Gaining and losing weight while ill.

I am feeling brave today! Today I'm gonna put out there a lot of photos I wouldn't exactly call flattering. When I look at these photos I see more than just me looking like a gain a few pounds, I can see how unhappy I was and to me, they are sad photos, I often think that I can't really remember those couples of years but when I see photos from the time, I remember how I felt the day of that photo, in some, how much I really didn't want that photo taking, or how normal I was trying to act in front of my friends when being closed doors, I was a distraught young girl feeling like I had been thrown a few steps too far in life, too soon.

Note that this post is not intended to offend anyone, it is just my personal experience with gaining weight.

Please prepare for a long post, grab your cup of tea, make sure you're sitting down and be ready for a photo-heavy post, a lot of my face; not all the most flattering photographs!

2009

In the summer of 2009 life was all good, I was 12 years old in this photo >>, I was happily enjoying my holiday in Tunisia. Now I cannot remember to be exact but I think the winter after this was when I injured my back, I had an unlucky slip at school on a snowy day. It was one of those days where you wake up, look out of the window hoping that it had snowed enough over night that the radio would announce your school was closed, you know? The cold, snowy, wet sludgy days where all you want to do is stay in bed! Yes, one of those days, I was walking to my first lesson, I of course decided to avoid the cold and walk through the cafeteria to get to the other side of school, walking on lose flags covered in ice didn't sound ideal, though I didn't think about all the wet sludge that would have been trailed inside. So I of course, went to step down the steps on my way into the cafeteria and my foot slipped and I fell straight onto my back, my back banging straight down on to the metal edges of the steps, you know they put those metal bits on the steps to prevent accidents but what about when they are wet? They create a sharp, hard edge for your back to land perfectly on.

To help your imagination!
Though I don't remember the stairs I fell down looking that rounded at the edge.

Being a 12 year old girl my first thoughts were about the embarrassment and who could have just seen me fall down the stairs! Very silly really.. no one did see me though, incase you wondered! I went on with the class and talk about bad timing, this was a very active lesson, now I can't remember what we had to do but I do know we had to act something out and we had to lay down on the floor, something I realised was not happening at the time. My back had been getting progressive worse throughout the lesson and stupid me didn't want to tell anyone and thought I could just brave it out but I did end up telling my teacher and she sent me home and I remember I couldn't bend to get in the car, it was like trying to get an ironing board into the front seat of the car! I also remember going to my grandparents after that and they had to help me lay on the couch, must of took about 5 minutes! I then spent the next couple of week of school until my back had eased. After this I had problems with my back which I was told that I had nerve root irritation in my back which the doctors then went on to put all my ME/CFS symptoms down to that for the next couple of years. I'm going to write a whole other post about my experience with ME another time but now you have some of the background of me becoming ill, I'll try to keep this post just about mainly my weight gain while ill.

2010

Now I can't can't seem to differentiate the years 2009 and 2010! I suppose they were the couple of years when things started and my life slowed down, so now they are a bit hazy for me but I think I'm correct in saying my last year before everything went a bit.. tits up would be 2010!
Somewhere along the road I ended up with swine flu with I can only assume was that start of ME/CFS for me. Throughout 2010 I had more than the ordinary time off school for being ill and I suffered with problems with my back which I was often visiting the doctors about but I hadn't yet stopped doing everyday activities and gained any weight!

2011

 This photo to the left was the beginning of January and the photo to the right is from mid-febuary.

Lets call these months from February onwards.. The Purple Hair Time!

2011 was the year things started turning upside down. Me and my friends would quite often take photos during school breaks or whenever we wanted to pass some time along and my last school photos were at was at the start of The Purple Hair Phase. This was the year I stopped going to school, not completely but I wasn't there very often, I was constantly in a lot of pain and wasn't sleeping very good. This was when my weight gain began, I don't think I ever really over ate considering I didn't often have much of an appetite but I did however, stop leaving the house as often, I spent every day in bed, there was barely any movement let alone exercise in my life and I was taking around 30 tablets a day, so I gained weight and became weaker. Now I know I didn't exactly gain tons of weight and it was around the time I would naturally be gaining weight and 'filling out' anyway but I gained a couple of stone which isn't lots but was still noticeable to myself. I'm not sure to be exact because weight wasn't a problem to me around this time, so I didn't weigh myself but when I did start acknowledging it, I remember weighing myself somewhere over 10 stone.

