When an addict slips back into destructive old patterns they are said to have 'fallen off the wagon'. This creates an image of something sudden and dramatic which causes them to regress to old behaviours.
In the last month or so I have reverted back to my destructive health patterns. Not that I had made that much progress to begin with, but I was doing a little better. I can't claim that I've fallen off the wagon. There was no single event that caused me to plunge from the Vehicle of Good Health which was travelling on the Road to Good Living and fall into the cold wet gutter of good intentions gone bad. It didn't happen overnight but it was a series little knocks, plus a thousand other distractions that have taken my time and attention from where it should be.
Since I'm trying to get back on the Vehicle of Good Health (which is very difficult to catch up to, that thing moves very quickly and why they can't build in seatbelts so you can't fall off in the first place I'll never know) this is as a good a time as any to look at how I started to go 'wrong' and why this happened in the first place. I think my health is hampered by years of unhealthy habits and that it's helpful to look at where these habits began.
I think my IBS symptoms and my other health problems probably have their roots in my adolescent years. It was in these years and during puberty that I started to become a really anxious person. While I don't believe that IBS is psychosomatic or completely caused by anxiety or other mental afflictions, I do believe that it's a factor. I got into the habit of worrying too much and being constantly on edge.
In my late teens I also became a not very good vegetarian. I was good in the sense that I never ate meat but I was bad in the sense that I didn't take care of my nutrition. My mother used to refer to me as a vegetarian who didn't eat vegetables and I'm afraid that was very accurate. I'm ashamed to admit that even now I'm failing to get my recommended 5 portions a day. The habit of eating to satisfy sugar cravings rather than to nourish my body began then.
It was also during my schooling that I learnt to loath exercise. PE lessons were nearly always based around competitive sport which didn't suit me. I don't have much of a competitive nature, wasn't good at sport or interested in it so most of the lessons didn't suit me. Those that were based on physical fitness alone such as circuit training were far more demanding then I was able to cope with. None of the gentle exercise I suspect I really needed, such as Yoga or even just walking, were on offer. So I got into the habit of negative thinking about exercise. It began to represent boredom and exhaustion rather then something fulfilling and helpful.
So with these unhelpful habits I embarked on my adult life. The years between then and now have not been an unproductive waste land. I completed a degree, got jobs and got engaged. I never however tackled my health issues effectively. IBS became a daily fact of life and my unhealthy lifestyle caused me to slowly put on more and more weight. I went to the doctors from time to time to seek help with my IBS but I was given medications that didn’t work and told to lose weight without any really help or guidance on how to do it.
About six months ago I decided that I needed to do something about my weight. Now before you read the next bit of this story I need you to understand something. I'm not a fan of our stick thin is best culture. In fact I believe it's a load of rubbish, couldn't give a fig leaf for fashion and actually don't particularly care if I look fat or not. I'm not really sure how I managed to survive the indoctrination that our media imposes on most women, but somehow I've managed to get through with my self esteem about my weight fairly intact. However I reached a point where my weight was making me physically uncomfortable. I felt inflexible and literally heavy and weighed down by my own weight gain. I also decided that joining a weight loss group would be a lot cheaper than the new wardrobe I was going to have to buy to cope with my increasing size.
I joined a weight loss group and surprised myself with my own willpower and ability to stick to the diet carefully. I believed I was eating more healthily then I had in years and I began to saw results. I was initially disappointed that the change in diet had made no change in my IBS symptoms but I put that concern to one side as the weight began to slowly melt away.
Even though I wasn't feeling any healthier I had lost a significant amount of weight and I was pleased with this. Until the day I noticed that there was a lot more hair then usual on the floor of the shower. I began to notice that my hair was everywhere, strewn across my house. My office chair at work was covered in it and every time I ran my hands through it more would come out. There were no bald patches, just a constant sustained hair loss.
Like I always do when I have a health concern I made a panicked rush for Google. I know this is the worst thing you can do because you will always inevitably find ways to convince yourself that your symptoms are the result of some hideous and rare condition, but I'm already an anxious person and the internet wasn't going to come up with anything worse then what I was imagining.
I decided to consult my doctor who took blood tests. He then asked me to come back for more blood tests. Then another round of blood tests. As you can imagine this was somewhat stressful not to mention sore for my poor arm.
To cut a very long story short the test revealed that I have deficiencies in calcium, iron and probably vitamin D (although I still await the result of that test). I also have an elevated platelet count. None of this seemed to be related to my hair loss which fortunately seems to have tailed off now. I can only conclude that I had an episode of telogen effluvium . During this health scare I decided to give up the diet as my research had shown that hair loss had been shown to be related to dieting. I was also interested to note that telogen effluvium generally makes itself known three months after a stress or change to the body, which was about the same time that I’d begun dieting.
I had another appointment with my doctor to discuss these results. They were such a scare for me, it was clear that I’d been going badly wrong with my health and I felt that I desperately needed to make a change for the better. I prepared well for the appointment, wrote down a list of questions that I needed answers to and decided I wanted a referral to a professional nutritionist or dietician because I knew that I needed the help both to change my lifestyle and to lose weight in a healthier manner.
Unfortunately my doctor didn’t entirely agree. He agreed that I’d been doing it all wrong and that my diet group was more counterproductive then helpful. He agreed that I needed to change my lifestyle not just my diet. He also agreed that I needed to lose weight in a healthy sustained way.
He didn’t agree that I needed the help of a professional. His advice was to eat more whole foods and get out in the sun more. He told me that my nutritional deficiencies while present were not uncommon. He told me to take a course of iron supplements and that was pretty much it.
I left the appointment feeling pretty deflated. I understand that NHS resources are stretched but how ill do I have to be before I get some help? Isn’t it better to nip my health issues in the bud now while I’m still young and can hopefully be set on the right path? I hear scare stories almost every day about how bad diets are causing serious health issues that cost the NHS thousands, and yet when I ask for help I’m pretty much denied. Surely we’d all save money if people like me got the help before things got worse not better?
I realised that I’d have to tackle this alone. I got myself down to the health food shop and I bought the supplements for my mineral deficiencies as well as psyllium husks and probiotic capsules to deal with my IBS. I stuck to my regime of tablets (which is pretty difficult, more on that story later) and looked to the future.
The future was about three days away. The whole thing went wrong when I developed some sort of nasty stomach issue. Let’s just refer to it as IBS max plus nausea. I felt physically and emotionally lousy. So I gave up.
I told myself that I’d have a rest for a few days and that I’d get back to focusing on my health and my new lifestyle later. I swore that I’d update this blog tomorrow. I promised that I’d start exercising next week.
Of course I didn’t keep those promises. A thousand little things got in my way. I was working on a big event, then I was job seeking, then I had to phone someone, do some work, clean something, make something, read something. The thousands of little things pulled me away from where I was trying to get to.
I could have overcome the thousand little things if I wasn’t lacking the one big thing, a firm belief that change is possible. My failure to get the help I believe I need has robbed me of that belief. I have a huge challenge to overcome. I have to change the habits of more than ten years and get to a better place, all while feeling tired, anxious and confused about the right path to take.
Right now I don’t know which way this is going to go. If I’m going to make these changes I need help, but I don’t know where to seek it from, who to trust or if I can afford the right sort of professional help when I find it.
There is an old proverb often wheeled out on occasions like this which says a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. I know that this is going to be true of my journey and that I’m going to have to forget about the fast route and catching up with the Vehicle of Good Health and just walk to Good Living myself. I’m hanging onto the hope that while I’m searching I’ll be able to find some people or resources that can at least point me to walking in the right direction.
