I felt unwell yesterday. I think I was a bit hung-over – another thing to give up, there – and these days drinking too much has a dramatic effect on my mood the next day. I don’t get classic hangover symptoms, I just feel awful.
Just before bed, I was reflecting on how long it had been since I felt like that, but also how frequently I used to feel unwell.
I used to be paranoid to the point of hypochondria, every symptom a sign of impending medical disaster. I rarely acted on these feelings, in part because of my underlying conviction that my ill-health was my own fault and I felt guilty and ashamed seeking the help of doctors who rarely dealt with me with any empathy or true kindness.
Of course, these all passed. It wasn’t lung cancer, just a nasty and persistent cough. It wasn’t bowel cancer, it was piled. So far, with one exception which I’ll write about another time, I have not uncovered anything really wrong. However, along the way, I spent countless days in a state of serious fear and anxiety about whatever it was. Convinced of my nascent lung cancer, liver disorder, heart disasters or whatever else.
Thinking about it last night I realised I haven’t felt that way in ages. Feeling good is something I don’t really notice until I have a reason to pay attention. But it used to be little enough of the time for me to notice and savour the good days – they were in the minority.
Now the good days massively outnumber the less-good ones – lockdown stress notwithstanding. Being thinner, and fitter, means I basically feel pretty good most of the time. I work standing up, I do some kind of exercise every day, I don’t ache and twinge and worry.
That’s good, because I suppose one of my primary motivations for embarking on this, other than just the long term frustration of being fat, was wanting to stick around long enough for my kids to be old enough to manage without me. I was 20 when my mother died. Not old enough, I was still a child and I had no idea how to cope.
I’m older now than she was when she died, and my oldest kid is only 10. If I want to make it to my daughters’ 30th birthdays and beyond, I need to be and stay as well as I can. I feel like I might just have made that possible.
Goodness knows how I would have coped with the pandemic if I had been indolent and overweight. The sanity-saving benefits of exercise are at least as important to me as the physical benefits. I guess I would have been a lot more hung over, a lot more frequently. I would also be permanently paranoid knowing that, at my former weight, I would have been massively more at risk if I contracted Covid.
Last night brought it home. However shitty I sometimes feel right now (and who doesn’t?), that life of constant background fear and anxiety took a huge toll. I haven’t needed to see a doctor for ages – maybe the last couple of years. If I did, I would no longer be fearful or hesitant. They might not share or admire what I consider to be my triumph, but they no longer look at me with disdain or contempt.
And I feel good.
Suddenly thinner 