Half way!

I am now half way to my goal, I have lost 56lb! I can see it on my stomach and on my back. I have started to take selfies every other day so that hopefully I’ll be able to see it in my face. Maybe when I’m finished I’ll put them online. Or maybe not.

Right now, everyone at work is talking about the diet they are on, it is boring me to tears. I want to bang my head against the table and beg them to stop. If someone is trying a new diet out, I am interested, I am keen to hear about that. But to have people talk about the same things, the same diet, the same foods, the same boring blah blah over and over is doing my nut in.

I had my fourth session with a personal trainer today.

I’ve been wanting to try strength training for a while as I am embarrassingly weak. Because I’m big, people always think I’m strong, but I am not. I struggle with more than two 2l bottles and when my boyfriend and I first moved in together and we were putting our sofa in, I thought I was going to die from the pain of having to lift half of it.

My boyfriend saw a personal trainer who was advertising two free trial sessions, so signed himself up. It was only after he’d been that I asked if I could go too. I was too shy to go by myself and I don’t drive, so the PT (Martin) agreed that my boyfriend could tag along with me, so he actually ended up getting four free sessions jammy git!

Martin is super sweet. He’s the same age as me and the same height. He does a few cringy things like shouting ‘nice work!’ and ‘much better!’ and even got me to high five him at one point, but I like him a lot. He talks about random things and he has a Slipknot tattoo on his leg. I think he thinks I’m really moody and not into it as I don’t have the same boundless enthusiasm my boyfriend does and complain quite a lot and pull faces, but if I wasn’t into it, I wouldn’t try at all.

After the first session, I couldn’t walk. My legs were like jelly and I couldn’t even make it up the stairs. The next day the DOMS kicked in and I was walking around like John Wayne I was in so much pain. Well not pain exactly, but walking, sitting, breathing, wasn’t comfortable. But somehow, it was really funny and my boyfriend and I laughed our heads off every time I had to climb the step into our flat and my knees would go. I’m sure the neighbours thought we’d gone doolally.

I didn’t have DOMS the second time. I actually cried over it because I really felt like I didn’t work hard enough. I don’t think I’ll have DOMS tomorrow either as I don’t feel worn out and weak like I did after than first session. I liked having DOMS. As I said to my boyfriend, it is like a badge of honour, like proof that you have been pushing your body, proof that you’ve been working hard to better yourself. The last time I had DOMS I was 14 and it was after a PE session at school, it was aerobics or something. I hated it. I was embarrassed that I wasn’t as fit as everyone else. This time around, it felt like proof of what I had done.

Half way… Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and I think yeah, I’ve lost shit loads of weight. And other times I catch sight of myself and just think, urgh, I’m still so fat and still have so far to go. But half way is definitely something to be proud of.

Back to some sort of normality

So I finally weighed myself. I’ve lost a few pounds. Phew. I’m now actually up to 50lb total loss! I really can’t believe I’m nearly half way, half way to being a normal size! I still don’t feel like it shows. My boyfriend came to pick me up after the wedding and somehow being apart for two days and then seeing him, made me realise how much weight he has lost. He looks so different. But I can’t see it on me. Now the wedding has been and gone, I don’t feel so obsessive. What I’m doing is working so I’m going to carry on until I’m skinny. Or skinnIER at least.

I found out yesterday that my brother-in-law is suffering from really severe depression. I knew he had quit his job because he wasn’t coping, but I didn’t know he was so unwell. I feel like crap that I haven’t been there for my sister. I don’t know how to be there, if I’m honest. She’s extremely insular, her whole life she has only relied on herself. And she’s doing that now, she’s managing the situation, but I don’t know how long she can go on. She has five kids, she has a job, she has to do everything while her husband is ill and can’t be there for her. I only realised just how depressed my brother-in-law was when my sister said she was feeling really happy because he cut the grass and that showed progress, but she was concerned it might have physically and emotionally exhausted him and he wouldn’t be able to get out of bed for the rest of the week. I had no idea it was that bad. I don’t know what I can say or do to try and help. She is a very, very devout evangelical Christian and I guess that is getting her through this… She believes that her husband will find God and that will cure his depression. I don’t think that’s fair on her husband or herself. Or even her God, I sort of feel like she’s setting him (her? it?!) up for failure.

