When I was big I always believed that if I could just lose some weight and get slim then I would be happy. I used to stand in the bedroom crying thinking why can't I be strong enough to just stick to a diet for a few months and then everything will be perfect.
I had a great life, great job, family, cars, money and therefore all I needed to do was shed the fat suit and then I could jump over mountains and live happily ever after.
I used to daydream about being slim and how amazing it would be, I never thought if my only problem was that I was overweight and would be super happy otherwise then WHY did I get big in the first place?
But the reality was that food was actually never the problem, in fact it was the solution to all my other problems! I used to eat for the emotional benefit it gave me, I used to celebrate and commiserate with food.
When I used to go to a slimming club if I lost any weight I would go to the fish & chip shop on the way home to celebrate, but if I put weight on I used to be upset so to cheer up would go to the fish & chip shop on the way home...either way I was always at the fish shop and usually standing in the queue chatting to other people from the slimming club as it was just round the corner.
I used food to cheer me up, numb me, comfort me, relax me, excite me, and had food linked with anger, stress, tiredness, joy and hundreds of other emotions and situations where food had become distorted to being part of my life.
So when I got to goal I was ok for a while! I managed to eat reasonable amounts of food and keep my weight steady but I could feel the urges to overeat coming back, over the summer, because I was getting so many people saying how well I had done, I was living on compliments (mainly because I didn't believe it myself), but then within six months of getting to goal my world started to crumble, people got used to be me being slim and therefore the compliments dried up.
I had quit smoking six years earlier, I had stopped drinking because of the calories in it and had stopped putting money on credit cards and gambling as well. Therefore food was my last weapon of choice and suddenly that was taken away as well and, boy, was I in trouble...
My perception, 'when I get slim I will be happy' was based upon the fact that everything in the past and the present was perfect, but that was flawed.
So the solution for me? Apart from having a breakdown and putting yourself back together again?
The solution for me was to 'be at peace' with my past and start living in the present and being excited about the future.
The key to being happy being who you really are is not on the nutritional labelling of a pack of breakfast cereal, it is in your thoughts and perceptions about yourself and the world around you.
So I never actually managed to jump over mountains but back in 2009 I climbed to the top of Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and hopped so technically I jumped on top of a mountain!
