Weight change & associated health problems

So do you think that was very important for you to become aware of…?

Yeah, it was, it was a big life change for me because I had this diabetic health plan. I had this cholesterol health plan. But if you look at the information the NHS give you, if you overlap it, it doesn’t, it doesn’t marry up. It, the diabetes health plan doesn’t marry up with the cholesterol one. If you, if you, if you ate as, as, if you ate as on the cholesterol plan and you weren’t diabetic that was fine. But if you’re diabetic and you hadn’t got high cholesterol, that was fine. But if you had both, like me, and, and I was very keen to know everything, like I said to you at the beginning, if you know what it is you can set your stall out and alter things to make yourself better. But I had two conflicting bits of information and I couldn’t make them, I couldn’t see how they could marry up.

This course put that into perspective, in terms of, “yes, you’ve got to eat some, you’ve got to eat some fat, you’ve got to absorb some fat but just keep it to a minimum.” It’s impossible to live without eating but we went off, we made a big change, we use a lot of olive oil, but we also use, very rarely we fry in actual fact, very rare apart from them peppers [laughs].

And then the doctor recommended ABL, ‘A Better Life.’ It meant me attending this, this class every week for two hours. There was about usually ten or twelve in the class and what they did was they described for instance, when you go shopping, what do you sort of buy? “Well I have this, that and the next.” “Do you ever look at the labelling, the, the, the orange, the green and the red?” “Well no, I’m afraid I don’t.” “Right, you must start doing that.” And they teach you then just what things to sort of look for so that you select the right food. The other thing they talked about was, how do you, Say I’m going to a party tonight. Now you go to a party it’s a buffet, all the foods there, it’s very inviting and you dive in.

You eat the meat pies and all the rest of it. They said, “Look, before you go have something to eat so that when you get there, you’re not hungry that you want to sort of do this thing and then I, after we had an hour of this sort of talk and each one said what their failings were and all the rest of it. We did an hour’s exercise. Now it wasn’t chair based exercise, but it was similar to that. You sort of did walking round, press ups against the wall and legs and all that sort of, so as well as the talking about how to select foods it also gave you the exercise and from that I was introduced to an organisation called BUZZ - B-U-Z-Z. And what happened there was I had an interview with this health chap and I went through more or less what I’ve gone through with you, background and that sort of thing. So, he said to me, “Do you mind if I have a look in your cupboard, what, your, what food have you got?” Yes, right, I had a look. “That’s all right Tommy. Don’t have that, that’s all right. Don’t have that. That’s all right.” Then he said, “Next week, I’m going to meet you at the supermarket and we’re going to go shopping and I’ll help you select….”, all for nothing, you don’t have to pay for this, you know for the advice.

So, I went to the Tesco’s and he said, “Now you see Tommy this label says…” and they introduced me to all that sort of information and then the following week he says to me, “What, what’s your favourite dish, what do you like to have?” “Well, spaghetti bolognaise, fish chips and that sort of thing,” and he said, “Right, get these ingredients in and I will show you how to cook it.” And he did that. Now that went on for twelve weeks and it was abso- not only did I get good advice as to what was the best foods and how to cook them to, to sort of benefit from, from that but he was teaching me how to cook. Now that like all good things come to an end. That finished.

I’m still with ABL, A Better Life. Again, that has to finish, this, this, this weekly visit where you did advice and exercise, that’s now gone to a monthly visit. Just an hour where they keep you on the ball. “Have you any problems, Tommy?” “Well yes I went...” “Why didn’t you?” and that sort of thing and I think where as I said earlier, I left Slimming World, that was keeping me tied down, £3 or not, that made me make certain I put weight on. Once I stopped going then it put the weight on. With this, I still feel focused that I must watch what I eat because you need so much help. It’s so easy to fall by the wayside and at the moment, come back to my weight, I’m actually, I was, when I joined this ABL, I was twenty-two stone and now I am nineteen and a half stone.

So that in say twelve months or so, I shed a couple of stone off and that’s where I’m up to today.

And where does your information, where have you got information about healthy eating and sort of healthy lifestyle and things like that? What things you have now are part of your routine?

Mostly from the British Heart Foundation website. I think that was really useful. Also the, our local Trust, I was under [Name] Hospital here and the [Name], Foundation Trust. They’d run a cardiac rehab support when you’ve had a heart issue, so you have eight weeks of classes, exercise classes which are carefully monitored. They have information sessions, so every Monday you’d have an information session either on healthy eating, healthy living, exercise, your medication. They’ve just incorporated one which is also for your mindfulness and how you’re stressed and anxiety, so it was really helpful to pick up all those tips. Lots of literature and also, I think most people with a bit of common sense know how to eat healthily, you know. I think it’s, there’s so much publicity around now. There’s so much sort of push towards healthy eating that I think it’s there, but the, the cardiac rehab team were really informative, and they still are. You can go back to any of the sessions…

Okay.

…. and learn about weight management or as well as your tablets, the structure of the heart. Why did you have heart problems? What causes things?

