‘I Finally Stopped Comfort Eating'

Julia Duffy, 54, from Hornchurch, Essex, was under a lot of stress, but eating her troubles away was making everything worse.

Getting off the train, I jumped in my car and couldn’t stop yawning as I made my way to my parents.

It was June 2018, and for the last couple of years I’d been juggling my busy job as an executive assistant for an insurance company, with a long commute and trips to see my dad, Ken, then 80, and mum, Jean, then 81.

Mum had recently been diagnosed with dementia, and would sometimes be bad-tempered, refusing to say hello or give me a kiss goodbye.