Life is tough, but so are you.....

I am 39 years old. I've never been confident about my body or my physical abilities. I've never been sporty. I've never owned a bikini. I was never good at PE and it's the only part of school that I look back on and remember, as clear as day, that all-consuming feeling of inadequacy. That was just me. 

In 2011 something else happened to me. Your thyroid is a tiny little gland which plays a huge role in how your body functions. It regulates your metabolism and without it you gain weight and feel sluggish and fatigued. The thyroid gland also controls the chemical messengers that your brain uses to communicate with your nerves. Without it the messengers go all over the place leading to depression and anxiety. Sometimes the thyroid gland slows down. Mine is defunct. Completely gone. No thyroid function at all. 

Me in 2011

So here I am in 2016. With some determination of my own and a lot of help and support from the wonderful people around me, I now cycle, I run, I go to the gym, I eat healthily and more importantly, I'm happy and confident. I've filled that void. The one that grew and consumed me in young adulthood.

I sometimes feel judged for the choices that I make now. It's a funny thing. I find that really hard but I put it all out there for the sake of the stronger feelings. The positive ones. On top of combating all of my symptoms of Hypothyroidism and actually getting good at lifting weights, running and cycling, I can also help others. I can help friends who feel like I did. I can encourage the struggling nine year old girl who thinks she can't do it at Parkrun to run to the finish with us. I can help all of those people who think that they can't do it, or don't know how to. I can show the nervous new girl at the gym how to do a dead lift. 

Most of all though, I can give everything I have to being a role model for you. You run because I run and your competitive spirit is fierce. You are determined and brilliant and I want to keep fuelling that for as long as I can. If I don't believe in myself then you won't believe in yourself. If I reach for the stars, then you will too. You can do whatever you want to sweetheart and, as I have learnt along the way, so can I. 

You completed your 21st Junior Parkrun today. You finally got your marathon wristband baby x 

"Though she be but little, she is fierce!" ~ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

My Journey on Two Wheels

Well, it is 2014 and your Mummy has changed quite a bit over the past 12 months. After I had you my Thyroid (a strange but, seemingly, important gland which controls, I've learnt, pretty much everything) broke. I got fat and I wasn't very happy for a while. I had also made it all the way to 35 without ever having done any exercise. That was just me. I didn't like sport. I liked fashion, literature and art. But I suddenly realised that almost as much as I liked those things, I also didn't like being fat.

So, I went on a diet and lost a bit of weight (which I'd done before) but it was hard and boring and unsustainable. It wasn't going to change a lifetime of feeling fat and not moving more than I needed to. Your Daddy was pretty keen on cycling. I was mildly interested in the Tour de France and loved the Giro D'Italia (mainly because I love Italy, but the cycling was creeping into my psyche as well).

2009 Giro D'Italia

So, about a year ago, I got a pretty blue Pendleton and started pootling around our village. I just needed a bunch of gerberas in my basket and the image would be complete! On my first time out I did 1.5 miles and nearly passed out. After about a week, heart rate back to normal and I was good to go again. After that I went out a few times a week, scared of roads..and cars..and pigeons..and combine harvesters..and very unfit. I worked up to about 5 miles involving going 4 times around the block and sometimes venturing to the edges of the village, where the hills began, and then turning around and coming home again.

Me & my Pendleton, Summer 2013

Then you and Daddy went out and got me a Giant road bike as a surprise. Your little face was a picture as you shook with excitement and told me you had something to show me. Things had got serious. No basket for gerberas on this machine, although I still think that may work....

I bought myself a turbo trainer to try and get fitter as the nights drew in and winter arrived. I built up from 5 miles to 10 miles and learnt interval training techniques from the 3LC Road Race DVD. My fitness had increased so much that I managed to complete the DVD (in a sea of sweat and tears) which was quite some achievement, for an ex-fat girl who hated all sport.