I religiously wash, tone and moisturise my face, but I’ve never really put much effort into looking after the skin on the rest of my body. But I’m trying to now, especially as it is hot and I’ve got my legs out all the time. I’ve been googling it a lot, I found a thing on reddit where the best routine for shaving is – exfoliate, baby oil, shaving cream, shave, alcohol, after shave balm, deodorant. Seems like a hell of a lot of effort, but I am going to give it a go! I am also keen to get rid of the tiny bumps that a lot of women seem to get on their upper arms. What are they? How do you get rid of them? I think I’ll put off my work for the day to investigate. That’s probably the best thing about my job, the things that can’t wait don’t take long and the things that can wait can wait pretty much forever. Or until October when we’re having an internal audit…

 

The Wedding

I’m too scared to weigh myself since the wedding. I went way over my carb allowance and I drank. I’m going to leave it two weeks. Or maybe one. It is hard to go cold turkey when you are used to weighing yourself every day.

I went to the wedding with my friend Amy and I know this sounds odd, but I realised she was thin. We’ve always mocked people that obsess over food, their diet and exercise – what you put in your body for fuel is boring. It is like constantly talking about what petrol you put in your car. I’ve obviously noticed that she is slimmer than me, but I didn’t realise by how much. I’ve never thought of her as super lean, but the label on her dress told me she was a size eight (UK size – size 4 US or 36 EUR). I don’t know why it shocked me so much, but I always thought she was like a 12, maybe even a 14 on the bottom. But no. She is an eight. And this was confirmed in the photographs of us together, she looked so slim and half my size. She’s also four inches shorter than me so I can’t even imagine what she weighs. It didn’t make me feel great about myself and made me wonder how I got like this.

I wish I’d tried to tackle my weight before, rather than weighting until I was morbidly obese. With my weight loss, I am now just down to ‘obese’ with my BMI. That’s some milestone eh?!

I really hope I’ve not put any weight on.

44lb down (hopefully) 68lb to go!

 

Obsession

I am going to a wedding over the weekend. I have been extremely stressed and worried about what I will eat. I have looked several times at the menu in the hotel I am staying in and managed to find a suitable meal. But I have no idea what will be served at the wedding, what if I can’t eat anything? I am also stressing about alcohol. I’ve not touched a drop since I started the diet (I’d only have a beer bimonthly anyway, so it wasn’t a big sacrifice) and I know there are low carb alcoholic drinks, but from what I understand, your body burns alcohol before it burns fat, so that will hinder my weight loss if I drink. ALSO… my period was due, so I’ve been taking a pill that delays it. What are a few of the side affects? Water retention and weight gain! AND… I can’t go swimming this week either, as my boyfriend is working and he drives us there. So… All in all, I am worried that this weekend will be a massive delay in my weight loss progress.

One of the other girls at work decided to start doing Atkins too. She asked loads of questions and seemed motivated and took it really seriously. I tried to support her and would suggest things she could try, like olive oil cake and celeriac dauphinoise, and lent her my Atkins recipe book. She asked me if she could eat sausages, and I said “Yes, some of them. Check the label before you eat them,”. She said “Check the label for what? Sugar?” I was like “Err no… carbs…”.

She was really enthusiastic but was always starting tomorrow. But when ‘tomorrow’ came she’d have a pizza for lunch, or would accept sweets and cakes from other people, or would have a sandwich as a snack. I haven’t said anything. But I would be lying if I said I didn’t judge her. Do any diet you like, but you have to actually follow it. You can’t say you want to do Atkins and then eat a pizza! I told my boyfriend about her complete lack of effort and we’d laugh about it. She didn’t get it. She didn’t understand carbs. She wasn’t a low carb pro like us.