August 2011

August 2011

These photos are from the summer of 2011... Do ignore my roots at this stage, they obviously weren't my biggest worry at the time. Things at this point were very bad, I had become very sad and depressed and I was hardly seeing my friends anymore.

June 2011

I think the autumn of 2011 has to be when I became really depressed, pretty much everything in my life was at a stand still, I put on more weight and I think I started to notice it more, I can't remember it ever been a problem to me at first, I wasn't really aware of myself putting weight on but then when christmas shopping came around, I wasn't fitting in the size I did the year before and I started to feel it. It was however, something I couldn't help myself with, I spent 90% of my life bed bound and the only time I would go out would be when I saw my friend, who lived just next door to me.

 These last two photos were from my friends birthday pyjama party in may 2012, gosh did I not want to be there, I really didn't want to be there, I remember sitting on the couch all night not wanting to be involved, they took a lot of photos that night and I refused to be in most of them, I think these two and one group one was the only 2 they got me to be in. Even though I'd lost a bit of weight at this point, I felt big, everyone was wearing shorts and I wore a long sleeve top and some big pyjama bottoms, I remember asking my mum to take a photo of me and my friend before we left and I deleted it instantly (it's a shame, I could of shared it now!), I thought I looked horrendous which didn't help considering I already didn't want to go, this has to be a low point for me. 

I did however get a bit better after in the summer of 2012 time which meant I was able to walk a bit further and go out a bit more which meant I lost some weight. I got to go on holiday that summer, something I couldn't do the year before. Before I went I agreed with the doctor to come off all of my tablets, the tablets I had been taking for over a year weren't doing what they were said to do, I felt like I was taking them for no reason, I'd become immune to them, so I gradually stopped taking them and by the time I went on holiday I wasn't taking any prescribed medication which I'm sure plays a big part in me losing weight. 

July 2012

In the photo above I was about to walk to the park which means there had been a lot of progress as the year previous, there's no way I'd be doing that. Little things like that were how I believe I lost some weight, I did probably try eating good for a week or so but when you're sleeping/waking up at funny times in the night, it's difficult to have a balanced diet and I would just end up eating sandwiches to keep me from being hungry while I was awake. 

2013

This photo is from May of 2013! Actually at my friends birthday, same friend who's birthday it was in the photos from the year before. Good news, I was happy this time. Still at this point not happy with my weight, surprise surprise! I was conscious of my weight, it more of just a mental thing I had to overcome with weight at this point rather than actually needed to lose it. 
It is now May 2014 and in 2 days time, I'm attending the same friends house, for her birthday again and I'm sure it will be well photographed as the only reason this blogpost is visually possible is because of that one friend, Sophie, she's loves to take photos and though I may not have always wanted to be in some photographs, I'm glad I was now haha! So just a quick thanks to her! I might even update this post on Sunday with photos from the night, so we can have a 2012, 2013 and 2014 comparison! 

Leaving school! No doubt best day of 2013, so much stress of missing everyday getting left behind!

Me celebrating leaving school..

From this point onwards there hasn't been much change in my weight, I'd say I lost about 2 stone in the past 2 years. I wasn't able to lose any weight because I found the motivation to go work out, I have found that motivation from time to time this past year but that motivation doesn't last long when you remember you're chronically ill and in agony! I managed to lose weight because I was lucky enough to get a bit better, I was able to get out of bed and walk and build up my strength again. If you've gained weight due to being ill, don't let it be something that gets you down and takes over your life. Don't become obsessed with it, focus on getting yourself better and it will happen when your body is ready and strong enough, whether it means being physically strong enough to exercise or mentally strong enough to eat all of your greens! God knows you have to be strong to eat all of your greens! But really, I never became super obsessed with my weight, I feel like I'm never going to be fully happy with my body but it's what I've got and I'm not going to sit here feeling bad about it because it won't make it change, it's just going to make me worse about myself but if you can change it to make yourself happier then do it, I wish you the best of luck but if you're like me and can't give up the biscuits with your tea or aren't psychically able to go at it like a mad man at the gym, just enjoy what you have and who you are, we sure as hell don't need anything else to lose sleep over! 
With that I'm going to go make myself a cup of tea and treat myself to some paracetamols... If I have missed something out and you have any questions tweet me or leave me a comment :).

End of 2013 - now.

If you made it this far.. Thank you!