By Louise Allingham For Daily Mail Australia
14:12 11 Jun 2023, updated 14:14 11 Jun 2023
- Sharon Hewitt went into perimenopause at 45
- Her weight gain plunged her into a depression
- She has turned her life around after losing 30kg
A mum who struggled with menopause symptoms for 15 years has ‘turned back the clock’ and gained a whole new lease on life after shedding more than 30kg through diet and exercise.
In her mid-40s, Sharon Hewitt went into perimenopause – the stage of roughly five-years leading up to a woman’s last period – and suffered mood swings, poor sleep, aching joints and depression before her weight began to creep up.
The Perth mum tried go clean up her health and drop the kilos herself but would give up and ‘feel like a failure’ after even the smallest setback.
Her yo-yoing weight saw Sharon plunge into a deep depression where she didn’t love herself and felt like she had lost control of her life.
Finally, the 56-year-old reached out to a friend who was seeing results through a little-know diet program and Sharon jumped on board weighing in at 100.8kg.
After seven months of cleaning up her diet and getting out hiking with friends, Sharon is feeling better than she has in decades and alleviated of the menopause symptoms that were stealing her zest for life.
‘The beginning of menopause was the start of a downward spiral in my life,’ Sharon told FEMAIL.
‘Right from the beginning I felt like it didn’t align because it was something that happened to older women and none of my friends were experiencing the same things.’
She was having trouble sleeping, mood swings as well as aching joints – one thing Sharon didn’t know what associated with menopause.
‘It’s like your joints dry out, I don’t really understand the science of it. My hips were really bad, I couldn’t even lay on my side to sleep it was that sore,’ she said.
‘I didn’t have to have done anything for them to be so sore but if you did do any sort of exercise and then sit still for half an hour, you could hardly walk when you got up.’
Sharon was never given an official menopause diagnosis from any of the doctors she was continuing to see but as her menstrual cycles started to slow, she put two and two together.
‘Even when I did go to the doctor and said ‘I think (menopause is) what’s happening’, it was just ‘oh yeah’. They didn’t give me any support around anything to do with balancing hormones or anything like that,’ she said.
‘They would check my bloods but once you look overweight, they’re just looking for diabetic and pre-diabetic symptoms – that’s what I felt like…They never really offered anything other than eat less, exercise more.’
Sharon was in perimenopause, a stage in a woman’s life leading up to menopause, which can last up to 10 years.
Women can experience many of the same symptoms of menopause during perimenopause including hot flushes, mood swings, weight gain and headaches, as well as irregular periods.
‘I never thought that this stage of my life would go on so long. I kept thinking things would get better soon and I would be able to take control of my life again,’ Sharon said.
‘You don’t hear about perimenopause and even when I went to the doctors to ask for support, they never mentioned it.’
On top of her aching joints and troubled sleep was the weight gain which Sharon tried to tackle by going on numerous diets.
‘I would occasionally shift a kilo or two but when it plateaued again, I would give up, feeling like a failure and it led more kilos coming back on ,’ she said.
Worst for all for Sharon was the impact her weight gain had on her self esteem and mental health.
‘The spiral of this impacted my mood, my self-esteem, my confidence, I was avoiding the camera, going out because I just didn’t like the person I was becoming,’ she said.
‘This constant yo-yoing continued to influence my self-esteem and my life until I reached a really dark and low point. I didn’t love myself anymore.’
Repeated trips to the doctor offered no relief so Sharon continued trying to improve her health by herself but failed attempts saw her lose her passion for life and her job.
‘I continued to struggle on my own, trying to lose weight and thinking if I could just control one thing, I would feel better about myself,’ she said.
The mum had reconnected with an old friend, Michelle Farrell, on social media and began to notice she was losing weight with something called the 1:1 Diet, by Cambridge Weight Plan.
‘I saw that she was having wonderful success with the Cambridge diet but still pig-headed me tried to keep going it alone,’ Sharon recalled.
‘I googled what the diet was about, rather than asking for help I thought I’ve got to do this by myself. I saw the program was meal replacements and, to be honest, I just thought it’s another gimmick.’
After Sharon’s confidence took another hit when she couldn’t pass a basic medical test to go scuba diving with her son, she finally decided enough was enough.
She was on a weekend holiday away with Michelle when she ‘built up the courage’ to ask her for help and about the program.
In October last year, Sharon was ‘in the right head space’ to make a change, she, with Michelle as her consultant by her side, set goals, made the commitment to the program and began her transformation.
‘Straight away I could see results – I lost three kilos in the first week and I’ve had a consistent weight loss since then of between 0.5kg and 1.5kg a week,’ she said.
The diet involved meal replacement shakes and a dinner of protein with vegetables or salad.
Exercise started slow for Sharon due to her aching joints but she would go on leisurely walks to get herself moving.
‘I love photography so initially I would walk to take photos, not walk thinking I’m going out to exercise. Those walks just got longer,’ she said.
She started walking more and more until she was doing 5km-6km on weekdays with her dog then 10km-20km on the weekend.
By January, Sharon was a whopping 17kg down and completed the 48km Three Cape track in Tasmania carrying a 15kg backpack.
‘I kept thinking, ‘I’ve got less weight on my back than I’ve taken off’ – that was a huge achievement,’ she said.
The benefits of her increased physical activity and getting out to nature with friends has made a huge difference to Sharon’s mental health and outlook on life, despite hindering her weight loss.
‘I’m really loving my life now, I’m getting out walking everyday which of course my dog loves, then every weekend we try and do a long hike, put in some hills,’ she said.
‘Adding the extra exercise hasn’t accelerated the weight loss, it maybe even slowed it down a bit. That’s when I dropped back to 0.5/0.7kg a week because obviously I’m building muscle but the centimetres keep going down.’
Now, just seven months after reaching out for help, Sharon is 72kg down from 100kg and believes her weight loss has near cured her of the menopause symptoms that were getting her down.
‘That whole outward social life has improved so much but also, I’m loving my job again and I feel so much healthier. I’m sleeping better, my joints don’t ache anymore,’ she said.
‘I feel as thought these changes have reversed some of those menopause symptoms that I was having. I feel like I’ve turned back the clock 25 years.’
Sharon is about 5kg from her goal weight and once she hits it, she will start reintroducing more food back into her diet and phase out the meal replacements.
Her goal is to make sustainable changes to make sure the weight stays off and she can continue living a happy and healthy life.
The mum credits Michelle for guiding her through her health journey and providing invaluable support in moments when she wanted to give up.
‘By having someone to cheer you on and talk you through anything, it’s possible to feel young again and to alleviate those menopause symptoms that are bringing you down,’ she said.
To other women going through perimenopause or menopause, Sharon said to remember ‘you’re not in it alone’.
‘These symptoms and the feelings you’re having are real. They’re not just in your head,’ she said.
‘That was the feel that I got from people that weren’t going through it. It’s a chemical thing that’s going on in your body.’