My journey with myfitnesspal

I have spent my whole adult life going thin, fat, thin, fat. I have tried every diet going with varying degrees of success. What I have found to be true for me is that there is no miracle diet which will make you slim for life. It's all about the individuals drive and determination and state of mind. My problems have revolved around my state of mind. At an early age I was messed up by an abusive father and suffered shyness and very low self esteem. Despite appearing to be a happy smiley child, inside I was a wreck. I grew up learning ways to disguise this and my weight fluctuated accordingly. Looking back, I can see I had a distorted image of myself and was never really fat. At 4ft 11" I was one of the smaller girls in my year group and was obsessed with not gaining weight. I probably weighed about 7 stone in my teens, not big at all, but recall starving for days at a time, only eating nibbles of apple or drinking water. Sometimes I would pass out but the high I got from knowing I didn't have an ounce of fat on me could not be beaten by any form of food. Going into my 20's the trend continued. Sometimes I was a size 8 (UK) sometimes a size 12 all in the space of a couple of months, that was how fast I could put on or lose weight.
Then came the children following my marriage to my childhood sweet heart. Four children very close together. Between the age of 21 and 26 I had popped all four out and my body paid the price plus by now there had been a major breakdown in my relationship with my parents and a court case loomed where I was to be a witness against my father in a civil action brought by social services. Between my second and third child I kept my weight at about 9stone give or take half a stone. After my fourth child I gained a lot, lost all my confidence and really kept within the parental circle of friends with children of a similar age to mine, mostly wearing baggy t-shirts and leggings and not really noticing how fat I was...kidding myself really. One day a friend photographed me on the beach running and that's when it hit me. I cried for ages and that shocked me into trying again. As always I chose starvation and abstinence. It had the desired effect because of my age I guess and I thrived on gaining that control. I lost the weight but only managed to keep it off until the next crisis in my life. So the trend continued. In 1998 I had reached 10st 7lb. I was a heavy size 14 (UK) but felt fit, however I hated my body and agreed with a friend to go to Slimming World. We started in the January of 1999 and by the May I had shed 2stone 7lb and was down to a size 8. I won a group award called Miss Slinky and was on top of the world. However, not satisfied with being this size I stared to drop down and at my lowest reached 7st 5lb. People started saying I was anorexic but I actually wasn't. I was just following the Slimming world plan, not the maintenance plan and felt so good about myself. The comments from some though totally undermined my confidence.
Then the biggest tragedy of my life. I had started to gain weight again. There were some very difficult issues in my marriage I was trying to deal with and I found myself weighing 9stone 6lb again. That was 2 stone, which had crept on with the upset and depression. Then September 17th 2001 my husband hung himself in our family home leaving all of us to witness that as he did it in the bedroom, my then 16 year daughter finding him. Devastation followed. In the 10 days following his death I did not eat or sleep. My weight dropped 10lb in as many days and I fell into a world of grief and depression. This continued into a suicidal state which years. I went into psychotherapy and for many many years my weight spiraled out of control. I reached my largest ever, a size 20 back in 2006 and the last time I weighed I was 12stone 7lb. Shocked I did not weigh again. Finally I knew I had to do something, I could barely look at myself in the mirror anymore and had stopped wanting to go out and socialise.
I decided to have a go at the Slimming World plan once more as it had worked for me before. The weight started to come off and as people noticed I gained in inspiration to continue. It took a whole year of stop start weight loss but by the December of 2007 I got on the scales, just before new year and weighed in at 8 stone 12lb. I was very happy. You would think that was the end of it, but not so. Now I had to keep it off and as is the case with me, as soon as I have any crisis or emotional upset I start to gain again. It's not like I eat huge quantities of food, I don't. I am a grazer and can just eat rubbish all day long. Sweets are my biggest down fall, penny sweets, cake, desserts etc win hands down with me always. I get some comfort from the sugar rush I guess and associate being ill or down with my nan bringing me bags of sweets as a child to cheer me up. I still think those early experiences have a huge influence on my eating habits.
So within a year I was back up to over 10stone and really sick of this yo-yo weight loss and gain. My family ever supportive and non judgmental support me always and tried their best to be positive with me. They never once said, mum you are gaining again, or why don't you try a diet because we have noticed you have put on weight. They totally accept the inner me. It's never been about how I look for them, It's only myself I offend.
Then Christmas 2010 my eldest daughter had a marriage proposal from her lovely fiance. The set the date. May 13th 2011. I was panic stricken. No way did I want to look fat and frumpy at my eldest child's wedding. I guess that was all I needed to give me a reason to lose again. December 2010 I stepped hesitantly onto my bathroom scales....ouch I was 11stone 11 lb. I was in a size 16 clothes so I knew I had got heavy. At first I thought ok, try Slimming World again, it had always enabled a weight loss. In four weeks I lost 5lb. I was disappointed. I needed to have a bigger loss than this and just didn't know what to do. At work, someone said had I tried my fitnesspal? At first I just ignored what they were saying but one day towards the middle of January 2011 I had a deeper conversation with one of my colleagues and realised what a great tool this might be for me.
I signed up and have never looked back. On my first day I was 11 stone 5lb. That was January 15th.
Today, I have reached my wedding goal of 9stone, four weeks early and I owe it all to the myfitnesspal tool which has given me back the control I needed in my life. I have a new goal now, 8 stone by September 17th this year. That will be the 10th memoriam of my dear husband's suicide and I would love to feel good about myself for the first time since he died.
Will this be a life long change, who knows? I cannot look that far ahead in my life, knowing how quickly things change and how life has a habit of catching me out when I least expect it.
What it has given me is the ability to keep on top of my food intake, to accurately record what I eat and see my progress. There is a whole cyber community of support there and unlike money making organisations it doesn't look to gain from people like me who have a life long issue with food.
I cannot recommend this tool highly enough but if you have the motivation, the reason and the determination this is the way forward. Thank you myfitnesspal. I will now be the slim and sexy mother of the bride, just how I dreamed it.