Why I will never diet and exercise

At forty, I looked and felt great. And I didn’t even have much extra weight: I weighed only 55 kg with a height of 172 cm

I considered myself an absolutely healthy person, as far as possible at my age and in our ecology.

But during my work (I provide permanent make-up services) I lacked movement and wanted to “polish” my body, make it drier and more prominent.

I chose a fitness club for training, which is considered the best in our city, and bought an annual subscription, which is quite expensive. I started my “movement to health” from the pool and gym, then I joined group training. At one of these trainings, as I remember now, it was a Taibo class, I suddenly felt very bad.

My eyes darkened, my ears were blocked, my head started spinning, and tachycardia began: my heart was pounding like crazy. I started to choke

In the locker room, I somehow opened my locker, took out the valocordin from my bag, wanted to sit on a bench, but did not reach it and slid down the wall to the floor.

There were a lot of people in the dressing room, but everyone passed by, not paying attention to the fact that I was sitting on the floor with a vial of valocordin. One girl even almost stepped on me.

With grief in half, I walked to the reception and asked the staff if there was a doctor in the sports club? I was told that there is only a massage therapist of the medical staff.

Having somehow come to my senses, I got home that day on my own.

And five days after this incident, something unimaginable began with me. I was doing a lip tattoo for my client when an attack hit me: severe dizziness and tachycardia of such strength that the pulse sent somewhere in my brain.

The first thought was: I will die now. And I thought: why is it so early ?!

My client turned out to be a nurse. She reacted very quickly: she opened the window, gave me a sedative to drink and called an ambulance.

This is how my epic began: consultations with doctors, hospitals … They could not diagnose me for a long time. The cardiologist did not find any problems with me and sent me to a neurologist. After an appointment with a neurologist, I went to the hospital, and on a commercial basis. In this paid hospital, all treatment was limited to the fact that I was constantly injected with vasodilating drugs, from which I walked away very hard: the reverse vasoconstriction was accompanied by severe chills – I was shaking from the cold.

And once, in the queue for the procedure, I got into a conversation with a male patient, he described his symptoms to me (the same as mine) and said that this is a consequence of a cervical spinal hernia. It dawned on me! On the same day, I demanded from my attending physician to have an MRI done. And why wasn’t it done to me earlier! Magnetic resonance imaging showed that I have three hernias in the cervical spine!

“Well, you see! The doctor said happily. “That turns out to be the cause of your symptoms!” I wanted to tell her a lot. For example, ask: why a patient who pays money for treatment does not undergo a competent examination and should ask for an MRI scan himself?

After analyzing the situation, I realized: my illness was somehow provoked by my intense exercise in the gym.

I remember we jumped a lot at that Taibo training. Later, starting to study this issue, I learned that women after 40 years with a long break in sports should not jump at all, it’s time to switch to smoother, joint-sparing exercises.

So, I was diagnosed, and this was only the beginning of the torment. Even in the hospital, I started having stomach problems – after taking medication. The forced diet and constant dizziness with nausea led to the fact that I became like a prisoner of a concentration camp: legs-sticks, protruding ribs instead of a chest, a withered face, like an old woman’s. It even hurt me to sit – the priest disappeared, the bones were alone! On the day, I ate through force only a little boiled meat, a little milk and drank water – the body did not accept anything else. It was terrible, I would not wish such a state on the enemy. I only weighed 44 kilograms.

Some acquaintances complimented me, they say, how you lost weight, but I wanted to cry

I was ready to weigh 80 kg, like my friends, but if only to be healthy and not to constantly feel such dizziness and tinnitus, as if I had been traveling for a long time by train.

One day after my long forced painful diet, I felt a little better and decided to indulge in sweets. I ate two small cookies with tea – God, what a happiness it was! What a pleasure it is – there is what you want and feel pleasure from it! Sweets made me euphoric, like a glass of champagne. But alcohol is not right for me now categorically: with my diagnosis, a glass of wine can cause a stroke.

Gradually putting myself in relative order, I returned to work. My regular clients began to ask where I had disappeared. I told them my story, and what happened? That there are many like me! The stories of women rained down one after another: also a sharp start to sports activities, then fainting in public places, then a hospital bed and the diagnosis – spinal hernia. It turns out that if it were not for our pioneer enthusiasm in the pursuit of eternal youth, we would all be, perhaps, a little overweight or just not too athletic, but we would not be on the verge of disability!

Perhaps someone will say: this is all the fault of non-professional trainers! Maybe there is some truth in this, but I see the mistake of people like me in something else: we did not take into account that we are not 20 years old and will never be 20. You need to respect your age, your experience. You need to take care of your body, your body. We spend our lives chasing empty illusions, ideals imposed by someone, but why? No wonder they say: the best is the enemy of the good.

At other times it seemed to me that I would not survive, but I have a teenage son! Could he be left an orphan because of his mother’s ambitions and dreams of eternal youth?