That was until about 4 years ago.
I was working away in London on a long shoot. The catering wasn't great, we were working ridiculously long 15-16 hour days, 6 days a week, and I barely ate or drank. I lost weight. Then I started a new relationship and my appetite just vanished. I lost more weight. I was down to about 60kg, and even though I knew that it was achieved by bad means, I was happy with it.
Then things got back to normal, I settled into my relationship and started to put the weight back on. It was ok, as I knew if it got too high I could easily get myself back down to my normal range. But this time it wasn't so easy. My weight kept climbing.
I'd eat healthily and my weight would go up.
I'd eat rubbish and my weight would go up.
I'd exercise an hour a day and my weight would go up.
I'd do nothing and my weight would go up.
I'd be really poorly with a tummy bug, throwing up for days and not eating a thing, and still, my weight would go up.
I'm not talking about quickly here, I'm talking about over the course of months, but a steady weight gain that I could no longer control. It was terrifying for me.
I've never been massive. I'm quite tall, so I've always been able to hide any small gains with my height. But this time, my clothes were no longer fitting. I was started to get disgusted with the size of my stomach and thighs. I've never understood how someone can compare themselves to an apple or a pear until I stood I front of the mirror wearing a slimming costume and literally saw a pear in front of me.
I was wearing shape wear on a daily basis. Shaping tights, shaping pants, sometimes both. People didn't understand why I was freaking out, but they didn't realise to the extent I was hiding it. It didn't seem a big deal to them, I'm sure it doesn't to you either, but it was literally an ever growing problem for me.
I tried Slimfast. I tried 5:2. I tried the Forever Living C9. I went gluten free for a month. I contemplated becoming a fruitarian and tried mono-dieting. I've never been a drinker, and I've been caffeine free for about 3 years. I don't eat meat or fish having being vegetarian for about 15 years. Bar an occasional indulgence of takeaway pizza, I have always eaten prettily healthily. I started to research weight loss ideas on pro ana websites. All I lost was money and time and I was starting to scare myself.
I went to the doctors and had tests to check my thyroid and for diabetes. I was actually disappointed when the results came back clear because it would have been an answer, an explanation of what was happening. I even went to my gynaecologist to find out whether it had anything to do with my PCOS. She told me in no uncertain terms that I just needed to get control of my weight, without any advice as to how.
So when I reached the category of overweight, and by far the heaviest I have ever been by about 10kg, I decided to pull out the big guns. I convinced my best friend Rachel to join Slimming World and I really haven't looked back since. Sure, it's been hard, and at the start I was really starting to worry about my mental health. But now I can honestly say it's just part of life.
This is week 12 and I'm going to get my stone award at weigh in on wednesday. A stone!! It's not dropped off, but to see even a small change in the scales has been such a relief to me, because it's been consistent.
I've read up on metabolic damage, and can't help but think maybe that's what happened to me. It's why I started this story on my weight loss, because I honestly think that's where everything started to go wrong. I know it's a controversial topic, but regardless, something wasn't right and now Slimming World is helping me get my body back on track.
No comments:
Post a Comment