63-Year-Old Bridget Proves Post-Menopause Weight Loss Is Possible | Slimpod Success Story

So today I have got the lovely Bridget with me. Um, Bridget is, uh, one of our very valued Slim Code Club members, and, uh, and she's just doing an amazing thing because, uh, at the age of 63, she's actually said that she is— she's she finally believes that she's found the right solution. And honestly, uh, Bridget, I, I, I, uh, I said to you that I wanted to talk to you because you have got such an inspirational story and you show that it is absolutely possible for people who are, you know, are, who have gone past the menopause absolutely possible for them to lose weight. And so many people have limiting beliefs about whether they can lose that weight and whether they can actually get down to the size that they want to be. And I just, you know, you are, your story is so brilliant. And so I'm going to hand over to you and to talk about, you know, when you, when you started in July 2020, you were the heaviest you ever were, weren't you?

I was. Hi Sandra, it's lovely to talk. Hello. Yeah, I came back from Spain having been locked down there, and of course with lockdown it's so easy to let the pounds creep up, and I was 13 stone 9 and absolutely disgusted with myself. I really didn't have anything in my wardrobe that fitted, you know, and I had 3 sizes in my wardrobe and I was determined, you know, that I wasn't going to go up to a size 20, but I was on the verge, and I was really— I would say I was depressed, really, because, um, like many of your lovely PODders, I've been there. I've done every diet known to woman, uh, for the past 30 years, and everything spins around in your head, and you think, shall I do keto? Shall I go no carbs? Will I go back to the weekly humiliations, you know, of Slimming World, or You know, and you just, you feel like you've lost the will to live and you're so depressed. And every time you go to the kitchen, it's a struggle because you just are tempted to eat the sweet things for comfort. But you know, you don't want to go there. So I was scrolling as I do on Facebook or whatever, doing word picture dictionary or something like that, and up popped your good self. And I thought, oh, what's this about? And I have to say, like many of your other ladies, I was skeptical. I thought, look, what have I got to lose anyway? You know, I'll give it a try, it's probably a load of rubbish. But the thing that really got me to sign up was your work with the NHS, because that had credibility. And I thought, wow, let's give it a go. But it was probably the worst possible day to give it a go, because the next day we were doing a dash over to Ireland. I'm Irish, and my sister's husband was at death's door, and we needed to do a a visit to support her. So we were going on a road trip, taking the car. We had to go in through Northern Ireland because of COVID and everything, so we had a long road trip up to Scotland, staying in hotels. Very first day after listening to Trevor, I'm in a hotel, my favourite big fry-up, and what did I do with it? I pushed it away. I said, I can't eat that, I'm not hungry. And my husband was like in shock. So we went to Ireland and, you know, I only have to think about going to Ireland and I put on another half a stone. You know what it's like over there, they have to feed you, it's their way of showing you love. And my sister-in-laws were pushing, you know, the famous fruitcake and all of that at me and I didn't want any of it. I didn't even have a fruit jelly on the journey. So I thought there's something in this. I, and I, we stopped at the services and I bought a notebook in WH Smith's and it said, call it a plan. And I thought, that's my plan, I'm going, I'm going to stick to this. And it was incredible. And by the time we came back from Ireland, sort of 14 days or 10 days later, I had lost half a stone. Wow. And I thought, I am so happy. I, all I could say was, it's magic, it's absolutely magic. And I'm not on a diet and I've no wagon to fall off. And all of your wonderful sayings, you know, were coming out of my mouth all the time. And my husband was sort of raising his eyebrows a bit at me, sort of to say, you've been brainwashed, girl. But it carried on. And I just, I just found it so liberating, really, really liberating. So for me, it was 'You know, will I carry on with this?' Well, why wouldn't I? It's a no-brainer. And then I started to want to, to move more as well. So for me, I knew the weight would come off if I put the effort in. And as the weeks went by, more weight came off. But then inevitably, you know, it's all not— no, it's not all hearts and flowers, is it? So you have to put some effort in, you know. And I think that that's when the wobbles come. And you think, oh, I'm 63, I take steroids every day, that's what makes me hungry, you know. And then I had to give myself a stern talking to in the bathroom mirror one morning and say, now listen, Mrs., just stop it because you can lose weight. That's been proved. You've already lost some. You need to give yourself a good kick up the posterior, get out there, get your walking boots on and put some effort into this. And around the same time as that, I decided that I needed the motivation something external. So I signed up for the Macmillan Cancer Support Charity to do one of their Thames Path hikes. So I'm scheduled to do that on the 17th of July, and I've already raised over £650 for them. So I'm really chuffed about that. And I can walk 10 miles now without falling over. So I've just got another 3 to do. So I'm upping my training every week, and that really helps me. So most weeks I get in about 40, 45 miles on my walk. I do about 5 days a week, I do long walks. And I have the advantage of being retired, so I have the time to do that. But I still plateaued, even, even with the long walks, I plateaued. And that's when your absolutely wonderful Lynn and Kate came into their own, because they just give you such support and encouragement, you know. And it doesn't seem to matter with Kate what time of night it is. She's like a, big cuddly fluffy wise owl, you know, she's there at midnight giving advice. She's incredible. And Lynn is so encouraging. So the difference with SlimPod is you have all this amazing support at hand and wonderful Facebook Club friends as well that you can just send a little Facebook message to and they come back and they're encouraging and they're supportive. So that and Gold Gatherings kept me very much on track. And, you know, during the lockdown, the second lockdown— or was it the third? No, the second lockdown— when we had shielding and I could only go out for my walks and I wasn't allowed to do anything else, Gold Gatherings was just a social outlet for me. I used to get up on a Wednesday morning beaming, you know, go and get ready as if I were going out, get the makeup on, sort out the hair for 10 o'clock. To get to join Girl Gatherings. And that bunch of people that we get on there, you know, and regular characters and newcomers, and, you know, the inspirational people that we have in SlimPod, the Jackie Carters, the Ava Brodies, the, you know, the Rachel Bouquet— I call her Rachel Bouquet, not Bucket— they just inspire me on a daily basis. Fantastic. You know, they are just— I can get emotional about these people because they're just wonderful characters.

