Vicki Picciano, 37, had no idea her slimdown would help with her crippling health issue
Lying in theatre, a screen up around my waist and my husband Dom standing beside me, I tried hard to stay calm. It was June 2018, and I was having our baby via caesarean section. Finally, after about half an hour, our son Eros was lifted towards me and laid on my chest for a cuddle. Besotted, I barely noticed what the surgeons were doing as I kissed our new baby.
‘We haven’t closed you up yet,’ one of the surgeons said, explaining how he’d seen signs I may be suffering from endometriosis. I wasn’t surprised. I’d suffered from painful periods ever since I could remember, and some days, the pain had been so bad I could barely walk. All the doctors I’d seen had dismissed it as bad luck. And now, after the specialist checked me over, he too gave me the all-clear.
BAD HABITS
It was frustrating, but in the weeks and months that followed I was so consumed with caring for my son that I took painkillers when I needed to and got on with being a new mum. Some days, feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, another ongoing problem of mine returned – my habit of overeating.
By the age of 17, I was a curvy size 16, cooking big, comforting roast dinners and pasta, struggling to stick to any kind of diet. But now, aged 34 and looking after a newborn, with my twin sister Jo in Australia and my parents living miles away, I felt isolated and stressed and turned to food even more – munching biscuits, chocolate and cakes during the day and cooking huge dinners in the evening as a reward for getting through the day.
Before falling pregnant, I’d weighed 12st and been a dress size 14. But seven months after giving birth, I weighed the same as I did at full term – 14st 7lb – and was still wearing my maternity clothes. I was only 5ft 2in and hated how I looked. So much so, that on holiday in Cape Verde in January 2019, I felt so uncomfortable I couldn’t enjoy myself at all. ‘Pass me a towel,’ I hissed to Dom, as I heaved myself out of the pool in my size 18 swimming costume, terrified of people catching sight of me. Seeing other mums playing around the pool with their children made me feel terrible. ‘They’ve lost their baby weight so why haven’t I?’ I thought.
But my increasing weight was the least of my problems, as by now my painful periods were back with a vengeance. Some mornings I was in so much pain I struggled to get out of bed, and lifting Eros out of his pram was hard. I went back to my do
