365 Days, Nearly 36 Pounds and One Hell of a Plot Twist (Part 2)

2 days ago
6 min read

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 the beginning of this journey what I thought the biggest challenge would be, I’d have confidently said…

“The constipation.”

Reader…

I was wildly optimistic.

Life was brilliant.

The scales were moving.

Food noise had packed its bags and left without even leaving a forwarding address.

Protein had become my religion.

I was feeling lighter.

More confident.

More energetic.

People I’d worked with for years were doing that slightly awkward head tilt as though trying to work out whether I’d changed my hair or simply shrunk.

Every week I stood on the scales with increasing excitement.

Every week all of you celebrated with me.

Every week another little milestone.

Another pair of jeans became too big.

Another belt hole appeared.

Another photograph made me think…

“Blimey… is that actually me?”

And then…

Covid.

Again.

Now, if you’ve followed this blog for a while, you’ll know my relationship with Covid has been about as welcome as stepping barefoot onto an upturned plug.

Once is enough.

Twice feels greedy.

But somehow I managed to catch it…

twice…

back-to-back.

Honestly.

At that point I started wondering whether I should simply move into a testing centre because clearly we were spending enough time together.

The first infection wasn’t pleasant.

The second one felt like someone had pressed the reset button on my entire body.

I remember thinking,

“This is taking longer than normal.”

Then…

“I’m still exhausted.”

Then…

“That’s odd.”

Then…

“Oh.”

Because this wasn’t normal tiredness.

This wasn’t the sort of tiredness that disappears after a lazy Sunday, an early night and a decent cup of tea.

This was the kind that settled into your bones.

Like someone had quietly unplugged your battery.

Walking upstairs suddenly felt like climbing Everest.

A shower became a strategic event.

Getting dressed required planning.

I kept waiting for the day I’d wake up feeling normal.

It never arrived.

Instead, more weird things started happening.

My heart.

Honestly…

my poor heart must have thought it had signed up for a marathon.

I’d simply stand up.

Heart rate…

boom.

I’d walk to the kitchen.

Boom.

Brush my teeth.

Boom.

Have a shower.

Boom.

Apparently existing had become cardiovascular exercise.

At first I laughed.

Because that’s what I do.

Everything becomes a joke eventually.

I’d message friends saying things like,

“Excellent news. I’ve burned approximately 400 calories making a cup of tea.”

It was funny…

until it wasn’t.

Because underneath the jokes was something frightening.

I knew my body.

This wasn’t my body.

I was breathless doing things I’d done thousands of times.

Walking around the supermarket suddenly required military-level logistics.

I’d find myself leaning on the trolley halfway round, pretending to compare tins of tomatoes when really I was just trying not to pass out in aisle five.

Nothing bruises your dignity quite like needing a recovery break next to the baked beans.

Then came the dizziness.

The strange feeling that the world had become…

slightly disconnected.

As though somebody had turned the brightness down on reality.

I’d stand up.

The room would wobble.

My vision would blur.

My legs would feel oddly heavy.

Sometimes I’d feel like I was walking through water.

Sometimes I’d feel like I wasn’t entirely attached to the planet.

I started saying things like,

“I don’t feel right.”

Which is probably the most British sentence ever invented.

Not…

“I think something is seriously wrong.”

Just…

“I don’t feel quite right.”

Understatement should honestly be our national sport.

Then my smartwatch started joining the conversation.

It became that annoying friend who constantly points out things you’d rather ignore.

Heart rate…

140.

141.

142. For standing.

Excuse me?

I’d look at my watch.

Look at my body.

Look back at my watch.

Surely one of us was mistaken.

Apparently not.

Then came the GP appointments.

Blood tests.

More blood tests.

ECGs.

Referrals.

Conversations that always seemed to end with,

“Let’s investigate.”

I quickly discovered that “Let’s investigate” is medical code for,

“We’ve absolutely no idea at the moment.”

Every appointment brought another possibility.

Every possibility brought another Google search.

Which, as we all know, is the quickest route to believing you’ve simultaneously developed seventeen rare diseases and possibly become allergic to gravity.

Eventually…

someone mentioned POTS.

I’ll be honest.

I have heard of it but didn't connect the dots.

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.

Even the name sounds like it was invented by someone being paid per syllable.

I remember reading about it.

Reading another article.

Reading another twenty-seven articles.

Suddenly…

everything started making sense.

The racing heart.

The dizziness.

The exhaustion.

The strange overheating.

The brain fog.

The feeling that standing upright had somehow become an elite sport.

The diagnosis didn’t magically fix anything.

But it did something almost as important.

It gave everything a name.

There’s something strangely comforting about finally discovering you’re not imagining things.

That you’re not lazy.

You’re not weak.

You’re not simply “out of shape.”

Your body is genuinely behaving differently.

That validation meant more than I can explain.

Unfortunately…

validation doesn’t lower your heart rate.

Around the same time I was referred to the Long Covid clinic.

Again.

Another phrase I’d never expected to become part of my vocabulary.

Long Covid.

Such a harmless-sounding name for something capable of turning your entire world upside down.

Life became smaller.

Not because I wanted it to.

Because it had to.

Walks became shorter.

Plans became flexible.

Social events became “We’ll see how I feel.”

Even good days came with conditions.

Could I do one thing?

Probably.

Two things?

Maybe.

Three?

Absolutely not.

Energy had become a currency.

Every decision required budgeting.

If I went shopping…

that might be all I managed that day.

If I met friends…

I’d probably need tomorrow to recover.

I’d entered a world I’d never even known existed.

A world where people carefully count spoons.

Where pacing isn’t laziness.

It’s survival.

The irony wasn’t lost on me.

Here I was.

Losing weight.

Feeling happier in my body than I had in years.

Only for that same body to suddenly become unpredictable in entirely different ways.

Talk about plot twists.

The weekly weigh-ins continued.

Not because they were the most important thing anymore.

But because they’d become part of our story.

Only now…

they weren’t really about numbers.

They were about resilience.

Sometimes I’d lose.

Sometimes I’d maintain.

Sometimes I’d gain a pound because my body had apparently decided to retain enough water to refill a paddling pool.

Old me would have panicked.

This version of me?

Shrugged.

Because I’d learned something far more valuable than how to lose weight.

Progress isn’t ruined by one difficult week.

Or one difficult month.

Or even one difficult season.

If anything, the weight loss quietly slipped into the background.

Health became something much bigger than the scales.

Could I shower without needing a lie down?

Could I walk around the block?

Could I make dinner?

Could I get through a work meeting without feeling like my heart was attempting an escape?

Those became the victories.

The funny thing is…

the community changed too.

It wasn’t just Mounjaro anymore.

Suddenly people started saying,

“I’ve got POTS too.”

“I’ve got Long Covid.”

“I thought I was the only one.”

Messages flooded in from people who’d spent years feeling dismissed.

Misunderstood.

Misdiagnosed.

Some had been told it was anxiety.

Some had been told to exercise more.

Some had almost given up looking for answers altogether.

It made me realise something.

This blog had accidentally become about far more than weight loss.

It had become about honesty.

About saying the bits people usually leave out.

About laughing when you can.

Crying when you need to.

And carrying on regardless.

Because life doesn’t politely wait until you’ve reached your goal weight before throwing something unexpected at you.