As bloggees will have gathered over the months, Baggy has a bit of an addictive personality. She also uses food as a source of comfort. Some folk don't eat properly when they are upset or stressed. Others over eat. Baggy is an over-eater. She also likes food, has a very sweet tooth and eats big portions! When she got together with her number one furry Calum, in May 2008, she weighed 12stone 2lbs. Baggy is five foot ten inches tall, so she was pretty slim. Baggy also eats when she's content. She was very content. She started eating lorry driver-sized portions. She started to put on a few pounds. Not for the first time in her life, she soon weighed over 13stone. As their wedding approached in October 2010 Baggy was doing quite well and had dropped back down to under 13stone. Six weeks before the wedding, Baggy was in Long Melford having her wedding make-up and hair-do practice. Calum phoned her in the morning and said, "I'm not feeling great". "Oh, that's not good. What's up?" "I think I might be having a stroke". "What? I take it you're kidding. What are you doing?" "I'm just driving to my delivery site". "Oh. Okay. Well if you feel worse, take a break". "I will. Enjoy your pampering day". Baggy headed off to a town with no mobile phone signal. When she came out of the hairdressers, looking extremely glamorous, she had nearly twenty missed calls and a dozen messages. Calum had been admitted to the stroke ward at Kettering hospital!
How Freda Fretter didn't cause Baggy to crash her car as she drove to the Midlands, Heaven alone knows. It took the hospital five days to decide that Calum had not had a stroke, he had Bells Palsy. In the next few weeks running up to the wedding Baggy put on nearly a stone and was over 13stone 9lbs on her wedding day, she was so worried for Calum, but thankfully he made a remarkable recovery.
Baggy settled into a very happy life with her furries (Hinge and Bracket were her wedding presents), and put on a few more pounds. On Father's Day, June 17th 2012, Baggy and Calum found Baggy's Dad dead in his house. Two weeks later Calum's step father also passed away. They had two funerals to organise, while also trying to organise care for Baggy's Step-Mother who had severe Alzheimer's. It took nearly four months to get legal responsibility for her as a Court of Protection Deputy, with Baggy's sister Debby. A few weeks after Baggy's Dad died, Baggy's Step-Mum attacked one of her carers and Baggy had to have her sectioned. As the stress mounted, the weight piled on. Eventually, Baggy's Step-Mum went into a home and the pressure came off a little. Baggy ate.
In autumn/winter 2012, Grotty Groom was bronced off her beloved Wessles three times in the space of six months. She was hospitalised twice. The second time required an air ambulance and it was weeks before Baggy could walk properly. Baggy ate. Clever Bird decided the scales were wrong when they declared that Baggy was over 14stone. Things started to get back to some sort of normality and Baggy and Calum got into the habit of having a custard slice and a cream slice on a Saturday afternoon. Sometimes a doughnut or two as well. Before the big evening roast and the dessert! The scales crept up to 15stone. Within months they had hit 16stone. Clever Bird decided that was a lie and stopped getting on them.
In early 2015, Wesley's physiotherapist told Grotty that Wesley needed to lose some weight because he has back issues (kissing spine for horsey folk), she also told her that Baggy was now too heavy to ride him, as she was hurting his back (hence him broncing her off when it hurt him)! She was not to ride him again until Baggy had lost at least one stone.
It was the wake-up call that Baggy needed. She started to eat more sensibly and lost half-a-stone. Then she got stuck. She had an NHS health check. "Obese". Blood pressure and cholesterol too high. A couple of people mentioned Slimming World. Clever Bird decided Baggy would fail on her own, so she signed Baggy up to her local Lavenham group, in June 2015. At the first session, she had to stay for the group chat as the weigh-in for newbies was after it. Freda Fretter made Baggy cringe at the group rounds of how people were getting on. She said to the group leader, Vicki, "This is my idea of a nightmare". It's not compulsory to stay, one can just weigh and leave. Baggy got on the scales that day: 15stone 5 1/2lbs. Ouch, but at least she'd already lost well over half-a-stone.
Next week, Baggy was "on it" and lost 4 1/2lbs. She decided to "brave" the group. Everyone was really supportive. She made friends and started to look forward to seeing them at Friday Fat Club as Creative Clara nick-named it. By the end of September (in just three months) Baggy had lost over 2stone. Then she discovered the 15cm mass on her ovary, that was Lawrence-the-durmoid-cyst! Major surgery on November 4th 2015 - weight 13stone. Arm surgery December 3rd 2015. December 30th 2015, Baggy's Step-Mum died. Lots of comfort food. By the time Baggy could drive again, it was January 2016. She headed to Slimming World to find that she had put 7 1/2lbs back on. Realistically, as Lawrence weighed that much(!) she had put on a stone.
But truthfully, she didn't really mind. She was just very happy to be alive. But she started back on her plan. But life got too much: Baggy's Step-Mum's funeral; Grotty having problems with people at the yard; her recovery being long and slow; the menopause hitting her like a ton of bricks. Her weight started to yo-yo - gain one week, loss the next.
Then in July 2016 Baggy was diagnosed with depression and anxiety (not a moment too soon, as Hormonal Hannah was getting close to giving Baggy a breakdown). Counselling. Then HRT and counselling. Then HRT, anti-depressants and counselling all helped. Finally, today sixteen months after starting this wobbly journey, Baggy Body is no longer baggy!
Today she weighed 11stone 12lbs! She got her certificate for having lost 3stone 7lbs and another for reaching her target. Whoop, whoop! She was so delighted, but she really couldn't have done it without Slimming World and the support of her lovely group! But to make it even better, today her group voted for their "Miss Slinky" - the person who has most inspired them on their own weight-loss journey, and they gave it to Baggy and cheered when they did it. Baggy was very touched and just managed to stop Hormonal Hannah from blubbing everywhere. Thank you very much Slimming World, Clever Bird would highly recommend them to anyone who needs a little help in finding a more healthy way of eating............
No comments:
Post a Comment