Yeah, yeah, no, we're very, very fortunate. And it is— but you do your fair share as well.

I do try. And Kate gave me a lovely buddy. And if we talk about people not being able to lose weight, my buddy is 74. I'm a mere youngster compared to her, and she is losing weight too. And together we decided we would give up sugar. So we supported each other through that route. We read the, um, the book Ava recommended by David Gillespie, The Sweet Poison Quit Plan, and we did it. We both gave up sugar and we feel immensely, immensely better for it.

Yes. Uh, I mean, it's undoubtedly, it's, you know, the, the SlimPod kind of gives you the nudge and then it makes it so much easier to stop completely if you want to do that, of course. Of course, not everybody wants to do that, but, you know, I just think it's wonderful that you're, that you've also smashed your limiting belief as to how low, how kind of where you can go, because you started at a size 18-20, didn't you, a year ago? Well, 11 months ago, to be precise.

Yeah.

And now you're a size 12.

I know, it's fantastic. I mean, some of my clothes are 14, and some shops have small 14s, but 12, 14 are certainly very comfortable in my size 12s. And taking out last summer's clothes that I put them away usually in the wintertime, take them out in the summer, most of it just gone to the charity shops. Too big. It's great. Yeah.

And you posted— I had a little snigger— you posted about your bra size. Oh, I've never known anybody lose so much off their boobs in all my life. Mind you, you've had— honestly, it's— no, yeah, just incredible, isn't it, how— where things can't— where things fall off?

I know, it is absolutely incredible. I've lost 7 inches off my boobs and 8 inches off my waist. Unbelievable.

I've got— yeah, you said 35 inches in total. It's just phenomenal. Yeah, and you've got osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, and all sorts of things going on, so this must have really, really helped that, because with all that weight, it wasn't doing that any good whatsoever, was it?

Absolutely. And then the long walks— it seems counterintuitive that when you've got osteoarthritis in your knees, you go for long walks, but in fact, the more you walk on them, the better they are. And certainly losing the weight has put a lot less pressure. And now I, you know, I get out of bed, I go, I get straight in into my gym gear and do a Lucy Wyndham-Reid before my cup of tea. I mean, who is this woman? I, I don't know who she is, but I'm really liking the results.

It's, uh, it's so fabulous. It really is. Because, yeah, I mean, you weren't able to— before, you weren't able to get down below a certain size. Did you think it was something 14 or something?

14 was the, was the smallest I had in my wardrobe, and I was always happy if I could get into 14s. Um, but now, you know, 12s is what I go to. But the funny thing is, psychology— when I go to a clothes shop, I go to the 14 rail now. You have to tell myself that I should be looking in the 12s, and it's going to take a while to get used to it, to get used to being slim. And I walk past reflections and shop windows and things now, and I think, oh, she looks all right. And I went to try a dress on in John Lewis because their changing rooms are open again, and I used to hate that changing room because it has the side mirrors as well as the back mirror, so you can actually see most of the way around. And I used to hate the love handles, you know, but they're gone. There are no love handles. It's fantastic. And I thought, you look all right, girl, for an old bird.

Ah, you do.

You look amazing.

You look amazing. So if there was one tip that you could give to Slimpodders watching this, uh, what would that tip be?

I think a lot of people fail to trust themselves and believe that it's possible. And I think, you know, the body achieves what the mind believes is so true, because if you start off with the defeatist attitude like, this won't work, or I'll try but I'm not sure, you know, just trust the process and follow it to the letter. I never miss Trevor. Always listen to Trevor at night, always write my wins. And now my wins are filling a page. They're not just 3. I'm not just scratching my head looking for 3. Write your positives down and read back your old wins because they will help you on dark days when you're having a bumpy ride. Read your old wins because they'll, they'll give you that positivity back. Stay positive, trust yourself, and you will succeed.

Fantastic, fantastic. Thank you so much. I mean, I, you know, I just, I just love what you've done and it's just, it's just going to give so much hope to people who, who might just need to check their own self-limiting beliefs because there are so many people who, so many people out there in the, in the world, but also on our program who have this belief that that because they're, you know, over 55 or over 60, that it's just either weight loss is going to be really, really slow or non-existent. And you're just living proof, like so many others. I mean, we have got a lot of 70-year-olds on our program who all doing well. And there