Fit By 50: Improving My Relationship With Food And Nutrition

Those of you who've read my columns before will know that I've tried many times to improve my relationship with food and nutrition.

I've never seen myself as overweight, but for the past few years I have been. Aside from brief and fragile bursts of progress, I’ve felt bloated, kind of cumbersome when exercising, and with a vague sense that I was short-changing myself. More importantly though, I've become increasingly worried about what's happening on the inside.

So I decided to do something about it. Again.

I started by reading Downsizing by Tom Watson, devouring it in a matter of days. I really related to the author’s sense of helplessness in the face of his incessant cravings and ever-dwindling willpower. I related even more to his realisation of the cold, hard truth, which is that you can’t keep doing the same things and expecting different results.

I knew I was onto something, so I kept reading. Tom Watson's books were great; Michael Mosley's were even better. Unfortunately Michael Mosley passed away earlier this year in a tragic accident, but his legacy as the go to, no-nonsense authority on weight loss for health is stronger than ever. Realising I'd not read up on the science behind intermittent fasting for many years, I ordered a book called The Blood Sugar Diet and once again, devoured it. I also finally confronted the fact that my weight and eating habits make me susceptible to pre-diabetes. More and more research is highlighting that real food is the cure to our addiction to ultra-processed pap. Yet eating normal food – rather than something grown in a factory – is now classed as a fad.

That’s fucked up.

So after careful consideration and armed with my new knowledge, I decided to do a reset.

I've been a fan of the 5:2 diet for years now. I was almost 14 stone at one point, but after making regular exercise and intermittent fasting a permanent fixture in my late 30s, I lost around 2.5 stone and kept it off.

Over time, negative behaviours slowly crept back in, leaving me feeling completely enslaved by my unhealthy habits and conflicted between my love of finding my way to the bottom of the biscuit tin whenever I got the opportunity, and wanting to look and feel amazing.
The inconvenient truth is that for me, life is better when I’m slim and healthy. It colours my approach to my business, to running my home, to socialising, to the joy I find in exercise.

Re-educating myself has also unlocked so much more knowledge about why I feel so controlled by my cravings, and why many millions are locked in the world’s biggest health epidemic. It's helped me cut myself some slack around the way I overeat, while ramping up my anger with the food industry and the government for not doing more to stop the normalisation of processed crap as a staple diet.

I'm sick of putting control of my health and wellbeing into the hands of greedy corporate giants and I want to do something different. So I’m embarking on something called the Fast 800, courtesy of Michael Mosely. Until a few weeks ago I’d have thought it impossible, but so far so good!

Wish me luck for when the novelty wears off, and I’ll be back next week with an update and some practical insight.

If you’re interested in learning more in the meantime, I’d highly recommend reading Downsizing by Tom Watson, or checking out Michael Mosley’s research.

Claire can be found on Instagram @my40pluslife.me