Then I realised… I have become obsessed. I have always said that my weight is the least interesting and least important thing about me. But somehow, weight loss has taken over my brain. At least once a day (probably more like once an hour…) I think about it. I obsess over food. I feel panicked if I accidentally eat carbs. I nearly ate a grape at my parents’ house and my Dad watched in horror as I told myself off and put it in the bin. A grape. A fucking grape. I wouldn’t eat a tiny grape because I have become obsessed with avoiding carbs, even minuscule amounts.

One of my colleagues is a vegan. This in itself is inoffensive. But I absolutely hate the way she talks about it. She acts like she is superior for being a vegan, like it makes her a better person. I have seen her look down on people when they’ve eaten meat in front of her. Like actually, cocking her head back and looking down her nose at them with disgust. I hate this about her. However… I have found it really hard watching other people eat carbs. I’ll put it down to me being jealous rather than looking down on people… Right??

Obsessing over food is pretty boring. I find it boring. But I’m still stupidly worried about the weekend and don’t want nearly four months of dieting to be for nothing. This diet it working at the moment and I don’t want it to stop working. I can’t even convince myself that I’m overreacting. I might abstain from alcohol. You can make it through a wedding sober right???

44lb down,  68lb to go!

Noticeable Weight Loss

Yesterday, I had a sad, strange day.

I decided to wear my favourite smart dress to work for the first time, the one that I can fit into again. As I left the house, I felt great. I felt really pretty and happy. I felt like my hard work was worth it. I sauntered into work early and just felt generally quite good about myself.

But then, my boss came in, after being off on holiday for two weeks. Within the first ten minutes, he started talking about another girl in the office who is also on a diet and made a massive deal over how much weight she has lost. He kept on calling her skinny and asking her how she’d done it. He kept on and on and on about it and I know I shouldn’t care what my boss thinks of my figure, but I was… jealous? I don’t know, I just felt really shit about myself, I felt shit that he didn’t notice how much weight I’ve lost, how well I’ve done. I’ve lost more than her, am I such a fat mess that it just doesn’t show at all?

Last week I saw my parents for the first time since starting the diet. My mum knew I had been losing weight and I had told her how much I lost. She didn’t comment when she first saw me, but as I was leaving, she said ‘You know, you can see the weight loss actually,’.

…Actually. As in, it doesn’t really show, but if you really look, maybe your back doesn’t look quite so fat, actually. A long time ago, I stopped worrying about what my mum thought about my weight. Ever since I was young, I can remember her being on diets, her wanting me to go diets with her, her telling me how she went to the gym and that I would be proud of her. I remember her telling me that I should lose weight, that she was worried about me. I remember her calling me a greedy pig for eating a whole can of tuna and mayonnaise. I remember her calling me a greedy pig for eating some bread before dinner. I remember her calling me a greedy pig when I ate two bags of crisps on the trot. I remember her calling me a greedy pig many times.

Mum has always had an issue with my weight.When I was really young, maybe about six, my friends came round  on a hot summer’s day and we were outside in the garden. As it was the 90s, they were all wearing crop tops and shorts. So I wore a (borrowed) crop top and shorts. My mum told me to change, that my stomach was on show and it wasn’t nice. That’s the first time I remember her commenting on my weight, making me feel like I was different from the other girls in my class. She would always tell me to suck in my stomach, that when I did I looked so much better, that my posture improved. She told me that when she was pregnant with my oldest sister, no-one knew she was pregnant because she had such a neat bump from sucking in her stomach.

