Things it took you far to long to work out (or admit)

[Slowontheup]

I'm so annoyed with myself for drinking so much (socially and more or less within normal UK limits but still far too much)

it made me bloated and fat. I used to deny this could possibly be the case and went to every exercise class going plus starved myself. It was the booze.

specifically and most irritating - it made my arms fat. I considered going to Brazil for expensive and risky arm surgery ffs. My arms are thin now and I'm in my 40s

i must have spent a bloody fortune. Also did many risky and undignified things in my 20s and lost many many items in taxis (more expense incurred)

maybe it's part of growing up but wish I'd limited it to 2 years instead of best part of 20!

what did you do that you wish you'd cottoned on to a bit blinking sooner?!

'Falling in love' is a bad way to choose a partner, a house or a car.

Okay, @LyingWitchInTheWardrobe — I need to know more about this particular point…

• Never buy a house in your lunch break out of temper

I actually did. It was a bad house. I sold it again for what I paid for it just desperate to ditch it. I had a house with my husband but it was being endlessly renovated and there was a cement mixer in the kitchen which just never stopped.

Start to finish of the transaction though was about a month - I offered full asking price (insanity) and went off to get the mortgage started - all in that lunch time. I wasn't in a good place. It snowballed from there.

I'm back in the original house now. Cement mixer has long gone.

If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Or if you want to sound nobby posh, in Latin, qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent. "He that lieth down with dogs shall rise up with fleas"

P.s it's fine to snuggle up with real dogs though as they are ace!

God bless you! No additives. That would be right. You are like my dh, naive to the point of incapacity - "but darling, it is written here 'no additives'/organic cotton/responsibly sourced, etc." to which I invariably reply that in my great-grandmother's passport it was written 'British', yet she was more German than the Windsors and born in Berlin.

The traditional diet that my entire family ate for centuries is so good that Tim Spector and Chris Van Tulleken are making millions telling people to eat it.

I missed a trick not being a diet influencer.

My best friend taught me that if you show an interest in others, they will like you. Wish I'd known that as a gobshite undergrad, I might have had a better social life.

Took me 25 years to figure out I'm a classic introvert totally unsuited to large corporate work places.

That most people love to talk about themselves so if you're genuinely curious you can talk to anyone. And you'll both have a good time!

That normal human emotions (fear, sadness, worry, stress) don't need to be medicated.

I got seriously pissed off when someone said I had health anxiety because my c section scar was bleeding! It's not normal and I was right to be worried. I've seen a few HCPs who've said nothing is wrong, so I think it was an ingrown hair that was causing the problem, because it seems to have sorted itself out.

@PoltergeistsStartLowKey
Thank you so much! I have fibromyalgia and control it best with low carb/ low sugar. I'm recently under investigation for Polymyalgia Rheumatica, but also I have made changes to my diet. I have cut out decaf coffee in favour of re, and changed to almond milk as it has no carbs... Both of these are high Oxalate and my PMR is definitely worse! (I had no idea about Oxalates).
So I will be changing things. Again, thank you so much!

That you should never befriend a conspiracy theorist. Their ideas are not just completely irrational but deeply pernicious and wildly anti-Semitic. And they are OBSESSED with these ideas.

Oh my God, there is so much truth in this. Especially with regard to partners. Actually, I want to change my answer to this. This is what I wish I had known earlier.

1. It’s perfectly possible to lead a successful and fulfilled life without knowing your times-tables.
2. Not only are they not blood relatives, none of them is even called Doobie.
3. Most people who say they ‘like dogs more than they like people’ are less likeable than most dogs.

You are so right! And also, HCPs talk such shite - 'it is normal for babies to have frequent colds and infections' - no, it it not, if you look after them properly and don't take them, scantily clothed, to browse the frozen or chilled sections for hours on end when they freeze, surrounded by coughing and sneezing individuals. Or, your tummy has been hurting for past so many years because you are anxious or suchlike. Aye, right.

This is absolutely not true. I have gone through the menopause and at 56, all my bits are still very much exactly where they have always been!

Sounds stressful! Glad to hear the cement mixer has long gone (and, presumably, renovations all finished)…

OOof. Almond milk is the mother and father of all oxalate riddled foods so you are getting it!.

If you go onto the FB page Trying Low Oxalate (I think) they have an adjunct FB page with a very very comprehensive and accurate list of the content of foods.

I was you. It's very confusing. Once you get it though, the difference is night and day. The dumping is utter and complete misery but this is your body heaving a sigh of relief as it starts to heal.

I was poisoning myself with so many things I thought was good for me. I cannot even smell tea now. I miss the citrus fruit and the berries etc. I sprout my own low ox beans and peas and the nutrition profile is off the scale so I'm doing OK. I eat meat heavy, low oxalate paleo basically. I've lost weight, my nails and hair are growing like crazy and my skin is amazing now. I have full use of all my joints. Even my plantar fasciitis has buggered off.

Oh my goodness I could have written this. Yes childhood enmeshment and parentification did a number on me as well.

That it’s ok to say no sometimes

That self care can be as important as caring for others

Better to make your own bread I would say. You know what is going into then.

A few years ago I realised an old friend has been sexually abused. He called himself her boyfriend and she was so proud of having a proper boyfriend long before the rest of us. She told us what he did with her and I'm sad to say we were all jealous. At the time I was 13 and she was 14.

I feel so stupid now but things weren't mentioned back then.

Justice doesn't always prevail.

The world is deeply misogynistic. Being well-educated and relatively wealthy won't protect you, especially in a breakup scenario.

If you have children, it is basically impossible to have an organised and disciplined life and a fulltime job.

She isn't saying that at all, her point is that some advice would have been helpful, so pointing out pros and cons, you know like a caring and interested parent.

Along the same lines as you - that having breakfast, lunch and dinner isn't the right eating pattern for everyone and that what is now called intermittent fasting and which used to be called "not having breakfast" is a good way of eating for many.