Ive been meaning to write about the subject of weight for a while. It seems to always be an issue with people with IBD and also people in general (myself included), so I just wanted to share my story and what I’ve learnt about myself through the last year.

People who have known me a long time may think this has never been an issue, but actually is a topic I’m rather obsessed about.

Growing up I was always the skinny kid – which was fine with me as it meant I could run (reasonably well), high jump (reasonably well), actually I could turn my hand to most sport reasonably well (unless it involved upper body strength). This meant that I was never the best, but usually in the top 5 or 10 who were taking part.

Therefore, when I was growing up I didn’t necessarily mind being called ‘the skinny one’. This pattern continued when I moved house to a new town and then a new school, scout group, music band etc. At this time I started to step away from playing football regularly and through the scouts and pedalcars I took up cycling. Here the lack of weight was a positive (in cycling power to weight is king for going up hills etc.). I didn’t mind the jokes – “Where’s he gone, he must have turned sideways!” was always a favourite…

Through the first few years of university I kept fit, found a real passion for road cycling and therefore my weight stayed low. This was until I had a placement away from Plymouth. Here I had 10 weeks away from my bike and the only exercise I had was running PE classes and walking the 5 minutes to the school building.

This meant for the 1st time in my life I went over 11 stone. Immediately people started noticing. First, my Plymouth cycling buddy commented as I was easily dropped on the climbs. Next, when I visited my chiropractor she immediately commented I had let myself go, the receptionist followed with a highly witty phrase. This made me paranoid and I immediately began improving my fitness again. This paranoia has stayed with me.

This paranoia leads to me regularly weighing myself, usually between 3 and 5 times a week. Therefore when I started showing symptoms of Ulcerative Colitis, my weight dropping was the 1st thing I noticed. It just dropped, dropped and dropped. After surgery this continued.

This is common symptom for people with IBD, Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis. Weight is a yo-yo, steroids put it on (of which I had my fair share last year), but the amount of blood loss saps your strength and takes your weight back down.

At my lowest I was down below 57kg – this was painful. I was so thin I was getting sores just lying/sitting in bed. I was badly dehydrated and needed 2 days worth of IV drips to get me functioning properly.

I have now been steadily improving my weight and am back up at a healthy 71kg. I’m still getting comments about my weight – mostly “You’re looking healthy!”, occasionally “How come you eat and it never goes on you!” (I won’t go into details, but some stuff just goes straight through me!). But I have learnt to just take the comments as compliments.

This year, I have learnt many lessons about myself and weight and I try to avoid discussing the topic as much as possible. The most important thing I’ve learnt is to be happy with yourself. I still weigh myself twice a week, but this is more for medical reasons than any other. I need to know I am a healthy weight and not suddenly losing too much or putting too much on.

All and all, in my opinion, being healthy is all that matters and remembering everyone’s body is different.