D r BETH de Sousa is sitting at the wooden kitchen table at her home next to a farm in the East Devon countryside. She is smiley and slim, wearing a bright pink top and baubly necklace, her hair long and glossy, the picture of health.
The GP, who works part-time at Honiton Surgery, practises what she preaches to her patients. She hardly drinks alcohol, exercises regularly, eats healthily and says she has never felt better.
Dr Beth, 41, really believes anyone can dredge up the motivation to quit smoking, give up alcohol and take up exercise. Now she has written a guide – The Health Compass – advising others how to turn good intentions into action.
“I really do believe making healthy lifestyle changes can make a dramatic difference to all sorts of medical conditions,” she says. “It protects you against diabetes, strokes, high blood pressure, arthritis, back pain and depression.”
Her guide makes the point that lifestyle changes are interlinked; if you do more exercise you will feel less like eating rubbish and drinking too much alcohol. Likewise if you eat healthily and exercise you will find it easier to lose weight than doing just one or the other.
While Beth is hard-pressed to come up with examples of when she has been tempted off her healthy living path, she does have a go, wisely deducing that this is more motivational for readers than appearing too perfect.
She confides that she was once “a glass of wine a day girl”.
“Every night after I’d put the children to bed I’d go to the fridge and I would pour myself a glass of wine,” she says. “That was my regular habit. Then I decided one year that I would see if I could have alcohol-free days, and I was really shocked. I lasted three weeks and was climbing the walls.
“It was a real surprise and education to me to see that such a small amount of alcohol could have such a psychological pull.”
That said, she did then manage to give up wine completely for three months later that year.
“When I came back to it I didn’t like the taste of it and I got a headache,” she says. “I don’t drink wine at all now, I have an occasional beer.”
Practically giving up alcohol has, she says, given her much more energy.
“I used to be exhausted by 9.30pm but now I still feel awake at 11pm,” she says.
But what does she do if she has a really, really bad day? Is she ever tempted to reach for a bottle, or a large bar of chocolate?
“I have a hot bath or take my dog for a walk,” she says, laughing. “It is about using other things.”
Obesity is something that is becoming more of a problem across all age groups and Beth, like other GPs, says she sees her fair share of overweight children in her surgery.
The answer, she admits, is not straightforward and parents, schools and doctors all need to play a part.
She also thinks that curbs are needed on advertising chocolate bars and the placing of snack machines in gyms.
She acknowledges that there is a psychological element to weight problems, which can be hard to extricate yourself from. She describes her own struggles as a teenager with her “yo-yo weight” – but it’s hard to believe looking at her slim figure.
“My mum was really into healthy eating but I had a fantastically sweet tooth as a teenager and used to crave chocolate and swing between putting on lots of weight and going on really strict diets,” she says.
“I went on like that for years and years until I met my husband. He’s from Kenya and the Kenyan women are very curvaceous, and he said ‘this is ridiculous, all these diets. I like a woman with curves’.
“For the first time I ate a diet I was happy with, I actually lost weight and I wasn’t thinking all the time about food. It was about eating regular, sensible meals and I wasn’t snacking.”
She can’t stress the importance of exercise in keeping the spirits up and the body healthy.
Beth runs with her children, 11-year-old daughter Ashe and son Fynn, nine, at the Sidmouth Running Club on Saturday mornings. She confesses to having to push herself to do it, but knows it is worth it for the endorphin high that comes afterwards. Her advice to even the most unfit person is to stick with it, even if you puff and pant at first.
“Sometimes you have to work at liking something because if you are very unfit when you first start it takes a while to build up that endorphin high,” she says.
It was like that for her when she took up cycling again, a sport she once loved. At first she struggled but now she can’t stop.
“It took me a couple of months to build up what I was doing to start to enjoy it,” she says. “I think sometimes you have to take that leap of faith that once you get to a certain level you will start to benefit.”
Succeeding in making changes to your lifestyle, she says, comes down to taking things slowly and gradually, in manageable steps. She cites her husband Nigel, also a GP, as someone who has found a way to put big plans into practice by adopting the one step at a time approach.
It was he who suggested she hide the chocolates in advance of my visit; she points to several boxes stacked on top of a cupboard.
“I said ‘no’,” she says. “That isn’t the message I’m giving at all!”
So, a little of what you fancy does do you good. Sound advice, I think we’d all agree.
The Health Compass will be launched at Waterstone’s at Roman Gate in Exeter on Friday at 6.30pm. Dr Beth de Sousa will be joined by Olympic medallist Mary King. Tickets cost pounds3, which is deductable from the pounds17.99 cost of the book (also available from www.healthcompass.co.uk). Dr Beth will also be sharing advice on healthy living in a new monthly column in the Western Morning News. Read her first article in on Tuesday.
(c) 2008 Western Morning News, The Plymouth (UK). Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.
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