lottiebird
Silver Member
Its always so hard to know where to start with these things, isn't it? So for that reason, I will start at the beginning 
I started life as a very hungry baby (according to my mum), and well... nothing ever really changed. I was overweight as a child, and by the time I was 9 I had been to dieticians and slimming clubs, with minimal results. I became a secret eater and started to binge eat regularly. My struggles continued throughout my teens, where I tried a variety of pills, potions, fad diets, the whole caboodle. Lots of misery, and not so many results either.
I got up to 20 stone at 18 years old, at which point my mother offered to pay for me to have weight loss surgery overseas. I went for a gastric band implant, and dropped 9 stone without batting an eyelid. I continued eating whatever I wanted, and the gastric band enabled me to just throw it all up with no effort. I think I was too young, and not truly ready to change. This continued until suddenly I couldn't keep anything down at all, including water. I had to have my gastric band removed as my body had started to reject it, after having it for 10 years.
In my mind, I was at my goal weight, and all I would need to do was maintain it... How naive is that? My weight ballooned and I regained all but 2 stone of the weight I had lost in a very short time. I was eating in secret and binge-eating on thousands of calories, so I don't know what else I expected to happen. My mental health really suffered, and this had a further impact on my eating, and I just got into a really bad, self-destruct cycle. Eventually I had to leave the city I was living in and make a fresh start. so me and my then-boyfriend (now husband) packed up and left.
In January 2012 I joined Slimming World. This went well, and I lost just shy of 3 stone. Then for reasons I can't put my finger on, my binge-eating started to really escalate again. I decided to seek professional help, and was referred to a support group by my GP. I had already done a lot of reading on the topic, and the group leaders really reinforced what I already knew. The downfall was that medicalising my eating in this way gave me a sense of freedom to eat even more. I would think "Some people in the group binge 5 nights a week, so its okay for me to binge 3 nights" or "I have a problem, of course I am going to slip up occasionally". I know how twisted this thinking is, but my desire to binge was so overwhelming I would latch on to any excuse. They also discouraged us from dieting, so I quit slimming world.
In February 2013 I decided to try something new, and tried intermittent fasting. I had fantastic results initially, but my eating on the days I could eat freely got more and more binge-like, and then I was just plateauing. The last 2 weeks I have been totally off the wagon, which is unfortunate as I regain weight very quickly, potentially over a stone in that short time.
I am starting this new diary, because I really do want tomorrow to be a new dawn for me. I have had enough of feeling so low. I'm sick of being out of control and a slave to food. I have had success in the past, and I know I have the ability to reach a healthy weight. Fine, I have blown the last 2 weeks, but I am not giving up, and haven't given up since last January, its just been a bumpy road with lots of detours.
I started life as a very hungry baby (according to my mum), and well... nothing ever really changed. I was overweight as a child, and by the time I was 9 I had been to dieticians and slimming clubs, with minimal results. I became a secret eater and started to binge eat regularly. My struggles continued throughout my teens, where I tried a variety of pills, potions, fad diets, the whole caboodle. Lots of misery, and not so many results either.
I got up to 20 stone at 18 years old, at which point my mother offered to pay for me to have weight loss surgery overseas. I went for a gastric band implant, and dropped 9 stone without batting an eyelid. I continued eating whatever I wanted, and the gastric band enabled me to just throw it all up with no effort. I think I was too young, and not truly ready to change. This continued until suddenly I couldn't keep anything down at all, including water. I had to have my gastric band removed as my body had started to reject it, after having it for 10 years.
In my mind, I was at my goal weight, and all I would need to do was maintain it... How naive is that? My weight ballooned and I regained all but 2 stone of the weight I had lost in a very short time. I was eating in secret and binge-eating on thousands of calories, so I don't know what else I expected to happen. My mental health really suffered, and this had a further impact on my eating, and I just got into a really bad, self-destruct cycle. Eventually I had to leave the city I was living in and make a fresh start. so me and my then-boyfriend (now husband) packed up and left.
In January 2012 I joined Slimming World. This went well, and I lost just shy of 3 stone. Then for reasons I can't put my finger on, my binge-eating started to really escalate again. I decided to seek professional help, and was referred to a support group by my GP. I had already done a lot of reading on the topic, and the group leaders really reinforced what I already knew. The downfall was that medicalising my eating in this way gave me a sense of freedom to eat even more. I would think "Some people in the group binge 5 nights a week, so its okay for me to binge 3 nights" or "I have a problem, of course I am going to slip up occasionally". I know how twisted this thinking is, but my desire to binge was so overwhelming I would latch on to any excuse. They also discouraged us from dieting, so I quit slimming world.
In February 2013 I decided to try something new, and tried intermittent fasting. I had fantastic results initially, but my eating on the days I could eat freely got more and more binge-like, and then I was just plateauing. The last 2 weeks I have been totally off the wagon, which is unfortunate as I regain weight very quickly, potentially over a stone in that short time.
I am starting this new diary, because I really do want tomorrow to be a new dawn for me. I have had enough of feeling so low. I'm sick of being out of control and a slave to food. I have had success in the past, and I know I have the ability to reach a healthy weight. Fine, I have blown the last 2 weeks, but I am not giving up, and haven't given up since last January, its just been a bumpy road with lots of detours.
