My weight loss journal - entry 1

This is so so so hard for me to write.

I'm not even sure how or where to begin but the fact of the matter is , I need to lose weight.

I'm 43 and about 6 or 7 stone overweight, but i wasn't always overweight.

I was a skinny child but for reasons i don't really want to go into on this journal right now, but some traumatic things happened to me which resulted in a long history of disordered eating and thoughts around food, starting at the age of 8 years old.

I began to refuse food and after another traumatic event when i was around 14, a sexual abuse event by my mums long turn boyfriend, the tables turned.

I began to wear layers upon layers of clothes, a few pairs of knickers, tights, leggings, jeans and t shirts and leggings.

In my mind, the more layers of close i wore meant it was less likely he could get them off to hurt me again.

I was wrong, but i finally escaped from that situation when i was 16.

I didn't think about the things that had happened to me, but when i turned 18 something shifted in me.

I began to feel depressed, had nightmares and flash backs of the things that had happened to me.

I was a mess and again my disordered eating reared its ugly head.

I cant say this part was hard for me, in fact it was easy, restricting food and controlling what went into, or didn't go into my mouth was as easy as 1, 2, 3 and I ate very little and anything i did eat had to contain a high level of fibre.

I also abused laxatives at this time and self harmed a little.

Some time during this i began to suffer with dissociation, so i honestly can not remember when or how i started to eat more normally again, but at some point i did and was eating normally through out my first pregnancy when i was 19 years old.

I only gained 9 pounds of weight during this pregnancy and my daughter was born weighing 6 pounds 1 oz.

In my late 20's i began to gain weight and fast, I don't recall over eating or restricting food too much in this time, although i had my moments

i tried to lose weight but failed every time and then when i was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 29, the weight piled on even faster.

I felt the panic rising inside of me, i felt like i was trapped inside of this fat body that i couldn't get out of, I hated myself, and one day whilst out shopping with my friend, someone walked past me as i was happily enjoying a doughnut.

She was a older woman, she looked at me in utter disgust, i will never forget that look, and i will never forget her words.

"you're too fat!" she had said. "You shouldn't be eating cakes!"

it broke me....

I tried so hard to fight against the negative thoughts in my head, I really did, but my disordered eating won and begun to take over again immediately.

I restricted food, binged, abused laxatives and every diet, every diet pill under the sun and this went on for some time but i didn't lose much weight.

I tried to go to the doctor for help and she looked at me and simply told me that there were people in hospital dying of anorexia who cant even get help, there was no help for me, I just needed to eat less and move more.

After a few more months I finally began to win the battle, I had made an agreement with myself.

The agreement was that i would have to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner no matter what, it didn't matter what it was, just whatever i fancied eating at the time.

I had decided to not worry about the calorie content and thought that once my body was used to eating regularly every day i could then begin to evaluate my food choices.

Sadly that didn't happen and i just got fatter and fatter ,

so today I do still have disordered eating thoughts but I am in control and have not restricted or abused laxatives or pills for many years. I do though sometimes skip a meal or too but its never more than one meal.

As i mentioned i am diabetic, I also had gallstones and had my gallbladder out a few years ago and developed fibromyalgia as well

just recently i have been diagnosed with multiple uterine fibroids and im on the waiting list for a hysterectomy.

all these conditions make it really really hard for me to exercise much but The doctor has recommended i try and lose around 4 stones as it would be safer for the surgery.

So here we are...

I need to lose weight but i need to be careful with diets and calorie counting, even though i know that is the best option and probably the safest, i can quite quickly fall back into the pattern of being obsessive and I really do not want that too happen.

There is an app called a pound a week that i used to use which allows you to do weekly calorie counting, It gives you a weekly calorie limit rather than daily, so if i wanted to eat 3000 calories in one day, i could without feeling so guilty.

I am really considering trying this app out again

I guess by writing this post I just wanted to set the intent to lose weight

as like a first step

Before I try this app again though I am going to try a week or 2 of trying to make some small healthier changes and will be posting here weekly or so.

wish me luck lol.