Just before I went to university, I was probably at my thinnest. Still fat by other people’s standards, but slim for me. My dad used to give me money for the train to school every week, but I would keep that money and just hop on the train and then my friend and I would use it to buy lunch. It was hardly anything, so it didn’t go far, we’d usually just eat a few squares of economy chocolate and an apple each. Then over the summer, I got a job which involved a lot of walking in the evenings. I would have sandwiches for lunch and a pint of something (usually Guinness) for dinner and that was all I had. I lost weight without trying. I was happy with myself, I felt good and I was getting attention from boys. But I remember being in the car with my mum and her saying to me “Let’s go on a diet together,” for the millionth time. Usually, I would just blow her off and not really respond to save my ego – I’d learnt that if I did respond about how I did or didn’t want to go on a diet, she would see it as an invite to go on about my weight. But that time, with a short denim skirt and tanned legs, I felt like I should. I should say I felt confident in myself for once and that I didn’t want to try and lose weight. That I was ok with my current size. So I did. I told her no. That I was happy in myself, happy with my weight and that I did not want to go on a diet. I told her that she hurt my feelings when she kept going on about my weight when I didn’t see it as an issue. I remember her going quiet. I remember her starting to say something. I remember her stopping herself and then finally managing to say that she wished she could feel the same about her body.

I realised that my mother’s opinion of my weight didn’t matter. I shouldn’t give a fuck about what she thought about me. She was projecting her own insecurities onto me. She was saying all the things to me that she felt about herself. She was probably saying all the things that her mum used to say to her. Looking back, I am fairly certain of that. My nan wasn’t the kindest woman in the world. She would always mention when my mum put on weight and when I went through a phase of wearing very baggy clothing when I was about 13, she kept on saying ‘Hasn’t she got fat’. When I really, really wasn’t.

I thought that mum might have learned from that incident, but soon she was back to talking about my weight, commenting on it, mentioning when I gained loads of weight due to an absolutely hideous relationship I was in. When I finally ended that relationship and moved back home and felt thoroughly shit about myself, within 24 hours she sat me down and made me feel even worse, saying that her and dad were worried I was going to get diabetes, that they wanted me to lose weight.When I started dating my current boyfriend, she kept on having a go at me that we’d always go out for dinner, that I’d put on more weight. We were dating damn it!

I didn’t want to tell her that I was going on a diet. I didn’t want to tell anyone. But my boyfriend is loose lipped and he told her and my sister. Every time I’ve spoken to her, she’s asked how it’s going. The other week she asked how long we’d been doing it, a couple of weeks now? I told her no, it was nearly four months. She couldn’t believe it. I don’t think she could believe I’d stuck to it. And then she couldn’t believe it when I told her how much I’d lost.

So for her to say that she could notice the weight loss ‘actually’, despite it clearly being a hard task as I’m covered in vile rolls of fat, made me feel like shit.

And then when my boss didn’t notice anything on me but did on someone else it made me feel pretty bad too. Like I can lose three stone and wear a pretty dress but it doesn’t matter because I still look as bad as always.

I’m making out like my mum is a bad mum, she’s not. In most ways, she is the most amazing mum. She has a really kind, serving heart and in literally every other area of my life she is super supportive. But I really, really wish that she didn’t talk about my weight. If I have a daughter, I will never ever mention her weight or even her appearance at all, other than to tell her that she’s beautiful. I have three nieces and when I see them I want to play with their hair and give them makeovers and gently mention that maybe those flared green cords don’t look great with that baggy pink top. But I won’t. It doesn’t matter what I think. It doesn’t matter how they look. It matters that they’re happy and content.

Likewise, it doesn’t matter how I look. It doesn’t matter if my weightloss doesn’t show yet. It matters that I’m happy and content. So that’s what I’m working on today.

Say Yes to the Dress

About a year ago, I realised I could no longer fit into my favourite work dress. It was fairly tight fitting to begin with, but as I went to put it on one morning, I realised I couldn’t do the zip up at all.

I was pretty disappointed in myself and it was the first time I realised that I had actually put on a significant amount of weight, I don’t think you really notice it until something like that happens. I took the dress off and put in back on the hanger and it stayed there until last month.

Last month, I was meeting up with a group of old friends and wanted to look smart, so I tried that dress on,  I’d lost a good amount of weight and thought it might fit again. The zip did up but it was still a little tight, however I wore it anyway, feeling proud of myself.

Yesterday, I tried the dress on again. The zip did up with no effort and it was even a little loose, it fitted better than when I’d first worn it! That felt absolutely amazing.

