@Minnie888 it's so hard when the rest of your family don't have the same needs as you. My husband is naturally slim (he was told he was worryingly slim as a child), as are both my kids, so they can eat what they like more or less. Having to moderate my eating habits while still being around their snacks/food is so so tough. But I believe that you can do it, and I believe that I can do it as well. That being said, I also have a miserable cold which has sent my good eating habits out of the window!
@WafferThinMint good lord, I haven't been through all 400+ comments, but my two pennies worth is that I am overweight primarily because I had a difficult upbringing. My mum was a single mum from when I was 11, with little input from my dad, so she had to work full time while raising 3 girls. As you can imagine, this was 2000-2005, food was easy, quick, and cheap. My mum also has a hyper fixation on her own body and weight stemming from when she was a child (nickname at school was tree trunk due to her height and shape), I am similar to her physically and got ALLLLLL the comments growing up "you are just like me, you'll always have to diet and watch your weight", "your sisters are just naturally slim and you aren't", "you have such a pretty face when you are slimmer", "that boy dumped you because men don't like bigger women", and finally when I lost 10st and was at a very very low weight (too low in hindsight) "you looked so lovely then". I will say she is very loving, and a lot of her comments come from a good place, but are massively influenced by her own traumas regarding her weight. But growing up with this, bullying at school, and combined with my Dad making it clear he wasn't interested I developed an emotional reliance on food, and a secret eating habit that I still haven't managed to kick. I also grew up in a "clear your plate family" and wasn't allowed to leave the table until I'd finished, even if I was full up.
My weight these days comes from: not addressing the issues mentioned previously, 2 pregnancies, PND, PMDD (extreme PMS, and has been diagnosed by a Dr), and a desk job.
I haven't worked out how to "diet" around my children yet. They are 5 and 3, and I want to be very careful how I manage my weight loss around them. I have to lose about 6/7st, so have to do something, I can't hide it, but equally I don't want to show them that diets are normal. Actually on looking at it, I need to eat like they do. Not eating when they aren't hungry, stopping eating when their 'tummy's are happy', they love fruit/veg and will eat that first, will leave a biscuit if they've finished. They naturally eat intuitively, and I'm kind of learning that from them. But I do have a lot to unpack around why I am the way I am.