How I Ran It Off
Previously inactive and overweight, Dr Jo Sacks took up running and is now leading by example
Dr Jo Sacks lost four stone and dropped eight dress sizes!
THEN
I used to go to the gym but didn’t do much there and I was eating a huge amount. It would be pizza on a Friday night, Chinese on a Sunday and meals out every week. I was also consuming a lot of ‘empty’ calories in the form of wine.
We’d go to the supermarket and buy food but throw it away at the end of the week because it had gone off. Even though I’m a GP and know all the problems that [an unhealthy] lifestyle can bring, you don’t necessarily apply the knowledge to yourself. I weighed 95kg [14st 13lb] and was a size 20. My BMI was 32. My husband and I both had body blindness – we were in denial.
THE TURNAROUND
In 2011 I woke up. I broke my right shoulder and ankle in a skiing accident; I was in a wheelchair for six weeks. There was lots of rehab, which would have been easier if I’d been fitter. I put on more weight and a switch flicked in my head. We cut out loads of the unhealthy stuff in our diets and I thought I’d have a go at running. I started on a treadmill but a neighbour helped me to run outside and I loved it.
I worked up to a 10K over the first year. It took forever to complete but I did another one faster not long afterwards, and in 2013 I took on the Great Eastern Half Marathon.
I hated running as a child and used to get my mum to write me notes to get me out of cross-country, but as an adult it has snowballed: since 2015 I’ve run the New York Marathon twice, as well as two other marathons, 12 half marathons and two ultras, one of them 54 miles long.
Looking health-promotion back, I wonder advice. how It was I gave hypocritical to have sat there, a size 20, telling people they needed to lose weight for their health. Patients saw me lose weight and they would ask how I was doing it. I think it motivated a lot of them to make changes.
THE FUTURE
I’ve lost 25kg [3st 13lb], dropped to dress size 12, reduced my bra size from 38F to 32DD and found a love for running and the wider running community.
I’ve made so many friends through running. I want to continue feeling good physically, shopping anywhere and feeling good about myself.
I’m going to carry on running three days a week (when I can get over a foot injury) and have my eye on the Midnight Sun Marathon, in Norway. If someone had said to me in 2012,
when I ran my first 10K, that I would go on to run an ultra, I would have laughed. Now I can’t imagine my life without running.