I’m going to a wedding in a couple of weeks and bought a dress for it last month. I actually bought two dresses, pre-empting my weight loss, in two different sizes. When I first tried them on, the smaller sized one was a struggle to get on but the bigger one fit perfectly. I tried them on again last night and the small one now fits and the bigger size is too big! However I love the dress too much not to wear it, so I’ve bought a belt to make it fit a little better.

Weight is a strange thing, you don’t really notice yourself gaining it and you don’t really notice losing it either. But my decreasing dress size shows that I am losing weight even if it is hard to see on my body.

I have become a bit obsessed with saving for a house and interior design. I have been so strict with food I think I can be so strict with money as well… right?! I do really love to buy things, especially things for the home. I’ve set a target of two years and started an interior design course, ready for June 2018 when my boyfriend and I finally move into our own home! I am confident that I will have more than achieved my goal by then and maybe even a bit more.

I had a bit of health scare this week, so I’ve lost a few pounds with stress, but I doubt I’ll keep them off. However, right now, I’m nearly down three stone. 39lb down, 73lb to go!

35lb in 3 months

Three months ago, I started a diet.

I don’t know what I expected. I don’t think I took it that seriously as I have never been on a diet before that lasted more than a week. I’ve not lost loads of weight, but my clothes fit a bit better and I can even fit into a few things that I’d got too fat for and couldn’t wear anymore. I’m on the right path and I really hope that by this time next year I will have met my target and maybe I might even keep on going…? No probably not.

Since I have started this journey, I have changed my goal twice. At first, I thought five stone would do. I’d still be obese according to my BMI but I’d be way healthier. Then I figured that I could lose an extra stone and make it six. Now I am going for eight. If I can do this for three months I can do this for a year or eighteen months or whatever. I can do this. I can lose weight. I will never be skinny (not that I’d particularly want to be) but I can be lighter and healthier. I can lose 112lb! I only have 77lb to go!

I am still horrific at exercise. I have never enjoyed it and probably won’t ever enjoy it, but I don’t mind swimming and my boyfriend and I happily spent a couple of hours in the swimming pool last week. He is way fitter than I am, as he proved. I only managed one length without putting my feet down halfway; he never had to put his feet down… apart from the times when I was messing about and grabbed his legs.

Seeing the weight loss on the scales has been weird. My boyfriend and I have both found it puzzling and wondered if the scales were broken as it is hard to see the weight loss on our bodies. But I see it on him, and I guess I do see a bit of it on myself. I have four sizes of clothes – some are still too tight, some are now too lose, so it hard to know if I have dropped a dress size or not but I’m going to go with yes! I want to be able to go into any high street store confident that they do my size. I’m not that far away from it and I hope that by the time my future brother in law gets married in December I am at or am verging on that goal.

I think my boyfriend and I have managed to stick to a low carb diet at there are strict rules and once you know them, it’s easy to follow. When we tried low calorie diets, we’d find ourselves pushing the limits and we never lost a lb. We’d starve ourselves and then have one massive 1800 meal, we’d eat out all the time, order a takeaway, only going over our daily allowance by a couple of hundred so it didn’t matter… right? I don’t think it’s a surprise that we never lost any weight that way and that was when we were trying. Normally, it would not be unusual to have two takeaways a week and we had a deep fat fryer, which although it made fantastic chips, was way overused and definitely aided being overweight. So that’s why low calorie didn’t work, we weren’t disciplined enough to manage our calories, it is just too easy to go over or forget that there are calories in tea and coffee and that biscuit you had at 11am. Every now and again, I’d get a bee in my bonnet about eating healthily (not necessarily about losing weight) and we’d have loads of fruit and veg and brown rice and what not. However, we’d find ourselves super hungry and end up binging or resorting to that take away when we couldn’t be bothered to cook. And here’s the thing, on low calorie diets or low fat diets or whatever, you can eat whatever you want, you just have to worry about portion control and it turns out that is stupidly hard when you are used to having massive portions.

