I have always had a constant battle with food and eating. I have been an over eater for as long as I can remember. While my parents always made sure I ate healthy at home, it was at school or in the privacy of my own room that I would eat things I shouldn’t.

It was only recently that I realised I used to have an eating disorder. I know like a lot of people I always associated eating disorders with bulemia and anorexia, not realising that any extreme abuse of diet or food was a disorder.

When I was in school it wasn’t bad, I would hide a chocolate bar in my wardrobe or a bag of chips, or I would take 2 treats from the cupboard rather than 1. It started off small and by the time I hit 20 it was in full swing. I would go to lunch alone at work and eat until I could not eat any more. I would eat anything high in fat - pasta, pizza, roast port rolls, chocolate etc. I would then go home via McDonalds or Taco Bel and sit in the carpark and eat a large meal before going home and eating dinner.

For dinner I would always make reasonably healthy meals and would always eat healthy when I was out with friends. But behind closed doors when I was alone on my couch I would drink 2 litres of Coke, eat a large bag of chips and a packet of Tim Tams followed by a large meal from McDonalds. I would sneak food and would never tell anyone where I had been. I would hide food in my underwear drawer.

I guess I never really got help and never really knew I had a problem. I just grew out of it I guess. By the age of 23 I was better. I stopped sneaking things and hiding to eat. I think that had a lot to do with being in a very honest stable relationship with my now husband.

The bad thing is after 5 years of abusing myself I had put on about 25 kilograms! I went from being a healthy size 12 weighing 60kg to the biggest I had ever been at a size 16 weighing 90kg . By that stage I was very inactive and still not eating properly. Over the next 2 years I put on another 15kg and have stayed at 105kg for about 2 years now.

So here I am 27 years old … about to turn 28 in September. I weigh 105kg and I am a size 18-20. I have tried every diet under the sun - Atkins, The Zone, meal replacement, healthy eating, weight watchers, lite n easy and anything else you can think of I am sure I have done it!

Nothing has worked. It was not the diet that failed but me failing the diet. I need instant results to keep my motivation and 1-2kg a week is not enough for me. So after 2 weeks of hard dieting I would fall off the wagon.

My other flaw is if I cheat, I can’t stop at one little thing. If I have a chocolate bar instead of stopping and not completely destroying my diet I will go “stuff it” and have a major pig out!! Then I will say the classic line to myself … “it’s ok I will start again on Monday”. I am sure I am not the only one who has said this lie to themselves over and over and most of the time Monday never comes.

So here I am all 105kg of me with a beautiful new baby boy who is going to get more active and I struggle to keep up with him at 14 weeks old. I can’t get off the floor without a struggle. I am now staring down the barrel of a life of possible diabetes, heart attack, heart disease and possibly an early death. All because I can’t take hold of my weight!

So I have made the decision, after a lot of research and soul searching … I am going to have Gastric Banding ….

I will post more on that later!

So here is to a new me! A new start and a new life!

Jen xx