This Morning star Josie Gibson recently underwent a procedure to address a hidden health condition she has been battling since childhood, which would leave her legs swollen and cause her difficulty standing. The presenter, who has been open about everything from her mental health struggles to her weight loss journey over the years, revealed that she underwent a calf liposuction after being diagnosed with lipoedema.
According to the NHS, lipodema is an “abnormal build-up of fat” in the legs and sometimes arms that can be painful and affects women more commonly, leaving the bottom, thighs, lower legs and arms looking out of proportion to the rest of the body. During an appearance on This Morning in January, Josie shared she underwent surgery for the condition, which is “getting worse”, in September after struggling with symptoms at work.
The presenter recalled struggling with her legs feeling “so heavy” and having to prop herself up on the side when filming Taste Of The West Country.
She said she’d go out for a whole day of filming and when she got home her legs “would swell up and they would go really big and heavy, and they can become quite sore”, and she would “bruise like a peach”.
“The last thing I’d want to do is put myself through surgery, but it was my last resort,” she explained, revealing that the £7,000 surgery helped with the appearance of her ankles.
Finding out her diagnosis
Josie opened up about how her diagnosis came about in the interview, recalling seeing comments on social media describing her figure as a “typical lipoedema body”. “I always knew something wasn’t right with my body, but I didn’t know what lipoedema was at all,” she admitted.
“Thinking about it now, when I was at primary school and they make you sit cross-legged, whenever I’d get up as a kid I couldn’t walk for five or ten minutes after,” she said at another point in the chat. “Back then, you just got on with it and they would give me a chair to sit on so that I could walk after – but it’s genetic, so I’ve had this since I was a kid.”
She had seen experts who explained her body holds fat differently and told her: “You could train seven days a week, you don’t get rid of lipoedema fat like that.”
“I have a small waist and it’s like my legs don’t really belong to my body. It’s like they belong on another body. You get like these big legs, and then as I’m getting older, obviously, it’s getting worse because it gets worse as you get older. I can see it all in my arms now as well,” she said, adding she’s “going down the surgery route now.”
Health journey
In the wake of her diagnosis, the presenter said in a candid social media post that she had been working out more often. Josie posted a motivational video of herself at the gym, which she captioned: “Hope this inspires someone out there…not that I think I’m an inspiration…I’m just one of those who is constantly fighting my genetics.”
The star said that after her diagnosis, “the fight is real as my body retains fat unlike a normal body should.”
Amid her public health journey, the star has tried a rather unconventional diet. On her Channel 5 lifestyle documentary, The 1970s Diet: Could It Work for You?, Josie tested food trends from the 1970s, including eating smaller portions and foods like boiled potatoes that can help reduce modern-day obesity.
“A ‘1970s diet’ is interesting,” Monty Simmons, a London-based personal trainer with more than 12 years of experience in fitness, told HELLO!. “At its core, it’s smaller portions and simpler foods like boiled potatoes, liver, pork, beans, and less sugar. That’s a positive message, because most of us would benefit from eating less processed food.”
Read the full article here