My boyfriend and I have made it worse for each other trying to lose weight – he didn’t enjoy eating healthily and I didn’t enjoy him not enjoying what I cooked. We’d both want a takeaway and wouldn’t have the will to tell the other no.  So, on a whim, I decided we should do Atkins. I figured he’d be happy eating meat and we could learn to live without chips right?

The first week was made hard only by the fact that we both suffered badly with Atkins flu. But at the end of the first week when we’d both lost weight, we decided to keep going. The second week was easier and now it is super easy. We are not allowed carbs. That is it. No ifs, no buts, no have a cake but then make up for it with exercise. We couldn’t limit ourselves with calories because there was too much room to push the boundaries and it was too easy to not actually make any changes. But with a low carb diet, there is one rule and you have to stick to it or it doesn’t work. So we stick to it and it does work. My boyfriend has lost four and half stone and now weighs less than me! We are losing weight while eating cheese, full fat mayonnaise, chicken skin and other delicious things that don’t usually go hand in hand with a diet.

So three months in and 2.5 stone lighter. I think that is pretty good going and I hope in another three months I can put my total weight loss at at least four stone and by this time next year, I really hope I’ll have reached my goal and am eight stone lighter… Only 5 and half to go!

Fad Diets

I watched Clean Eating’s Dirty Secrets last week. What I took from it, was that clean eating is basically a fad diet without much scientific backing. This is probably true, however I think that the program missed something quite major – fad diets, whatever their form, can help you lose weight.

The program focused on girls who clean eat who were definitely not overweight. If you don’t have weight to lose, then clean eating can seem unnecessarily restrictive and the program made out like it was one step away from being anorexic. I don’t think that is what clean eating is actually about.

Sure, removing food groups from your diet is not ideal. I think most people would agree that ‘everything in moderation’ is a reasonable attitude to take to food.

However, when you are overweight, you need to change your eating habits. If you can lose weight with clean eating, so be it. If you can lose weight by cutting out fat, then so be it. If you can lose weight by hopping up and down your hallway for 30mins a day then so be it. If you need to lose weight, you need to lose weight. Short of starving yourself or only living off a cube of cheese a day, any diet that helps you lose weight is beneficial. And I really think the program totally ignored that.

I know that people lose weight on fad diets and then put it back on. I don’t think that is the diet’s fault. That’s like saying that if you go to the gym and then stop and get out of shape that it is the gym’s fault. No chance. Going to the gym is a continuous thing. Eating better is a continuous thing.

Would I consider clean eating? Almost certainly no. But that doesn’t mean that it is bad or doesn’t help people lose weight. Which as someone on a diet, I can only agree is a good thing.

On a side note, I have now lost about two stone – 28lb. So only 72lb to go!

Reasons for losing weight

I have been watching weight loss transformation videos on YouTube. I am so inspired by these wonderful people and enjoy seeing their success. However, I have noticed that quite a few share a horrible reason for wanting to lose weight: what other people think. People say they were bullied or  had negative reactions from other people because of their size. Gorgeous teenagers who said that the popular girls picked on them and called them fat. An adult mother who wanted to lose weight because she overheard another mum calling her ‘the fat mum’. A man who heard some girls giggling and pointing at him on the bus because he was so large.

Is what other people think that a good reason to lose weight?

I have never really been bullied. I had a few bad years as an early teen, but I probably wouldn’t say that went as far as bullying. And it definitely had nothing to do with my size.

I am always surprised when people say that they were bullied for being overweight. I know there is a stigma in society attached to ‘fat’ people but seriously… what someone else does with their body is absolutely none of your business unless it directly affects you.  If someone is punching you, tell them not to, fight back, whatever. They are using their body to harm you. In any other circumstance, what someone else does with their body is nothing to do with you. Now, I’m sure someone may be like ‘Well, fat people are a drain on the NHS and that affects me’ – well you know what, so is EVERYONE. Babies are mostly born in hospitals, that requires extra staff and uses resources. Really fit people who have a sports related injury – again, using resources. Anyone at all may be struck down by an illness related to their lifestyle or otherwise. I know more people that have had to have knee operations than gastric bypass surgery. But maybe that says more about the type of people I associate with rather than it being a true reflection of society!