So, you went this and these are group sessions, aren’t they?

They’re group, they’re group sessions, yeah.

And you were, you were okay with those?

I think because we, we all had a common link; we all had heart issues, you know, it wasn’t about weight management. It, one of the information sessions was about weight management, one of them was about all your pills and so all the side effects of pills and things, so then we learnt then about there could be side effects of pills, so it was very informative. They were very good.

Okay, did you have sessions about sort of kind of rehab, rehabilitation sessions, I mean in which you go to a gym or you do…?

Yeah, we had eight weeks of that.

Eight weeks of that.

Eight weeks of that and that again that was good. That sort of encouraged me to think, ‘Well, actually I can go to the gym,’ because I went to the local gym they wouldn’t touch me, they said, “No, you’re not coming in here.” [Laughs.] And then I said, “If I get a letter from the doctor, will you, can I come in?” Because I just wanted to go to the pool or do aqua gym, something that wasn’t such a strain on my heart, and again they wouldn’t because the doctor wouldn’t give me a letter. The doctor would not sign a letter saying I was, he was happy for me to go to a gym. But the physiotherapist at the cardiac rehab team said, “Oh I think you should go, so I’ll write you a letter,” in the end and they accepted that, so that’s how I joined the local gym and go to aqua gym.
 

The other thing I did was I went... they sent me on a course called X-PERT patient.

Oh yes, yes

And it was absolutely dreadful.

Really?

Dreadful. There's a room full of people, most of whom had Type 2 diabetes, not Type 1.

Oh, you are Type 1?

No, Type 2

Oh OK

Most of whom are older, most of whom were overweight and unlikely to be doing much exercise I would think. During the break they offered us biscuits, and the two people who were the trainers were incredibly patronising, and I just... I went three times and I just could not cope with it anymore. They were holding things up saying, "These are..." something like, "This is pasta. Which of these is carbohydrate?" and somebody would say, "Oh, potatoes," and they'd say, "Brilliant" like that. Well, I have a Masters degree, and I did try to suggest that it was perhaps not being done in the right kind of way but…

Yes, it was appalling. But also, I didn’t feel... they were still talking about how having a certain amount of carbohydrate. I mean granted, they were talking about low GI and high GI, so you know, which a lot of people there didn’t know anything about. And I was thinking, you know, if you read that book you'd be far better informed than going to those classes.

Well I did bring it up, last, last meeting I had with a GP I’d never met before and I just said, you know, he was looking at my latest blood test and, and was saying, “Okay blood sugar’s up very slightly again, you know, going to need to put you on two metformin.” Said, “Well, you know, I’m not happy about that. What can I, what can I do?” “Oh, have you heard about this programme called DESMOND?” I said, “No, I haven’t but, you know, if that’s what’s going locally then yeah get me along.” “Right, well it’s a day course.” “Okay, fine.” I kind of signed up for it without knowing what it’s about. I’ve read through it now. An awful lot of it looks fairly familiar to me and doesn’t necessarily do what I’ve been talking to you about doesn’t, you know, doesn’t tick my boxes as far something particularly motivational but perhaps I’ll meet somebody, or get the chance to meet somebody or talk to somebody who kind of empathises. You know, there’s some empathy there that says, “Okay, that’s what, that’s what makes Paul tick. Let’s adapt our approach for him.”

They actually, they actually advised in 2015 that I do this cardiac rehabilitation. So this is the second session that I’ve had at that and at the end of it, they, they gave us the option of carrying on with an organisation called physical activity and recreation service I think it is. PARS which was running in city at the time and basically it was, for the first thirteen weeks, it was a similar sort of exercise class to the one, in fact it was in the same place, the gymnasium at the physiotherapy at the hospital and it’s just simple circuit training. After that you, you do a thirteen-week session and after that they pass you on to someone else for thirteen weeks and then to someone else after that for thirteen weeks. I’ve no idea what was to follow the second thirteen weeks because I got to the second thirteen weeks.

And they sent me to one of the local leisure centres, to the gym there and they gave me a free membership. I thought it was great. I thought I’m doing great but at the time I had sore feet and there was like thick hard scaly skin on one foot causing the soreness. Nobody knew what it was.

I hobbled down to the gym at the leisure centre. Mentioned to the young lady there who I saw what the problem was and she said, “Well, you’re not really fit to do the exercises that we would plan for you while that’s the case.

Tell you what, go away, keep your membership and get in touch with us when you’re back.” Well it’s, it’s taken until this year. So, like two and a half years to get my feet right, and about six weeks after the initial visit there, they just, they just wrote me off their books.

Okay.

So, I’ve no idea where it would have gone, where it would have taken us subsequent to that.

