If you’d told me a year ago, while I was standing in my kitchen having a full-scale emotional breakdown over a tiny injection pen, that twelve months later I’d be writing an anniversary post about losing nearly 36 pounds while also learning how to live with Long Covid, PoTS and Orthostatic Hypotension, I’d have laughed. Then I’d have asked if you were absolutely sure you had the right person. Because my plan for this year was beautifully simple. Lose some weight. Feel healthi

If Part 1 was about getting my life back… Part 2 is about the moment life looked at me and said, “Cute. Now watch this.” Because this was supposed to be the bit where I carried on losing weight. Another few pounds. A few smaller clothes. A couple more ridiculous weigh-ins involving comparisons to farm animals and kitchen appliances. Instead… my body decided to release what I can only describe as the Director’s Cut. It actually makes me laugh now because if you’d asked me at t

So, after Thursday’s unexpected episode of “The Street That Never Sleeps,” complete with police cars, heart palpitations, an optical migraine and my Visible Band having what can only be described as an existential crisis, I was hoping Friday might decide to be a little kinder. It didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet, but it did at least stop throwing quite so many surprises at me. Friday - Running on Empty (and Electrolytes) Friday was another work from home day because I w

If anyone had asked me how this week was going to go, I’d probably have confidently replied, “Oh, fairly quiet I think.” Which, as we all know by now, is basically the equivalent of standing in the middle of a field during a thunderstorm waving a metal umbrella around shouting, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Because this week had absolutely everything. A headache that deserved its own NHS referral, meetings about meetings, oversized red blood cells, another Mounjaro ja

Weekly Weigh-In: Week 52 - My Scales Have Finally Decided To Apologise Can we all just take a moment to appreciate how unbelievably dramatic the human body can be? Honestly. If my body had a Facebook status, it would permanently read: “It’s complicated.” Last week, I stepped on the scales and was greeted by a number I definitely hadn’t invited. +6.6 lbs. Six point six. Not six ounces. Not “maybe I’ve had a big dinner.” A proper, full-on, “have I accidentally swallowed a small

You know when people say, “Things come in threes”? Cute. My body clearly misunderstood the assignment and went for the unlimited subscription. At this point I don’t wake up in the morning… I log in. Every day starts with me wondering which part of my body has submitted a complaint overnight. Heart? Blood pressure? Brain? Shoulder? Eyes? Energy? Let’s spin the Wheel of Medical Misfortune and find out! Honestly, if my autonomic nervous system worked in an office, HR would’ve ma

Well… If you’ve made it this far… Firstly… Congratulations. This is the fial part of a missing JABatha story. Secondly… I think you probably deserve a Hydrava. Or a gin. Possibly both. If somebody had told me back on Day 195 that this would be my life 156 days later… I’d have laughed. Then probably thrown something at them. Because none of this was part of the plan. The plan was simple. Lose the weight. Come off Mounjaro. Enjoy my new wardrobe. Go on holiday. Dance behind the

Something changed in me over the last few months. Not physically. Mentally. And I don’t think I admitted it to myself until very recently. I’ve always been the person who gets on with things. Problem? Fix it. Feeling rubbish? Push through. Someone tells me I can’t do something? Watch me. I’ve always been stubborn. Probably too stubborn. It’s one of my best qualities. It’s also one of my worst. Because you can’t out-stubborn your own nervous system. Believe me… I’ve tried. For

Let’s just change the subject for a minute. Because as if PoTS, Orthostatic Hypotension, Long Covid, hospital appointments, blue feet, compression socks and my body’s complete refusal to cooperate weren’t enough… There’s also the tiny little matter of… Mounjaro. Remember that? The injection that this entire blog started with. The injection that changed my life. The injection I swore I was coming off. Yeah… About that. If you’ve followed this blog from Day One, you’ll know I’d

One thing nobody warns you about when you’re diagnosed with a chronic condition is that you don’t just lose your health for a while. You lose little pieces of yourself. Not all at once. Not dramatically. They just quietly disappear. One by one. And before you know it, you wake up one morning and realise you’ve become someone you don’t quite recognise. That bit… That bit has been harder than I ever imagined. I miss being spontaneous. I miss saying, “Fancy going out?” without f

So… Apparently I have PoTS. And Orthostatic Hypotension. Brilliant. Tiny problem… I hadn’t got the faintest idea what either of those actually really meant and how those conditions are going to affect my life going forward. When the cardiologist first said “PoTS”, I genuinely thought he’d said pots. As in… Flower pots. Plant pots. The sort of thing you buy from B&Q because you’ve convinced yourself this is definitely the year you’re going to become a gardener. Spoiler alert…

