I peer down at the dial, narrowing my eyes to see which fine line the needle is hovering over. I consider leaning on the towel rail to ‘help’ the scales along – but there’s no getting away from it. I’ve only lost half a pound this week and I’m gutted.
The tape measure I pulled tight around my waist before getting on the scales is even crueller, recording an expansion of 1cm.
As a 53-year-old mother of two teenage children who has dropped from 10st 3lb to 7st 4lb over the past two years – without weight-loss jabs – you would think I would cut myself some slack. After all, everyone knows it’s harder to lose weight in the cruel stranglehold of the menopause.
But the truth is, even though I’ve long since passed my original weight-loss target of 8st 9lb, I’m constantly having an inner dialogue with myself. Why did I eat supper? Why didn’t I go for an extra run? How can I do better tomorrow?
I know what you are thinking: I have developed an eating disorder. Until recently I would have hotly denied that. But last week a conversation with a friend who’s a behavioural therapist got me thinking. She sat me down after a Pilates class and told me I was a textbook menopausal anorexic – or ‘menorexic’. And that I am far from alone.
Last month, after statistics showed a rise of eating disorders in women aged 50-70, specialist Dr Elizabeth Wassenaar warned that up to 30 per cent of women in middle age ‘may experience disordered eating symptoms’. And that data doesn’t even include all those undetected women like me, who wouldn’t have dreamt of admitting they have any sort of problem.
Butterfly, an Australian eating disorder charity, recently published findings that more than half (56 per cent) of women experience some level of body dissatisfaction during perimenopause or menopause.
One in ten of those experiencing post or perimenopause avoid looking in mirrors altogether.
Apparently the rise in menorexia can be traced to the fact that the ‘thin ideal’ pressures of early adulthood are now extending well past our 40s. Societal expectations – fuelled by social media and exacerbated by weight-loss jabs, making it ‘easy’ for every mid-life woman to hold onto their figure – now burden older women with the need to stay slim and fit.
Initially, I was resistant to the notion that there may be a dark side to my weight loss.
But then I started to think about my 50-something friends and realised we were caught in a trap of competitive dieting.
Losing weight round here, in the Somerset ‘set’ of my female friends with rich husbands, has become very high-octane. No one has yet admitted to going down the Ozempic/Mounjaro route – I’m too squeamish to jab myself – though I’m sure a few have. It’s all two-week stays at the Mayrlife longevity clinic in Austria, personal marathon trainers, premium Peloton memberships, juicing holidays in Turkey.
I trace it back to the secondary school gates. As they grew into their teens, our children no longer needed us as much.
This coincided with a lot of us working mothers stepping away from their jobs to become part-time, or retraining into another role. We all had more time on our hands, and a sinking feeling that we’d become a little worthless.
Idle hands make mischief. Ten years ago, we were starved of time, not food. If we’d had this downtime then, the gym would have been the last place of choice; we would have sprinted to the nearest bar or cafe, sharing horror stories of young children over a glass or three of rosé before it was time for pick-up again. But somewhere along the line, this became too frivolous – and the threat of the menopause all too serious.
Our school-gate conversations became about not going gently into the good night of middle age. We were the ones who were going to buck the trend of the dowdy, blurred, forgotten.
I’ll openly admit, I’m paranoid about not letting middle age render me invisible. I’ve already blended into the background of my job at a luxury travel company, becoming the quiet drudge who sells the holidays, rather than one of the youngsters in the social media team who make so much noise. Since I’ve gone down to three days a week, I no longer really care.
But if I have lagged behind in the career stakes, I’m damned if I am going to do the same in the rest of my life. When I realised my job no longer defined me, I had to find a new way to find that definition.
So when a friend suggested that, instead of coffee that week, we met at Pilates, this sounded ideal.
When I got there, I looked at her anew: in her skin-tight Lululemon gym kit, rather than covered up by her usual billowy FatFace smock tops, I could see how much more toned she was than she used to be.
God, I wanted her arms – there was a shadow of muscle there that I coveted, with not a hint of bingo wing. She looked like Hannah Waddingham in Ted Lasso.
It turned out that Pilates was just the warm-up for her: every day she ran with the dogs, then went to a dance or stretch class instead of having lunch, then did a weights workout at the gym just before school pick-up.
‘I’ve never felt more energised,’ she urged me. ‘Honestly, you should try it. Come to Zumba with me tomorrow.’ She made it sound fun, inclusive, like we were taking action together. But it didn’t come cheap.
Over the past two years I have spent more than I could have possibly imagined on classes, memberships and athleisure outfits.
