Pain in the backside

Having always had a difficult relationship with food, weight and exercise, a decline in my health during the pandemic led to me becoming anorexic and losing a lot of weight.  At that time I still weighed over 9 stone, but I would check my weight three or four times a day and see myself limit the amount I would drink in case it made me heavier.  Things have since become worse, and I now weigh under 6 1/2 stone, with a BMI of around 13. I truly want to get better, but for so many reasons putting weight on is difficult.  Firstly, it's the mental battle. A slight increase in my weight terrifies me - it makes me scared that I'm out of control and will become fat again, rekindling feelings I had as a teen. I sometimes take out half a spoon of rice from my meal to calm myself down.  But my needs are even more complex because I have severe IBS and Functional Neurological Disorder which makes it really painful to eat as my nerves are ultra sensitive. I find eating solid ...

I've always been proud to be a Nottingham Forest fan. I've lost count of the number of people who have told me they have a soft spot for Forest and how they wished to see them back in the Premier League. This is a club synonymous with good football and respect for referees, for a brilliant academy, a superb atmosphere and a fanbase which travels far and wide in huge numbers. But sadly, the last two years have tarnished the club's reputation. It began by spending large sums on players (many of whom have not even stepped on the pitch for the club) which resulted in a breach of spending rules. Rather than accept the fact we survived in the Premier League through an unfair advantage, we pretended that we had no choice and moaned at what I believe was a lenient punishment. The manager who took us back to the Premier League, not to mention delivered memorable cup runs, had his job security played out constantly in public before eventually being sacked and replaced a few hours l...

Away from my usual articles on anorexia, I wrote some stand-up comedy which I 'performed' in front of my family last Sunday. I was going to ignore it, but I thought I'd publish it in case someone finds it slightly amusing! And the winner for the worst comedy goes to... It's Mother's Day today. A big shout out to all the mums. Mother's Day is the one day a year where my mum can tell me in no uncertain terms just how difficult it was giving birth to me, not to mention how much of a problem child I was and how I'm responsible for everything from stretch marks to wrinkles to chronic stress. It's like a different version of white privilege. Society is telling me that I should feel guilty for being white, and today I'll have my mum telling me I should feel guilty for being born. Then there's my anniversary where my wife tells me how lucky I am to be married to her.  To be honest, the only reason I'm married now is because I was preparing for a Blac...

Anorexia is not just a case of wanting to lose weight - it's also a social curse. I only discovered recently that the illness makes you retreat into a bubble and drives you to isolate yourself from the rest of the world.  That - and my awful IBS - have led to me becoming increasingly lonely. I can barely leave the house other than to go for a walk, and I hardly talk to anyone. Life is passing me by and I feel like there's no end in sight for this misery. I made a concerted effort to try and put on weight at the end of last year having seen how hard my family have tried to keep me alive. Adding in the extra calories made my stomach pain worse but I have kept going and am now above 7 stone. Even saying that feels scary as the slightest weight gain triggers huge anxiety. Despite this, I was forced into hospital the week before Christmas. The message was blunt: you're being admitted in two days or you're being sectioned.  Scared out of my mind, I got there and was told I co...

I now weigh seven stone. That's probably not even the size of one of Jack Grealish's calves. The Rock probably eats more than that for breakfast. My recent, Baldrick-esque genius plan was to cut down my food so I could cut down my exercise. But being an anorexic, I've merely cut down my food and not altered my exercise routine, meaning my weight is going down faster than ever.  It should be simple to add the extra calories back in, but I'm too scared of putting on weight to do so. Naomi is brilliant - I've told her what's happening but she just praises for me being so honest rather than lambasting me for putting my health at risk and jeopardising the life we want to have together. And let's be realistic, being this weight means my organs are under so much strain. My latest blood tests are saying as much, but still I cannot get out of this cycle.  I want to expand my diet, but my IBS and chronic pain are so bad right now that doing so would cause me even more...

It's over. Anorexia has won. If this was a boxing contest someone would have thrown in the towel by now. In football terms, it's like Manchester City taking on Macclesfield (or Manchester United). I can't take this torment any more. It's ruined my family life and left me absolutely bereft. How my poor wife deals with it I can't begin to imagine. She just smiles and tells me she loves me even though I feel like I've pretty much abandoned her and my daughter by spending so little time with them. I try to eat more, but all I do is end up exercising more and more, to the extent that I end up doing 2-3 hours on the cross trainer and a walk of at least an hour every day, and even then I still feel like I have energy to burn. This is despite collapsing in bed every day from stomach and nerve pain. This is what anorexia does to you. One day I beat it and I feel proud of myself, but it never lasts. As it gets colder my walks might have to stop because I can't cope in...

What will it take for football to become serious about abuse? Does it need someone to take their own life, or is a mental breakdown enough? Nobody wants sport to become sanitised - there's a reason football is so popular around the world and that's largely because of its immense atmosphere, its fanaticism and the sheer joy when a goal is scored or your team wins. It's amazing how transfixed we can become from something which is actually so insignificant. But surely in this day and age, when we know so much more about mental health, there has to be a point where we say "enough is enough". Harry Maguire I can't be the only person troubled seeing the abuse Harry Maguire has been getting. And yes, I know he is rich, talented and famous, but that doesn't make him a human punchbag for idiots who find it funny to abuse someone they've never met. Maguire's crime seems to be both not getting picked for his club side, but getting picked for his country, almo...