I always thought I'd write my story for all to see, I just pictured it a little differently. There I'd be with a cheesy triumphant smile on my face standing in the single leg of a pair of size 30 jeans telling the world how I got there.
As stories go I fear it's just all too familiar: Young girl, slightly overweight and with low-esteem issues sees herself as a blimp when really she's only a tinsy bit paunchy - a hindsight perspective on all those photos would have been real good back then - years of obsessing and yo-yo-dieting go by until she finds herself in her late 20s as an actual blimp: a 159 kilo, 25 stone, 350lb blimp. Now that the figures matched the perception it's reinforced and set in stone and there's nothing to be done than just to accept that she is in fact a sow's ear and was never destined to be a silk purse, there's no ugly-duckling happy ever after ending for this girl.
Even though I believed it to be my lot in life I'd still dream of an alternative. I always wanted to lose weight, I never liked being huge, never once denied being unhappy about it. I'd had a number of false starts over the years, lost anything between 2 and 6 stone on a number of occasions, 6 stone was twice even (please forgive me jumping all over the place from imperial to metric). Then in just this last couple of years, now mid 30s, I did it. I really did it. I lost so much weight that getting to goal started to come in to focus as a potential reality not just a dream.
Goal was set at a realistic level of 69 kilos taking me just into a healthy BMI for my height. I ate healthily, worked my shrinking butt off at the gym, the weight started to shift and I was truly happy. I cannot count the number of tiny little everyday things that gave me joy - I loved it when someone sat next to me on the train; I relished the gap between the top of my lap and the airplane food tray; shopping became a whole new religion, giving away fat-clothes was a high so good it should have cost money and my greatest nemesis, the dreaded photograph, became my strongest ally. I LOVED my photos, I even loved my fat photos they were great to shock new friends with. But then 65 kilos down and only 15 to go my old food demons must have realised they were losing their grip and had a bit of a regroup.
It all just got too hard.
Within a very short time food was back to being a daily battle, I could no longer recognise hunger from a binge-urge, I doubt I'm ever empty enough to be hungry if I'm honest. I'd gone back to a daily routine of binging and purging, my weight was no longer shifting, my regular visits to the gym continued but my body was struggling and I was exhausted. Months later now and I'm still exhausted, I'm barely going to the gym and my constant binging overshadows any efforts to purge - to the tune of 16 kilos so far. I can't tell you just how much I want to lose weight and yet on a daily basis I'm shovelling more and more food into mouth and I want to stop.
Now here's the point where I lose most of you, only to those who've been where I am can this make any kind of sense. In fact it'll never really make sense it's just familiar. Why would you do to yourself something that hurts, something that is the direct opposite of what you truly desire especially when what you desired was in sight?
So here I am, day by day, hour by hour I want to conquer this. I'm here telling my story, not triumphantly from the end, but in order to help me get there. This blog will be my conscience.
So far today I haven't binged - that's an amazing start!
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