Somewhere along the line, I stopped counting the pounds I spent, because I became so obsessed with counting the pounds I had lost.
On one level, I am well aware that I now resemble a sinewy stick insect. My boobs are a distant memory and the tendons on my arms stand out like ropes as I pull myself up on the rig in the gym.
But when I see photos of myself at school events with the other mums, I love the fact that we all look so thin together, like a skinny sisterhood.
With the average dress size now between 6 and 8, leather trousers, mini skirts with knee-high boots, bikinis and shift dresses are on the sartorial menu.
Having become a little round after having children at 34 and 36 years old, I never imagined I could wear those kinds of clothes again. From my pre-baby weight hovering under 9st, I had crept above 10st. At my diminutive height that really shows.
My husband Matt – who’s become a classic Mamil (that’s a ‘Middle-Aged Man In Lycra’) who takes to the hills of Bruton and Frome on his bike for hours each weekend and on summer evenings – started mocking me for not embracing his commitment to exercise.
‘Look at my little hamster,’ he would say to the children, pointing at me. ‘Do you think she’s storing those crisps in her cheeks? Perhaps we should get her a new wheel, get those little legs whirring round.’
Part of me wanted to knock his block off with rage, part of me anxiously remembered a conversation with a Bristol friend years before.
‘Don’t move to the country, because you’ll lose your husband,’ she warned me, only half-joking. ‘Either to golf or cycling – or to a rapacious divorcée, whom he can drop in to have sex with on his way home.’
So as well as keeping up with my friends, I also felt that becoming fit and thin would keep my precious family unit intact. I would avoid the menopausal spread, the hormonal fat suit, the weariness and joint pains of typical 50-something women. I wasn’t going to fall for a fad diet – I was better than that.
At the start, I genuinely felt great: becoming strong through lifting weights has been a revelation; performing the dead lift has become my lifesaver. Not having to cook for myself at all on weekdays until family supper time because I can last the day on minimal food such as plain quinoa has been equally liberating.
I know how this sounds, but I’d thought it less concerning than the measures some friends are resorting to – namely the trend for cocaine at parties or dinners, no longer used to boost confidence or party stamina but as an appetite suppressant. Some even developed bulimia.
‘This way I can still have a social life that involves lots of food being offered to me,’ said one friend to me conspiratorially.
‘It was a question of either avoiding even being tempted by food by having a little bump of cocaine before dinner, or going to the loo for a quick tactical chunder after dinner.
‘I was nervous about how my teeth would fare if I vomited too regularly, and the tiny amount of cocaine I take doesn’t give me the same toxic comedown it used to give me in my 20s.
‘It’s basically medicinal – an appetite suppressant without the need for a proper prescription. I’m far too busy to bother with the whole rigmarole of going to a doctor.’
It’s not for me. I still get my thrills from champagne – despite the calories in alcohol, I’m not teetotal yet – but homemade celery and ginger smoothies are more my thing these days.
I’ve always assumed my family are proud of the way that I have whipped myself into shape; Matt boasts that I am his little pocket rocket. That said, he’s cross my sex drive has vanished. I’m always so tired after all the exercise that, though I know I should say yes, I can’t quite face it.
And in all honesty, while I love the way I now look in clothes, I don’t love the way I look naked.
There are folds of skin sagging down from my waist, down the backs of my legs from what used to be my rather curvy bum, and flapping like empty sails from my elbows. My hair has suffered from the constant sweating and washing, becoming thin and dull.
So, yes, I can see why my therapist friend ‘diagnosed’ me as a menorexic. I’m all too aware of how obsessed I am by food, exercise and fending off any menopausal weight gain. And, when I look at myself naked, I can see I’ve gone too far.
Not that I’m planning on seeking medical help any time soon. I’m convinced I’ll be able to stop starving myself when I see fit. After all, even I know it’s unsustainable to keep such iron control over my eating habits for ever.
In the meantime, I always make sure my Sweaty Betty leggings have maximum control, holding in any last rogue bumps for a fully svelte outline, and that I am always in a tight long-sleeved top, hair tightly tied back. It’s the uniform of the super-toned mums round here and I love that I am part of this posse. For now.
As much as I enjoy their compliments about how much weight I’ve lost, however, the little voice of concern is growing louder. Sometimes, I have to admit, I wish I’d never started on this perilous path in the first place.
- As told to Susannah Jowitt
- Names have been changed to protect identities. For help and advice, contact Beat Eating Disorders on 0808 8010677 or go to beateatingdisorders.org.uk
