Be kind to yourself

I am a big girl. I haven't always been that way. I was a very thin child, a slim teenager (though I thought I was fat - looking at all those photos from the 1970s has made me realise I was slim and healthy).



That's me in the front
- aged 6

At 11 years of age

I remember one of my older brothers commenting on the size of my tummy when I came home from ballet one evening. I was about 15. My body dysmorphia must have started then. I don't remember a time in my teenage years when a Monday didn't start without a new diet. And so it went on ... Bad choices in food extended to bad choices to men. I got married in my mid-20s to someone I adored. It wasn't reciprocated. I must have ignored any warning bells that rang in my head about him. I ignored my friends' warnings about him. And I certainly ignored my parents' warnings.

Aged 25

Aged 15 - with my parents

He managed to convince me I was stupid, fat and ugly. He hated my hair long but when I cut it off to make him happy his first comment on seeing me was that he preferred it long. Any money I wanted to spend was, according to him, wasteful. Any money he wanted to spend on himself was, of course, okay.

I became increasingly distanced from my friends, none of whom he liked. We had a child. I was in the labour ward and all my husband could do was whine about how hungry and how tired he was. To shut him up the nurses put him in a bed in another delivery room with a plate of sandwiches. He thought it was because he was so charming. He was as delusional as I was. I realised that I only wanted one baby in my life and it wasn't my husband. We limped along for another year and separated. I had 37 cents in my bank account. We had lived off my salary and saved his. I was 27, a breast-feeding mother of an 18-month-old boy trying to hold down a full-time job to support us.

With my Dad and my son
in 1988 (aged 31) 

I am not sure what triggered my weight getting out of control. I am not making excuses, but I think it was mainly because I was exhausted. I was working full-time, trying to run a house, care for a lovely boy, cope with the constant custody battles that my former husband kept up, and living with chronic arthritis from a netball injury I had sustained in my early 20s. Combined with a love of food it was destined to happen.
I would manage things quite well and then lapse. I think I was just tired of fighting it. I would gain a bit and then lose it and then gain it back plus a bit more. On occasion a well-meaning 'friend' would suggest that if I just lost a few more kilos I would be 'perfect'. Those comments usually resulted in another gain. Ever so steadily I got bigger and bigger.  That cycle went on for years. Last January I realised that things needed to change. I didn't do much. I just put a reminder in my phone diary to "Be  kind to yourself." Every morning I saw it and each day I tried to be kind to myself. I guess it worked a bit too well because I gained even more weight. By August I was at wit's end. My 56th birthday was coming up in September. I decided that the only solution was to have banding.

The day before my 56th birthday I had dinner with a dear friend. I was telling him how I needed to do something about my weight, but more than that I wanted to get fit and I realised that if I didn't do it now, in my 50s, it just wouldn't happen in my 60s. I had to do something NOW. So I told him about my plan to have gastric banding. How I had made an appointment and seen the doctor - and how even though I wasn't really keen it seemed the only way out. He was pretty horrified. He is fit and swims and goes to the gym or long walks most days. I hadn't really discussed my weight issues with him in the over 30-years we had been friends. He had seen me at all sizes and never said anything about my ever-expanding girth.

Over dessert he told me he had an idea. He would take me swimming. He knew I had been a good swimmer but the last time we had been to a pool together was in 1986! I made all the usual protests about being too fat and not wanting to be seen in public in a swimming costume. He would not listen to any of it. He said he would pick me up on Monday and we would go swimming. He also mentioned that he would ignore any message from me trying to give some reason not to go. He would pick me up at home at 9.45am and that was that. I knew he was serious so I thought I had better put some effort in too. I decided to cut out junk food from my diet. I haven't eaten chocolate, cake, biscuits or dessert since. And I started eating breakfast for the first time in decades.

On Monday, 17 September 2012, my friend picked me up at home and drove me to the pool. And my training began. For the next two months we swam for two hours up to 5 days a week. Under my friend's guidance and encouragement I did more than I thought possible.

Each morning in the car on the way to the pool he would suggest what I should do that day. He corrected me when I said "I will try" and I soon started to say that "Okay, I will do that". I realised that I often said that I would "try" something. There is a big difference between 'trying' and 'doing'.

I built up to being able to do 3 klms a session - 12 to 15 klms a week. At the end of two and a half months I achieved my goals of swimming 50 metres butterfly and doing a mile freestyle non-stop. I had lost 10 kilos. I knew I had lots more to lose but that that thanks to my dear friend, the basics had been put in place. My self-esteem, while not back entirely, had improved.

In January this year my friend had to move away to help care for his parents. In the weeks before he left he introduced me to some gym cross-training. And he convinced me to join the Masters swim club and start in their swim squad. I found the idea of swimming in a squad again to be very challenging. The old doubts re-surfaced - I was too unfit, I would be too embarrassed, they would all be better than me.

I knew in my heart of hearts that I could do more than I gave myself credit for. I knew that there was not going to be a perfect time and that the time to do it was now. Over the Christmas break I thought about this and decided that my New Year's resolution would be to join the Masters and do one squad training and see how I went. And I that is exactly what I did. Except I did go back the next week and the next week and the week after that. And I am still going to my Thursday squad session. And I am loving it. And each week I send an update to my friend on what I have achieved. And of course, he was the first person I told when I enrolled in the 12WBT.

I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to my friend who had enough faith in me to let me be kind to myself by taking care of myself.