetus and a real goal of, you’ve got to do it otherwise, you know, this surgery wasn’t going to happen, I found I really could do it, you know. Really stuck to the diet.

I find it quite helpful sometimes to write things down what I’m eating and you have things in Slimming World called, Syns. I can’t remember quite what it stands for, so you’re allowed a few treats. If you write them down that’s really helpful because you, otherwise you forget that you’ve had your treat this morning and have it again in the evening.

Okay.

If you’ve written it down, you know, Oh yes, I’ve, I’ve had that,’ you know.

So, it’s kind of limiting how many treats you can have.

That’s right, yes.

Anything else?

I think I think, those sort of having, filling up on, on fruit and veg and stuff like that.

Okay.

Making sure you have, because in some ways when you, I, when you’ve had a plate full of food, if half of it’s fruit and veg, veg then you’re as full as if you’ve eaten, you know, other things, so, I think the fruit and veg really helps.

Okay, do you have a portion plate, or did you have a portion plate?

Yeah, I, I mean, I tend to use pasta bowls actually because I think you eat slightly less if you have that rather than a big, big dinner plate and then, you know, because they reckon at Slimming World that you should have a third of your plate as fruit and veg, well I probably have more like half actually. I tend to pile the fruit and veg, pile the veg on. So, I think, you know, portion control is quite important, and I think having a small, slighter smaller plate is, is helpful, yeah.

Nearly twenty stone, okay.

Which wasn’t a nice place to be. I never, the thing that really helped me, the first time I went to Slimming World, I got on the scales and I said, Oh that’s absolutely awful,’ and she said, Myra, don’t worry, you’ll never be that weight again and I just found that so encouraging and I haven’t been. I’ve never got anywhere near that again, you know, and I won’t, you know, I won’t.

I mean it really helps that in the, in the group I go to, there are, there are people who’ve lost seven stone and who look absolutely wonderful and that is an encouragement, you know, and I think you get as much encouragement from the other participants, participants that you do from the group leader because they’re just, it’s just such a lovely group of people, you know, mainly ladies. You get the odd brave gentleman who ventures in [laughs].