My Weight and Me

Helen Chandler - 22 Jun 17

My daughters, aged eight and two, tell me that I am beautiful. They believe that with all their hearts. I want so badly to be able to believe it in mine. Sometimes, I nearly do. And then I catch sight of myself unexpectedly in a mirror, or see an unflattering photo (not sure what a flattering one looks like, to be honest), or just remember what that number on the scales said this morning, and all my insecurity and lack of confidence comes flooding back.

In my teens and early twenties I obsessed over my looks. My nose was too big, my hair too limp and fine, my eyelashes too short. And of course, I always felt that life would be perfect if I could just lose a stone and achieve that perfect size 10.

At some point I learned to accept my face, flawed and imperfect as it undoubtedly is, but I haven’t managed to accept my body yet. I did once become a size 10. When I was 24, after years of suffering from skin and joint problems I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis, a chronic, life-long condition. My grandad (my dad’s dad) was seriously ill, in and out of hospital, and every time I saw him I feared it could be the last. Then my nanna (my mum’s mum), a seemingly a fit and healthy 84 year old, was taken very ill, very suddenly, and died a couple of days later. Ten days later, my grandad also died. This was four weeks before I was due to move from Birmingham to London to start a new job, and we still hadn’t found a flat to live in. I was working fulltime in Birmingham, trying to house-hunt 100 miles away, and process the first serious bereavements I’d ever experienced. At this point, too stressed, busy and upset to eat, I finally hit that elusive size 10. I stayed there for perhaps a year, but as my grief became more manageable, and we found a flat in London, and I settled into my new job, and the medication I was on got my symptoms under control, my weight started to creep up again.

For the next decade or so I would yoyo. Sometimes, when I really focussed on healthy eating and made time to swim or run several times a week I could almost do those size 10 jeans up. Other times, when work was busy and I fell into the habit of ready meals and home and snatched chocolate bars in work, I’d start to find the size 12 end of my wardrobe a squeeze.

When I had my eldest daughter I was twenty-eight. I dreaded the effect pregnancy would have on my body, but actually, whether it was down to good luck, swimming regularly throughout pregnancy or breastfeeding for 18 months, I lost the two stone I put on pretty easily. My body wasn’t the same, of course – I had a c-section scar for one thing, and definitely needed the full appliance of science, padding and under-wiring to get my boobs pointing north, but these were small prices to pay for an adorable little daughter.

Pregnancy with my youngest daughter was another matter. I had suffered several miscarriages between my first and second full-term babies, and I did not find my pregnancy easy. I was terrified, every single waking moment, that I would find blood when I went to the toilet, or that her movements would slow or stop. I used to try and keep myself awake in the middle of the night so that I could ‘count the kicks’ – feel her movements, and know that, for that moment at least, she was safe. Of course, alongside this mental torment, I also had an active five year old to look after. How did I cope? I ate. Chocolate gave me the strength to get through. I was permanently exhausted, possibly more mental than physical, but even the five minute school run could leave me in tears of sheer weariness, so exercise didn’t feel like an option. Unsurprisingly, I put on 4.5 stone.

When my daughter was finally born, healthy, and precious beyond words, I assumed that the weight would fall off as it had before. Except, it hasn’t. The combination of losing babies, a difficult pregnancy and a horrendous birth finally led to a diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I’m better than I was, but still struggle. When I was 24 and stressed I couldn’t eat, at 36 I can’t seem to stop.

I’m now roughly 1.5 stone heavier than I was when I got pregnant. I am the top end of a size 14. My BMI creeps into the overweight category at 25.9, but my GP said that isn’t medically significant. I am normal. I know that I am normal. My head knows that I am normal. I see other women – at the school gates, on the Tube, on Instagram, who are probably the same size I am, and I think they look great. I just can’t get my heart to agree that I do.

There are good reasons for wanting to shift that pesky 1.5 stone. My joints would probably be happier for having a little less weight to support. I tend to carry any excess weight round my tummy and waist which, in addition to making me look like I’m four months pregnant, is also meant to be the highest risk area for causing Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer. It isn’t mentally or physically  healthy to rely on sugary snacks to get me through the day. If I’m slightly overweight now, what will happen when I go through the menopause in 10-15 years time?

But, equally, there are good reasons for learning to love and accept the size I am now, and believing that being beautiful to my daughters makes me beautiful, that beauty comes from the amount I love and laugh and care rather than from the number on the scales. By not believing that I sometimes feel I am betraying their innocence.

More than anything I want my amazing daughters to grow up healthy and confident in their own skin. I don’t want them to waste any head space worrying about their looks or their weight. I never talk about my weight (or anyone else’s) in front of them, and I will not let them see me counting calories or points or syns. Food is a shared family pleasure, and I will not let diets stop me eating and enjoying meals together, nor will I feed my daughters or myself on low-taste, low-nutrition junk because it comes with the label ‘low-cal’ or ‘low-fat’. However, I don’t want them realising that I am dependent on that Dairy Milk, scoffed standing up in the kitchen while they watch TV, to get through the day without an emotional meltdown.

Having children has made me both stronger and more vulnerable, wiser but filled with self-doubt, happy beyond my wildest dreams but terrified at the potential world of pain opened up by loving so much. Perhaps if I could learn to love my body as it is now, to accept that all my life experiences, especially carrying, and birthing and raising my daughters, have changed me irrevocably, and that some extra weight is part of that, then I would be happier and more confident. If I was happier and more confident I might develop healthier strategies to cope with the occasional bad day. And that might eventually mean I lose some weight. Because looking at it the other way round – telling myself that once I have lost this weight, then I can relax and be happy – certainly isn’t working.

Helen Chandler

I'm author of novels 'Two For Joy' and 'To Have and to Hold' and mum to two daughters aged twelve and six. As well as writing, and my children, I love reading, cooking, eating and exploring London (and further afield when I get the chance). I was born and brought up in Liverpool, studied English at Oxford University, and now live in East London with my husband, daughters and cat.

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