Me & you after a hard turbo training session, Feb 2014

Then at Christmas time we went for a ride around where I grew up in Norwich. I managed 20 miles. 20 MILES! ME?! I felt a huge sense of achievement. I am still doing the turbo training and toying with entering the Newmarket Hilly 100 event in the summer. I am not sure if that isn't a little ambitious but we all need goals! I took a very rare day off work this week to try and cycle a hilly 50 mile route to see how I got on. Your Daddy came with me to make sure I didn't die (or get lost which was more likely). It was probably the hardest thing I have ever done (apart from giving birth to you!) but I did it. I was nearly sick on two hills and got over emotional and nearly cried at the end but....I wasn't actually sick and didn't actually cry so, all in all, a success. I (and everyone who knows me) would never have believed it would have been possible.

My constant motivation

So, you might say that cycling has changed my life. It has certainly changed my health and fitness. I have a new respect for professional cyclists. The hard work, dedication, motivation and discipline that they have to have in bucketloads to do what they do is inspirational. I am going to work hard to try and do the 100 mile event. If not this year....maybe next year....and I look forward to the day when you will be able to ride along beside me, with flowers in your basket. 

Before my epic 50 miler this week 

I love you always.

What's happening to me?

Here I recall when everything went a bit weird, and why.

I was utterly convinced that I'd give birth and be one of those women who still looked pregnant, forever. I'm not lucky when it comes to how I look and I have to try quite hard to look nice so I was sure I'd probably quadruple in size in pregnancy and never revert to normal. You can, therefore, imagine my surprise and delight when my beautiful baby was born and I was back to my pre-pregnancy size. Not skinny, because I never was, but I hadn't quadrupled in size and I hadn't morphed into a weird Mr Blobby shaped version of myself. That was all I could have hoped for.

Unfortunately the delight at not being permanently huge was short lived because now I had to work out how to keep this little human alive. No plump faced, homely, warm smiled apparition of a fairy godmother appeared to tell me how on earth to do this so I had to work it out myself. Somehow, despite the lack of apparition, I managed. We bumped along together, Molly working out the world around her and me working out her.

When Molly was 5 months old I went back to work. After a few tears, at the thought of my baby wondering where I'd gone and me not being able to explain to her, I settled back into work with minimal upheaval. I likened that bit to the uncanny ability of a situation such as animals being lead into a truck to go to slaughter, or a dog to the vets, or a child for vaccinations to reduce me to tears without fail. I am just not programmed to deal with another person or animal thinking everything's ok and as it was, when it isn't. It really gets to me. This felt like that.

As we all adapted to our new regime I became less and less able to cope with everyday stuff, with life. I was putting on loads of weight, couldn't stay awake and could not stop crying. With the 'able' assistance of Google I managed to persuade myself I had postnatal depression. Or was it anaemia? I'm always anaemic. That makes me tired and cold. Not fat though. Shit, was I eating too much because I was cold and tired. Or was it postnatal depression? Depression, really? I've heard that can make you fat. But I am one of those people who don't believe in depression, for me anyway. I am not denying it in others. I just don't get depressed. I get on with stuff. It's what I do. Anyway, I wasn't right so I went to the doctors. Something else I never do. 

The NHS website will tell you that 'An underactive thyroid means your thyroid gland, located in the neck, does not produce enough hormones. Common signs of an underactive thyroid are tiredness, weight gain and feeling depressed.' Why did nobody tell me? Textbook broken thyroid. Phew. I had armed myself with every possible defence I could in case he tried to put me on anti-depressants but luckily he, being a doctor, was able to spot a very obvious textbook condition. The relief swelled up around me and washed away all my irrational fears that motherhood had somehow broken me. I could go back to working out how to help my baby to grow, to be happy and to discover the world around her, which was what I was trying to do when it all went weird.

Just over 2 years in and I am much better on medication which replaces the hormone that my thyroid gland can't be bothered to produce anymore. It needs tweaking from time to time because it is a hormone issue and the body is constantly chucking in curve balls to mess with the hormones therefore you can't assume that the levels of the drugs will stay correct. I still fall asleep a lot and get fat easily and, apparently, I am allowed to blame the Hypothyroidism but I have to make sure that I balance that with the effects of working too hard and eating too much. Other afflictions of mine.