Walking back to happiness

THE first time Teena Gates went to use a treadmill, she could only manage to walk on it for one minute.

“I was seriously obese — my feet flowed out over the edges of my shoes, I was in great physical pain,” she says. “I walked with a stick when no-one was looking. I was too proud — or whatever it was — to actually pull it out and use it when colleagues were around.”

At the time, Teena weighed 23st and had been told she needed to lose weight in order to have an operation to remove her gall bladder.

“I was in a great amount of pain when I started walking on that treadmill. I literally could only hold onto the arms of the treadmill and walk for one minute. I’d keep saying one more step, one more step in front of the other.”

But within the space of a year, Teena was taking one step in front of the other — all the way to Mount Everest Base Camp. She had gone from only being able to walk for one minute to being able to walk for eight hours, day after day. And she’s gone from weighing 23st to now weighing just over 11st (at 5ft, she’s a petite lady).

So when it came to writing her autobiography, the title came straight away.

“When I started writing the book, someone asked if I had a name and I didn’t even have to think about it. I said it has to be, One Foot in Front of the Other. It’s what I used to think when I was out walking on the hills and my legs started screaming. I’d say one foot in front of the other. And when it came to the diet, I never thought that I had 12st to lose or I had to lose 2lbs that week. I was just concentrating on one step, one little bit at a time.”

Teena Gates has a voice and a name that’s recognisable to Dublin people. She’s been a newsreader on radio station 98FM since its inception. She had previously worked for a local newspaper and some of the pirate radio stations.

Showing initiative, she sent off a letter to Denis O’Brien back when he was applying for the licence and she’s been at 98FM ever since.

She’s also now head of news at the station.

But while her voice has been heard by hundreds of thousands of people, few would have known that Teena was battling a weight issue and serious health problems.

She was in chronic pain for 10 years after hurting her back during a horse riding accident.

“My horse bolted and he went one way and I went another and I hit the fence,” she says. “I was very lucky not to break anything but I tore muscles and I did a lot of soft tissue damage.”

Teena was told that the pain she was experiencing was caused by bruising and would go away.

“It didn’t. I kept going back to the doctors and they kept saying it will go away. Then I started putting on weight because I wasn’t exercising anymore. I never thought I was an athlete or anything, but I used to horse ride and swim.

“And it never occurred to me to change my diet — it would have been different with the knowledge I have now. I started putting on weight and pretty quickly, I woke up and realised I had a weight problem. Then I started commiserating with myself and eating even more. I got into the classic trap of eating because you’re feeling miserable about being overweight.

“It made it more difficult to get anywhere with the doctors because they just saw the weight. The fall wasn’t being taken into account anymore.”

Life at 23st was uncomfortable and Teena recalls in the book how she once broke a chair to the great amusement of a group of people standing nearby and how she would worry about fitting into airplane seats.

It was a diagnosis from the doctor that spurred her into losing weight — she was told that her gall bladder needed to come out as it was badly diseased. She had to lose weight if she was to have the operation.

“I think that was the switching point for me — people who’ve lost big weight all seem to say something switched in their mind.

“It gave me a shock when he told me ‘we can’t physically operate on you because you will die under anaesthetic’ and he very eloquently told me that they didn’t have instruments long enough to reach through my fat, if they were going to do keyhole surgery.”

Teena joined WeightWatchers and changed how she thought about food, particularly around portion size. “Some people say to me ‘how did you lose weight and what did you do’ and I say I ate myself thin. I don’t mean to be facetious or smart-assed when I say that, but I actually eat more now than I ate then when I was at my heaviest. I used to eat small amounts of food that were absolutely packed full of fat and carbohydrates — now I eat more fruit and vegetables.”

She started going to the gym and when she was approached about doing a charity walk to Mount Everest Base Camp for the Hope Foundation, she signed up for the challenge.

In the meantime, Teena lost 4st and had her gall bladder operation. She has no medical proof that the two are linked, but Teena says that the chronic pain in her back disappeared after her gall bladder was removed. It gave her a new zest for life and she started training in earnest for the trip to Everest — sometimes heading to walk in the Wicklow Mountains three times a week.

By the time she tackled the Base Camp in 2010, Teena was 16st. She was carrying more kilos than the other members of the team but she managed to keep going and decided to take on another mammoth task — to climb the nearby icy glacier, Island Peak.

“I know it was an incredible thing to happen in one year — ending up being this 46-year-old lass who likes to hang off mountains and go rock climbing,” she says. “My nephew has bought me kayaking lessons so I can’t wait for the weather to warm up to have a bash at that. I can’t believe I’ve come so far in such a short space of time. It’s made me think I can do anything.”

One Foot in Front of the Other is published by Gill & Macmillan (€14.99).