Also, when you are dangerously underweight and suffer from an eating disorder, the NHS provides support. You go into hospital. You visit a shrink. You are put you on a strict eating regime. When you are addicted to drugs, the NHS can put you through rehab. When you are addicted to food, what help is there? It is largely left down to YOU to sort out the problem – sure you get 12 weeks free Slimming World or they prescribe you Adios tablets, but you still need to change your eating habits, something you might not know how to do. There is nowhere near the same support for overweight people as there is for underweight or those suffering from other addictions. Why not? Why is it just down to you alone to lose weight when you could be under the same emotional turmoil as someone with anorexia? You are overweight for a reason, you don’t just wake up one day fat. Imagine if you were anorexic and when you went to the doctor they just told you to go to an anorexia group once a week where they would weigh you and provide an eating plan. Sure, it might work for some people, but I’m guessing it wouldn’t work for most. So what about people that are very overweight and have a food addiction? They (we) need nearly the same amount of support, but where is it? There is an emphasis in society that we are responsible for our own health – but I would argue we are not.If there was nowhere to buy unhealthy food, how could we eat it? If there was free access to gyms or swimming pools, surely more people would use them? I know I can’t really afford to pay £45 a month to go to the gym and I’m on a reasonable income. I know virtually nothing about nutrition, yet I am expected to understand what to eat to be healthy. The diet I am on is steep learning curve for me, one that I would still be ignorant of if I hadn’t made an active decision to lose weight.

So when someone comments on your weight, which I strongly argue is NOT your fault, then they are way out of line.

Regardless, although I have seen and heard about fat shaming, I don’t think it is a massive problem and that everyone hates fat people. I have never been bullied for my weight. I can count on one hand the number of occasions people have made detrimental remarks about my weight. If you think people are judging you for being fat, that says more about your psyche rather than your weight. Or maybe that’s just because I am fat and in denial. I think that being self confident is way more important than your dress size.

I was in a really bad relationship in my early twenties and I felt awful about myself. He made me feel like I was fat and horrible and said that no-one else would ever want me. I always used to think, ‘if only I could lose weight, then I could leave him and get another boyfriend’ – but I never did. Because he destroyed my self esteem, he made me feel worthless, because he made me feel like I couldn’t do it.

Outside of that relationship (which ended after I moved 500 miles away finally found the courage to tell him it was over!) I felt so much better about myself. I was still overweight but I found that didn’t matter. I found that I was happy and when I was happy I was more attractive. And that attracted a wonderful, wonderful man who loves me for me and is supporting me on my weight loss journey.

A friend of mine lost of lot of weight and said that one of the reasons was because she wanted to be one of those girls that boys fancied, rather than just being the fat friend, or gatekeeper or DUFF (hate that film) or WHATEVER you call that girl that has hot friends and no boyfriend. But it made me think, would you really want to date someone that was only interested in you when you were thin? Would you want to be with someone that thought you were horrible and fat before and was now only interested because you dropped a few dress sizes? And likewise, if you were bullied because of your weight, do you want to be friends with the people that did it? Or do you just want them to stop? Because bullies don’t bully for set reasons. They might pick on you because of your weight, they might pick on you because of your hair, they might bully you because you love to read fantasy novels or because you wear clothes they don’t like. Why change everything about yourself just to stop someone else noticing you?

There is a very slim girl at my work and last week she was reduced to tears because these two awful women kept on going on about how skinny she was. You are always going to be too fat, too thin, too ugly, too high maintenance or too whatever for some someone. Don’t give a damn about them. Give a damn about YOU.

Who am I losing weight for? Definitely me. Am I doing it to get a boyfriend? Nope, got one. Am I doing it to stop negative remarks from other people? Nope, they are not worth it and its not something I regularly experience.

So why am I doing it? Why do I want to leave the fat girl club?

To fit in that wedding dress of course.