My relationship with food

"Flo, you should come to the gym with us" Chloe from work said. 

It's not the first time someone has invited me to the gym, and it's not the first time I have declined either. I know I need to lose some weight- just a stone- to be what my doctor will consider "healthy", but I just feel too embarrassed to go to the gym, even with friends. 

Initially, this is why I had joined Katie Hopkins' "Fat Club" on Facebook. The motto of the group is "Eat less, move more", and that's exactly what they all do. I've seen some amazing transformations, people who are shedding weight like nobodies business simply by walking 10,000 steps a day and eating a little less junk food than they did before. It seems so easy, so why am I still unable to do this?

I've tried diets, work out DVD's, more recently I've taken to running...yet nothing seems to work. And I think it's because of this; I have an unhealthy relationship with food. 

I don't like many vegetables or fruits...to be precise, I like strawberries, potatoes, mushrooms, brussel sprouts, peppers and green grapes (but only on certain days!), so eating healthily as it is is hard enough. 

Secondly, I eat when I'm bored. I eat when I'm hungry. I eat when I'm sad and when I'm angry. I eat at basically any time other than meal times. In fact, more often than not, I only eat one meal a day, dinner, because I eat that meal with my family and my mum makes it. I tend to skip the other meals in favour of additional sleep and work, and skip the food for snacks throughout the day instead. 

Thirdly, I crash diet a lot. I think the way to lose weight is to eat less and so, as I have just mentioned, I skip meals a lot. In turn, this just makes me starving, so then I end up binging and then hating myself all over again. 

To be honest, I'm not sure where this unhealthy relationship with food started. It could be that when I was younger, I felt my portions were not big enough and often felt hungry long after a meal- in turn, this has lead me to over eating a lot now that I'm in control of my meals. It could be that at school, my friends didn't eat much so I skipped out on food too in order to try and look skinny like them. It could be that after my parents got divorced there was an empty hole inside that I thought only food could fill. It could just be that I'm a greedy little pig who enjoys too much of the wrong foods. There are several things it could be.

The only thing I'm certain of now is that it needs to stop. The only way I will lose weight in a healthy way without harming myself or crash dieting or binging is by eating less and moving more, like Katie Hopkins' Fat Club promotes. I need to stop skipping meals and eat two, if not three, normal sized and healthy meals a day. I need to stop snacking late at night on crisps and sweets. I need to move more- which I have already started to do with my running. 

I want to be able to wear a bikini with confidence this summer. I half achieved this last summer, but I still had to breathe in to look a little more on the skinny side. This summer, I don't want to have to do that. So I will run more, I will eat less and I will drink more water. I will conquer this everlasting battle with my weight and I will achieve my goal weight/size. 

And maybe next time my friends invite me to the gym, I might just say yes! 

Love from,

Florence Grace

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