I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve opened my wardrobe over the years and stared miserably at the contents, before dragging myself to the shops to buy more stretchy leggings in the next size up. It was a repetitive pattern. Every couple of months, my clothes just stopped fitting. And it didn’t matter what diet I tried, or how hard I exercised, it was a battle with my weight that I just couldn’t win.
It hadn’t always been that way. Up until my late 20s, my weight wasn’t something I’d had to worry about. I was always roughly a size 10, I ate well and I kept active at the gym when I wasn’t working as a writer. I never really felt self-conscious or even thought about my weight for that matter.
Even after falling pregnant aged 27 with my first daughter Ruby, I lost my baby weight soon after having her in January 2008. My mantra for years was ‘everything in moderation’. I never deprived myself of anything, but I didn’t overindulge in fatty foods either. But it was after having my second daughter Mabel in August 2015, aged 35, that things began to change.
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