Dear Body

I’m sorry. I have only just started to learn how much you do for me, how resilent you are.

All of a sudden, I am so, so painfully aware of how poorly I have treated you in return.

For a while, I took care of you. But only because I didn’t feel able to look after myself, in my mind. I was so unwell, but I needed to control something, and so I began walking, calorie counting and you looked and felt better than you have in years.

But I was so mentally unwell and this year, I have focussed hard on bettering that. It is up and down, which shocks me sometimes. I think I assumed that I might just be “better”. Naive I know, probably born of desperation too. But I do know that I have made huge emotional strides and I feel more able to be my own friend.

Problem is, with the weight of understanding and caring for myself mentally, I have forgotten you, my physical self. Not entirely, because I have walked miles and miles and I have done my physio every day since June. Huge strides.

However, I have not been mindful of what I have used to fuel you. I have read a line in one of the mentl health books I’ve finished this year that “You wouldn’t drive a car with no fuel in it.” But that is precisely what I’m doing, relying on my old childish urges of sugar and caffeine.

I’m 34 years old now and it’s only in the last month that I worked out caffeine makes my head bang and stomach turn. So it’s gone, milk too because I’ve been sensitive to lactose for years.

I am a self confessed carbohydrates fiend too, especially now that winter has kicked in. But sugar is the hardest to kick. It doesn’t help, this I know, but I instinctively reach for it. I know I must do better.

At my slimmest, around the time I was made redundant and became a stay at home mum, I was 9 stone 8lb. I felt slimmer and I looked so different so I couldn’t lie to myself, even through my depression. I was physically lighter. Obvious perhaps, but it needs explanation.

The way I look is for me, Jo, whose just a woman. But the size of me has a lot more to do with my capabilities as a disabled woman than I ever realised. I thought it was all vanity, which we’re all undeniably privvy to. However, the lighter I am, the easier it physically is to move, because my bones are not carrying so much weight, my muscles can move easier.

I cannot change the nature of my disability. I cannot reasonably wish it away or to be cured. But I can make it physically easier to bear. I proved this to myself before. I am doing myself a very tangible disservice if I don’t take charge, take care of myself in this way again. God knows, I’ve had enough reasons to hate this body. I cannot let the literal weight of it and those disabling effects be one such reason when I know now I can take charge of that. No more excuses.

Right now, I am sluggish and heavy, slow, tight and sore. So I’m sorry, body. Scared too, wondering if going into a new year off the back of one where I have been able to make so much positive change will overwhelm me. After all, I cannot count the number of times this year I have begun calorie counting again with such good intentions, only to crumble at the first offer of anything sugary.

It is almost more frustrating now, because I have in fact shown myself I can do it, I can be motivated to lose weight. But I am concerned that that motivation only came from the desperation of wanting to control something as my mind spiralled. It is no longer spiralling, but will, it seems, always require constant maintenance just as my body does. Can I really do it all? Because if I don’t, the only person that will struggle and be unhappy is me. That will infect the mind and no part of me deserves that after how hard I have worked.

2024 will see my last tiny baby toddle off to school. I am determined to cherish it. But after that, time is my own, so why can’t I be my own project still, to show myself some care in all senses? This body works too damn hard not to be at its best again. I’m sorry I took my eye off the ball, body, but other things needed attention.

You’ll be OK. I’m in.