My Weight Loss Story

I never had any issues with food growing up. I was a very skinny child and I remember my Aunt being reduced to tears one day when she came with my mum to pick me up out of school. I skipped off in front with my skirt and little ankle socks on and my Aunt sobbed because of how thin my legs were. It isn’t because I didn’t eat, I was just a naturally skinny child, just as mini JAG is now.

The first time I remember having issues with food was when I was in secondary school. I was around the age of 14 and bought a magazine (the name of which I don’t even remember) which had a free “diet” book with it. It had glamorous pics of Cindy Crawford and Claudia Schiffer in and I decided I wanted to look like they did. I was still slim but going through puberty so my breasts had started growing and my curves started to develop. Unfortunately, my teens happened to coincide with the “waif” trend thanks to models such as Kate Moss so girls of my age all wanted to be skinny. Of course, this turned into a competition amongs the girls at my school and we all wanted to be the skinniest. This was also around the time I noticed some stretch marks on my inner thighs and I remember sobbing and wondering why I had got them. I managed to convince myself it was because I was getting fat and needed to do something about it.

So, I started on a diet and began exercising. I used to do exercise videos in my bedroom and my favourites were Kathy Smith, Cher and Cindy Crawford. It wasn’t long before I was noticing a difference. However, it wasn’t enough.

I have suffered with self esteem problems since I was about the age of 5, which was the very first time I self harmed. I was full of self loathing for myself and whilst I have now come to terms with that, back then it was a very dark time for me. I used to look in the mirror and hate what I saw. I would punish myself by scratching myself with unfolded paperclips or banging my head hard off the wall. Due to this self loathing, my simple diet managed to turn into a full blown eating disorder where I starved myself to a dangerously low weight and resulted in my having to see a psychologist for a long time. I started off skipping breakfast, making sure I was too late to sit down to breakfast in the morning so that my mum would force a piece of toast on me as I was leaving the house. This of course would be deposited down the nearest drain.

Not long after, I also started skipping my lunch. That wasn’t a problem as my mum used to make me sandwiches so I would just not eat them. The thing was though, I felt so bad about throwing my sandwiches away that I would take them back home and hide them in my drawer underneath all my clothes where nobody could find them.

My mum started noticing that I had lost weight and got a little worried but I told her I was fine. She always saw me eating my dinner though I wouldn’t eat anything other than plain white fish with brown rice. I think she just assumed it was a phase I was going through that would pass.

During all this, I was still exercising for at least an hour every day in my bedroom.

I remember one day being starving hungry and eating some junk food and then trying to make myself sick in the bathroom. Nothing I did would help and I just couldn’t make that food come back up. That was the extent of my purging – it never happened which I am now glad about because if it had worked, I don’t doubt that my issues with food would have been ten times worse than they were.

It all came to a head one day when my sister was looking for a top of mine that I said she could wear and she rummaged through my drawers to find it. Of course, she stumbled upon my secret drawer that probably had 3 months worth of mouldy sandwiches rotting away in plastic bags. Horrified, she called my mum up to the bedroom and showed her.

When I got home my mum confronted me about it and of course, I tried to brush it off. I lied and said my friend who got free school meals shared her cooked meal with me but because I had lost so much weight, my mum refused to believe me and booked me in to see the GP. He referred me onto the psychologist and I saw her for about 2-3 years on and off though in all honesty, she never really helped me.

My unhealthy habits didn’t improve a great deal. I started eating more food but instead used exercise to control my weight. At the age of 17 I joined my first gym and got addicted to exercising. I would eat a tiny breakfast of muesli, a crappy weight watchers ready meal for lunch and then not eat anything else until around 10pm when I got back from the gym, and every night it was a battered sausage and a bag of chips from the chip shop – not exactly a healthy diet.

I would finish work at 5.00pm, get the bus back into my home town and get to the gym for my first class of the night which was at 6pm. 2 night a week I did 3 classes, back to back and 2 nights a week I did 2 classes separated by an hour of weight training.

Pretty soon, the overtraining started to tell on me and I was constantly exhausted. It was around this time I started to experiment with ephedrine that I bought, ironically enough, from a guy who was in the police force who used to train with me at the gym. I told him how shattered I was and he said he took energy pills to get him through all his exercise. I bought some off him and couldn’t believe the difference it made! I could exercise for 3 hours straight and still be ready for more. I remember offering one to a girl who used to one of the classes with me who worked as a nurse. She looked at the bottle and shook her head and told me I was crazy for taking them. “You do know it’s the medical equivalent of speed don’t you?” I didn’t, but her telling me I could drop dead of a heart attack any time soon didn’t stop me from being stupid and taking them.

My mum found the pills in my gym bag one day when she was getting my kit out to wash. She took them to the local pharmacy and asked what they were and they disposed of them. I remember the bollocking she gave me and I never bothered with them again. I did however, realise I couldn’t exercise the same amount as I used to as I had got so reliant on the pills.

My food issues were put on hold when I was 18 and fell pregnant with my son. I ate normally, indulged when I wanted to and didn’t feel guilty. When he was born I remember only being 10lb heavier than before I got pregnant. Most women would be overjoyed at that but to me, I was a big failure.

Unfortunately, my son’s father had left me when I was 30 weeks pregnant so the despair I was feeling at being a 19 year old single mother on benefits meant I sought comfort in food. This started off a binge eating disorder that I carried with me until just 8 months ago.

I clearly remember how some mornings, I would take my son to school and then stop off at the local shop on the way home and buy 6 or 7 packets of crisps, 3 or 4 chocolate bars, a packet of cakes, a packet of chocolate biscuits and a 4 pint bottle of milk and I would take it all home and sit and eat the lot. Then I would feel so disgusted with myself that I wouldn’t eat for a day or 2 as punishment. These binges only occurred once or twice a month but the rest of the time was either spent eating general crap or starting yet another “diet”.

Since I had my boy who is now 12 years old, I have lost and re-gained weight 4 times, the 4th time being recently. Every other time, I have re-gained the weight plus more. I remember the first time I lost weight, my starting weight was 12 stone 3lb. I was horrified at how heavy I was and vowed never to let myself get to that size again. The problem is, every time in the past when I lost weight, I didn’t do it properly hence the weight coming back with added lbs. The heaviest I have ever been was earlier this year when I tipped the scales at 14 stones and 2lb.

I am finally a weight I am comfortable with and am happy in my own skin. I really believe I have finally defeated those food demons. I managed to overcome my self esteem problems a few years ago and it was the hardest thing I have ever done. I still have my moments, which normally occur when I get anxious. However, I have taught myself ways to cope with this so it doesn’t really spiral out of control like it used to.

I remember not long ago on weight loss resources, I posted a tiny bit about my past eating problems and I had a private message from a woman who said she always assumed I was a skinny young thing who enjoyed preaching to fat people and apologised for being judgemental. I told her that this couldn’t be further from the truth but it does make me wonder how many others have thought this about me.

Hopefully, this blog post will go some way to showing those people that I haven’t always been this happy or confident with myself, but also that they too can learn to become healthy and happy in their own skin.