Know yourself

One of the things I most love about losing weight this time around (in comparison to other less successful attempts) is that I'm actually in tune with my body. That sounds horribly pretentious and wanky but bear with me.

When I was gorging myself on food I never had the chance to actually listen to my body. I packed her so full of sugar, fat, stodge and junk that she couldn't tell me what she needed. I would eat until I was so full that it actually hurt. I'd have to lie down because I was in so much pain and felt so bloated. Then, once an hour or so had passed, and the bloated feeling had diminshed slightly, I'd carry on with the crisps, cocktail sausages, biscuits and sweets. Then I'd feel terrible again.

The lowest point of my entire life came in May last year. I'd eaten so much and felt so full and bloated and in pain that I made myself sick. I then cried for about two hours and wondered how the hell I'd ended up like that. I vowed there and then that I'd never do it again. But of course I did. I think, however, that was the first moment that I actually realised what I was doing. It was the first time I ever really considered that I might have some sort of eating disorder. Non-purging bullemia? Who knows. I stopped for a while, I told my partner at the time all about it, all about the eating and the sadness and how out of control I felt. It was the first time I'd ever told anybody. That was the same day that he finally admitted he loved me. We then spent the weekend making life plans and talked about how our future would be. I'd never been so happy.

Then, two weeks later, he left me. Without explanation. Without so much as even a backwards glance. He cut me out of his life. I trusted him enough to tell him about my problems with food (a major major thing for me) and then I was left alone, wondering why I'd ever trusted him at all. So of course I did the only thing I knew how. I ate. I binged. I cried. I blamed myself. I gained 28 pounds.

Looking back and writing it down here is actually incredibly painful. I feel so sad that I let myself get like that. It was a sorry state of affairs.

Anyway, the point of this post was that now, because I'm eating healthily and have left my bingeing days behind me (6 weeks and counting), I know what my body wants. I know when to have green tea or fennel tea (amazing for the digestive system and to combat bloating). I know when I need a glass of water and not food. I know when I'm retaining water. I know when my period is about to start (I'd messed my body up so much with food that I never knew if it was hunger pains, pains from being too full or period pains).

I'm actually letting my body speak for the first time in my life.

How did I get here?

How did I get to be so unhappy with by own body that I could barely stand to look in the mirror?

It's a fairly simple answer really. Heartbreak. And issues of self-loathing that stemmed from having my heart broken.

I've always felt like I've been on the large side. Always carried a few more pounds than I really should have. But I look back at photos of myself as a child and I was skinny! Really skinny! Then the teenage years started and a few pounds crept on that shouldn't have done. But even now, looking back, I looked healthy rather than fat. I wasn't a skinny minnie but I wasn't fat, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Then my first love (or so I thought at the time) dumped me four days before my A-Levels started. I was devastated. 18 and so hurt. But I survived. You always do, don't you?! Then off to University I went. And the real eating began. Takeaway curries, pizzas, chinese most nights. The food in University halls was so horrendous that we just ended up ordering in. And of course there was the booze. Oh, the booze! I lived the student life and enjoyed it far too much, taking every opportunity to eat, drink and be merry.

My second boyfriend broke my heart into pieces when he met someone else and ended it with me. Followed by him and her ringing me up at all hours of the night and calling me awful names down the phone. This was the time that I really started to dislike myself. And the comfort eating began in earnest. I developed an awful habit of going to the supermarket, buying as much junk food as I could eat and then going home and gorging myself. I would eat until my stomach hurt and I could do nothing but lie on my bed. Horrific but true.

Fast forward a few years to now (missing out a fairly major break up in the middle). Or May last year to be precise. I was with C. Love of my life. The man I thought I'd marry. We'd had our ups and downs over the 18 months that we'd been together and my binging habits were still ongoing. I went through phases where I wouldn't do it for months but then I'd have an argument with C and I'd be right back in the pits of junk food hell. It didn't help that I knew he hated my weight. He'd make the odd comment here or there. Occasionally, in the middle of an argument, he'd call me fat or make some other snide remark. A few months into our relationship I was on his computer and I found a log of an old msn conversation he'd had with a friend, a couple of weeks after he'd met me. In it he said I 'wasn't the best looking girl'.

It cut like a knife.

I look back now and that was the moment I really started to hate the way I looked. But, me being me, instead of doing something about it, I sunk lower into my binging hell and pretended I hadn't seen it. But you can't pretend you've not seen something like that. Those words lodged into my brain and ate away at me. They made me think I wasn't good enough for him. They made me think that he was right. That I was fat and unattractive. Why on earth would he fancy me! And because those words ate away and eroded all my confidence, I destroyed our relationship.

I constantly questioned him as to how much he fancied me and whether or not I looked fat in this skirt or that dress. I stopped trusting him (with some good reasons it has to be said, but that's a story for another time) and became obsessed with the fact that he would leave me.

Guess what?

He did.

Twice.

So here I am. Eight months after the last break up and finally doing something about the weight that I've hated for so long. The feelings of self loathing after the break up were so strong that I managed to put on almost two stone. 28 pounds of pure self hatred. It's funny though, in the last few weeks I've suddenly found myself happier than I've been in years. I don't hate myself now. I see who I am and I'm learning to love her.

And you know what? He was a fool to let me go.

BK, no way

Tonight is my first weigh in.

I'm actually feeling quietly confident. I've been good as gold the last few days and I'm currently tucking into raspberries, strawberries and grapes. I think I'm going to have my dinner after the meeting too, for maximum effect. I'll try not to do what my friend does after every Slimming World meeting as she goes to KFC/the chippy/Pizza Hut as a reward.

Food has always been a reward for me. I've always used it to celebrate something if something great has come my way or console myself it something bad has happened ("I've had such a rubbish day, I deserve that pizza AND those crisps AND that chocolate bar"). That's the main thing that I'm trying to change this time round. I'm an emotional eater and I think tackling the reasons behind my eating will enable me to finally lose the weight I've always wanted to.

Example? I had a really bad day on Sunday. I drove my parents to Liverpool for them to spend the night in a fancy hotel (for my beloved pop's birthday). My ex lives in Liverpool and I had to drive past the end of the road he used to live down. The road that contains the house that contains 18 months worth of ridiculously happy memories. Memories that I can't let go of. After I dropped my parents off I started to cry. I had a lump in my throat and a knot in my stomach. I cried all the way down the motorway, resolving to go to Burger King to make myself feel better. But when I got to the turn off I needed I drove past. I drove home. And I had a lean steak with peas and two slices of Weight Watchers bread. And no alcohol.

I think that's the first time I've actually denied myself junk food in a situation like that.

I'm really quite proud of myself. Small steps and all that.