By the time this is printed it will already be February and the words ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ will most likely be buried in the recesses of our subconscious minds until next year. But for now, it’s the third week of January and I’m still holding my own. I made one simple New Year’s Resolution– to look after myself a bit better.

Thirty-odd years later and I’m about to reprogramme everything I have learned so that I can grab some kind of ‘better’ life for myself. Out with the bad eating-for-comfort habits, out with regrets and in with the ‘make every day count because it could be our last’ kind of thing. You’d be forgiven for thinking that I must have gotten a shed load of self-help books for Christmas but the truth is I have had a terrible few weeks, health-wise. But pity not, it’s all been self-inflicted.

There are many theories as to why people like me develop hiatus hernias. The spiritual experts say repressed anger is responsible as it can interfere with the mechanical structure of the body.

The doctors say it’s heredity and can be exacerbated by stress and a poor diet. Now I’m not accepting responsibility for my genetic make-up. But I will accept the fact that I don’t treat my body the way it deserves to be treated. There’s some religion– I can’t remember which one– where the body is the analogy of some kind of ‘temple’ and should be respected as such. In my Catholic-reared head, that makes a lot of sense.

A healthy body is a healthy mind… your health is your wealth… we regurgitate these affirmations every day but do we actually ever realise them? I for one don’t. I take my body completely for granted and it’s only when it breaks down in some form of illness that I have no choice but to listen to it.

Take Christmas for example. I’ve no God-given right to celebrate getting to the end of another year by over-eating, over-drinking and under-exercising. Seems I’m not the only one, judging by the queue in the chemist shops, all looking for indigestion remedies.

But indigestion remedies can’t mask the fact that the reason your hernia is playing up is because you’re overweight. Now let me explain something. I weigh just over nine stone.
Before you all start tut-tut-ing and screaming the word ‘dysmorphia’ at me, you have to consider I stand at five foot nothing. This (according to the experts) classes me as overweight for my height.

So what did I do? I joined Weight Watchers. Reason: I spend a lot of time on my own so I decided to start the year by being a bit more sociable. Not only that, I think support group meetings are instrumental in achieving goals. And lastly, I’m one of these people who need structure in their lives. So joining Weight Watchers seemed the way to go… straight out the door that is.

Some of the participants didn’t even try and hide their look of distain, ‘what is she doing here with her nine stones?’ I went in with the same goal as everybody else. I wanted to teach myself how to tell the difference between hunger and longing. That way I could sustain the right weight for my height, therefore staving off any further health problems while alleviating the ones I already had.

I’ve no intention of losing so much weight that I end up looking like an eleven year old boy. So what’s the problem? The problem is, we only see weight as an issue on a superficial level.

My ancestors didn’t insulate themselves with comfort food, because they barely had enough food to keep them alive. And the food they ate was simple and wholesome. We’ve too much choice nowadays. It’s not getting us anywhere. We’ve more health problems than we ever had.

The leader in Weight Watchers was promoting their sugar-free jelly. I asked her if there were any colourings or additives in it. She fobbed me off by saying that I should only concern myself with the fact that there was no fat content or calories in the product. What does that say? It says, it doesn’t matter what rubbish you put into your body as long as you lose a load of weight.

So now what do I do? I use common sense, that’s what. I follow my grandfather’s diet, who died at 96 of nothing else but natural old age. I’m not listening to any more experts who cite dairy, and high carb foods like bread and potatoes as definite dietary no-nos. My grandfather lived on these foods. There was nothing else.

In a way, having a hiatus hernia is a blessing in disguise. It means I can’t eat or drink whenever or whatever I want. But it shouldn’t take an ailment to hijack me into a health buzz. When are we going to think enough of ourselves to do that of our own accord?
At the minute I feel I deserve to feel healthy. I hope by the time this is printed I still feel the same.