Express & Star

Keeping up with latest warnings is too difficult

Express & Star columnist Christine Hawthorne with today's Talking Point

Published
Not for me thanks

Do you ever look in the mirror and think ‘who on earth is that’?

As I have got older and my appearance has changed – especially having put on weight through cancer treatment and taking hormones, then losing over eight-and-a-half stone in the past couple of years – my face has changed a lot!

I change my hair style and colour quite a lot too, so you would be forgiven if you walk past without recognising me at times!

I have not, however, ever gone to the extreme of having plastic surgery, botox, microblading or any of the other things available these days. I have never even had my eyebrows re-shaped professionally, false nails or indeed been in a beauty salon for any treatments.

I have nothing against anyone who uses them, it’s just not something I am comfortable with.

Do we or not?

Getting older though does affect us all, the aches and pains which seem to go hand in hand with an ageing body is just one of those things we have to accept and about which we cannot do a great deal.

Yes, it’s good to try and keep as fit as possible, ‘eat a healthy diet’ is what we are forever being told in the media, on TV, in magazines.

The advice on healthy eating, however, keeps changing, so what are we meant to believe? You should not eat eggs. You need to have eggs. Red meat is bad for you. Eat more protein, eat low fat, you need calcium for healthy bones – great, the best excuse to eat cheese! The obesity crisis is getting worse.

My head is spinning!

Stop with the ‘you cannot eat this food’, only to be told a few months later, ‘oh you can eat it after all’.

Who is right?

Which advice should we follow?

Who even knows what they are talking about?

So I have come to the conclusion, in my newly found wisdom of the (slightly) older generation, a little bit of what you fancy does you good.

Each to their own, if you want to get your eyebrows micro bladed so it looks like you have two caterpillars on your forehead that’s up to you.

Each to their own

If you want botox so that your lips look like a fish, fair enough, your choice.

I might even go and get my eyebrows reshaped professionally, but no way is anybody touching my feet to do reflexology!

Don’t get me wrong I have heard really good things about reflexology and how much it helps, I just hate my feet being touched. I have seen some good results with micro blading, it can look good, really natural, but you obviously do need to go to someone who knows how to do it properly as I have also seen quite a few dodgy brows around!

My one firm belief about food is that sugar is poison. It’s addictive, it makes you fat, avoid it at all costs.

Easy to say, not easy to do when that chocolate bar is calling you, but having given up sugar and eaten a lower carb diet, I found myself losing weight after years as a yoyo dieter. What does that tell you?

  • Christine is the voice behind the blog ‘Ramblings of a grandma on a mobility scooter’