When I was overweight I tried EVERYTHING to be skinny:
- Countless diets - the 5:2, eating only apples, fasting after 12 o'clock, the list goes on and on
- Every single 'fat' club you could imagine all complete with the hideous weekly weigh-ins
- Slimming pills bought off the internet when the internet was only just coming to fruition and was even less regulated than it is now. I didn't have a period for over a year as a result of taking these tablets so Christ knows what was in them and they didn't make me thin anyway but I carried on
- Exercising manically several times a week
- Taking water retention tablets then going on a drinking binge and becoming increasingly dehydrated
- Avoiding meals out in case I ate something 'bad'
My life was pretty dire and all in a quest to be skinny.
The damage I must have done to my poor body doesn't bear thinking about but still I carried on.
Of course, none of these things got rid of the overwhelming thoughts I had about food.
It was uncontrollable. I'd come home from work and gorge myself silly then lay in bed bloated and ashamed for hours afterwards.
And then I'd go back onto the hideous diets, starving myself and feeling miserable.
And all in a quest to be skinny.
To have the perfect body and then I'd be happy, right?
So, I battled on with the seesaw that was my life - binge eating one minute then restricting my food the next.
I knew that this wasn't a life I wanted. I just wanted to be thin but I just could not stop thinking about food, it took over my life. No matter what I did or tried I couldn't control my eating.
And then I had an idea.
I knew that as a Type 1 diabetic if I restricted my insulin and ran my blood sugars high then I could easily lose half a stone in a couple of days.
Genius!
I didn't care about the side effects - the uncontrollable thirst, constantly getting thrush, increased infections and not being able to recover, the possibility of losing my eyesight and/or having limbs amputated.
None of that registered.
I could be thin!!!
And so I got thin. And sick. Over and over again.
And was I happy? Of course not. I still had the overwhelming thoughts of hating myself, I still couldn't control my eating, I still thought I was a complete and utter disgrace.
But society saw me as thin. I was at least winning at one thing.
And then I woke up one morning unable to see out of my left eye.
I didn't go to the hospital for a day or so because work was more important. Pleasing others was more important.
When I finally did go to the hospital it was all too late.
The retina had detached due to consistently high blood sugars and stress and not a lot could be done. The doctors tried their best. I had several operations and hundreds upon hundreds of lasers applied to the eye but nothing worked.
It was awful. I had to learn a new way of living including relearning my spatial awareness. Being in the dark with only one 'okay' eye (that too had had lots of unsuccessful laser surgery) became scary. Life as I knew it changed dramatically.
At this point you might think that everything clicked into place. That this was the wake up call I needed but sadly, no.
This life-changing event still couldn't control the overwhelming thoughts I had about food. Or about myself.
And so I carried on abusing my body for years and years afterwards, desperate to be thin and desperately not caring about ME.
You see unless you start to change how you THINK about yourself no amount of scary shit is going to stop those thoughts coming at ya.
The emotional eating will continue and you'll just feel worse and worse - mentally AND physically.
And it WILL get worse.
You can't diet-out the thoughts.
No diet will get you the results you want and you'll just get more and more miserable and your poor body will suffer more and more too.
But YOU have the power to change things. YOU can change your thoughts.
YOU can have a healthy relationship with YOU and stop the overwhelming thoughts about food.
When I started the work on myself that's when the magic happened.
No more starving myself, no more dangerous 'quick-fix' weight loss regimes, no more living in misery.
And I'm a healthy weight too!
You CAN be slim and happy and healthy but it all starts with your thoughts not those ridiculous diets.