I shifted my midlife weight in six months – now I’m fitter than I was in my twenties

From there, I started learning about gut health and upping the number of fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds and herbs I had each day: Professor Tim Spector says we should aim for about 30 different types a week, which isn’t that hard when you try to do it. 

I do easy things like steam and roast a load of veg at the weekend, then take that in a pot with me and add it to shop-bought salad. I add more by having a pot of seeds with me to sprinkle on my breakfast yoghurt and berries or my salad. Working on my gut health, increasing my protein and making sure I had more variety in my diet saw the start of my weight loss.

I really believe that it’s not one thing that makes you healthy, you have to work on yourself as a whole package. I started therapy with Peace and Love Within to deal with my grief, and that was enormously helpful.

I also needed to start some exercise, but when you’re getting perimenopausal hot flushes, that can be the last thing you feel like doing. I found this amazing PT Kate Oakley who also retrained later in life to set up Your Future Fit, and specialises in peri and menopause fitness for women. 

She has six minute workouts to get you started, then you move up to 12 minutes, and she taught me that the cardio I sometimes did – running or spin – isn’t good enough on its own; it raises cortisol. In mid life you need to add weights to the mix and something like Pilates, too, to build up strength for the future and balance out your hormones better.

To help more with my bloating, I started seeing Roberta Parkin for lymphatic drainage, which is a massage where the therapist works on areas of your body to move lymph fluid from your tissues to your functioning lymph nodes. Roberta said my lymph nodes were blocked, meaning that the toxins were just recirculating around my body. As a result, within a few sessions the cellulite disappeared from my stomach.