FastDay User Blogs

All my life I have struggled with my weight. I am the daughter of a feeder, and my mother is the daughter of a feeder and my grandmother is the daughter of a feeder (sense a pattern?). I was always a chubby child, I think I weighed a stone for every year of my life as a child. I was always told by my mother "It's just puppy fat, you'll lose it as a teenager"....But that never happened. In fact, it only got worse into my teens. I became the subject of bullying and abuse, and it plummeted my self-esteem even further.

As I embarked on adulthood, I made a remarkable discovery! The internet! As an overweight girl, with low self-esteem, no confidence and painfully shy, found this way of making friends the most amazing thing ever! But of course, sitting in front of a computer from the moment you wake up, to the moment you go to bed, only getting up to get more food or to pee made my weight problem even worse. I think at my heaviest I must have hit close to 25 stone!!

By now I am morbidly obese, and every mention of a diet to my mother is frowned upon and I'm told "You're fine, you don't need to lose any weight." I know its unhealthy, why couldn't she see it? Any attempt to diet is quickly stopped or hindered because of my lack of willpower and the complete inability to deal with confrontation.

A few years ago, I met my best friend ever (via the internet) and she has also struggled with weight for her life. She and her partner talked to me about this new diet they were going to start on, the Paleo diet. It sounded quite similar to Atkins but I decided to give it ago. I was afraid of scales so I never actually know if I lost any weight during this time but I feel like I did, this was encouraging for me and it gave me a sense of empowerment that I could control my eating over my mother.

The final straw came last year. I went to the doctor to ask to go on birth control. He told me I was too overweight for the 'pill' and I was a risk of clotting. He also took my blood pressure and my blood pressure was high. He then told me he wanted to hook me up to a 24hr monitor and I guess I just freaked out...I'm 30 years old, I shouldn't have to deal with this! I took a stand, no more! At this point, I weighed 20 stone 7lbs. I decided something HAD to change. I started to try Zumba (my sister, who is also overweight) has lost a ton of weight just by doing that (might I just point out here, my mother has nothing to say about my sister wanting to lose weight.....) but my two left feet had other ideas about this. So then I started to power walk every night. But due to back problems this just made it worse. So I did the only thing I knew how, controlling my food intake.

A year on, I have lost 3.5 stone (It was 4 but I put on a stone over the summer being away and eating rubbish) but I find it so hard some days to stay on track, and then I become really hard on myself for slipping off my diet slightly. Enter the 5:2 way of life...I think with the way I have lived so far in my life I have done some significant damage to my body, but I'm still young enough to hopefully repair this damage. And to boot, shift some of this weight.

I have yet to mention this new life style to my mother (I still live at home ) and I'm sure this will not be an easy battle to win but I am determined to give this my best shot. It might take some time to get the hang of this, but once I have all the kinks sorted out, I'm hoping this will be the best decision I have ever made in my life so far.


Thank you for allowing me to unload some baggage. I hope this is the beginning of a wonderful, healing journey.

In love and peace