My story begins much like any other.
I had a love/hate relationship with food. I love/d the social aspect of food but I also became addicted to using food as my stress reliever, and my ‘reward’ at the end of a hard day of work. I didn’t see food as fuel, I saw it as a treat and something I deserved. This led me to obviously put on weight, and the more weight I seemed to gain, the more I couldn’t stop eating. It was the part of food that I hated. I was addicted to the sugar highs and the carb overloads. I just didn’t know how to stop!
Truthfully I don’t remember how I went from being 70kgs to 109kgs – I was too scared to face the truth so I avoided the scales. My before photo was taken January 2018. I remember how disgusted I was when I saw how it turned out. It was a very surreal feeling, I completely disconnected with the person I saw in the photo – surely this wasn’t really me?
The weight gain had an enormous impact on my life. I was so ashamed of what I looked like. Before the gain, clothes shopping was a joy and I saw it as a form of art and expression, but in the end, my favourite stores didn’t stock my size. I stopped wanting to go out in public and avoided social events. I was physically and emotionally exhausted and sad. My health was also suffering as I was told that I had developed a fatty liver which can lead to other more severe illnesses.
In the beginning, I used Cambridge because if I couldn’t trust myself in the process, I could at least put my trust in someone (something) that did. In return, the 1:1 Diet taught me how to trust myself again, and has made me strong physically and mentally. Not only that, my doctor came to see me after a recent operation to tell me that my liver has now improved almost 100% & I have added 10 years to my life! I cried, bittersweet tears – my weight literally could have killed me!
Now, I wake up every day feeling proud and accomplished. Every day I take steps towards treating my body with the respect it deserves, and that ripples down and positively affects EVERYTHING I do and my overall attitude towards ‘really living’.”