I just think people need to look at every, every single strand. It’s a very, very complicated problem and I think it does need to be more joined up. I mean I have done like an exercise on prescription. We have like an, an arm’s length organisation in city that does sort of weight loss for the terrified, exercise for the terrified and that was good, but I felt that, the training, he was a gym trainer and he was very fit, and I don’t think he under, I think he underestimated how reluctant people feel, frightened even of doing exercise. Some of them a lot more frightened than I was about doing things. Especially the more over weight they are and also, I think they narrow it to just being gym activities and for lots of people, overweight or not, a gym is not the thing that switches them on and keeps them motivated. I like classes, I like groups, I like making a commitment to going to something. So I think it needs to be more joined up thinking between the exercise and, and the food really.
 
Okay and also to have an exercise programme that is tailor made…
 
Yes.
 
…for people if they haven’t done exercise for a while or ever.
 
I mean, in fairness this was a very gentle set off and yet I think again, it’s about six or eight weeks and then after that period, you had an induction to the main gym and then you were on your own and it wasn’t so much the being on your own it was the fact that you could go any time then so you didn’t have to be committed and if you felt under the weather you didn’t bother going and if you didn’t particularly like the gym, you didn’t have quite enough motivation to, to carry on with it really.

So you are active in the sort of kind of support group of the cardiac organisations related to heart disease?

That’s right because when I had my event, for my husband I think he had, he obviously had quite a shock. It was quite traumatic for him. He had no support whatsoever. Everything was focused on me and he was sort of left out, had no control over everything and certainly at [Name] Hospital they have a buddy system where people who have had cardiac events are volunteers and would talk to carers/partners and he found them so useful, so supportive to him because that’s what he needed because he was frightened, you know, he’s, he’d had a scare. So that’s why I wanted to become involved. I found that people who’d been through it are very good people to talk to and, you know, again, a couple of people there were talking about their weight problems in a way, “What can you do? “This sort of thing. A couple of them said, “Well I’m just giving up with it. I’m just going to live my life and come what may,” which is, which is how I felt for a few months.
 

I’ve just joined three weeks ago now, Overeaters Anonymous, which is like Alcoholics Anonymous but for over eaters and the idea of it is good and but they go through these steps of whatever and what’s good is that they make you realise that it’s not your fault. There is something that’s making you do this. It’s not, I can’t stop it at times so it’s, but I mustn’t beat myself up about it. The problem is they’re all very thin, the women who go to it, because they’ve been going for years and they still go to support each other. So I go along and I’m like this huge thing and I, my issues are different to theirs in in my head. They’re not because they’re still overeaters but they can control it at the moment they’re managing to control it, whereas I’m not and they’re very supportive and they’re very, you know, very kind and sweet but they are all very thin. So I feel it’s difficult for me, difficult for me going there
 
Overeaters Anonymous, when you go to, to the those meetings, do you feel like talking about it.
 
I can talk there because I don’t know them. I know them, I’ve met them three weeks, you know, three Saturdays, mornings, but they’re not they’re not like my friends out, in my real life. It’s, they’re friends from there, you know, and they’re very kind and very helpful, so I can talk about it there. But, even with friends who are who are a bit over, who are a bit overweight, I still find it, I can’t talk to them about it because I’m just embarrassed and it’s hard to admit to other people that I’m out of control with my weight.
 
But in this group that you go and you talk about your weight, does it help? Does it help talking? Does it help getting feedback? And encouragement from other people?
 
Yeah. And it helps to know you’re not the only one and it helps because they’ve all been, because they’ve all had a lot, I think they’ve, I don’t know how big they were but it sounds like that are complete, it sounds like they’re like me, when they can’t actually stop themselves eating at times and so you don’t feel a freak. You don’t feel because other people, who aren’t like that, it’s, they can stop, you know, they can and they can go on a diet and yes, they might they might need to go on a diet later or, you know, after a few months or whatever but they can control it, whereas I feel, with me, it’s completely out of control and that’s the that’s really, that’s the hardest thing for me. It is that complete, it just takes over, takes over, takes over me, yeah. It’s like, it feels like a disease, in a way. It’s or like, you know, like they say it’s like, it’s based on the Alcoholics Anonymous, the Overeaters Anonymous, and I, I assume it’s the same sort of feeling that alcoholics get when they crave, when they need a drink or drugs or whatever. It feels exactly the same sort of feeling as that I think.
 
So there are steps, isn’t it.
 
Yeah.
 
Yeah. So what are those steps?
 
I can’t remember really [laughs].
 
It’s okay. Don’t worry, don’t worry.
 
I think it’s admitting to yourself that it’s not, that there’s something, they say it’s something higher than you that’s causing it. It’s not you that’s causing it yourself and they talk about abstinence, which I’m starting to, I’m starting [sighs] to, well, I’m realising I’m going to have to stop eating bread because it’s my trigger thing, so things like that, so I’m learning things like that from them. Rather than just cutting down, you’re going to have to cut it out completely and the one, they had like a little workshop, at the one I’ve just been to this weekend, and they were talking about how to cope at Christmas time and stuff and they were staying things that helped them. And I was saying things that that will help me, so it’s about putting things in place to help yourself.
 
Right. Okay.
 
Getting some suggestions and ideas.