I made myself better

I had to own that I had made myself sick before I could make myself better.

In July last year when I sat across from Dr Malcolm Sandler and asked if there was anything he could suggest to help me lose weight, I was on the maximum oral dose of three drugs to manage Type 2 Diabetes and on three drugs to manage my high blood pressure. We were already discussing the need for me to have insulin but he wanted to postpone it for as long as possible as it would make me gain even more weight.

Today the only drugs I take are Supradyn A-Z multi-vitamin, iron in the form of Cheliron-Forte and Omega 3. Not only have I saved Discovery a whack every month in medicines but I also don’t have to spend time counting out a week’s medicine into little boxes. I kid you not, I was taking up to 20 tablets a day. Now I take three.

All of this is to say that in my case (and I’m prepared to bet in the vast majority of cases too) that I had made myself sick. What I had put into my mouth had given me diabetes and high-blood pressure. Let’s not to mention the near constant pain I was in from backache.

Perhaps because my father was a pharmacist I have always felt comfortable being on medication and seeing doctors willy-nilly. It is a fact that in my soon to be 45 years of life that I have spent (and caused to be spent) zillions of Rands on doctors etc. I’m probably the most over-treated person I know. And don’t get me started on psychotherapy! I’ve had so much therapy and analysis in my time that there is hardly anything about myself that I don’t understand. If the goal of therapy was to help me accept myself and view my insecurities with affection then it has worked. I don’t, however, credit any of my long term therapy, for the change in my behaviour. And, while my behaviour around food has changed, its appeal hasn’t dissipated. Food still calls to me. I now enjoy the idea of it – I still read little other than recipe books and bake something at every opportunity. What stops me eating a delicious looking and smelling peanut butter chocolate-swirl brownie is not a lack of desire. It is the knowledge that it will make me sick. For me wheat and sugar are poisons. Not because I’m physically allergic to them but because they are my gateway drugs – a puff of the joint that leads straight to heroin in the veins.

Now that I’ve reached my goal weight I’m giving myself more freedom when it comes to the kind of protein and the amount of fat I allow myself.

Each day I weigh myself at the gym and register the impact of the food I’ve eaten verses my exercise. I’m beginning to learn that if I spend 20 minutes on my bike and walk to and from Hook, Line & Sinker restaurant, that I can fully enjoy mussel soup and kingklip with cheese sauce with no change to my weight.

I bet that if you engage deeply enough with anyone you will discover that they, too, have psychological baggage. Heavy and light people both. It doesn’t matter why I might quell my emotions with food. All that matters is that I don’t do it now, or tomorrow or the day after that.

My mantra must be that I made myself better and that I can make myself sick again too.