Well done to us all

[Glimmery]

This morning I came across a photo of me aged about 14. I look normal, almost slim. I wonder who I would’ve been if I’d been left alone to just grow into myself? Instead, I was put on my first diet at 7. Made to drink ‘healthier’ full sugar ribena (imagine!) instead of milk at school break times (this was the 70s). Soon after the photo my mum put me on the Cambridge diet. Just soups and shakes. I remember her being disgusted when I got to 10 stone despite the fact I was tall.

By the time I went to university I was having real weight and even worse self esteem issues. My parents, lovely, loving people in other ways, got this all wrong. Telling me frequently to lose weight. I remember my dad telling me I’d be more likely to get a boyfriend if I was thinner. I remember wondering why he was saying that when I thought I looked ok and realising he thought I was really unattractive. Not understanding why he couldn’t just love me for who I was. That thought has never left me.

Well done to all of us who probably have similar stories of being shamed in our younger years probably by people who had no idea of the damage they were doing. Their words resulted in the opposite effect to that desired, constant weight gain. Well done to us for making the financial sacrifice to use weight loss medication and to know, when people say it’s the easy way, that none of this is easy. It never has been. We’re getting there despite all that we have faced.

I grew up with parents who didn't embed the best eating habits - lots of fat, salt, huge portions, finish you plate, didn't think twice about telling any of us that they or we had put on a bit of weight etc. When mum "dieted" she would live off tins of weight watchers soup as she didn't know any better (and couldn't afford things like cambridge diet, WW, SW, slimfast when feeding a family of 5 dc off one wage etc)

But if I am being completely honest it was me in my teenage and early 20s indulging in the increasing usage of UPF, and fast food, too regularly including high sugar treats, especially after I left home and my decision were my own that set me on the road to morbid obesity as my parents never had them at home or indulged in them themselves.

I never had weight problems as a teen so my parents never commented- my H though had lots of stays and after schools at grandparents who associated ‘love and care’ with endless amounts of junk - crisps, pop, cake etc and of course he lapped it up , therefore he was a fat teen till 17 .

I just remember the teasing over food parents tried carrot cucumber batons to the point the summer dresses would be handmade by my grandmother as I couldn’t fit the official ones, but the other kids I can still hear the taunts now.

Will you be going back on the injections after hospital I was asked
yes is my reply.

haven’t got the appetite back nearly 2 weeks off Wegovy, whether I am just lucky the infection overrides the worry what next to eat.

I think for me it’s a mixture of having no food and being very hungry as a child, moved out late teens and went hard on the partying and junk food

I think for me, it’s the feeling I was given that I would be more loved if only I was thinner. My mum was a very slim person and portions were small. I was just bigger, taller but not massively so. I was a tiny premature baby (given sugar water to fatten me up) so it probably went wrong from there.
my point I guess is that we’ve all got a back story getting us to where we are. It’s a financial commitment to take weight loss medication and quite brave to do so. I’m congratulating myself on how hard I’m working at it with the help of the medication. It’s not easy.

I do think some weight issues are due to lack of self-care, including not even knowing how to care for ourselves properly.

Ditto, Ditto, Ditto Glimmery! I could have written your post myself. I also recently found a photo of myself, aged 9, I look like a normal slim active 9 year old, and yet it was then that I was put on my first diet by my mother. My Dr says it's a form of projective body dysmorphia. My mother and grandmother were so afraid I might get 'chubby' they constantly told me I mustn't eat this, or that, and even better join Weight Watchers aged 12, followed by slim fast and the cambridge diet aged 14. All that happened was that I constantly craved food, and from the age of 16 the weight crept up and up.

Since then I have been shamed again and again and again about my size. I met my now DH when I was 18. My mother found out I was on the pill when I was 19 and suggested I should lose weight before thinking about sleeping with him! A few years later I did lose significant weight and my MIL said "The less there is of you, the more we love you". A year later life went pearshaped as 5yr old DS was admitted into hospital with a brain tumour, a week later my husband was admitted into another hospital with meningitis. Instead of offering help and support my MIL commented that "most people LOSE weight when they are worried, not gain".

So yes, I agree with you Glimmery, despite having been constantly emotionally battered we are all pretty awesome to have taken on this journey of losing weight with the help of WLI's.