Okay, so it’s not a tumor…

that’s a relief!

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s the back story….

A few weeks ago (maybe even a couple of months if I’m honest….I’ve been in denial for a while and no, I’m not really a poet!) I was taking a shower, as you do and I noticed that one side of my stomach was bigger and harder than the other side. I didn’t think much of it, preferring to forget all about it and hoping that it would go away.

A few weeks later and it hadn’t gone away. I had a prod and a poke every time I had a shower and every time I thought to myself, I should just mention this to Ant and see what he reckons but by the time I’d finished my shower, I’d put it to the back of my mind again.
However, the back of the mind can be a bit annoying. it doesn’t always keep things locked away there and I started to think that maybe it could be a tumor of some sort and the longer I deny it’s existence, the worse it could be getting so I finally decided to mention it to Ant last week.

He was sensible and told me to make a doctors appointment, so I did.

My doctor diagnosed a hernia and immediately I thought, ‘phew, it’s not a tumor; hernia’s aren’t so bad are they?’ he quickly changed my mind on that when he said “your weight and the fact that you’ve had blood clots on your lungs in the past means you’re too high risk for surgery. This means that you have to live with the hernia until you lose enough weight to be considered safe enough to operate on. Now, losing the weight might mean that it repairs itself and you won’t need surgery, which is what we’ll hope for. However, the hernia can get trapped at any time and if this happens, it will start to get painful. This can kill you. If you get any pain, see a doctor straight away”.

He’s a really lovely doctor and I could see he felt awful telling me I had to lose weight. He said, “I know doctors blame weight on everything and you’re always being told to lose weight but this time, if we want to keep you alive, you have to lose the weight, there’s no other option because I know they’re not going to operate on you at this weight”.

So I’m now on a new diet and fitness regime.
I’ve been determined to lose weight before but I’ve failed a lot of times. However, I’ve never felt like my life was in danger before, as I did when I got blood clots on my lungs and was told I needed to stop smoking. I didn’t have another cig from that day and I’m now in the same frame of mind about my weight.

I’m usually too shy to post full-length pictures of myself online and always choose ones that I feel hide how big I actually am (they probably don’t but you know….denial is my friend) but I’ve decided that I need to face up to how I really look and I got Aiden to take these photos of me today.

I weighed myself today. I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been and I’m ashamed I’ve let it get so bad. I’ve only ever been totally honest with Ant about how much I actually weigh but today I’m putting it out there because I’m determined to lose this weight and it will be really good for me to write about my journey and perhaps share it with others who are struggling with their weight.

So here it is….my weight, on day one of ‘Operation Hernia Be-Gone!’ is 29 stone and 7lb *going red faced with shame*. It’s very hard to hear it out loud but there we go, it’s done and next week, when I do my first update, it won’t be as high and I can start to feel better with each pound I lose 🙂
I’m going to post a new picture each week with my weight loss result. It will help me visualise the changes and hopefully keep me motivated.

I’m going to use Sparkpeople to help me keep track of the calories and fat I eat. I’ve used it in the past and there are some great tools on there to help you get fitter.

I really will appreciate any support I get so please feel free to leave a comment.
Thanks for reading and wish me luck! 🙂