Gold Coast mum receives shock diagnosis after weight loss

Teri Michelle still remembers the first “ridiculous diet” she tried, telling 9honey, “It was horrible, actually.”
Teri followed an extreme calorie restriction and underwent blood tests “every couple of months.”
“The problem with it was because it was so quick, my mental self didn’t have time to catch up and I certainly didn’t learn through that how to eat a nutritious diet regularly and how to maintain,” she says.
“There were no lessons on maintenance or anything following that, and I hadn’t dealt with why I was overweight in the first place.”
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She reached her goal weight by her 40th birthday. That was 17 years ago. Although, she was left with “a little bit of loose skin, but it wasn’t too bad.”
It was after Teri regained all the weight and lost it again that the loose skin became worse.
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Teri has tried to pinpoint when her struggle with weight began.
There was “growing up in a relatively strict household when it came to food,” she says. She married young, at 18, and finally felt free to “eat all the food and [not] get in trouble.”
But she didn’t feel happy.
“I genuinely wasn’t a very happy person for a very, very long time,” she says.
“I didn’t feel that I had any control of my life. So I guess I used food as that kind of control, if you like.”
Her adult years were spent gaining and then losing weight, including a period of anorexia during which she “wasn’t eating, trying to lose weight and just trying to gain that control.”
By the time Teri was 35 she was sick, her first marriage broke up and she entered a new marriage that wasn’t ideal.
“My diet was really bad,” she says, adding that she was also drinking and smoking as a way to cope.
After that relationship ended in 2014, Teri had time to “sit back and really evaluate what I wanted out of my life.
“What I needed to do was find myself, and basically that was when my journey really started,” she says of her newfound health.
But where to start? Teri had tried multiple diets, including juicing and eating raw food only.
It was during this time she met the love of her life, Darren, whom she describes as an “amazing human.”
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Feeling loved and supported, she continued to try and improve her health, going for walks together and making healthy food choices.
Even walking was tough for her at first.
“He’d say, ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ and he was so patient with me because I’d go for walks and see this hill and just bawl my eyes out the whole time because I was like, ‘I can’t do this, my feet hurt’.
“But he was just so patient and just we just did a lot of walking around.
She also started working with a nutritionist, to finally learn now to properly nourish her body.
“I worked with two that had very different attitudes to nutrition but both of them would agree that is protein is the most important,” she says.
“It’s definitely important to have carbs and fats. But they also both encouraged you to eat in a way that you enjoyed.”
Moshy Dietitian Kirby Sorenson says there’s no quick fix to maintaining a healthy weight range.
She says a holistic approach to weight loss is vital to success with our diet culture swamping us with too much information, which can often be wrong.
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Sorenson encourages an approach to food that includes everything in moderation, which she says many people find hard to understand.
Teri’s health was much improved by 2019 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, on the same day her granddaughter was born. A doctor told her had she may not have noticed the lump before losing weight.
“I was really fortunate that they got it really early,” she says.
Teri fought and beat the disease and has also had some of her excess skin removed. She has maintained her weight loss and easily keeps up with her granddaughter.
“That was my goal, I think,” she says.
The family has since relocated to the Gold Coast and “love going for walks on the beaches.”
Teri eats a lot of fresh foods and cooks often.
‘I’m learning more and more about how to maintain and keep those really bad habits away,” she says.
For those at the beginning of their weight loss journeys, Teri says to “find something that you love to get your body moving.”
Anyone needing support with eating disorders or body image issues is encouraged to contact the Butterfly National Helpline on 1800 33 4673 (1800 ED HOPE) or [email protected]. You can also call the Eating Disorders Victoria Helpline on 1300 550 23 or Lifeline on 13 11 14 for urgent support.
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