There are certain moments in life that stay with you forever. Your first kiss. Passing your driving test. Buying your first house. And then… The day your feet decide they’re auditioning for Avatar. But I’m getting ahead of myself... By the beginning of April, I’d completely hit the wall. Not a gentle little bump. A full-speed, face-first collision. After months of telling myself I was “just tired”, my body finally staged a full-scale rebellion. I was signed off work for three

So… By this point I’d accepted that my body had become… quirky. You know how every family has that one slightly eccentric relative? The one who microwaves fish in the office, owns fourteen ornamental owls and still pays for everything by cheque? Well… Apparently my nervous system had become that relative. Completely unpredictable. Slightly embarrassing. And absolutely refusing to behave itself. The thing that really started confusing me was the fact there didn’t seem to be an

Weekly Weigh-In: Week 51 - The Scales Have Chosen Violence! Well…It finally happened. After 156 days of what can only be described as surviving rather than living, the scales have looked me square in the face and gone… “Excuse me, we’d like to lodge a formal complaint.” +6.6 lbs. SIX POINT SIX. Honestly…I’ve had less dramatic break-ups. Now before anyone starts dialling the Mounjaro Police or revoking my membership to the GLP-1 Appreciation Society… Can we all just remember w

Strap in. Cancel plans. Text your loved ones. Hydrate aggressively. This post is going to be LONGER, LOUDER, UNHINGED, UNEDITED, and EXTREMELY JABatha. Right. FIRST THINGS FIRST. Admin. Housekeeping. Clearing the air. YES - I am aware I vanished. NO - this was not a creative sabbatical. NO - this was not a “strategic pause”. NO - this was not a soft launch of mystery, intrigue, or personal rebrand. NO - I did not go on Eat Pray Love. If anything, I went on Cough Wheeze Dissoc

Weekly Weigh-In: Week 27 - AKA: The One Where My Brain Took Annual Leave and My Body Kept the Receipts Well hello there. It’s me. Alive. Mostly. Emerging slowly from the fog like a Victorian child with a fainting couch and a dramatic sigh. Yes. SIX WEEKS. Six whole weeks since my last blog post. Week 21 feels like a previous era. A different season of life. Possibly a different government. Before anyone panics: I did not fall off the planet, I did not rage-quit the internet,

Ahhh yes… Thursday and Friday. Days 148 and 149. Two days so weird and chaotic they deserve their own Netflix mini-series. Or at least a three-part BBC documentary narrated by David Attenborough: “Here we observe the modern woman in her natural habitat… at home… staring blankly at her laptop… praying for WiFi stability.” Because babes, I worked from home BOTH days. Me. WFH. Back-to-back. THURSDAY: DAY 148 — Emails, Retching & Riveting Glamour I woke up like a Victorian child

A very very long blog post, featuring: Poland, pierogi, panic, over 20k steps a day, history, sausages, ancestral ghosts, and one terrified British boyfriend meeting The Parents. My loves, gather close. This is the Holiday Edition of The Mounjaro Chronicles. The Odyssey of JABatha Christie. The almost 9-Day Polish Whirlwind Tour, where I: dragged my British boyfriend across four cities, walked more steps than a Fitbit employee on a performance review, ate more food than shoul

My darlings, welcome to Week 20, also known as: “The Episode Where JABatha Christie Cannot Weigh Herself Because She’s Been Busy Dragging Her British Man Across Poland Like a Cultural Hostage.” Yes. For the first time in 20 weeks of obsessively stepping on a scale like it’s a personality test, there is no weigh-in. None. Zero. Zilch. Even my Apple Watch was looking confused like, “Girl? Are we… done? Is this freedom?” But listen - this week was a special one. THE GRAND POLISH

Weigh-In Week 19: The Saga of the Shrinking Woman Who Defied Physics & Still Got Called “Overweight” by BMI Sit down. Pour tea. Maybe fetch a biscuit (for you, not me, I’m living on hope and protein yoghurt). Because today, dear reader, marks Week 19 in my shrinking journey - a journey filled with victories, tantrums, suspiciously long bathroom weigh-ins, and the occasional emotional breakdown in front of a loaf of sourdough. This week I lost… 0.8lbs. Yes. Less than a bag of