Phaedra’s Story
A bit of background
From the age of 28 I struggled with my weight. Up until then I was a sensible weight for my height and I used to cycle, go rock climbing and do shed loads of hiking with the Scouts. I piled on a bit ofВ weight when I changed my job to manage a restaurant and pub … absolute heaven for a foodie!В Not so good when I stopped doing all the climbing, cycling and hiking.
How the weight piled on
Four weeks before my wedding I piled on even more weight when my brother was killed. It was my way of coping. No one else was capable of driving around so I survived on any type of fast food and loads of chocolate to keep my energy up. Because of how he died he couldn’t be buried for 2 weeks, so for 2 weeks all I did was eat as I ‘needed’ to keep my strength up to drive people from place to place and look after my 4 year nephew. That was my reasoning behind it at the time.
When I was pregnant I gained even more weight. I shot up another 4 stone! Lots of friends and family said it was okay as I had diabetes and “you expect to gain weight when you are pregnant”.
Eventually I got to the point after I had my son where I was a recluse. I couldn’t find anything to wear so I stopped going out with friends. In the end I didn’t even care what I looked like. I wore the big baggy black clothes and tried to hide away in a corner.
Me before I discovered the real reason behind my weight issues
Enough is enough
Eventually I decided I’d had enough. I’d got to the point where I wouldn’t go any higher, either in my weight or clothes size. I found a diet plan that worked for me and got rid of 3 stone but it took ages and I started to get demotivated.
I looked better and felt better and friends and work colleagues said I didn’t need to lose any more, and I believed them, for a while. However, I still didn’t feel right so did another diet plan and got rid of another 3 stone. I felt fantastic!
Some people said I looked “wrong” or “ill” or I was “taking it too seriously”. They wouldn’t accept that I was now a healthy weight and that for years they were so used to seeing ‘ fat me’. They also couldn’t accept that my whole attitude had changed.В I stopped being a doormat and would say ‘No!’ to people if I didn’t want to do something.
I felt so good that the group who were with me on my journey went to a very posh party and I had a chance to dress up for the first time in years. I had come from a size 22 to a size 10 and I had my eye on a perfect dress.
The night of the party went really well apart from one guy who just wouldn’t leave me alone. I mean not just pestering for a dance, I mean full on groping hands to the point where I wouldn’t let any of the girls leave me alone as I was scared. My friends just thought it was funny.
Creeping back up
A few years went on and slowly my weight crept back up but I was still a size 12. It wasn’t until I had a bad fall at work and damaged my knee that it slowly got worse. I spent 10 months just carrying on as the doctor had said it would heal. It got to the point where I would try and run after the kids and my knee would give way and then just walking it would give way. I managed to work through the pain but it would swell up so the next day it was so stiff I couldn’t walk or work, so I once again turned to food as a way of cheering myself up.
Four months later I had to have surgery to my knee just so I could walk without collapsing every 50 yards. So I changed jobs and started working for myself.
Ups and downs
Disappointed with now not being able to get into my smaller clothes I went onto the diet that I knew worked for me last time. I had some success but things at home were getting tense, so I turned back to my comfort food of chocolate. I would buy it and stash it somewhere no one else would know. I would buy petrol and the 3 bars of chocolate for a ВЈ1 and eat them all on the way back home then stash the wrappers to throw away later. Then I would feel very righteous when I cooked a healthy meal with 3 loads of vegetables for the family.
In the start of the new year of 2007 I was very ill to the point of the doctor not knowing what was wrong with me and my marriage at this point ended. As I started to get better I had to deal with the added stress of divorce, mortgages, children and recriminations. Yep! I went back to good old chocolate to get me through.
I re-met my old fiance who was also going through a very messy divorce and we started going out, but this time I was eating out socially with someone I wanted to be with. Not meals all the time but popcorn at the cinema (coz that’s what you do) and he would buy me flowers and chocolates and we would go away for a few days and eat out.
So my size 14’s went to size 18’s but that was ok as he loved me for me. But I didn’t love me or the size I was.
Things went pear shaped (literally) but I ‘kept in control’ or so I thought when my dad died in 2008. And yes, out came the chocolate again, or rather in it went.
So I went on a course to help sort my head out and also to help others sort theirs out too.В I went back on my eating plan and for 7 months my weight went down then back up again then down, then up, mainly if I’d had a ‘bad’ day or the ‘kids were stressing me out’ but any excuse would do.
The turning point
I started to look for other sources of information like the ‘ How Many Calories..? ‘ website to help me figure out what I was doing.
It got to the point where my partner sat me down for a ‘chat’. He wanted to know just what it was that he was doing wrong and how he’d failed me. I couldn’t get him to understand that it had nothing to do with him it was ME!
He wouldn’t have that though and insisted that it must be him as why would someone want to kill themselves that way when there were quicker ways of doing it. I sat there a bit gob smacked but he wouldn’t stop. He kept asking how had I managed it last time and what made me start eating all that “crap” again.
Understanding = RESULTS!
It got to the point where I remembered what had happened to me last time I was a size 10 at the party. I hadn’t been able to cope with the attention that I got. My partner was the only person I’d ever told about it.
“So,” he said “you are going to let a person I don’t know, who you never knew and will never see again, dictate how your life has and will be for the rest of it?”
At first I denied it then I started thinking about it. For 7 months I had never let my self get above a certain weight but I’d also never let myself get below a certain weight either. When it did go below within days I’d be back up as ’something’ had made me ‘fall off the wagon.’
That one incident, which I thought I’d blanked out, was stopping me from getting back down to a size 10.
To make sure I was never put in that situation again I was going out of my way to make sure it never happened again, by keeping my weight and size up.
That conversation happened on 3rd November 2009, and 20 days later my size 18’s have gone, most of my clothes are now a size 16, but there are a few 14’s. I’m looking forward to next year when I’ll be a healthy weight for good and a size 10, as I’ve seen a perfect wedding dress I’m going to wear …
Me on my way to my goal size 10
In conclusion
So, looking back on my story, I realise now why I never really allowed myself to get to goal weight and that everything I had been taught by Stephen and his thinking around How Many Calories was so true.
Now I’m off doing something different and getting much better results for both myself and my clients. I like the way How Many Calories does not judge what you have done but just helps you change it. I’ll let you know how I’m getting on through the blogs from time to time.
If you want another success story you can read about one of my clients – Sue’s Story
A Note From Stephen
How Many Calories is not afflilated with any dieting product or system.В We say that if it works for you then use it. Just remember it’s not the diet that will get you slim and keep you there, it’s you, your attitude and approach that will do that. And that is what the Toolkit is there to help you with.
Well done Phaedra!