I would have ended up in a care home
When the rest of the girls in her class went into the communal showers after PE, Wendy Stannard always managed to dodge the dreaded event.
For years she was delighted that, somehow, she'd been getting out of it.
But as the years went by – and the weight kept piling on – Wendy realised there was another, more embarrassing reason why she never had to take a shower in public.
Since an early age she'd been made to wear a girdle by her mum, who Wendy says was always ashamed of her overweight daughter.
'I didn't realise it at the time but when we did PE you'd come out and go straight into the big showers. But I didn't have to,' explains Wendy.
'I always thought I was getting away with it but years later I realised the teachers were just letting me go without because I would have had to have taken all this stuff off and been embarrassed.'
As the only girl in her school going to lessons in the uncomfortable all-in-one, Wendy still remembers the way it made her feel.
'When I was about 19 or 20 I thought I can't stand this any longer,' she says.
'I was the only one going to school in a girdle.
'I was a disappointment, I wasn't the shape my mother wanted.
'I was fitted for the girdle in my early teens and wore it until I had the guts to say I wasn't going to wear it any more and that was in my 20s.'
Wendy's life-long battle with her weight dented her confidence, making her feel like she was always second best.
And with no-one to tell her any different, she says she learned to think she wouldn't amount to much.
Wendy remembers being banned from eating potatoes as a child – for fear they would make her fatter – and missing out on outings because her size was a cause for embarrassment.
'I wasn't huge as a child, I was one of those chubby ones,' she adds.
'But I was told I wasn't good enough.
'I couldn't do certain things and I accepted that there were lots of things I would never do. I was so conditioned into expecting that I couldn't do anything.
'I read about Dawn French saying her father told her she was beautiful.
'I think she and I are not unlike in some ways. If I had had someone who told me I was beautiful would I have been an achiever like Dawn, instead of a person that's not themselves?
'I don't have great regrets, I don't look back and think "if only" but at the same time I do look back and think there's things I would have liked to have done.'
She adds: 'I've had huge feelings to go up to every woman who thinks she is second best and say you're not, you are as good as anybody else.'
These days that urge to tell other women not to let their weight issues ruin their lives is stronger than ever.
More than 50 years after those embarrassing days of girdle wearing, Wendy is buying pairs of jeans for the first time in her life.
At 22 stone and a petite four ft 11, Wendy was obese and in need of help.
After watching her weight become more and more of a problem, she realised she had to do something.
And when her doctor referred her to St Richard's Hospital in Chichester for a gastric bypass, Wendy knew that it was the chance she'd been longing for.
In her 30s she'd managed to lose 10 stone after surviving on a diet of cottage cheese and salad for three years.
Consuming around 600 calories a day certainly resulted in weight loss – but it was an unhealthy and impossible eating pattern to sustain.
Wendy had joined a ladies only gym about a year before surgery but found the weight was stubborn and losing it was a struggle.
One of the biggest frustrations for her was that, in comparison to others, she believes she really didn't eat an obscene amount.
Breakfast was often skipped, lunch was a couple of large-ish sandwiches and dinner was the normal meat and two veg.
'I was over eating, I could never eat enough,' she confesses.
'But I'd look at these programmes on TV and think "I don't eat that much".
'So many people don't understand about food, there is so much ignorance and looking at other people in judgment.
'When I saw the surgeon he said "I see a few people like you. Your body is very efficient and you don't need a lot of food".
'I'm a Mini, someone else is an F1 car, I'm a tiny car that doesn't need as much petrol. When he said it to me it made sense.'
But all the time Wendy remained overweight, her health was rapidly going down hill.
'I was beginning to get to the point where I could barely walk any distance,' she explains.
'I couldn't even walk to the gym, I had to sit on the wall.
'I was really trying hard but I had nowhere else to go.
'I'd get out the car at Asda and after sitting in the car I'd seize up. I wouldn't be able to put one foot to the ground.
'I broke down in tears and said I can't stay like this any longer. I was becoming disabled, unable to function.'
Having been a care worker, Wendy knew what would happen if her weight caused a health problem that would leave her immobile.
'I know I would have ended up in a care home, I know I wouldn't have been able to stay at home,' she adds.
Wendy's doctor saw she was struggling and referred her to see Guy Slater at Streamline Surgical.
She qualified for a bypass and the operation now means she just physically can't eat all that much food.
'I think the NHS is getting good value for money with me,' explains Wendy.
'I could see where I was going. So many people said "You're so brave" but I didn't feel like that at all.
'A friend summed it up when she said I would have been braver to stay as I was. I didn't have a choice.'
The operation took place last April and since then Wendy's lost more than eight stone.
Her size 32 clothes have been swapped for 14s and 16s and she's finally putting her unhappiness and self-loathing to bed.
The difference it has made might not mean a lot to others, but for Wendy it's the chance to do the things most people take for granted.
'I was sitting in Clarks shoe shop and I put one leg up to take the shoe off the other day. I didn't know I could do that,' she laughs.
'I used to have to push myself out of the car, I practically pushed myself to the other side of the road because I don't have to do that any more.
'I used to go past clothes shops and say "Oh there's nothing for me in there" because I was a size 30-32. I'm a 14-16 now and I can go in any of the high street shops.
'I'm having to find out that there are styles that suit you now. When you are fat you buy whatever will go on.
While critics often point their finger at weight loss surgery, calling it the lazy option and a form of cheating, Wendy says the uphill struggle she would have had to make to get to where she is now, simply wouldn't have been possible without it.
'You need to completely change your lifestyle and I don't think you can ever completely do that.
'At 63 I haven't got that many years left to do it. Time was running out.
'My body was going to give up.'
She adds: 'I have been given my life back. The doctors saved my life.
'They have given me a chance for more years of the same life instead of it being a living death.'
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Wednesday 23 May 2012
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